The Industrial Condition of Women-Workers.
§ 1. The Number of Women engaged in Industrial Work.--The evils of
"sweating" press more heavily on women workers than on men. It is not
merely that women as "the weaker sex" suffer more under the same burden,
but that their industrial burden is absolutely heavier than that of men.
The causes and the meaning of this demand a special treatment.
The census returns for 1901 showed that out of 4,171,751 females engaged
in occupations about 40½ per cent. were in domestic or other service,
38½ per cent. in manufactures, 7 per cent. in commerce, chiefly as shop-
assistants, 4 per cent. in teaching, 3 per cent. in hotels, boarding-
houses, etc., and 7 per cent. in other occupations.
The following table gives the groups of occupations in which more
females are employed than males:--
Occupational Groups Males Females
Sick nurses, midwives, etc. 1,092 67,269
Teaching 61,897 172,873
Domestic service 124,263 1,690,686
Bookbinding: paper and stationery manufactures 42,644 64,210
Textile manufactures 492,175 663,222
Dress manufactures 336,186 689,956
--------------------
1,058,257 3,348,216
All other occupations 9,098,717 823,535
--------------------
All occupations 10,156,974 4,171,751
The manufactures in which women have been gaining upon men are the
textile and clothing trades in almost all branches, tobacco, printing,
stationery, brushes, india-rubber, and foods.
§ 2. Women's Wages.--Turning now to women engaged in city industries,
let us gauge their industrial condition by the tests of wages, hours of
labour, sanitary conditions, regularity of employment
The following is a list of the average wages paid for different kinds of
factory work in London.
Artificial flowers 8 to 12 shillings.
Bookbinding 9 " 11 "
Boxmaking 8 " 16 "
Brushes 8 " 15 "
Caps 8 " 16 "
Collars 11 " 15 "
Confectionery 8 " 14 "
Corsets 8 " 16 "
Fur-sewing 7 " 14 "
Fur-sewing in winter 4 " 7 "
Matches 8 " 13 "
Rope 8 " 11 "
Umbrellas 10 " 18 "
These are ordinary wages. Very good or industrious workers are said to
get in some cases 20 per cent, more; unskilful or idle workers less.
It must be borne in mind that these sums represent a full week's work.
The importance of this qualification will appear presently.
It is obvious at a glance that these wages are for the most part
considerably lower than those paid for any regular form of male labour.
But there is another fact which adds to the significance of this.
Skilled labour among men is much more highly paid than unskilled labour.
Among women's industries this is not the case to any great extent.
Skilled work like that of book-folding is paid no higher than the almost
unskilled work of the jam or match girl. This is said to be due partly
to the fact that the lower kinds of work are done by girls and women who
are compelled to support themselves, while the higher class is done by
women partly kept by husband or father, partly to the pride taken in the
performance of more skilled work, and the reluctance to mingle with
women belonging to a lower stratum of society, which prevents the wages
of the various kinds of work from being determined by free economic
competition. A bookbinding girl would sooner take lower wages than
engage in an inferior class of work which happened to rise in the market
price of its labour. But whatever the causes may be, the fact cannot be
disputed that the lower rates of wages extend over a larger proportion
of women workers.
Again, the wages quoted above refer to workers in factories. But only
three women's trades of any importance are managed entirely in
factories, the cigar, confectionery, and match-making[34] trades. In
many of the other trades part of the work is done in factories, part is
let out to sweaters, or to women who work at their own homes. Many of
the clothing trades come under this class, as for example, the tie-
making, trimmings, corset-making trades. The employers in these trades
are able to play the out-doors workers against the indoors workers, so
as to keep down the wages of both to a minimum. The "corset" manufacture
is fairly representative of these trades. The following list gives the
per-centage of workers receiving various sums for "indoors" i.e.
"factory" work.
s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s.
Under 4 3--6 8--10 10--12 12--15 Over 15
2.94 p.c. 50 p.c. 2.94 p.c. 5.9 p.c. 14.7 p.c. 22.52 p.c.
Outdoor workers earn from 6s. to 12s., but where more than 10s. is
earned, the woman is generally assisted by one or more of her children.
