EVE

little more than forty years ago the occupations open to women
could be counted on the fingers. For centuries women have been
housekeepers, dressmakers, milliners, governesses, secretaries, nurses,
shop assistants, mill-girls and waitresses. The first woman lawyer,
however, caused a great sensation; the first woman doctor and the
first policewoman almost started a riot.

But nowadays women are playing a part in many other spheres
of life, and war-time exigencies have brought many women into jobs
which were previously only performed by men. This phenomenon
has provoked a veritable psychological and social revolution.
Technical developments and improvements, by removing or con-
siderably reducing all physical effort, have made it possible for

2A.T.S. are in the front line in Britain to-day, operating
searchlights and gun-sights. This identification telescope
picks up hostile aircraft, giving bearing and angle of sight.

3Two W.R.N.S. training to be Wireless Telegraphists
at a Naval Establishment, where Morse is automatically
written on tapes at 200 to 300 words a minute.

women to enter any and every profession. It is even possible for
them to take up occupations from which they were previously barred,
because the work was too hard, too dangerous or too unhealthy.
Now they are quite at their ease doing these jobs.

For all the belligerents without exception, the problem of industrial
labour has become infinitely more acute than that of military
effectives.

It is generally agreed that it requires seven workmen to feed, equip
and transport one soldier. When the American troops landed in
Northern Ireland, it was said that each combatant brought five tons
of material with him. These figures give some idea of the extent of
the effort made by the peoples of the United Nations.

4To judge by the effort being made in Great Britain, the people
are prepared to make any sacrifices for victory.

Women have not only entered factories by the million, but they
are taking a direct and increasing share in actual defensive military
operations. They are doing so either as volunteers or by compulsion
as a result of the law which draws them into the service of the
nation as conscripts. This surprising event took place in a country
which knew nothing of military conscription, and where individual
liberty had achieved a degree unknown in any other region of the
world, and each time that the Government increased its compulsory
measures, they were unanimously approved by public opinion.
In the by-elections which have been held since the declaration of
war, the Government has only been defeated by candidates who
proposed to go even further as regards the total mobilisation of the
energies of the nation; and most of these elections took place at
a time when the Allies were suffering severe reverses.

What work do these women do in the sea, land and air services ?

First and foremost, they carry out jobs which do not necessarily

Postwomen are a familiar
sight to-day, clearing pillar
boxes and delivering letters
all over the country.

5require male collaboration. They act as orderlies, messengers,
telephonists and secretaries. They work as cooks, bus-conductresses,
and postwomen. They have naturally enough taken charge of
canteens and shops. They are also playing an increasingly important
role in transmission and liaison work. They have become extremely
expert as signallers ; they make admirable meteorologists, and they
fully appreciate the importance of secret messages. They repair
the parachutes made by their comrades in the factories, they take
photographs, they work as electricians and they make guns, and an
ever-increasing number pilot aircraft from the factories to the
airfields.

Women have taken the men’s place in laboratories and it is they
who handle the wireless sets. It is they, too, who test sparking plugs.
And they naturally have an important place in ambulance work.
Quite a few have been decorated for acts of exceptional bravery.

Alary Begg, whose husband works
in an aircraft factory, now sees
the trains off at Euston Station.

6mr*9 mr I

Irene Wragg is a twenty-one-
year-old employee of the London
Midland and Scottish Railway
and her job is to load the delivery
vans zvith supplies sent by rail.

Mrs. Winzer and Mrs. Talbot work
on a new job for women, cleaning
tubes in the smoke box of a “Sandring-
ham ” class locomotive, on the
London and North Eastern Railway.

Women are also trained in the fire services, the police and the
organizations created to take care of air-raid victims.

They do all these jobs with remarkable courage and professional
conscientiousness. After the bombs have fallen during an air-raid,
there are injuries to be treated, temporary lodgings to be found for
those rendered homeless and who have to be moved and fed, and
children to be evacuated.

