ARE WOMEN SHIRKING?

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2474, 29 May 1915, Page 11

ARE WOMEN SHIRKING?

SOME FACTS AND A WRITER. In an article in "Great Deeds of the Great War" Mr. H. E. Morgan raises a very questioning voice as to whether tho women of Groat Britain (and by Great Britain the women of tho whole British Empire might bo meant) are doing their share in regard to the war "Have the women of Great Britain (in other words, of the Empire) done tlioir duty as nobly as the women of France?" he asks.

"In France the whole people are seri'ous, grave, conscious of the peril and determined to obtain victory. Stories of heroism and self-sacrifice and devotion on the part of the French women are numerous. They have laid aside their frivolity, they have forgotten their disabilities, and they; have vied with the men in their patriotism." "I write with a profound belief in the ability of women to serve the nation, and "with boundless admiration for the many who, with splendid self-sacri-fice and heroism have answered the nation's call," he goes on to say. "But the large majority of our women are still frivolous, indifferent, and apparently unaware that there is any war at all."

' It does not make palatable reading. That there should be any ground at all for such a judgment to be passed is not pleasant to think of, after all these mqnt'hs of fighting that have drenched the soil of Europe with the blood of her best.

It is as unpalatable as a story which was told the other day by a doctor. A true story, and a story of New Zealand!

Ho was called in to see a young man who was ill. He went into the room where the patient was lying, attended to him, and then went out into the general room where the whole family, father and five sons, great strapping, healthy men, were assembled. "Anything serious?" ho was asked. "Nothing to prevent him from enlisting for the front in a few days," was the doctor's reply. The answer was received in silence. Looking round at the family the doctor asked: "I suppose you are all off to fcho war?"

NEW BOLERO COSTUME.

"Not such fools," was the emphatic reply. "Why should we go and fight?" Quite so I I I Here in Wellington one cannot help admiring the energy with which many women are working for the care and comfort of the soldiers who have left this country for the war. Every spare minute they are knitting and sewing and working in various ways for that one end. Even the children are sewing handkerchiefs, pillowslips, and other articles, and knitting scarves and mittens. One has only to visit the depots in connection. with St. John Ambulance Association and Brigade, the Town Hall, Davis and Clater's workrooms, etc., to gather some idea of what is being done, 5) say nothing of many homes in which private sewing bees are held. Not only for the immediate needs of the soldiers aro they working, for medical comforts, and for the Hospital Ship, but also for the future welfare of the men who have laid down their future, their health, their Itopos in life,. to guard the safety of the people, the men and the women, who remain behind. The carnival alone is an instance of that, as it is with almost a fury of energy that they have thrown themselves _ into all the various branches of this big undertaking that is to exceed all other similar ventures of the kind in New Zealand. To provide novelties that will attract they are willing to do much, even to playing a football matoh for the entertainment of the crowd. Their keenness for the causa is admirable. While there have been many, very many, splendid stories told of mothers who have sent their sons off to the war, sometimes their only one, and of girls who have left the men to whom they were engaged free to go and take their place at tho front, who have encouraged them to go, there have been others, far too many, where men who were really perfectly free in other ways who are fit and of' the Tight age have been kept behind because of the women who begged them not to go. These women have not been in any way dependant upon them; they have simply placed their own happiness above all honour, above all manhood. They have turned deaf ears to the great cry that has been uttered by the tortured women and childron of Belgium, of France, to the great appeal made by those who have lain down thoir lives in deathless glory for the cause of humanity, that their sacrifice, their sufferings, and their deaths might not be in vain. Such happiness has a million fingers of scorn, of humiliation, of contempt pointed at it, if not in tho eyes of the public, then worst of all in the secrecy of their own henrt3.