The Canteen Committee of the Liquor Control Board who have looked after this work have issued an admirable official pamphlet, "Feeding the Munition Worker," in which plans for construction and all details are given. An ideal canteen should always provide facilities for the worker to heat his or her own food.
The prices are very reasonable, and in most cases only cover cost of food and service, soup and bread is 4 cents—cut from joint and two vegetables, 12 to 16 cents.
Puddings, 2 to 4 cents,
Bread and cheese, 3 to 4 cents,
Tea, coffee and cocoa, 2 cents a cup,
and a variety is arranged in the week's menu.
The Y.W.C.A. Huts are very popular. In some of them the girls get dinners for 10 cents, and the dinner includes joint, vegetables and pudding.
There are comfortable chairs in them in which girls can rest and attractive magazines and books to read in the little restrooms. The workers in charge of these canteens are educated women and the waiting and service is done by voluntary helpers. There is not only excellent feeding for our workers in these canteens, but there is great economy in food and fuel. To cook 400 dinners together is much less wasteful than to cook them separately, and the cooks in these are generally trained economists.
The children, too, are not forgotten. Our welfare workers follow the young mother home and find out if the children are all right and well taken care of. We have done even more in the war than before for our babies and the infant death rate is falling. We have established excellent creches and nurseries where they are needed.
It is impossible to overestimate the value of all this work in industry. The Prime Minister, speaking last year on this subject, said, "It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the making of weapons of destruction should afford the occasion to humanize industry. Yet such is the case. Old prejudices have vanished, new ideas are abroad; employers and workers, the public and the State, are all favourable to new methods. The opportunity must not be allowed to slip. It may well be that, when the tumult of war is a distant echo and the making of munitions a nightmare of the past, the effort now being made to soften asperities, to secure the welfare of the workers, and to build a bridge of sympathy and understanding between employer and employed, will have left behind results of permanent and enduring value to the workers, to the nation and to mankind at large."