Generally speaking, the most miserably paid work is that in trades where
most of the work is done by out-door workers. Such is the lowest stratum
of the "vest and trousers" trade, where English women undertake work
rejected by the lowest class of Jew workers, and the shirt-making trade,
which, in the opinion of the Lords' Committee, "does not appear to
afford subsistence to those who have no other employment." In these and
other trades of the lowest order, 6s. a week is a tolerably common wage
for a work-woman of fair skill to net after a hard week's work, and
there are many individual cases where the wage falls far below this
mark.
It is true that the work for which the lowest wages are paid is often
that of learners, or of inefficient work-women; but while this may be a
satisfactory "economic" explanation, it does not mitigate the terrible
significance of the fact that many women are dependent on such work as
their sole opportunity of earning an honest livelihood.
§ 3. Irregularity of Employment.--As the wages of women are lower than
those of men, so they suffer more from irregularity of employment. There
are two special reasons for this.
[Greek: a]. Many trades in which women are employed, depend largely upon
the element of Season. The confectionery trade, one of the most
important, employs twice as many hands in the busy season as in the
slack season. Match-makers have a slack season, in which many of them
sell flowers, or go "hopping." Laundry work is largely "season" work.
Fur-sewing is perhaps the worst example of the terrible effect of
irregular work taken with low wages. "For several months in the year the
fur-sewers have either no work, or earn about 3s. or 4s. a week, and
many of these work in overcrowded insanitary workshops in the season.
Fur-sewing is the worst paid industry in the East End, with absolutely
no exceptions."[35]
[Greek: b]. Fluctuations in fashion affect many women's trades; in
particular, the "ornamental" clothing trades, e.g. furs, feathers,
trimmings, etc.
Employers in these slack times prefer generally to keep on the better
hands (on lower wages), and to dismiss the inferior hands.
These "natural" fluctuations, added to ordinary trade irregularities,
favour the employment of "outdoor" workers in sweaters' dens or at home,
and require in these trades, as conducted at present, the existence of
an enormous margin of "casual" workers. These two chief factors in the
"sweating" problem, sub-contract and irregular home-work, are far more
prevalent in female industries than in male.
§ 4. Hours of Labour in Women's Trades.--The Factory Act is supposed to
protect women engaged in industrial work from excessive hours of labour,
by setting a limit of twelve hours to the working day, including an
interval of two hours for meals.
But passing over the fact that a dispensation is granted, enabling women
to be employed for fourteen hours during certain times, there is the far
more important consideration that most employments of women wholly
escape the operation of the Factory Act. In part this is due to the
difficulty of enforcing the Act in the case of sweating workshops, many
of which are unknown to inspectors, while others habitually break the
law and escape the penalty. Again, the Act does not and cannot be made
to apply to a large class of small domestic workshops. When the
dwelling-room is also the work-room, it is impossible to enforce by any
machinery of law, close limitation of hours of labour. Something may be
done to extend the arm of the law over small workshops; but the worst
form of out-work, that voluntarily undertaken by women in their own
homes, cannot be thus put down. Nothing short of a total prohibition of
outwork imposed on employers would be effectual here. Lastly, there are
many large employments not subject to the Factory Act, where the
economic power of the employer over weak employees is grossly abused.
One of the worst instances is that of the large laundries, where women
work enormously long hours during the season, and are often engaged for
fifteen or sixteen hours on Fridays and Saturdays. The whole class of
shop-assistants are worked excessive hours. Twelve and fourteen hours
are a common shop day, and frequently the figure rises to sixteen hours.
Restaurants and public-houses are perhaps the greatest offenders. The
case of shop-assistants is most aggravated, for these excessive hours of
labour are wholly waste time; a reduction of 25 or even of 50 per cent
in the shopping-day, reasonably adjusted to the requirements of classes
and localities, would cause no diminution in the quantity of sales
effected, nor would it cause any appreciable inconvenience to the
consuming public.
§ 5. Sanitary Conditions.--Seeing that a larger proportion of women
workers are occupied in the small workshops or in their own overcrowded
homes, it is obvious that the fourth count of the "sweating" charge,
that of unsanitary conditions of work, applies more cruelly to them than
to men. Their more sedentary occupations, and the longer hours they work
in many cases outside the operation of the Factory Act, makes the evils
of overcrowding, bad ventilation, bad drainage, etc., more detrimental
to the health of women than of men workers.
