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working people. A railroad official told me recently that 
      "sickness" reduces the numbers of the railroad workmen 
      an average of twenty-five percent. When I asked him what he meant 
      by "sickness" he said, "absenteeism''.' He said 
      it is not unusual for the railroad lines to be blocked with freight 
      trains waiting to be loaded or unloaded from the convoys. I asked 
      him what he could do about it. He replied, "We don't dare 
      do anything." I was informed by a responsible employee of 
      Vickers-Armstrongs Limited a few days ago that the average daily 
      absentees from that plant are more than three hundred. Wherever 
      I inquired I found the same condition. Moreover, when this class 
      are at work they do the minimum and manage to get in overtime 
      whenever possible. Another man said to me, "We always have 
      full forces of laborers on Sundays, because there is time-and-a-half 
      for Sunday work." This is true among the munitions, shipbuilding, 
      docks, and railroad workers, and everywhere. When Vickers-Armstrongs 
      limited inquired what punitive measures were to be taken it was 
                       told to do nothing.                  
 
                                                            
 
 
Some of the laborers do not hesitate to say that winning the 
      war would not better their condition and they point with sneers 
      at what happened to them after the