The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1918 WOMAN.

Taihape Daily Times, 9 May 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1918 WOMAN.

(With which is lacorpnrated The £*ihape Post and Walnrntiao News)."

The war is bringing about many changes in tne sociaii, political, and domestic condition of women in a few years that might otherwise been spread in gradual development over many decades. Yet they are not really changes, they are rather the full attainment of a principle that has been accepted for some time past in a general way. The draining of our male population for carrying on the war has brought women into the industrial forefront; she has found her way, very notably, into public and private services to an extent that must attract the attention and compel the thought of every thinker. Into whatever public service, financial institution, or factory one enters there are the places hitherto occupied by men filled by women. It seems the manpower of the country has already become so depleted that this change to women could not be avoided. We no longer have men to do the work that is essential, and it was either* a case of the cessation of such industries or the enlisting of women into the industrial and commercial ranks to a volume hitherto unthought of. Enquiries wherever women are being thus employed are answered with emphasis; women are doing excellently, doing as much work as men had done and do ing it equally well. Women are proving to an extreme the claims of men who for years have striven for their complete emancipation. In England women are performing, capably and tc entire satisfaction, work that it was thought only men were fit. Tney are seen on farms, carting, ploughing, sowing and reaping; in machine shops at the lathe, working wit'n fire, file and chisel; on railways and tramways, and some have risen to be managers of trading and industrial businesses and institutions. In post offices, in the telegraph despatch room, in all public offices; in banks, insurance and accountancy women are more numerous than men, and even the newspapers, for which Britain is famed, are very nearly all produced by women. Man's calamity is woman's opportunity; the hope of the civilised world to-day is, most assuredly, woman. On her depends mainly the continuance of essential institutions, of progress in many respects. In the past woman has had the attention of literary men, moralists, philanthropists and political economists; they urged that something was wrong with the position of women and that therefore the position of men could not be right. Reforms come in various ways and from various hands and agencies; the greatest reform, the rudest and most violent reform the world has any knowledge is being brought about by a modern Attila, who is turning up the foundations of things, changing the whole order and course of events, so thoroughly altering the whole building that it is becoming unrecognisable. Men are fast moving from the civil industrial scene and women are fulfilling the prophecies of philanthropists and -political economists made respecting them. Marvellous it certainly is, but our social institutions, manners, customs and observances have all taken their tone from woman; in that she has been a former, but to-day she is demonstrating her powers as a reformer. Woman has long sought the same opportunities as men; this war is furnishing those opportunities and how splendidly she has acquitted herself. Whatever be the" Ultimate of war woman's emancipation will be complete. With the new work, the new responsibilities, will come a firming of character, greater self-confidence, and an increasing power to establish her right as the equal of man in all things. There has been powerful women in the past while opportunities for woman to do great things were few. Britain owes its independence as a.nation to an Elizabeth; a Queen of Spain sent Columbus to discover America, and even pawned her jewels to find the money; Austria had its Maria Theresa, and France its Joan of Arc; there have been the Elizabeth Frys and the Sister Ursulas. Women have braved the storms cf seas in saving the lives of shipwrecked men; they have in some countries demonstrated for ages that they are not second to man in farming and dairying; in science there are many followers of Madame Cure. Woman has hitherto ruled the world with her soul; the war has given to her much wider and more magnificent sphere and she Is to-day extending her powers, material qualies and adaptabilities in every walK.

of life. There is no. role, whether it be professional, scientific, commercial or industrial, that the, woman of today cannot fill with supreme credit to herself and with everlasting benefit to the race. She has filled places In offices, laboratories, shops, factories, and in other works in which considerable physical strength is necessary, that have been rendered vacant by the war; she has taken the place or man in the economic necessity of the nation, and she is there to stay. They are adding to the earnings of the State that must result in much improved social life. Then in the name of all honour let the muscular body of man take itself to the more arduous work, leaving to woman our shop counters, office desks and the lighter mechanical trades such as watchmaking, in which physical strength ts subservient to keen perception and nimble fingers. Woman is again saving the Empire, without her our armies could not be either equipped or fed. On woman depends largely tne Allies' ability to defeat the murderer and torturer of her sex; to woman we are looking for that assistance in subjugating the destroyer of freedom that must result in an incalculable impetus to social advancement, and w e are not looking in vain. Woman has done great things for the Empire, and for the world, in the past, but that is as nothing compared with what she is doing to-day. Only a few minutes thought will convince the sceptic should there be one.