WOMEN'S SHARE IN WINNING THE WAR

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 238, 29 December 1916, Page 5 (Supplement)

WOMEN'S SHARE IN WINNING THE WAR

WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TOWARDS THE SOMME VICTORY.

By SIR LEO CHIOZZA MONEY, MP

To put things in their proper places, let us never forget that the real burden of the war falls upon a few million men of the Army and Navy—the fighting men. These bear the brunt and offer the real sacrifice. The rest of us, whether men, women or children, however helpful we may seek to be, can do little or nothing fit to rank with the actual campaigning. After the fighting men the bereaved are the only sufferers to be mentioned in the same breath. At the end of the war hundreds of thousands of peoplewill know the proud bitterness of those whose soldiers have not returned to them. For the rest —for the great majority, that is—the war has brought more of gain than of sacrifice. Most of us have been better off during the war than in times of peace.

HELPED TO PILE UP MUNITIONS. Passing from the actual campaign, and the bereavements which it brings, to the war work which has been done at home as the third thing of importance, what has been the most remarkable feature of this domestic part of the wonderful war? Undoubtedly it has been the work of women. But for the women we could not have maintained our trade and increased and piled up munitions as we have actually done. But for the enterprise and skill and courage and sacrifice of women we could not have enlarged the Army and drawn into the field a number of men large enough to determine victory. That is the perspective of the thing as I see it, and I do not think I have exaggerated the women's contribution in uttering these words. Not that work is a new thing to women. Not for naught was the proverb coined that "Woman's work is never done." For the great mass of women of the country, who keep homes going by continuous work from dawn till bedtime, it must be very amusing to learn that writers in the Press have discovered that women can work.

It should be noticed, too, that the war is adding enormously to the surplusage of women which existed before tha war. Assuming peace to come by the end of 1917, the country will probably contain about two million more women than men of marriageable age. Obviously, therefore, there will be good need for many women to earn independent incomes, and the avenues opened by the war are to be welcomed on this account.

TAKING MEN'S PLACES. The new thing about women's work in the war is not that women are working for the first time, but that they have manfully adapted themselves to all sorts and conditions of work, and succeeded in doing that work usually as well as men, and sometimes better Probably one million women altogether have plunged into new work in connection with this war, from clerking in a bank to driving a cart, from travelling in merchandise to working a lift, from collecting railway tickets to making aeroplane wings, and from working in agriculture to turning or welding in a munition factory. By taking up productive work in munition factories women have at once provided ammunition while releasing men to use the ammunition. By engaging in many fields of employment outside munition works hitherto monopolised by men they have added men to the Army, while creating wealth to sustain men in the Army.

AFTER THE WAR. So much for the social effect of the wholesale invasion of paid work by women. What of employment after the war in relation to this problem? Some people imagine that after the war, when the men come back from fighting, it will be very difficult to find work for them, to say nothing of the women who are at present doing what used to be men's work. I think this is an entirely mistaken view. After the war, if the Government does its duty, there is likely to be an enormous call for labour, not only to provide material to repair the ravages of war on the Continent —there have been no ravages here —but to replenish stocks in every trade, to enlarge our industries, to develop the Empire, and to render us fit to meet any further vicissitudes. It is a profound mistake to suppose that there is just so much work to do, and that, therefore, if so many women come into paid work so many men must go out. The field of work is for practical purposes unlimited, and we are going to create after the war enormously more wealth than we had before the war.

" QUITE NICE LADIES." I have said that women have been successful in these new fields of endeavour. In some places they have baen so successful as to give great umbrage to the least worthy of men. The work undertaken has been in many cases within the capacity of woman, considered in her physical aspect; in others undoubtedly women have sacrificed themselves in occupations unfit for women to undertake, both inside

and outside of munition works. I confess there are times when I bitterly contrast the lot of these women and the strain upon them with the avoidance of hard work by so many men and by the comparatively few well-to-do women who think it "doing a bit" to sell a flag or to go about "being kind" to those who are actually working. To the last-named we may well utter the reminder that the best way to be kind at this time is to take a share in the hard toil, and not to be content with patting on the head or condescending to, those who do it. I have heard of a munition factory where the canteen is served by quite nice ladies. So regardful are they of hard-working women who are doing men's work at the factory that they are always careful to serve the men first and to give the men the best of all that is going. I should like to see the ladies who do that take up work at a capstan lathe and, when the brief eating-time comes, enjoy such marks of favour at the hands of other "kind ladies."

EFFECT UPON SOCIETY AND INDUSTRY. The entry of so many women into productive, distributive, and commercial work will have a marked effect upon society and industry. First as to society. More women earning money means more economically independent women—more women free from that control of the purse which plays so large a part in the relations of men and women. In the long run it will have a marked effect upon the status of women. It will enable them to choose their husbands more carefully. It will empower them to demand from men a higher standard of conduct. These consequences will be fraught with great good not only for women but for men.