TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21100, 30 April 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

British Women on Home Front “Mr Churchill’s million women and many more will be wanted. The First Lord should know'. He was at the Ministry of Munitions in the last war,” says the Economist, “w'hen between one and a-half and two million women were added to the roll of employment, mainly on Government work, and the ratio of female to male labour rose from 30 to 56 per cent. The right course now is not to stem recruitment because jobs are lacking, but to multiply jobs. The problem of war economy is to man and equip the forces, to raise output for w ? ar and export needs to the utmost and to cut down civilian consumption and manufacture accordingly. The role of women in this process is crucial. It is to release men for fighting and war work, either by taking up industrial employment for the first time or by moving from the nor.-essential trades where they predominate into essential occupations. There are nearly six million and a half women* in paid employment already, and estimates of the single women, widows and wives at present unoccupied, but available for work in emergency, run as high as four millions, and can certainly be put at nearly three millions. Many women arc already in essential work in textiles, air--1 craft manufacture, armaments and Government service.”