WOMEN IN INDUSTRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11756, 21 July 1916, Page 8

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY.

*_ " SOME BRITISH PROBLEMS. (From a Lady Correspondent.) LONDON, Juno 1. Wo speak of women in industry as a phenomenon of to-day, and its sanguinary, upheaval. And it is truo that a monstrous regiment, of women, to wit, two and a half millions of them, have entered industry in Great Britain since 1915. This—a veritable avalanche—had its modest beginnings. Even. New Zealand was trending that way. From the New Zealand Year Book of 1915 the quinquennium 1906191.1 shows that although there was a 5 per cent increase in the- number of manufactories that was accompanied by an actual 6 per cent decrease in the "number of men employed and a 22 per cent increase in the number of

women. Even if New Zealand should not bo in so parlous a case as the Old Country, the very fact that the movement into industry had set in before the war makes the problems of her incivrsion urgent. Last Saturday the Women's Labour League initiated a series of meetings specifically aimed at discussing the future of women who aro diafted into industry. The most telling speech was made by Miss Maude Royden. She emphasised the difficulty in 'getting men to understand the innate bad logic of their cry "Woman's place is the home," in the face of 'the. fact that for a very large proportion of girls marriage is now out cf the question. They must look forward, she said, to spending their lives in industry, and it is of urgent importance that they should at once to organised in their own interests and •n those of the men. Dr Marion Phillips declared it to be her firm belief that at least two millions of the men who have gone to the front will never return to their old positions, and that women will refuse to be excluded from the new work vhich they find so much more attractive and profitable than their own dull employments. She instanced the woman who used to go out washing to support a sickly husband and threo children, who now draws a separation all, a good many sickle men have been taken by the Array), and earns twenty-six shillings a week on a large and lively railway station, and the other case of a. girl typist, who now, dressed in becoming garb, drives a milk cart all her happy day. Men, she said, are at last beginning ;o realise that women aro permanent competitors, and the trade unions must make some provision to protect the women and themselves. And in the men's attitude women arc faced with a crucial question. Mr Bramlpy, a tpade union organiser, declared that the Government pronnso to put back men in their old places could not be kept. The women who | have come into skilled trades have come to stay, nothing can stop it. The \ only way to meet tho situation is for , women to organise to protect their own ; interests and those of -the men. # And evidence—curioser and cunoser, us Alice would say—comes cropping up making short work of women's alleged disability for certain industries. A technical journal mentions a case where a now shop fitted up with a hundred lathes for turning 18-pounder shells was "manned"* by youths deairous of being trained as burners. In five months they had made little progress, and every machine had -been broken. Their places were taken by young women, and in five weeks they were doing far'better • work than the youths did, and not ono lathe' was damaged. . The call for organisation on the part of women is the more urgent since tlm j unparalleled war-induced Influx of wo"men has been attended by the effacemelrt of all the time-won safeguards to. prevent their employment from doing them irreparable harm. There is nowm full blast an extension of the use of married women and young girls and a revival of the employment of women at night. ''■'.■", , . . , Tho position wants watching. As Memorandum No. 4, of the Health of Munition Workers Committee puts at, "In the character of the responso lies largely the secret of its industrial success, which is remarkable. The fact that women and girls of all types and dges have pressed and are pressing into industry shows a spirit of patriotism which is as finely maintained as it was quickly shown. Conditions of work are accepted without question and without complaint which, immediately detrimental to output, would, if continued, be ultimately disastrous to health. It is for the nation to safeguard the devotion of its workers by its foresight and watchfulness lest irreparable harm be done to body and mind both in this generation and tho next." The work of this' committee is of jupremo importance. The very names of its memoranda speak for themselves: -—(1) Sunday Labour; (2) Welfare Supervision; (3) Industrial Canteens; (4) Employment of Women; (o) Hours of.Worts; (6) Canteen Construction and Equipment; (7) Industrial Fatigue and its Cause; (8) Special Industrial Diseases; (9) Ventilation and Lighting of Munition Factories and Workshops; and: (10) Sickness and Injury. While two only are specifically devoted to women's share in the new national burden of munitions output, in all women's interests are involved. In respect of the first and supposedly irrefutable argument against women' 3 use in industry, the committee expresses itself as " satisfied that there is a significant amount of physical disability among women in factories which calls both for prevention and treatment." We have gone far from the days when a marquis could ask scoffingly in tho House of Lords whether lie must have a chair for a. housemaid in his hall. Further, the same memorandum declares, " where married women are indispensable, every effort should be made to give them tho preferential treatment common in normal times in some factory districts. It is the experience of managers that concessions such as half an hour's grace on leaving and arriving, or occasional " time off," is not injurious to output, as the lost time is made good by increased activity." Actually the committee avers that " in some factories the majority of the women employed at night are married, and many of them express a preference for their work, because it leaves them free for domestic duties during the day. In thus undertaking double duties, their zeal may easily outrun their strength, and factory and home equally may suffer "; but the committee distinctly declares for a policy: "Wherever other labour is available, ■ the employment of mothers with infants is to be deprecated, as is also that of the mother of any young family, for it must be remembered' that the mother's work is certainly not'ended with her factory day. Her children make many claims upon her time and energy, more especially, of course, at the period of the midday meal and at bed-time." And here we are flatly confronted with tho position that the flow of women into industry is bringing to a head the need for something more than a mere material problem of soulless machinery. The movement, long overdue, towards the recognition of employees as flesh and blood, human entities, is surging to dimensions demanding widespread measures instead of mere sporadic schemes of a few enlightened employers. And this will require further and fuller treatment.