WAR INDUSTRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 4

WAR INDUSTRY

PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS IN BRITAIN. LABOUR MINISTER’S SURVEY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 22. If the war lasted a number of years, production would have to be carried out by women and the older generation, said the Minister of Labour, Mr Bevin, in a debate in the House of Commons today, on the work of the factory department of the Ministry of Labour. ■ Stressing the importance of the Government assuming greater responsibility for the welfare of workers inside and outside the factories, Mr Bevin said that when Coventry was raided it was calculated it would take several weeks to “get the show going again.” About 80,000 people were working in the district, but notwithstanding the destruction it only took 14 days for 77,000 men to be back at work, every shift was working about three days after the attack had ceased. The accident rate in the factories had increased, said Mr Bevin, largely due to the recruitment of inexperienced workers, long hours, and the great amount of work put on the overseers, foremen and supervisory staffs. Canteens had been or were being provided at 96 per cent of the factories. They had to do things about hours and labour which were extremely distasteful, the Minister said. In the cotton industry hours had been extended to 62 a week, and it had been necessary to take lads into the industry from the age of 141- upward. Replying to the debate, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, Mr Tomlinson, said the hours of young people in the cotton industry would be reduced at the end of August in the weaving and spinning sections. He added that the Ministry’s motto was “What is possible we do immediately. What is impossible takes a little longer.”