Chapter 26

WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY.

Sec. 1. _Growing Employment of Women in Manufacture._ Sec. 2. _Machinery favours Employment of Women._ Sec. 3. _Wages of Women lower than of Men._ Sec. 4. _Causes of Lower Wages for Women._ Sec. 5. _Smaller Productivity or Efficiency of Women's Labour._ Sec. 6. _Factors enlarging the scope of Women's Wage-work._ Sec. 7. _"Minimum Wage" lower for Women--Her Labour often subsidised from other sources._ Sec. 8. _Woman's Contribution to the Family Wages--Effect of Woman's Work upon Man's Wages._ Sec. 9. _Tendency of Woman's Wage to low uniform level._ Sec. 10. _Custom and Competition as determinants of Low Wages._ Sec. 11. _Lack of Organisation among Women--Effect on Wages._ Sec. 12. _Over-supply of Labour in Women's Employments the root-evil._ Sec. 13. _Low Wages the chief cause of alleged Low "Value" of Woman's Work._ Sec. 14. _Industrial Position of Woman analogous to that of Low-skilled Men._ Sec. 15. _Damage to Home-life arising from Women's Wage-work._

Sec. 1. Modern manufacture with machinery favours the employment of women as compared with men. Each census during the last half century shows that in England women are entering more largely into every department of manufacture, excepting certain branches of metal work, machine-making and shipbuilding, etc., where great muscular strength is a prime factor in success.

The following table,[239] indicating the number of males and females employed in the leading groups of manufactures at decennial points since 1841, clearly indicates the nature and extent of the industrial advance of woman.

MALE AND FEMALE EMPLOYMENT IN MANUFACTURES, 1841-91.

+------------------+------------------+ | M. 1841. F. | M. 1851. F. | ---------------------------+------------------+------------------+ Earthenware | 23,600 7,400| 34,800 11,700| Fuel, Gas, Chemicals | 5,800 300| 16,400 1,700| Fur, Leather, Glue | 31,600 2,400| 44,500 6,500| Wood Furniture, Carriages, | | | etc. | 147,500 4,900| 180,200 8,900| Paper, Floorcloth, | | | Waterproof, etc. | 8,900 3,200| 13,600 8,300| Textiles, Dyeing | 346,200 257,600| 462,400 472,100| Dress | 343,600 177,200| 397,500 471,200| Food, Drink, Smoking | 82,700 8,000| 120,900 12,400| Watches, Instruments, | | | Toys | 19,600 800| 23,500 1,300| Printing, Bookbinding, | | | etc. | 21,100 1,800| 30,400 3,800| ---------------------------+------------------+------------------+ TOTAL |1,030,600 463,600|1,324,200 997,900| ---------------------------+------------------+------------------+

+--------------------+--------------------+ | M. 1861. F. | M. 1871. F. | ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ Earthenware | 42,500 13,400| 49,700 17,700| Fuel, Gas, Chemicals | 24,800 1,500| 34,900 4,100| Fur, Leather, Glue | 47,300 8,300| 49,400 10,200| Wood Furniture, Carriages, | | | etc. | 202,200 14,100| 214,200 19,500| Paper, Floorcloth, | | | Waterproof, etc. | 14,600 10,700| 20,300 13,400| Textiles, Dyeing | 439,700 526,500| 414,500 555,500| Dress | 378,600 550,900| 363,300 552,700| Food, Drink, Smoking | 133,400 15,600| 145,700 18,500| Watches, Instruments, | | | Toys | 32,800 2,900| 35,900 3,000| Printing, Bookbinding, | | | etc. | 41,300 6,200| 57,600 8,600| ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ TOTAL |1,357,200 1,150,100|1,385,500 1,203,200| ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

+--------------------+--------------------+ | M. 1881. F. | M. 1891. F. | ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ Earthenware | 52,200 19,700| 64,300 23,800| Fuel, Gas, Chemicals | 44,000 4,000| 66,400 6,300| Fur, Leather, Glue | 49,400 13,300| 59,100 18,200| Wood Furniture, Carriages, | | | etc. | 221,600 18,400| 253,600 23,300| Paper, Floorcloth, | | | Waterproof, etc. | 24,600 23,200| 28,600 34,200 | Textiles, Dyeing | 396,400 566,200| 430,500 585,600| Dress | 344,700 609,300| 353,800 681,300| Food, Drink, Smoking | 152,300 28,900| 173,100 50,200| Watches, Instruments, | | | Toys | 41,700 3,400| 44,600 5,500| Printing, Bookbinding, | | | etc. | 75,000 13,100| 102,100 19,100| ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ TOTAL |1,401,900 1,299,500|1,576,100 1,447,500| ---------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

From this table we perceive that while the number of males engaged in these manufactures has increased by 53 per cent. during the half century 1841 to 1891, the number of females has increased by 221 per cent. This movement, which must be regarded partly as a displacement of male by female labour, partly as an absorption of new manufactures by female labour, proceeded with great rapidity from the beginning of the period up to 1881. The check apparent in the last decennium, in which the number of males employed seems to have increased faster than that of the females, does not, however, indicate a reversal or even a suspension of the industrial movement. It is attributable to an abnormal change in a single great industry--the cotton trade; excluding this, the employment of females in each group of manufactures has grown faster than that of males.

If we confine our survey to adults (excluding males and females below fifteen) the rapid and regular advance of female employment as compared with male is still more striking.

When we turn to the textile industries and to dress, the change of proportionate employment among the sexes is very noteworthy. In textiles and dyeing there was a continuous decline in the absolute numbers of adult male workers and a continuous increase of female workers up to 1881. In 1851 there were 394,400 men employed, in 1881 the number had fallen to 345,900, while the women had risen during the same period from 390,800 to 500,200. The census figures for 1891 mark a decided check in this movement. Adult male workers show an increase of 34,000 upon the 1881 figures in the textile industries, while the increase of female workers is only 15,000. This is due, on the one hand, to the feverish and disordered expansion of the cotton industry, which offers a larger proportion of male employment than other textile branches; on the other hand, to the alarming decay of the lace and linen industries, which show an absolute decline of female employment amounting to nearly 13,000. So likewise in the dress industries 377,400 men were employed in 1851, and 335,900 in 1881, while the number of women employed had increased from 441,000 to 589,000.[240]

These figures chiefly indicate a displacement of male by female labour. But the movement is by no means peculiar to the textile and dress industries which may appear specially adapted to the faculties of women. Wherever women have got a firm footing in a manufacture a similar movement is traceable; the relative rate of increase in the employment of women exceeds that of men, even where the numbers of the latter do not show an absolute decline. Such industries are wood furniture and carriages; printing and bookbinding; paper, floorcloths, waterproof; feathers, leather, glues; food, drink, smoking; earthenware, machinery, tools.[241] Women have also obtained employment in connection with other industries which are still in the main "male" industries, and in which no women, or very few, were engaged in 1841. Such are fuel, gas, chemicals; watches, instruments, toys. The only group of machine industries in which their numbers have not increased more rapidly than those of men since 1851 are the metal industries. Over some of these, however, they are obtaining an increased hold. In the "more mechanical portions" of the growing "cycle" industry, hollow-ware, and in certain departments of the watchmaking trade, they are ousting male labour, executing with machinery the work formerly done by male hand-workers.[242]

From this and similar evidence relating to the statistics of employment in modern industrial countries, the following conclusions seem justified:--

(1.) That the tendency of modern industry is to increase the quantity of wage-work given to women as compared with that given to men.

