UNSETTLED ENG LAND

Grey River Argus, 28 June 1919, Page 4

UNSETTLED ENG LAND

. <+. A FJVTKrM T L INTKURK(iNI"M. AS VIEWI'IJ) MY TIIK AM KIM CAN. 1 1 i.s iiupossililc for miy man, woman or jjirl wlu» Ims done any work in Hie grout war, either tin a Holtlior or a f'ju 1.---lory worker, to lie without money in England writes Mr. \V. (I. Shepherd for Ih,, New York "Evening J'ost"). Tho (lovonuuent jjivos money I'reo Io those ex->vorlcers who need it. It. lias been doing so since jt.h(t armistice nnd it will continue to do so until next May, according to present nrrnngoinonts If it didn't, give away money td ex-soldiei's and ojr-war workers no one knows what would, have happened in England by this time. The point is, it is doing it. Looking facts in tho face, there am 't jobs enough in England for the demobilised men and women; at least, not the sort of ,i°bs they want. It is an established fact that girls will not go back into domestic service; the new England will have to bo built up, in part, on that fact. Factory hands cannot find places because manufacturers, through lack of raw materials, cannot make contracts. The careful "Times" estimates that soon thero will be a million men and women out .of employment in England. • The astonishing fact is that these unemployed will all have money enough to live on until May whether they work or not. A STRANGE UNSETTLEDNESS. It is this fact that- gives the .. new* comer to England a strange .sense of unusettledncssl There is a holiday feeling everywhere; ' an atmosphere of waiting and expectancy. • One, at.. first attributes this to. tho fact that peace is .not yet signed; tho American visitor hero is inclined to believe at first that England will riot really celebrate •the end of the war until^he peace papers arc signed in France. But I believe that this judgment, is wrong. England is not. waiting for signatures; she knows, as well as any of the rest of us that the war is over. England is unsettled because so- few of her folk have settled down to steady lives, and so few of them see any way -.of. doing so. ' '-.•"."* ■ The British Government ' to-day is' paying to every discharged .soldierabout 7.25 dollars a week, and it will continue to do so for si months • after his discharge, or until he finds a job. Every man who worked in munitions will receive the same sum per week for a quarter of a. year after his war work ends, or until he finds a peace-time job Every "woman or girl who worked in the war factories will receive 6dol; 25 cents: a week from t'ho Government for half .a' year, or until she finds a position. It has not yet been publicly stated how many millions will find their way ro the non-employment pension list of: tho Government. VOUCHERS FOR EACH DAY'S PAY. Each person wjio draws this allowance from the Government must report daily to an allowance office in lift; district and sign a voucher for that day's pay.- In some districts, I am told, there are «o many pensioners the . office force cannot hunc'le the crowds and, ia the good old British fashion of slashing your way through a cocoon of red tape when it gets too thick, the ' unemployed are told to call every two or three days instead of daily. With these hundreds of thousands of working men and women on the Government pay-roll, living without producing, the question arises as to what will happen next May when those who first began to draw the- non-employ-ment pension find that their allowance has been withdrawn. Of course, by that time it is hoped tTiat the industries of England will have begun to stand on their own legs. There is a tendency among the labour unions and the 7nen in the factory to ' 'move over a bit and giv ( » somebody else a bench in the factory too." This tendency expresses itself in the; many strikes for shorter hours. Nobody, so 1 far *as I can learn, in any English factory or on any English railway or in any English mine wants hereafter to work more than forty-seven hours a week, and there have been many strikes and will be more for tljis demand.' Tho labour leaders give us one of the chief reasons for this scale of hours the fact that shorter hours mean jobs for more people. -.-;• . ' . -.. Thos o who are working in England seem to b e able to win anything they strike forl _ The result, is one gets

Uio impression that they have come fo tlic place where ihey t\on ? t. know whut nnn - « to usk for, and still feel that they must :i'.sk in order to keep the upper hand. TOO FAELY BREAKFASTS, SAY WIVES. The winning of the eight-hour day, for instance, brought about si peculiar 'complication. In the old days when an Englissh factory hand went to work at six his Avife put-up his breakfast for him the night, before, and he took it to work with him, and ate it about X o'clock. If he lived near the factory ho 'came home at 8, and had breakfast there. The new . eighthour day doesn't give him the 8 o'clock breakfast hour. He must be at work at S o 'clock, ready to work on until noon. He must, therefore, have breakfast befor.e he leaves home. That means that his wife must get up early in tho morning as he djoes, if not earlier, and prepare tho morning meal. And she has declared against this. The British workingman went ahead and got union hours for himself that suited liis own fancy, but he had forgotten to take his wife's wishes intp account. When she discovered after her husband had won his eight-hour day that it meant for her an early , rising she put her foot down on the whole thing, and many of the unions ns a result of "trouble with the women folks" at home," ar c preparing to ask for a working day that begins at 9 o'clock in the morning. If they do i ask for it,- they'll got it, too. THE SHOP STEWARD. Recently the union leaders • have found ; thpir men getting, out of hand. The shop steward system,. 1 which .grew up in tlie war, and which is somewhat like the system which • John .D. Rocke- . fellow, jun.', advocated at tlie' Atlantic . City.^business men 's conference in Doi comber, is threatening . in- some diis-. tricts, like 'the Clyde ship work, to overrun the old union system; 'Under the shop steward system a .representative of the men in each department "of a' factory, known as a shop [ steward, stands between them arid; ' • their employers and . speak their wishes directly to the employer, without the medium of a district union leader. .In fhe great factories the various stewards in each department, elect a head •steward, who is known, as the governor His "power-i n a factory is tremendous; : as he speaks directly for the men or for any group of the men> -.- . -' . '