“Train it. Then try it. What we need is schools,” said Mlle. Sanua.
A few moments later the conversation turned on the toy industry. “What do you know about the toy industry?” asked the Minister of State curiously. She told him. And as the woman talked, his wonder grew. She did know about toys, that which would enable the French to defeat the Germans in this branch of commerce after the other defeat is finished. Would Mlle. Sanua give a lecture on the toy industry before the Association Nationale d’Expansions Economique? And would she make a report before the Conference Economique des Allies? Which she did. So here was a woman who had a brain worth while for commerce. Well, there might be others. If the Chamber of Commerce in Paris was still doubtful, the Ministry of Commerce would take a chance on endorsing Mlle. Sanua’s proposal. They secured for her the Ancien Prieure. And she established the school for which she gives her services. She has gathered a faculty which includes celebrated names in France, most of whom are serving without compensation. Three former Ministers of Commerce form part of the committee of patronage for the school. And the first diplomas last June were conferred by a state official, the Inspector General of Education. For France is arriving at the conclusion that she will have need of trained women as well as such men as she can muster for the great economic conflict that is going to follow when the other battle flags are furled.
So here at the Ancien Prieure 125 new women are coming into commerce. “N’est ce pas?” I hear Avocat Suzanne Grinberg’s voice repeat. Mlle. Sanua adds another fagot to the fire. Again as she looks up her eyes are illumined with the ideal that animates her in the service in which she is now engaged for her country. I think the women of France will be a money power and a world power.
See them starting on the way. Already the Bank of France to-day has 700 women employés, the Credit Foncier has 400, and the Credit Lyonnaise has 1200 women employés. Clerical positions in all the government departments, including the War Office, have been opened to women. M. Metin, the under secretary of the French Ministry of Finance, has recently appointed Mlle. Jeanne Tardy an attaché of his department, the first time in the history of France that a woman has held such a position.
Now in every country this same movement has taken place. Russia has had women clerks at the War Office, the Ministries of the Interior, Agriculture, Education, Transportation, and at the Chancelleries of the Imperial Court and Crown Property. The Imperial Russian Bank employed women by preference.
In the German government bureaus and offices, the women employés outnumber the men and they are to be found now in every bank in Germany. There are even new women in commerce in Germany conducting business houses that soldier husbands have left in their hands, who are beginning openly to rebel against the restriction which excludes women along with “idiots, bankrupts, and dishonest traders” from the Bourse in Berlin. And recently a petition has been addressed to the Reichstag for the removal of this bar sinister in business.
MOVING ON LONDON’S FINANCIAL DISTRICT
Probably the largest invasion of the business office, whether that of the government or of the private employer, has taken place in England. No less than 278,000 women have directly replaced in commerce men released for military duty. Petticoats in the district that is known as the “city,” I suppose are as unprecedented as they could be anywhere in the world. The most visionary, advanced feminist, who before 1914 might have timidly suggested such an invasion, would have been curtly dismissed with, “It isn’t done.” And in truth I believe it never would have been done without a war. Down in Fenchurch Avenue, in the great shipping district, I was told: “Really, don’t you know, this is the last place we ever expected to see women. But they are here.”
The gentleman who spoke might have come out of a page of “Pickwick Papers.” His silk hat hung on a nail in the wall above his desk. And he wore a black Prince Albert coat. He looked over his gold bowed eye glasses out into the adjoining room at the clerical staff of the Orient Steamship Company of which he has charge. He indicated for my inspection among the grey haired men on the high stools, rows of women on stools specially made higher for their convenience. And he spoke in the tone of voice in which a geologist might refer to some newly discovered specimen.
It was withal a very kindly voice and there was in it a distinct note of pride when he said: “Now I want you to see a journal one of my girls has done.” He came back with it and as he turned the pages for my inspection, he commented: “I find the greatest success with those who at 17 or 18 come direct from school, ‘fresh off the arms,’ as we say in Scotland. They, well, they know their arithmetic better. My one criticism of women employés is that some of them are not always quite strong on figures. And they lack somewhat in what I might call staying power. Business is business and it must go on every day. Now and then my girls want to stay home for a day. And the long hours, 9:30 to 5:00 in the city, well, I suppose they are arduous for a woman.”