§ 6. Special Burdens incident on Women.--We have now applied the four
chief heads of the "sweating" disease--low wages, long hours, irregular
employment, unsanitary conditions--to women's work, and have seen that
the absolute pressure in each case is heavier on the weaker sex.
But in estimating the industrial condition of women, there are certain
other considerations which must not be left out of sight.
To many women-workers, the duties of maternity and the care of children,
which in a civilized human society ought to secure for them some
remission from the burden, of the industrial fight, are a positive
handicap in the struggle for a livelihood. When a married woman or a
widow is compelled to support herself and her family, the home ties
which preclude her from the acceptance of regular factory work, tell
fatally against her in the effort to earn a living. Married women, and
others with home duties which cannot be neglected, furnish an almost
illimitable field of casual or irregular labour. Not only is this
irregular work worse paid than regular factory work, but its existence
helps to keep up the pernicious system of "out-work" under which
"sweating" thrives. The commercial competition of to-day positively
trades upon the maternity of women-workers.
In estimating the quantity of work which falls to the lot of industrial
women-workers, we must not forget to add to the wage-work that domestic
work which few of them can wholly avoid, and which is represented by no
wages. Looking at the problem in a broad human light, it is difficult to
say which is the graver evil, the additional burden of the domestic
work, so far as it is done, or the habitual neglect of it, where it is
evaded. Here perhaps the former point of view is more pertinent. To the
long hours of the factory-worker, or the shopwoman, we must often add
the irksome duties which to a weary wife must make the return home a
pain rather than a pleasure. When the industrial work is carried on at
home the worries and interruptions of family life must always contribute
to the difficulty and intensity of the toil, and tell upon the nervous
system and the general health of the women-workers.
Other evils, incident on woman's industrial work, do not require
elaboration, though their cumulative effect is often very real. Many
women-workers, the locality of whose home depends on the work of their
husband or father, are obliged to travel every day long distances to and
from their work. The waste of time, the weariness, and sometimes the
expense of 'bus or train thus imposed on them, is in thousands of cases
a heavy tax upon their industrial life. Women working in factories, or
taking work home, suffer also many wrongs by reason of their "weaker
sex," and their general lack of trade organization. Unjust and arbitrary
fines are imposed by harsh employers so as to filch a portion of their
scanty earnings; their time is wasted by unnecessary delay in the giving
out of work, or its inspection when finished; the brutality and
insolence of male overseers is a common incident in their career. In a
score of different ways the weakness of women injures them as
competitors in the free fight for industrial work.
§ 7. Causes of the Industrial Weakness of Women.--This brief summary of
the industrial condition of low-skilled women-workers will suffice to
bring out the fact that the "sweating" question is even more a woman's
question than a man's. The question which rises next is, Why do women as
industrial workers suffer more than men?
In the first place, as the physically weaker sex, they do on the average
a smaller quantity of work, and therefore receive lower wages. In
certain kinds of work, where women do piece-work along with men, it is
found that they get as high wages as men for the same quantity of work.
The recent report upon Textile Industries establishes this fact so far
as those trades are concerned. But this is not always, perhaps not in
the majority of instances, the case. Women-workers do not, in many
cases, receive the same wages which would be paid to men for doing the
same work. Why is this? It is sometimes described as an unfair advantage
taken of women because they are women. There is a male prejudice, it is
urged, against women-workers, which prevents employers from paying them
the wages they could and would pay to men.
Now this contention, so far as it refers to a sentimental bias, is not
tenable. A body of women-workers, equally skilled with male workers, and
as strongly organized, would be able to extract the same rate of wages
in any trade. Everything depends upon the words "_as strongly
organized_." It is the general industrial weakness of the condition of
most women-workers, and not a sex prejudice, which prevents them from
receiving the wages which men might get, if the work the women do were
left for male competition alone. An employer, as a rule, pays the lowest
wages he can get the work done at. The real question we have to meet is
this. Why can he get women who will consent to work at a lower rate than
he could get men to work at? What peculiar conditions are there
affecting women which will oblige them to accept work on lower terms
than men?
