Women and War Work

As the months went on women began to be absorbed more and more into industry. Men were going into the army ceaselessly, our war needs were growing greater and our women found work opening out more and more. The Women's Service Bureau had been opened within a week of the outbreak of war and had done valuable work in placing women, before the Board of Trade issued its first official appeal to women, additional to those already in industry, to volunteer for War Service. It was sent out by Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, and read as follows:

The President of the Board of Trade wishes to call attention to the fact that in the present emergency, if the full fighting power of the nation is to be put forth on the field of battle, the full working power of the nation must be made available to carry on its essential trades at home. Already, in certain important occupations there are not enough men and women to do the work. This shortage will certainly spread to other occupations as more and more men join the fighting forces.

In order to meet both the present and the future needs of national industry during the war, the Government wish to obtain particulars of the women available, with or without previous training, for paid employment. Accordingly, they invite all women who are prepared, if needed, to take paid employment of any kind—industrial, agricultural, clerical, etc.—to enter themselves upon the Register of Women for War Service which is being prepared by the Board of Trade Labour Exchanges.

Any woman living in a town where there is a Labour Exchange can register by going there in person. If she is not near a Labour Exchange she can get a form of registration from the local agency of the Unemployment Fund. Forms will also be sent out through a number of women's societies.

The object of registration is to find out what reserve force of women's labour, trained or untrained, can be made available if required. As from time to time actual openings for employment present themselves, notice will be given through the Labor Exchanges, with full details as to the nature of work, conditions, and pay, and, so far as special training is necessary, arrangements will, if possible, be made for the purpose.

Any woman who by working helps to release a man or to equip a man for fighting does national war service. Every woman should register who is able and willing to take employment.

The forms were sent out in large numbers through the women's societies of the country, and it was stated on them that women were wanted at once for farm-work, dairy work, brush-making, leather stitching, clothing, machinery and machining for armaments.

By next day the registrations were 4,000, mostly middle-class women, and in the first week 20,000 registered and an average of 5,000 a week after, but the mass of women who registered waited with no real lead or use of them for a long time. The Government seemed to suffer from a delusion a great many people have, that if you have enough machinery and masses of names something is being done, but you do not solve any problem by registers. You solve it by getting the workers and the work together.

The Government had not approached employers at first, but had left it to them entirely to take the initiative in this great replacement. This they had to a considerable extent done, using the Labour Exchanges and the other agencies and women were more and more quickly, steadily, ceaselessly replacing men.

The appeals for women for munition work were most swiftly responded to and educated women volunteered in thousands, as did working girls and women.

The question of assisting employment by fitting more women for commercial and industrial occupations was considered by the Government, and in October, 1915, the Clerical and Commercial Occupations Committee was appointed by the Home Office—a similar committee being set up for Scotland. It arranged with the London County Council and with local authorities that their Education Committees should initiate emergency courses all over the country for training in general clerical work, bookkeeping and office routine. The courses lasted from three to ten weeks, and the age of the students varied from eighteen to thirty-five.

Many free courses were inaugurated by business firms in large London stores, notably Harrods and Whiteleys, where their courses included all office and business training. Six week courses of free training for the grocery trade, for the boot trade, lens making, waiting, hairdressing, etc., were also given.

Our woman labor has been found to be quite mobile and girls have moved in thousands from one part of the country to another, and the munition girl travelling home on holiday on her special permit is a familiar figure.

The registration, placing and moving of our workers is all done by our Labour Exchanges, now renamed Employment Exchanges and transferred from the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Labour.

When the National Service Department was set up, a Women's Branch was established with Mrs. H.J. Tennant, and Miss Violet Markham as Co-directors, and they made various appeals, registered women for the land, munitions, W.A.A.C. and for wood cutting and pitprop making. A great demonstration of "Women's Service" was held in the Albert Hall in January 17, 1917, at which Mrs. Tennant and Miss Markham, Lord Derby, Minister of War; Mr. Prothero, President of the Board of Agriculture, and Mr. John Hodge, Minister of Labour, spoke and at which the Queen was present. It was an appeal to women for more work and a registration of their determination to go on doing all that was needed. The men's message was one to equals—they asked great things. A message from Queen Mary was read for the first time at any public meeting and it was the only occasion on which she has attended one.

