INTERESTING LETTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1667, 27 January 1917, Page 3

INTERESTING LETTER.

MUNITION-MAKING SIDE LIGHTS. FROM AN EX-FOXTON RESIDENT. We have received an interesting letter from Mr J. Huglass, an exFoxfon business man, who offered his expert- services as a skilled engineer to the Imperial authorities ahout two years ago, and whose services were accepted. Mr Bitgla--felt the call of duty, and disposed of his lucrative engineering busi-

ness to engage in the manufacture of munitions. His epistle in connection with administrative affairs in connection with the work’s is an eye-opener. The letter was written

last November:— “I started to work with Vickers. Ltd. Barrow is what might he called a ‘one-horse show,’' as without Vickers works it would not he much more than a village. The pre-war population was about 70,<M)(>, at present it Is estimated at something like .100,000. I do not know how many arc employed in Urn works, hut they arc credited with paying out £120,000 per week in wage.-. The town itself is just like the usual English manufacturing town, with plenty of smoking chimney stack’-, and row upon row of brick houses for worker,- to live in.

“I am working in a newly- built -hop, when* they are- building b.2 howitzer.-, Inel ! am sorry to say Unit after nearly six month's work I am siidly disappointed at the* poor results. During most of that lime I lie iirm have* had the greatest difficulty in (hiding me work to do, a stale of affairs which ! am told is prevalent ail over the* works. It doe*s seem strange that, in the* middle* of a great War. and in a factory engaged entirely on war work’, that such a state of affairs should exist, but 1 am only saying what I know to be an absolute fact, when I tell you that 1 have had to waste more time in the* hist six months than in fitly other-i.x months in my working lifetime*. There are plenty of other.coitld say tin* same, and 1 am only put ting it mildly when I say that the a mount of lime wasted in tlmse work- is .-imply deplorable*. As to the cause of (he waste; erf time there appear to be several. With regard to Hte* lirm not. being able* to fiml work for I lie* men, of eoitrse the men have* no concern in lltal. There is it lot of time lost through mem not (timing out in the mornings. Of

course, some* of il is owing to sheer laziness, but most of it is because Hie hours an* too lung. There is jtlso time* wasted owing to restriction of output, as to the causes’ t>f which il would take pages to explain, but 1 know that Uteri* is rest fiction, and I think the* lirm arc to blame* for a good deal of it. The* half-penny newspapers tire constantly telling the public about the fabulous wages t hat munition workers are earning, but 1 do know that Hie rtito of wages for skilled workers such as myself is a fraction less than 1 Del per hour (less limn an ‘oirside-r’). Of course, by working 7 days a week on day work, and six nights of L! hours each, on night work, ttqd also with Hie bonus 'on the extra amount of work he (urns out, it. man can average; £4 per week, but he (-(‘ftainly earns it all. The way the skilled workers have been treated in the munition works is shameful. To give tin illustration in a works in Edinburgh (where f learnt my trade), the Government took’ over Hu* works and set them 1.0 work on 4.A shells. The skilled

men were I old to get the machines fitted up for .shell work, then butchi rs am! bakers, etc., were bronchi in, and I lie skilled men had to teach these men how to make shells. Thai only required a lew days' tuition, when the hutehers, etc., round they could earn t!-l (o £~> per week, ami tin 1 men who had taught them, and who had lo >tdl -el the tools For them, were gelling ,I'2 as. That is the experience of thousands of skilled workers in the controlled works all over the country. According to the Hoard of Trade statistics the cost id' the necessaries ol' like have increased by 7H per cent, since .lit 1.4, so that probably the majority of workers are worseoJl than they were before the war."