Welfare schemes were found to be best conducted through the assistance of welfare committees elected by the workers themselves and representative of all classes of labour employed. In this way is obtained from the beginning the support and cooperation of those for whom the work exists. A strong wel- fare committee is invaluable; through it an ambulance corps and shop committee for accident prevention can be formed; sickness and emergency funds can be raised and administered; recreation, mental and physical, can be organized; grievances Teal and imaginary, can be settled; order and discipline main- tained; etiquette and a high moral tone established; and canteen complaints discussed and remedied.
A standard has been suggested for the staff necessary for a welfare department, as follows:
Welfare supervisors for women and girls: up to 300 workers, one welfare supervisor a further 300 workers, one assistant supervisor a further 450 workers, a second assistant supervisor a further 600 workers, a third assistant supervisor Total 1 ,650 women and girls, one senior welfare supervisor and 3 assistants. After this number one assistant should be added for every 600 workers. '
Welfare supervisors or apprentice masters for boys: up to
100 boys, one welfare supervisor a further 200 boys, one assistant supervisor a further 350 boys, a second assistant supervisor a further 500 boys, a third assistant supervisor Total 1,150 boys, one senior welfare supervisor and 3 assistants. After this number one assistant should be added for every 500 boys. Welfare supervisors for men: These officers are usually combined with those acting for boys; and in such cases the scale suggested in the case of women and girls may be taken as a guide. Examples of officers acting for men only are not yet sufficiently numerous to base a scale upon.
While activity on these lines (which came to an abrupt ter- mination on the cessation of hostilities) was still in progress, the Home Office in 1916 consolidated much of the ground won by obtaining powers under the Police, Factories, etc. (Miscella- neous Provisions) Act, Section 7, enabling the Secretary of State by order to require occupiers of factories to make reasonable provisions relating to " arrangements for preparing or heating, and taking, meals; the supply of drinking water; the supply of protective clothing; ambulance and first-aid arrangements; the supply and use of seats in workrooms; facilities for washing; accommodation for clothing; arrangements for supervision of workers." Under these powers a number of orders were made referring to:
Ambulance and First-Aid at blast furnaces, copper mills, iron mills, foundries and metal works.
Ambulance and First-Aid at saw-mills and wood-working factories.
Drinking water.
Dyeing, use of bichromate of potassium or sodium in.
Fruit preserving.
Glass bottles and pressed glass articles, manufacture.
Laundries.
Oil-cake mills.
Seats in shell factories.
Tanning, use of bichromate of potassium or sodium in.
Tin or terne plates, manufacture of.
All textile factories, printworks, bleaching and dyeing works, and rope-spinning works with reference to providing protec- tive clothing, cloakrooms, messrooms, washing facilities, seats, First-Aid and ambulance.
Not only did the Home Office through these orders proceed to enforce the provision of welfare accommodation but the way was prepared for further action by issuing a series of valuable advisory pamphlets, well illustrated, which set forth in a practical way how the orders can be complied with. The titles of these pamphlets suggest their contents: Welfare and Welfare Super- vision in Factories and Workshops; Messrooms and Canteens at Small Factories and Workshops; Protective Clothing for Women and Girl Workers; Seats for Workers in Factories and Workshops; First-Aid and Ambulance in Factories and Workshops; Ventila- ion in Factories and Workshops.
Evidence of the way in which the extension of welfare work ,s been stimulated is to be found in the coming into existence ('.) the Welfare Workers' Institute with headquarters at
n, Adam St., Adelphi, W.C.2, and (ii.) the Industrial Welfare Society, 51, Palace St., Westminster, S.W.i. Both bodies have a large membership and local branches in industrial areas; women supervisors mainly support the former and men the latter. Both publish good monthly journals, Welfare Work and The Journal of Industrial Welfare. The effect now exerted upon con- ditions of labour, social contentment and general betterment in industry is hard to overestimate.
Reference has so far been confined to the welfare movement in reference to factory employment, where it has been most pronounced; but action has not been confined entirely to this field. As long ago in England as 1872 the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act called for the provision of accommodation for enabling persons employed in metalliferous mines to dry con- veniently and change their clothes. In 1910 the Mines Accidents (Rescue & Aid) Act gave power to make orders relating to:
(a) The supply and maintenance of appliances for use in rescue work and the formation and training of rescue brigades.
(6) The supply and maintenance of ambulance appliances and the training of men in ambulance work.
The Coal Mines Act of 1911 contained, too, an important clause providing for accommodation and facilities for taking baths and drying clothes where the majority of workmen em- ployed in a mine desire such. Unfortunately this clause was a dead letter except at some half-dozen collieries. But under the Mining Industry Act, 1920, welfare work for miners should receive a great impetus. This Act provides a fund, derived from a levy of id. a ton on the output of each mine every year, to be applied for purposes connected with social well-being, recreation, and conditions of living of workers, and with mining education and research. This fund may amount to about 1,000,000 a year and its allocation is entrusted to an expert committee. The result cannot fail to be of intense interest.
For welfare work in the United States, see section V. of the article UNITED STATES.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Welfare Supervision, Health of Munition Work- ers' Committee. Memo.' No. 2. 1915 (Cd. 8151); Final Report of Health of Munition Workers' Committee 1918 (Cd. 9065) ; Hand- book for Welfare Supervisors and Apprentice Masters, Ministry of Labour, 1919; Collis, E. L., Welfare Work in factories, Jnl. of Royal Sanitary Institute, June 1919; Anderson, A. M., Welfare in Factories and Workshops, Jnl. of Industrial Hygiene, Aug. 1920. See also INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE. (E. L. C.)
WELLHAUSEN, JULIUS (1844-1918), German biblical scholar and Orientalist (see 28.507), died in 1918.
WELLS, HERBERT GEORGE (1866- ), English man of
letters (see 28.514), published subsequently to 1910 a long list of notable novels, including The New Machiavelli (1911);
Marriage (1912); The Passionate Friends (1913); The Wife of
Sir Isaac Harman (1914); The Research Magnificent (1915);
The Soul of a Bishop (1917); Joan and Peter (1918). He also
produced, in fiction form, a discussion on immortality, The
Undying Fire (1919); a philosophic work, God, the Invisible King
(1917), and a number of books and pamphlets suggested by the
World War. Of these, Mr. Brilling Sees it Through (1916) was
serious fiction, whilst An Englishman Looks at the World (1914),
The World Set Free (1914), The Peace of the World (1915), etc.,
were war pamphlets. He also published two humorous stories
in 1915, Boom and Bealby, and in 1919-20 he completed his
encyclopaedic Outline of History, which was first published in
monthly parts. In 1921 he published The Salvaging of Civil-
ization. (See ENGLISH LITERATURE.)
WEMYSS, FRANCIS WEMYSS-CHARTERIS-DOUGLAS, 10TH
EARL OF (1818-1914), British politician, was born at Edinburgh Aug. 4 1818, and was educated at Edinburgh, Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the House of Commons in 1841 as Lord Elcho, as Conservative member for E. Glos., holding the seat until 1846. From 1847 to 1883, when he succeeded his father in the peerage, he sat for Haddingtonshire and from 1852 to 1855 was a lord of the treasury. Lord Wemyss was best known for the part he took in encouraging the Volunteer movement (1859). From 1859 to 1879 he commanded the London Scottish, and was also one of the founders of the National Rifle Associa-
