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LABOURS' SERVICE IN THE WAR.

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LABOURS' SERVICE IN THE WAR. THERE is no doubt that the sympathy of the public is with the working classes. They re- sponded sp!endid!y to the invita- tion of Lord Kitchener, and came forward in hundreds of thousands in the early stages of the war. They were certaluly uPlJ°t!(;d to compulsory service, but it was more on principle than for person- al reasons. The reports of the cases that come day by day before the Courts show that the appellants are largely drawn from the classes intermediate between the upper and lower., Most of them have not the accumulated savings which enabled the upper and middle classes to join with- out consideration of how their families were to be maintained, while their standard of living can not be kept up by the Government allowances for wives and children. The working men who remained at home, engaged on the equally important.altbough less dangerous, business of pre- paring munitions, eventually gave up their trade union's rules when they were nnally convinced that their restrictions were help-1 ing our enemies and costing the lives of meo. This was <3aae very reluctantly, for the rules had been built up and endorsed by generations of trade unionists and were the outward and visible signs of many a bard-won victory. Nevertheless, they were given up, on the distinct promise of the Government that they should be restored on the completion of p&ace, and if the unions insist upon the exact and literal fulnl- ment of the promise, there wilt be a large amount of public pres* aure behind their demanda. But the stricken Rold intro- duces new conditions in regions far beyond those in which it is fought, a.nd very different from any anticipated, even by the most clear-sighted. Neither statesmen laor trade unionists has any idea oi the changes in workshop practice which would be affected by the dilusion of labour, and in making their compact they were acting largely in the dark. In the meantime a new light has arisen. It has been demonstrated that our old manufacturing methods were as inimical to the workman as to the employer, and that it is easy to replace them by others which will double or treble the output of a factory, yielding at the same time larger wages and increased pronts. Iftbisinvolved a sybtem of slave-driving, which would use Up the men in a few .y(-,ars n.nd then cast them aside as useless, it would be a national misfortune. But we see delicately nurtured women turning out day by day, and week by week, two or three times the amount of work prescribed by trade union rules, and keeping their 'health and vivacity. I

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