NATIONAL SACRIFICE.

White Ribbon, Volume 22, Issue 261, 19 March 1917, Page 6

NATIONAL SACRIFICE.

SIR GEORGE FOSTER TO ORGANISED WOMEN OF CANADA. (From the War Zone.) France has lost so many of her adu\ men, that women, perforce, have been obliged to take up the burdens of life formerly borne by these men and by other men who have been taken from all fields of service at the call of the war. So we find women at work in almost every vocation formerly pursued by men —in the factory, in the home, in the held, and otherwise —doing work with an efficiency and a cheerful spirit which surprises as well as satisfies. It is said that two women out of every three in France wear signs of mourning, which indicates what the homes have suffered and what grief has been borne by the women of the homes. But they go about their work with an even, steady courage, without complaint, and even with cheerfulness. How many pleasures have been cut off, how many little extravagances so dear to womenkind have been foregone, how many real privations have been suffered, is known only to themselves, and can never be computed by arithmetic or described by tongue or pen. In their hearts the iron of war has been sunk to its deepest, and every hour of their lives passes under a sense of loss and loneliness, that cannot be described, and is, in fact, impossible for one to imagine. Do you wonder that, under these circumstances, the women of France have bowed to a disc ipline and risen to a conquest over self and learned a depth of sacrifice that have within two years of war practically recreated their ideals and their purpose? Almost the same can be said for the women of England, though they are separated by miles of sea and land from the actual scene of warfare, and do not hear every day, sounding in their ears, the battering of enemies who, if they were successful, would Vritig speedy ruin on themselves and their homes. Vet, with the increasing numbers of British soldiers at the Front, the increasing lists of casualties, the increasing line of maimed and wounded, and still more the silence in death of so many of their bravest and best, the same work is

being done for British women that has already been done for French women. They are learning what sacrifice means, and in every vocation of life, from all ranks, women are taking up the burden of service formerly performed by men, and in the ia*»ory, the field, the hospital* and the counting room, arc pouring out their best, and a precious and valuable best it is. No history will ever record the wealth of unselfish service that the women of Great Britain are performing to-day, nor the sacrifices in habits of life, in pleasures, and : n the luxuries of living which they are foregoing, and are c heerfully foregoing.