Well, in the first place, the wage of a man can never fall much lower
than will suffice to maintain at the minimum standard of comfort both
himself and the average family he has to support. The minimum wage of
the man, it is true, need not cover the full support of his family,
because the wife or children will on the average contribute something to
their maintenance. But the wage of the man must cover his own support,
and part of the support of his family. This marks a rigid minimum wage
for male labour; if competition tends to drive wages lower, the supply
of labour is limited to unmarried males.
The case of woman is different. If she is a free woman her minimum wage
will be what is required to support herself alone, and since a woman
appears able to keep alive and in working condition on a lower scale of
expenditure than man, the possible minimum wage for independent women-
workers will be less than a single man would consent to work for, and
considerably less than what a married man would require. But there are
other economic causes more important than this which drag down women's
wages.
Single women, working to support themselves, are subject to the constant
competition of other women who are not dependent for their full
livelihood on the wages they get, and who, if necessary, are often
willing to take wages which would not keep them alive if they had no
other source of income. The minimum wages which can be obtained for
certain kinds of work may by this competition of "bounty-fed" labour be
driven considerably below starvation point. This is no mere hypothesis.
It will be obvious that the class of fur-sewers who, as we saw, earned
while in full work from 4s. to 7s. in the winter months, and the lower
grades of brush-makers and match-makers, to say nothing of the casual
"out-workers," who often take for a whole week's work 3s. or 2s. 6d.,
cannot, and do not, live upon these earnings. They must either die upon
them, as many in fact do, or else they must be assisted by other funds.
There are, at least, three classes of female workers whose competition
helps to keep wages below the point of bare subsistence in the
employments which they enter.
First, there are married women who in their eagerness to increase the
family income, or to procure special comforts for themselves, are
willing to work at what must be regarded as "uncommercial rates"; that
is to say, for lower wages than they would be willing to accept if they
were working for full maintenance. It is sometimes asserted that since
these married women have not so strong a motive to secure work, they
will not, and in fact do not, undersell, and bring down the rate of
wages. But it must be admitted, firstly, that the very addition of their
number to the total of competitors for low-skilled work, forces down,
and keeps down, the price paid for that work; and secondly, that if they
choose, they are enabled to underbid at any time the labour of women
entirely dependent on themselves for support. The existence of this
competition of married women must be regarded as one of the reasons why
wages are low in women's employments.
Secondly, a large proportion of unmarried women live at home. Even if
they pay their parents the full cost of their keep, they can live more
cheaply than if they had to find a home for themselves. A large
proportion, however, of the younger women are partly supported at the
expense of their family, and work largely to provide luxuries in the
shape of dress, and other ornamental articles. Many of them will consent
to work long hours all week, for an incredibly low sum to spend on
superfluities.
Thirdly, there is the competition of women assisted by charity, or in
receipt of out-door poor relief. Sums paid by Boards of Guardians to
widows with young children, or assistance given by charitable persons to
aid women in distressed circumstances to earn a livelihood, will enable
these women to get work by accepting wages which would have been
impossible if they had not outside assistance to depend upon. It is thus
possible that by assisting a thoroughly deserving case, you may be
helping to drive down below starvation-point the wages of a class of
workers.
Probably a large majority of women-workers are to some extent bounty-fed
in one of these ways. In so far as they do receive assistance from one
of these sources, enabling them to accept lower wages than they could
otherwise have done, it should be clearly understood that they are
presenting the difference between the commercial and the uncommercial
price as a free gift to their employer, or in so far as competition will
oblige him to lower his prices, to the public, which purchases the
results of their work. But the most terrible effect of this uncommercial
competition falls on that miserable minority of their sisters who have
no such extra source of income, and who have to make the lower wages
find clothes, and shelter for themselves, and perhaps a family of
children. We hear a good deal about the jealousy of men, and the
difficulties male Trade Unions have sometimes thrown in the way of women
obtaining employment, which may seem to affect male interests. But
though there is doubtless some ground for these complaints, it should be
acknowledged that it is women who are the real enemies of women. Women's
wages in the "sweating" trades are almost incredibly low, because there
is an artificially large supply of women able and willing to take work
at these low rates.
