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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0544.PDF
MAY 16, 1918. TRADE PARLIAMENTS AND THEIR WORK. By ERNEST J. P. BENN, Chairman Industrial Reconstruction Council. IV—DEMOBILISATION AND APPRENTICESHIP. JOINT Standing Industrial Councils could be busily em- ployed if they existed to-day and did nothing else but study the problems connected with demobilisation, apprenticeship, and kindred matters, and prepared reports and plans, for the guidance of the Governent when the need arises. There are to-day eight million workers, or half of our total population, employed directly on the war, either as soldiers or munition workers. To these must be added some millions of civilian workers whose present occupation is dependent on the war. We may, therefore, assume that when the war comes to an end not less than ten million persons will find themselves, if not actually out of work, at least under notice. It is generally assumed that the Government will keep on its employees—soldiers and others—in their present position and only let them out upon the market at the rate at which the market is prepared to absorb them. This is, no doubt, a very necessary arrangement, but, from the national point of view, an extremely expensive one, and anything which can be done to facilitate the rapid transfer from war of this large proportion of the population must certainly not be neglected. The demobilisation of the Army would be better described as the remobilisation of industry, and it is obviously a much more difficult job for industry than for the War Office. It must be remembered that these ten million people have been absorbed into the war by degrees. Lord Kitchener's first demand was for 500,000 men, and that was thought to be rather a large order at the time that it was first given. We have taken four years to divert this huge army from its normal work to war work. The reverse process will have to be done at a much more rapid rate. We shall be in direct competition with every nation of the world in this matter. Whoever wins the war, the nation which can restart its industries most rapidly will win the world's markets. So long as the debate on demobilisation is confined to such general principles as those stated above the matter seems easy ; it is when we get down to details that the difficulties become more apparent. • Every trade has its necessary proportion of skilled and unskilled workers ; every factory depends upon the proper arrangement of different classes of workers. There are very few trades that can be kept going unless all departments are run on about the same pace. The War Office knows nothing of these matters, and unless it is informed by the trades themselves of the classes of labour which should be demobilised first utter chaos must ensue. There will be gangs of machine hands without a fitter, fitters without hands, labourers without foremen, and foremen without labourers. The elaborate process of combing out, under which the less essential workers have been taken first, has been performed very gradually and with much painstaking on the part of tribunals and others. The reverse process-will have to be performed at a much more rapid rate, and cannot be successfully accomplished without the most elaborate and detailed and expert plans carefully Under the Niagara Bridge. • LSTEUT. HERBERT LAURIE, instructor at the Beamsville training camp, Canada, has repeated the feat of the late Lincoln Beachey by successfully flying under the steel arch bridge at Niagara gorge. --•' --."• Kite Balloons and the Navy. ' " '•;" ~ IT was not until the early months of 1915 that the Kite Balloon Division of the R.N.A.S. came into being. When the demand for observation balloons for the Dardanelles operations came through in March of that year, the Royal Navy was able to send out a completely equipped Kite Balloon Section in a specially fitted steamer. The vessel, the Manica, a converted tramp, which arrived just a month after the demand was made, immediately proved the value of the unit. Within three days a Turkish camp was shelled under the direction of the kite balloon, and the occupants thrown into confusion ; while in the following week the "Spotter " directed fire on the Gaba Tepe position, which resulted in the destruction of the barracks. The triumph, however, came before April was out, for from their aerial perch, the observers spotted, lying quietly in the water on the other side by the Peninsula out of sight of our warships, a large Turkish transport. The transport apparently considered herself quite safe—but in warfare the unexpected often happens. H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was operating near the balloon ship, and the bearings of the Turkish vessel were given her. The first shot fell short. By this time the other ships near by were beginning to take an interest in what was prepared beforehand. The same sort of question will arise as to the preference to be given to particular trades .J For example, it is no use supplying the fancy leather trades with labour until tanners and curriers are first put to work. There is another big class of problem which comes under the term apprenticeship, which can only be settled by each trade, and which will demand the early attention of Whitley Councils. Under this heading we class all those problems which arise from the fact that our boys of eighteen will have lost four or five years of the most valuable period of their lives. The problem starts with the medical student and finishes with the boy in the factory. All through the professions and the trades we find innumerable customs under which the youth begins as a learner, then becomes an improver, and then a second, and, finally, a first hand. Between eighteen and twenty-three or four in every walk of life a youth is really learning his business. The war has cut this period clean out of the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men, and the most careful arrangements will have to be made to provide for the problems that have thus arisen. The articled clerk who was willing, as a boy of eighteen, to live at home and take thirty or forty pounds a year as pocket money has suddenly become a young man who ought to know his business, and ought to be earning a proper wage. Now if this problem is left to individual bargain- ing between man and employer the consequences will be very serious, and it is obviously necessary for each profession and each trade to lay down principles which shall guide all the individuals concerned. There is still another side to this great subject—the ques- tion of the disabled and the unfit. After every previous war in history the streets have been crowded with beggars re- cruited from this class. No nation has a clean record so far in this respect, but if the British nation is determined to do anything it is certainly determined that those of its sons who have been disabled in the present war should be properly treated when the war comes to an end. It is agreed that this is not a matter for charity. Our heroes are not to be submitted to the indignity of accepting alms. It becomes, therefore, the duty of each profession and each trade to provide for its own disabled. It is surely absurd that the skilled cabinet maker should have to start his life over again and learn some totally different trade. It is obvious that, even though his abilities may be seriously impaired, his past experience of his own trade must be capable of being turned to some account. There can be no arguing as to the need of Joint Standing Industrial Councils to consider all these problems, and in this branch of work we are free from the discussion as to whether Labour has a right to participate. All these things can certainly be arranged far better by a Council composed of equal parts of employers and employed than by any sectional organisation. happening to Elizabeth's invisible target, which was lying nine miles the other side of the Peninsula. A second shot went nearer the mark. Again the direction was corrected, and a third heavy projectile screamed overland. By the telephone wire of the kite balloon came the words, " Got her. She's sinking by the head." The signalman semaphored this literally to Queen Elizabeth, and a roar of laughter went up as the various ships read the laconic message. Repeated attacks were made by the Turks on the solitary kite balloon and her parent ship, but they were fought back. The effect on the Turkish shipping was evident, for whenever . the Manica's offspring ascended, the enemy craft, remembering the fate of the transport, hustled off out of range of our big guns. The official record of the Manica for the next fortnight was as follows :— April 28th.—To field batteries ; several guns destroyed. April 30th.—Chanak shelled ; burned for two hours. May 2nd.—Battery of 8 in. guns shelled ; three direct hits. May 8th.—Four batteries silenced. May 12th.—House, reported to be Turkish Headquarters destroyed. This and other work was a wonderful tribute to the efficacy of the new observation contrivance, and it should be remem- bered that barely two months before there was not a single kite balloon in England, and that the whole of the section was in an embryonic state. The experience gained in the Manica was the foundation of what is now an active branch of the Royal Navy. 542
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