The number of women now in our industry directly replacing men, according to our latest returns, is over one and a quarter millions. This does not include domestic service, where our maids grow less and less numerous and Sir Auckland Geddes, Director of National Service, tells us he is considering cutting down servants in any establishment to not more than three, and it does not include very small shops and firms.

The processes in industry in which women work are numbered in hundreds. The War Office in 1916 issued an official memorandum for the use of Military Representatives and Tribunals setting forth the processes in which women worked and the trades and occupations, and giving photographs of women doing unaccustomed and heavy work, to guide the Tribunals in deciding exemptions of men called up for Military Service.

In professional work today women are everywhere. There are 198,000 women in Government Departments, 83,000 of these new since the war. They are doing typing, shorthand, and secretarial work, organizing and executive work. They are in the Censor's office in large numbers and doing important work at the Census of Production. There are 146,000 on Local Government work. The woman teacher has invaded that stronghold of man in England, the Boys' High and Grammar Schools, and is doing good work there. They are replacing men chemists in works, doing research, working at dental mechanics, are tracing plans. They are driving motor cars in large numbers. Our Prime Minister has a woman chauffeur. They are driving delivery vans and bringing us our goods, our bread and our milk. They carry a great part of our mail and trudge through villages and cities with it. They drive our mail vans, and I know two daughters of a peer who drive mail vans in London. I know other women who never did any work in their lives who for three years have worked in factories, taking the same work, the same holidays, the same pay as the other girls. Women are gardeners, elevator attendants, commissionaires and conductors on our buses and trams, and in provincial towns drive many of the electric trams.

In the railways they are booking clerks, carriage and engine cleaners and greasers, and carriage repairers, cooks and waiters in dining cars, platform, parcel and goods porters, telegraphists and ticket collectors and inspectors, and labourers and wagon sheet repairers. They work in quarries, are coal workers, clean ships, are park-keepers and cinema operators. They are commercial travellers in large numbers. They are in banks to a great extent and are now taking banking examinations.

There was a very strong feeling as the replacement by women went on that there must be no lowering of wage standards which would not only be grossly unfair to women but imperil the returning soldier's chance of getting his post back.

Mrs. Fawcett, on behalf of the Women's Interests Committee of the N.U.W.S.S., called a conference on the question of War Service and wages in 1915, and Mr. Runciman stated at the conference:

As regards the wages and conditions on which women should be employed, as a general principle the Exchanges did not, and could not, take direct responsibility as to the wages and conditions, beyond giving in each case such information as was in their possession. In regard, however, to Government contractors, it had been laid down that the piece rates for women should be the same as for men, and further special instructions had been given to the Exchanges to inform inexperienced applicants of the current wages in each case, so that they should be fully apprised as to the wage which it was reasonable for them to ask. A general safeguard against permanent lowering of wages by the admission of women to take the place of men on service would be made by asking employers, so far as possible, to keep the men's places open for them on their return.

Wages in most cases are at the same rate as men, and as women are organized in Britain in large numbers, the Trades Unions and Women's Committees are always alive and ready to act on the question of payment and conditions. Our workers, men and women, are very well paid and despite high prices, were never more comfortable, and never saved more. The call for women to replace men still goes on in Britain. Miners are going to be combed out again. The Trade Unions have been again approached by the Premier and Sir Auckland Geddes on this question of man power. The Battalions must be filled up—in France we need 2,000,000 men all the time and of these 1,670,000 are from our own Islands.

It is calculated there are in Britain today—Ireland is not tapped in woman power any more than in man power—less than a million women who could do more important work for the war than they are now doing. Most of these are already doing work of one kind or another, but could probably do more.

Our homes, our industries, munitions, the land, hospitals, Government service and the Waac's are absorbing us in our millions. Britain could not have raised her Army and Navy and could not now keep her men in the field without the mobilization of her women and their ceaseless, tireless work behind her men, and as substitutes for them, in the working life of the community.

