3 
CHAPTER II. 
Change of Work. } } 
In working hours the change is no less complete. The worker 
is surrounded by conditions which are entirely novel to him. He has 
been used to spasmodic work with long intervals of leisure, and he finds 
himself expected to work continuously and to order. Disciplined hours 
of toil are a strain to the body that is not accustomed to them, and they 
involve a corresponding strain on the mind which is apt to be under- 
estimated. The difficulty and distress felt by most workers in accepting 
the discipline of factory work have important effects on their efficiency. 
The fact that they have not usually grown up in a familiarity with 
industry acts as a further handicap. The Western industrial workers 
owe not a little of their aptitude to being brought up with factory work- 
ers and in a factory area, even when they do not enter the factory at an 
early age. 
Home-sickness. 
All these factors tend, especially at first, to produce a state of 
depression, and when, as not infrequently happens, sickness supervenes, 
there is a strong inclination to return and endure the privations of the 
village rather than face the risks and hardships of the town. Among 
new recruits to industry there is a considerable percentage who are 
unwilling to face all that is involved in the change and find their way 
back to the village. And there must be many more who, in the early 
months, would yield to the impulse to return if circumstances 
allowed. But after the home-sickness of the first term is passed, the 
worker generally becomes more reconciled to the change and is ready 
to acauiesce in unsatisfactory conditions. 
Turnover. 
Finally, the constant changing of the labour force in individual 
establishments, which is associated with the present system, carries 
with it serious disadvantages, from the point of view both of the manage- 
ment and of the worker. It necessitates the continuous turnover of 
employees, many of whom may be entirely new to the particular factory 
and to its machines and methods of working, with a consequent loss of 
efficiency which reacts on both parties. It also places a serious obstacle in 
the way of establishing contact between employer and employed and of 
building up the sense of co-operation ; and the worker who returns after 
a spell in the village has, in most cases, no guarantee of re-employment 
on his return. In fact, as we show later, his position in this respect has 
been getting generally weaker in recent years. Too often he find it 
necessary to purchase his re-admission to industrial work at a time 
when his reserves of cash have either disappeared or been seriously 
depleted. 
Economic Advantages of Contact with. Villages. 
Such are some of the disadvantages accompanying the present 
system of migration. But there is another side to the picture, for the con- 
bact with the villages has big advantages. In the first place it means 
that most industrial workers have been brought up in more natural 
surroundings. They usually bring a better standard of physique than