PEACE AT LAST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7418, 2 June 1902, Page 2

PEACE AT LAST.

4 THE STRAIN OVER. THOUGHTS OF A MERE WIiAN. Peace! At last the strain is over! Is there a woman throughout the length and breadth of the land "Who doea not feel a thrill of joy at the thought? No more sending our beloved ones, perhaps to sicken of fever, perhaps to dye the far-away veldt with their life-blood-; no more anxious for news, with, mind and nerves tense with expectation. Ah! It is ever the women who suffer most in war-time. For the men there are hardships in plenty, hunger, and cold, and fatigue, andl pain, but they have all the excitement, too, the: adventure, the danger, and the chance of glory. But the women. (have the lonely waitings- monotonous and hope-destroying — the long days of cad thoughts and forebodings. If our men have fought valiantly in strenuous fight against Britain's enemies, our women have fought, a stern and silent battle alone and unaided in their own homes— a, battle against an army of grisly fears and doubts, more persistent almost than the Boers themselves. But what of tfaat? Womfln, alrio know! what bravery means. When their sons volunteered for the front not a mother bade her boy stay at home. What they felt-r---and God alone knows ihow mothers feel at'suob times— they concealed with that mother love 'whieh-*sinks self and all personal considerations for the good of the man-child they haver brought into the world. Who so proud as these modern) Volumnias- that they had eons who were men, and not cravens. And bo thfty. smiled) and sent their boys to prove themselves) with all' the courage of Roman matrons. Nor was the sacrifice a blind one. They knew that the chances were* against them, that the bonny lad who made sunshine ml the home might return! a ■cripple or a wreck from fever ; worse still, that he might never return; again, and that his, ,ch-eery "good-bye" might be the last tiiw'jfchV would ever hear that well-loved' voice. But ther& were other sacrifices to be made. Wherever is sickness and suffering there is woman's place, and .there her instinct invariably, takes Ear. When war broke out it was said that women nurses were a hindrance, if not worse, on the, battlefield. But it was not long .^ore women, imbued with the spirit of FBrerice Nightingale., moved stioh prejudices aside, and took the place that -awaited tibem by; th« bedsides of the wounded. New* Zealand 1 nurses -were not behindhand in- Volunteering for the front when the time came. They were ready to brave hardships, of which they had not even dreamed, if only they might be permitted to gir and hdp. A nurse's profession is n^ sinecure at any time, but at the seat of war it mean* privations and perils of many sorts, yet these? were gladly faced by the band of trained women, whom we envied in. all sincerity as wei bade them "God speed," nearly- three years ago, when they sailed for the African hospitals. Most of them are still nobly working- there, -and the honour of having seen the war through! to the end is now theirs. Lately- there came another call to New Zealand women. This time at was for teachers, not for British children— a pleasant and congenial task enough — but for Boer children, whoso hatred of the British is miild compare& with the feelings with which they and their mothers regard the colonials. The prospect of educating these little rebels is certainly not an alluring one, but, as with the nurses, many teachers came forward — more than were needed — and cheerfully set out for a year of arduous toil in the Boer concentration camps. Now that peace is proclaimed another sacrifice awaits us. and it will be met with the same spirit that has actuated women all along. Many of our men-folk will do their part in settling and^opening up the magnificent country they have been fighting for, and wives and sweethearts will be called upon to leave their friends and homes to take their share in the hardships and anxieties of starting life in a new country. And ther will be ready when the time comes. 'Even with the coming of peace, their list of sacrifices is not ended. Not that women look on them in that light ; by no means. Rather are they privileges ; the only ways in which they could do their part and show what high-souled courage was in them. And our men have proved themselves worthy of their mothers. Colonial women, at least, have no cause to blush for the share- their sons have taken in the war. They may have been a mere handful in numbers, but they were a handful that made itself felt, and that was able to win the hearty commendation of the taciturn Commander-in-Chief himself. Now it is all over. Soon the last three years, with all their eventful happenings, will seem like a dream, but they have left an impress onus that will never pass away. We have been suddenly brought face to face with some of the terrible realities of life. Some of our boys will never more return to fill the vacant chair ; yet we are proud that they died a soldier's death. Others who went away as mere boys, unlearned in the world's ways, have come back to us disciplined men, self-re-liant, strong, and better fitted in every wav to fight the battle of life. And so, perhaps, our sacrifices were not made in vain.