CHAPTER VI

WOMEN IN MUNITIONS

—RUDYARD KIPLING.

"Hats off to the Women of Britain!"—Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in The Times, November 28, 1916.

When war broke out the Government had three National workshops producing munitions—today it has 100, and it controls over 5,000 establishments through the Ministry of Munitions, many of which are continually growing in size.

The total output has increased over thirty-fold but in many cases increase in production has been far greater. In guns, the production of 4.5 field howitzers is over fifty times as large; of machine guns and howitzers over seventy times and of heavy howitzers (over 6 inch) over 420 times as large.

More small shell is now made in a fortnight than formerly in a year, and the increase in output of heavy shell has been still larger. Equally striking results have been attained in the production of machine guns, aeroplanes motor bodies, and the other war supplies, for which demand and replacement have necessarily grown with the demand for guns and shells. To these have to be added the ships and the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft machines and devices that have been demanded by the enemy's method of warfare.

This work has only been possible in a country that has raised five million men, 75 per cent from our own islands, because of what women have done.

Today there are between 800,000 and 1,000,000 women in munitions works in our country, and the history of their entry and work is a wonderful one. Women themselves were quicker than the Government to realize how much they would be needed in munitions, and started to train before openings were ready.

Women realized vividly what Lloyd George's speech of June, 1915, made clear, the urgent, terrible need of our men for more munitions—the Germans could send over ten shells to our one—and women volunteered in thousands for munition work.

The London Society for Women's Suffrage, which was running "Women's Service," had women volunteers for munitions in enormous numbers and tried to secure openings for them. It investigated and found that acetylene welders were badly needed. There were very few in Britain, and welding is essential for aircraft and other work, so they started to find out if there were classes for training women, and found none in Technical Schools were open to women. They found welders were needed very much in certain aircraft factories in the neighborhood of London and the manager of one assured them that if women were trained satisfactorily for oxy-acetylene welding, he would give them a trial. So "Women's Service" decided to open a small workshop and secured Miss E.C. Woodward, a metal worker of long standing, as instructor. The school was started in a small way with six pupils. Oxy-acetylene welding is the most effective way of securing a perfect weld without any deleterious effect upon the metal.

The great heat needed for the purpose of uniting two or more pieces of metal so as to make of them an autogenous whole is obtained, in this process, by the burning of acetylene gas in conjunction with oxygen.

Carbide, looking like little lumps of granite, is placed in a tray at the bottom of the generator for acetylene gas, which is of the form of a small portable gasometer. The tap, admitting water to the carbide trays, is turned on, and gas at once generates, and forces up the generator in the way so familiar to those who often see a gasometer. This gas passes through a tube to the blow-pipe of the welder, or to any other use for which it is destined.

In oxy-acetylene welding, the process employs the flame produced by the combustion in a suitable blow-pipe of oxygen and acetylene. When a light is applied to the nozzle of the pipe a yellow flame, a foot long, flares up, and in the centre of it, close to the nozzle, appears a very small, dazzling, bluish flame, which can only safely be gazed upon by eyes protected by coloured glasses. The temperature of this flame at the apex is about 6,300 degrees Fahr., and it is with this that the metals to be welded together are brought to a suitable degree of heat.

The workers' eyes are protected by black goggles, their hair confined by caps or handkerchiefs, and overalls or leather-aprons protect their clothes from the sparks and also from the smuts which naturally accrue on surrounding objects. Each welder holds in her right hand the blow-pipe of the craft, from which depends two long flexible tubes, one conducting oxygen from the tall cylinder in the corner, and the other acetylene from the generator. In her left hand she holds the welding-stick of soft Swedish iron, from which tiny molten drops fall upon the glowing edges of the metal to be welded together. The work is fascinating even to the onlooker, and to see the result, metal so welded you feel it is impossible it ever could have been two pieces, is still more fascinating.

The first welders triumphantly passed their tests and gave every satisfaction in the factory, and the training went on and the School was enlarged.

