WOMEN WORKERS IN ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 9 February 1917, Page 7

WOMEN WORKERS IN ENGLAND.

(•_• the Editor.) '-?"" Sir, —After reading the report of the .' -waterside workers and their refusal to i work more, than eight hours a day, it ;■-■.. may, perhaps, interest your readers to "hear what women are doing in England - for their country in this time of stress. :-'■•-The following extract from a letter is .written by a highly-educated middle-aged ;.•■' gentlewoman: "I arrive here at 10 p.m. on Saturday for my brief week-end, and leave on Sunday at 4.55 pjn. for. .'.> a week of days that begin at 4.30 a-m. I wish you could see the splendid people there are, both canteening i and ;. .munition-making —- scores and scores of • .'.ladies with snow-white hair. If only you . - saw the shifts going in and out you *■'.-: would, say that every one of them de- .. serves the Victoria Cross. Imagine a 'thick, foggy morning, or an inky black ._? ' night, no lights permissible, and a horde of mixed thousands dashing in and out ""to catch trains. The route is down a, wide road between two factories, where' . motor lorries run, or along a railroad :A? track, whichever seems the least unsafe. .'*,-? We, dash past the policemen at the gate A knowing that a certain number rightly .are always stopped and searched, careeir across a level crossing with a train on '? one. side or the other, past sentries with .': - fixed" bayonets, among a string of led or ridden Army horses, up. a fifty-feet flight ?i of steps, built all askew (all in the dark, mind you), and you are then carried in ■ ; ; a rush across a roadway packed with .motor omnibus and street cars, one seeth- •'..'" ing~mass of very mixed humanity. We reach our hostel at 7.50 p.m., wash, ■•_- "change, dine, arid sleep. While the sac-' V rihce of manhood is appalling, the i A fiee of women and girls is almost 1 as '.-•_ great, if less noticeable. I could cry ... aver the pretty young girls, standing A ,.* twelve hours' shift night and day, covered ?> in oil, or stained with high-explosives, or A scarred with mercury. Oh, the pity of «,•-., it! - The life, too, is awful, from a chars':; acter point of view." What a contrast ■A »to the conditions under which the men Aof New Zealand are working. Surely ;.; further, comment is unnecessary.—l am A? -« t( ~> - • , , " m.b. '