MANAWATU DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1918. WOMEN AND BRITISH INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 13947, 27 July 1918, Page 4

MANAWATU DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1918. WOMEN AND BRITISH INDUSTRY.

Great Britain’s experience with employment of women in industry to replace men, since the war ’s beginning, (is extremely interesting. England, after July, 1914, found herself confrontcxJ vritli. a somewhat similar sit nittion, which she managed to meet, to a certain extent at least, by drawing on her vast reserve of women not employed outside their homes. Of a female population approximating 23,000,000, only about 0,000,000 were engaged before the outbreak of the war in gainful occupations. During tins last three years, according to the April Bulletin of the United States Labor Bureau, not less than 1,100,000 British women have entered the ranks of wage-earners, an increase of fully IS per cent. Moreover, about 400,000 women have shifted from domestic service, dressmaking, and similar non-es-sential occupations to men’s work. This is a remarkable showing; probably for every four men called to the colors there has been at least one woman recruited to the country’s necessary industrial, commercial, and agricultural activities. How adequately on the other hand, women have taken the place of their men-folk cannot, bo easily determined. A great many over-optimistic conjectures appeared in the English press from time to time. Actual experience showed that in occupations requiring considerable physical exertion women, were at a distinct disadvantage. For the maintenance of their health it. was found necessary to allow them comparatively short hours and frequent rest periods. Also their work, at the beginning, was not, in point of mechanical skill, as efficient as that of the workers they replaced. Schools were early established in which women volunteers received special training to fit them for various trades. But it takes months, not days or weeks, to turn out a finished mechanic. In the munitions industries the women, despite their excellent numerical showing, did not always prove equal to men. Operations had to be sub-divided, no woman doing more than one, two, or at most

three processes, intsead of performing the whole of a complex operation. In agriculture, despite the publicity given “lady farmers,” women have not lived entirely up to expectations. Only 9000 of them were added to the farm workers of the United Kingdom up to the end of 1917, although many more than this shifted from women’s to men’s farm work. In commerce, however, and the professions, nursing, transportation, and the lighter employments, they have really bornfe a burden more than proportionate to their numbers. How women are to be reabsorbed after the war is one of the most perplexing of the problems which it has evolved. FOCH’S COUNTER-OFFENSIVE. Foch’s counter-offensive has been hailed in most of the Allied countries as a, great and decisive victory. No d6ubt it has been a victory; but wo must not allow ourselves to form any exaggerated idea of its scope or its possible results. The German armies aro still too strong to be destroyed at a blow, no matter how skilfully our plans are laid or how ably they may be carried into execution. We must not expect that Foch ’s victory will enable him at once to sweep the enemy from his path or drive him back in hopeless rout to the Rhino frontier. But though Foch could not achieve the impossible with the limited means at his disposal, he has won a great and meritorious success, whuch will yet prove to have important and far-reaching consequences. The largo captures of enemy troops and guns would by themselves give this operation a high place among the victories won by the Allies since the war began. Moreover, the amazing vigour of the attack and the dauntless gallantry that the French and American troops chiefly engaged have displayed, show that in fighting strength and efficiency the armies now barring the way to Paris arc fully equal to the heavy responsibilities entrusted to them. Further, the large scale of the counteroffensive and the weight of the blow which Foch has delivered must prove to the satisfaction of the civilised world and the dismay of the enemy that the Allies still have strong bodies of troops in reserve to be used as a “mass of manoeuvre” when the opportunity comes. Biit by far the most important outcome of Foch’s counter-stroke is this, that it has wrested the initiative from the Gormans —that is, it has placed the enemy in a position of such difficulty and danger that for the time he must be content to maintain a defensive attitude, while the choice of points of attack, with the ability to utilise them, is transferred, for the .moment at least, to the Allies. AN EYE-OPENER. An indication of the problems which will affect the people in the Home .Country after the war more poignantly than at any previous time was given by Professor Hunter in a speech at Wellington. He quoted Sir Leo C. Money as having stated that at Home l-70th of tho population owned far more than half of tho entire accumulated wealth of the community. Various authorities showed that at Home l-30th of the population lived in poverty, receiving the barest wage, and many not getting even that. The same system produced tb.e same sort of results in tire United States of America; and, necessarily, wherever it obtained. Again, he said, 521 persons owned l-stli of the United Kingdom; 4,-sths of the land was in the hands of 7000 people; while no less than twenty men. owned one-half of the land of Scotland; and they knew that the system of land tenure had nearly starved the Britisli people. Of the- total “national income” of Britain, £830,000,000 was taken by five millions of people, while £880,000,000 —practically the same amount—had to be divided up amongst thirty-eight millions.