From the News

Dated: May 20, 1916

DISCOURAGE WIVES OF OFFICERS GOING TO ENGLAND

London, May 18. -- Mainly on the ground that their presence tends to hamper efficiency in the Canadian forces in England and France, the agents-general in London of the provinces of Canada, assembled today in conference, passed a resolution calling upon the provincial governments to take steps to discourage officers' and soldiers' wives from coming to this country until the end of the war.

"There are over three thousand wives of officers and men of the Canadian forces now in the United Kingdom," said one agent-general, addressing his fellows, "and I understand this number is to be increased during the next two or three months at a rate of upwards of a thousand a week.

"Immediately they arrive the ladies communicate with their husbands, who perhaps have only just returned from the trenches, urging them to obtain a further few days' leave.  In the vast majority of cases this is, of course, impossible, owing to the military exigencies.  but in spite of that they persist, demanding the intervention of the agent-general and the high commissioner, and when they find they are helpless in the matter these good ladies take things into their own hands, and write the military authorities.  In not a few cases they have communicated with the commanding officer direct, without the knowledge of the husband, to whom such behaviour causes some anxiety."

"It is far better for the wives to remain in Canada with friends than to come here on an off chance of seeing their husbands and then spending several months amongst strangers."