_The Woollen and Clothing Trades._--In these trades the war brought a veritable "tidal-wave" of prosperity. The industrial centres of our Allies were to a considerable extent in the hands of the enemy; thus, not only new clothes for our regular troops and reserves, and uniforms for the new armies that were shortly recruited, but also those for the troops of our Allies were called for in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The woollen towns of this district became the busiest places in the world, and orders overflowed into Scotland and the somewhat decayed but still celebrated clothing region of the West of England. The first expedient to cope with the enormous pressure of orders was to relax the Factory Act. In normal times no overtime is allowed in textile industries to workers under the operation of the Act (viz. women, girls under eighteen, boys under eighteen, and children), and employment is limited to ten hours a day. In view of the tremendous issues involved, permission was given to employ women and young persons for two hours' overtime. The results, as it turned out, soon showed, however, that overtime is bad economy, for the number of accidents increased greatly in the period of greatest pressure, and averaged one a day in the December quarter, and the secretary of the Union also reported that the period during which these very long hours were worked coincided with a remarkable increase of illness among the operatives involved. Probably one-third more cases were on the Approved Societies' books during December than in September and October.[59] Although the women rose most pluckily to the occasion and did their heavy task cheerfully in the consciousness of supplying their country's need, it is certain that many were taxed beyond their strength, and in January 1915 the overtime permitted was reduced to nine hours weekly. The women, when they complained, complained not of overwork but of insufficient pay. An increase of 1-1/2d. per hour during overtime was asked, and considering the strain involved, seems a far from excessive demand; but the trade is unfortunately much less well organised than the cotton trade, and female workers--73 per cent of the whole--could not in most districts enforce this claim. Khaki is more trying to the operatives than some other kinds of cloth to which they are better accustomed, and it is more difficult to weave. Even with overtime work the women did not earn much more than they would working usual hours on ordinary cloth. The wages paid appear to have been, as so often is the case with women's work, chaotic. Many employers honourably paid a fair or recognised price; others took advantage of the weakness of the workers to pay rates not far from sweating prices. In the clothing trade the Government was conscientiously paying handsome rates to contractors for the making of uniforms, but without effectively enforcing the payment of fair wages to labour by the contractors. Hence even the Trade Board