BRITISH FACTORIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 October 1924, Page 16

BRITISH FACTORIES.

INTRODUCTION OF POWER. INCREASE OF COST CA bSmiJ. Ike uiinuui report or the cgief mox iaciones in rt.eot xji uuu.: ma,,es interesting reauiiig ma.,.-, au New Statesman). iA,ruig .ako L ne „ u ;... oer of registered lactones iiicic««a oy 2U.A ), while that ox workshops by oOUO. This change is'parti resuit or tlie introd..etion of powc, causing the transrerenoe of escabn.-.ii-ments from the workshop into L m ia,tory class. It is also attributed par v .y lo the decline of small rural woiksnops, which have s-lfered more .ban factories from the trade slump Ihe figures, of course, represent not a khange of direction, but only an intensification of a p.-ocess that has long been at work. There are still 14v;,< a.*.workshops, as against 139. (aim factories, but the workshops employ oulv a >:n:a.’ and declining fraction of the wageearners. The otlier interesting section of th-.-report is that which deals with th.;- .n----dustrial employment of women, it i, stated that over the whole range of gocupation.s into which female labour was introduced during the war the reversion to the older practice is now virtu ally complete. Even wlmi’e a few women are still left in such occupation.; they are replaced as they retire bmen. The confident predictions .ha-; war-t. : me dilution would usher in a new epoch of women’s employment on work previously done by men have been fulfilled in hardly a single oecnpati n, even where women’s work during -h war gave the greatest satisfaction The shorter duration of women’s working life and the special provisions that have to be made where women are employed ii"« still effective harriers to any widespread substation of women’s labour for men’s, even where, in g tech - v ■ ' sense, the women are equally capihl-' of doing the work. Mere conservatism is also probably 9 powerful far-tr- 1 ir caii sing the reversion to pre-war pvr.c tires.