EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN 223 



connected with the woods, both in the superior grades 

 and the inferior or labouring classes. Before the war 

 I should have now proceeded to deal with this aspect. 

 As an outcome of the war, however, I have first a 

 suggestion to make to the woman and a plea to make 

 to her unselfishness. She will, I trust, help us to get 

 women to take up forestry work as a work in which 

 they can find useful and congenial employment and 

 help us to disabuse the minds of many of the sex of 

 their dislike to occupations connected with the soil 

 and to show them what possibilities lie open to them in 

 forestry work. But before dealing with this question 

 I would ask the women to remember another reason 

 for giving their aid to this afforestation matter. If the 

 question is taken up in the near future as it should be, 

 and on the scale it should be, it will afford, in some of 

 its easier work, employment to hundreds of partially 

 disabled soldiers and sailors who, having fought their 

 country's battles and been maimed in doing so, can 

 never hope to resume those occupations which they 

 were fitted for before they went to the front. 



If women will, as I hope, take up the afforesta- 

 tion crusade I have no doubts as to the place they 

 will give these incapacitated men in their pro- 

 gramme. 



I will now turn to the employment of women — ^I hope 

 I have not unduly exercised your patience in getting 

 there — ^and to the openings which exist for women in 

 forestry work. 



It will be best perhaps to consider first the possi- 

 bilities in front of the labouring classes. The employ- 

 ment of women in this direction is no new idea in 



