Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/756

 74O HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE number of our societies concentrated on maternity and child wel- fare work; others in country districts took up fruit picking and preserving in order to conserve the national food supplies. It is really impossible to mention all our various activities. These were included under a general heading adopted at a Provincial Council meeting held in November, 1914, urging "our societies and all members of the Union to continue by every means in their power all efforts which had for their object the sustaining of the vital energies of the Nation so long as such special efforts may be required." The war work with which the name of the N.U.W.S.S. is most widely known was the formation of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service. This was initiated and organ- ised by the Hon. Sec. of our Scottish Federation, Dr. Elsie. Inglis, and was backed by the whole of the N.U.W.S.S. (See Life of Dr. E. Inglis by Lady Frances Balfour.) Meeting at first with persistent snubbing from the Royal Army Medical Corps and the British Red Cross, Dr. Inglis formed her first hospital at the Abbaye de Royaument about thirty miles from Paris, officered entirely by women. Other units on similar lines quickly followed in France and Serbia. Their work was mag- nificent and was rapidly recognised as such by the military au- thorities and by all who came in contact with it. These hospitals probably produced by the example of their high standard of professional efficiency and personal devotion a permanent influ- ence on the development of the women's movement in those countries where they were located. They received no farthing of government money but raised the 428,856 pounds, which their audited accounts show as their net total to August 3, 1919, entirely by private subscription from all over the world including, of course, the United States. The N.U.W.S.S. were very early in the field of women's na^ tional work during the war because their members were already organised and accustomed to work together, but it is no exag- geration to say that the whole of the women of the country of all classes, suffragist and anti-suffragist, threw themselves into work for the nation in a way that had never been anticipated by those who had judged women by pre-war standards. Into