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Page 26
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.
In any case, the figures, gathered a month ago from those directly
concerned, as to the general extension of the national effort here, could
hardly be more striking. In normal times, the district, which is given up
to Admiralty work, makes ships and guns, but has never made shells. The
huge shell factories springing up all over it are a wholly new creation.
As usual, they are filled with women, working under skilled male
direction, and everywhere one found among managers and superintendents the
same enthusiasm for the women's work. "It's their honour they work on,"
said one forewoman. "That's why they stand it so well." The average
working week is fifty-four hours, but overtime may seriously lengthen the
tale. Wages are high; canteens and rest-rooms are being everywhere
provided; and the housing question is being tackled. The rapidity of the
women's piece-work is astonishing, and the mingling of classes--girls of
education and refinement working quite happily with those of a much
humbler type--runs without friction under the influence of a common
spirit. This common spirit was well expressed by a girl who before she
came to the factory was working a knitting-machine. "I like this
better--_because there's a purpose in it_." A sweet-faced woman who was
turning copper bands for shell, said to me: "I never worked a machine
before the war. I have done 912 in ten hours, but that tired me very much.
I can do 500 or 600 quite easily."
On the same premises, after leaving the shell shops, we passed rapidly
through gun shops, where I saw again processes which had become almost
familiar. "The production of howitzers," said my guide, "is the question
of the day. We are making them with great rapidity--but the trouble is to
get enough machines." The next shop, devoted to 18-pounder field-guns, was
"green fields fifteen months ago," and the one adjoining it, a fine shed
about 400 feet square, for howitzer work, was started in August last, on a
site "which was a bog with a burn running through it." Soon "every foot of
space will be filled with machines, and there will be 1,200 people at work
here, including 400 women. In the next shop we are turning out about 4,000
shrapnel and 4,000 high-explosive shells per week. When we started women
on what we thought this heavy shell, we provided men to help lift the
shell in and out of the machines. The women thrust the men aside in five
minutes."
Later on, as I was passing through a series of new workshops occupied with
all kinds of army work and employing large numbers of women, I stopped to
speak to a Belgian woman. "Have you ever done any machine work before?"
"No, Madame, never--_Mais, c'est la guerre. Il faut tuer les Allemands_!"
It was a quiet, passionless voice. But one thought, with a shiver, of
those names of eternal infamy--of Termonde, Aerschot, Dinant, Louvain.
It was with this woman's words in my ears that I set out on my last
visit--to which they were the fitting prelude. The afternoon was darkening
fast. The motor sped down a river valley, sodden with rain and melting
snow, and after some miles we turn into a half-made road, leading to some
new buildings, and a desolate space beyond. A sentry challenges us, and we
produce our permit. Then we dismount, and I look out upon a wide stretch
of what three months ago was swamp, or wet plough land. Now its 250 acres
are enclosed with barbed wire, and patrolled by sentries night and day. A
number of small buildings, workshops, stores, etc., are rising all over
it. I am looking at what is to be the great "filling" factory of the
district, where 9,000 women, in addition to male workmen, will soon be
employed in charging the shell coming from the new shell factories we have
left behind in the darkness.
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