"We have made the men take an interest in the women," say the employers. "That is the secret of our success. We care nothing at all about the money, we are all for the output. If the men think you are going to exploit women and cheapen the work, the scheme is crabbed right away." I myself came across the effect of this suspicion in the minds of the workmen in the case of a large Yorkshire shell factory, where the employers at once detected and slew it. This great workshop, formerly used for railway work, now employs some 1,300 women, with a small staff of skilled men. The women work forty-five hours a week in eight-hour shifts--the men fifty-three hours on twelve-hour shifts. There is no difficulty whatever in obtaining a full supply of women's labour--indeed, the factory has now a waiting-list of 500. Nor has there been any difficulty with the men in regard to the women's work. With the exception of two operations, which are thought too heavy for them, all the machines are run by women. But when the factory began, the employers very soon detected that it was running below its possible output. There was a curious lack of briskness in the work--a curious constraint among the new workers. Yet the employers were certain that the women were keen, and their labour potentially efficient. They put their heads together, and posted up a notice in the factory to the effect that whatever might be the increase in the output of piece-work, the piece-work rate would not be altered. Instantly the atmosphere began to clear, the pace of the machines began to mount. It was a factory in which the work was new, the introduction of women was new, and the workers strange to each other, and for the most part strange to their employers. A small leaven of distrust on the part of the men workers was enough, and the women were soon influenced. Luckily, the mischief was as quickly scotched. Men and women began to do their best, the output of the factory--which had been planned for 14,000 shells a week--ran up to 20,000, and everything has gone smoothly since. Let me now, however, describe another effect of Dilution--the employment of unskilled _men_ on operations hitherto included in skilled engineering. On the day after the factory I have just described, my journey took me to another town close by, where my guide--a Director of one of the largest and best-known steel and engineering works in the kingdom--showed me a new shell factory filled with 800 to 900 men, all "medically unfit" for the Army, and almost all drawn from the small trades and professions of the town, especially from those which had been hard hit by the war. Among those I talked to I found a keeper of bathing-machines, a publican's assistant, clerks, shop assistants, three clergy--these latter going home for their Sunday duty, and giving their wages to the Red Cross--unemployed architects, and the like.