The Cordova daily times., 1918-06-27
T|0N
 0F WOMEN |S
 CONTEMPLATED

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 LONDON, May 20 (by maiD Con scription of women soon will start zigzagging it's way through the House of Commons. Sir William Bulls bill appears to be too coarse for success. Ii it ever becomes a law the changes will be so great that the author will not recognize it. | The bill may go on and suffer de- | feat. Or it may be tabled after it has cussion of the complicated problem of forcing Tommy's shrinking sisters | to put on khaki or blue and do their bit
 The Bull bill cannot succeed unless the government lowers the minimum voting age for women. It proposes conscription of women between IS and 31, while the suffrage law doesn't per init women to vote until they are 30 years old Thus more than ninety per cent of the eligibles for conscription have absolutely no voice in the govern ment.
 There are many quiet ways of ditch ing impractical legislation .in the have accomplished one big purpose | if he merely starts the idea running through the heads of the cabinet mem. bers. It will be up to them to make the compensating concessions in suf- frage, and perhaps to introduce a women's conscription bill of their own when the showdown comes on British manpower.
 There are about 2,000,O00 women be- tween IS and 40 without families or households who have never engaged seriously in war work. They are vir- tually idle except that some spend a few hours each week in light canteen work for the soldiers.
 SOuIu nclcdSe "cn
 By working full time at farming, munitioning or clerking it is estimated that they could release half million able young men, many of whom could be developed into infantry troops. This addition to the army would in turn postpone the day when 500,000 elderly civilians would be called up under the recently enacted manpower Tf law. VT
 ! There are thousands of young wo- men in civil life who are earning good wages as stenographers and office clerks, factory hands, store clerks and transport workers, each one of whom has released a fit man for the army. Most of these women have been at work for a year or two, hay ing first been specially trained for their new jobs. They would have to receive special consideration, because they could not be expected to give up those jobs with their present high wages to accept nominal wages on an equal footing with the unskilled slack erettes' of feminine conscription.
 The Waac's and the Wren's-the latter organization being the women's naval auxiliary arm-would be well come conscript recruits for the val uable work they are carrying on both in England and behind the lines in France. A great many other con- scripts could be employed in saving small business houses from ruin due to the calling up of the proprietors who have been carrying on alone for the past two years.
 A Place for Women
 The one-man business house has been one of the tenderest. cases with which the tribunals have had to deal in their daily hearings on pleas for exemptions. The despairing business man usually faces complete ruin af ter he has been called up. He some times succeeds in finding a buyer for his store-usually at sacrifice but more often he is forced to sell out stock and fixtures at joss, close up the place and face the prospect of beginning all over again late in life after the war if he is fortunate enough to come back.
 | If the women conscripts could save