TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION F. 517 



in a comparatively early stage, and the fact that it is subsequently used for 

 the manufacture of munitions only affects these firms by increasing the demand 

 upon them. 



2. Trades requiring considerable strength and a High Level of Skill, viz., 

 Engineering and Motor Building. — In these trades the number of women em- 

 ployed in times of peace was very small, and some firms are even now not 

 admitting them. The product has, however, largely changed, and very many 

 shells are being made by them in workshops which have been adapted to this 

 form of production and in departments recently Imilt. Many firms which 

 employed no women before are now taking them on for the manufacture of 

 shells, and are employing them especially in their new workshops, in some of 

 which the staff is entirely female, with the exception of a few skilled toolsetters. 



3. Trades requiring somewhat Lower but more Varied Degrees of Skill and 

 Strength, viz., the Manufacture of Cycles, Bedsteads, Lamps, Brass Goods, 

 etc. — In these trades both men and women were employed before the War, the 

 men usually performing the more skilled and heavier parts of the work. There 

 has, however, been some considerable conflict over some processe.s, and policy 

 has differed in different works. The line between men's and women's work 

 is perhaps most variable in the cycle trade, on account of the comparatively 

 recent invention of cycles and the rapid development in the methods of their 

 production, making the trade largely independent of tradition. Such firms are 

 now adapting their machinery to the manufacture of she'ls and fuses, and the 

 new hands taken on are mainly women, on. account of the shortage of men. The 

 processes formerly worked alternatively by men and women are being increas- 

 ingly undertaken by women, and they are making their way into many pro- 

 cesses previously just beyond the line separating their work from that of the 

 men. 



4. The Production of Small Metal Goods, viz.. Pens, Buttons, Military 

 Ornaments, etc. — These have for many years been trades in which the greater 

 nimiber of the employees were women. A small number of men are employed 

 as toolsetters, but the actual working of the machines ov presses is left to 

 women and girls. Therefore, though the output has been altered to meet the 

 War demand, parts of cartridges and military buttons and ornaments being 

 made, there has been very little alteration in the staff. Such replacement of 

 men, therefore, as has taken place has been in firms devoted in time of peace 

 to the industries which are grouped under the headings 2 and 3, though even 

 here they are for the most part engaged on repetition work and automatic 

 machinery involving little or no departure from the work to which they are 

 ordinarily accustomed. They are employed in filling, capping and cleaning 

 shells, boring and drilling bombs, and making cartridge cases and fuses of all 

 kinds — English and French. For certain of these processes, such as the fine 

 work required in the making of fuses, women are particularly suitable, and 

 would probably have been employed even if male labour had been abundant. 

 Where, however, as is the case in several factories, women are executing the 

 entire process of shell-making from start to finish, involving (in the case of 

 8-inch high-explosive shells and Russian 3-inch shrapnel) 21 operations, they 

 are doing work for much of which men would have been employed if they could 

 have been obtained. Also, in a few exceptional cases, women are acting as 

 fitters. 



The following quotations from the ' Engineer ' of August 20 show that in 

 some works bold experiments in the wider employment of women have been tried. 



' During the past few months,' says the writer, ' a great and far-reaching 

 change has been effected. ... In a certain factory which is engaged 

 in the production of projectiles in sizes up to those required for 4-5-in. guns a 

 new department was started some time ago, the workpeople being women, with 

 a few expert men as overseers and teachers. . . . By no means all of the 

 work has been of the repetition type, demanding little or no manipulative 

 ability, but much of it has been of a character which taxed the intelligence of 

 the operators in a high degree. Yet the work turned out has reached a high 

 pitch of excellence. ... It may safely be said that women can satisfactorily 

 handle very much heavier pieces of metal than had previously been dreamt of. 



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