The general system now followed in the shell factories is to put so many skilled men in charge of so many lathes worked by women workers.  Each skilled man, who teaches the women, sets the tools, and keeps the machines in running order, oversees eight, ten, or more machines.  But sometimes the comradeship is much closer.  For instance (I quote again the witness mentioned above), in a machine tool shop, i.e., a shop for the making of tools used in shell production, one of the most highly skilled parts of the business, you may now see a man, with a woman to help him, operating two lathes.  If the woman falls into any difficulty the man comes to help her.  Both can earn more money than each could earn separately, and the skilled man who formerly worked the second lathe is released.  In the same shop a woman watched a skilled man doing slot-drilling—­a process in which thousandths of an inch matter—­for a fortnight.  Now she runs the machine herself by day, while the man works it on the night shift.  One woman in this shop is “able to do her own tool-setting.”  The observer thinks she must be the only woman tool-setter in the country, and he drops the remark that her capacity and will may have something to do with the fact that she has a husband at the front!  Near by, as part of the same works, which are not specialised, but engaged in general engineering, is a bomb shop staffed by women, which is now sending 3,000 bombs a week to the trenches.  Women are also doing gun-breech work of the most delicate and responsible kind under the guidance of a skilled overseer.  One of the women at this work was formerly a charwoman.  She has never yet broken a tool.  All over the works, indeed, the labour of women and unskilled men is being utilised in the same scientific way.  Thus the area of the works has been doubled in a few months, without the engagement of a single additional skilled man from outside.  “We have made the men take an interest in the women,” say the employers.  “That is the secret of our success.  We care nothing at all about the money, we are all for the output.  If the men think you are going to exploit women and cheapen the work, the scheme is crabbed right away.”

I myself came across the effect of this suspicion in the minds of the workmen in the case of a large Yorkshire shell factory, where the employers at once detected and slew it.  This great workshop, formerly used for railway work, now employs some 1,300 women, with a small staff of skilled men.  The women work forty-five hours a week in eight-hour shifts—­the men fifty-three hours on twelve-hour shifts.  There is no difficulty whatever in obtaining a full supply of women’s labour—­indeed, the factory has now a waiting-list of 500.  Nor has there been any difficulty with the men in regard to the women’s work.  With the exception of two operations, which are thought too heavy for them, all the machines are run by women.