common obstacles familiar to the organiser of male wage-earners,
including short-sighted individual self-interest, ignorance, poverty,
indifference, and lack of co-operative training. But to the organisers
of women is added another and most disconcerting problem. When men
marry they usually become more definitely attached to the trade and to
the community and to their labour Union. Women as a rule drop out of
the trade and out of the Union when marriage takes them out of the
struggle for economic independence.
Another great difficulty is the opposition of the employers. "Employers
commonly and most strenuously object to a Union among the women they
employ." When once an organisation has attained any size, strength, or
significance, the employers almost always set themselves to break it up,
and have usually succeeded. In Boston, for instance, a Union of some 800
members was broken up by the posting of a notice by the firm that its
employees must either join its own employers' Union or quit work. Some
employers look upon female labour as the natural resource in case of a
strike, as see the case quoted by Miss Abbott (_Women in Industry_, p.
206). There are reasons why employers object even more strongly to Unions
among women than among men. In a number of cases production is mainly
carried on by women and girls, only a few men being required to do work
requiring special strength and skill. In such instances the employers do
not particularly object to the organisation of their few men, whom, as
skilled workers, they would anyhow have to pay fairly well. But when it
comes to organising women and demanding for them higher wages and shorter
hours, the matter is much more serious.
The present unsatisfactory condition of women's Unions is, however, only
what might be expected in the early years of such a movement. Men's Unions
have all gone through a similar period of weak beginnings, and in America
there are special difficulties arising from the presence of masses of
unskilled or semi-skilled workers of different races and tongues, and
varying in their traditions and standard of life. There is much
encouragement to be derived from the fact that the leaders in men's
Unions, both national and local, now have more faith than formerly in
Unionism for women. The American Federation of Labour calls upon its
members to aid and encourage with all the means at their command the
organisation of women and girls, "so that they may learn the stern fact
that if they desire to achieve any improvement in their condition it must
be through their own self-assertion in the local Union." From 1903 onward
every Convention has favoured the appointment of women organisers. Women
also are developing a greater sense of comradeship with their fellows and
of solidarity with the Labour Movement generally. As we have seen, there
are now few Unions which discriminate against women in their
constitutions, and the universal Trade Union rule is "equal pay for equal
work for men and women."
Even the special condition of this instability in industry, the temporary
nature of women's work, which is so great an obstacle to organisation, is
thought to be changing. Within the last thirty or forty years, changes in
industrial and commercial methods have opened up numerous lines of
activity to women, in addition to the factory work, sewing and domestic
service, which used to be her main field: "marriage is coming to be looked
upon less and less as a woman's sole career, and at the same time the
attitude in regard to wage-earning after marriage is changing. The
tendency of these movements is to create an atmosphere of permanency and
professionalism for woman as a wage-earner, especially among women in the
better-paid occupations, which in time may markedly change her attitude
toward industrial life." Such a change of outlook and habits of mind must
doubtless be slow, but there are signs that it is in progress on both
sides of the Atlantic. The future of Unionism for women is therefore not
without hope, however unsatisfactory the immediate prospect may be. Miss
Matthews, the writer of an interesting study of women's Unions in San
Francisco, sums up her observations on the subject as follows:
Experience in contesting for their rights in Union seems to have
developed leaders among the Trade Union women. Wages, hours, and shop
conditions have all shown the impress of the influence exerted by the
organised action of the workers. But if wages, hours, and shop
conditions did not enter into the question at all, still Trade
Unionism among women would show its results in a higher moral tone
made possible by the security which comes from the knowledge that
there are friends who will protest in time of trouble and offer hope
for better days; it would display its influence in a more awakened and
trained intelligence; it would make evident its effort in a happier
attitude towards the day's work, arising from the fact that the worker
herself has studied her industry and has participated in determining
the conditions under which she earns her livelihood.
In 1903-4 a Women's Trade Union League, on the lines of the organisation
of the same name in England, was formed, and is doing excellent work to
promote solidarity and union among women-workers.
CHAPTER IVA.
WOMEN IN UNIONS (_continued_).
_Women's Unions in Germany._[37]--In Germany the obstacles have been far
greater than in England. The relative prevalence of "Hausindustrie" and
the greater poverty stood in the way of women's organisation, and until a
few years back the law did not allow women to join political societies.
Women were not, it is true, prohibited from joining Trade Unions, but the
line between political and trade societies is not in practice always easy
to draw, and full membership of Unions has thus been often hindered.
The first Women's Unions were started in the early 'seventies of the last
century, by middle-class women who were also in the forefront of the
battle for the Suffrage. The authorities dissolved the societies.
Women-workers did not long maintain the alliance with the "Women's Rights"
Party. An independent organisation was formed, which greatly exceeded the
previous efforts in numbers and significance. The immediate impulse to the
formation of this Union was given by the proposal of the Government to put
a duty on sewing-thread, which would have been a great burden on the
needle-women who had to provide the thread. Three societies were formed,
the first being the "Verein zur Vertretung der Interessen der
Arbeiterinnen," which was followed by the "Nordverein der Berliner
Arbeiterinnen" and the "Fachverein der Mäntelnäherinnen," both of which
were founded and controlled by working women. Investigations of the wages
and conditions of working women were undertaken by these societies, in
consequence of which a debate in the Reichstag took place, followed by an
official enquiry into the wages of the women-workers in the manufacture of
underclothing and ready-made garments, which only confirmed the conclusion
already reached by private enquiry. The Truck Act was made more stringent,
in response to the working women's movement, but as a secondary result all
the societies were dissolved and the leaders prosecuted. The authorities
were taking fright at the increase in the Socialist vote and in the
membership of Trade Unions; and the Reichstag, under the tutelage of
Bismarck, in 1878 passed the notorious Anti-Socialist Law, under which not
only Socialist societies but even Trade Unions were harassed and
suppressed. During the twelve years in which the law was in force,
however, propaganda work was still carried on with heroic courage and
perseverance, and the solidarity and class-consciousness of the workers,
both men and women, was developed and strengthened by their natural
indignation against the persecution suffered.
The men's attitude towards the women-workers, which had been formerly
reactionary and sometimes hostile, gradually changed, partly because of
the energy and courage the women had shown, partly through a growing
recognition, which was intensified by the enormous increase in women
industrial workers shown in the Census Report, 1895, that exclusion of
women from the men's Unions could only exasperate industrial competition
in its worst form. In 1890 a Conference was held at Berlin at which the
Central Commission of German Trade Unions was founded, and its attitude
towards women was indicated by the fact that a woman was a member of its
Committee. Measures were taken that in the committees of societies which
excluded women from membership, resolutions should be proposed for an
alteration of rules, and in most cases these were adopted. Under their
guidance an agitation was set on foot to induce women to join Unions. Into
this agitation the women organisers put an energy, patience, and
self-sacrifice that is beyond praise. Now the German Free Unions ("freie
Gewerkschaften") are not identified with any political propaganda, and
cannot legally spend money for political purposes if they have members
under eighteen. But in practice they are largely led and controlled by
members of the Social Democratic Party, and thus it has happened that
working women, who were forced to abandon their own societies and to join
forces with the general Labour Movement, are now largely under the
influence and identified with the movement for social democracy. It is
incorrect to speak of the Unions as "Social Democratic Unions," and yet in
fact the two forces do work in harmony.
In the Labour Movement women found their natural allies. Their
co-operation secured men against "blackleg" competition, and on the other
hand the social democrats have worked for women. In 1877 they petitioned
for improvements in the working conditions of women, and in 1890, that
women should have votes for the industrial councils that were then under
consideration. Bebel's _Die Frau und der Sozialismus_ appeared about this
time, and made a profound sensation. In this work the relations of the
social question with the woman question were analysed. "Nothing but
economic freedom for woman," said Bebel, "could complete her political and
social emancipation."
In 1908 some of the remaining obstacles that impeded women from taking
part in political and trade societies were done away with by the Federal
Association law. The outstanding fact at the present time is the enormous
relative increase in the numbers of women Unionists. Frau Gnauck gives the
numbers in 1905 as 50,000 in the "Free" or social democratic Unions,
10,000 in the Christian. The figures for 1912, from the _German
Statistical Year-Book_, will be found at the end of the section.[38] It
will be observed that although, as with us, the largest group of organised
women is in the textile trades, the members are more generally
distributed, and the non-textile Unions show larger numbers, both
absolutely and relatively, than is the case in England.
The centralised Unions undoubtedly owe their origin chiefly to the Social
Democratic exertions, and are strongly class-conscious. They, however,
favour the view that it is the duty of the State to protect the workers by
legislation from excessive exploitation, and that it is the main business
of the Unions to achieve as far as possible immediate improvements in
wages and labour conditions. The comparative ease with which new Unions
have been built up and existing Unions amalgamated is very largely due to
Social Democratic influence. Before Trade Unions existed to any extent
worth mentioning, Lassalle's campaign for united action had taught the
workers that the engineer and his helper, the bricklayer and his labourer,
were of one class and had one supreme interest in common; that there was
only one working class, and varieties of calling and degrees of skill were
not the proper basis of organisation even for trade ends. The ideal no
doubt is one great Union of all workers, regardless of occupation. This is
in practice unattainable; but the Germans, in whom class-consciousness is
so strong, are reducing the Unions to the smallest possible number, and
are also linked closely together by means of the General Commission.
The General Commission of Trade Unions has its office in Berlin. It
publishes a weekly journal called a _Korrespondenzblatt_, containing
information of value to Trade Unionists and students of Trade Unionism.
Connected with the Commission is a secretariat for women, the work of
which is to promote organisation among women-workers. Still more recently
it has been arranged that each Union with any appreciable membership of
women should have a woman organiser. The rapid increase among women
members is an indication of the increasing interest taken by the women
themselves. Considerable diversity in the scale of contributions is one
characteristic--young persons, as well as women, being admitted members
along with adult males.
It is evident that the German form of organisation is much better
calculated to catch the weaker and less-skilled classes of workers than is
the more aristocratic and old-fashioned craft Union of our own country.
The Germans hold that the organisation of the unskilled labourer is as
important as that of the mechanic, and their great industrial combinations
include all men- and women-workers within the field of operations,
irrespective of their particular grade of skill. Endeavours are made to
enrol all workers in big effective organisations, and the success of these
tactics has been most significant. While in Germany two and a half million
workers are organised in forty-eight centralised Unions, all affiliated to
the General Commission as the national centre, in England there are more
than a thousand separate Unions with about the same total membership. In
England barely one million Unionists out of the two and a half belong to
the General Federation. These facts are not without bearing on the
position of women-workers. English working men complain of the competition
of women; the moral is, organise the women.
