"The usual excuse is often a good one, not only because of the chivalrous Two Birds with One Stone Christmas Presents Help War Funds and Charity The Union Church Women's Guild notifies the date of the Annual Fun Fair to be held at the Union Church Hell—the day is Saturday, December 7. Proceeds will be divided between the War Funds and the Union Church Funds. This Fair has a deserved reputation for being good value—its games, dolls, toys, hand-knit woollens, home-made sweets and plum puddings, and its generous tea are very hard to equal. tradition, but because, on the average, women are decidedly inferior to men in most of the qualities needed for dangerous service—in muscular strength, swiftness, mechanical ingenuity and dexterity, sense of direction, possibly—I am not sure—in courage and keeping their heads.
"But not all women, and not all qualities, for example, quickness of observation, intuitive scent of character, incorruptibility, sobriety, willingness to risk life, ete. In case of invasion or guerilla warfare, may not the supposed harmlessness of women become in itself an asset?
The problem seems to be how to use- (1) the exceptional woman; (2) the assets of the normal woman. The first hedge to get over is to enforce the principle that, in this hour, the sole test for dangerous service should be, first, the value of the service; secondly, the relative value of the life risked.
"The lives of a dozen average women just now are worth less to the country than one efficient soldier or male Key worker, and so should be proportionately more freely risked. The national interest must overcome every other sentiment."
The reply made by the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Eden) to a question by Miss Rathbone suggests that a women's auxiliary to the Home Guard may be formed soon.
Miss Rathbone believes that it should be made up of local women motorists, whose knowledge of local geography and local personalities would be valuable, of first-class markswoman, and of women who would act as observers, patrols, and, where suitable, grenade-throwers.
The last suggestion was put forward by Mr. Clement Davies in the House.
"Mr. Davies has put forward the bold suggestion that women as well as men should be armed with hand grenades for use against parachutists and tanks," Miss Rathbone comments. aren are usually poor throwers, but I would rather trust some of them with such missiles than distribute them at random among the male population, at least unless the public-houses were first closed!"
After the forffation of a women's auxiliary to the Home Guard, Miss Rathbone suggests the fuller employment of uniformed and plain-clothes police, detectives, and members of the Secret Service.
"I am quite ignorant as to the means by which the two latter services are recruited and the extent to which women are employed in them. I do know that there has been Arrangements are well in hand for the Christmas Bazaar to be held at the Race Club on Wednesday, December 11, in eid of the British Women' Association War Work Fund. The Committee say they are determined io make this bazaar the biggest and best ever held in Shanghai.
The choirman of the Finance Committee of the B. W. As War Work Fund is Mrs. L. H. Lamb; hon. secreter; Mrs, E. J. Lloyd; hon. treasurer, Mrs. E. F. Hardman, Committee members are Lady Maze, Mesdames Arnold Jones, Adam Black hardly any wartime extension of the use of uniformed women police, In spite of the experience of the last great war, in which they proved their value in controlling the light-headed girls and experienced women harpies who are prone to hang about military camps and to besiege soldiers on leave with temptations from which they are better safeguarded," she concludes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.