LAND AND WATER 
FEMIN A 
WHAT CAN I DO NEXT? 
May 22, 1915 
B 
By MRS. ERIC DE RIDDER 
yet the women of this country are more than willing— are 
even anxious to serve their land in some tangible fashion. 
Not by tilling the land alone, but in scores of other ways. 
Full use is not made of this great depth of purpose. There 
is a hitch somewhere, a hitch that badly wants finding, and 
remedjdng without loss of time. 
Women and War Service 
Just before Christmas 
ILLETING is over here," ran my letter, " but 
I feel I cannot sit at home doing nothing but 
read the horrors in the papers ; what can I do 
) next ? " The writer of the letter is one of the 
busiest women in the world, with a large fanriily, 
and many household cares. These have been intensified 
during the past few months by the introduction of a great 
number of troops into the neighbouring district. Four 
officers have been billeted 'in the house, and twenty-four 
non-commissioned officers and men billeted elsewhere on obtain a return of all 
the estate. As the house 
and its surroundings are 
many miles from a railway 
station and shops, and in the 
heart of a country district, 
this incursion was none too 
easy to deal with. It meant 
much thought and prepara- 
tion on the part of the 
owners, and quite a con- 
siderable amount of work in 
one way or another. 
Now this is all over, the 
troops have gone, and nobody 
so far has talcen their place. 
And the sole wish of those 
left behind is to get busy 
over something else. It is 
felt that inaction — even the 
comparative inaction that is 
all ever falling to my friend's 
lot — is unbearable. The great 
need is to be up and doing. 
Anything that is useful, any- 
thing that is needed, any- 
thing that will serve to keep 
the mind from dwelling on 
horrors that sadden it inex- 
pressibly. This wish for 
occupation is a feeling that is 
growing with every day that 
passes. Strong though it is 
already, there is no doubt 
but that it must grow 
stronger with the passing of 
time. Numbers of women in 
every rank of Ufe have this 
common desire. It is one of 
which those in authority might surely take a fuller advan- 
tage than they are at present doing. But the ways of such 
are apt to be passing strange. 
A Form to Fill 
Not so very long ago, every woman in the country who 
wanted occupation was invited by the Government to register 
her neime at the nearest Labour Exchange. Forms of 
apphcation were prepared, each containing the customary 
categorical catechism, and to await the applicants was all 
that remained. Whether the Labour Exchanges are not the 
popular resorts they possibly ought to be, whether the scheme 
■was not published widely enough, has yet to be divulged. 
In any case, the response, from all accounts, is not an over- 
whelming one, and by no manner of means in proportion 
to the great number of women living in these islands. 
I am told by those who ought to know that this idea 
was designed for women in general, not for any one class in 
particular. The object was to make a register of available 
women who could be called upon, whenever it was necessary, 
to release men for active service by taking their place. The 
principle of this is such an excellent one that it can only be 
hoped it will be pushed to its far hmits, with much more energy 
than has heretofore been the case. Judging from the 
Government application form, it would seem that women 
and agriculture are more closely linked together in the official 
mind than anything else. Touching though they do upon 
leather-stitching, brush-making, clothing-machining, and light 
machining for armament, it is with regard to agricultural 
work that a special set of questions is framed. Women in 
France, and those in Germany also, started to work on the 
land in place of men, almost the first day war was declared. 
Here, though one or two wholly praiseworthy experiments 
have been made, there is no such definite movement, .^nd 
Cop}ris;ht Rita Alat-titi 
LADY MICHELHAM 
Who has been nursing wounded soldiers in the South of France, 
and together with her husband has presented a luxurious 
ambul mce train for the use of the Allies 
of last year it was decided to 
the men still remaining who were 
eligible for active service. 
This was done by the means 
of forms, which were distri- 
buted at the door of every 
householder with a polite 
request that it might be filled 
up at his early convenience. 
If those in seats of authority 
really desire the services, on a 
large scale, of women, they 
might reasonably go to a hke 
amount of trouble to gain the 
necessary information ; it 
would save the walk to the 
nearest Labour Exchange, 
which is surely an aggrava- 
tion of circumstance. Person- 
ally, I have never been within 
the sacred portals of such an 
institution, but I would in- 
finitely sooner struggle with 
the intricacies of an official 
form within my own domicile 
than beneath the glassy eye 
of aloof officialdom. It may 
of course be an error of taste, 
but it, I beUeve, is a feeling 
shared by many. Safely 
seated at one's own writing 
desk, personal possibilities 
would unfold in an aston- 
ishing way, and the form be 
returned full of information 
upon which the Government 
could draw. There can really 
be no reason why the women 
of this country should not 
be circularised as well as the 
be no doubt it would call 
men. If they were, there can be no 
forth an astonishingly strong response. 
One Side of the Question 
A number of well-known women have signed their names 
to a letter which has just appeared in the Press on the subject 
of soldiers who do women's work. Taking for granted that 
the main object at the present time is to raise every man 
available for active service, they comment upon the fact 
that military clerks are being occupied in Flanders, as well 
as in England, upon work which women could do equally 
well. There is also a suggestion that women should be 
employed as hospital orderlies instead of men, thereby liber- 
ating many active youths who are now fulfilling this part. 
Women are acting as orderlies in the hospital units which the 
Scottish women have sent to France and Serbia, and the 
work, it is claimed, has been perfectly carried out, hard and 
arduous though it often is. 
There are heaps of men doing other forms of women's 
work in England to-day. In times such as these, it surely 
does not take a stalwart young man, six foot in his socks, to 
sell manicure cases, or dilate upon the latest thing in neckwear. 
He can undoubtedly be more profitably employed elsewhere. 
If the whole country, men and women alike, could be formed 
into one great business organisation with the crushing of 
this German menace as its sole aim and object, it would move 
forward the halcyon days of peace by leaps and bounds. 
Since it is man's business to go and fight, it is equally woman's 
business to perforin the tasks he leaves behind. Few women 
will be found who dispute this corollary, but it remains 
that their services have yet been barelv requisitioned. Signs 
are not lacking that this omission will have to be remedied 
before much more water has run under the bridge, and the 
sooner it happens the better will it be for everyone concerned. 
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