The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1916. WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 47, 22 September 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1916. WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

After the war the movement in most countries for the enfranchisement of women is likely to receive a great imI petus. ft is stated that even now I Queen Wilhelmina has promised, on I behalf of her Government a measure > i to enfranchise the women of Holland. ! Tims the Dutch women will probably ' be. the next after the Danes to ob- | tain representation in the Parliament of their country. The fact that the women are being enfranchised in two of the smaller neutral States Germany cannot be regarded as a mere coincidence. Meanwhile, in America the State of New Jersey has thrown out by a big majority a proposal to amend the constitution by introducing women’s suffrage. Quite[ naturally women have been greatly j affected by the remarkable industrial, changes which have been brought about in England by war condi- 1 tions. An Australian woman who ( was in London at the outbreak of the, war recently made known some per-, sonal experiences. Into the middle ( of a busy season and an active ad-j ministration of existing industrial legislation, she says, there burst a, sudden staggering dislocation of industry. Very soon a remarkable re-i distribution and adjustment of work, I workers, and processes began to take place. In ordnance and munition ( works large numbers of girls and women were drawn in who had never ho-j fore worked in a factory, many of them having been engaged only in their own homes, and others from sorts of occupations. Theatrical costumiercs in a large way of business, failing to get orders in their legiti-j mate spheres, took "War Office tracts for khaki uniforms and shirts ; furriers who usually made ladies mull's and stoles were able to turn for, employment to the manufacture of ( fur and skin coats for the troops; first-class blouse bouses took to making Territorial canvas hold-alls, and carpet factories adapted themselves to making army blankets; canvas bag makers set to work on nosebags for horses; apron manufacturers undertook Government mattress covers, holsters, pillow cases, and haversacks; laundries doing shirt and collar dressing took ,to camp washing i and mending of soldiers 1 clothes; <, jewellers, bail-workers, dressmakers, I

pinafore makers, nut and bolt workers, all found employment in the leather trade and surgical dressing factories; cigar makers in an electric lamp factory; fish-hook makers became hosiery needle makers; carpet makers took enmploymeut in enamelled hollowware factories. And so it went on. New manufacture or branches of manufacture sprang up to supply articles which had previously been made in Germany or Austria. In Ireland the woollen mills made khaki cloth, blankets, blue-grey cloth for the French army; hosiery factories made pants and vests for the army and navy, jerseys for the French army, and Cardigan' jackets for the English army. Since that time more and more effort and sacrifice have been demanded of women workers and they have nobly responded. They have come forth in their thousands to take the place of the men who have gone to the front, and to supply them with the incredible amount of munitions demanded by the exigencies of modern warfare. When, after the declaration of peace, English women again put forward their claim for the suffrage, it is stated, the demand will come with a force that cannot be denied. They will not be satisfied to go hack to conditions that prevailed before the war, and they will feel that the 'rilling sacrifice they have made in their country’s need "ill give, them the right to a greater recognition of their reasonable ambition for a fuller life.