IN MUNITION TOWN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

IN MUNITION TOWN.

WELFARE WORK LOB HAPPY GIRLS. V.W.C.A. HOSTEL. ANTIDOTES TO THE EVILS OF THE 12-HOURS SHIFT. (" Express" Correspondent.) MUNITION TOWN (Eng.), Feb. 11. In Mr Patrick Mac Gill's best-known book there is a somewhat startling description of a navvy colony, its huts and its habits. Navvies, so it seems, are carted into the wilderness, dumped there and left to fend for themselves whenever a big engineering job in a remote region is to lie earned through. In war time much the same process has to be applied to young ladies—with a difference. They aie carted and dumped (using the term with all respect), but they are not left to fend for themselves. To-day I have had an opportunity of observing the why and the how, and in particular of examining the really remarkable machinery for securing the welfare of the workers which so completely differentiates the case of the munition girl from that of Mr Mac Gill's navvy. Munition Town 'is reached by motor car. It lies in flic heart of a green marshland, intersected ! ere and there by quiet watercourses. A homely English village, clustering round a homely spired church, crowns the higher ground. Everything about the place is primitive and peaceful. This is one of the chief spots where tfb are making cordite in order to save civil saUon. The factory in the marshes, nn important one of its kind in days of peace, is to-day fifteen times, as large as it was Tiefore the war: and the number of women employed ; s '_'.") times as great. Directly the' business began to develop the labour problem became acute. If cordite was to be manufactured in big enough quantises to ensure victory, women mist make it. But how to find women in sufficient numbers at the other end of nowhere?

A MUSHROOM VILLAGE. What is locally known as The Colony has -applied the solution. A new village o! mammoth wooden cottages has been grafted on to the old village on the hill. It has been furnished withal! the paraphernalia for social organisat on—public hall, club, lestaurant, hospital and chapel. Perhaps some day, if the war lasts, it will have the Pictures, but at present the girls must put up with the less modern pleasures' of the countryside

While the munition firm has provided all the material, the ivhole of the wi 'fare-work in the hands of the Y.W.C.A., who are thus justifying once aga'n their claim to nil important share in the war-winning movement among the women of the country.

After inspecting the neat and roomy cubicles where the girls breathe holiday air that should set them up for n tr,ny; spoil of iwon life, the great ha'l (often given up to dancing), the immense refectorv and kitchen, with its staff oi .% ooriks, and the perfectly arranged little hospital. T inquired how much a nnmiton worker is asked to ray for these things. The answer was : ]Js. a week, hoard, lodging, and a'l extras included, with a deduction of 2s 6d if the week-end it not .spent in the Colony. "Board" means three meat meals a day, and as the workers are doing 12-hour shifts in a hracinc atmosphere, they appear to lequire all of them. Belonging, as most of them do. to the upper ait san cla-s, they often hegin with mincing anpet:te-. But that soon changes. The colony life lived here is a good deal healtlrer than the town life of most girl- in artisan families. Twelve-hour shifts try a girl's stamina, and :t may lie ((intended that they ouuht never to he imposed; hut it such a system lias to he adopted there can he no doubt that its evil; are minimised by an environment like this. And is it "not worth while? We may have to lose our men, but is there any excuse for ruining our girls? The answer given by the Colony seems to be an emphatic No! The bright faces of the girls at the factory repeat the negative. It even strikes one ay conceivable that, human nature being what it is at present these young people may be in danger of bemg too well looked after, or. at any late, of getting too much for their money in the present difficult days. There is such a thing as not knowing when one is well off, and making mountains of those minor molehills which inevitably appear in every social meadow. But no doubt it is well to err on the right side. The nation can wisely do nothing short of seeking the fullest possible welfare for its future mothers.

KHAKI AND SCARLET. Thov look, indeed, :i bonny sot of girls-- jrirls for tin- men at the front to bo proud of—in their becoming "dan. per dress" of khaki and scarlet. There s one almost idyllic range of little huts fhere the most dangerous explosive—looking iirist J I<o innocent dough, and in finished form like macaroni—is heme manufactured. The huts open on ti; a ntrip of veil-kept lawn a hundred yards long, with a sundial, a fountain. and \n\h of iniuiature slinihs. A most delightful ploasaunce on thie clear frosty day. But it happens to have Ivcn'm one of this range of huts that a girl had a hand Mown off recently.

Incidents e-uch as thai do not often occur, but when they do the Colony has a grim reminder that the stuff its inhabitants make is something very different from the staff of bfe. One is astoni-hed at first to observe the nonchalance with which these happy vcung women handle the raw material iff winged death. They to-: it about as though they were bundling lemonade straw-:. Jove can nevt r haw been so careless with bis thunderbolt-!. Life has notlrng near, r and dearer lo her than these joking, pi rl and levable maidens. One of ihe hist ironies of the 20th Century Judgment Day is Mirely that morality »liotild constrain them' to the vc-tal service in this tern-