At the outbreak of war many employees joined the Army or Navy, and to these the Society decided to pay half-wages. As the months passed, more and more of the younger men joined up, first under the Derby Scheme and later under the Conscription Act, so that the carrying out of the policy of paying half-wages meant the disbursing of a considerable sum every half-year, and by the end of 1916 the sum of £10,628 had been so expended; £7,892 being paid to dependants and £2,736 retained in the hands of the Society at the credit of employees serving with the Colours. At this time, 304 of the Society’s employees had joined the Services, and eighteen had made the great sacrifice. This drain on the male workers of the Society brought troubles of its own in its train. We have already seen that considerable difficulty was being experienced in meeting the demand of customer societies for biscuits, while the difficulty in meeting the demand for bread was equally great. Toward the end of 1915, the Operative Bakers’ Union consented to allow their members to begin work one hour earlier on Saturday mornings, while a number of men who had been formerly employed as “jobbers” were given full-time employment. In the beginning of the following year an attempt was made to induce the Bakers’ Union to permit the employment of women in the bakery, but this permission they refused, although they admitted that “dilution” was in operation in similar establishments. In July of 1916 an agreement with regard to dilution was reached, whereby it was decided that, after all reasonable efforts had been made to obtain male labour, females should be appointed in the same proportion as apprentices; that two girls could be appointed for every man who left, and that the arrangement was to continue for the duration of the war or of conditions created by the war. In that year some difficulty was experienced in getting the bakers to come to terms with the employers in the Glasgow district on the question of wages, but the dispute was finally adjusted after notices to cease work had been handed in. The terms finally agreed on were substantially those which had been offered by the Federation, and gave the bakers an increase in wages of four shillings per week. The bakers did not take kindly to the proposal to introduce female labour into the bakehouse, and when the directors proposed to take that step protested strongly, notwithstanding the agreement which had been arrived at on the subject, and although they were working very many hours of overtime each week. The directors therefore decided that the question of the employment of female labour should be referred to the War Emergency Committee, and that committee gave their award in favour of the introduction of female labour into the pastry and smallbread flats, but would not allow them to take part in the baking of loaf bread. DELIVERY DIFFICULTIES.