During the night of May 10th, 1941, London had a particularly
severe raid. At the place where I was at the time there were 125
casualties. The majority of them were not a pleasing sight. It must
have required a great deal of strength of character to approach
those mutilated limbs, those gaping heads and torn bodies. The
women who were looking after them did so quietly and methodically
without any sound or agitation or flurry, and above all without any
fuss. Some of them offered their services spontaneously, although

7Most of the London buses now carry
women conductresses. Here is one
of them checking over the day's
schedule with her driver at the depot.This girl, checking an engine, is a maintenance worker
in a London Passenger Transport Board garage. She
helps to keep the London buses running, by replacing
men mechanics who are called-up for military service.

it was not part of their job. The following day I found them all back
at their normal tasks. Their eyes looked tired and their faces were
pale, but not one made any mention of the tragedy of the night before.
This tranquil heroism is to be found wherever the women of Britain
are calmly and quietly carrying out their civic duties.

Discretion does not allow the mention of many figures, but a few
are available which make it possible to judge the value of women’s
contribution to the defence of endangered liberty.

There are 700,000 women engaged on work organized by the
Ministry of Health. This includes assisting in evacuation, nursing,
maternity work, care of children under five, and of school-children
in hostels, work at rest centres, etc.

One hundred and twenty-five thousand women are now on the
Post Office staff, 2,000 of whom are doing work previously only
undertaken by qualified craftsmen. They are now entrusted with
the laying of telephone wires, their adjustment, and other mechanical
jobs.

In the realm of transport there are even more surprising things to

9A volunteer “pick and shovel” gang trench-digging and laying
a power cable at a Southern Railway depot.

A real man's job—but two women got down to shovelling coal dust
on to a railway truck. Mrs. Makins has two children at school and
her colleague, Mrs. Morris, is the mother of five grown-up children.

r -

Women are now being trained to act as ground
crews at Bomber and Fighter Stations, thus
releasing men for other duties. At this Fighter
Station, W.A.A.F.S. are shown refuelling a plane.

be seen. There are, it need hardly be said, women station-masters
and ticket collectors. The Greater London underground network
has one woman for every eight members of the staff. On the railways
they act as porters, deal with luggage, and even drive the electric
trolleys. They are responsible for the signals and signal boxes, and
they clean down the engines. And at the ports there are a number
of women dockers to be found.

Have you ever painted the underneath of a bridge as it stretches
over a river ? I imagine not, but there are women doing it in
Britain.

All these women are not necessarily working for payment. There
is the Women’s Voluntary Service with over a million members.
They have all signed on for the duration of the war and their work
is absolutely voluntary. The woman who drove me recently was
a university woman who had specialized in ethnography. She was
donating her time, her car, and her money to war work.

11BEA UTY

and the blimps

A captive balloon is not very war-like. First and foremost, it
is a prisoner, and, to judge by its bad temper and impatience, it finds
this very annoying.

When on the ground it makes one think of an elephant sorrowfully
flapping its ears and sadly meditating on its misfortunes. When
in the air it resembles a rickety, anaemic, aero-dynamic archangel
awaiting some message from the skies. It is a truly Walt Disney
creation.

But in spite of its laughable and ridiculous appearance, it is a very
formidable defensive weapon. Its harmless and homesick mien is
deceptive in the extreme.

12The one I saw was lodged in the middle of a square in a large
town. In the midst of debris from a recent raid, children were
playing “catch” round it.

Its crew was composed entirely of women, all of whom were very
young. Not very long ago their pretty hands must still have been
playing with toy balloons. It cannot have been very long ago either
since they were still engrossed with dolls. The balloon has increased
in size, the toy has become this monstrous insect.

The care of a captive balloon is not what the uninitiated may
think. It is a greedy animal. When it is brought down from the
skies, it has to be given its bottle. Tractors, driven by young girls,
bring huge cylinders filled with gas.