Another important field of Trade Union activity is in the education of
their members. There is a Trade Union School at Berlin supported entirely
by Trade Union funds and managed by Trade Unionists. Care is also taken
that members of Unions should be politically educated to understand their
rights and duties as citizens. Women-workers in all the "freie
Gewerkschaften" enjoy the same privileges as men, and are eligible for all
boards or elected bodies of their respective Unions. There are as yet,
however, only two Unions in Germany which have a woman president, and the
majority on the executives of the other Unions are men. This is not due to
opposition by men, or to rules impeding the appointment of women on these
bodies, but rather to the indifference of many women-workers, who, as in
England, fail to interest themselves in the affairs of their Unions. This
lack of enthusiasm on the part of women is ascribed to their position in
the home and to the difficulty that they have in combining household work
with wage-work, and at the same time retaining any leisure or energy to
concern themselves with Union matters.
Contributions and benefits are usually somewhat lower than in the case of
men, because women's earnings are usually less. Five national Unions have,
however, adopted the principle of equal scales for men and women. In these
cases the amount of contribution varies according to the wages earned, and
benefits are graduated to prevent the risk of women becoming a greater
burden on the funds than men.
It is a patent fact that the number of organised women-workers is very
small when compared with men in the same organisation, but the relative
increase is great, and the spirit of association is said to be gaining a
strong hold on women. The fact that so many German women continue work
after marriage is said to be one cause of the increasing interest taken in
Unions, their position as wage-earners being not merely a temporary one,
to be abandoned in a few years' time.
The "Christian" Trade Unions contain no very large numbers of women
compared to the "free" societies. They were also considerably later in
coming into existence, and appear, though ostensibly non-political, to be
largely due to reactionary political influences, and organised in
opposition to the Socialist party. The Home Workers' Union is mainly
philanthropic and controlled by ladies. The Christian Unions have
enemies on both sides, as they are naturally regarded with considerable
suspicion by the "Free" or "Central" Unions, but nevertheless are
also disapproved of by the authorities of the Catholic Church. The
Christian Unions started with the aim of being inter-denominational
("interkonfessionelle"), including Protestants as well as Catholics, and a
considerable degree of sympathy with labour was combined with their mainly
reactionary propaganda; they even considered strikes a possible and
ultimate resource, although they desired to avoid them. In many cases,
pressed forward perhaps by the rank and file, they have co-operated with
the "Free" Unions, who are so much stronger in numbers and finance than
themselves. These tendencies excited the displeasure of the strict
Catholic body, and not only the German Bishops, but the Pope himself, have
shown hostility to the Christian Unions, which have thus been rent by
internal dissensions. Catholic Unions of a strictly denominational type
have been formed in opposition to the inter-denominational Christian
Unions, and though the former are of little importance as organisations,
they no doubt have some effect in weakening the body from which they have
branched off. However that may be, the numbers in the Christian Unions,
though showing a considerable percentage increase, are insignificant
compared to the large "Free" Unions. In quite recent years the Christian
Unions have lent themselves to strike-breaking and are becoming
discredited in the labour world. The Hirsch-Duncker Unions have only a
very small number of women members, and are of little importance for the
women's labour movement. These Unions were founded and are partly
controlled by middle-class Liberals.
It may be interesting here briefly to compare the views of two
distinguished German women writers on the question of Trade Unionism for
women. Frau Braun, writing in 1901, says that the development of the
great industry is the force that impelled men to combine successfully
together, but industrially women are about a century behind men, and
before they can be successfully organised, home-work must be repressed in
every form, and women's work must develop into factory industry much more
completely than it has yet done. Home-work tends to perpetuate the
dependence of women, enabling the home-keeping wife or daughter to carry
on a bye-industry, and is therefore an evil. Again, the poverty of women
is a great obstacle to their organisation. Economic history shows that
well-paid workers organise more quickly and effectively than those who are
isolated, oppressed and degraded. Women-workers most urgently need to be
enlightened, but this cannot happen until they have been lifted out of the
intense pressure of physical need; they must be given time to read, to
follow the news of the day, to get beyond the horizon of their own four
walls. This cannot be attained by Trade Union action alone. Legislative
measures must be taken for the relief of the women-workers. English
history shows that Lancashire women weavers before the Factory Act were as
incapable of organisation, as easy a prey to the exploiter of their work,
as the majority of women-workers are to-day. It was only after the law had
restricted their hours of work that they began to organise in Trade Unions
and Co-operative Societies.
In Frau Braun's opinion women-workers will lose more than they gain by
adopting the style of the women's movement in the bourgeois sense. Save
where absolutely necessary, organisation for women only is a source of
weakness to the women-workers' movement. The numerous societies for
women-workers' education, the independent Socialist women's congresses,
and especially the women's Unions promoted by the advocates of "women's
rights," all these are dangerous.
A working woman's movement fully conscious of its aims and principles will
permit this class of organisation only in the case of Unions for trades
exclusively feminine, or of educational clubs or institutes when no other
is accessible to women-workers. In principle they should all be avoided,
for they can only confuse the issue, and exaggerate the one-sided feminist
point of view which leaves out of account the class solidarity of workers
and women-workers, the indispensable condition of any successful effort by
the proletariat. And it follows from this point of view that co-operation
with the bourgeois woman's movement should be refused, whether in the form
of admission to "bourgeois" women's societies or the inclusion of
"bourgeois" advocates of women's rights in women-workers' societies. Both
England and France, Frau Braun thinks, offer examples of the reactionary
effect of such co-operation; the numberless work-girls' clubs, holiday
homes and the like, managed by ladies of the upper and middle classes in
England are one cause of the political backwardness of the English working
women. Co-operation is too apt to degenerate into tutelage. The German
women's movement has steadily refused any co-operation with the bourgeois
movement, because it recognises the complete divergence of principle lying
at the back of the two movements, and the difference of standpoint as well
as of aim.
Not that every Socialist is sound on the woman question! Far from it. Frau
Braun recognises that in many a Social democrat there lurks the old
reactionary philistine feeling about woman: "Tout pour la femme, mais
rien avec elle." The increase of women's employment has considerably
shaken this conviction in the Trade Unions, because the organisation of
women is seen more and more to be a condition of their very existence. But
more than this, they need to recognise the vast importance of educating,
enlightening the working woman, binding her closer and closer to the
Socialist cause. Women have the future destiny of men in their hands. They
mould and shape the character of the children. If Socialism can gain the
women, it will have the future with it. To bring the women into closer
community with the labour movement, to translate their paper equality into
living fact, is no fantastic dream; it is part of the obligation of the
modern "knights of labour" in the interest of themselves and their cause.
Frau E. Gnauck-Kühne writes in sympathy with the Catholic Unions of the
older type, viz. the "Interkonfessionelle." Like Frau Braun, she greatly
prefers organisation for working women along with men to separate Unions.
Separate organisations, she remarks, require double staff, double expenses
of book-keeping, finance and secretarial arrangements, and are more
costly, not to mention that the women's wages are so low, the
contributions they can make are so small that a sound and effective Union
of women only is scarcely possible. Frau Gnauck lays stress on the
psychological difficulties of organising women. For ages men have been
accustomed to work in common, to subject themselves to discipline; their
work brings them into relation with their fellows of the same calling,
with their equals. The traditional work of women, on the contrary, has
kept them in isolation; the private household was, and is still, a little
world in itself, and in this world the woman has no peers--she has as
housewife no relation to other housewives, and there is nothing to connect
her work at home with the outside world or public matters. She is very
slow to perceive the advantages of new methods, labour-saving devices,
co-operation and so forth, which might so greatly lessen domestic toil if
intelligently applied. With a certain sly humour Frau Gnauck points out
that the housewife has no expert criticism to undergo, for her husband is
often out the whole day, and understands nothing of housekeeping or the
care of children if he were at home. The housewife as worker (not, be it
observed, as wife) is in the position of an absolute ruler; she has no
one's opinion to consider but her own, no inspection or control to regard;
she is a law unto herself. This habit of mind is not calculated to fit
woman for combined action; rather does it tend to promote individualism
and a lack of discipline, which hinders concerted effort in small things
or in great. This is not to deny that many women are capable of the
greatest devotion and sacrifice, even to the point of self-annihilation.
The loftiest courage for personal action and self-sacrifice, as Frau
Gnauck keenly remarks, is nevertheless in its way an emphasis of
individual will and action, a heightening of self, even though for
unselfish ends. Concerted action demands a surrender of individuality, the
power to find oneself in the ranks with one's equals. Men are better
trained for this kind of corporate action than women normally are. The
older women are too much burdened, and continually oppressed with the
thought of meeting the week's expenses, the young ones are indifferent
because they expect to get married.
Frau Gnauck, however, refuses to despair even of organising the
woman-worker. We must, she says, put ourselves in her place; we must
realise that as no man can see over his horizon, we must bring something
that the woman worker _can_ see over her horizon, something that will
strike her imagination, something that will build a bridge from her over
to those large ideas, "class-interest," "general good," which so far she
has neither time, spirit, nor money enough to understand. She must be
drawn at first by the prospect of some small but concrete improvement in
her own condition, which will make it seem worth while to give the time
and money that the Union wants. Appeal to the feeling all women have for a
home of their own. Explain to them in simple language that the Union would
prevent underbidding and undercutting, and thus raise men's wages. More
men could marry on these higher wages, married women need not go to work,
and both the single woman and the married would benefit.
Frau Gnauck is in agreement with Frau Braun as to the advisability of
common organisation, for if the women cannot join the men's Unions, they
are helpless, and if they form a Union of their own, they will probably be
too weak to avoid being played off against the men. She takes, on the
other hand, a much more favourable view than Frau Braun of the various
philanthropic clubs and societies formed by women of a superior class.
These organisations do not of course do anything to improve the economic
position, they cannot in any way take the place of Trade Unions, but they
provide a kind of preparatory stage, a training in association, an
opportunity for discussion, and in the present circumstances, with the
isolated condition in which working women and girls so often have to live,
all these experiences are a means of development and an educational help
to more serious organisation later on. This is borne out by Dr.
