Page:Our Girls.pdf/76

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64
OUR GIRLS

were the first tidings of the victory of Waterloo. Standing on this central spot it is easy to imagine one can hear the hammering on thousands of anvils, and the hum and whirr of hundreds of thousands of lathes, at which women are working in the broad circle of greater London and the country round about.

It is a tremendous picture of war work such as the world has never before seen equalled in magnitude, and common justice requires that we should say that it is due in the first instance to the public spirit of the Captains of Industry (Generals of the King, as surely as any on the field, some leading their tens of thousands, others their twenties and thirties) who have submerged their private businesses in this malign but necessary business of the war as absolutely as the temple of Philae is submerged by the overwhelming waters of the Nile. Certain of them are said to be making fortunes. I know nothing about that. But I do know they are working for the nation as they never