But most significant to the woman movement of all lands is the welcome that the Usine de Guerre is extending to Azalie de Rigeaux. Of all the making over they have been doing for us in industry, this is perhaps the most revolutionary in its effects on the whole social structure. For when industry takes the baby, it means the passing of the wage envelope to a whole class of the population whose arms were hitherto literally too burdened to reach for it. Here at Ivry-sur-Seine they do not shake their heads and say, “Oh, you might have a baby. We prefer to employ a man who won’t.” On the contrary preference in employment is given to a woman who has a child. The only person who takes precedence of her is the woman with two children or, of course, with three. From the day that she signifies she is going to have another, she becomes an object of special solicitude. She will be shielded from any injurious strain. Because it may not be well for her to stand at the lathe, she will be transferred to the gauging department, where she may remain continuously seated. And, while the gauging department’s regular rate of pay is but 50 centimes an hour, her own job’s rate of pay, 60, 70, 80 centimes an hour, whatever it may be, will be continued. “But isn’t it an interruption to your business to have employés who every now and then have to stop to have a baby?” I asked the French manufacturer. “Ah, no, Madame,” he replied, “surely it is no disturbance at all. It is nothing even if a woman should wish to be absent for two or three months. Is she not serving her country? We simply arrange a large enough staff of employés so that always there are some to fill the gaps. Maternity is something that may be estimated by percentage. We count on it that Camille here will probably have a baby in July. Etienne, next to her, may have one in September. Well, by the time a substitute employé is finished with taking Camille’s place, she will be required in Etienne’s place, then, perhaps, in Azalie’s place. It is very easy, I say, to arrange.” And it is because the rising value of a baby makes it worth while. It is in France, where maternity has always been important, that all of the institutions for the welfare of the child now being rushed to completion in other lands have been originally invented. We in America, in some of our large cities, have started the “clinic” and the “consultation” and the _crèche_. Italy is inaugurating them. Russia sent to Paris for specific information about them before the war. Germany’s “Kaiserin Auguste Victoria Haus” in Berlin, a veritable “laboratory of the child,” from which the child culture system adapted from France has been developed for the Empire, is a monument to the national thoroughness, which, making military preparation for the conquest of the world, made maternity preparation on almost as comprehensive a scale.