and necessary step, not so much
because of actual fraudulent appeals--there has been practically none
of that, but there was a certain amount of overlapping and of waste of
money, material and energy, and some very few organizations in which
an undue proportion of funds raised was absorbed in expenses. Comforts
for soldiers and prisoners of war parcels are also now co-ordinated
under two national committees.

The first work of registering Belgian refugees and of providing French
and Flemish interpreters was done by a voluntary organization--the
London Society for Women's Suffrage (a branch of N.U.W.S.S.), which
has always been notable for its admirable organization. It provided
150 interpreters for this work in a few days, and work was carried on
at all the London Centres from early morning till midnight. When the
Government took over the charge of Belgian refugees, the system of
registration used by the London Society was adopted without change by
them and the organizer in charge was taken over also and put in a very
responsible position at the War Refugees Committee's Headquarters.

The work of our Government Employment Exchanges (which were
established before the War by the Board of Trade) and are now under
the Ministry of Labour--has been supplemented by various Professional
Women's Bureaus, by the compiling of a Professional Women's Register,
secured through Universities, Colleges, Headmistresses' Association,
etc., and by the setting up of the Women's Service Bureau by the
London Society for Women Suffrage (N.U.W.S.S.). Various women's
organizations have established most valuable clearing houses for
voluntary workers in Scotland and England and Wales. The Women's
Service Bureau has dealt with 40,000 applications for voluntary and
paid work--mostly paid. Its interviewers take the greatest trouble to
place these applicants suitably, and to find out just what they can do
or would be good at doing.

Our biggest Government arsenal secured their first munition
supervisors through it--and the Government Departments, big firms,
factories, organizations, banks, workshops, institutions of any kind,
send to it for workers.

It not only finds these posts without charge--it is supported entirely
by voluntary contribution--but it has a loan and grant fund to enable
women and girls without money to pay for training and maintenance.

Its records and the letters in its flies provide reading that is
as absorbing as any novel