Then it has to be hoisted. The pull on its mooring ropes must
be regulated in accordance with the velocity of the wind, the visi-
bility and the hygrometric condition of the air. All this requires

Britain’s Balloon Barrage defence is one of the toughest jobs
that the W.A.A.F. have taken on. This airwoman, helping to
bed down a balloon, wears the working aircrew suit ai d boots.

13a considerable amount of dexterity, method, co-ordination and
physical strength. The girls carry out all this work with strict
military discipline, and it is all done with perfect good humour.

They were all radiantly healthy and warmly clad. At night, when
it is windy and wet, the temperature falls rapidly, but they are snugly
wrapped in waterproof uniforms. They themselves very much
resemble miniature captive balloons. Yet feminine coquetry will
never give up all its claims. Whether under a cap or a steel helmet,
their hair—and this is generally very beautiful in England—is
arranged to show the waves to the very best advantage.

This W.A.A.F. trainee is
learning how to inflate a
barrage balloon correctly.

14An outsize ladder
is used by the girls
to attend to the
fins as the balloon
is being inflated.

The number of members forming a balloon crew is considerable.
There are thousands of stations in Great Britain of the same kind.
There are 3,500 miles of coastline to be protected, apart from places
of vital importance and industrial centres. A fair estimate of the
number of men that have thus been freed for combatant jobs can
easily be reckoned.

I noticed a horse-shoe over the doorway of the main billet. Houses
with gaping walls, heaps of rubble on the ground, twisted rails and
broken stone pillars showed, however, that the German Air Force
has not had very much respect for this innocent faith in the super-
stition of a childish luck-bringer.

Here we are at Z.S.13.

Z.S.13 is the site of an anti-aircraft battery—somewhere in
England. The sun is shining on the gentle slopes of the hills, a soft

15breeze is whispering among some of the loveliest trees in the world.
The view stretches away to the distant horizon that inspired the
brush of Turner.

Quick-moving and alert-looking young women with frank and
laughing eyes are busily occupied with complicated scientific
instruments. They handle them with the ease and dexterity of an
experienced optician. They identify enemy aircraft, determine their
altitude, and calculate with startling precision their probable course.
They pass on this information in clear, musical tones to the firing
posts. They do all this very quickly, without the slightest trace of
hesitation in their actions, which shows the very advanced degree
of their training.

W.A.A.F.S. not only have to look
after their balloon, but they have to
know how to make necessary repairs.

mWith the balloons safely
tucked away in their
hangars for the night,
these girl operators march
off duty at the end of a
day’s intensive training.

They wear exactly the same uniform as their men comrades, when
they are on duty, but as soon as they are off duty they hurry to
change back to their own feminine skirts.

One of them asked me, with feigned anxiety : “Don’t you think
that we are becoming a little too mannish ?”

She was very sure of the reply. She knew very well that there was
no question of gallantry conflicting with truth, for she had magnifi-
cent eyes, lovely hair and a delightful mouth, and, what was more,
she was well aware of this, and was even more aware that no one
could long resist her bewitching smile.

But as I left them, I could not help wondering about the future
of these young things, spending their time in the hubbub of camp
life, sleeping in huts, living under the most complete community
conditions, freed from all normal restraint. And I thought of my
grandmother, a charming and tender wraith: “Where, oh where,
grandmamma, are your jars of preserves and your press full of
scented linen ?”

17PENELOPE

mechanised

the c A r is pushing through the country. We are crossing England
—proud, placid, devout, morose England. The fog is as opaque
as solid concrete.

Suddenly, the proud outposts of apoplectic industry rise up :
chimney stacks, overhead railways, bridges, docks, cranes and factory
after factory.

Aircraft are to be seen at every stage of the journey. They pass by,
unassembled, on fast-moving lorries. They drone overhead or swoop
slowly down on to the landing grounds.

It is here that Great Britain, with the aid of the women, is forging
her shield.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

18These girl drivers are expected to keep their vehicles
in first-class running condition, so thorough training

is given in maintenance as well as in driving.	19These women are milling the jacket
of a gun, vast numbers of winch are
being turned out at this factory.