In qualification of this tendency consideration should be taken of the greater irregularity of women's work, and of the fact that a large number of women returned as industrial workers give only a portion of their working-day to industry.

(2.) That this tendency is specially operative in manufacturing industries. The increase of female employment in the "dealing" industries and in "industrial service" is not larger than the increase of male employment between 1851 and 1881.

(3.) That in the manufacturing industries, omitting a few essentially male industries where even under machinery the muscles are severely taxed, the increased rate of female employment is greatest in those industries where machinery has been most highly developed, as for example in the textile industries and dress.

Out of 1,840,898 women placed in the industrial class in 1891 no fewer than 1,319,441 were engaged in textile industries and dress, though under the latter head there is of course still a good deal of hand industry.

It seems evident that modern improvements in machinery under normal circumstances favour the employment of women rather than of men. There is some reason to suppose that machinery also favours the employment of children as compared with adults, where the economic forces are allowed free play. In the textile industries of the United States the work of women and children predominates even more largely than in England; in 1880 the number of women and children employed were 112,859 as compared with 59,685 men, while in Massachusetts out of 61,246 work-people only 22,180 were adult males. So far as legislation and public opinion do not interfere, the tendency is strongly in favour of employing children. Mr. Wade says, in _Fibre and Fabric_, "The tendency of late years is towards the employment of child labour. We see men frequently thrown out of employment owing to the spinning mule being displaced by the ring-frame, or children spinning yarn which men used to spin. In the weave-shops, girls and women are preferable to men, so that we may reasonably expect that in the not very distant future all the cotton manufacturing districts will be classed in the category of she-towns."[243]

Sec. 2. In modern machinery a larger and larger amount of inventive skill is engaged in adjusting machine-tending to the physical and mental capacity of women and children. The evolution of machinery has not moved constantly in this direction. In cotton-spinning, for example, the earlier machines--Hargreave's jennies and Arkwright's water-frames--were generally worked by women and children, the women who had been engaged in the use of the older instruments--the distaff, spindle, hand-wheel--coming into the mills. But the growing complexity and size of the mule made it too cumbrous for women and children, and spinning for a while became a male occupation in England. In the United States the difficulty of procuring male labour stimulated the invention of the ring spinning-frame, some sixty years ago, which could be worked by woman's labour. The limitations and imperfections of this mode of spinning retarded its adoption in England for upwards of half a century. But recent improvements have led to a rapid increase of the adoption of the ring-frame in Lancashire. In the low medium and low counts it is rapidly displacing the mule, and in countries where fine counts are little spun it will probably be the dominant machine.[244] In Lancashire it does not, however, seem at all likely to be rendered capable of displacing the mule in finer counts. The ring-frame throws spinning once more into the hands of women and of children, who in some Lancashire towns are quickly displacing the labour of the men.

So far as children are concerned, the economic tendency to adjust machine-tending to their limited strength is in some measure defeated by the growth of strong public feeling and legislative protection of younger children. Had full and continued licence been allowed to the purely "economic" tendencies of the factory system in this country and in America, there can be little doubt but that almost the whole of the textile industry and many other large departments of manufacture would be administered by the cheap labour of women and young children. The profits attending this free exploitation of cheap labour would have been so great that invention would have been concentrated, even more than has been the case, upon spreading out the muscular exertion and narrowing the technical skill so as to suit the character of the cheaper labour. It is quite possible that some of the oppressive conditions of our early factory system, the exhausting hours of labour, the cruelty of overseers, the utter neglect of all sanitation, the bad food, might have been found opposed to the true interests of economy and efficiency, and that the more developed factory might have been managed more humanely. But if we may judge by the progress made in the employment of weaker labour where it has had free scope, it seems reasonable to believe that, had no Factory Acts been passed, and had public feeling furnished no opposition, the great mass of the textile factories of this country would have been almost entirely worked by women and children.

We have seen already that the advantages attending efficient labour furnish no guarantee that it will be most profitable to employ the most efficient labour at the highest wages. The evidence of industrial history shows that it will often be most profitable to employ less efficient labour provided that labour can be got "cheap." The increasing employment of women in machine-industry is in nearly all cases directly traceable to the "cheapness" of woman's labour as compared with man's.

Sec. 3. Thus we are brought to the discussion of the important question which underlies all understanding of the position of woman in modern industry--"Why are women paid less wages than men?"

In almost all kinds of work in which both men and women are engaged, the women earn less than the men. Where men and women are engaged in the same industries but in different branches, the wage level of the woman's work is nearly always lower than that of the men. A general survey of industry shows that the highly-paid industries are almost invariably monopolised by men, the lowly-paid industries by women. This applies not only to unskilled and skilled manual work, but to routine-mental, intellectual, and artistic work,[245] wherever custom or competition are the chief direct determinants of wages. Certain exceptions to this rule, which readily suggest themselves, are explained by the fact that the wages of the labour in question are determined not by custom or competition, but by some other law. Where the product is of the highest intellectual or artistic quality, sex makes no difference in the price; "the rent of ability" of George Eliot or Madame Patti is determined by the law of monopoly values. In certain employments, as, for instance, the stage, sexual attractions give women a positive advantage, which in certain grades of the profession assist them to secure a high level of remuneration. So also in a few cases governments or private employers pay women as highly as men for the same work, though women could be got to work for less. But even in those occupations where women would seem to be most nearly upon an economic equality with men, in literature, art, or the stage, the scale of pay for all work, save that where special skill, personal attraction, or reputation secures a "fancy" price, is lower for women than for men.

Sec. 4. It is easy to find answers to the question, "Why are women paid less than men?" which evidently contain an element of truth. Three answers leap readily to the lips: "Because women cannot work so hard or so well," "Because women can live upon less than men," "Because it is more difficult for a woman to get wage-work." Each of these answers comprises not one reason but a group of reasons why women get low wages, and the difficulty lies in relating the different reasons in these different groups so as to yield something that shall approach an accurate solution of the problem. Setting these groups in somewhat more exact language, we may classify the causes as--

_a._ Causes relating to "productivity" or efficiency of labour.

_b._ Causes relating to "needs" or standard of comfort.

_c._ Causes relating to character and intensity of competition.

Sec. 5. _a._ Women do not on the average work so hard or so well as men, so that if wages were paid with sole reference to quantity and quality of the product of labour women would get less. This inferiority in the net efficiency of women's labour is partly due to physical, partly to social causes. The following are the leading factors in this inferiority of efficiency:--

(1) The physical weakness of woman, as compared with man, closes many occupations to her. In manufactures the metal industries have been almost entirely closed to women, and most branches of the mining and railway industries. In England and America the rougher work of agriculture is almost wholly given over to male labour, and in several continental countries there is a growing tendency to spare women the kinds of labour which tax the muscular forces most severely. The growing consideration for the duties of maternity, operating through public opinion and legislation, favour this curtailment of woman's sphere of activity. Further, in all employments where physical strength is an important factor, the net productivity of woman's labour tends to fall below man's, although in some cases superior deftness or lightness of hand related to physical fragility may compensate. Even in modern textile factories the superior force of man's muscles often gives him a great advantage. In fustian and velvet cutting, where the same piece-wages are paid to men and women, the actual takings of the men are about double. "Every person has two long frames upon which the cloth is stretched ready for cutting, and while women are unable to cut more than one piece at a time, men can cut two pieces without difficulty."[246]

Where physical strength is not a prime factor it may enter incidentally. So even in weaving women are under some disadvantage through inability to work the heavy Jacquard looms, and to "tune" their looms.[247]

Where manual work is concerned brute strength and endurance form an important ingredient in what is called manual skill, and affect the quality of the work as well as the pace and regularity of the output. Though, as we have seen, a chief object of modern machinery is to diminish the importance of this element, it plays no inconsiderable part in affecting the quantity of work turned out by women as compared with men even in industries where the direct strain upon the muscles is less severe.