The oxy-acetylene welders turned out by this School have gone all over the country and 220 were trained and placed in the first year. Those selected were, with few exceptions, educated women, which was undoubtedly a material factor in the success of their work. This School opened training to women and welding is now taught to women in many of our Technical Schools. A class in Elementary Engineering has also been carried on by Women's Service with great success and the women placed in workshops.

The Ministry of Munitions has also arranged, in conjunction with the London County Council and other Educational Authorities, to have free munition training for women at every centre in the Kingdom. The courses vary from six to nine weeks and maintenance grants are paid during the period of training.

In October, 1915, the Central Labour Supply Committee which dealt with women's and men's conditions, issued certain recommendations in Circular L.2. These dealt with the conditions and rates of pay of women and fully skilled and unskilled men. The provision of this much-discussed circular that affected women doing skilled work was in Clause 1, which provides that "Women employed on work customarily done by fully skilled tradesmen shall be paid the time rates of the tradesman whose work they undertake."

These provisions were then only binding on the Government establishments, and could not be enforced by the Ministry of Munitions in controlled establishments. On December 31, 1915, a conference was held between the Prime Minister, the Minister of Munitions and representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, when an agreement in regard to "dilution" was arranged. Circular L. 2 was adopted at this conference as the basis of the undertaking given by the Ministry in regard to dilution of labor. An employer under it can be punished as contravening the Munitions Act if he fails to carry out the direction of the Minister. The power of enforcing the provisions of L. 2 were acquired in January, 1916, and it is quite obvious that in this circular a principle of the greatest importance to men and women is laid down. Women were wholly averse to being "blacklegs" in industry.

The great work of "Dilution" in Munitions—and by dilution we mean the use in industry of unskilled, semi-skilled and woman labor, so that highly skilled men may not be used except for the most important work—is done by the Dilution Department of the Ministry of Munitions, which issues Dilution of Labour Bulletins and Process Sheets periodically, showing the work women are doing. A series of exhibitions of women's work have also been arranged by the Technical Section of the Labour Supply Department in all the big towns in England. In Sheffield over 16,000 people came to see the Exhibition—the largest number of these being foremen and workmen sent by their firms.

The Exhibitions consist of two main sections, one of which shows actual samples of munitions made by women, and the other of photographs of women doing work on apparatus or processes that could not be shown. A complete Clerget engine, for instance, was lent by the Air Board to illustrate the final assembly of the numerous parts of these engines being made wholly or partly by women. In the same way, many parts of complete Stokes Guns, Vickers Machine Guns and Service Rifles were exhibited. The exhibits were divided into fifteen groups. The first group dealing with engines for aircraft. The second group showed engines for motor cars, tanks, tractors, motor buses, motor lorries and motor vehicles.

A separate group consisted of a variety of accessories for internal combustion engines, including air pump for the Clerget engine, which is completely manufactured and assembled by women, largely under women supervision; and magnetos, a very important and accurate industry, before the war largely in German hands, of which women now undertake the entire manufacture.

The fourth group dealt with steam engines, including details of locomotives, high speed engines, steam winches, and steam turbines.

The next two groups dealt respectively with guns and components and with small arms.

The next three groups included gauges, drills, cutters, punches and dies, trucks, jigs, tap pieces and general tool-room work. The gauges included plug, ring, cylinder and screw gauges to the closest degrees of accuracy, which in practice are verified by the rigid inspection of the National Physical Laboratory.

A fair illustration of the accuracy that is habitually required in a large volume of work is to be seen in the final gauging and inspection of a screw gauge for a fuse, in which the women inspectors were described in the catalogue as examining these screws by an optical projection apparatus, magnifying fifty times, with the help of which the inspector notes the defects in size and form, and the necessary corrections.

The cutting tools included sets of cutters for the manufacture of shells, as well as twist drills, reamers, milling cutters, gear cutters, screwing dies, taps and lathe tools. Some of this work is of high accuracy, and a set of solid screwing dies has the particular interest that almost all the operations are carried out by women after they have been in the shop for a fortnight. The general tool-room work included an exhibit of seventy-one punches and dies for cartridge making. Another set of dies was shown for small-arms ammunition, and specimens were also exhibited of chucks, die-heads and other work.