There is something desperate and tyrannical in this war of pro-
duction. Men are in the grip of a sullen frenzy and wild passion.
They are a prey to the craze for metal and fire. There is no place
here for dreaming or fantasy or frivolity.

Life is spent in a brutal kind of wild delirium. The manufacture
of war material is the star to be culled from the sky. Incandescent
ingots steer wild orbits through the spark-filled air. Implacable
stamps clasp and smother them. Vats and ladles pour molten metal
into moulds as they move by in quivering columns on endless belts.
Compressed-air machines set up a shrill yelping. Acetylene blow-
pipes spit forth blinding comets of light. Forges, like witches’
cauldrons, illumine the shop with weird lights. Pneumatic hammers
stutter sharp moans. Steel and copper shavings cap the machine
tools with permanent waves. . . .

20In the very midst of the dust and smoke and diabolical uproar
thousands of women are working.

Through a slit in the workshop window I suddenly caught sight
of a horse standing in the sunshine peacefully cropping bright green
grass.

At the time of the “Enclosures” sheep were kept at the expense
of men. Horse-power is now doing away with the live horse.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This factory, which is producing nothing but guns—and I saw
thousands there—consists of nine large parallel shops. Each one
is 665 yards long and there are 3,000 women employed.

From their raised positions the travelling cranes join the hunt for
breech-blocks, ingots, engines, and with punctual and precise

Hundreds of thousands of women are
working in Army clothing factories, either
full-time or part-time, making battle
dresses and other equipment for the troops.

Armament workers
in a big Munitions
Factory3 handling
lathes expertly.On the left : These aero
factory girls are learn-
ing to do technical work,
previously done by skilled
electricians. They are
working on electrical
wiring of fuselage.

gestures, like so many great spiders, they seize on them as they pass
and lay them down on the benches with courtly grace. Women are
working these machines with careful precision, carrying out their
tasks methodically, their faces betraying the strain and concentration.

One of them has a few moments’ rest. She immediately begins
to knit, to knit for the absent son or distant husband, away somewhere
in the Middle East or at sea.

Here is another. She is only eighteen years old. She is in sole
charge of a machine tool worth £4,000. Her knowledge of machinery
was previously limited no doubt to a bicycle or a sewing-machine.
Not so long ago she was working in a cinema.

And here is another. Her grinder is polishing very complicated-
looking pieces of steel. Her head is surrounded by a halo of sparks.
She is humming Schubert’s “Song of Love.”

Penelope mechanised ....

Aero factory girls learn how to dismantle
damaged aircraft for salvage of parts.

23MODERN

dairymaid

the agricultural problem in Great Britain is one of the most
curious in Europe, and one of the most complicated.

The population of the United Kingdom has increased by nearly
seven million since the last war, while the area under cultivation has
decreased by several million acres. This was due to the spreading
of the towns and the construction of airfields which, more often
than not, encroach on to the most fertile soil. Great Britain depended
on her neighbours and the British Commonwealth of Nations for
a considerable portion of her food supplies. The Axis’ military
successes have not made the solution of this problem any easier.

24'kmwm>

Joan Arden used to work in a Man-
chester solicitor's office, but now
she works as a land girl helping
her father on his farm at Siointon,Democratic Britain did not shrink from facing these difficulties.
Democratic methods in practical application have achieved success,
for democracy has crossed the political frontier and entered into
the economic sector. We have already seen what has been done in
industry. The same kind of thing is being done in agriculture.
The Government is elaborating the principles of its agricultural
policy in agreement with the associations of landowners, farmers
and agricultural labourers. Mixed committees, composed of an
equal number of delegates from similar professional groups, are
entrusted with the development of these ideas.

