Part 5 (2/2)

Any woman who by working helps to release a man or to equip a man for fighting does national war service. Every woman should register who is able and willing to take employment.

The forms were sent out in large numbers through the women's societies of the country, and it was stated on them that women were wanted at once for farm-work, dairy work, brush-making, leather st.i.tching, clothing, machinery and machining for armaments.

By next day the registrations were 4,000, mostly middle-cla.s.s women, and in the first week 20,000 registered and an average of 5,000 a week after, but the ma.s.s of women who registered waited with no real lead or use of them for a long time. The Government seemed to suffer from a delusion a great many people have, that if you have enough machinery and ma.s.ses of names something is being done, but you do not solve any problem by registers. You solve it by getting the workers and the work together.

The Government had not approached employers at first, but had left it to them entirely to take the initiative in this great replacement.

This they had to a considerable extent done, using the Labour Exchanges and the other agencies and women were more and more quickly, steadily, ceaselessly replacing men.

The appeals for women for munition work were most swiftly responded to and educated women volunteered in thousands, as did working girls and women.

The question of a.s.sisting employment by fitting more women for commercial and industrial occupations was considered by the Government, and in October, 1915, the Clerical and Commercial Occupations Committee was appointed by the Home Office--a similar committee being set up for Scotland. It arranged with the London County Council and with local authorities that their Education Committees should initiate emergency courses all over the country for training in general clerical work, bookkeeping and office routine. The courses lasted from three to ten weeks, and the age of the students varied from eighteen to thirty-five.

Many free courses were inaugurated by business firms in large London stores, notably Harrods and Whiteleys, where their courses included all office and business training. Six week courses of free training for the grocery trade, for the boot trade, lens making, waiting, hairdressing, etc., were also given.

Our woman labor has been found to be quite mobile and girls have moved in thousands from one part of the country to another, and the munition girl travelling home on holiday on her special permit is a familiar figure.

The registration, placing and moving of our workers is all done by our Labour Exchanges, now renamed Employment Exchanges and transferred from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Labour.

When the National Service Department was set up, a Women's Branch was established with Mrs. H.J. Tennant, and Miss Violet Markham as Co-directors, and they made various appeals, registered women for the land, munitions, W.A.A.C. and for wood cutting and pitprop making.

A great demonstration of ”Women's Service” was held in the Albert Hall in January 17, 1917, at which Mrs. Tennant and Miss Markham, Lord Derby, Minister of War; Mr. Prothero, President of the Board of Agriculture, and Mr. John Hodge, Minister of Labour, spoke and at which the Queen was present. It was an appeal to women for more work and a registration of their determination to go on doing all that was needed. The men's message was one to equals--they asked great things.

A message from Queen Mary was read for the first time at any public meeting and it was the only occasion on which she has attended one.

The number of women now in our industry directly replacing men, according to our latest returns, is over one and a quarter millions.

This does not include domestic service, where our maids grow less and less numerous and Sir Auckland Geddes, Director of National Service, tells us he is considering cutting down servants in any establishment to not more than three, and it does not include very small shops and firms.

The processes in industry in which women work are numbered in hundreds. The War Office in 1916 issued an official memorandum for the use of Military Representatives and Tribunals setting forth the processes in which women worked and the trades and occupations, and giving photographs of women doing unaccustomed and heavy work, to guide the Tribunals in deciding exemptions of men called up for Military Service.

In professional work today women are everywhere. There are 198,000 women in Government Departments, 83,000 of these new since the war.

They are doing typing, shorthand, and secretarial work, organizing and executive work. They are in the Censor's office in large numbers and doing important work at the Census of Production. There are 146,000 on Local Government work. The woman teacher has invaded that stronghold of man in England, the Boys' High and Grammar Schools, and is doing good work there. They are replacing men chemists in works, doing research, working at dental mechanics, are tracing plans. They are driving motor cars in large numbers. Our Prime Minister has a woman chauffeur. They are driving delivery vans and bringing us our goods, our bread and our milk. They carry a great part of our mail and trudge through villages and cities with it. They drive our mail vans, and I know two daughters of a peer who drive mail vans in London. I know other women who never did any work in their lives who for three years have worked in factories, taking the same work, the same holidays, the same pay as the other girls. Women are gardeners, elevator attendants, commissionaires and conductors on our buses and trams, and in provincial towns drive many of the electric trams.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINDOW CLEANERS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEAM ROLLER DRIVER]

In the railways they are booking clerks, carriage and engine cleaners and greasers, and carriage repairers, cooks and waiters in dining cars, platform, parcel and goods porters, telegraphists and ticket collectors and inspectors, and labourers and wagon sheet repairers.

They work in quarries, are coal workers, clean s.h.i.+ps, are park-keepers and cinema operators. They are commercial travellers in large numbers.

They are in banks to a great extent and are now taking banking examinations.

There was a very strong feeling as the replacement by women went on that there must be no lowering of wage standards which would not only be grossly unfair to women but imperil the returning soldier's chance of getting his post back.

Mrs. Fawcett, on behalf of the Women's Interests Committee of the N.U.W.S.S., called a conference on the question of War Service and wages in 1915, and Mr. Runciman stated at the conference:

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