PORT ORGANIZATION 3
employing only a few hands, finds it prudent to encourage
the maintenance of a sufficient margin to meet unforeseen
contingencies. Economy compels such an employer to
reduce his regular staff to a minimum and to reinforce it
strictly as occasion requires. He has no wish to pay wages
to supernumeraries.

Finally, the men themselves are of a class which looks
with disfavour on continuous and regular employment.
Many of them object to working steadily throughout the
week. They have a preference, expressed or implied,
for several days’ work followed by a period of idleness.
Moreover, they are suspicious of schemes, which, if put
into execution, would eliminate a portion of their number.
There is innate conservatism and dislike of change,
accompanied by a resentment of any form of control over
their movements, which would necessarily be involved in
organized superintendence.

Yet, in spite of these difficulties, it must be agreed that
the evils of casual employment are such as to demand
earnest and determined efforts for its elimination. Men
frequently or constantly under-employed, in large numbers,
are a menace and danger to society. They deteriorate in
character, and, becoming gradually demoralized, threaten
disturbance to the body politic. Moreover, their families
suffer in health and well-being, and the men themselves
become physically unfit for the hard work which they
perform at uncertain intervals.

Despite certain objections to it on various grounds,
the most hopeful proposition put forward in the way of a
solution of the problem is the establishment at each port
of a register of dock labourers, to form a nucleus for whom
continuous employment can be assured, together with a
surplus or margin of the smallest dimensions consistent
with the circumstances.

1 Vide Report of Committee of Enquiry concerning ‘‘ Transport
Work : Wages and Conditions of Employment of Dock Labour "'—
generally known as the Shaw Report, 1920.

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