Erdmann,[39] who, whilst opposed to the Catholic Unions as reactionary,
admits that even in these Unions the workers soon begin to feel the need
of Trade Union organisations, and often end by joining the Socialist
Union.
NUMBERS OF WOMEN IN UNIONS--GERMANY.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Largest Occupation Groups. | Number.| Per cent of Total.|
|---------------------------------|--------|-------------------|
| FREIE GEWERKSCHAFTEN. | | |
| (Total women, 216,462.) | | |
|Textile workers | 53,363 | 24·6 |
|Metal | 26,848 | 12·4 |
|Factory workers | 25,146 | 11·6 |
|Tobacco | 17,918 | 8·2 |
|Bookbinders | 15,979 | 7·4 |
| CHRISTIAN UNIONS. | | |
| (Total women, 28,008.) | | |
|Textile workers | 12,811 | 45·7 |
|Home workers | 8,188 | 29·2 |
|Tobacco | 3,088 | 11·0 |
| HIRSCH-DUNCKER UNIONS. | | |
| (Total women, 4950.) | | |
|Textile workers | 1,880 | 38·0 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
_The Outlook._--It will be seen from the preceding chapter and section
that a general view of women in Unions presents a somewhat ambiguous and
contradictory picture. In one industry, cotton, there are in England two
large Unions of remarkable strength and effectiveness, in which women are
organised with men, and form a majority of the Union. The women cotton
weavers and card-room operatives form nearly 70 per cent of all the
organised women. In the other textile industries, in the clothing trades,
and some others, a comparatively small number of women are organised,
either with men, or in branches closely in touch with the men's Unions,
but these Unions are of various degrees of strength, and in no case
include a large proportion of the women employed. There are also some
women organised in Unions of general labourers and workers, and their
numbers have increased rapidly in the last few years, but are not as yet
considerable. We also find many small Unions of women only in various
occupations, but it is a curious fact that women have so far evolved very
little organisation in their most characteristic occupations such as
domestic service, nursing, dressmaking and millinery. Unions of some kind
in these occupations are not unknown, but they are quite inconsiderable in
comparison with the numbers employed. Yet the strategic position of the
workers in some of these occupations is in some respects strong. A fairly
well-organised strike of London milliners in the first week in May, or of
hotel servants and waitresses along the south coast, say about the last
week in July, would probably be irresistible. The same applies to women in
certain factory processes when the work is a monopoly of women and cannot
be done by men's fingers. Paper-sorting is a typical instance; a
paper-sorters' strike just before the Christmas present season might be
highly effective. In such occupations as these, nevertheless, Unionism is
mostly conspicuous by its absence.
There is little use in denying that there are special difficulties in the
way of the organisation of women. The old difficulty of the hostility of
men Unionists is largely a thing of the past, but many others remain.
There are difficulties from hostility and indifference on the part of the
employers; long hours of work; family ties and duties; educational
deficiencies among working women themselves, and the intellectual and
moral effects that result from ignorance. An immense difficulty is the low
rate of wages characteristic of so many women's employments, which makes
it impossible in most cases to pay contributions sufficient for adequate
benefit during a strike. Competition is another difficulty, especially in
low-grade and unspecialised trades, where places can easily be filled.
There is the constant dread among workers of this class and low-grade home
workers that, if they attempt any resistance, some other woman will go
behind them and take the work for still less wages. Even collecting
contributions is often a considerable difficulty; if it is done at the
factory it may subject the collector to disfavour and victimisation; if
not, the labour is very considerable. Another great difficulty in
organising women is the prospect of marriage. A girl looks upon her
industrial career as merely a transition stage to getting married and
having a home of her own. This need not in itself hinder her being a "good
trade unionist," for after all the industrial career of a girl, beginning
at twelve, thirteen, or fourteen, may well be eight or ten years long,
even if she marries young, but it no doubt does tend to deflect her
energies and sentiment from Unionism. The prospect of marriage, which to a
young man is a steadying influence, making for thrift and for the
strengthening of his class by solidarity and corporate action, is to a
young girl a distraction from industrial efficiency, an element of
uncertainty and disturbance.
Again, the position of women renders them especially amenable to social
influences. Social differences between different grades of workers keep
them apart from one another and make combination difficult. Women are more
susceptible than men to the influence of their social superiors. In the
past, and even in the present, though less than formerly, no doubt, the
influence of upper class women has been and is used against the Trade
Union spirit. Charity and philanthropy have tended to counterbalance the
forces that have been drawing the working class together. Miss Collet
found in investigating for the Labour Commission that the homes and
hostels for the working girls run by religious and benevolent societies
had an atmosphere unfavourable to Trade Unionism, and influenced the girls
to look coldly on agitation for improved material conditions. Lack of
public spirit is, in short, the great difficulty with women. Their
economic position, their training and education, the influence of the
classes considered superior, above all perhaps the pressure of custom and
tradition, all these have combined to prevent or postpone corporate action
and class solidarity.
Must we admit that women are inherently incapable of organisation, which
by a kind of miracle or chance has been achieved successfully in one
district and in one industry only? A further consideration of the Board of
Trade figures gives a rather different complexion to the matter.
In the building, mining, metal and transport trades there are practically
no women unionists, but with the exception of metal there are only a very
few women employed in these trades at all. In the other non-textile
trades the proportion of women organised is very small, and the proportion
of organised women to organised men is also small. But it happens that in
most of these trades the women employed are also few compared with the
men, and the men themselves are not strongly organised. In the woollen and
worsted trade organisation is not strong for either sex. In cotton alone
do we get a really strong organisation of both men and women. It begins to
dawn upon us at this point that the weak organisation of women is after
all part and parcel of the general problem of organisation in those
trades. No doubt it is an extremer and specially difficult form of the
problem. But on the whole, with the exception of the metal trades, it
holds good that where women are employed together with men, they are
strongly organised where men are strongly organised, weak where men are
weak. Even in metal trades the exceptions are more apparent than real. The
strong Unions are in branches of work that women do not do; and a glance
down the list of those metal workers who make the small wares and fittings
in which women's employment is increasing does not reveal any great
strength of male Unionism, except perhaps in the brass-workers, who
exceeded 7000 in 1910. Directly we realise this intimate connexion of
women's unionism with the Labour Movement as a whole, a light is thrown on
many puzzling discrepancies.
In the case of women there have been in the last forty years or so two
tendencies at work. One is towards the sporadic growth of small
unco-ordinated Unions of women only. Financially weak and in some cases
governed by a retrograde policy, numbers of such Unions spring up and die
down again. A few achieve some measure of success, and occasionally a
very small Union will show a very considerable degree of persistence and
vitality without perceptible increase of numbers. Occasionally such Unions
are competing with mixed Unions in the same occupation, each of course
regarding the other as the intruder. It matters very little who is to be
blamed for the overlapping. The only important thing is to recognise that
such tactics mean playing into the enemy's hands, with disastrous results
for labour. Apart from such unfortunate instances, it would be foolish to
deny that the small Unions of women only have provisionally at least a
considerable usefulness. The women must be roped in somehow, and even the
most precarious organisation may have a distinct educational value in
evoking in its members the germ of a sense of class-solidarity and
membership with their fellows. I am almost tempted to say that any force
that brings women consciously into association with aims higher than petty
and personal ones is ultimately for good, however destructive it may seem
to be in some of its manifestations.
The other tendency is towards the organisation of women either jointly
with men or in close connexion with men's Unions. In these cases there
have been many failures and some successes. The question of adjustment is
highly complicated, and cannot be settled on broad lines as with the
cotton weavers. "Equal pay for equal work" is not a ready-made solution
for all difficulties, for the work is very often not equal at all. In most
cases it is absolutely distinct, and in many there is a troublesome margin
where the work of men and women is very nearly the same but not quite.
The men often regard women as unscrupulous competitors, and though they
have mostly abandoned the old policy of excluding women, they are apt to
try and organise them from their own point of view, without regard to the
women's special interests. Rough measures of this kind only give a further
impulse to schism, confusion and bitterness. At present undeniably there
is here and there a good deal of ill-feeling, especially in districts like
Manchester or Liverpool, with a number of ill-organised, ill-paid trades,
and competing unco-ordinated Unions.
If Trade Unionism is to be effective, if membership is to be co-extensive
with the trade and compulsory, as in the future we hope it will, there is
no question that better methods are needed, greater centralisation, a more
carefully thought-out policy, to avoid the present waste and competition.
It is not so much a change of heart as a coherent policy that is needed.
The organisation of women has been taken up merely where it was obviously
and pressingly needful, in order to safeguard the interests of the men
immediately concerned. In the case of the cotton weavers, an altogether
special and peculiar class, the problem was comparatively simple. It was
of vital importance to the men to get the women in, and on the other hand,
the men could do for the women a great deal which at that stage of social
development and opinion the women could not possibly have done for
themselves. The cotton weavers exhibit an interlocking of interests, so
patent and unmistakable that it was not only perceived but acted upon. The
card-room operatives lagged behind for a time, the organisation of women
being not quite so evident and apparent a necessity, but they have now
almost overtaken the weavers. In other industries the problem is more
complicated and has taken much longer to grasp. Take the interesting and
suggestive industry of paper-making. How is the strongly organised,
highly-paid paper-maker to realise that it matters very much that women
should be organised in his trade? His daughter may earn pocket-money at
paper-sorting, but merely as a temporary employment. She will marry a
respectable artisan and abandon work on marriage. The rag-cutters, on the
other hand, belong to an altogether different class, being usually wives
or widows of labourers. There is not enough class feeling to bind together
such different groups. It is true enough that the problem of labour is a
problem of class-solidarity, and that the women must in no wise be left
out. "Whoever can help to strengthen Trade Unionism among women workers
will be conferring a benefit on more than the women themselves."[40] But
the depth and truth of this statement is by no means fully realised, and
in many cases women have little chance of being organised by the men of
their own trade. As Mr. Cole has told us, the weakness of British labour
is the lack of central control and direction.
