SHOWING THE WAY.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 271, 18 January 1918, Page 10

SHOWING THE WAY.

THE V M.C.A. AND TIIK MUNITION DEPARTMENT. To make and keep the munition worker, as well as the soldier and sailor, interested in dean, helpful things, both mental and physical, is one of the great aims of the Y.M.C.A. Not by compulsion or argument are they attempting to do this, hut by having the right inducement always at hand, doing its own propaganda work of healthy development. Responsible for 150 munition workers’ canteens, saving appmximately by this means some 200,000 workers daily the Association has in addition ten hostels, accommodating 3000 men. The largest of these hostels i* able to take in 700 men, and the service at the canteens never cease day and night, maintained largely by voluntary workers.

Regular weekly concerts are arranged for those centres in the London area, and educational lectures are given. Athletics in every branch are encouraged, not merely the g\mnasium idea, hut by employing that strongest of all stimulants, emulation. The recreative leagues formed for football and cricket are offered contests, when all the good old contentious spirit is let loose in tugs-of-war, races, and other feats of strength. League cricket during last summer included clubs from twenty-one different factories, represented by 700 players. These were enrolled, and amongst them were to be found several first-class county players. W here football is concerned, the club is formed of men from forty different factories, and those constitute a playing personnel of nearly 1500 men. These games and s|x>rts are never allowed to interfere vith regular work, and works managers de< larc in favour of games as promoting a corporate spirit in the factories. So valuable has the \ M.C.A. work among munitioners become that they are opening new canteens at the rate of six each month, and they have been enabled to give valuable assistance to munition workers in France. At the invitation of the French Minister, the head of the Association’s munitions department went over to help in forming a social and educative centre in Paris.