LABOUR NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16435, 11 January 1917, Page 7

LABOUR NOTES.

-♦ i BY UNIONIST.

CHANGES WROUGHT BY WAR. Speaking in the House of Commons or* August 15 the Minister for Munitions i said: "Old-fashioned machinery and slip- : shod methods are rapidly disappearing • under the stress of war, ana" whoever : there may have been of contempt for i science in, this country it does not exist j now. There is a new spirit in every de- ; partment of industry, which I feel certain ; is not destined to disappear when we are \ at liberty to divert it from its present j supreme purpose of beatin? the Central. Powers. I am not now thinking so j much of the great buildings which constitute new centres of industry planned with the utmost ingenuity so as to economise effort, filled with machines of incredible efficiency and exactitude. Wc have the. leaders of all the essential industries now ■ working for us or co-operating with us in. the Ministry. The great unions render us constant assistance in the discussion and solution of difficulties, whether with our officers or within their own body. We have in being, now that British industry ■ is organised for war, the general staff of I British industry. I am sure that w* ■ should sacrifice iuich if we did not avail ! ourselves of that staff to consider how far : all this moral and material energy may be turned to peaceful account." " j

- NATIONALISING OF INDUSTRY Speaking on the same occasion, Sir W. Esses, a great industralist, explains how the factories taken over for munitionmaking were made efficient, and incidentally how industry is to be organised under the industrial conscription scheme-:—" These men, the leaders of industry who are co- | operating with the Ministry of Munition-:, are going up and down, week in and week out, month in and month out, energising thousands of factories, bringing them up • to date in their workshop methods, making them acquainted in many cases I know with tools, the like of wlich they had to previous knowledge of save by ' hearsay, ; bringing them up also to new method's, ■ new systems, and organisation. ■ THE EFFICIENCY OF LABOUR, The war has not only vastly increased the efficiency of the existing industries but has caused powerful new industries to arise to furnish goods previously imported from Germany. Skilled workers in enormous * numbers are wanted, and there is a ke<;ii demand for technical education, and sin , enormous* increase in technical ability. Hundreds of schools were opened, in which unskilled workers were converted into highly-skilled ones. The best machinery procurable was installed— imports of American machinery into the United Kingdom during the war period are stated to have been 200 millions pounds worth— and every possible inducement was offered to inventors- Industrial Britain his undergone not a reform, but a revolution. WOMEN'S SHARE. According to an article in the London Daily Telegraph the number of women employed in skilled industries a few months ago was over three-quarters of a million, and was increasing so rapidly that it must now be nearing the million mark. The greatest proportion are employed in munition factories—one great factory, that producing 9.2 in shells, is staffed entirely by women—but 46,000 are engaged in transport work, and 71,000 are employed in arsenals, and dockyards. Even in "the mining, quarrying, and building trades women are engaged, and they are rapidly replacing men in the metal trades. Women engine-cleaners and workshop labourers are no longer a novelty. In machine shops women have done specially valuable work, while they have taken to aeroplane building, motor-testing, boiler-making, and instrument-making, and are very e:ficien. in the inspection of material of ill kinds requiring to be accurately tested. In the engineering trade they have penetrated into so many branches of a business so recently a male monopoly that (he head of a well-known shipbuilding firm jis credited with saying that given two more years of war his firm would be able to turn out a battleship complete in all her complex details, from keel to wireless equipment, ready for trial by women labour. HOW IT AFFECTS UNIONISM. This has only been rendered possible by the throwing down of the union barriers, that fence of skilled labour, and the Government and the employers are pledged to re-erect these barriers after the war. But will they be again erected? Union leaders are saying little, but tacitly admit the impossibility. _ The problems facing the unions are gigantic. Fortunately there is a tendency both amongst masters and men to face them together in a frank spirit,, and with an honest desire to co-operate in seeking solutions. Mr. Gerald Stcney, a recognised authority in engineering, read a paper before the British Association for the Advancement of Science recently, jn which, after detailing the war changes in the engineering trade, he expressed the view that the payment of greatlv-increivsed wages was both desirable and possible under the changed conditions. Under the old _ conditions the average wage paid in engineering workshops—men and boys, skilled and unskilled—was £70 per annum. The average return to capital was £8 per worker, yielding about four per cent on the capital invested.' Thus wages could not rise unless production was increased. But production nad increased under the new conditions, and it was possible to pay an average wage of £100 per annum, and yet for capital to secure a return of £18 per worker.