Outside the special case of the skilled workers in cotton, the
organisation of women becomes more and more a question, not of craft, but
of class. This is seen in the different form and type of organisation
demanded by the "new unionism." The cotton weavers need in their secretary
before all things the closest and minutest acquaintance with the technical
mysteries of the craft. The secretary of a modern labour Union including
all sorts of heterogeneous workers cannot possibly possess intimate
technical knowledge of each. Personality, power of speech, the force and
warmth of character that can draw together oppressed and neglected workers
and make them feel themselves one, these are the elementary gifts needed
to start a workers' Union, whether of men, women, or both together. But
also if such a body is to be kept together and do effective work, it is
especially in the "new unionism" that the need of central control and
direction is felt. A national policy must take into consideration the
needs of women and harmonise their interests with those of men. The
success of the Women's Trade Union League is very largely due, not merely
to the personality of its leaders, though no doubt that has been a
considerable asset, but to the fact that it has a national policy and a
definite aim.
Frau Braun eleven years ago saw that the labour woman ran some danger of
being caught into the feminist movement and withdrawn from her natural
place as an integral part of the Labour Movement itself. It is to be hoped
that she has followed English social history in the interval with
sufficient closeness to be aware of the far-sighted statesmanship shown by
the leaders of the Trade Union League in avoiding such a pitfall.
However unsatisfactory and inadequate the organisation of women has been
and still is, a review of the situation does not suggest any inherent
incapacity of women for corporate action. In the cotton weavers'
societies, although the main responsibility for organisation has rested on
men's shoulders, yet the women and girls have consistently paid
contributions amounting now to a relatively high figure, and they have
constantly aided in the work of recruiting new members. Experience is now
showing that in certain districts where the industry is becoming more and
more a woman's trade, the women have not been lacking in capacity to take
over the work of managing the Union's affairs. The absence of women from
the Committee of so many weavers' Unions at the present day is due to
inertia and long surviving habit rather than to any real incapacity. In
the recent ballot on the question of political action, the enormous
proportion of votes recorded shows that a large proportion of women must
have used the vote. In many of the small women's societies in Manchester a
working woman is the secretary. In certain cases local Unions of women
have been successful, notably the Liverpool upholstresses, the Edmonton
ammunition workers and some others. The working woman is in fact beginning
to show powers, hitherto unsuspected, of social work and political action.
The Insurance Act has demanded women officials as "Sick Visitors" and "Pay
Stewards," and the new duties thrown on the secretaries and committee by
that Act are likely to bring about an increasing demand for the
participation of women. The rapidly increasing numbers of women in the
Shop Assistants' Union, the movement for a minimum wage in the
co-operative factories, the increasing number of women in general labour
Unions, all these are hopeful signs of a movement towards unity. The
milliner and dressmaker in small establishments and the domestic servant
will probably be the last to feel the rising wave. Even of these we need
not despair. With the development of postal facilities, easy transit and
opportunities for social intercourse, such as we may foresee occurring in
the near future, there may be a considerable development of
class-consciousness even among the workers among whom it is now most
lacking, while the Women's Co-operative Guild and the Women's Labour
League, in their turn, are finding a way for the association of
non-wage-earning women in the working class.
FEMALE MEMBERSHIP OF TRADE UNIONS, 1913.
+----------------------------------------------------+
| | |Per cent|
|Occupation |Numbers.| of |
| | | Total. |
|----------------------------------|--------|--------|
|Textile-- | | |
| Cotton preparing | 53,317| 14·9 |
| Cotton spinning | 1,857| 0·5 |
| Cotton weaving | 155,910| 43·8 |
| Wool and worsted | 7,738| 2·2 |
| Linen and jute | 20,689| 5·8 |
| Silk | 4,247| 1·2 |
| Hosiery, etc. | 4,070| 1·1 |
|Textile printing, etc | 9,453| 2·6 |
| |--------|--------|
| Total | 257,281| 72·1 |
|Non-Textile-- | | |
| Boot and shoe | 9,282| 2·6 |
| Hat and cap | 3,750| 1·1 |
| Tailoring | 9,798| 2·7 |
| Printing | 5,893| 1·7 |
| Pottery | 2,600| 0·7 |
| Tobacco | 2,060| 0·6 |
| Shop assistants | 24,255| 6·8 |
| Other trades | 8,742| 2·4 |
| General labour | 23,677| 6·6 |
| Employment of Public Authorities| 9,625| 2·7 |
| |--------|--------|
| Total | 99,682| 27·9 |
| |--------|--------|
| Grand Total | 356,963| 100·0 |
+----------------------------------------------------+
CHAPTER V.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I.[41]
_Changes effected by the Industrial Revolution._--We have seen that the
industrial employment of women developed partly out of their miscellaneous
activities as members of a family, partly out of their employment as
domestic servants, partly out of the work given out from well-to-do
households to their poorer neighbours. Weaving and spinning, the most
typical and general employments of women, were carried on by them as
assistants to the husband or father, or as servants lending a hand to
their masters' trade, or were done direct for customers. In the last case,
the work might be done either for the use of the manor or some other
well-to-do household, or in the case of spinning and winding, the product
might be sold to weavers directly or through a middleman. To a more
limited extent, the same kind of conditions probably applied to work other
than textile. The women acted as subordinate helpers or assistants,
whether in the family or out of it. In the former case they were probably
not paid but took their share of the family maintenance; in the latter
they were earners. When the circumstances of the trade were favourable,
_e.g._ when the demand for yarn exceeded the supply, women-workers may
have earned very fair wages; but on the whole it appears that they were in
an unfavourable position in selling their labour. The fact of working for
nothing, as many did in the home, would not promote a high standard of
remuneration, and the women who took in work from the manor or other
wealthy households would probably be expected to regard employment as a
favour.[42]
When the industrial revolution came, and the man with capital found
himself in the exciting position of being able to obtain large returns
from his newly-devised plant and machinery, the women and children were
there waiting to be employed. Enormous profits were made out of the cheap
labour of women and girls. The only alternative occupation of any extent
was domestic service, then an overstocked and under-paid trade. The women
and girls, accustomed to work at home, were not aware how greatly their
productive power had increased, and had no means of justifying claims to
an increased share of the produce, even if they had known how to make
them. Many, as we have seen in Chapter II., were reduced to terrible
poverty through the failure of work to the hand-loom weavers, and were
ready to take any work they could get to eke out the family living.
_The Survival of Previous Standards and Conditions._--The development of
the great industry, the use of machinery and the concentration of capital,
came at a time when the working class was peculiarly helpless to help
itself, and the governing class was unable or unwilling to initiate any
adequate social reform. The Enclosure Acts had weakened the spirit and
independence of the agricultural working-class and increased destitution
and pauperism, while wages were kept down through the operation of the
allowance system under the Old Poor Law. Local depopulation in rural
districts sent numbers of needy labourers, strong, industrious, and inured
to small earnings, to swell the industrial population of towns.[43] But
the crowning cruelty, the extremest folly, was the prohibition to combine.
The special characteristic of the industrial revolution was the
association of operatives under one roof, performing co-ordinated tasks
under one control to produce a given result. Now this new method of
associated labour was not only immensely more productive, but it also
potentially held advantages for the workers. It brought them together, it
gave them a common interest, it brought all sorts of social and civic
possibilities within their reach. But to realise these possibilities it
was essential that they should be able to join together, to take stock of
the bewildering new situation which confronted them, to achieve some kind
of corporate consciousness. This was denied them under various pains and
penalties. Yet the State did not for a long time itself take action to
give the factory class the protection they were forbidden to seek for
themselves. The effect was that while the workers were bound, the
employers were free or were restricted only to the very slight extent of
the regulations of the early factory acts, and could impose very much such
conditions of work as they pleased. What those conditions were has been
reiterated often enough. Work far into the night, or even both night and
day; sanitation of the rudest and most defective kind where it was not
absent altogether; industrial disease from dust, fluff and dirt, or from
damp floors and steaming atmosphere; workrooms overheated or dismally
cold; wages low, and subject to oppressive fines and fraudulent
deductions,--such, and worse, is the dreary recital of the treatment meted
out to the workers. The introduction of power machines was not _per se_
the cause of these evils. Women had been accustomed to do the work that no
one else wanted to do. The servile position of the woman-worker, the
absence of combination among the operative class, and the lack of State or
Municipal control over the conditions of industry and housing, all
combined to provide "cheap and docile workers" for the factory system. And
no doubt the factory system took full advantage of the opportunity.
Capital inevitably seeks cheap labour. The governing class had carefully
and deliberately provided that labour should be cheap.
_What the Factory Act has done._--The awakening class-consciousness of the
factory workers in Lancashire and Yorkshire led to agitation and petitions
for a restriction of the hours of work. Leaving out of account the earlier
Factory Acts, which were ill-devised and weak, the first effective
regulation was the Factory Act of 1833. This Act was timid in the
regulations imposed, which were too elastic to effect very much, but in
the providing for the appointment of a staff of factory inspectors it
asserted the right and duty of the State to control the conditions of
industry, and also indirectly secured that the Government should be kept
in possession of the facts. Only young persons under eighteen were
included under this Act, but in 1844 women also were included, and in 1847
and 1850 the working day was restricted to ten hours, and the period of
employment was carefully defined to prevent evasion. In 1864 some
dangerous trades were brought within the scope of the Acts, which had
previously included textile and allied industries only, and in 1867 other
non-textile industries and workshops were added. In 1878 a consolidating
Act was passed to bring the employment of women and young workers under
one comprehensive scheme. The plan of the Act of 1878 was retained in the
Act of 1901, but a considerable number of new regulations, especially in
regard to health and safety, were included. In 1893 a step of great
importance for working women was taken, in the appointment of women
factory inspectors.
It does not come within the scope of this volume to describe the history
of factory regulations and control, but we may here ask ourselves the
question, How much has been done for the women in industry by the State?
What is the present position of the woman-worker?
In the first place, we note that sanitary conditions in factories and
workshops are greatly improved and conditions as to health are more
considered than was formerly the custom. This is not entirely due to the
regulations of the Factory Act, but partly to the progress of public
health generally, and to the development of scientific knowledge and
humaner ideals of social life and manners. It is true that we are only at
the beginning of this movement, and much remains to be done, as any one
can satisfy himself by getting into touch with industrial workers, or by
studying the Factory Inspectors' Reports, but it can hardly be doubted
that the woman-worker of to-day has a very different, a very much more
civilised industrial environment than had her mother or her grandmother.
