Page:Women Wanted.djvu/196

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WOMEN WANTED

colour sense a woman seems to have. Nothing like it in men. Lots of 'em are even colour blind."

"So?" I replied. "Then you must be putting in a great many women for tool-tempering."

"Hush!" he answered, raising a warning finger. And then he smiled. "She's the first woman tool-temperer in England. So far there's only one other. You see, it's a highly technical operation," he went on to explain. "By the 'diluting' of labour scheme we aim to keep women in unskilled processes. We admit them to skilled processes only when it's unavoidable."

Now the workshop in which we stood, C-F-5, is the tool-room, confined to highly skilled processes. The employés, he told me, number 1000 and of these about 34 are women.

There you have an excellent comparative view of the outlook for women in the most desirable occupations. The way, it is true, is still a little steep and difficult. But with my eyes on Henrietta Boardman's bright flame, I saw that in making over industry they at least have set the ladder up: it goes all the way up! And they've made room at the top! Every week of this ghastly war, there is more and more room made at the top for women! It was in November, 1916, that an English manufacturer made the statement: "Given two more years of war and we can build a battleship from keel to aërial in all its complex detail and ready for trial, entirely by woman labour."

Then what will become of the labour of men?