Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 302, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1918 — FRANCE HAS MORE WORKERS THAN JOBS [ARTICLE]

FRANCE HAS MORE WORKERS THAN JOBS

< ■ • 1 . * (Returning Army-to Civil Life ' Brings Problems Unlike t Those in U. S. WORKSHOPS AREWIPED OUT ■ ■ ? ■ , ■ L • s ■ • {Labor Readjustment Is Subject of Greater Importance in France Than In Any Other Bel- ' ligerent Country. Paris. —Readjustment of labor after (demobilization looms fits the biggest mfter-the-war question in France. A committee of members of the IFrencb chqinber of deputies has offl- . «lally asked the government what □steps tb«vnid labor reconstruction are Mo be taken. Appointment of a commission to istudy the question has Just been announced. , Laboq readjustment is a subject of (greater importance in France than in ■any other belligerent country—outside of Belgium, perhaps—(because so many factories and commercial enterprises lhave been destroyed by the war. " - When the soldiers are demobilized >a great nqmber will not be able jtd, □return to the. work in which they were -engaged before the war. Their workehops have been wiped out. Many others who have been emiployed on war work in munitions tplants will be’thrown out of employment. For such concerns will have to •shut down while they adapt themselves, many of them slowly, to a ipeace-time line of manufacture. Another class of men, who have T>een away at the front four years, ‘-vyill find no places open Slave been replaced by other labor — women, in numerous cases. The government fac«s< the problems tof having more men on its hands than St' has jobs. A quick solution is Im(perative, according to the view of prominent labor leaders. “Every other country except France has thought about this matter,” said (pole. *• • Emmanuel Brousse, a French deputy and a member of the newly appointed ilabor adjustment commission. “Britain has been working on the Ilabor question for a long time. Twen-

-ty-flve commissions composed of specialists in various lines have prepared a solution. " “Germany had Its after-,war program definitely First the men who in civil life were engaged in such occupations as technical, commercial, industrial, financial and transport were to be freed from army service. Other kinds of workmen were to be demobilized successively. * . v Z “France must hot lose a moment in mapping out its labor * readjustment plan. Otherwise there will be a social catastrophe.” ' • Labor leaders in France point also to the preparations in ’America for distributing farming land to demobilized soldiers. But they remark that this method of finding something for the ex-soldier to do is closed to the French. ' • . '''- 'y-.-France has no vast unoccupied lands

as the United States has. except in Its northern African colonies. All of France is cultivated intensively, leaving none for,reclamation by demobilized soldiers. And it is calculated tiiat few will want to leave their own country for the purpose of colonization. t 6. H. Roberts. thlnister of labor, recently- discussed this subject before an audience of British soldiers at the British Army and Navy Leave club in Paris. The British minister satu temporarily unemployment difficulties of demobilized soldiers would ( be met by a free out-of-work donation covering ft period of 12 months after discharge. This will be additional to the month’s furlough given each man on his discharge, during which time pay and allowances are to be continued. ' The skilled workman among British soldiers, Roberts said, is safeguarded by the munitions of war act, giving him the assurance of reinstatement in employment. Committees, he said, would establish employment agencies in all cities and everything possible would be done to make labor resettlement as speedy and smooth as possible. ’ 7'