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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0982.PDF
do what he will with. And we shall have a great deal of difficulty in persuading him out of that state of mind when the time comes for him to be set back in his place. What a ghastly prospect it all opens up! More Female Labour Wanted. The Ministry of Munitions is asking for more volunteers from among the women of the country to undergo training for work in munition fac tories. In the official communication conveying the request, it is pointed out that, apart from the numbers needed for new factories and extensions of works already established, many are required to replace the men of military age who are being called to the colours. The demand is for between 800 and 1,000 per week to fill all the gaps! We doubt not that the appeal of the Ministry will be of effect. The women of the country have risen to the occasion wonderfully and beyond the most sanguine expectations of the early days of the war. That they will respond equally to this and every new call made upon them wc have the fullest confidence. In a recent issue of " FLIGHT," in advocating a further dilution of labour all round, we took the opportunity of pointing out that there is very little to be apprehended from the supposed danger of women taking the place of skilled workers after the war. The communication from the Ministry of Munitions, which we have taken as our present text, once more reminds us of an interesting little sidelight on this aspect of the labour question. It draws attention to the fact, to which we gave publicity many months ago, that the period of training to be undergone by women munition workers who respond to the Ministry's invitation, is from four to six weeks. At the expiration of this time they are passed as being qualified to take their places in the factory. This, as we have before urged, is a potent argument against the point of view that it is dangerous to the interests of skilled labour to allow " dilution." We put it that it is an absolute endorsement of our own argument that the feared danger is disposed of by the simple fact that the women munition makers and those who have been called upon to take the places of men in other trades and industries have been trained only in one direction. That is to make them as efficient as possible in the shortest time to carry out one particular operation, and one only. In other words, every workwoman is trained with the one idea of making her a specialist. She is of in estimable use for the work in hand now, but a com mercially impossible proposition in the mass when it comes to the post-war reconstruction of industries. We do not think that this aspect of the labour position can be too strongly argued. It is quite natural that the leaders of labour—in fact, it is of the same importance to the entire nation—should look ahead and that they should regard with a cer tain amount of suspicion anything which may con ceivably lead to an upheaval of the whole industrial system. Not but what all or any measures would have to bo adopted in order to win the war, whatever the effect on systems. But if we can fit our measures for tht present to the future of our industries, so much the better. The Army wants men—and it must haw them. That is the one outstanding fact of the moment. There are thousands of fighting men work ing in our factories whose places can well be filled by women for the period of the war. We have got to have those men in the ranks of the Army, and we do not believe there is the least risk to the future interests of labour in making the exchange. It could not be helped if there were—we must have the men, and the only way to get them is by still further "dilution." <•» • The S.B.A.C. It is not very long since the members of the British aircraft industry decided among themselves that the time had come for them to form a representative body of their own. The results of that decision are to be seen to-day in the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, which, young as it is, has already accomplished a great deal of very useful work and has arrived at a state of organisation which would lead the uninstructed outsider to think that it had been going for twenty years instead of a long way short of as many months. The scope of the Society is fairly wide, and covers practically every phase of interest connected directly or indirectly with the industry. Apart from its general work, which includes matters so far apart as the instruction of the Legislature and public bodies generally in matters affecting the aerial movement and assisting its members in litigation, the Society already has in full working subsidiary committees which ought to prove of immeasurable benefit to the industry. It has established an aero engine section, to which all matters relating to engines are referred. The names of the members of this sectioa are a sufficient guarantee in themselves that the vitally important matter of engines will now and in the future receive the full meed of attention it demands. Then there is a Technical Section to which are referred all technical questions affecting aircraft construction as distinct from those matters which fall to be dealt with by the Engine Section, while it is in contempla tion to inaugurate other sections as and when the need for them is demonstrated. The Society is certainly to be congratulated on the splendid progress it has made since its inception, and on the immense amount of work it has done to co-ordinate the communal affairs of what is, after all, an infant industry. It is a great thing to begin when a movement is young rather than to wait until things have become established by custom and have got more or less into a groove from which it is difficult to lift them. The wisdom of the industry in taking a line for themselves rather than allowing their affair^ to remain the concern of a mere sub-committee of another body, has already been made manifest and will become plainer every day as the industry grows in importance, as it must do. 974
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