MUNITION WORKERS.

GIRL EARNS £5 PER WEEK.

The whole kingdom is mapped out in eleven munition areas, seven in England and Wales, two in Scotland, and two in Ireland. The areas are subdivided into a varying number of districts, and each district has a local board of management, acting under the Ministry of Munitions. The boards of management have drastic powers for taking the lathes, engineering equipment, and factories in their areas.

At the Ministry of Munitions is an official for each local area. At one factory in Birmingham 7,000,000 rifle cartridges are turned out every week. Of the 7,000 employees at the factory, over 4,000 are women, each earning from 30s. to £3, and even more, a week. In the Leeds area there was not a single munition factory at the beginning of the war. Now there are 500.

The National Shell Factory, at Keighley, turns out thousands of shells a week. So keen is the competition between the munition factories in Yorkshire to break records in output that they have a challenge shield for the best shift, the competition being a weekly one.

In Scotland is to be found the largest munition factory in the kingdom. In size it is second only to Krupps. It is at present directly employing about 60,000 persons, including 6,000 women. Some idea of the varied requirements of modern warfare may be gained from the fact that at this Scottish factory seventy-seven different varieties of shells are made. The champion of the factory is a girl who is machining the copper bands on shells. Her record is 1,014 in a ten-hour shift, or, say, 101 an hour. She earns £5 a week