A HUGE SOCIAL PROBLEM.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15773, 14 December 1916, Page 8

A HUGE SOCIAL PROBLEM.

PREPARING FOB PEACE

DURING "\YAR

STATE ORGANISATION OF

LABOUR

(raoM a srici.vL coheesfondext.)

LONDON, October 20. "War eamo upon Great Britain, snddcnlv ;,nd found her unprepared. Only her latent capacity for rapid orgnnisation and improvisation prevented the great industrial disaster foretold by Norman Angell and the. pacifists. Britain's business men, her statesmen, her manufacturers and her leaders in all fields grappled with the problems, and the dislocation of trade and industry ■was rcduccd to a minimum. The subsequent immense growth of tho manufacture of munitions and war material of all kinds, not only for Britain herself but for all her Allies, did much to restore tho b&lanoe, and tho result is that to-<iay the •working classes arc really more prosperous than they liavo been in the memory of living man. There is literally "work for all" in England to-day. A far greater problem is now occupying the minds of Great Britain's organisers, und that is the preparation for pcacc. l'cacc, like war, may como unexpectedly, and when it comes Great Britain will be faced -with the problem of demobilising and getting back into civil life and ordinary industry something between seven and eight million /nen and women. Not only the actual soldiers will have to bo disbanded and placet!, in wage-earning jobs, but tho munition workers as well will have to be restored to the ranks of ordinary productive industry. Already tho Government is at "work preparing for the day when this will be necessf.TV, and there is little likelihood that it will be caught unawares. Tf the plan which has already been sketched out in broad outline, and which is now being worked out in detail is ready in time, the return to peace conditions should bo aeconjjjlished with a minimum of friction and trouble.

To begin with, the economists arc agreed that the problem to be worked out is mainly one of distribution. There will be plenty of work, it is believed, for a good many years after the coming of peace for the whole population. What :s needed is to bring tho men and the jobs together. "What -will happen, however, will be a sories of .local dumps coincident with local booms. Thus dl tho great, munitions towns which have sprung up during the war like mushroom towns during a gold rush or a real estate boom, will find their occupation gone, for a time at least. It is hoped that eventually arrangements may be made to turn most of tho factories into factories of peace, but that will take time, and cannot be begun until all tho need for their war activities has passed. Thus we will see wliolo towns unemployed as soon as the demand for shells and high explosives stops. On the other hand, we will see a tremendous demand for workers in other districts.

The woollen mills "will have & counle of years' leeway to make uo in the supply of warm clothing to the world, for there ha* been very little woollen cloth for the civilian in these days, when all the woo! is wanted for the Army. Farmers will -want new agricultural machinery to replace that worn out during tho war. there will be a tremendous demand for motor vehicles of all sorts to replace those worn out and destroyed, and to provide for the tremendous expansion of motor traction which is coming in England, and there will l>e a famine in dock labour at all the ports when the shipping trade of country returns to normal. The shipbuilding trade will be booming for many years to come. Add to all this the immense demand for material for rebuilding destroyed "Belgium, Northern France, and Poland, and you can see ili&t there will be plenty of work to bo done, and that the problem is merely one of distribution. It is abont the biggest problem of labour distribution, liowever, that tho world has ever faced.

It is being faced by England on a big scale. The first step is to find out -who and -where the workers are, and -where and by whom they will be required. The Reconstruction Committee, which was appointed a few months ago by the Prime Minister, is lmTd at work on these problems, and the commandeering of the ipagnificcnt National Liberal Club building was oar of the first, steps in the after-the-war reorganisation. ~ This building is to be the homo of a gig&ntic card index, which will contain the names of all men in the Arir.y, particulars of their work in civil lif<x their promises or hopes of employment after discharge from the Amy, and so on. It is proposed to make this card index part of the basis of demobilisation. Other committees nro now conferring witli the great employers of England, both as individuals and by industries, and before very long the Government will have at its disposal not only tlic particulars of the capacity of every man in the Army, but the particulars of tho demand for his services. On the basis of these two classes of information it is proposed to conduct the demobilisation —subject, of course, in air cases, to military necessity. Perhaps it would be Veil at this stage to dispel tho popular delusion that ao soon as the war ends, or within a week or two, three or four million men will at onco cease to be soldiers and become civilian®. Nothing could bo further from tho fact. The completion of demobilisation in less than two years is not contemplated, and oven when it is completed the army will remain much larger than it was before the Kaiser plunged Europo into Armageddon. Demobolisation will go on at the rate of probably a hundred thousand a week, and tho problem will be to lot out the men for whom tho employers are clamouring, and to keep in the army the men for whose civilian labour there is no immediate demand. Thus engineers, for instance, will bo in demand immediately after the war. The C3rd index at the old National Liberal Club will supply a list of all tho engineers in the army, and the Engineering Employers' Federation will | be able to tell the Government hoiv j ninny engineers it c<tn givo ininiodifttc employment. A few weeks before demobilisation all the engineers in the army will be concentrated in tho units to be demobilised, and their places will be liken in their old units by men who a . ro . l l "° rc n £* led in the armv than in civil life The same will be done with suipbuiiders with cloth weavers, and so on. and the men will be directed to the districts whore tbcv are needed In most cases, indeed thev ma v go di'rect to jobs found for them by the Government Labour Exchanges. Hey will be entitled to have their fares paid to their new homos, and in the case of men of family the bonnty paid when they arc disbanded will doubtless cover the cost of the family moving. It may seem that such a svstem may causo endless disorganisation and confusion in the army, bnt it is only on a large scale the process that is going on all the timo. when unite which have been in action, and which havo been badly cut up, are sent back to be reorganised and filled up with fresh men It will only mean that in th e reconstituted units officers and men will to get acquainted, and this Ts muS easier under peace conditions than in all the hurry and excitement of war With regard to tho munition workers

tho same, plan will bo followed i. index will be made of tliem, and thri preferences and capacities i n lines of work eon Milted. Thtrv »!ii bo found jobs through tho Labour Er changes, and provide with trans™*,' tion to their new fields of aetivit? A problem which has been worrvin-r. good .many people is that of the wotnen but it is hehovcHl that »t will largS < .settle itseir. 11, ere are no av® figures of the number of WO men *»! workers, for thero mnst bo as maar or more women, working fo r plovers as for tho Government It i. estimated that there aro about a miL lion in Government employ A vm* largo proportion of these "aro women who have been employed at other form, of Tvork, such as domestic service teaching, clerking. c tc„ and who go back to their old work when th* war is oier. Another largo section of them are women who have no need ta work, and who are doing it from mt not;c motives, and will l>o glad to r£ turn to tho home when tho nation no longer needs their services. There xH!I be left, of course, a large number *)wl hare como into industry. an( l w jj 0 wish to stay in it, but it must be bora« in mind that there will bo a shortage of men. whose places iriH hat* to bo filled somehow, so that thai should bp no difficulty , n absorbing these women. Tho situation is full of possibility England after the war will \mdertt4» the solution of one of the biggest somi problems that any nation has ever been faced with. It is the whole the State organisation of labour and tho State's duty to provide employment for its citizens. Everyone admits that the State must find employment for it* soldiers when it no longer need* tW as fighting men. But in day every citizen of militarv age is 4 soldier, so that the State's clutv i* tended to all. T **"