View report page

199
[1914

There has been a net increase of 14 in the number of factories on the register, and a
net increase of 734 in the number of women employed in them. The workshops show a net
decrease of 44, and there were 190 women less employed in them. Thus the number of premises
under my observation has decreased by 30, and the number of women increased by 544, the
additional labour being employed in factories.
STATE OF LABOUR MARKET.
On the outbreak of war there was grave anxiety in all branches of industry, for tLe
effect of the war could in no way be foreseen. Happily fears of wholesale paralysis have not
been justified by events; but certain industries, in especial those which exist on the supply of
luxuries, such as expensive furs, have been totally crippled, while others have suffered grevious
diminution.
Certain manufacturers, whose plant enabled them to do so, having lost their normal
trade, have succeeded in keeping their factories open and their workers employed through the
medium of Government contracts. But there are others—and here again I especially indicate
the furriers—who have been ruined, and whose workers, those of them who have not proved
sufficiently adaptable to take up other occupations, are now unemployed. Fur-workers rely
almost entirely on labour during the winter months to support them throughout the year The
past winter saw this class idle, and distress at the end of the year was rife.
Those trades which had machinery suitable for the various purposes gradually revived
when abnormal Government contracts—for soldier's clothing and equipment, for example—were
given out; but the furriers, who are mostly all manual labourers, and whose supply of raw
material was practically extinguished, were, naturally, unaffected by the unexpected flow of