The results are surprising. The area under cultivation has
increased since the war by six million acres. The quantity of corn
grown alone has risen by a third, potatoes by 60 per cent., and the
whole of Britain’s domestic sugar ration is grown at home. At the
present time four million tons of vegetables are produced, whereas
in 1938 this figure was only two-and-a-half million tons. And there
are three million small private gardens which supply between ten
and fifteen million pounds’ worth of vegetables every year.

Science has played a big part in these encouraging improvements.
Agriculture in Great Britain is to-day the most mechanised in
Europe. More tractors are used than in Germany, although a smaller
area is under cultivation than in the Reich.

Kathleen Leach was a Court
dressmaker before the war,
but now she handles an
80 h.p. Diesel Caterpillar
Tractor at a farm in
Hertfordshire. Girls are
tackling men’s jobs on the
land to-day and making
a success of them too.

26Two members of the Women's Land Army at
work in the barn of a Hertfordshire farm.

No mistake, however, must be made about the importance and
effect of the introduction into agriculture of scientific processes ;
biological selection, cold and vacuum storage, artificial fertilisation,
drainage and irrigation, the struggle to overcome the effects of hail,
frost, pests and diseases—all these can, to a considerable degree,
lessen the rigours of Nature. But in agriculture machinery does not
play nearly as important a part as in industry. For the latter it helps
enormously to increase the output of goods for the market. This is
not the case with agriculture. A machine can carry out certain work
better and more quickly than can be done by hand, but the laws of
germination and growth are immutable. Man has not yet succeeded
in speeding up the rhythm.

The agricultural problem, therefore, still remains everywhere
a problem of manual labour. No solution could have been reached
here without the collaboration of women. It is to a large degree
the fine army of land girls that has made it possible to win the battle
of supplies in the British Isles.

Farmers were at first a little afraid to employ land girls—many on
account of their crops and no doubt a few on account of their hearts !

27On the left : Two new recruits
to the Women’s Land Army
naking friends with young calves
at the Institute of Agriculture,
at Usk in Monmouthshire.

This girl was a former art student
and has been in the Land Army for
18 months. She has just started sheep
shearing and here she is rounding
up her flock ready for the shears.

A member of the House of Commons tried, however, to convince
them by recalling that after all, from the beginning Eve had shown
a great interest in the cultivation of fruit. He did not emphasise,
it is true, the regrettable consequences of this first experiment,
regrettable for the male sex and for humanity as a whole.

I have seen these women at work on the delightful farms of Kent,
where the barns are thatched, romantic-looking barns, so cool in
summer and so warm in winter. There are women of all types and
ages among these land girls, though they are generally somewhere
between 17 and 40, and all are volunteers. None of those to whom
I have spoken had been connected in any way whatever with rural
life before. They had previously been mannequins, manicurists,
chorus girls, shop assistants, etc. I have never before been so struck
by joy of living, suppleness of gait, vivacity and moral balance. They
look gracefully gay in their riding breeches, and they are happy.
The majority of them have only one desire : to continue their work
on the farms after the war. Their health is excellent; their food
is more varied and more abundant than in the towns. They have
a variety of jobs to do, of far less monotonous character than in the
factories—and out in the open air.

Agricultural work has certainly very little of the mysterious about
it, but it is work which demands a great deal of judgment and a great
store of experience. The countryman must in turn be zoologist,
botanist, biologist, chemist, meteorologist, and even a mechanic.
He has no control over cold or rain, thunder or storms, or drought.

29--'k

' ■ - H

Here is a farm with 125,000 fruit trees. They have to be pruned.
Which branch should be cut ? Or should it be split ? When should
it be done ? How many times must the arms be lifted to pick the
fruit ? Millions of times !

Nature does not reveal her secrets to impatient people. Here is
another farm. There are 10,000 birds here. For us, the townspeople,
one pullet looks much like another. Yet the awkward movements of
this one disclose a hidden tumour ; another has a contagious disease
which may well affect the whole poultry run.

