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Newspaper Page Text
"-vos'g;r -.ii-5aa;.al,gT".'y,y iidHMW. ' nymjipii government has been more and more the buffer between employer and em ploye. When labor has been denied better pay or shorter hours, it has fallen into a way of voting a strike and leaving government to find a way out of the row. " - But now government is becoming itself the employer, and how will that be when the row starts. At present it is makeshifting along on the basis of sentiment. Patriotism, tht is. Early in the war, by making an appeal to the pa triotic feelings of the people, it se cured amendments to the factory acts so as to extend working hours far beyond the regulation eight-hour day. Under this change, Prime Min ister Asquith boasted in his speech at Newcastle that in the armament factories each worker had been aver aging 67 to 69 hours a week. He was treading delicate ground. For the sake of the war and the coun try the workers submitted to the sur render of their eight-hour day, but they do not like it. The other day a workingman in the royal arms factory at Enfield died of overwork. Since August he had averaged 80 hours a week. The cor oner piously remarked that he had died for his country, but the work man plainly do not regard that ver dict with enthusiasm. A girl less than 18 years old worked in an ammunition factory at Leeds from 6 o'clock one morning until 7 o'clock the next morning, when she was disabled by an accident Another girl in the same factory worked 29 hours continuously. Workingmen now compare these conditions with the great dividends declared by the armament companies and the result is not reassuring. The fact i&, the government is be coming a great employer at a trou blous time in the history of labor. Al ready it is walking the slack wire and juggling hard to keep its balance be tween labor organizations that are powerful and those that are not It lost no time in giving the rail road men what they wanted; they are strongly organized. But when the postoffice workers, being but ill-organized, represented that as the war had greatly increased their labors and lengthened their hours they should have the same war bonus that had been allowed the railroad men, the government coldly turned them down. Recently the government nego tiated with the strongly organized miners for a longer working day. The miners demurred and pointed to the law. "Oh, we'll have the law amended," said the government agents, cheer fully. "If you do we'll strike," said the miners. The law has not been amended, but the miners are demanding that the mine owners share with them the great increase of profits the owners have raked off from the war and an alarmed government is sitting on the safety valve. Other conditions contribute to an uneasy situation. At the instance of the government some employers have all but driven employes into the army. Sometimes the vacancies thus made have been filled with women at lower wages. At the end of April it was estimated that more than 100,000 women had gone to work in places previously filled by men. Bitter complaint was made that many employers would not promise places after the war to men that en listed. The harassed government took this up and started a reforming crusade among employers. In a way it was too late. Most of the harm had been done and astute labor men under stood that women have come to stay in most of the industries they have entered. All these things point to further changes. The gravest of the iudica- liidSiJ