WELFARE WORK

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 46, 22 February 1917, Page 2

WELFARE WORK

HUMANITY IN FACTORY "LOOK AFTER THEM." Welfare work in factories is 1 the humanising of industrial conditions. It is the recognition that men and women, boys and girls, are more than machines for the producing of dividends (writes Mrs. Lloyd George in the Daily Express). I find it to be a curious and yet an inspiring thought that the waste of life which war jnvolves is begetting a concern for human health and fitness in the factories of the ,land. In the words of Browning, "life means intensely"—even in the production of shells. More and more munitions, and yet more, is the cry; but the Ministry which, under Mr. Montagu, is responsible for the supply I has realised by the 1 creation of a welfare department that the resources and the responsiveness of the factories are influenced by the physical freshness did tone of the workers themselves. Good light, ample ventilation, sufficient nourishing food, pleasant recreation in leisure hours —these are not whims to be expressed in the piping days of peace, but the imperatives of war. They are essential conditions in a time when the whole industrial strength of the nation, and nothing less than that strength, must be applied to the breaking down of German strongholds. «• NEW OUTLOOK, I am told by those who ought to know that what is called welfare work (and there is no suspicion of patronage in the phrase) has so impressed employers as to make the old indifferent days to bo wondered at. Factories are being looked at from the human standpoint, and not simply as garages for machines, iE I may use the figure of speech. This war is in a real 'sense the fighting of free people against the threatened dominance of a machine. Prussianism, as I understand it, is a remorseless engine built and burnished for.war. Under the weight of this grim Juggernaut human liberties arc crushed into tho dust. If Germany wins, Europe will suffer' the reign of the machine. Humanity must needs bow down before an image of iron. 1 Perhaps it is uncomfortably'true that most of those who read the industrial history of Great Britain feel .that there came a time when machinery was oxalted. and worshipped at the expense of flesh and blood. There have been factories which, like the slums in great cities, should not have, been the dwell-ing-place of men and women who were giving their strength to the industrial progress of Britain. The'■•machine became god, and mortals were in peril of being offered up as sacrifices unto it. Our sailors and soldiers are smashing the machine of Prussia which desired to reign over us; we must Bee Ito it that in time of peace machines do not enslave us, and that the claims of men and women to the best and healthiest factory conditions are made inviolable. I think it- passing strange it-hat an employer lavishes so much* care upon a machine, oils it, watches it, rests it, I was going to say fondles it, and all- the while thinks (or ait any rate acts as if) anything will do for the most delicate and the most potent organism in tjic/v\'orld— the human heart and mind. " Oh, it is pathetic," says an observer, "to see what energies for the building up of businesses are wasted by ignoring it-he forces of imagination and joy and health latent, in all who work for you!" BENEFITS FOR ALL. I am glad to see that in a report signed by Sir George Newman on behalf of ths Health of Munition Workers' Committee? it is pointed onlt- that welfare work is not something'«peculiar to big factories. A large employer is quoted as having said :— I " Successful welfare work in a factory does not depend upon expensive equipment-, or vast organisation, but the smallest factory and humblest organisation, if worked in the right- spirit, will show good results in the character and well-being, of the workers." " Welfare work," the report goes on to say, " must not be regarded as something outside the ordinary factory management, or extraneous to it, but as a vital and integral pa-rt of the whole discipline and right organisation, of the business, to be shared in by all, directors, foremen, and- employees, as well as by the duly authorised welfare supervisor." I will only add that this most honourable profession of welfare -supervisor or lady superintendent has grown to great prominence amid the exigencies of war, and it is a profession which will remain to influence fchost intense industrial years which must ropair the waste of war. The lady superintendent helps to restore that personal touch and consideration that used to exist between employers and their workers, when the walls of the factory were within narrower -limits. She is the'recognition of the fact that human nature matters largely, and, indeed, matters Tnost of all. I WORKERS' BIRTHRIGHT. ! Man-power is infinitely more complex, it has been well said, than horse-power, but immeasurably more potent. Sunshine is power to this old earth, and tho more sunshine in factories, actual sunshine as well as the figurative kind, the bot-teiv I feel sure, for British business and British citzenship. Mr. Seebohm Rowntree has said that welfare work and low wages are like oil and water—they won.'t nice The war seems to show that good wages actually lower the. cost of production. They are worth while even in terms of commercial arithmetic. I think it is well to make it clear that welfare work is not a cunningly dovised me.thod of making poor wages an agreeable reward. There need be no suspicions on that ground. Nor is it a subtile sapping ] of a trade unionism, seeing that every member of a trade union is the better for working under right conditions. j