Excerpt from Report of the Department of Labor on the Conditions of Wage-Earners in the State, 1918: Printed in Compliance With Statute

It is remarkable that this fact is due to private enterprise. NO factories have been subsidized by the government nor have loans Of any kind been made to the owners. The own ers have at comparative prices taken orders from the government and on the strength Of these orders have -pur chased land, built factories, procured machinery and now depend on the contract prices for reimbursement of their outlay and gaining the profit to which they are entitled.

Some interesting conclusions can be drawn from this statement Of the business-like and quiet manner in which France with the enemy in its land applied common sense to business propositions.

The testimony coming from a country whose first act was to create numberless bureaus and commissions and. Divi Sions and government control, has great weight.

Night work for women was not looked upon with any great favor by the French government, which adopted it only through. Great necessity. It was not until the end of 1916, when all the women accustomed to wage earning were employed, that a call was made for those who were at home, wives and widows Of soldiers, receivers Of allotments, and refugees. Then all factories ran night Shifts when the women worked the same hours as men. These were ten hours and sometimes twelve. There was a break of from one to two hours in the middle Of the day and one hour for midnight.

The British commission said that the women and men, too, for that matter, used the rest periods in Singing and enjoy ing themselves and went back to their work refreshed, Show ing no Signs Of fatigue. When the work was progressing some time it was ordered that one day Of rest weekly should be given all women workers. That day was Sunday, as a general thing, though another day could be substituted. Wages were regulated by women, doing women's work being paid the normal rate for the district for that kind Of work. Women on new work caused by the war were paid on the basis Of the rates for the sort of work most re sembling it previously. Women doing the same work as men, if they did it wholly, received the same pay as men. The French did not establish training schools and camps for women's instruction as did the British. That sort Of work was done directly in the factories.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.