(2) But even when we take those kinds of work where skill seems least dependent upon physical force, men have generally some advantage in productivity, though a smaller one. There are cases in which this does not seem to be the case, as in the weaving industries of Lancashire and part of Yorkshire, where women not merely receive the same piece wages, but earn weekly wages which, after making allowance for sickness and irregularity, indicate that in quantity and quality of work they are upon a level with the men.[248] In certain branches of low-skilled mental work the same holds true, as in the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office. But generally, even where the "skill" is of a purely technical order, the man has the advantage. Where the elements of design, resource, judgment, enter in, the superiority of male labour is unquestioned, and in occupations which demand these qualities women are confined generally to the lower routine portions of the work. This is the case in the Post Offices where women are largely used as sorting clerks and telegraphists, and in numerous offices of private business firms. How far these defects of manual and intellectual skill, which generally prevent women from successfully competing in the higher grades of labour, are natural, how far the results of defective education and industrial training, we are not called upon here to consider. The fact stands that women do not work so well.

(3) The reluctance of male workers to allow women to qualify for and to undertake certain kinds of work which men choose to regard as "their own," though sometimes defensible when all the terms of competition are taken into account,[249] must be held to confine and lessen the average productivity of female labour in certain departments of industry. Closely allied to this is the social feeling, partly based upon the recognition of a real difference of physical and mental vigour, partly upon prejudice, which bars women from the highly-paid and responsible posts of superintendence and control in industries where both sexes are employed. In a general comparison of the male and female wage in a highly organised industry, the fact that women are held disqualified for all posts of high emolument and responsibility has a material effect upon the average of wages. Where men and women work in the same industry, the women are commonly confined to the less productive work, and where they do the same work they seldom reach man's level in quantity and quality.

(4) This inferior efficiency is not solely attributable to these reasons. Woman's incentive to acquire industrial efficiency is not so great as man's. A large number of women-workers do not enter an industrial occupation as the chief means of support throughout their life. The influence of matrimony and domestic life operates in various ways upon women's industry. The expectation of marriage and a release from industrial work must lessen the interest of women in their work. The fact that even while unmarried a large proportion of women-workers are not dependent upon their earnings for a livelihood will have the same result. A larger proportion of the woman's industrial career is occupied in acquiring the experience which makes her a valuable worker, and the probability that, after she has acquired it, she may not need to use it, diminishes both directly and indirectly the net value of her industrial life; the element of uncertainty and instability prevents the advancement of competent women to posts where fixity of tenure is an important factor.

Where married women are engaged in industrial work either in factories or at home, domestic work of necessity engages some of their strength and interest, and is liable to trench upon the energy which otherwise might go into industry. Even unmarried women have frequently some domestic work to do which is added to their industrial work. Thus the incentive to efficiency is weaker in woman, her industrial position is less stable and her industrial life shorter, while part of her energy is diverted to other than industrial channels.

(5) There is conclusive evidence to show that women are more often absent from work owing to sickness and other claims upon their time than men.[250] Though closely related to the former factors this may be treated separately in assessing the net productiveness of women, because it is distinctly measurable. But in touching this point it should be remarked that weaker muscular development does not necessarily imply more sickness. The loss of working time sustained by women could probably be reduced considerably by more attention to physical training and exercise and by a higher standard of diet.

(6) Although the limitations of law and custom, which limit the hours of labour for women in many of their industrial occupations and forbid them to undertake night-work, cannot be reasonably held to reduce the net efficiency of women's labour taken as an aggregate, they must be allowed to diminish the direct net productiveness of women in certain employments as compared with men, and either to bar them out of these employments or engage them upon lower wages. In certain textile factories where goods of some special pattern are woven at short notice, and where overtime is essential, women cannot be employed. In the Post Office, where night-work is required at certain seasons, women are at a disadvantage, which is doubtless reflected in the lower wages they receive.

(7) Lastly, the inferior mobility of woman as compared with man has an influence in reducing the average efficiency of her labour. On the one hand, women are more liable to have the locality of their home fixed by the requirements of the male worker in the family; on the other hand, they are physically less competent to undertake work far from their home. Hence they are far more narrowly restricted in their choice of work than men. They must often choose not that work they like best, or can do best, or which is most remunerative, but that which lies near at hand. This restriction implies that large numbers of women undertake low-skilled, low-paid, ineffective, and irregular work at their own homes or in some neighbouring work-room, instead of engaging in the more productive and more remunerative work of the large factories. Every limitation in freedom of choice of work signifies a reduction in the average effectiveness of labour.

Sec. 6. These elements of inferior physique and manual skill, lower intelligence and mental capacity, lack of education and knowledge of life, irregularity of work, more restricted freedom of choice, must in different degrees contribute to the inferior productivity of woman's industrial labour.

In regarding this influence the experienced student of industrial questions hardly requires to be reminded that these must be regarded not merely as causes of low wages, but also as effects. This constant recognition of the interaction of the phenomena we are regarding as cause and effect is essential to a scientific conception of industrial society. Women are paid low wages because they are relatively inefficient workers, but they also are inefficient workers because they are paid low wages.

While this smaller productivity diminishes the maximum wage attainable by women as compared with men, it is evident that many forces are at work which tend to equalise the productivity of men and women in industry: the evolution of machinery adapted to the weaker physique of women; the breakdown of customs excluding women from many occupations; the growth of restrictions upon male adult labour with regard to the working-day, etc., correspondent with those placed upon women; improved mobility of women's labour by cheaper and more facile transport in large cities; the recognition by a growing number of women that matrimony is not the only livelihood open to them, but that an industrial life is preferable and possible. These forces, unless counteracted by stronger moral and social forces, seem likely to raise the average productivity of women's industrial labour, and to incite her more and more to undertake industrial wage-work.