Fifty thousand tomato plants. To “nip” tomatoes appears to be
the simplest operation in the world. Have you ever tried systematic-
ally to correct the prodigality of Nature ?

All this work, in which personal intuition plays such a big part,
is done by the land girls. They manage it all, to the great astonish-
ment of their employers, who received them at the beginning with
a certain amount of scepticism.

30They do many other jobs too, and many harder ones. They thresh
the corn by machine. They work the cutting and binding machines.
They drive the tractors which draw heavy, five-pronged ploughs ;
the furrows have to be straight, but great mounds of earth slyly turn
the machine off its course. They carry heavy trusses of fodder in
great armfuls. They saw up the trees and steep them in sulphate.
They handle lead acetate and nicotine. They keep watch over the
incubators, from which thousands of little chicks will swarm, and
these will later supply the tables of the city dwellers who know
nothing of the hard work of the fields. They make careful selection
of the potatoes. With sure, unhesitating movements they place the
aluminium identity discs between the wing bones of the little chicks
without causing them a single squeak of pain.

If, in this heroic isle, besieged now for over three years, we are
not going hungry, this is due in no small part to these happy land
girls.

Twelve girls are employed on the London County Council Horton,
Surrey, farm, and are making a great success of their work. Here are
some of the girls giving a 2-weeks-old lamb a meal from a feeding bottle.

31WHEN

tlie girl* come home

what do these women think about as they tackle their jobs ?

People who are not familiar with the average worker are too ready
to imagine that the pay packet is their main thought. This is quite
wrong. During the first three months of the war, employers in Great
Britain carried out an inquiry among their staffs, covering tens of
thousands of individuals. It was an endeavour to trace causes of
worry or discontent among workpeople. The result was most
surprising; the black-out was the most frequent cause of a some-
what troubled state of mind. The question of pay, if my memory
is correct, held sixth or seventh place among the reasons for anxiety.
The food question, difficulties of transport, conditions of work,
and also the reasons and causes of the war, and preparation for the

32A little Yorkshire village claims to be the
only one to have an “ AU-Girls ” fire
squad. Betty Banks, a 22-year-old railway
clerk, started it and the squad call them-
selves the Women's Voluntary Fire Service.

The “Ack-Ack" girls who go into action
against night raiders. Here are some
of the girls in the London Area at work
on their height-finder on a gun site.
Theirs is dangerous and responsible work.

33In the Regional Control Room at a London
Fire Station, Fireman Manuel is shown
locating on the mobilization board, while
W.N.F.S. keep in touch zoith sub-stations.

future, came well before the question of remuneration, which is so
often held to be the strongest motive-power for mankind.

I have been able to prove by personal contact and questions how
true are these observations, collated during the first three months
of the war. As far as wages are concerned, exceptional cases are often
cited which might lead people to believe that these were reaching
astronomical figures. This, too, is quite wrong. It is true, however,
that a number of women and young people who had not been
earning money before, are doing so now.

I happened one day, during an air-raid alert, to be in a factory
canteen. Between six and seven hundred women had just finished

34their meal. A talkie apparatus was showing films of current events
and cartoons on a screen decorated at the top with the flags of the
United Nations. There was not the slightest trace of emotion.
The audience was far more interested in Walt Disney’s animated
figures than in the sirens. Only the spotters left the room to go up
on the roofs in order to give the warning for the factory to be cleared
should the danger become imminent—and this would take only two
minutes to do.

Such calm courage is clearly a special characteristic of the British
race.

But I noticed another thing ; the woman who works is constantly
on the defensive against any suggestion of an ant-like existence.

While her men colleagues fit up a trailer
pump, an N.F.S. girl picks her way
through the debris. Women are now co-
operating zuith the men in fire-fighting.She tries by every possible means to prevent her own personality
becoming flattened by the compressor roller, shaping mass-production
models in manufacture and in life.

