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The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 75 of 163 (46%)
workmen since the beginning of the war, especially in the great shipyards,
and done with the heartiest and most self-sacrificing good-will, has been
simply invaluable to the nation, and England remembers it well. And
finally, the invasion of women has perhaps been more startling to the
workmen here than anywhere else. Not a single woman was employed in the
works or factories of the district before the war, except in textiles.
There will soon be 15,000 in the munition workshops, and that will not be
the end.

But Great Britain cannot afford--even in a single factory--to allow any
trifling at this moment with the provision of guns, and the Government
must--and will--act decisively.

As to the drinking in this district of which so much has been said, and
which is still far in excess of what it ought to be, I found many people
hard put to it to explain why the restriction of hours which has worked so
conspicuously well in other districts has had comparatively little effect
here. Is it defects of administration, or a certain "cussedness" in the
Scotch character, which resents any tightening of law? One large employer
with whom I discuss it, believes it would suit the Scotch better to
abolish all restrictions, and simply punish drunkenness much more
severely. And above all--"open all possible means of amusement on Sundays,
especially the cinemas!"--a new and strange doctrine, even now, in the
ears of a country that holds the bones of John Knox. There seems indeed to
be a terribly close connection between the dulness of the Scotch Sunday
and the obstinacy of Scotch drinking; and when one thinks of the heavy
toil of the week, of the confinement of the workshops, and the strain of
the work, one feels at any rate that here is a problem which is to be
_solved_, not preached at; and will be solved, some day, by nimbler and
humaner wits than ours.
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