22 JANUARY 1921, Page 3

The Government have decided to put the men at Woolwich

Arsenal and Portsmouth and Devonport Dockyards on short time next week, rather than dismiss many of them. It might be thought that workers employed by the State would grate- fully concur in this policy of tiding over a crisis. But the Woolwich employees have made a strong protest against short time. Whether their work is needed or not, the Arsenal employees regard themselves as having an indefeasible right to their full wages, which the community is to pay. They suggest, further, that all the men and women who were temporarily engaged at the Arsenal during the war ought to be maintained for the rest of their lives, in work or out of work, by a grateful country. The State as an employer is thought to have inexhaustible resources.