UNTRAINED MANUAL LABOUR.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have read with great interest your recent article dealing with unemployment, and advocating comprehensive construction of roads suitable for fast modern traffic, thus rendering possible door-to-door delivery of produce. Ever ready criticism urges that road building is too strenuous for the unemployed, as many are untrained to manual labour, and many are young persons. May I controvert that criticism by my own experience ? During the War three schoolmasters and I, a man of fifty, with schoolboys under military age, undertook the strenuous and specialized work a tree felling. At first, of course, being untrained and unused to manual labour we had to learn the use of an axe,
while our muscles rebelled and our hands became a mass of blisters : we soon, however, overcame these difficulties and settled down to steady and successful work of from five to seven hours a day.—! am, Sir, &c.,
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