OCR Text |
Show lo won lie FRENCH MM WORK Similar Employment in England Already Has Been Successful. CAPACITY IS PROVED Many of Them Are Doing Excellent Service as Noncommissioned Non-commissioned Officers. H K A U Q 1 A RTERS OP WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS, BEHIND BRITISH LLVI-;S- IN FRANCE, Sept. 1. (Correspondence of the Associated Press.) Up to April f this year the employment em-ployment of women with the British army has heen solely confined to England. En-gland. Tdrtay 4000 women are employed in France on army work. At the beginning; of the year a prominent promi-nent staff officer was sent to France to report generally on finest ions of labor supply for the army and on economizing man -power. In order to weed out trie largest' possible number of able-bodied men for the fighting line. One of his recommendations was the employment of women. In prefacing his general remarks re-marks on this recommendation he paid the following tribute to the work which women had already done for the arrav on home soli: "In the last year the employment of women in England lias developed to an Immense extent and has been attended with remarkable success. Women have taken up various forms of male employment, employ-ment, which by many had been deemed impossible for ihe sex. They have found their way into work in all branches, of life and have proved, their capacity for It. Success Is Conspicuous. "In the army, at home the success of woman labor has been conspicuous, and women are to be found in numerous of- fices and cooking in many of the home ! military establishments. Results have ; shown that the sex difficulty has not 1 been anything like what some had pre-, pre-, dieted. The women have worked hard and the men have respected them, and experience at home has been almost unanimous in this respect." In accordance with his recommendation recommenda-tion the employment of women labor was approved in the following capacities: capaci-ties: Ambulance and motor-drivers, clerks and typists, storewomen, checkers, telegraphers, teleg-raphers, telephone operators, postal employees, em-ployees, orderlies, cooks and domestic servants. Later additions to the lists of women workers Include tailors, bakers, bak-ers, shoemakers, messengers, and "technical "tech-nical women," the latter category including in-cluding printers, gardeners (for graves), grooms, and a number of minor occupations. occupa-tions. Employments Divided. The various employments are officially official-ly divided into four departments with fixed rates of pay. Cooks and those engaged en-gaged In domestic service receive J100 to $130 a year;, the other three departmentsmechanical, depart-mentsmechanical, clerical and miscellaneousshow miscella-neousshow rates of pay varving from $a to $10 per week. Women engaged in domestic servico get free board and lodging; those in the other departments have a deduction of $:t.50 per week for hoard and lodging if they live in government gov-ernment hotels. Higher rates of pay are allowed for forewomen and . women ranking as noncommissioned non-commissioned officers. Every woman joining the corps sign an agreement to serve for "one year or the duration of the .war," whichever is the greater period. pe-riod. Annual grants are ma-cie for uniforms. uni-forms. In the substitution, of women for man labor, the British army rule is lo substitute sub-stitute roughly four women for three men. It Is, of course, a basic regulation that women in France are emploved onlv l bses and places of safety far from the fighting line. |