Women and War Work

by Helen Miller Moyes

The findings of the Committee showed this clearly and they made some recommendations, especially recommending that the Central Board for the Control of the Liquor Traffic proceeded to do on its creation, restriction of hours of sale. Our restrictions make the sale of liquor legal only from 12 noon to 2.30 and from 6.30 to 8.30 or 9 P.M. Our convictions for drunkenness for women have fallen very low and for men, too. There is very much less drinking in our country and things are very much improved.

These attacks on soldiers' wives were naturally much resented as their work in the homes and industries, with their men away, and all their difficulties, has not always been easy. We find there is a little more difficulty with the boys. They miss the fathers' discipline and there has been some trouble through that, but such magnificent agencies as the Boy Scouts, who have helped us everywhere in the war, do great good.

The problem of dealing with the prevention of immorality has been a big one. The Women Patrols and the Women Police have been used in London in Waterloo Road (which had a bad reputation) and in parks, etc. The G.R. Volunteer Corps of men who meet the soldier arriving in London at the stations do a very good work.

In the Army and Navy excellent leaflets and booklets were issued dealing with the question in a very straightforward and admirable way.

The Council for Moral and Social Hygiene and the National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases has been doing a great work. The latter, which is a body set up as a result of the Government Commission on Venereal Diseases, had done a great deal of educational work and has set up an organization over the country. The Commission recommended much fuller facilities for free treatment for those suffering from these diseases in every town and district.

A Criminal Law Amendment Bill has been brought in and it improves our existing law in many ways and strengthens it. There has been much controversy about certain of its provisions, some dealing with power to send young girls to homes. There is a very strong feeling among many of our social workers that Rescue Work in our country altogether needs overhauling and change, and new experiments are being tried.

Wars have almost invariably in the past meant an enormous increase in venereal diseases on the return of the army in the civil population. Armies lose large numbers of men by them, and every person must feel it is their plain duty to leave no means untried and no measures unused that could help.

The woman who lives by her immoral earnings is, like the man who is immoral and uncontrolled, a serious danger and menace to her country and to generations yet unborn.

The problems that arise from the existence of these two groups are the business of all men and women. The problems are those of providing decent and wholesome recreation and surroundings, of helping men and women to meet under right conditions, of giving the right kind of information and guidance to the soldier and the girl, of realizing what drink does in this traffic, and the fundamental task of working to create better social, economic and moral conditions.