Two other groups dealt with the metal fittings and wooden structural parts of aircraft, and to see girls work on these is intensely interesting—anything more fragile looking and more beautiful than the long uncovered wing it would be difficult to find. A notable feature of the metal group was a number of parts that are marked off from drawings by women working under a woman charge-hand, and themselves making their own scribing-templates when necessary. Many examples of welding work were also shown.

There were Optical Munitions and medical and surgical glass and X-ray tubes made entirely by women, and the Exhibitions record the progress of women in Munitions in the most wonderful and striking way.

Mr. Ben. H. Morgan, Chief Officer, in a recent speech on Munitions and Production said:

"Labor had to be found to staff the thousands of factories in which this stupendous production was to be carried out, and it has been possible to find it only by subdividing work closely, and entrusting a large variety of machinery and fitting to women, with the help of the fullest possible equipment of jigs and all available appliances for mechanically defining and facilitating the work, and of instruction by skilled men. By this means an output has been obtained that will compare favorably with that of any class of workers in any country. Comparing, for instance, our women's figures of output on certain sizes of shell and types of fuses with those of men in the United States, I found recently that the women's machining times were not only as good but in many cases better than those of men in some of the best organized American shops.

"This is an extraordinary result to have been obtained from women who, for the most part, had never known either the work or the discipline of factory life, and were wholly unused to mechanical operations. More than one circumstance has doubtless contributed to making it possible; but it is my assured conviction that foremost among the incentives by which women have been helped has been their constant thought of their flesh and blood, their husbands, brothers, sons, sweethearts, in the trenches. I know a typical example in a Yorkshire mother, who early in the war sent her only son to the fighting line. The lad was a skilled mechanic, and she took his place at his lathe in the Leeds shops where he worked. She is not only keeping this job going, but her output on the job she is doing is a record for the whole country."

The women workers' productions has been admirable and is steady and continues so. The Manchester Guardian of November 15, 1915, astounded women and men alike by its announcement that "figures were produced in proof of the very startling assertion that the output of the women munition workers is slightly more than double that of men."

In the latest Dilution of Labour Bulletin this is recorded:

"A firm in the London and South Eastern district making propellers for aeroplanes has recently begun the employment of women, and the results are exceeding all expectations. As an instance it is reported that five women are now doing the work of scraping, formerly done by six men, with an increase of 70 per cent in output."

The way in which managers, foremen and skilled men have trained and helped the women and work with them cannot be too highly praised—the success of "dilution"—the ability of women to help their country in this way, was only possible through the good will and co-operation of our great Trade Unions and skilled men.

Women supervisors and examiners are trained at Woolwich, and the first of these were found by "Women's Service," and we find women control and manage large numbers of women in the big works extremely well. One girl of twenty-three, the daughter of a famous engineer, is controlling the work of 6,000 women who are working on submarines, guns, aircraft, and all manner of munitions.

One great engineer who believes in women and women's future in engineering has started what we might term an engineering college for women.

He has built a model factory away in the hills "somewhere in Scotland" with four tiers of ferro-cement floors. It is built with the idea of taking 300 women students and eight months after it opened, it had sixty women students. It is a factory entirely for women, run by, and to a large extent managed by women, with the exception of two men instructors. In the ground floor the girls are working at parts of high power aeroplane engines, under their works superintendent, a woman who took her Mathematical Tripos at Newnham College, and was lecturer at one of our girls' public schools. The women rank as engineer apprentices and their hours are forty-four a week. The first six months are probationary with pay at 20/- ($5) a week, and the students are doing extremely well.

"Women are now part and parcel of our great army," said the Earl of Derby, on July 13, 1916, "without them it would be impossible for progress to be made, but with them I believe victory can be assured."

