48 
LAND & WATER 
December 7, 1916 
{Cmtlimied from page 46) 
lias been a little humoured by fond parents disco\ers that 
the whys and wlierefores of faUure to do certain work 
matter nothing at all to an employer— only the result 
counts. Nor do private worries and physical ailments 
interest those whose chief concern it is to get work done 
]Moperly by a certain time. To some women it is a 
surprise that the fact that she is a woman does not cxciise 
her when she proves inefficient. These rank among the 
lessons the ine.xperienced have learned and they are all 
.the better and stronger for them. The woman worker 
linds herself sealed of a great sisterhood with a closer and 
more sympathetic understanding of life's difficulties. 
W'atcli the woman worker and you are conscious of 
something fine and purposeful in her attitude. Go to a 
munition factory and feel the electricity in the air. 
Each woman and each girl— some with the bloom of 
sweet sixteen, and a dimple — has an aim. They give 
you a sensation of something big and portentous. You 
ask one and another " \\'hy are you here ? " and you fiiid 
that it is to do something genuine, something that will 
end the war and make life easier for the unborn children. 
Often the unseen face of the man in khaki or in blue is 
the inspiration to greater exertion, but whether a woman 
is inarticulate or outspoken you know that she is one who 
Canteen Service Window 
has heard the call of Mother England to her daughters 
and has answered with passionate loyalty. 
If you visit the danger rooms where women work among 
high explosives — some of them gentle pretty girls — you 
realise that they have taken up this work with a true 
sense of its importance. Of one girl I asked " Why 
are you doing this ? " and she replied " Why should the 
men face all the danger? After all I'd sooner help to 
destroy (icrmans who want to make life miserable for our 
kiddies than do work that doesn't count in the war." 
I know a gently-bred young artist who for months has 
done some of the dirtiest night-work in a munition factory 
— work that soaks her clothes with oil. 
" Someone has to do it," she says smilingly, " and I 
mightn't be so good at the more expert kind of job." 
It is a familiar sneer to say that the workers, espccialJy 
munition workers, are making fortunes and buying fur 
coats and diamonds and gold watches, though I have 
noticed that one's informant seldom knows these highly- 
paid ladies personally. Munition and other workers 
being human it is cpiite likely that some of them spend 
money unwisely, but it would be a mistake to under- 
value their work because a few copy the idle women. 
^\^^o that has known the joy of being worth something 
to the comnnmity will settle down after the war to a pur- 
poseless existence ? 
Books of the Year 
THE second year of the war shows that the 
interest in really good fiction, and in all that 
comes under the head of " Literature," in the 
best sense of that much-abused word, is as strong 
as ever. Publishers, who feared at the outset that the 
war would close down houses that had existed the greater 
part of a century, found that as has always been the case 
— the nian who can tell a good story is always certain of 
an audience, and the man who has a thought to express, 
as long as either the thought or the form of expression is 
new, finds his public automatically. Neither war nor 
peace affects the fact that, since the permutations of the 
alphabet replaced the strains of the minstrel, men and 
women will read, as long as one can be found to write. 
In the matter of books on the war, the great artist 
who can combine fact and fiction in the way that Buchanan 
and Tolstoi and others have done for previous wars, has 
yet to arise. Wells' really great novel, Mr. Briilin;^ 
Sees it Through, won to its place because it mirrors the 
macrocosm — it is not so much fiction as the reflex of 
what all men are feeling, and for that reason the British 
world reads — and to a certain extent slobljers over — 
Britling. Another book that has won to a good place is 
E. F. Benson's Mike, and here again the appeal to the 
individual is responsible for a real success. 
In war books pure and simple, records of actual ex- 
perience, there are two really outstanding volumes : 
these are Ian Hay's First Hundred Thousand, and Boyd 
Cable's Between the Lines. These men, as Kipling has so 
aptly expressed it, have each " sung of the little things 
he knows about," and the fact that the public has set 
these books among the " best sellers " of the year proves 
that personal experience is an author's greatest asset. 
Mr. John Lane states that fiction by old favourites, 
such as W J. Locke, Muriel Hinc, E. E. Mills Young, 
and their like, has lost none of its appeal to the library 
subscriber. Messrs. Duckworth and Co. confess that the 
demand is principally for fiction, which is equivalent to 
saying that the great mass of the reading public is now, 
as ever, feminine — save for invalid masculinity. Messrs. 
Smith, Elder, apart from Boyd Cable, state that the 
demand is for good novels, biographies, and \'olumes of 
" recollections." Messrs. Chapman and Hall endorse 
this by giving first place among sellers to Edward Clodd's 
Memories, and award honourable mention among novels 
to S. P. B. Mais' April's Lonely Soldier, a book which, 
while cast in novel form, still mirrors civilian views and 
reflections on the war. 
A curious feature of war psychology is noted by Messrs. 
Sampson Low, who state that there is no exceptional 
demand for books of an altruistic character. This 
feature is emphasised by Messrs. WiUiams and Norgate's 
statement that the effect of the war has been an 
enhancing and broadening of the appreciation of books 
of real merit ; social science, history, and science pure 
and simple being in general request. On the other hand, 
Mr. Fisher Unwin notes a great demand for verse of the 
popular order, and Mr. John Murray says that price 
rather than quality dominates sales. Mr. Heinemann 
mentions that cheap reprints ha\-e had a big sale, and 
on the whole, " War books" have sold best. The most 
optimistic of publishers arc Messrs. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, who remark that the demand for books of a 
general character, and particularly fiction, is rapidly 
increasing, and see good evidence that before the settle- 
ment of peace the pre-war position will be reached again. 
There is, throughout the whole of the publishing 
business, evidence of a great demand for cheap editions, 
and for books dealing with the war, as well as a revival 
of interest in biographies and memoirs. The demand 
for cheap editions is, of course, a corollary of the work 
done by the many military hospitals — since sick men 
must read — and the demand for books dealing with the 
war is evidence that, so far as the civilian population is 
concerned, this war has been reaUsed as a very vital 
matter. As to the revival of interest in real literature, 
apart from the war — neither publishers nor ordinary 
mortals can foresee or forecast the demand for a particular 
class of book ; if they could, writing would cease to be an 
art, and publishing would become a stereotyped and 
custom-bound trade. Which, to misquote Euclid, would 
be absurd. 
