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The report is divided into three main sections : (a) The first discusses the girl worker herself, her interests, and characteristics ; (b) The second discusses her attitude to her work, working-conditions, and working; companions ; and (c) The. third discusses how employers, trade-unions, and social workers can assist the girl worker. (2) Social and Welfare Activities. —The war had a twofold effect on social and welfareactivities sponsored by firms for their employees. Firstly, those firms, comparatively few in numbers, which had undertaken a programme of social and welfare activities before the war found that wartime conditions —long hours, a large proportion of temporary employees, &c. —made it far harder to keep these activities going. Secondly, many firms, owing to their need to attract and retain staff, became interested in the provision of social and welfare activities for the first time. This investigation was planned to ascertain from a representative sample of firms what social and welfare activities had been or were being undertaken, what the response from the employees was, and what', in the opinion of the managements of the. firms, was the value of this type of activity. We approached the investigation with an open mind, quite prepared to find that under New Zealand conditions these activities were not really justifying themselves, but also prepared to recognize benefits from them both to the employees of the firms and to the firms themselves. In the course of the investigation thirty-two firms were visited, and of these, twenty-four had some form of group activity. This figure includes a wide range varying from firms with a single sports team or only an annual ball to those with a well-organized and efficient system of social activity. In five of the remaining eight firms the management were contemplating the possibility of starting some such activities. A short report is to be issued. (3) Music in New Zealand Factories. —In Christchurch and Auckland 115 factories were contacted with reference to music at work. Of these, 51 had music played during working-hours, and 8 had previously had it, but for various reasons abandoned it. Besides obtaining details from the managements we also questioned 304 girls on their attitudes to music at work. We were unable to get a representative sample of male opinion. Whether or not men dislike music at work, employers in New Zealand seem to consider it unnecessary to provide a musical accompaniment to their labours. The popularity of music at work among girls is overwhelming. Only 9 out of the 304 girls questioned disliked music. And this in spite of rather poor reproduction (over one-third of the firms were dissatisfied with their systems of reproduction) and reliance on not always very suitable radio programmes. More than half the girls wanted music all day ; in fact, in about half the firms it was played all day. Nearly all the employers questioned thought music a good thing. They said that the girls liked it, that it diminished talking and made discipline easier to maintain, and that possibly (there was' some doubt and a lack of reliable evidence on this) it increased output. A report is in preparation embodying the results of this investigation, together with an account of the detailed experiment referred to in our second annual report. (4) Management Policies. —The aim of this investigation, which is still in its initial stages, is to collect from managements themselves their own experiences on the handling of staff and their own ideas on staff policies. After meeting and talking with the managements of many firms one is impressed by the stores of practical wisdom often' acquired by the average manager in the course of his experience. At the same time it is' surprising how personal this wisdom is. It is rarely communicated to other managers' and the divergencies of outlook on many common problems are marked. A first-class - idea put into practice with excellent effect by one manager may be unknown to the manager of the factory next door, or, alternatively, if he has heard of it, he may be; convinced that it is entirely impracticable. It is impossible not to feel that the art of management would progress if this personal' wisdom could be pieced together into a common tradition. In a sense, of course, the, scientific-management movement is an attempt —and a fairly successful attempt—to*

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