Mr. Asquith, too, has paid his tribute to the woman munition maker and to others who are doing men's work. In a memorable speech on the Second Reading of the Special Register Bill, he admitted that the women of this country have rendered as effective service in the prosecution of the war as any other class of the community. "It is true they cannot fight in the gross material sense of going out with rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition factories, they are doing the work which the men who are fighting had to perform before, they have taken their places, they are the servants of the State and they have aided in the most effective way in the prosecution of the war."

Our munition women are in the shipyards, the engineering shops, the aeroplane sheds, the shell shops, flocking in thousands into the cities, leaving homes and friends to work in the munition cities we have built since the war. When our great arsenals and factories empty, women pour out in thousands. Night and day they have worked as the men have and it has been no easy or light task. We know that still more will be demanded of us, but we think, as our four million men do, that these things are well worth doing for the freedom of the souls of the nations.

In the munition factories that feeling and conviction burns like a flame and the enemy who thinks to demoralize our men and our women by bombing our homes and our workshops finds the workers, men and women, only made more determined.

The women handle high explosives in the "danger buildings" for ten and a half hours in a shift, making and inserting the detonating fuses, where a slip may result in their own death and that of their comrades. Working with T.N.T. they turn yellow—hands and face and hair—and risk poisoning. They are called the "canary girls," and if you ask why they do it they will tell you it isn't too much to risk when men risk everything in the trenches—and sometimes the one they cared for most is in a grave in France or on some other front, and they "carry on."

The Prime Minister paid a tribute to munition makers in one of his speeches when he said:

"I remember perfectly well when I was Minister of Munitions we had very dangerous work. It involved a special alteration in one element of our shells. We had to effect that alteration. If we had manufactured the whole thing anew it would have involved the loss of hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition at a time when we could not afford it. But the adaptation of the old element with a fuse is a very dangerous operation, and there were several fatal accidents. It was all amongst the women workers in the munition factories; there was never a panic. They stuck to their work. They knew the peril. They never ran away from it."

CHAPTER VII

THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

—JOHN OXENHAM.

The Ministry of Munitions has a great department devoted to the work of looking after our workers' interests.

This department of the Ministry was established by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Rowntree, whose work is so well known, was put in charge.

The health of the Munition Workers' Committee was set up when the Ministry was established with the concurrence of the Home Secretary, "To consider and advise on questions of industrial fatigue, hours of labor, and other matters affecting the personal health and physical efficiency of workers in munition factories and work shops."

Sir George Newman, M.D., is chairman of the committee and the two women members are Mrs. H.J. Tennant and Miss R.E. Squire. Memoranda on various industrial problems have been drawn up by the committee and acted upon—the first being on Sunday labour.

In the early part of the war our men and women frequently worked seven days in the week and shifts were very long for women as for men. Practically no holidays were taken in answer to Lord Kitchener's appeals. The regulations preventing women from working on Sunday had been removed in a limited number of cases. The investigation of the committee in November, 1915, showed that Sunday labor when it meant excessive hours was bad and it did not increase output, that the strain on foremen and managers in particular was very great, and they recommended a modification of the policy.

In a later Memorandum, No. 12, on output in relation to hours of work, very interesting figures were given, practically all showing increased output as a result of shorter hours of labor.

The committee reported in Memorandum No. 5 that it was of the opinion that continuous work by women in excess of the normal legal limit of sixty hours per week ought to be discontinued as soon as practicable, and that the shift system should be used instead of overtime.

A special Memorandum, No. 4, was entirely concerned with the employment of women and dealt with hours, conditions, rest and meals, management and supervision, and it strongly urged every precaution and protection for women.

The Welfare Department meantime had started on its work of securing, training and appointing Welfare Supervisors, Miss Alleyne looking after that branch of the work.

The Department was "charged, with the general responsibility of securing a high standard of conditions" for the workers.

The growth of the work has been enormous. The Ministry of Munitions today has large numbers of Welfare Supervisors with every Government establishment and the controlled establishments have them also. In Government shops they are paid by the Ministry, in controlled establishments by the management and their appointment is notified to the Welfare Department.

The Ministry has issued a leaflet on "Duties of Welfare Supervisors for Women," which is given at the end of this chapter.

