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 she
has a husband at the front! Near by, as part of the same works, which are
not specialised, but engaged in _general_ engineering, is a bomb shop
staffed by women, which is now sending 3,000 bombs a week to the trenches.
Women are also doing gun-breech work of the most delicate and responsible
kind under the guidance of a skilled overseer. One of the women at this
work was formerly a charwoman. She has never yet broken a tool. All over
the works, indeed, the labour of women and unskilled men is being utilised
in the same scientific way. Thus the area of the works has been doubled in
a few months, without the engagement of a single additional skilled man
from outside. "We have made the men take an interest in the women," say
the employers. "That is the secret of our success. We care nothing at all
about the money, we are all for the output. If the men think you are going
to exploit women and cheapen the work, the scheme is crabbed right away."

I myself came across the effect of this suspicion in the minds of the
workmen in the case of a large Yorkshire shell factory, where the
employers at once detected and slew it. This great workshop, formerly used
for railway work, now employs some 1,300 women, with a small staff of
skilled men. The women work forty-five hours a week in eight-hour
shifts--the men fifty-three hours on twelve-hour shifts. There is no
difficulty whatever in obtaining a full supply of women's labour--indeed,
the factory has now a waiting-list of 500. Nor has there been any
difficulty with the men in regard to the women's work. With the exception