TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION P. 545 



will, however, come up for discussion when the Report of the Civil Service 

 Commission is published. 



Departments which have been set up since the War, e.g., the Ministry of 

 Munitions, are employing a large number of women clerks, but these are not 

 replacing men, though the proportion of women employed in such Departments 

 is higher than in ordinary Government Departments, as they are organised on 

 more modern lines than the older Departments. 



The work of women clerks has been very satisfactory except in so far as 

 the Treasury scale tends to attract inferior rather than superior workers. It 

 is stated that the women engaged since the War have on the whole been 

 superior to the men engaged in lower grades during that period. 



Extra women are also employed as Post Office sorters, telegraphists, tele- 

 phonists, and in London to a limited extent as postwomen. 



Where women are now doing the work previously done by men, e.g., sorting 

 in the Post Office, the work has been so arranged that women do no night work, 

 no heavy work, and they finish their work in time to reach their homes by public 

 conveyance ; where this has not been possible they have been sent home in taxis. 

 Women telephonists employed on night duty are given beds in their rest room 

 so that they can sleep three hours during their night's shift. The lack of 

 adequate accommodation has been to a certain extent a deterrent to employing 

 women, but such difficulties are not serious and have gradually been overcome. 

 The identity of men's and women's work is often difficult to establish, and the 

 information at present at our disposal is not sufficient to allow of our doing 

 this with any adequacy. 



Married women have been taken back, particularly in the Post Office, as 

 telegraphists. There is a grievance that these married women are only p'aid the 

 same as the temporary women and have not gone back to the salary they were 

 receiving before they married, even if they are as efficient as before. 



With regard to the higher branches of the Civil Service, as has already been 

 noted, the experience and technical knowledge necessary have not encouraged 

 Departments already understaffed and overworked to attempt experiments in 

 the replacement of men by women save in the lower grades ; though in this 

 respect especially the traditions of the Service are wholly against the inclusion 

 of women in such work, and the mere prejudice against the employment of 

 women in the higher posts often biases and distorts judgment. Since the War 

 one woman has been taken on in the Civil Service Commission in place of a 

 First Division clerk, and is paid 21. 10s. a week. At the Home Office an 

 additional female factory inspector has also been appointed. 



In reply to a question asking for information as to how far the places of 

 male inspectors, who had enlisted or been transferred in the Service, had been 

 filled by women, the Home Secretary stated on July 28, 1915, that ' Twenty- 

 four inspectors and six assistants in all have been called up or have joined His 

 Majesty's forces ; 22 inspectors and 11 assistants have been lent for war service 

 in other departments, 16 of whom are engaged in special work requiring 

 technical qualifications under the Admiralty and Ministry of Munitions. The 

 present strength is 157, as compared with 219 a year ago. I am considering the 

 question of appointing temporary women inspectors for the period of the War, 

 and one such has already been appointed, but temporary assistance can only be 

 utilised to a limited extent, as a careful training is required before an inspector 

 is able to undertake the full duties of the post, and the work of training and 

 supervision of any considerable number would throw a heavy additional burden 

 on the experienced inspectors and seriously interfere with their own work.' 



In some places vacant inspectorate places have not been filled either by 

 women or by promotion from the Lower Division. Either course seems equally 

 against Civil Service traditions. All places of men enlisted are to be kept open 

 for them, and as pensions, &c., are owing to them, they will be more likely to 

 return to their posts than other men in private employment. If men are not 

 able to return, quite possibly women will in future be employed to do the work, 

 especially in the lower grades, but the question is bound up with the reorganisa- 

 tion that may come when the Civil Service Commission Report is considered. 

 The Post Office intends to take on wounded soldiers to do messenger and other 

 work, instead of women. 



1915. 



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