Sec. 7. As the maximum wage may be said to vary with productivity, so the minimum wage is said to vary with the "wants" of the worker. Women are said to "want" less than man, and therefore the stress of competition can drive their wages to a lower level. It is possible that a woman can sustain the smaller quantity of physical energy required for her work somewhat more cheaply than a man can sustain the energy required for his work, and that the early increments of material comfort above the bare subsistence line may be attended by a larger increase of productivity in the man than in the woman. If this is so, then the minimum subsistence wage and the wage of true economic efficiency, the smallest wage a wise employer in his own interest will consent to pay, are lower in the case of women than of men. But this difference furnishes no adequate explanation of the difference between the male and the female minimum wage. The wage of the low-skilled male labourer enables him to consume certain things which do not belong strictly to his "subsistence"--to wit, beer and tobacco; the wage of the low-skilled female labourer often falls below what is sufficient with the most rigid economy to provide "subsistence." We are not then concerned with a difference which refers primarily to the quantity of food, etc., required to support life. The wages of the low-skilled labourer in regular employ would, if properly used, suffice to furnish him more than a bare physical subsistence; the wages of the lowest-paid women workers in factories would not suffice to maintain them in the physical condition to perform their work.[251]

It is not then precisely with the "standard of comfort" of male and female workers that we are concerned. The economic relation in which men and women workers stand to other members of their family is a more important factor. The wage of a male worker must be sufficient to support not only himself but the average family dependent upon him, in the standard of comfort below which he will not consent to work. When little work is available for his wife and children, or where his "standard of comfort" requires them not to undertake wage-work, his minimum wage must suffice to keep some four persons. His standard of comfort may be beaten down by stress of circumstances, his family may be driven to take what work they can get, but in any case his wage must be above the "subsistence" of a single man. When the man is the sole wage-earner, or is only assisted slightly by his family, as, for example, in the metal and mining and building industries, average male wages are much higher than in the textile industries, where the women and children share largely in the work.[252]

Women workers, on the other hand, have not in most cases a family to support out of their wages. In the majority of instances their own "sustenance" does not or need not fall entirely upon the wages they earn. They are partly supported by the earnings of a father or a husband or other relative, upon some small unearned income, upon public or private charity. Where married women undertake work in order to increase the family income, or where girls not obliged to work for a living enter factories or take home work to do, there is no ascertainable limit to the minimum wage in an industry. Grown-up women living at home will often work for a few shillings a week to spend in dress and amusements, utterly regardless of the fact that they may be setting the wage below starvation-point for those unfortunate competitors who are wholly dependent on their earnings for a living. Even where girls living at home pay to their parents the full cost of their keep, the economy of family life may enable them to keep down wages to such a point that another girl who has to keep herself alone may be sorely pressed, while a woman with a family to support cannot get a living.

Miss Collet, in her investigation of women workers in East London, remarked of the shirt-finishers, one of the lowest-paid employments--"These shirt-finishers nearly all receive allowances from relatives, friends, and charitable societies, and many of them receive outdoor relief."[253] This is true of most of the low-paid work of women. Even in the textile factories, with the exception of weaving, most of the scales of wages are below what would suffice to keep the recipient in the standard of comfort provided by the family wage.

Sec. 8. The relation of a worker to other persons in the family is such that, in determining the minimum wage for any member, it is right to take the standard of comfort of the family as the basis, and to consider the mutual relations of the several workers upon this basis. We shall find that not merely is the wage of the woman affected by the industrial condition of the adult male worker, but that the wage of the latter is affected by women's wages, while the wages of child labour exercise an influence upon each. The problem is one of the distribution of work and wages among the several working members of a family, how much of the family work and how much of the family wage shall fall to each. As the children, and in many cases the women, are not free agents in the transaction, it may often happen that they are employed for wages which represent neither the cost of subsistence nor any other definite amount but the prevalent opinion of the dominant male of the family. A "little piecer" in a Lancashire mill may get wages more than sufficient for his keep, while many a farm boy or errand boy could not keep himself in food out of the earnings he brings home. This element of economic unfreedom in the lives of many women and most children must not be left out of sight in a consideration of the comparative statistics of wages for men, women, and children. Men workers often fail to recognise that by encouraging their wives and driving their children to the mills or other industrial work, they are helping to keep down their own wages. Men's wages in all the textile industries of the world are low as compared with those prevalent in industries demanding no higher skill or intelligence, but in which women take no important part. If the male textile workers used their rising intelligence and education to keep their women and children out of the mills, men's wages must and would distinctly rise.[254] The low wages paid to both men and women in many branches of textile work as compared with wages in other industries on approximately the same level of skill, goes for the most part to the consuming public in reduced prices of textile wares. It is true the Lancashire and certain of the Yorkshire textile operatives often enjoy a fairly high family wage, but they give out a more than correspondent aggregate of productive energy.

American statistics yield some striking evidence in illustration of the depressing influence exercised upon male wages by the labour of women and children. "Among factory operatives, all branches taken together, the wives and children who contribute to the support of the family are, on an average, as one and a quarter to each family, while among those employed in the building trades the average of wives and children who work is only one to every four families. Hence in the building trades the wages of the man supply about 97-1/2 per cent. of the total cost of the family's living, while among the factory operatives the wages of the man only supply 66 per cent., or two-thirds, of the cost of the family's living, because the other one-third is furnished by the labour of the wife or children. Nor is this because the cost of living of the factory operative family is greater than that of the labourer in the building trades, for while the average family in the building trades contains 4-1/2 persons, that of the factory operative contains 5-7/8 persons.[255] The total cost of living in the former is about $50 a year more than in the latter, and the wages of the man in the former are nearly $250 a year more than those of the latter."[256] Similar evidence is tendered from other trades, the gist of which is summed up in the Report of the Labour Bureau of Massachusetts in the following words:--"Thus it is seen that in neither of the cases where the man is assisted by his wife or children does he earn as much as other labourers. Also that in the case where he is assisted by both wife and children he earns the least."[257]

Sec. 9. But though the minimum wage of women and children is, strictly speaking, not to be measured by any ascertainable standard of subsistence, so far as the factory work of adult women is concerned 10s. may be said to be a standard wage. Factory wages, excepting for cotton-weavers, seldom vary widely from this sum. Differences of difficulty, disagreeability, or skill have little power to raise wages much above 10s., or to depress them much below. Moreover, fluctuations of trade and prices have very little effect upon this wage. Though women are largely employed in industries where improvements in machinery and methods have immensely increased the productivity of labour, their wages are very little higher than they were half a century ago. Since this rate prevails in many industries where an adequate supply of women's labour cannot be drawn from married or "assisted" women, and where the wage must be sufficient to tempt women who have to keep themselves, 10s. may be said to be the "bare subsistence" wage for women. The wide prevalence of this wage and its independence of conditions of locality, time, nature of work, have made it generally recognised as a "customary wage," and for any casual work, or any new employment requiring ordinary feminine skill or exertion, 10s. is regarded as sufficient remuneration for a woman. The basis of this custom is the knowledge that women can always be induced to work for a bare subsistence measured at 10s. or thereabouts, or for extra comforts procurable by this sum regarded as a subsidiary income.[258]

It appears that the wages of bare subsistence and the wages of extra comforts have a certain tendency to equality in some of the low-paid factory trades of London, though accompanied by a difference in the quality and intensity of the labour involved.

The following diagram exhibits the uniformity of factory wages in East End women's industries:--

Upon this table Miss Collet bases the following opinion:--"The most striking feature is the uniformity of maximum wages and the difference in the skill required, and I believe it to be the fact that the match girls and the jam girls, who are at the bottom of the social scale, do not have to work so hard for their money as, for example, the capmakers and bookbinders, who, in the majority of cases, belong to a much higher social grade. And whereas the bookfolder or booksewer who earns 11s. a week exercises greater skill, and gives a closer attention to her work, than the jam or match girl who earns the same amount, that sum which would be almost riches to the dock-labourer's daughter represents grinding poverty to the daughter of the clerk or bookbinder, with a much higher standard of decency, if she is by any chance obliged to depend on herself. How is it that this uniformity prevails, and that efficiency brings with it nothing but the privilege of working harder for the same money?"[259]

Miss Collet's reply to the question is, that while the match and jam girls pay the full price of home, board, and lodging, the others often pay nothing, spending all they get upon dress and amusement. This, taken along with the influence of the competition of home-workers in the bookfolding and booksewing trades, explains the fact that the harder and higher-skilled work gets no higher wages.

