Other less prominent difficulties of adjustment were the reluctance of soldiers’ wives to enter new kinds of work when they would retire from industry in a few months, and the unwillingness of women in general to go from the comparatively high wages of munitions to the low wages of learners and to factories lacking the conveniences of the new munitions plants.

Criticism of the system was so widespread that an official investigating committee was formed which issued two reports.[275] The committee concluded that there had been no widespread fraud, though under the plan as first put in operation it was possible legally for persons who were not genuinely seeking work to abuse the scheme. The committee felt, however, that the emergency had been great and that if the later safeguards had been introduced in the beginning the whole system might have broken down. They recommended, among other points, swifter prosecution of fraud, a contributory rather than a noncontributory plan, and discontinuance of allowances based on the number of dependents. They felt that applicants must not expect exactly the same sort of work or wage rates that they had had during the war, and that donations should be stopped if similar work was refused.

The Domestic Service Problem

Some of the main difficulties and the keenest discussion centered on the question of domestic service. That the Ministry of Reconstruction found it advisable to appoint a “Women’s Advisory Committee on the Domestic Service Problem,” which made a formal report, indicates the extent of agitation on the subject. It will be recalled that during the war the number of household servants decreased by 400,000. Householders seemingly expected that as soon as the war was over this shortage would be made up from the ranks of ex-munition workers. But this failed to occur. Some dissatisfaction with the wages offered, most frequently 10s. to 13s. ($2.40 to $3.12 a week, with board) was expressed, but the chief complaint was that of long hours and unsatisfactory personal treatment.

Various schemes for attracting workers by improving conditions were put forward, some of which involved radical changes from the usual customs. The majority of the official Women’s Advisory Committee, however, placed its chief emphasis in solving the problem merely on the provision of improved methods of training, notably a two year course to be entered by girls of fourteen. Other groups, such as the Fabian Women’s Group and the Women’s Industrial Council, advocated plans which in essence abolished all “living in,” and provided for hostels giving training which would send qualified workers into the homes for a fixed number of hours. By May the Young Women’s Christian Association was ready to open a hostel in London from which workers were to be sent out on an eight hour basis. Employers were to pay 10d. (20 cents) an hour to the hostel, and the workers were to receive 30s. ($7.20) for a forty-eight hour week, and to pay the hostel £1 ($4.80) weekly for board, for a guarantee against unemployment, for use of uniform and club privileges. If the hostel was successful, others were to be started.[276]

Meanwhile an active movement for union organization among domestic servants was begun, and forty branches having 4,000 members were formed in the four or five months after the armistice. The chief aim of the union was said to be the raising of the status of domestic service so that the workers would be proud of it. Its standards seemed to be comparatively modest—a minimum weekly wage of 12s. 6d. ($2.40) for general servants and 15s. ($3.60) for cooks, a ten hour work day during a fourteen hour period, part of Sunday and another half day off weekly and abolition of uniforms. This last demand perhaps represented the sharpest departure from prevailing customs. In Glasgow a “Mistresses’ League” was formed to cooperate with the union, and it was the general opinion of persons interested that both sides needed organizing.

Still “a house is not a factory,” and there were not wanting friends of the women worker to point out that domestic service must necessarily remain to some extent individual and unstandardized.

I am profoundly sceptical as to the various “industrialised” suggestions put forward—the introduction of shifts, etc. How could a household worker strictly on a shift system deal with the irregular incursion of visitors, children home for the holidays, measles, influenza, spring cleaning and other ills to which mortal flesh is heir?...

From the maid’s point of view, I take it the main disadvantages of domestic service are twofold; the question of free evenings and the uncertainty as to the type of household. Time off in the afternoon is naturally of less value than time off at night. Similarly a maid may find herself on taking a new situation in a comfortable home or very much the reverse.

In a house organized on proper lines, domestic service has compensations as well as drawbacks. A just mistress will arrange for adequate time off, even if the home can not be laid down each week with mathematical exactness. She will see that her maids are properly housed, that their food is adequate and properly cooked, that their work is organized on sensible lines and gives as much scope as possible for individual responsibility. In a household which lives literally as a family and is inspired with mutual consideration and good will “that servant problem” simply does not exist. When mutual consideration and good will are lacking neither corps, caps, correspondence nor conferences will create the cement by which a contented household is held together.[277]