Wherever she goes, Mrs. Ward’s eyes are wide open.  From her own home, which is in the midst of one of the most patriotic regions of the realm, she can witness the perpetual activity which has come about in preparation for the war in all its varied phases and branches; everything and everybody is in vigorous motion, both there and in all the counties of England which she has visited.  Great camps in every direction for the shelter and training of recruits, all coming and going, all marching and countermarching, training and drilling everywhere, and as fast as the citizen is converted into a soldier, he is bound for the seat of war with all the equipments that war requires, tramping everywhere, tramp, tramp, along the land; tramp, tramp, along the sea, until the new supports, all ready for vital service, reach their destination on French soil.

Mrs. Ward has made a careful study of the effect of the novel introduction of women into all these works of men, especially in the munition factories, and dwells with great significance upon the rapidity of the women’s piece-work and the mingling of classes, where educated and refined girls work side by side and very happily with those of an humbler type.  What Mrs. Ward well calls “the common spirit” inspires them all, and holds them all in just and equal relations.  At every step she is startled by the vastness of the work and the immense hand that women have in it, finding one shop turning out about four thousand shrapnel and four thousand high-explosive shells per week, heavy shell work all, which they thought at first they must furnish men to lift in and out of the machines, but “the women thrust the men aside in five minutes.”  Surely this new education of women, of these girls and women who are to become the mothers of the next generation, must have a most inspiring and exalting effect upon the days to come.  War may be postponed for whole generations, but England will never fail to be ready for it as a necessary part of the education of the race.

It is quite evident that this war is breaking down the barriers that have heretofore been impassable, not only between men and women, but between the various classes of society, and that it cannot possibly end without bringing these more closely together, all working to the same end in a more perfect harmony, and that the result of it must be that England will hereafter be an even more perfect democracy than it has been up to this time.

France!  Glorious France!  The conduct of whose government and people in the war seems to have been absolutely perfect, has at last reached a wonderful result after her hundred years of agonies and revolutions.  We hear from France no complaints, no internal dissensions, but all the people, mankind and womankind, working together, each in its proper sphere, to the one common end, the salvation of the State.  I trust that we shall never forget all that the world and we, especially, owe to France.  She is adding to our obligations now by fighting our battles for us.