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Worms & C°

Cardiff, 22nd April 1918
Messrs Worms & Co. - Paris

Dear Sirs,
We beg to enclose copy of our letter to Messrs Burness also Newcastle, re Man Power Bill. To the information therein we would like to supplement the following.
We have been employing ladies as Accountants for some time, and as Secretary and Typists since October 1914, and shall unhesitatingly extend their use where possible. Unfortunately, two Ladies who had been with us for a long time, conceived it their duty to serve National interests, more directly. We fear the lure of a Uniform too influenced them somewhat; anyhow, one joined up some months back, and the other leaves at any moment. We replaced with a discharged Soldier, of much ability, the Assistant Accountant, who was forced to leave us at five days notice, and thought ourselves fortunate as he proved most capable. His temporary discharge, however, does not entitle him to pursue work during such exemption, save on the Land, and thus with great regret on both sides he has to resign, otherwise he will get into serious trouble, he finds, with the Army people, and this we have satisfied ourselves is without doubt the case.
In an Office like ours, invaded all day by Shipping folk who want ant all sorts of things done for them, a certain number of males must be available; in fact, females are not allowed on the Docks, where it is often necessary for our staff to take the aforesaid; thus the employment of ladies is necessarily limited; moreover, ones with business knowledge etc. are few and far between. All such have mostly be trained up, where now employed. It is true we have a number of boys, but they no sooner become useful, in the real sense of the word, than they have to join Cadet Corps, or even the Army itself for training.
We hope Messrs Burness will obtain protection, anyhow, for our Mr. S. J. Arthur, and we have taken your advice to heart not to ask too much; meanwhile we are everlastingly on the look out for other assistance, which will be more difficult to obtain now, than ever has been the case. A number of Offices, it is true, will for certain be shut up altogether, but after all the number of people possibly acceptable to us, or likely to be useful, will be limited in the extreme; for instance, for the Shipowners Panel the requisite number of three new members, (ineligible for Military Service) was only made up with the utmost difficulty, as most Shipowners could not sit on the Tribunal, as they themselves are under 51. whether such Tribunal will be extended to cover the Exporting Trades no-one yet knows, and we have already explained why the Government are adverse to latter, and keen on taking all their employees. Obviously there would, in such case, be less to be feared from them anent Government execution of their normal orders.
Yours very truly,