The appointment of women inspectors counts for a great deal here, for in
earlier times the needs of women-workers were not considered, or if
considered were not known with any accuracy. In the second place we note
that there has been a considerable development of special precautions for
dangerous trades, and that in one instance of a dangerous substance, viz.
white phosphorus, its use has even been prohibited, and the terrible
disease known as "phossy jaw," formerly the bane of match-makers, has been
stamped out. In regard to certain sweated industries measures have been
taken to regulate wages through the instrumentality of the Trade Boards,
and, as it appears, with a considerable measure of success.
_Present Position of the Woman-Worker._--Otherwise it is strange to notice
how very little the position of the woman-worker has been improved in
recent years. She is still liable to toil her ten hours daily, just as her
grandmother did, for five days in the week, though on Saturdays the hours
have been somewhat curtailed. In non-textile factories ten and a half
hours are permitted, though in many of the industries concerned a shorter
day has become customary, whether through Trade Union pressure or a
recognition on the employers' part that long hours "do not pay." Ten
hours, or ten and a half, with the necessary pauses for meal-times,
involve working "round the clock," which is still the recognised period of
employment even for young persons of fourteen and over. The five hours'
spell of continuous work is still permitted in non-textile factories and
workshops, although the inspectors have long been convinced that it is
too long for health and energy, and Miss Squire reports that it is now
condemned by all concerned with scientific management. In certain trades
overtime is permitted, and the result is that girls and women may be
employed fourteen hours a day, and if the employer takes his full
advantage of it, as occasionally he does, the inspector can do nothing,
the proceedings being perfectly legal.[44]
While the hours of work have been but very little shortened since 1874,
the strain of work has been considerably increased, as we have seen,
through the increased speed at which the machines are run. This is
especially the case in the cotton trade, though it occurs in other factory
industries. The demand upon the worker is much greater than formerly, and
the reduction of hours has by no means kept pace with the increased
strain. The backwardness of the Factory Act in these and some other
matters is almost inconceivable. So important a matter as the lighting of
work-places is still outside the scope of regulation. The nervous strain
and serious risk to eyesight involved by doing work requiring close and
accurate visual attention in a bad light need hardly be emphasised. The
inspectors receive many complaints of badly-adjusted or otherwise
defective artificial lighting of work-places, but have no weapon to use
but persuasion, which happily is in some cases successfully invoked.
Another serious factor in the working woman's position is the weakness of
the Truck Act, especially in regard to fines and deductions. Deductions,
_e.g._ for spoilt work, are sometimes made on a scale altogether out of
proportion to the weekly wages, and fines for being a few minutes late, or
for trivial offences of various kinds, are often oppressive to a degree
which can only be described as preposterous when compared with the value
of the worker's time and attention measured in the payments they receive.
In some cases convictions and fines are secured, and in other cases, even
in some which are outside the law, the inspectors are able to obtain the
adoption of reforms by employers, but many hard cases remain unredressed
owing to the difficulty of interpreting the Acts.
All along the line our social legislation has been characterised by
timidity and procrastination. Dr. Thomas Percival's statement of the case
for State interference in factories (1796) was left for six years without
notice from the Central Government, and the first Factory Act, 1802, was
applied to apprentices only at a time when the apprenticeship system was
falling into disuse. Later on, in response to the high-souled agitation of
Sadler, Oastler, and Lord Ashley (afterwards Shaftesbury), after years of
hesitation and vacillation, various inadequate measures were taken, but
never quite the right thing at the right moment, never designed as part of
a far-sighted policy that would recreate English industrial life and make
it worth living--as it might be made--for the toilers of field and
factory, workshop and mine. This weakness and backwardness in the policy
of the Home Department is no doubt largely due to the covetousness of the
capitalist and the control he is able to exercise on politics. It should
be remembered, however, that the capitalist, or rather the capitalist
employer, does not present an unbroken front. In point of fact the best
manufacturers do not oppose social legislation. They understand the need
of a common rule, and the regulations of the Factory Acts have usually
been modelled on the existing practice of the better kind of employer.
Labour legislation is weakened and kept back by several causes other than
the greed of employers. Among these may be mentioned the cumbersome and
out-of-date procedure of the House of Commons, and the interminable delays
that dog the progress of non-Governmental measures, even when these have
the approval of all parties. Other causes are to be found in the class
selfishness of the upper strata of society, their indifference to the
needs of the people, their ignorance of the whole conditions of the
industrial population's life. With bright exceptions, such as the late
Lord Shaftesbury and some now living whose names will occur to the reader,
not only the aristocracy and the very rich, but the conservative
middle-class, the dwellers in suburbs and watering-places, cling to the
idea of a servile class. They object to industrial regulations which give
the workers statutory rights amongst their employers; they object to
increasing the amenity of factory life and diminishing the supply of
domestic servants. Labour legislation remains backward and undeveloped for
want of the support of an enlightened public opinion.
_The Strain of Modern Industry._--With the ill effects of the present
system it is impossible for a non-medical writer to deal fully, but no one
can have any talk with a doctor or a sick visitor under the Insurance
Committee in a big industrial town without hearing terrible facts about
the injury to women from the persistent standing at work. It seems likely
also that these injuries are not only due to overstrain among women after
marriage and before and after confinement, but result in part from the
fatigue endured by adolescent girls. Parents are too anxious to send
children to work, and girls of fourteen and upwards are sometimes working
in competition with boys, and suffer from trying to do as much. Pressure
is put on girls to work three looms or even four, before they are really
equal to the effort. It may, of course, be admitted that some of this
strain and drive is self-inflicted. It is part of the admirable tenacity,
self-reliance, and high standard of life of Lancashire women that they are
keen about their earnings, and I have been told of girls who will return
to the shed during meal-hours, or even go to work at 5.30 in summer-time,
busying themselves in sweeping or making ready for work before the engine
starts. These practices are illegal, and the employers often protect
themselves by putting up a notice that any woman or young worker found in
the shed out of working hours will be dismissed, or by sending an employee
to clear the shed at the proper hour. Nevertheless in many cases the
employer has a certain moral responsibility for these evasions of the law,
although they appear to indicate perversity on the worker's part. Girls
and women are indirectly set to compete one with another, and with boys
and men. There is a constant pressure on the weaker to keep pace with the
stronger, the immature or old with the worker in the full flower of
strength. The overlooker usually receives a small percentage on all the
earnings of all the weavers, and has therefore an incentive to keep them
at full tension, and the overlooker's average is again criticised by the
manager. Lancashire people are remarkably articulate and also quick in
apprehension, and the sarcasms launched at girls who, on pay-day, have
earned less than the average are pointed enough to be well understood. The
whole system is like an elaborate mechanism to extract the last unit of
effort from each worker, and dismissal hangs always over the head of the
slower and less competent worker. In the Factory Inspectors' Report for
1913 Miss Tracey tells how children lose their colour and their youthful
energy in the drudgery of their daily toil, how the girls fall asleep at
their work and grow old and worn before their time. "Sometimes one feels
that one dare not contemplate too closely the life of our working women,
it is such a grave reproach." I have myself been seriously assured that
cases of suicide result from the difficulty of maintaining at once the
quantity and quality of work under such conditions.
Anaemia is a frequent result of overstrain, not to mention the constant
colds and rheumatism due to overheated rooms. The sickness among women
from these and other worse evils alluded to above have become apparent for
the first time through the serious strain put on sick benefit funds in the
first year of the Insurance Act. At one very important centre of the
cotton trade, out of 8056 members 2800 received sick benefit in the first
twelve months. The Insurance Act, whatever its defects, has at all events
given many poor women the chance to take a little rest and nursing that
they sorely needed and could not afford. The sneer of "malingering" is
easily raised, but it is doubtful whether real malingering has much to do
with it. The conditions of industry, greatly improved as they are from the
sanitary point of view, are certainly increasing the kind of strain that
women are constitutionally least able to bear. The industrial efficiency
in the young girl that she and her employer are often so proud of may be
paid for later in painful illness and incapacity. Mr. Arthur Greenwood
quotes medical opinion to the effect that the industrial strain to which
several generations of women in the textile districts have now been
subjected is responsible not only for serious disease, but even for
sterility among women.[45] So far the subject of the declining birth-rate
has been discussed chiefly as a theme for homilies on the "selfishness" of
women, who, it is alleged, prefer ease and comfort to unrestricted
child-bearing. If Mr. Greenwood is right, the cause, in part at all
events, is the force of capitalistic competition feeding on the very life
of the people. Surely the subject needs medical study and investigation of
a more searching kind than it has yet received.
_The Exclusion of Women: A Counsel of Despair._--In view of the tremendous
strain incidental to certain kinds of industrial work, as at present
organised, there occurs the difficult problem, what kind of work women are
to do. In the case of work underground in mines, and also of a few
industrial processes specially injurious to women, the State has exercised
the right to exclude women altogether, and however undesirable such
legislative exclusion may be in the abstract, there can be little doubt
that it was justified in the cases referred to, the evils being flagrant
and the women concerned as yet unorganised and with no means of demanding
adequate regulations for their own safety. There are even those who doubt
whether woman should take part in manufacturing industry at all, and hope
that ultimately she may disappear from it altogether. Those who take this
view should clear their minds as to what exactly they mean by industry.
They probably do not wish to exclude women from those occupations which
are almost a feminine monopoly, such as dressmaking, needlework and
household work. But to restrict any class of workers to a narrow range of
occupations undoubtedly has a very depressing effect on their wages. We
may also note that improvements in the position and conditions of the
woman-worker have begun always outside, not inside; in the factory before
the workshop; in the workshop before the home; in industry before
needlework. The Wage Census of 1907 shows that women's wages are higher in
the great industry than in the smaller and more old-fashioned
establishment. State regulation of factory work in the first half of the
nineteenth century led to enquiries into the condition of needlewomen and
others, who, as the Children's Employment Commission showed, were in worse
case than factory workers. The factory industry, it was immediately
recognised, was more amenable to control either by the State or by
Unionism, or both, than was the home worker, or the worker in small
workshops. Through the factory, in spite of its many abuses, women have
attained not only an improvement in their economic circumstances, but also
the experience of comradeship and even of a citizenship which, although
incomplete, is very real as far as it goes.
Women have undoubtedly gained on the whole by the widening of their sphere
of employment. But women cannot possibly do all kinds of industrial work,
and to leave the matter unregulated either by law or by Trade Union action
is to leave too much to the discretion of the employer, with whom profit
is naturally the first consideration.
