PROSPERITY AND THE FIVE-DAY WEEK Sm,—It must be very agreeable
to sit in a comfortable office and verbally chastise the workers from the fastnesses of Bloomsbury because they aspire to a five-day week. Do you and your American friends ever stop to think of how the workers toiled for six long years during the war,
and what a. drain upon their energy it has been ? Admittedly the Americans load and unload at week-ends, but they don't perform the operation upon marmalade sandwiches, which is the staple diet over here nowadays, unless one is lucky enough to work within reach of the black market restaurants in the cities. I should like you to keep in mind that millions of workers are slogging away at monotonous, soul- destroying occupations in order to provide the coal, power, paper, &c., to maintain such people as yourself in pleasant, interesting and com- paratively overpaid jobs. I know your aesthetic outlook on life will not permit you to admit that, while the country could continue to exist quite equably without papers, broadcasting and films, it could not last a week without transport, food and coal. Keep this well to the forefront of your mind when you are writing future' articles. Let us have first things first ; ihey have been neglected long enough in this modern
civilisation.—Yours, &c., BENJAMIN JARMAN. 24 Conway Terrace, Bickley, Kent.
[The only question is whether this country is to be able di regain its prosperity at all if production is lowered at this moment by a general reduction of working hours—and whether America will extend help to a country which she believes is working less hard than she is herself.— ED., The Spectator.]
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