and to the Court of Session in Scotland. But the same principles of cheapness and informality marked the change and though the judicial decisions given had far-reaching results, they were given quickly w.th a minimum of expense to appellants and often with- out the assistance of counsel.
Section 4 (5) provided for regulations to be made by the Minister of Munitions for the general ordering of work in con- trolled establishments. When the bill passed into law the Minis- ter of Munitions was faced with the difficulty of drawing up a code of workshop rules for the controlled establishments, the number of which increased from 134 on July 12 1915, to 2,422 on Jan. i 1916, and ultimately exceeded 6,000. The difficulty of interfering with the delicate mechanism of workshop discipline by central edict was very much in the mind of the Ministry, and consequently the first regulations did not themselves make workshop rules but required the owner of a controlled estab- lishment to post his own rules, thus giving them statutory effect.
This was an ingenious shortcut, but it failed in its object. The workmen were not prepared for possibly arbitrary rules, made to suit an employer's convenience, being made Workshop statutory. On their side the employers realized the Rule*. reasonable nature of the workpeoples' objection, and moreover large numbers of the smaller employers had never drawn up a regular code of workshop rules. Accord- ingly in Aug. 1915 the Ministry of Munitions drew up a model code of rules for posting. These provided for regularity and dili- gence, suspension of restrictions, and sobriety and good order, but the model rules did not of necessity supersede the existing workshop rules. The result of this step is shown by the follow- ing figures for Dec. 4 1915, in respect of establishments con- trolled by Nov. 4:
Posting of
Rules.
Model rules only Model rules with variations Own rules Model rules and own rules Model rules prepared by Engineering Employers' Federation
800
21
116
303
64
1, 114
Certain difficulties arose subsequently in rules posted by em- ployers, notably a rule imposing small fines for bad time- keeping. But these difficulties were ultimately surmounted by an agreement in the autumn of 1915 to substitute the Ministry of Munitions code for the unpopular rules.
Up to Dec. 1915 there had been 4,166 cases under Section 4 (5) before munitions tribunals, of which the great majority had been cases of bad time-keeping. It is a matter of real difficulty to decide whether convictions in this respect had or had not any real effect. It was often argued that the irritation caused by prosecu- tions far outweighed the advantages derived from convictions. However this may be, employers continued to revert with a certain freedom to this method, until the abolition of the leaving certificate. When this was abolished, the employer, through fear of losing workmen prosecuted, was far more chary of bring- ing prosecutions; indeed employers felt that the abolition of Section 7 carried with it the repeal of Section 4 (5).
The Ministry of Munitions were conscious that legal proceed- ings in themselves would not necessarily cure the undoubted evil of bad time-keeping, which remained throughout the war, especially in the shipyards, a real menace to production. The causes were variously diagnosed, but there can be little doubt that the real causes were overstrain and high wages. To supple- ment the work of the tribunals the Ministry instituted a system of warning offenders, and appointed in this connexion a number of time-keeping officers, whose duty it was to investigate the time-keeping in the various controlled establishments and to put themselves into direct touch with culprits. It is difficult to show statistically what effect this policy had, but numerous testimonies to its good effects were received from employers.
But, if no direct results could be estimated, the indirect results of the efforts to deal with time-keeping were remarkable, provid-
Imorove- meat of Working Condi'
lions.
ing another instance of permanent changes in the social structure arising from war measures. It was clear that overstrain was one of the effective causes of bad time-keeping, and that under the general head of overstrain must be included excessive hours, and unsatisfactory workshop and housing conditions. In the effort to repair these defects an important advance was made in the direction of elevating the position of workpeople generally.
The first indirect result of the bad time-keeping campaign was the encouragement of duly authorized workshop committees, which should themselves act as judges of their fellow workpeople. In the setting up of these committees the Ministry of Munitions had to proceed very slowly, and indeed were able to do little that was effective until late in 1917. The employers regarded this inno- vation with the greatest suspicion. Certain advanced employers (like Hans Renold, Ltd., at Manchester, and Messrs. Rowntree) had installed them with the most favourable results. But the employers generally regarded them as an attempt by the work- people to interfere with management, and they were the less prepared to accept them in view of the activities of the labour movement known as the " shop-steward " or " rank and file " movement. This movement, which originated with the Clyde workers' committee, advocated workshop committees, partly as a means of countering the centralized powers of the trade unions, and partly as a means of reaching workshop control. When, therefore, the Ministry of Munitions urged upon employers' committees, which in everything except name were fundamentally different from those advocated by the shop stewards, the similar- ity of name and the possible misuse of any powers entrusted to the committees were powerful obstacles to progress. But the Minis- try persevered, and a considerable number of these committees were set up, all of which, if only for the vigorous way in which they dealt with bad time-keeping, fully justified their creation. After the Coventry strike of 1918 the Engineering Employers' Federation signed an agreement with the engineering unions setting out the basis upon which committees might be estab- lished, thus setting the seal on the labour of the Ministry of Muni- tions in this respect. But the point of real interest is that in this work the Ministry of Munitions anticipated in practice on a very modest scale the far-reaching proposals of the committee under Mr. J. H. Whitley, M.P., which recommended the estab- lishment of joint industrial councils for industries.
It would be untrue to allege that the control of hours, the pro- vision of welfare facilities and the provision of housing, were under- taken primarily or indeed chiefly to cure bad time-keeping. These steps were necessary at least as much in the interests of the general moral of the workpeople as of the actual volume of production. But that bad time-keeping was an effective cause of the special attention given to these matters cannot be doubted. It was a consideration almost as much present to the industrial research committee, which investigated industrial fatigue, as to the Ministry of Munitions. It was certainly constantly in the mind of the welfare department of the Ministry of Munitions, and it was seriously taken into account by the Ministry in deciding on building schemes. Thus again from a war necessity were made contributions of first-rate importance to the whole future of industrial organization.
So far as hours of labour are concerned, it is sufficient here to note that the labour department of the Ministry of Munitions had a special responsibility as the labour side of the great supply depart- ment. The Home Office had the statutory duty under the Factory Acts of regulating the hours of women and young persons, but trade- union rules were the only instrument that existed to control men's hours, and then not from the health, but from the economic point of view. The Home Office, faced by the urgent demands for muni- tions, the validity of which they were not able to estimate, had even so far as women and young persons were concerned great difficulty in maintaining hours at a reasonable level. So far as men's hours were concerned, in the early days of the war, working weeks of 80 and 90, and even 100, hours were by no means uncommon. It was upon the labour department of the Ministry of Munitions, which could in some measure control or at least estimate the demands of the supply departments, that the duty fell of attempting to bring hours down to a reasonable level. It was the Medical Research Committee, constituted by the Home Office, which pointed out the waste of energy and efficiency involved by excessive hours, but it was the labour department of the Ministry of Munitions which, by using their influence with the supply departments, were able to see that the views of the committee were carried out at least in part.
So far as welfare is concerned, here again the Ministry of Munitions