The women in the factories have well-cared-for hands and hair,
and they wear, whenever possible, pretty shoes. They have not given
up their necklaces, nor their bracelets, nor their lipsticks. Most of
them wear the regimental badges of their husbands, sons, or fiances,
on their overalls. Some of them even wear several . . . “Safety in
numbers !” The ways of the feminine heart are so impenetrable.

Moralists may rail against such coquetry. Personally, I am
grateful to these women for such innocent and gallant retaliation
to the ugliness of war.

And when in a canteen for women making war-weapons I see
a piano, a gramophone or a radio set, I am glad that these young
music-lovers are not deprived of their sharps and flats. These are
fortunately not as yet among the things which Lord Woolton has
rationed. When questioned about the future, or about their personal
plans, they show two strongly-opposed sets of ideas. Some, especially
those subjected to the very strict military discipline of camp life,
are homesick for their dishes, their mending and their cradles.
Others, however, those in the factories—and they are by far the
most numerous—wish to continue along the course they have chosen.

Yet these young women are not only concerned with their own
personal fate, which would be reasonable enough, but are also
anxious about the future of their country and that of the world.
If I had to summarize in a word the predominant state of mind among
them, I should say: “Impatient confidence.” They know that we
will win the war. They are the more certain of this because they are
manufacturing the instruments of our victory, but they get impatient
because it does not come quickly enough. And this impatience
increases with the growing quantity of war material they are
producing.

All over the country members
of the Civil Nursing Reserve
are doing valuable work in
shelters, rest centres, hospitals.

36The Officers’ Kit Replacement Society is
kept busy supplying clothes of every
description to officers who have lost their
outfits through enemy action. A
young New Zealander, attached to the
Fleet Air Arm, receives tropical kit
from Mrs. Matthews, of the W.V.S.

Mrs. Mary Couchman is a 24-year-old
warden in a small Kentish town.
This picture was taken during an actual
raid, when this brave woman crouched
over three frightened children caught
in the street, to protect them from
bomb splinters with her own body.

The feminine element, far more than the male, has undergone
a far-reaching professional change in Great Britain. If the women
wish to remain in the factories after the war, these factories will first
have to transform their present production into one suited to peace-
time. But that will not be enough. They will also have to find
outlets for the stocks which will mount at an incredible rate, for the
tools have reached gigantic proportions.

In this connection I have found the industrialists far more
optimistic than the workers. The manager of one of the firms which
had previously been manufacturing the luxurious sleeper restaurant-
cars that make people begin to dream as they see them glide lightly
and rapidly over the rails of the continental network, told me that
it had only taken him sixty days, from the production in the drawing-
office of the plans to the completion in the factory of the tank engines

38which he is now making. I asked him how long it would take him
to reverse the change-over. With the full agreement of the technical
experts standing nearby, he told me—“Just one week.” This
optimism is not an isolated case, it is general.

It is clearly and generally understood that the world re-
construction of to-morrow cannot be achieved without a profound
economic and social transformation.

Private interests, in countries such as England, are giving way
more and more to those of the community. There is no longer room
for privileges and class interests. The latter are certainly opposed
to this tendency towards a form of society which must register the
death certificate of its predecessor. There is, however, a growing
movement towards production for the satisfaction of definite needs,
and not only for profit.

The workers, imbued with a longing and love for democracy, feel
that the trade unions to which they belong are playing a decisive
and historic role in this evolution.

More and more in the future of Great Britain, women will play
the role which they deserve, and they will play it well. Britain,
defending her freedom, has contracted an immense debt of gratitude
to the women. And so have we all.

BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES

An Agency of the British Government.

New York
Washington, D.C.
Chicago
San Francisco

30, Rockefeller Plaza
1,317, F. Street
360, North Michigan Avenue
260, California Street

Circle 6-5100
Republic 5393
Andover 1733
Sutter 6634

39YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

326 1052

3 9002

A Women’s Royal Naval Service dispatch rider
carries an urgent message to an Officer of a destroyer,
ii'hich has just returned to port after patrol duties.

E. O. 2. (Am.)