" Welfare."
Page 7
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By "The Inspector.'"
Amongst the crowd of new occupations that the war has brought into being is that of welfare superintendent or welfare expert,whichever one pleases to call that particular class of specialist. And there is a great deal of twaddle talked and written about the nature of such activities. One would imagine, for in stance, that a wholesome dining room where your potato pie may be warmed or your 'kipper toasted is an inauguration of 1917; that 'a Mess-room with clean tables and eolour-washed walls is an innovation which the welfare specialist has, with startling intuition, discovered for the astonished factory manager ; or again that a properly equipped ambulance box, with sonaeone in charge of it who is competent to use it, was first proposed by some busybody whose first job is war-born. Again, I believe I have heard some.where of works football, cricket, tennis and hockey clubs, cycling clubs, quoits and bowls clubs, musical societies, choirs, brass bands, sports associations, swimming clubs, of whist drives, "socials," and works dances, almost everywhere that there is a works with -any pretence to standing, and I have not only heard of them, but taken part in their varied activities so long as twenty years ago. But it wasn't called " welfare " then! •
The real reason why we are now being entertained with wonderful accounts of the improvements in tone and morals that have been effected by this so-called welfare work is-largely because a host of war workers, with no particular capacity for anything special, other than that intangible knowledge of human nature," has jumped at the chance to get busy and look busy in a way that promises the maximum of limelight and necessitates the minimum of pre-war training. Very, very few far-seeing works superintendents are there who have not been quite fully alive to the desirability of making their employees as reasonably happy as circumstances and their temperaments will permit. It has for a number of years past been recognized as good business. Cheerful surroundings, cleanliness, and care for the health indisputably promote good, keen honest, work, but I have grave doubts whether apple-green curtains to the factory windows or plants in the timekeeper's office are more than negligible details of any sound scheme.
There is a limit, of course, to the amount that can usefully be done in this direction, and I, personally'', am of opinion that that limit can better be settled by the astute works manager; or perhaps by an interested managing director, than by some specially appointed, or dare I write, self-appointed good lady whose particular claim to distinction is an, infinite capacity for spotting trouble. The swarms of wartime welfare workers, for whom war-initiated industries have found employment, must not run away with the idea that the care of the worker is a thing undiscovered until they suddenly got busy. Factories established or taken over by the Government have opened a great field for such activities, and as whiteenamelled rest-rooms and uniformed attendants, mess-rooms and billiard tables all cost money, the fact that the Government will foot the bill has given free rein to all kinds of good people who are anxious to improve other people's lots at someone else's expense.
It must have rather astonished the Leyland, the Thornyeroft, the Austin, the Dennis and other factory organizations, as well as the London General Omnibtes Co., to listen to the self-laudatory commendations of the war-time welfare initiator. The rational corns fort of the worker has long appealed to the directorates of these and other kindred concerns in our own industry, not only as being dictetted by common humanity, but also as being very excellent business. I know of certain very keen welfarers, of the softer sex, who are fully convinced in their own minds that had they not decided to place "at the 'disposal of the nation" their own unrivalled ktrowledge of the value of a bunch of daffodils on the mess-room, table, the British worker, male or female, would still be toiling in conditions reminiscent of slave days. But then the first time these enthusiasts saw inside a works was, as a rule, a few short months ago. They can't do any harm so far as they' have gone, but there is just a danger that it may become a craze which will bring in its train results which will by no means prove blessings in disguise.
And it is as to this phase of the movement that I venture to raise my small voice of warning. I am afraid I have not very much use for the individual whose business is always somebody else's, and in view of the fact that the real welfare worker, with the necessary degree of tact, sympathy, broadmindedness ails] far-sightedness is as rare a bird as he or she is invaluable, there it danger that we may be State-pestered in peace-time, as we are in wartime, with another army of inspectors and investigators. The welfare safeguards of the Factory Acts are broad enough and might-without risk be a little broader, but the less industry aS a whole is bothered by meddlesome cranks the better for the nation. Encourage the employer to build canteens and restrooms if he still need encouragement, but very few of them do. It should not be necessary to maintain a corps of visitors who are constantly inquiring if the lady in charge of a semi-automaticfeels a. draught at her work, "or wouldn't she like a cushion ?
The British workman doesn't need to be coddled. Indeed he resents it. He regards, very often, this socalled "welfare, work" as a considerable and impertinent inquiry into his -Own business. With women it, so far, is different. Most of us have seen that new and wonderful film "intolerance," and the lesson of the "Uplifters " is a very pertinent one. it is not a very long cry from the factory to the home, and I, for one, shall not be guilty of an effusive welcome to the first welfare inspector who calls to se& if I've got an ambulance box fixed in Iny servants' kitchen, or to measure the size of their bedrooms. We arc at present regulated, controlled, directed and inspected to distraction in all phases of our lives. Let us see to it that public opinion does, after the peace, what hosts of "war workers" are endeavouring in amateur fashion to do now, and will endeavour to perpetuate afterwards.
• I have not essayed to analyse exactly what is included by "welfare work." Part., I gather, consists of provision for medical care in the work place, and suitable surroundings for meal times. Nothing very novel in all truth! There may be more, but I am not fully instructed. That there will be, if this mushroom profession gets a firm bold, I have no doubt. I wonder if we shall yet see a Sunday procession to Hyde Park of well-meaning meddlers indignantly claiming that hot water must be provided for the night-washers in garages to wash down the buses and lorries with, and that all drivers must be provided with footwarmers and with hot rum at the end of each trip.