Puddings, 2 to 4 cents,
Bread and cheese, 3 to 4 cents,
Tea, coffee and cocoa, 2 cents a cup,
and a variety is arranged in the week's menu.
The Y.W.C.A. Huts are very popular. In some of them the girls get
dinners for 10 cents, and the dinner includes joint, vegetables and
pudding.
There are comfortable chairs in them in which girls can rest and
attractive magazines and books to read in the little restrooms. The
workers in charge of these canteens are educated women and the waiting
and service is done by voluntary helpers. There is not only excellent
feeding for our workers in these canteens, but there is great economy
in food and fuel. To cook 400 dinners together is much less wasteful
than to cook them separately, and the cooks in these are generally
trained economists.
The children, too, are not forgotten. Our welfare workers follow the
young mother home and find out if the children are all right and well
taken care of. We have done even more in the war than before for
our babies and the infant death rate is falling. We have established
excellent creches and nurseries where they are needed.
It is impossible to overestimate the value of all this work in
industry. The Prime Minister, speaking last year on this subject,
said, "It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the
making of weapons of destruction should afford the occasion to
humanize industry. Yet such is the case. Old prejudices have vanished,
new ideas are abroad; employers and workers, the public and the State,
are all favourable to new methods. The opportunity must not be allowed
to slip. It may well be that, when the tumult of war is a distant echo
and the making of munitions a nightmare of the past, the effort now
being made to soften asperities, to secure the welfare of the workers,
and to build a bridge of sympathy and understanding between employer
and employed, will have left behind results of permanent and enduring
value to the workers, to the nation and to mankind at large."
I am no believer in the gloomy predictions of industrial revolutions
after the war. We will have revolutions--but of the right kind and one
thing has been clearly shown, that the workers of our country are
not only loyal citizens but realize every issue of this conflict as
vividly as anyone else. On their work, men and women, our Navy, our
Army and our country, have depended--and they have not failed us in
any real thing.
MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS.
DUTIES OF WELFARE SUPERVISORS FOR WOMEN.
(Sometimes called EMPLOYMENT SUPERINTENDENTS.)
NOTE.--It is not suggested that all these duties should be
imposed upon the Employment Superintendent directly she is
appointed. The size of the Factory will to a certain extent
determine the scope of her work, and in assigning her duties
regard will of course be had to her professional ability to
cope with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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