If the matter is fought out between the employer and the men's Unions, the
women's interests are not sufficiently considered. Some years ago at
Birmingham the question was being disputed whether women should or should
not polish brass in brass-works. The Trade Union pronounced polishing to
be filthy and exhausting work, and degrading to women, and declared the
employers only wanted to set women on it for the sake of cheapness. The
employers on the other hand said the Union only opposed the employment of
women because they wanted to keep women out of the trade as much as
possible. Probably motives were mixed on both sides.
Such disputes not infrequently arise in manufacturing industry, and the
middle-class person arriving on the scene is very apt to take a one-sided
view. If he is a mildly reactionary, conservative, sentimental person, he
probably wants women to be prevented from doing anything that looks
uncomfortable and happens to be under his eyes at the moment. If he (or
particularly if she) happens to be burning with enthusiasm for the rights
of women as individuals and scornful of old-fashioned proprieties and
traditions, he (or she) will most likely jump to the conclusion that the
objections raised to the employment of women in the particular process are
merely sex-prejudice and sex-domination. Neither the sentimentalist nor
the individualist, however, sees the full bearing of the situation. In
this connection an article by Mr. Haslam[46] may be studied with advantage
as being eminently thoughtful and fair-minded. In the Lancashire cotton
trade a peculiarly complicated instance of the woman question occurs in
mule-spinning. In this, the best paid and most highly skilled process in
the industry, a shortage of boy labour has somehow to be met. The
proportion of helpers or "piecers" needed is much larger than the
proportion of boys who can hope to find a permanent occupation in
mule-spinning. With advancing education, aided, no doubt, by recent good
trade and demand for labour in the trades, boys and their parents have
become increasingly aware of the disadvantages of "piecing" as a trade,
and as a result the deficiency of juvenile labour threatens to become
acute. An obvious solution is to introduce girls as piecers, which, as it
happens, is not a new idea but the revival of an old one. Girls were
formerly employed to some extent at piecing, but were prohibited by the
Union twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago, so far as the important
centres of cotton-spinning are concerned. The prohibition was removed some
years later, but for a long time women showed no inclination to return to
this work. Only in quite recent years, with the increasing shortage of
boy-labour, have women and girls been induced to go back to the
mule-spinning room. Now women never become mule-spinners; the Union will
not allow it. A peculiar feature of the occupation is that the operative
spinners themselves, who employ and pay their piecers, are thus interested
in obtaining a supply of cheap labour, just as any capitalist employer is,
or supposes himself to be. They consistently oppose women becoming
spinners, usually alleging physical and moral objections to this
occupation, but are willing to allow them to become piecers in order to
supply the deficiency of boy-labour, and to lessen the prejudice against
piecing as a "blind-alley" occupation for boys. Now, as Mr. Haslam points
out, the employment of women as piecers is both physically and morally
quite as objectionable as their working as spinners.[47] Indeed, granting
for the sake of argument that women should be employed in the
mule-spinning room at all, by far the least objectionable arrangement
would be for them to work two together on a pair of mules, which would
diminish the physical strain and obviate the moral dangers which arise
from the present plan of subordination to a male spinner in an unhealthy
environment. In this case women need organisation and combination to
protect their interests from the operative spinners, who are virtually
their employers, almost as much as a labouring class needs to be protected
from capitalist employers. And, as Mr. Haslam shows in his weighty and
temperate statement, it is quite true that there are very great and
serious objections to female employment in this trade. The heat, the
costume, the attitudes necessitated by this work, all render it a
dangerous occupation for girls to work at in company with men. Mr. Haslam
gives painful evidence in support of this statement, for which readers can
be referred to his article.
The moral of the whole story is by no means that unrestricted freedom of
employment for women is the way of salvation. Rather is it that women must
not only organise but must take a conscious part in the work of directing
their organisation. At present they are too often the shuttlecock between
the opposing interests of the employer and the men's Union. It is not that
the Trade Union is always wrong in wanting to keep the women out; or that
the employer (whether capitalist or operative) is always right in wanting
to take the women on. The point is that each party in these disputes is
usually influenced mainly by his own interests and easily persuades
himself that what is best for him is best also for the woman-worker
concerned. The hardest and most unhealthy work may be done by women
without a protest from men's Unions if it does not bring women evidently
into competition with men. Nothing can clear up the situation but the
enlightenment and better organisation of women themselves. They must learn
not to take their cue implicitly from the employer or from the men's
Union--certainly not from the teaching of women of another class. They
must learn--they are fast learning--to think for themselves and to see
their needs in relation to society as a whole, to become articulate and
take part in the control of their organisation. It is quite likely that
when they do so they will not adopt the ideal of complete freedom of
competition.
I remember some years ago hearing a lecture on the subject of the mining
industry given to a society of women of advanced views, the lecturer, a
professional woman, taking the line that women should not have been
excluded from work underground in mines, as they were by the Act of 1842,
and that the evils of such work had been exaggerated. Some little time
afterwards an experienced woman cotton-operative was invited to address
the same society, and incidentally remarked in the course of her lecture
that card-room work was "not fit for women to do." The contrast was
instructive, especially taking into consideration that card-room work in
the twentieth century, whatever its objections, cannot be nearly as
dangerous and injurious as underground work in mines was in 1842.
Legislative exclusion of women from dangerous and unhealthy occupations,
is, we may admit, an undesirable remedy from many points of
view--especially perhaps because it affords too easy relief to the
conscience of the employer, who may take refuge in the idea that he need
not trouble to improve conditions if he employs only men. It is better to
make the conditions of industry fit for women than to drive women out of
industry; better to strengthen the organisation of women and give them a
voice in deciding what processes are or are not suitable to them than to
increase the competition for home work.
It seems, however, highly improbable, from what one knows of the working
woman's point of view and outlook, that as she becomes able to voice her
wishes she will favour an indiscriminate levelling of sex-restrictions in
industry; on the contrary, it seems likely that as she becomes more
articulate and has more voice and influence in the organisation she
belongs to, she will favour regulations of a fairly stringent nature in
regard to the processes within an industry which may be carried on by
women. Many of the observations that have been made on industrial women in
recent or comparatively recent years show that although at times they are
driven by stress of need to compete with men or to do work beyond their
strength, yet that they regard themselves mainly from the point of view of
the family and believe that to keep up the standard of men's wages is as
important as to raise their own.[48]
_The Middle-Class Woman's Movement._--There is, however, a complication
between the labour woman's movement and the woman's movement for
enfranchisement and freedom of opportunity generally, and great care is
necessary to avoid confusing the issues. The labour woman's movement is a
class movement in which solidarity between man and woman is all important.
The women's rights movement aims at obtaining full citizenship for women;
that is to say, not only the Suffrage but the entrance to professions, the
entrance without special impediments to local governing bodies and,
generally, the abolition of belated and childish restrictions that hinder
the development of personality and social usefulness. Now these two
movements are not in principle opposed, and there is no reason why the
same women should not take part in both, as in fact many do. The
opposition consists rather in a difference of origin and history. The
labour movement is born of the economic changes induced by the industrial
revolution, and tends towards a socialistic solution of the problem. The
women's rights movement is the outcome of middle-class changes, especially
the decreasing prospect of marriage, which, together with the absence of
training and opportunity for work, has produced a situation of extreme
difficulty. The middle-class woman's agitation was inevitably influenced
by the ideals of her class, a class largely engaged in competitive
business of one kind or another. Equality of opportunity, permission to
compete with men and try their luck in open market, was what the women of
this type demanded, with considerable justification, and with admirable
courage. The working woman, on the other hand, the victim of that very
unrestricted competition which her better-off sister was demanding, before
all things needed improved wages and conditions of work, for which State
protection and combination with men were essential.[49]
There is, however, no fundamental opposition between these movements. Just
as the working classes are striving through Syndicalism to express a
rising discontent, not only with the economic conditions of their work,
but also with the fact that they have no voice in its regulation and
control, so women are striving, not only for political freedom and
economic betterment, but for a voice in the collective control of society.
Women have, until very lately, been left out from the arrangement even of
matters which most vitally concern them and their children. The following
incident in the history of the Factory Department will illustrate this
fact. In 1879 the then Chief Inspector of Factories, Sir Alexander
Redgrave, discussed in his annual report a tentative suggestion for the
appointment of women inspectors that some person or persons unnamed had
put forward. With the utmost kindliness and gentleness he negatived the
proposal altogether, first on the assumption that the inspection of
factories was work impossible for women and "incompatible with (their)
gentle and home-loving character"; secondly, on the ground that in regard
to the sanitary conditions in which women were employed "it was seldom
necessary to put a single question to a female," and consequently there
was no need to appoint women inspectors.[50] Thirteen years later came the
Labour Commission. At that time it was unheard of for women to be
appointed on Commissions, even when the subject was one in which women
were most chiefly concerned. It is said, and I see no reason to doubt the
statement, that the Labour Commission of 1892 did not at first intend even
to hear evidence from women witnesses as to conditions in which women
were employed. Having yielded to the urgency of two women who were working
hard at the organisation of sweated workers in the East End and demanded
to be heard, the Commission, as an afterthought, appointed women Assistant
Commissioners, whose researches and reports subsequently led to the
appointment of women Factory Inspectors--sixty years after the first
appointments of men. Anyone who is likely to read this book will probably
be already aware that women factory inspectors had no sooner been
appointed than they very speedily were informed of flagrant sanitary
defects in factories and workshops which had been suffered to continue
simply because no woman official had been in existence, and men, with the
best intentions, did not know what to look or ask for. The exclusion of
women had involved in this case not merely a narrowing of the field of
opportunity for professional women--a comparatively small matter--but a
scandalous neglect of the elementary decencies of life for millions of
women and girls in the working-class. It is unnecessary here to do more
than remind my readers that until lately women were excluded also from
local governing bodies which control the health, education, and conditions
of life and work of women and children.
Men are not alone to blame for this state of affairs. If women have long
been excluded from posts in which their services were greatly needed, it
is very largely because of the ideals set up by the women themselves. The
wretched education given to girls in the Victorian era, the egotistic
passion for refinement which made it a reproach even to allude to the
grosser facts of life, much more to the perils and dangers run by women in
a lower class, all this was due quite as much to the influence of women
as of men. It was not surprising that men of the upper classes, accustomed
by their mothers and wives to believe that for women ignorance and
innocence were one, and that no painful reality must ever be mentioned
before them or come near to sully their refinement, should recoil from the
idea of trusting them with difficult duties and responsible work. It is to
the few pioneer women like Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler, and
others who came out and braved reproach--from women as well as men--that
we owe the introduction of worthier social ideals.
