We have women MPs, women JPs, women labour leaders, women preachers, women economists, women welfare workers. It is doubtful, however, whether the average woman would be any the worse off if the whole lot were scrapped tomorrow.

What have they done to guide us? When do they endeavour to enlighten us? How much have they taught us of the workings of the great world? Where, at the height of the recent war crisis, were our spokeswomen? Where were Lady Astor, MP, and Mrs Winteringham, MP? The voices that should have spoken to us in the hour of action were strangely dumb.

The woman in the street has even less time and ability than the man in the street to study those intricate problems on which her future and that of her children depend. It is a pity that some of those who aspire to share the honour of the government equally with men are so chary to take upon themselves its responsibility. It is a pity that their arduous public duties leave them no time to call at the back doors of Mrs Smith and Mrs Brown in order to bring there some spark of their over flowing enlightenment.

Women did much for the war, and the war did much for women, but its chief legacies to them were undoubtedly the false values and false vanity it implanted. At the beginning of this year those values threatened to upset our best possession - our practical sense of our own value. In our ambition to hold our own in man's world we foolishly aped all his worst stupidities. We bobbed our hair, we copied his poses, his drinks, his games, his very clothes.

There has never been a time, perhaps, when the maternal point of view has been more necessary as an inspiration and a practical means of help to the whole nation. A small boy beaten by an adult will beat the smaller boy simply because he has experienced the fact that it is safe to hurt some one smaller than himself. The beating of younger children is probably one of the contributory causes of world wars. It is, therefore, a crime against civilization.

The education of mothers is a matter of urgency in every modern state. But it is not a simple task. It requires first of all a realisation of the profound importance of the mother, and the necessity of so arranging matters that she-has a chance to do her job properly. Overcrowding, inadequate housing arrangements, old-fashioned installation for lighting, heating, washing, and cooking make it impossible for women to concentrate on motherhood. Maternal instincts are not good enough for the modern civilized mother. A vigorous campaign against flies and dirt is more effective than the passionate instincts of a million mothers in reducing the baby mortality from infantile diarrhoea.

If one develops more rapidly than the other, or if one shows signs of ceasing to develop sooner than the other, disaster threatens the marriage. There follows boredom, irritation, misunderstanding, unwillingness to co-operate, and all the psychological causes which lead to divorce - provided one is rich enough to afford divorce. With immense care and tact and tenderness on both sides a state of deep affection and friendship would supercede or be added to the earlier state of passion, which may only have been transient. Once this has been achieved it is almost bound to be lasting. I am firmly convinced - although this may shock many - that during the middle years of marriage a very great deal more freedom should be allowed to both husbands and wives. Our laws on sexual matters - breach of promise as well as divorce - may have something to be said in their favour. But what is certainly to be said against them is that they justify, if they do not sanctify, two of the basest of all human emotions - predatoriness and jealousy. They justify vindictiveness. And for this reason they are morally unsound. There is no financial compensation possible for loss of love.

The poverty was tragic. It was bad in Cordoba, worse in Granada, almost universal in Seville. Everywhere was economic, mental and physical depression. There was a lot of local opposition to the Republic, led and organized by the Church. The Government's natural idealistic incompetence was encouraged by systematic sabotage of every project attempted. The male working population was almost unanimously anarchist. The CNT and particularly the FAI were the strongest revolutionary parties. Socialism and Communism, or rather the Trotskyist deviation from that political creed, were in the minority. But almost the entire female population was firmly attached to Church politics, under the spiritual and political domination of the priesthood. Underneath all the beauty and glamour of the landscape, the architecture, the tradition, the romance, were rumblings of the political earthquake to come.

With the same pitiable gallantry, I had (at his age) vowed myself to the cause of Woman's Suffrage. You cannot have your propaganda and deny to your first, most loyal convert, the right to accept and act upon it. He was only doing what, had I been his age and sex, I would myself have done.

The vast majority were men of splendid types, honest and brave, who in greater or lesser degree were conscious of being engaged in a crusade to rescue democracy from the grip of Fascism. They were not all Communists nor members of their respective parties, although the leadership was always entrusted to Party members, most of whom set a high example in discipline and devotion to the rest. To them, and to all the poorly paid workers in the organisation, the material reward was trivial. They were bound fast in the service of an ideal, which they believed with religious fervor to be embodied and exemplified with brilliant success in the Soviet Fatherland.

Even Charlotte Haldane, who wrote as a staunch ex-communist, would not deny the selflessness of those, like herself, who helped in the formative stages of the International Brigades or of the men and women who fought in its ranks. She organized the system for the vetting and transportation of the British volunteers from Paris to Spain.

The fact that I would be aiding and abetting a transaction declared illegal by the British Government did not worry me at all. I was wholly on the side of the International Brigade and opposed to the Chamberlain Government's policy on Spain, disgusted by its apparent fraternisation with the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists. I had allowed my only child to volunteer, and he was fighting the Fascists on the outskirts of Madrid. I was doing my best to help him and his comrades and their dependents; I was speaking everywhere in aid of Spain; I was an active worker in a noble, just, and lofty cause. The only nation in the whole world that was sponsoring the fight of the Spanish workers against Fascism was the Soviet Union; the Third International was putting to shame the timorous, almost traitorous inactivity of the Second International. I was proud to belong to the Party and the movement that was dedicated to freedom and liberty under the banners of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Back in Barcelona, I was particularly anxious to meet La Pasionaria, the famous Spanish woman Communist leader. After I had been kept waiting for some days, an appointment was made for me through the British political commissar. I bought a huge bunch of scarlet gladioli - there was no food in the shops, but there were plenty of flowers - and presented myself at the headquarters of the Spanish Communist Party, a large building, as closely fortified and guarded as a fortress. There were armed men everywhere. In due course I was ushered into an important and well-furnished office. Dolores Ibarruri rose from her seat behind a big mahogany desk, and came forward to greet me. She had a matronly but magnificent figure, and bore herself with that unselfconscious nobility and dignity that is so characteristic of certain

Spaniards, irrespective of birth or class. Her features were regular, aquiline; her eyes dark and flashing. She had splendid teeth, and her smile was young and feminine. The voice that in public meetings could enthrall thousands was, in private conversation, low and melodious, though still decisive. She told me with gleeful amusement stories of the terrible tales that had been spread about her by her political enemies. To the fascists she was a dread, Medusa-like legend. In fact, she was the daughter of an Asturian miner, and from childhood had been used to abject poverty and violent political strikes and battles to gain even the slightest amelioration of the living and working conditions of her people. She had been illiterate until her teens. Against tremendous odds, however, she had educated herself whilst earning her living. Her devotion to the Spanish working class was absolute and completely sincere. She became one of the greatest orators her country has produced, on a par with such oratorical stars as Jaures and Cachin in France. Her nickname was due to the fact that the passion which filled her whole personality and her voice when she defended her people or attacked their enemies was a mystical one, and the passion with which she preached her cause was akin to religious fervour. The hatred which she was certainly capable of feeling as well as inspiring was due to an unusual sensibility, an outraged compassion for her fellow men and women, the inversion of the immense love and loyalty by which she was equally inspired.