It will be seen that the Welfare Worker must be a rather wonderful person. She must be tactful, know how to handle girls, and be a person of judgment and decision. We have succeeded in securing a very large number of admirable women and excellent work is being done. The Welfare Workers are in their turn inspected by Welfare Inspectors and Miss Proud, the Chief Inspector in dangerous factories, who sees the precautions against risk of poisoning from Tri-nitro-toluol, Tetryl, the aeroplane wing dope, etc., are all carried out by the management, has written an admirable textbook on welfare work. The country for this purpose is divided into nine areas, and two women inspectors work in each.

Woolwich Arsenal is one of our great centres of women's work and the Chief Welfare Supervisor there, Miss Lilian Barker, is the most capable woman Supervisor in Britain, a statesman among Supervisors. Any visitor to the Arsenal cannot help being struck by the general impression of contentment, happiness and health of the woman worker there in her thousands. It is rare to see a sickly face among them, even among the girls in the Danger Zone. Miss Barker is constantly adding to her own staff of supervisors and training others for provincial centres. She and her Assistants interview new hands and arrange changes and transfers of women. She enquires into all complaints, advises as to clothing, keeps an eye on the vast canteen organization of Woolwich, and initiates schemes for recreation—notices of whist drives, dances and concerts are constantly up on the boards. The housing of the immigrant workers—no small problem, she and her assistants deal with. They suggest improvements in conditions and are awake to signs of illness or overfatigue. They follow the worker home and look after the young mother and the sick girl and women.

Hostels have been built there and all over the country by the Government and by factory owners, and the Hostel Supervisors have a big and useful work to do.

They are very well arranged with a room for each girl and nice rest rooms, dining rooms and good sickroom accommodations. Rules are cut down to a minimum. Most Supervisors find out ways of working without them.

"Smoking is allowed at this end of the restroom," said one Superintendent, "but since we have permitted this recreation, it seems to have fallen out of favour," which seems to show munition girls are very human.

Hutments have also been built for married couples. Lodgings are inspected and when suitable, scheduled for workers coming to the area. In some cases the management in private factories do not adopt formal welfare workers but get a woman of the right type and put her in charge of the female operatives, with generally excellent results. The value of the influence of this work on our girls cannot be over-estimated—it is an influence of the very best kind, and our experiences in munition and welfare work, every class of women working together, is going to be of great and permanent good.

The professional woman and the girls who flock to London in large numbers for work in Government Departments, must be housed also, and there are many extremely good Hostels. Bedford House, the old Bedford College for Women, is now a delightful Hostel run by the Y.W.C.A., whose work for munition girls deserves very special mention. They had Hostels over the country before the war and have added to these. They have set up Clubs all over the country for the girls in munitions and industry in 150 centres, and these are very much appreciated and used by thousands of girls.

The feeding of the munition worker is another great piece of work. It started, like so many of our things, in voluntary effort. The conditions of the men and women working all night and without any possibility of getting anything warm to eat and drink and, exhausted with their heavy work, made people feel something must be done, and the first efforts were to send round barrows with hot tea and coffee and sandwiches, etc. More and more it was realized that the provision of proper meals for the workers, men and women, was indispensable for the maintenance of output on which our fighting forces depended for their very lives—and the Government, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A. and various other agencies, started to establish canteens. The Y.W.C.A. alone in its canteens serves 80,000 meals a week. Large numbers of private firms have established their own canteens.

The Health of Munition Workers Committee reported, in November, 1915, that it was extremely desirable to establish canteens in every factory in which it would be useful. Many canteens existed before the war, but they have been added to enormously and the recommendations of the committee as to accessibility, attractiveness, form, food and service carried out.

The Canteen Committee of the Liquor Control Board who have looked after this work have issued an admirable official pamphlet, "Feeding the Munition Worker," in which plans for construction and all details are given. An ideal canteen should always provide facilities for the worker to heat his or her own food.

The prices are very reasonable, and in most cases only cover cost of food and service, soup and bread is 4 cents—cut from joint and two vegetables, 12 to 16 cents.