_The New Spirit among Women._--As the women's movement draws towards the
labour movement, as it is now so rapidly doing, it tends to lose the
narrow individualism derived from the middle-class ideals of the last
century. Mere freedom to compete is seen to be a small thing in comparison
with opportunity to develop. The appeal for fuller opportunity is now
stimulated less by the desire merely to do the same things that men do,
more by the perception that the whole social life must be impoverished
until we get the women's point of view expressed and recognised in the
functions of national life. On the other hand, the women Unionists, who
have long been taxed with apathy and lack of interest in their trade
organisation, are drawing from the women's movement a new inspiration and
enthusiasm. Observers in Lancashire tell you that there is a new spirit
stirring among the women. They are no longer so contented to have the
Union efficiently managed for them by men; they want to take a conscious
part in the work of organisation themselves. The same movement is visible
in the plucky and self-sacrificing efforts for solidarity made by the
workers in trades hitherto unorganised; and, at the other end of the
social scale, in the deep discontent with the life of parasitic dependence
which has been so powerfully expressed in the _Life of Florence
Nightingale_, and in Lady Constance Lytton's book on _Prisons and
Prisoners_.
_The Potential Changes the Industrial Revolution carries with it._--We
have endeavoured to analyse the changes effected in the position of women
by the industrial revolution. Social changes, however, take a long time to
work themselves out, and many features in the position of the woman-worker
at the present day, as we have seen, are the result not so much of the
industrial revolution as of the status and economic position of women in
earlier times, and still more of the neglect of the governing classes to
take the measures necessary for the protection of the people in passing
through that prolonged crisis which may be roughly dated from 1760 to
1830. Let us now try as far as possible to free our minds from the
influence of these disturbing factors and ask ourselves what are the
potential changes in the position of the working woman effected by the
industrial revolution, and what improvement, if any, she might expect to
achieve if those changes could work themselves out more completely than
social reaction and hindrances have yet permitted them to do. Let us, in
short, pass from the consideration of What Is to the contemplation of What
Might Be.
1. _By the use of mechanical power, the need for muscular strength is
diminished, and greater possibilities are opened up to the weaker classes
of workers._--We are accustomed to view this change with disfavour,
because it often takes the form of displacing men's labour and lowering
men's wages. But that is mainly because we see things in terms of
unorganised labour. With proper organisation we should not see women
taking men's work at less than men's wages; we should see both men and
women doing the work to which their special aptitudes are most
appropriate, each paid for their special skill. We should not see women
dragging heavy weights or doing laborious kinds of work which are
dangerous and unsuitable to them; we should see them using their special
gifts and special kinds of skill, and paid accordingly. There is no
reason, save custom and lack of organisation, why a nursery-maid should be
paid less than a coal-miner. He is not one whit more capable of taking her
place than she is of taking his. For generations we have been accustomed
to assume that any girl can be a nursery-maid (which is far from being the
truth), and from force of habit we consider the miner has to be well paid
because his occupation demands a degree of strength and endurance which is
comparatively rare, and also because he has the sense to combine and
unfortunately the nursery-maid so far has not. The factory system is doing
a great deal for women, directly by widening the field of occupation open
to them, and indirectly by heightening the value of special aptitudes,
some of which are peculiar to women. When mechanical power is used,
strength is no longer the prime qualification for work, and the special
powers of the girl-worker come into play.
The factory system, also, by its immensely increased productivity, is
altering the old views of what is profitable, and a new science of social
economics is evolving which would have been unthinkable under the old
regime. In Miss Josephine Goldmark's recent most interesting book,
_Fatigue and Efficiency_, she has gathered together the results of many
experiments made by employers to ascertain the effects of shorter hours.
There is practical unanimity in the results of these experiments.
Obviously there must be a limit to the degree in which shortening hours of
work would increase the output, but no one appears yet to have reached
that limit. In the Factory Inspectors' Report for 1912 many cases are
mentioned where employers have voluntarily reduced hours of work and find
that they, as well as their work-people are benefited by the change. In
one case of a large firm which had formerly worked from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M.
it was arranged to cease at 7, a decrease of a whole hour, which
necessitated engaging extra hands, but at the end of the year it was found
that the annual cost of production was slightly diminished and the output
considerably increased. Others expressed an opinion that 8 to 6.30 was
"quite long enough," and that if these hours were exceeded the work
suffered next morning. The same may be said in regard to other
improvements in working conditions, such as ventilation, cleanliness, the
provision of baths, refectories, medical aid, means of recreation; those
who have taken such measures have found themselves rewarded by increased
output. Even from the commercial standpoint we do not appear to have
nearly exhausted the possibilities of betterment. There can be little
doubt, judging from existing means of information, that if the whole of
the industry of the country were run on shorter hours, higher wages, and
greatly improved hygienic conditions, it would be very much more
productive than it is. From the social point of view such betterment is
greatly needed, especially in the case of the young of both sexes, whose
health is most easily impaired by over-strain, and who are destined to
be the workers, parents, and citizens of the next generation.
2. _Status._--A still more important result of the industrial revolution
is _the changed status of the wage-earner_. Here it appears to me that
women have profited more than men. Broadly speaking, men, whatever their
ultimate gain in wages, lost in status through the industrial revolution.
The prospect of rising to be masters in their own trade, though not
universal, was certainly very much greater under the domestic system of
working with small capital than under the modern system of large
concentrated capital. In this respect women did not lose in anything like
the same proportion as did men, because they had very much less to lose.
The number of women who could rise to be employers on their own account
must have been small. No doubt a larger number lost the prospect of
industrial partnership with their husbands in the joint management of a
small business. But for women wage-earners the industrial revolution does
mean a certain advance in status. The woman-worker in the great industry
sells her work per piece or per hour, not her whole life and personality.
I shall perhaps be told indignantly that the poor woman in a low-class
factory or laundry is as veritable a drudge as the most oppressed serf of
mediaeval times, and I do not attempt to deny it. But we are here
discussing potential changes, not the actual conditions now in force. The
drudgery performed by women under the great industry is of the nature of a
survival, and results from the fact that women can still be got to work in
such ways for very low wages. These conditions are largely the heritage of
the past and can be changed and humanised whenever the women themselves
or society acting collectively makes a sufficiently strong demand.
Nor must it be forgotten that in modern industry women have a further
advantage in being paid their own wages instead of being merely
remunerated collectively in the family, as was often the case formerly.
Modern industry thus holds for the woman-worker the possibility of a more
dignified and self-respecting position than the domestic system of the
near past.
3. _The Possibilities of State Control._--We next note that _the
industrial revolution has led to State control_, and that the Factory Act,
whatever its defects in detail and its inadequacy to meet the situation,
has greatly improved the status of the woman-worker by giving her
_statutory rights against the employer_. This aspect has often been
overlooked by leaders of the women's rights movement, who at one time
tended to regard factory legislation as putting the woman in a childish
and undignified position. But the true inwardness of the Factory Act is
the assertion that workers are _persons_, with rights and needs that are
sufficiently important to override commercial requirements. It has not
only aided the progress of industrial betterment, but it has taught women
that they are of significance and importance to the State, and has brought
them out of the position of mere servility. A great deal more may be
effected in the future when the governing class attain to more enlightened
views of civics and economics, and when the women themselves become
politically and socially conscious of what they want.
4. _Association. The factory system has also made it possible for women to
strengthen their position by association and combination._--Such
association affords women the best opportunity they have ever yet had of
attaining economic independence on honourable conditions. And it is
interesting to note that just as women are now awakening to social
consciousness, and beginning to feel themselves members of a larger whole,
so the Trade Unions are now reaching out to issues broader than the mere
economic struggle, and are beginning to give more attention to social care
for life and health. In the past the Unions have very largely taken what
might be termed a juristic view of their functions. They have been
concerned mainly with wage-questions, with the prevention of fraud through
"truck," oppressive fines and unfair deductions; they have penalised
backwardness in the improvement of machinery. As the management of a
cotton mill concentrates on extorting the last unit of effort from the
workers, so the Unions in the past have very largely concentrated on
securing that the workers at any rate got their share of the results. But
in more recent years the Unions are beginning to see that this, though
good, is not enough. Industrial efficiency may be too dearly bought if it
involves a loss of health, character, or personality, and recent reports
of the cotton Unions show that the officials are increasingly aware of the
seriousness of this matter from the point of view of health. _E.g._, the
heavy rate of sickness among women-workers disclosed by the working of the
Insurance Act has turned the attention of the Weavers' Amalgamation
towards the insanitary conditions in which even now so many operatives do
their work. "Fresh air, which is such an essential to health, is a bad
thing for the cotton industry; what is wanted is damp air, and calico is
more important than men and women. When they are not well they can come on
the Insurance Act. We want to talk less about malingering and more about
insanitary conditions, which is the real cause of excessive claims."[51]
Just as the woman's movement is widening its vision to understand the
needs of labour, so the Unions now are widening theirs to understand the
claims of life and health. The officials are already alive, if
unfortunately the Lancashire parents are not, to the evils of the
half-time system. And the co-operation of women in the active work of the
Union will strengthen this conviction.
_The Future Organisation of Women._--As women come more and more into
conscious citizenship they will, as Professor Pearson prophesied twenty
years ago, demand a more comprehensive policy of social welfare. We may
expect in the future that the care of adolescence and the care of
maternity will be considered more closely than it ever has been; also that
such social provision for maternity as may be made will be linked up with
the working life of women, so that marriage shall not be penalised by
requiring women against their will to leave work when they marry, and on
the other hand, that the home-loving woman of domestic tastes shall not be
forced, as now so often happens, to leave her children and painfully earn
their bread outside her home.