Sec. 10. A knowledge of the productivity of labour as measuring the maximum wage-level, and of "wants" or standard of comfort as measuring the minimum wage-level, does not enable us to determine even approximately the actual wage-level in any industry. The actual wage may be fixed at any point between the two extremes. So far as competition is an active determinant, everything will depend upon the quantitative relation between supply and demand for labour. When there is a short supply of labour available for any work, wages may rise to the maximum; when there is more labour available than is required, wages will fall towards the minimum. But, as we have already admitted, competition works very slowly and inadequately in many of the industries in which women and children are engaged. The force of custom, assisted by ignorance of the labour market, prevents women from taking advantage of an increased demand or a decreased supply of labour to lift this wage above the customary level towards the level of productivity. Women are more contented to live as they have lived than men. As Miss Collet says, "the contentment of women themselves, when they have obtained enough for their standard of living, is another reason why competition is so ineffective among highly-skilled workers."[260]

This "contentment" or apathy, partly the result of ignorance, partly the result of sex feebleness, enhanced by the exhausting burden of present industrial conditions, is alluded to by the several reports of the sub-commissioners to the Labour Commission as a chief difficulty in the effective organisation of women workers, even when the work is conducted in large factories.

In other ways, woman is less of a purely "economic" creature than man. The flow of labour from one occupation to another, which tends to equalise the net advantages amongst male occupations, is far feebler among women workers, notwithstanding that trade union barriers and the vested interests of expensively-acquired skill are less operative in woman's work. The reluctance of women to freely communicate to one another facts regarding their wage and conditions of labour is particularly noted as a barrier to united action.

Those who have investigated the conditions of women workers in towns are agreed as to the enormous influence of class and aesthetic feelings in narrowing the competition. "The girl who makes seal-skin caps at a city warehouse does not wish to work for an East End chamber-master, even though she could make more at the commoner work; just as a soap-box maker would not care to make match-boxes, even though skilled enough to make more by it."[261] This sensitiveness of social distinction in industrial work, based partly upon consideration of the class and character of those employed, partly upon the skill and interest of the work itself, is a widespread and powerful influence among women workers. It tends to bring about that equalisation of wages in skilled and unskilled industries which, as we have seen, practically exists, for if there is an economic rise of wages in the lower grades of work, it does not tempt the competition of high-skilled workers, while a corresponding rise in the wages of the higher grades would draw competitors from the lower grades to qualify themselves for undertaking work which would at once give them more money and more social respect. The lower wages often paid for more highly-skilled work simply mean that the women take out a larger portion of their wage in "gentility." This influence, which is operative amongst men, reducing the wages of routine-mental labour to the level of common unskilled manual labour, is powerful in all ranks of women, rising perhaps in its potency with the social status of the woman. Considerations of "gentility" enable us to obtain "teachers" for board schools at an average "salary" of L75 per annum, as compared with L119 for men, the fixed scale of women teachers in the same grade being 16 per cent. less than for men.

Thus custom, ignorance, contentment, social prejudices operate in different ways and in different degrees to prevent women workers from claiming in higher wages that share of the increased capacity of the community for making wealth which men workers have been able to procure.

Sec. 11. The above-mentioned forces operate chiefly as barriers of free economic competition. But women are equally at a disadvantage when and in so far as they do compete for work, and wages. Weak, unorganised units of labour, they are compelled to make terms with large organised masses of capital. By the organised action of trade unionism the majority of skilled working men have been able to raise their wages far above the bare subsistence minimum, and to hold it at the higher level until a firm standard of higher comfort is formed to be a platform for further endeavour. With a few significant exceptions, skilled women workers have been unable to do the same. Instead of presenting a firm, united front to their employers in their demand for higher wages, or their resistance of a fall, they are taken singly and compelled to submit to any terms which the employers choose to impose, or custom appears to sanction. The consequence is that in most instances skilled women workers are paid very little higher wages than unskilled women workers. The high value due to their skill goes either to the employer in high profits, or, where keen competition operates, to the consumer in low prices; the woman who puts out skill is paid not according to her worth but according to her wants. Yet the possession of technical skill is the basis of trade organisation. Wherever a number of women workers possess a particular skill and experience, and are engaged in fairly stable employment, the requisites of effective trade organisation exist. By combination these women can wield an economic power, measured by the difficulty and cost of dismissing them _en masse_ and replacing them by less skilled and experienced labour, which they can use as a lever to raise their wages and other conditions of employment by a series of steps until they approach the maximum limit imposed by their productivity. That such action is feasible is proved by experience. Concerted action of factory women in several minor trades, both in London and in the provincial towns, has been attended with success. The examples of the cigar-makers at Nottingham, the women at Messrs. Bryant & May's, the rope-makers in a large East London factory, show what can be done by determined combination, even confined to workers in a single factory. But the crucial case is furnished again by the textile industries. In the Lancashire weaving, where men and women are working side by side in the same sheds, and are members of the same trades unions, we find the one notable exception to the low wages of women. Here women's weekly earnings are nearly the same as men's. The weaving is unquestionably skilled work, but so also is a great deal of other textile work not nearly so well paid. It is beyond doubt the power of the joint union of male and female weavers that alone maintains these wages for women. The same is the explanation of the equality of wages paid to men and women in the Sheffield file-making.

"But what if the Union should break down? It is as certain as anything based on experience can be, that in a few weeks, or even days, it would be possible for the employers to reduce the wages of the women-weavers; that rather than lose their work, women would consent to the reduction; that as they accepted lower wages, men would drop off to other industries, and would cease to compete for the same work; and that in a comparatively short time power-loom weaving would be left, like its sister, cotton-spinning, to women workers exclusively, and wages fall to the general level of women's wages."[262] Where these conditions of strong combination in trades unions do not exist we find that women's weekly wages fall considerably below men's in the weaving trades. This is so in most of the woollen industries of Yorkshire, and still more in the minor and more scattered textile work in other counties.[263] In the spinning-mills of Lancashire the women, combined in unions of their own, are able to obtain wages considerably higher than those which prevail elsewhere for similar work, though not so high as that of weavers. The following table, in which spinning and weaving and other departments are "pooled" for purposes of wages, is sufficient to indicate the advantage Lancashire women enjoy from their strong industrial position, as compared on the one hand with average factory work and wages, on the other hand with the less favourably placed worsted and linen industries, and even with the woollen.

Weekly Wages. Average. Cotton. Woollen. Worsted. Linen. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. Men 25 3 23 2 23 4 19 9 Lads and boys 9 4 8 6 6 6 6 3 Women 15 3 13 3 11 11 8 11 Girls 6 10 7 5 6 2 4 11[264]

Thus we see that whereas men's wages are nearly the same in the three chief English industries, women's wages vary widely, yielding a very great advantage to the Lancashire cotton-workers.

