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This is a cross‐section study of the inter‐industry variation in male and female turnover in UK manufacturing in 1968, this date being constrained by the availability of appropriate data for use in the statistical analysis. The number of discharges over four weeks, expressed as a percentage of the number employed at the beginning of the period, is published by Minimum List Headings (MLH) on a quarterly basis. The annual rate of turnover was estimated by taking an average of the quarterly observations and multiplying by 13. This shows a wide variation between MLHs. In 1968, the annual male turnover rate was lowest at 8.5 per cent in Mineral Oil Refining (262) and highest at 77 per cent in Jute (415). Similarly the female rate ranged from 12.4 per cent in Mineral Oil Refining to 81.9 per cent in Fruit and Vegetable Products (218). Moreover, the frequency distribution presented in Table I suggests that turnover was an apparently serious problem. About one‐third of the MLHs had an annual rate of male turnover of between 30 and 40 per cent, while in nine branches of manufacturing the rate of leaving exceeded 50 per cent. The male turnover rate across all manufacturing was 29.9 per cent. Turnover is clearly greater among females. Seven in every ten MLHs had a female rate in excess of 40 per cent, and the average for all manufacturing was 48.1 per cent.

Introduction The level of turnover in UK manufacturing, measured as the percentage of both leavers and starters over a four‐week period, was first collected in August 1948. Since this date, the level of quits and accessions has been published for Minimum List Headings (MLHs) and all manufacturing on a quarterly basis. This has proved to be a valuable data source for cross‐section analysis but, perhaps surprisingly, it does not appear to have been fully exploited for time‐series analysis. For example, it was used by Curran (1981) for an inter‐industry study of male turnover across 89 MLHs in 1972. Shorey (1980) analyses male quitting in 1968 across 49 MLHs, and extends this to cover both male and female turnover in Shorey (1983). A subsequent article in this journal will consider male and female quitting in 1968, but will present an improved model of turnover which is estimated across all 104 MLHs.

Presents 35 abstracts from the 2001 Employment Research Unit Annual conference held at Cardiff Business School in September 2001. Attempts to explore the theme of changing politics of employment relations beyond and within the nation state, against a background of concern in the developed economies at the erosion of relatively advanced conditions of work and social welfare through increasing competition and international agitation for more effective global labour standards. Divides this concept into two areas, addressing the erosion of employment standards through processes of restructuring and examining attempts by governments, trade unions and agencies to re‐create effective systems of regulation. Gives case examples from areas such as India, Wales, London, Ireland, South Africa, Europe and Japan. Covers subjects such as the Disability Discrimination Act, minimum wage, training, contract workers and managing change.

EVERY librarian in his inmost heart dislikes newspapers. He regards them as bad literature; attractors of undesirable readers; a drain upon the limited resources of the library; and a target against which the detractors of public libraries are constantly battering. From the standpoint of the librarian, newspapers are the most expensive and least productive articles stocked by a library, and their lavish provision is, perhaps, the most costly method of purchasing waste‐paper ever devised. Pressure of circumstances and local conditions combine, however, to muzzle the average librarian, and the consequence is that a perfectly honest and outspoken discussion of the newspaper question is very rarely seen. In these circumstances, an attempt to marshal the arguments for and against the newspaper, together with some account of a successful practical experiment at limitation, may prove interesting to readers of this magazine.

The Milk and Cream Standards Committee, of which Lord WENLOCK is Chairman, have commenced to take evidence, and at the outset have been met by the difficulty which must necessarily attach to the fixing of a legal standard for most food products. The problem, which is applicable also to other food materials, is to fix a standard for milk, cream and butter which shall be fair and just both to the producer and the consumer. The variation in the composition of these and other food products is well known to be such that, while standards may be arrived at which will make for the protection of the public against the supply of grossly‐adulterated articles, standards which shall insure the supply of articles of good quality cannot possibly be established by legal enactments. If the Committee has not yet arrived at this conclusion we can safely predict that they will be compelled to do so. A legal standard must necessarily be the lowest which can possibly be established, in order to avoid doing injustice to producers and vendors. The labours of the Committee will no doubt have a good effect in certain directions, but they cannot result in affording protection and support to the vendor of superior products as against the vendor of inferior ones and as against the vendor of products which are brought down by adulteration to the lowest legal limits. Neither the labours of this committee nor of any similar committee appointed in the future can result in the establishment of standards which will give a guarantee to the consumer that he is receiving a product which has not been tampered with and which is of high, or even of fair, quality.

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog to be operated upon would probably prefer a gala day at his Tyburn Tree to being executed in an obscure back yard.

The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.

What follows forms part of an important article by Mr. H. H. Bagnall, B.Sc., F.R.I.C., City Analyst for Birmingham, and Mr. F. G. Stock, M.Pharm., A.R.I.C., which appeared in The Pharmaceutical Journal of April 16th, 1955. The British Food Journal is indebted to the authors and to the Editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal for permission to reprint a large portion of the article.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.