nse. I take the following passage from an interesting report by a
very shrewd observer,[A] printed in one of the northern newspapers. It
describes an employer as saying:

I was told by the Ministry that I should have to double my
output. Labour was scarce and I consulted a deputation of
the men about it. I told them the problem and said I should
be glad of suggestions. I told them that we should either
have to get men or women, and I asked them for their
co-operation, as there would be a great deal of teaching to
be done. "Probably," I said, "you would like to find the
men?" They agreed to try. I gave them a week, and at the end
of a week they came to me and said they would rather have
women. I said to them: "Then you must all pull together."
They gave me their word. Right from the beginning they have
done their level best to help, and things have gone on
perfectly. On one occasion, a woman complained that the man
directing her was "working against her." I called the men's
committee together, said the employer. I told them the
facts, and they have dealt with the offender themselves.

[A] _Yorkshire Observer_, February 1, 1916.

The general system now followed in the shell factories is to put so many
skilled men in charge of so many lathes worked by women workers. Each
skilled man, who teaches the women, sets the tools, and keeps the machines
in running order, oversees eight, ten, or more machines. But sometimes the
comradeship is much closer. For instance (I quote again the witness
mentioned above), in a machine tool shop, i.e., a shop for the making of
tools used in shell production, one of the most highly skilled parts of
the business, you may now see a man, with a woman to help him, operating
two lathes. If the woman falls into any difficulty the man comes to help
her. Both can earn more money than each could earn separately, and the
skilled man who formerly worked the second lathe is released. In the same
shop a woman watched a skilled man doing slot-drilling--a process in which
thousandths of an inch matter--for a fortnight. Now she runs the machine
herself by day, while the man works it on the night shift. One woman in
this shop is "able to do her own tool-setting." The observer thinks she
must be the only woman tool-setter in the country, and he drops the remark
that her capacity and will may have something to do with the fact that