Sec. 12. It cannot, however, reasonably be maintained that the whole of this economic advantage owned by weavers and other women workers in Lancashire is due directly to organisation. It is no doubt partly due to the conditions which also make Trade Unionism effective, an abundant demand for female labour in relation to the supply. In the less concentrated woollen industries of the West of England, where a large supply of female labour is available beyond the demand, the difference between men's and women's wages is far greater than it is even in those parts of Yorkshire where women are but slightly organised. This brings us to the most vital point in the problem of the industrial position of women. When there is an over-supply of labour qualified to compete for any work, wages must fall to the minimum of "wants" unless those in possession of the work are so strongly organised as to prevent outsiders from effectively competing. In a highly-skilled trade the workers may often have a practical monopoly of the skill, which gives them both power to organise and power when organised. But in a low-skilled trade, or where employers are able to introduce unlimited numbers of girls into the trade, there exists no such power to organise. Those who most need organisation are least able to organise. This is the crux for low-skilled male labour, and the great mass of women's industries are in the same economic condition, because the kind of skill required is possessed or easily attainable by a much larger number of competitors for work than are sufficient to meet the demand at a decent wage. The deep abiding difficulty in the way of organising women workers lies here. Cut out as they are, by physical weakness, by lack of the means of technical training, in some cases by organised opposition of male workers, or by social prejudices, from competing in a large number of skilled industries, their competition within the permitted range of occupations is keener than among men: not merely in the unskilled but in the skilled industries the available supply of labour is commonly far in excess of the demand, for the skill is generally such as is common to or easily attainable by a large number of the sex. To this must be added the consideration that a larger proportion of women's industries are concerned with the production of luxuries which are peculiarly subject to fluctuation of trade by the elements of season, weather, fashion, and rise or fall of incomes. Finally, a much larger proportion of women's work is done in small factories, in workshops, and in the home, under conditions which are inimicable to the effective organisation of the workers. Until out-work is much diminished, and effective inspection and limitation of hours in small workshops drives a much larger proportion of women workers into large factories, where closer social intercourse can lay the moral foundation of trade organisation in mutual acquaintance, trust, and regard, there is little prospect of women being able to raise their "customary" wage considerably above its present subsistence level, or to obtain any considerable alleviation of the burdensome conditions of excessive hours of labour, insanitary surroundings, unjust fines, etc., from which many women workers suffer.

Women cannot in most of their industries organise effectively under present conditions. In each trade, therefore, the workers employed are surrounded by a permanent mass of potential "black legs" willing to take their labour from urgent need, ignorance, or thoughtlessness, and possessing or able to attain the small skill required. In men's industries, save in the most unskilled, there is not a constant over-supply of labour, in most women's industries there is.

Sec. 13. Comparing women's wages with men's we are now able to sum up as follows:--The smaller productivity of woman's work makes the possible maximum wage lower; the smaller wants of women make the possible minimum wage lower; the greater weakness of women as competitors, arising chiefly from excess of supply of labour, makes their actual wage approximate to the lower rather than to the higher level.

In regarding productivity as a measure of maximum wage it is necessary to guard carefully against one misapprehension. So far as we are comparing the wage of men and women engaged upon the same work, the smaller wages of the latter may easily be seen to have some relation to the smaller product of their labour. But when productivity is expressed in terms of the selling value of the work no such measurement is open to us. We are thus thrown back on market value and are told that the reason women get so little is that what they make fetches so low a price. But the circularity of this argument will appear on revising the question and asking, "Why do women's products sell so cheap?" the obvious answer being, "Because the cost of labour in them is so little,"--_i.e._, because women receive low wages. But if we refuse to take selling prices as the measure of productivity, what measure have we? No accurate measure of effort, skill, or efficiency is open if we refuse the scale of the market itself. Yet if we consider the conditions of wages and prices in such "sweated" trades as shirt-making, we cannot but conclude that the consumer gets the advantage of the "sweating"; that is to say, a certain portion of the productivity of the workers passes to the consumer through the agency of low prices. That which might have gone to the shirt-makers in decent wages has gone to the purchaser. This criticism of course posits a measurement of productivity at variance with that afforded by competition, or, more strictly speaking, it discounts the abnormal terms of the competition in the sweated industry. If we say that 1s. 11-1/2d. as the retail price of a shirt is a "sweating" or unfair price, we mean that the skill and effort embodied in this product would, if there were absolute equality of competition and absolute fluidity of labour, be measured at say 3s. It is true that no such measurement is open to us, and all such estimates are guesswork. But the idea which underlies the sentiment against "sweating" is a true one, although it has no exact practical embodiment so long as our only meaning of "value" is value in exchange at present competitive rates. It is therefore not inaccurate to represent productivity as forming the maximum wage, though we may have no exact measure of productivity at hand. The fact that any increase in productivity of labour is liable under certain circumstances of competition to pass away entirely to the consumer, is no reason for denying that an increase of productivity has taken place which might under other circumstances of competition have gone to the producer as higher wages. Though productivity as a measure of maximum wages is more or less of an unknown quantity, it is none the less true that as this "unknown" fluctuates so the possibility of high wages fluctuates.

Sec. 14. If the above analysis is correct it is not difference of sex which is the chief factor in determining the industrial position of woman. Machinery knows neither sex nor age, but chooses the labour embodied in man, woman, or child, which is cheapest in relation to the degree of its efficiency. Thus the causes which depress woman's industry are chiefly the same which depress the industry of low-skilled men and children. In each case the limits of productivity and "wants" are lower than for skilled men workers, while the terms of their competition keep their wages to the lower level and check the full incentive to efficiency. Setting aside the case of children, who are protected in some degree from the full effects of competition upon the conditions of their employment, the industrial case of women is closely analogous to that of low-skilled men. The physical weakness of the one corresponds with the technical weakness of the other so far as efficiency is concerned; in both cases the low standard of wants gives a low minimum wage, while the excessive supply of labour, rendering concerted action almost impossible, keeps wages close to the minimum.

Sec. 15. The displacement of male adult labour which is going on by female, and, when permitted, by child labour, does not necessarily imply that women and children are doing more work and men less than they used to do. Before the industrial revolution women were quite as busily and numerously engaged in industry as now, and the children employed in textile and other work were often worked in their own homes with more cruel disregard to health and happiness than is now the case. Even now the longest hours, the worst sanitary conditions, the lowest pay, are in the domestic industries of towns which still survive under modern industry. But though the regular factory women and the half-timers are generally better off in all the terms of their industry than the uninspected women and children who still slave in such domestic industries as the trimmings and match-box trades, the growing tendency of modern industry to engage women and children away from their homes is fraught with certain indirect important consequences. When industry was chiefly confined to domestic handicrafts, the claims of home life constantly pressed in and tempered the industrial life. The growth of factory work among women has brought with it inevitably a weakening of home interests and a neglect of home duties. The home has suffered what the factory has gained. Even the shortening of the factory day, accompanied as it has been by an intensification of labour during the shorter hours, does not leave the women competent and free for the proper ordering of home life. Home work is consciously slighted as secondary in importance and inferior, because it brings no wages, and if not neglected is performed in a perfunctory manner, which robs it of its grace and value. This narrowing of the home into a place of hurried meals and sleep is on the whole the worst injury modern industry has inflicted on our lives, and it is difficult to see how it can be compensated by any increase of material products. Factory life for women, save in extremely rare cases, saps the physical and moral health of the family. The exigencies of factory life are inconsistent with the position of a good mother, a good wife, or the maker of a home. Save in extreme circumstances, no increase of the family wage can balance these losses, whose values stand upon a higher qualitative level.

