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Page 20
Hence the outspoken speech of December 21st, supported by Mr. Asquith's
grave words of a few weeks later. "We cannot go on," said the Prime
Minister in effect, "depending upon foreign countries for our munitions.
We haven't the ships to spare to bring them home, and the cost is too
great. We _must_ make them ourselves." "Yes--and _quicker_!" Mr. Lloyd
George had already said, with a sharp emphasis, meant to "hustle" that
portion of the nation which still required hustling; overpainting his
picture, no doubt, but with quite legitimate rhetoric, in order to produce
his effect.
The result of that fresh "hustling" was the appointment of the Dilution
Commissioners, a second Munitions Act amending the first, and a vast
expansion all over the country of the organisation which had seemed so
vast before. It was not till midwinter, in the very midst of the new and
immense effort I have been describing, that the Minister of Munitions and
those working with him convinced themselves that, without another resolute
push, the barrier across the stream of the nation's will might still
fatally hold it back. More and more men were wanted every week--in the
Army and the workshops--and there were not men to go round. The second
push had to be given--it was given--and it still firmly persists.
In the spring of 1915, the executives of the leading trade-unions had
promised the Government the relaxation of their trade rules for the period
of the war. Many of the trade-union leaders--Mr. Barnes, Mr. Henderson,
Mr. Hodge, and many others--have worked magnificently in this sense, and
many unions have been thoroughly loyal throughout their ranks to the
pledge given in their name. The iron-moulders, the shipwrights, the
brassworkers may be specially mentioned. But in the trades mostly
concerned with ammunition, there were certain places and areas where the
men themselves, as distinct from their responsible leaders, offered a
dogged, though often disguised resistance. Personally, I think that any
one at all accustomed to try and look at labour questions from the point
of view of labour will understand the men while heartily sympathising with
the Minister, who was determined to get "the goods" and has succeeded in
getting them. Here, in talking of "the men" I except that small
revolutionary element among them which has no country, and exists in all
countries. And I except, too, instances which certainly are to be found,
though rarely, of what one might call a purely mean and overreaching
temper on the part of workmen--taking advantage of the nation's need, as
some of the less responsible employers have no doubt, also, taken
advantage of it. But, in general, it seems to me, there has been an honest
struggle in the minds of thousands of workmen between what appears to them
the necessary protection of their standards of life--laboriously attained
through long effort--and the call of the war. And that the overwhelming
majority of the workmen concerned with munitions should have patriotically
and triumphantly decided this struggle as they have--under pressure, no
doubt, but under no such pressure as exists in a conscripted, still more
in an invaded, nation--may rank, I think, when all is said, with the
raising of our voluntary Armies as another striking chapter in the book of
_England's Effort_.
In this chapter, then, Dilution will always take a leading place.
What is Dilution?
It means, of course, that under the sharp analysis of necessity much
engineering work, generally reckoned as "skilled" work, and reserved to
"skilled" workmen, by a number of union regulations, is seen to be capable
of solution into various processes, some of which can be sorted out from
the others as within the capacity of the unskilled or semiskilled worker.
By so dividing them up, and using the superior labour with economy, only
where it is really necessary, it can be made to go infinitely further; and
the inferior or untrained labour can then be brought into work where
nobody supposed it could be used, where, in fact, it never has been used.
Obvious enough, perhaps. But the idea had to be applied in haste to living
people--employers, many of whom shrank from reorganising their workshops
and changing all their methods at a moment's notice; and workmen looking
forward with consternation to being outnumbered, by ten to one, in their
own workshops, by women. When I was in the Midlands and the North, at the
end of January and in early February, Dilution was still an unsettled
question in some of the most important districts. One of the greatest
employers in the country writes to me to-day (March 24): "Since January,
we have passed through several critical moments, but, eventually, the
principle was accepted, and Dilution is being introduced as fast as
convenient. For this we have largely to thank an admirable Commission (Sir
Croydon Marks, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Shackleton) which was sent down to
interview employers and employed. Their tact and acumen were remarkable.
Speaking personally, I cannot help believing that there is a better
understanding between masters and men now than has existed in my memory."
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