Our women munition makers ought to be proud: “Mr. Lloyd George has brought out a picture book about them!” It is a large, handsome book, costing 1s., entirely full of pictures of women workers and all the processes they can do. According to Mr. Lloyd George, never were there such useful workers as women munition workers. He says they can do brazing and soldering, they can make 8-in. H. E. shells, they can drill 8-pounder shells, and some of them are very successful in making high explosive shells.
Well, it is very nice to be praised by so important a man, and it is even nicer that he should take the trouble to have a book filled with pictures of the girls at work. We women, however, have always had in our minds a lurking suspicion that we were, after all, as clever as the men, and it is pleasant enough to hear Mr. Lloyd George say so. But there is a conclusion to be drawn from all this. If girls are as important and as clever as the men, then they are as valuable to the employer. If this is so it becomes a duty of the girls to see now and always, whether on government work or not, that they receive the same pay as the men. Otherwise, all their cleverness and their intelligence go to helping the employer and bringing down the wages of their husbands, fathers, and brothers.
[69] Great Britain Ministry of Munitions, Dilution of Labour Bulletin, April, 1917, p. 82.
[70] London Times, weekly edition, May 4, 1917.
[71] Great Britain, Home Office, Substitution of Women in Nonmunition Factories during the War, pp. 27-50.
[72] Great Britain Home Office, Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1915, 4.
[73] British Association for the Advancement of Science, Credit, Industry and the War, 151.
[74] Labour Year Book, 1916, p. 81.
[75] British Association for the Advancement of Science, Credit, Industry, and the War, 72.
[76] Labour Gazette, November, 1916, p. 403.