It will be possible to raise the wages in these low-paid employments
only on condition that women will agree to refuse to undersell one
another beyond a certain point. A restriction in what is called "freedom
of competition" is the only direct remedy which can be applied by women
themselves. If women could be induced to refuse to avail themselves of
the terrible power conferred by these different forms of "bounty," their
wages could not fall below that 9s. or 10s. which would be required to
keep them alive, and would probably rise higher.
§ 8. What Trade Unionism can do for them.--A question which naturally
rises now is, how far combination in the form of Trade Unionism can
assist to raise the industrial condition of these women. The practical
power wielded by male Unions we saw was twofold. Firstly, by restricting
the supply of labour in their respective trades they raised its market
price, i.e. wages. Secondly, they could extract better conditions from
employers, by obliging the latter to deal with them as a single large
body instead of dealing with them as a number of individuals. How far
can women-workers effect these same ends by these same means?
Trade Unionism, so far as women are concerned, is yet in its infancy. In
1874, Mrs. Paterson established a society, now named the Women's Trades
Union Provident League, to try and establish combination among women in
their several trades. The first Union was that of women engaged in book-
binding, formed in September 1874. Since then a considerable number of
Unions have been formed among match-makers, dressmakers, milliners,
mantle-makers, upholstresses, rope-makers, confectioners, box-makers,
shirt-makers, umbrella-makers, brush-makers and others. Many of these
have been formed to remedy some pressing grievance, or to secure some
definite advance of wage, and in certain cases of skilled factory work
where the women have maintained a steady front, as among the match-
makers and the confectioners, considerable concessions have been won
from employers. But the small scale and tentative character of most of
these organizations do not yet afford any adequate test of what Unionism
can achieve. The workers in a few factories here and there have formed a
Union of, at the most, a few hundred workers. No large women's trade has
yet been organized with anything approaching the size and completeness
of the stronger men's Unions. Women Trade Unionists numbered 120,178 in
1901, and of these no less than 89.9 per cent were textile workers,
whose Unions are mostly organized by and associated with male Unions.
There are several reasons why the growth of effective organization among
women-workers must be slow. In the first place, as we have seen, a large
proportion of their work is "out work" done at home or in small domestic
workshops. Now labour organizations are necessarily strong and
effective, in proportion as the labourers are thrown together constantly
both in their work and in their leisure, have free and frequent
opportunities of meeting and discussion, of educating a sense of
comradeship and mutual confidence, which shall form a moral basis of
unity for common industrial action. But to the majority of women-workers
no such opportunities are open. Even the factory workers are for the
most part employed in small groups, and are dispersed in their homes.
Combination among the mass of home-workers or workers in small sweating
establishments is almost impossible. The women's Unions have hitherto
been successful in proportion as the trades are factory trades. Where
endeavours have been made to organize East End shirt-makers, milliners,
and others who work at home, very little has been achieved. In those
trades where it is possible to give out an indefinite amount of the work
to sub-contractors, or to workers to do at home, it seems impossible
that any great results can be thus attained. Even in trades where part
of the work is done in factories, the existence of reckless competition
among unorganized out-workers can be utilized by unprincipled employers
to destroy attempts at effective combination among their factory hands.
The force of public opinion which may support an organization of factory
workers by preventing outsiders from underselling, can have no effect
upon the competition of home-workers, who bid in ignorance of their
competitors, and bid often for the means of keeping life in themselves
and their children. The very poverty of the mass of women-workers, the
low industrial conditions, which Unionism seeks to relieve, form cruel
barriers to the success of their attempts. The low physical condition,
the chronic exhaustion produced by the long hours and fetid atmosphere
in which the poorer workers live, crush out the human energy required
for effective protest and combination. Moreover, the power to strike,
and, if necessary, to hold out for a long period of time, is an
essential to a strong Trade Union. Almost all the advantages won by
women's Unions have been won by their proved capacity for holding out
against employers. This is largely a matter of funds. It is almost
impossible for the poorest classes of women-workers to raise by their
own abstinence a fund which shall make their Union formidable. Their
efforts where successful have been always backed by outside assistance.
