As if one-fourth of the women wage-earners, gentle or otherwise, in England today had any choice in the matter whatever. The rapidity with which a vacant place in the ranks is filled and the numbers waiting for it is surely sufficient proof of that; to say nothing of the pitiful conditions under which many, gentle and otherwise, cling to their posts long after a merciful fate should have given them the opportunity to save the remnants of their shattered health amidst country breezes.
It is useless to cry out to the woman that work and competition with men is unbecoming to her. She must work, and she must compete, and seeing this, it is surely time the British Government accepted the fact magnanimously, and took more definite steps to assure her welfare.
If it can only be done through woman’s suffrage, then woman’s suffrage must surely come, because, whether British legislators care for the good of women or not, nature does care, and as the race moves forward the working woman will have to be protected.
It has been seen over and over again that no band of politicians, nor powerful men, nor tape-bound State can long defy any advancing good for the needs of the whole.
Whether women work or not, they are the mothers of the future; and because this fact is greater than the sum of all other facts brought forward by the narrowness and short-sightedness of men, we may safely believe that, since they must work, nature will see to it that they work under the most favourable conditions, no matter what rich men have to go the poorer for it.
Pity is that the hour is so delayed; that narrowness, and selfishness, and self-aggrandisement still flourish, to the eternal cost of those of England’s mothers who bring weaklings into the world, through the hard conditions of their enforced labour.
The true patriot of today will agitate not only for the highest possible efficiency in the Navy and Army; but, with no less resolve and sincerity, for the best possible conditions obtainable for all women-workers, that the Empire may not later sink suddenly to decay, in spite of her defences, through the impoverished, feeble, sickly off-spring who are all the men she has left.
The true patriot will accept the ever-strengthening fact, however unpalatable, that the development and emancipation of womanhood has brought women to the front as workers, to stay; and he will perceive that therefore it is incumbent upon the men to endeavour to find that happy mean, where they can work together to the advantage of both, and to the stability and greatness of a beloved country.
Only now the women-workers toil bravely on, heartening each other with jests under conditions in which it is extremely likely men would merely cavil and sulk and fill the air with their complainings; dressing themselves daintily through personal effort in spite of meagre purses; throwing themselves with a splendid joyousness into their few precious days of freedom; banding themselves together often and often to wring occasional hours of gaiety from the months of toil; keeping brave eyes to the front and brave hearts to the task, while they wait steadfastly for the day when their worth shall be appreciated and their claims recognised.
Hastening to the office in the morning, or hastening home (probably to cook their own dinner) at night, they read those clever, carefully worded articles and speeches by the men of power and weight, harping upon the charm and beauty and superiority of the Home Woman; and they laugh across to each other with a frank, rather pitying, rather irritated laughter, at the extraordinary dull-wittedness of some brilliant brains.