The direct economic tendency of machine-industry to take women and children away from the home to work must be looked upon as a tendency antagonistic to civilisation.[265] In the case of children, factory legislation of increasing severity has been necessary to prevent the spread or continuance of the evil.[266] The factory regulations restricting and protecting women are directly continuous with this policy, and may be regarded in the light of a protection of the home against the undue encroachments of the machine. How far further restrictions may be left to voluntary action and the growth of a saner estimate of values, or how far further legal protection of the home may be required, it remains for history to determine.

APPENDIX.

The following Table of Factory Legislation is constructed to illustrate the lines along which State protection of labour has advanced in this century in England. Four laws of development are clearly discernible:--

1. Movement along the line of strongest human feeling. Weakest workers are protected first, pauper children who are the least "free" parties in a contract, then protection advances to other children, young persons, women, men.

2. Protective legislation moves from the more highly organised to the less highly organised structures of industry. Cotton-mills are sole subjects of earliest Factory Acts, then woollen, then other textile trades, trades subsidiary to textile industries, non-textile factories, larger workshops, domestic workshops, retail trade, domestic service.

3. Growing complexity of aims and of legislative machinery. Primarily Factory Acts aim at regulation of quantity of labour. Reductions of the working-day forms a backbone of this legislation. A twelve-hour day, ten, nine, eight, covering wider classes of workers and applied to a larger number of industries, marks the line of movement. With each advance the basis of protection is broadened, other considerations of machine-fencing, sanitation, education, etc., entering more largely into the Acts.

4. Increased effectiveness of legislation with growth of centralised control. Local initiative and control proves ineffective, yields to State inspection, the number of inspectors growing, and their power increasing. Improvements in the mechanism of central control, an increased number of inspectors, working men and women inspectors, are the distinguishing features of recent State protection of labour.

LEADING POINTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF FACTORY LEGISLATION.

+-------------------+--------------+------------------------+ | | Class of | | | Industries | Workers | Nature of | Date.| affected. | chiefly | Regulations. | | | protected. | | -----+-------------------+--------------+------------------------+ 1802 | Cotton and 'other | Apprenticed | 12 Hours Day. | | mills' (applied | Pauper | Night-work regulated. | | exclusively to | Children. | Education, sanitation. | | cotton). | | | | | | | 1819}| Do. | Children | Prohibition of work | 1820}| Do. | (not | under 9 years. Young | | | Paupers). | persons (under 16) a | | | | 12 hour day. | | | | Regulation for | | | | meal-time. Amendment | | | | of 1802 Act. | | | | | 1825 | Do. | Do. | Shortened Saturday | | | | labour. Penalties | | | | provided for breach | | | | of Factory | | | | Regulations. | | | | | | | | | 1833}| All Textile | Children | 48 Hours Week for | 1834}| Industries. | and Young | Children (9-13), 69 | | | Persons. | Hours for Young | | | | Persons (13-18). | | | | Prohibits night-work | | | | for Young Persons. | | | | Children in Silk Mills,| | | | 10 Hours Day. | | | | | 1842 | Mines. | Children and | No underground | | | Women. | work. | | | | | 1844}| | Children, | Factory Acts applied. | to }| Printworks. | Young | 'False relay' system | 1846}| | Persons, | for children checked. | | | Women. | 6-1/2 Hours Day for | | | | Children. Female Young | | | | Persons age raised to | | | | 21. 12 Hours Day for | | | | Women. No night-work | | | | for women. | | | | | 1847}| Textile Factories,| Do. | 10 Hours Day, | to }| Printworks, etc. | | afterwards 10-1/2 | 1850}| | | Hours Day for Young | | | | Persons and Women, | | | | practically for Men. | | | | | 1860 | Bleaching and | Do. | Do., with special | | Dyeing. | | regulations for | | | | overtime. | | | | | 1860 | Coal and Iron | All | Restriction on male | | Mines. | Workers. | labour under 12. | | | | Safety, ventilation, | | | | etc. | 1863 | Finishing | Children, |} | | processes in | Young |} | | Bleaching and | Persons, |} | | Dyeing, | Women. |} | | Bakehouses, Alkali| |} | | Works. | |} | | | |} | 1864 | Non-textile | Do. |} Factory Acts | | Factories, | |} generally | | (Earthenware, | |} applied. | | Fustian Cutting, | |} | | Cartridges, | |} | | Lucifer Matches, | |} | | Paper-staining). | |} | | | | | 1867 | All Factories | Do. | Factory Acts Extension | | & Workshops. | | Act. Workshops | | | | Regulation Act, | | | | applying to Workshops. | | | | Factory rules affecting| | | | hours, education, etc. | | | | in modified form. | | | | | 1867 | Agriculture. | Children, | Act for Suppression of | | | Women. | Agricultural Gangs | | | | fixing minimum age at | | | | 8, regulating | | | | employment of Women. | | | | | 1870 | Printworks, | Children, | Application of chief | | Bleaching, | Young | provisions of 1867 | | Dyeing. | Persons, | Factory Act. | | | Women. | | | | | | 1871 | Brickworks and | Children and | Forbids employment. | | Fields. | Young Female | Improved conditions | | | Persons. | for Women. | | | | | 1873 | Agriculture. | Children. | Minimum age raised | | | | to 10. | | | | | 1878 | Factories, | Children, | Consolidation of | | Workshops, | Young | Factories & | | Agriculture. | Persons, | Workshops Act | | | Women, | (extending some | | | (incidentally| provisions to | | | Men). | agriculture). | | | | | 1891 | Do. | Do. | Amendment of Factories | | | | & Workshops Act. Age | | | | for Children raised to | | | | 11. Protection in | | | | dangerous trades. | | | | | 1892 | Shops. | Children, | Limits working-day. | | | Young | | | | Persons. | | | | | | 1893 | Various | All | Restrictions on | | Trades. | workers. | dangerous trades. | | | | | | | | | 1893 | Railways. | Adult males | Restrictions on | | | | hours of labour. | | | | |

+---------------------+---------------- | | | Mode of | Effectiveness. Date.| Administration. | | | -----+---------------------+---------------- 1802 | Local Justices | Virtually | to appoint | inoperative. | visitors. | | | | | 1819}| Do. | Do. 1820}| | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1825 | Do. | Generally | (Millowners and | evaded. | relatives prevented | | from acting on the | | Bench in reference | | to Factory Acts.) | | | 1833}| Government | 1 out of every 11 1834}| Inspectors (4). | millowners convicted | | in 1834, in spite | | of defiant attitude | | of magistrates. | | | | | | | | 1842 | Mine Inspectors. | | | | | 1844}| Government | Improved to }| Inspectors. | administration, 1846}| | but 'false | | relay' system | | reestablished. | | Fines inadequate. | | | | | | | | 1847}| Increased Staff of | Largely defied or to }| Government | evaded for some 1850}| Inspectors. | time. | | | | | | 1860 | | | | | | | | 1860 | Mine | | Inspectors. | | | | | 1863 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1864 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1867 | Workshops Act left | Workshops Act | at first to local | dead letter in | authorities, | 1868-69. | brought under | Later, fines | Factory Inspectors, | inadequate. | 1871. | Inspectors | | inadequate. | | 1867 | | | | | | | | | | | | 1870 | | | | | | | | | | 1871 | | | | | | | | 1873 | | | | | | 1878 | Increased | | Staff of | | Inspectors. | | | | | | | | | 1891 | Board of Trade | | power to | | schedule | | dangerous | | trades. | | | 1892 | | | | | | | | 1893 | Appointment of | | working men and | | women Inspectors. | | | 1893 | Increased number of | | Inspectors. | | |

FOOTNOTES:

[239] The figures for the periods 1841 to 1881 are drawn from Mr. Charles Booth's _Occupations of the People_. The figures for 1891 are drawn from the Census Report, and arranged as nearly as possible in accordance with Mr. Booth's classification.