Even were there a close federation of Unions of various women's trades--
a distant dream at present--the larger proportion of recipients of low
wages among women-workers as compared with men would render their
success more difficult.
§ 9. Legislative Restriction and the force of Public Opinion.--If Trade
Unionism among women is destined to achieve any large result, it would
appear that it will require to be supported by two extra-Union forces.
The first of these forces must consist of legislative restriction of
"out-work." If all employers of women were compelled to provide
factories, and to employ them there in doing that work at present done
at home or in small and practically unapproachable workshops, several
wholesome results would follow. The conditions of effective combination
would be secured, public opinion would assist in securing decent wages,
factory inspection would provide shorter hours and fair sanitary
conditions, and last, not least, women whose home duties precluded them
from full factory work would be taken out of the field of competition.
Whether it would be possible to successfully crush the whole system of
industrial "out-work" may be open to question; but it is certain that so
long as, and in proportion as "out-work" is permitted, attempts on the
part of women to raise their industrial condition by combination will be
weak and unsuccessful. So long as "out-work" continues to be largely
practised and unrestrained, competition sharpened by the action of
married women and other irregular and "bounty-fed" labour, must keep
down the price of women's work, not only for the out-workers themselves,
but also for the factory workers. Nor is it possible to see how the
system of "out-work" can be repressed or even restricted by any other
force than legislation. So long as home-workers are "free" to offer, and
employers to accept, this labour, it will continue to exist so long as
it pays; it will pay so long as it is offered cheap enough; and it will
be offered cheaply so long as the supply continues to bear the present
relation to the demand.
But there is another force required to give any full effect to such
extensions of the Factory Act as will crush private workshops, and
either directly or indirectly prohibit out-work. The real reason, as we
saw, why woman's wages were proportionately lower than man's, was the
competition of a mass of women, able and willing to work at indefinitely
low rates, because they were wholly or partly supported from other
sources. Now legislation can hardly interfere to prevent this
competition, but public opinion can. If the greater part of the
industrial work now done by women at home were done in factories, this
fact in itself would offer some restrictions to the competition of
married women, which is so fatal to those who depend entirely upon their
wages for a livelihood. But the gradual growth of a strong public
opinion, fed by a clear perception of the harm married women do to their
unsupported sisters by their competition, and directed towards the
establishment of a healthy social feeling against the wage-earning
proclivities of married women, would be a far more wholesome as well as
a more potent method of interference than the passing of any law.
To interfere with the work of young women living at home, and supported
in large part by their parents, would be impracticable even if it were
desirable, although the competition of these conduces to the same
lowering of women's wages. But the education of a strong popular
sentiment against the propriety of the industrial labour of married
women, would be not only practicable, but highly desirable. Such a
public sentiment would not at first operate so stringently as to
interfere in those exceptional cases where it seems an absolute
necessity that the wife should aid by her home or factory work the
family income. But a steady pressure of public opinion, making for the
closer restriction of the wage-work of married women, would be of
incomparable value to the movement to secure better industrial
conditions for those women who are obliged to work for a living. A
fuller, clearer realization of the importance of this subject is much
needed at the present time. The industrial emancipation of women,
favoured by the liberal sentiments of the age, has been eagerly utilized
by enterprising managers of businesses in search of the cheapest labour.
Not only women, but also children are enabled, owing to the nature of
recent mechanical inventions which relieve the physical strain, but
increase the monotony of labour, to make themselves useful in factories
or home-work. Each year sees a large growth in the ranks of women-
workers. Eager to earn each what she can, girls and wives alike rush
into factory work, reckless of the fact that their very readiness to
work tells against them in the amount of their weekly wages, and only
goes to swell the dividends of the capitalist, or perhaps eventually to
lower prices. The improving mechanism of our State School System assists
this movement, by turning out every year a larger percentage of half-
timers, crammed to qualify for wage-earners at the earliest possible
period. Already in Lancashire and elsewhere, the labour of these
thirteen-year-olders is competing with the labour of their fathers. The
substitution of the "ring" for the "mule" in Lancashire mills, is
responsible for the sight which may now be seen, of strong men lounging
about the streets, supported by the earnings of their own children, who
have undersold them in the labour market. The "ring" machine can be
worked by a child, and can be learned in half an hour; that is the sole
explanation of this deplorable phenomenon.
