for the spirit of their set. Up there in the big office-rooms, year in
year out, these refined, well-educated women kept ledgers and accounts
and did the general office work of the Civil Service with a precision
and neatness and correctness equal to the work of any men, and
invariably to the astonishment of any interested visitor who was
permitted to inquire into the system.

Yet the majority of their salaries ranged from £90 a year to £210, and they
were obliged to pas an examination of no mean stamp to attain a post.
Small wonder that many of them, having to help support others as well
as keep themselves, had the delicate, listless, anaemic appearance of
underfed women badly in need of fresh air, good food, and wholesome
exercise.

The policy of Great Britain towards her women workers is surely one of
the greatest contradictions of our enlightened age. Even putting aside
the vexed question of suffragism, how little has she ever done to try
and cope with the needs of working womanhood?

In som Government departments, as, for instance, the Army Clothing
Department, it is a known fact that the women are actually sweated; and
that in the higher branches, employing gentlewomen, they pay them the
lowest possible wage, not because the work is ill-done, but because,
owing to present conditions, plenty of gentlewomen are found to accept
the offer.

Many of these gentlewomen lose their health in their struggle to obtain
good food, decent lodging, and a neat appearance on Government
salaries, knowing full well that the moment they fall out of the ranks
numbers will be waiting to fill their places.