ENGLISH WOMEN AND THE WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15766, 14 November 1914, Page 3 (Supplement)

ENGLISH WOMEN AND THE WAR.

VEIL OF SECRECY.

Women nil the world over to-fLy are waiting and wondering, longing for news of the men who have left tht Lu take part in the jnv:it war, wondering in their hearts where these men may be. As in New Zealand, women L Kr.L'l»nd hive sent husband and brother l\.,rth into the unknown, and are patiently through that time of suspense that only women can know. A letter comes from a woman living in a peaceful little English village that has done its share toward aiding tha Empire. "Nine men," she writes, " have gone from our village to take part in the war. Some of them have left families behind them. One of thorn has been married for only two or three months. His wife is expecting letters from the South of France. She is so affectionately tearful that I do not dare to explain to'her that the South of France is certainly not his destination, and that she must not expect to learn from what place it is that he writes home. The servant girl at the farm understands the situation much better than the newly-made wife. Her ' lad 'is in the Marines. If you ask her where he is, she says ' Somewhere in the North Sea.' The postcards that come to her, with a blotch whore the postmark would ordinarily be, tell hep nothing more definite than that; but sha is satisfied and cheerful, a pleasant contrast to some other women in the village, who have been 30 much alarmed by feverish local preparations to receive the wounded that they are expecting the Germans to land every day."

Everyone, in some way or other, will feel the present results and the after-con-sequences of the dreadful conflict now being fought out. There are tremendous issues at stake, but it is worse than folly to anticipate evils. It behoves all women to be brave at this crisis, everyone of us can do something to lighten the'burden of others, whilst bearing her own individual sorrows, losses, and difficulties with courage and fortitude. There is only one panacea for trouble hard practical work. Everyone who has "borne sorrow knows the truth of that assertion- The poor have often been supposed callous, because of their stoic bearing under loss, or bereavement ; the stern necessity for labour, precludes the outward expression of sorrow, and the brooding over it, that saps the strength of those who have time to weep, which the poor have not. We cannot do better than recall the stirring injunction of the American poet, Longfellow :— Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate, still achieving, still pursuing; learn to labour and to wait."