[240] Here also the figures for 1891 give a result slightly divergent from the above. While the number of women employed continues to increase, reaching 691,441, the number of men employed are greater than in 1881, amounting to 408,392, a large proportionate increase, though less than that of the women.

[241] The recent statistics of tailoring and shoemaking, which are becoming more and more machine industries, mark this movement strongly. In the tailoring trade, while male workers increase from 107,668 in 1881 to 119,496 in 1891, female workers increase from 52,980 to 89,224. In the boot and shoe trade, while men increase from 180,884 to 202,648, women increase from 35,672 to 46,141. In Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, where boots and shoes are a machine-industry, 40 women are employed to 100 men, though the proportion for the whole industry is only 23 women to 100 men.

[242] _Report to Commission of Labour on Employments of Women_, pp. 142, 146.

[243] Quoted Wells, _Contemporary Review_, 1887, p. 392.

[244] Marsden, _Cotton Spinning_, p. 296, etc. S. Andrew, _Fifty Years Cotton Trade_, p. 7.

[245] This fourfold classification--(1) manual, (2) routine-mental, (3) artistic, (4) intellectual--is a serviceable suggestion of Mr. Sidney Webb in his paper upon woman's wages (_Economic Journal_, vol. i., 1881).

[246] _Report to Commission of Labour on Employment of Women_, p. 141.

[247] Webb, _Economic Journal_, vol. i. p. 658.

[248] I am informed, however, in Lancashire, that the strongest and ablest male workers will not undertake weaving, finding it tedious and monotonous.

[249] Women sometimes abuse the superior competitive powers contained in their lower standard of subsistence, and the smaller number of those dependent on them, to undersell male labour. In Sheffield file-making, where women are paid the same list of prices as men, it is said that they practise sweating in their homes to the detriment of male workers. So in carpet-weaving at Halifax; recently when the men struck against a reduction upon their wage of 35s., women took the work at 20s. (Lady Dilke, "Industrial Position of Women," _Nineteenth Century_, Oct. 1893.) In watch-making, "the hand-work for which men were paid about 18s. a-week is now done by women with machinery for about 12s." (_Report to Labour Commission on Women's Employments_, p. 146.)

[250] Dr. Bertillon (_Journal de la Societe de Statistique de Paris_, Oct.-Nov. 1892) shows that among the Lyons silkworkers (1872-89) and in the Italian Societies (1881-85) the sickness of women is considerably greater than of men. In Lyons 9.39 days as compared with 7.81 for men; in Italy 8.5 as compared with 6.6.

[251] This holds, for example, of many branches of the fur, trimmings, stays, umbrella, match-box trades, and the "finishing" departments of the trousers and shirt trades in East London. Cf. Miss Collet in _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i.

[252] In the United States the general standard of money wages for working women in cities is considerably higher than in England. The average wage throughout the country was recently estimated to amount to $5.24 per week, or just under 21s. But the divergences from this average are much wider than in England. The lowest wages fall almost to the lowest English level, for some 3 per cent. of the number averaged were earning less than 8s. a week. About 20 per cent. were earning between 14s. and 19s. per week. The earnings in the chief textile industries show wide variations, yielding, however, a rough average of about 20s. weekly wages in cotton mills, and about 22s. in woollen mills. A general comparison would yield a standard of some 15s. as the customary wage corresponding to the 10s. in England (_Report of the Commissioner of Labour_, 1888, chap. iii. and Table xxix.). Some allowance, however, must be made for the more expensive living in American cities. However, in spite of the fact that organised action is almost unknown among women workers in America, the real wages are higher than in England. This is partly owing to the general insistence upon a higher standard of consumption, partly to the fact that a larger number of employments are open to women than in England, and partly to the higher skill and intelligence they put into their work. Thus the maximum wage, measured by productivity, is higher, the minimum, measured by "wants," is higher, while the terms of competition do not so generally keep down actual wages to the minimum.

[253] _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i. p. 410.

[254] It must, however, be borne in mind that the results of such a policy followed by Lancashire, or any other single part of the textile industry of the world, would be qualified or even negatived if the example was not followed by their competitors.

[255] This effect of industrial opportunities for women and children in promoting early and more fruitful marriages is also illustrated in Lancashire; the average family of the factory operative is considerably higher than the average for the working classes as a whole.

[256] Gunton, _Wealth and Progress_, p. 169.

[257] _Report of the Statistics of Labour_, p. 71.

[258] Dr. Smart has a valuable treatment of the subject in his pamphlet, _Women's Wages_, pp. 22-25.

[259] _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i. p. 469.

[260] _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i. p. 460.

[261] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 459; cf. also p. 469.

[262] Smart, _Woman's Wages_, p. 23.

[263] In some cases where women are found getting the same rate of wages as men, the industry is a woman's industry in which a few lower-skilled or inferior male workers are employed. The woman's scale dominates, the men who are employed descending to it. This is the case in some weaving trades where men work still almost entirely with hand-looms, leaving women with a practical monopoly of power-loom work. (_Report of Woollen Manufactures in Miscellaneous English Towns_, pp. 98, 99.) Where both men and women are freely engaged in the same class of work, the men are always (save in the area of the Lancashire trade unions) paid at higher rates: where the same rates are paid they are determined upon the woman's scale. The comparison between Huddersfield and other cloth-making towns in Yorkshire establishes this point. "In the cloth mills of these three districts, Bradford, Huddersfield, and Leeds, men and women engaged upon the same work at the looms receive the same pay. In the Huddersfield district the proportion of men to women among the weavers is much greater than it is in the districts of Bradford, Halifax, or Leeds, and in the Huddersfield districts alone there is a weaver's scale, according to which women are paid from 15 to 50 per cent. below men. The proportion of women is, however, rapidly increasing; and I found many firms where the scale is not in operation. At some places men and women were paid alike _upon the woman's scale_. At other firms men were paid at a slightly higher rate than women, the women's scale being the basis of calculation for all classes of work." (Miss Abraham in _Reports on Employment of Women to the Labour Commission_, p. 100.)

[264] _Report on Principal Textile Trades_, p. xxv.

[265] The evidence adduced by Dr. Arlidge in his _Diseases of Occupations_ regarding the effects of factory life upon the physique of children is conclusive. See p. 38, etc.

[266] See Appendix on Factory Legislation.