In the case of child-work, with its degrading consequences on the
physical and mental health of the victim thus prematurely thrust into
the struggle of life, legislation can doubtless do much. By raising the
standard of education, and, if necessary, by an absolute prohibition of
child-work, the State would be keeping well within the powers which the
strictest individualist would assign to it, as it would be merely
protecting the rising generation against the cupidity of parents and the
encroachments of industrial competition.
The case of married women-workers is different. Better education of
women in domestic work and the requirements of wifehood and motherhood;
the growth of a juster and more wholesome feeling in the man, that he
may refuse to demand that his wife add wage-work to her domestic
drudgery; and above all, a clearer and more generally diffused
perception in society of the value of healthy and careful provision for
the children of our race, should build up a bulwark of public opinion,
which shall offer stronger and stronger obstruction to the employment of
married women, either outside or inside the home, in the capacity of
industrial wage-earners. The satisfaction rightly felt in the ever wider
opportunities afforded to unmarried women of earning an independent
livelihood, and of using their abilities and energies in socially useful
work, is considerably qualified by our perception of the injury which
these new opportunities inflict upon our offspring and our homes.
Surely, from the large standpoint of true national economy, no wiser use
could be made of the vast expansion of the wealth-producing power of the
nation under the reign of machinery, than to secure for every woman
destined to be a wife and a mother, that relief from the physical strain
of industrial toil which shall enable her to bring forth healthy
offspring, and to employ her time and attention in their nurture, and in
the ordering of a cleanly, wholesome, peaceful home life. So long as
public opinion permits or even encourages women, who either are or will
be mothers, to neglect the preparation for, and the performance of, the
duties of domestic life and of maternity, by engaging in laborious and
unhealthy industrial occupations, so long shall we pay the penalty in
that physical and moral deterioration of the race which we have traced
in low city life. How can the women of Cradley Heath engaged in wielding
huge sledge-hammers, or carrying on their neck a hundredweight of chain
for twelve or fourteen hours a day, in order to earn five or seven
shillings a week, bear or rear healthy children? What "hope of our race"
can we expect from the average London factory hand? What "home" is she
capable of making for her husband and her children? The high death-rate
of the "slum" children must be largely attributed to the fact that the
women are factory workers first and mothers afterwards. Roscher, the
German economist, assigns as the reason why the Jewish population of
Prussia increases so much faster than the Christian, the fact that the
Jewish mothers seldom go out of their own homes to work.[36] One of the
chief social dangers of the age is the effect of industrial work upon
the motherhood of the race. Surely, the first duty of society should be
to secure healthy conditions for the lives of the young, so as to lay a
firm physical foundation for the progress of the race.
This we neglect to do when we look with indifference or complacency upon
the present phase of unrestricted competition in industrial work amongst
women. So long as we refuse to insist, as a nation, that along with the
growth of national wealth there shall be secured those conditions of
healthy home life requisite for the sound, physical, moral, and
intellectual growth of the young, at whatever cost of interference with
so-called private liberty of action, we are rendering ourselves as a
nation deliberately responsible for the continuance of that creature
whose appearance gives a loud lie to our claim of civilization--the
gutter child of our city streets. Thousands of these children, as we
well know, the direct product of economic maladjustment, grow up every
year--in our great cities to pass from babyhood into the street arab,
afterwards to become what they may, tramp, pauper, criminal, casual
labourer, feeble-bodied, weak-minded, desolate creatures, incapable of
strong, continuous effort at any useful work. These are the children who
have never known a healthy home. With that poverty which compels mothers
to be wage-earners, lies no small share of the responsibility of this
sin against society and moral progress. It is true that no sudden
general prohibition of married woman's work would be feasible. But it is
surely to be hoped that with every future rise in the wages and
industrial position of male wage-earners, there may be a growing
sentiment in favour of a restriction of industrial work among married
women.