562 ■] TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



Medium and Juvenile Tailoring. — This branch of the trade consists of the 

 making of cheap grades of trousers and waistcoats (which comprise ahnost a 

 separate branch of the trade) and boys' and children's outer garments. It is a 

 slightly lower grade of work than the wholesale bespoke and employs almost 

 entirely women and girls. 



Ex-port Work or Shipjring or Slop Trade. — This branch of the trade consists 

 of exceedingly cheap ready-made garments exported to be sold to natives in 

 South Atrica and elsewhere. It also includes dungarees such as workmen's 

 overalls, and drills such as surgeons' coats, and cheap cotton clothing, most of 

 which is exported. Women mainly are employed in the making of these goods. 



The above divisions are not cleai'-cut, and the lower grade the trade the 

 more difficult it becomes to demarcate labour or process. It will be noticed that, 

 generally speaking, the higher-grade work employs a greater proportion of men 

 than the lower grade and depends less upon machinery and more upon skill and 

 experience. 



During August 1914 a general depression set in throughout the tailoring 

 trade which showed itself most in those parts of the trade dependent upon 

 private orders, e.g., the retail bespoke and to a certain extent the wholesale 

 bespoke trade. Shipping orders (the lower-class trade) also began to fall off, not 

 only because of a slackening in demand and temporary difficulties common to 

 exporters with regard to credit, but because of the shortage of shipping. Owing 

 to Government measures the balance of trade soon readjusted itself and the 

 demand for clothing from merchants abroad increased, due to good prospects 

 of the harvest in South Africa and to the cessation of Austrian and German 

 competition, but the sliortage of shipping nevertheless remained a factor which 

 prevented export of goods in their normal quantities. 



The wholesale bespoke ready-made and medium branches of the trade were 

 probably less affected by the depression than the other branches, though even 

 here a considerable contraction of trade occurred. During September and 

 October, however. War Office and Territorial orders had the effect of more 

 than restoring this part of the trade to its normal proportions. Khaki became 

 the deciding factor affecting not only the large factories but also the sub- 

 contracting workshops, for with the enormous increase of Government orders 

 restrictions such as those affecting sub-contracting were relaxed. In normal 

 times the military tunic and great-coat can be made up only by experienced and 

 special labour. Owing to a certain extent to the dislocation of the trade and 

 the shortage of cloth, but in a greater measure to the fact that few manu- 

 facturers were sufficiently experienced to make up military clothing, khaki 

 uniforms during the first months of the War were not being turned out in the 

 quantities required by the War Office. The design of the military uniform 

 was therefore simplified. This at once (October) made it possible for many 

 firms whose experience was limited to civilian work to undertake the new 

 military pattern, and within a few weeks the orders for khaki clothing filtered 

 throughout the trade. 



Those branches which were best equipped, both by reason of the nature of 

 their previous civilian work, their machinery, and the division of their labour, 

 to manufacture khaki clothing for the New Armies were the wholesale bespoke, 

 ready-made, and medium branches. To a certain extent the slop and shipping 

 branches of the trade were pressed into making the new clothing, though they 

 were better fitted for and chiefly engaged in making up lighter undergarments, 

 belts, shirts, kit-bags, mess-tin covers, canvas bandoliers, haversacks, nosebags, 

 bedding, &c., for Army requirements. The retail bespoke branch was unable 

 economically to produce the new Government clothing even at the comparatively 

 high flat rates which were given for it. Consequently men from the retail 

 bespoke trade entered the wholesale bespoke and ready-made trade as skilled 

 hands, e.g., viewers and foremen, and in those parts of the work requiring 

 physical strength, such as pressing. 



The military demand was for clothing that could most economically be made 

 up by power machinery in the factories, and in small workshops, where a highly 

 evolved sub-divisional system made it possible to compete with the factories, 

 the great revival in the trade was only a revival in that part of the trade which 

 normally employs, outside the cutting rooms, a preponderance of female labour. 