One of the great obstacles in the way of attaining such measures of reform
has been, not only the comparative lack of organisation of women-workers
but the difficulty of adapting existing organisations, devised for the
trade purposes of the workers at a single industrial process, to these
broader social purposes. The majority, as we have seen, in Chapter III.,
leave work on marriage, and the problem results, how to bridge the
"cleft"[52] in the woman's career and give her an abiding interest in
organisation. How, the old-fashioned craft organiser asks with a mild
despair, how is he to organise reckless young people for whom work is a
meanwhile employment, who go and get married and upset all his
calculations? How are women, whose work is temporary, to be given a
permanent interest in their association? For some women, no doubt, their
work _is_ a life-work, but it is most unlikely it will ever be so for the
majority. Mr. Wells's idea, shared with the late William James, of a kind
of conscription of the young people to do socially necessary work for a
few short years has a curious applicability to women. There are certain
distinct stages in a woman's life which the exigencies of the present
commercial society fit very badly. One can foresee a society arranged to
do more justice to human needs and aptitudes in which girls might enter
certain employments as a transition stage in their careers; then marry and
adopt home-making and child-tending as their occupation for a period;
then, when domestic claims slackened off in urgency, devote their
experience and knowledge of life to administrative work, social,
educational, or for public health. Other women with a strong leaning to a
special skilled occupation might prefer to carry it on continuously.
Different types of organisation will be needed for different types of
work. If the craft Union cannot fit all types of male workers, much less
can it fit all women. Trade Unionism as we have known it mostly
presupposed a permanent craft or occupation, and one of the great troubles
of Trade Unions for women is that so many women do not aspire to a
permanent occupation. The "clearing-house" type of Union suggested by Mr.
Cole to accommodate workers who follow an occupation now in one industry,
now in another, might possibly be adapted to meet the needs of women.
Perhaps a time will come when the Unions that include the "woman-worker"
will be linked up with societies like the Women's Labour League or the
Women's Co-operative Guild, whose membership consists mainly of "working
women," that is to say of women of the industrial classes who are not
themselves earners.
These speculations may seem to run ahead of the industrial world we now
know. But all around us the Trade Unions are federating into larger and
larger bodies, and when these great organisations have attained to that
central control and direction they have been feeling after for
generations, they will certainly discover that it is essential for them to
develop a considerable degree of interdependence between the Trade Unions
and consumers' co-operation. Therewith they can hardly fail to grasp the
latent possibilities of the membership of women. The woman is much less an
earner, much more a consumer and spender than is the man; she is more
interested in life than in work, in wealth for use than in wealth for
power. She suffers as a consumer and a spender both when prices go up and
when wages go down. It is difficult to believe that the working classes
will not before long develop some effective organisation to protect
themselves against the exploitation that is accountable, in part at least,
for both processes. Mrs. Billington Greig's masterly study of the
exploitation of the unorganised consumer is a demonstration of the need of
awakening some collective conscience in a specially inert and
inarticulate class, and Miss Margaretta Hicks is making most valuable
experiments in the practical work of organising women as consumers. The
supposed apathy and lack of public spirit in women has been largely due to
the lack of any visible organic connection between their industrial life
as earners and their domestic life as spenders and home-makers. Probably
the future of the organisation of women will depend on the degree in which
this connexion can be made vital and effective.
PART II
CHAPTER VI.
WOMEN'S WAGES IN THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906.
BY J. J. MALLON.
Until a few years ago no statistics comprehensive in character relating to
women's wages were available. In 1906, however, the Board of Trade took
"census" of the wages and hours of labour of the persons employed in all
the industries of the country, and the result has been a series of volumes
which, though becoming rapidly out-of-date, nevertheless throw much light
on the general level of wages in various trades and occupations.
The enquiry made by the Board of Trade was a voluntary enquiry: that is to
say, it was left to the public spirit and general amiability of the
employer to make a return or not as he pleased. There was no penalty for
failure to furnish information. The response to the Board of Trade efforts
was not, however, unsatisfactory, and returns were forthcoming, roughly
speaking, in respect of nearly half the wage-earners employed in the
different industries. Unfortunately, however, the fact that the
authorities were dependent for their information on the goodwill of the
employers has probably given the statistics a certain bias. The schedules
supplied were somewhat forbidding in appearance, and often troublesome to
fill in, and it may fairly be surmised that it was the good rather than
the bad employers who put themselves to the trouble of complying with the
official request. Hence of all the workers employed in the United Kingdom
it was probably those who were more fortunately placed in regard to whom
we now have statistics. The condition of those working for employers who
thought that the less said about their wages-sheets the better, still
remains obscure. The statistics upon which comments are now offered may
therefore convey a more favourable impression than the facts, if fully
known, would justify, especially when it is remembered that 1906, the year
of the census, was one of good trade. On the other hand, it needs to be
borne in mind that since the enquiry was made, the level of wages in many
trades is known to have been raised.
The Earnings and Hours of Labour Enquiry, as it was officially called, was
directed primarily to ascertaining for each of the principal occupations
in the various trades what were _the usual earnings or wages of a worker
employed for full time in an ordinary week_, the last pay week in
September being the particular week suggested subject to the employer's
view as to its normality.
With a view to supplementing or checking the details of actual earnings in
a particular week, information was also sought with respect to the _total_
wages paid in an ordinary pay week in each month, and also with respect to
the total wages paid in the year. From this last-mentioned body of
information it is possible to deduce some tentative conclusions in regard
to the extent to which the industry suffers from seasonal variations.
This matter will be further considered below. It is, however, mainly the
information in regard to full-time earnings in an ordinary week with which
it is proposed to deal. Statistics, it may safely be assumed, are abhorred
of the general reader; but they are the alphabet of social study and
cannot be dispensed with, and certain tables must now be introduced
showing the relative wage level for women in a number of important
industries. It should be noted that the abstract "woman" who is dealt with
in the statistics is a female person of eighteen years of age or over. She
may be, though is not likely to be, a new recruit or learner. She may, on
the other hand, be very old and infirm, though here again the
probabilities are against it. In all cases, however, she works full time,
which roughly we may regard as being about fifty to fifty-two hours a
week.
The following table shows the average weekly full-time earnings of women
employed in the principal textile industries. In addition to the average,
which may of course be a compound of a great many widely differing
conditions, the proportion or percentage of women whose earnings fall
within certain limits is also shown.[53]
TABLE A
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| | Percentage numbers of | |
| | women working full time | |
| | in the last pay-week of | |
| | September 1906, whose | |
| | earnings fell within the| |
| Industry. | undermentioned limits. | Average |
| |-------------------------|earnings for|
| |Under| 10s. and |15s. and| full time. |
| | 10s.|under 15s.| over. | |
|--------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
| | | | | s. d. |
|All textiles | 13·3| 38·8 | 47·9 | 15 5 |
|--------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Cotton | 3·0| 20·9 | 76·1 | 18 8 |
|Hosiery | 14·5| 44·4 | 41·1 | 14 3 |
|Wool, worsted | 10·7| 55·6 | 33·7 | 13 10 |
|Lace | 18·1| 49·3 | 32·6 | 13 5 |
|Jute | 6·2| 66·4 | 27·4 | 13 5 |
|Silk | 38·9| 47·8 | 13·3 | 11 2 |
|Linen | 41·7| 49·1 | 9·2 | 10 9 |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
The cotton industry stands out conspicuously as showing a relatively high
level of earnings, and we find in marked contrast to the other trades in
this group that only 3 per cent of the women earned less than 10s. a week.
The results coincide of course with popular impression, it being well
known that the mill lasses of Lancashire are the best paid--probably
because the best organised--large group of women workers in the country.
The woollen and worsted industry, like the cotton, is localised, being
confined mainly to Yorkshire, though the woollen industry of the lowlands
of Scotland is also important. In this trade the results are much less
satisfactory, the average being 13s. 10d., and considerably more than half
the total number employed earning less than 15s. It may be noted, however,
that in one town, Huddersfield, where women and men are engaged largely
on the same work, the average, 17s. 1d., is considerably higher than that
for the United Kingdom.
Hosiery is also strongly localised, the majority of the workpeople being
employed in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and certain neighbouring
parts of Derbyshire. It will be seen that in order of average earnings
this industry stands next to, though a good distance from, cotton, the
average being 14s. 3d. The best-paid centre is Leicester itself, where the
average is 16s. 2d. Even in this relatively highly paid trade, however,
more than half of the women earned less than 15s., and it should be noted
that this result applies to factory workers only. In the hosiery trade a
considerable amount of homework is also carried on, and though statistics
are not at present available, it may safely be assumed that earnings in
the homework section of the trade are less than in the factory section.
At the bottom of the list is the linen industry. The average here is only
10s. 9d.; less than one-tenth of the women employed earned more than 15s.,
while between one-third and one-half earned less than 10s. The industry,
as is well known, is centred mainly in the North of Ireland, but is also
carried on to a considerable extent in Scotland and to a small extent in
England. The figures for Ireland, however, are not markedly lower than
those for the other districts. It is true that for the whole of Ireland
outside Belfast the average is only 9s. 9d., but the figure for Belfast
itself, namely 10s. 10d., coincides with that for England.
The manufacture of jute is carried on almost entirely in the neighbourhood
of Dundee. The average is therefore a local average.
The other industries require no special comment.
The second large group of trades, important from the point of view of
women's employment, is the clothing industry. Although the averages in
this group do not show the extremes of the textile group, the industry is
nevertheless one in which a great variety of skill and remuneration
prevails. The following are the statistics, certain of the smaller trades
such as silk and felt hat-making and leather glove-making being omitted
for the sake of brevity:--
TABLE B
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Percentage numbers of | |
| | women working full time | |
| | in the last pay-week of | |
| | September 1906, whose | |
| | earnings fell within the| |
| Industry. | undermentioned limits. | Average |
| |-------------------------|earnings for|
| |Under| 10s. and |15s. and| full time. |
| | 10s.|under 15s.| over. | |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
| | | | | s. d. |
| All clothing | 21·6| 45·1 | 33·3 | 13 6 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Dress, millinery, etc. | | | | |
| (factory). | 12·6| 39·5 | 47·9 | 15 5 |
|Tailoring (bespoke) | 15·4| 42·4 | 42·2 | 14 2 |
|Dress, millinery, etc. | | | | |
| (workshop) | 28·0| 36·2 | 35·8 | 13 10 |
|Shirt, blouse, | | | | |
| underclothing, etc. | 22·2| 46·0 | 31·8 | 13 4 |
|Boot and shoe (ready-made) | 12·4| 58·9 | 28·7 | 13 1 |
|Tailoring (ready-made) | 24·0| 46·6 | 29·4 | 12 11 |
|Laundry (factory) | 20·5| 52·0 | 27·5 | 12 10 |
|Corsets (factory) | 28·8| 48·3 | 22·9 | 12 2 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
It will be seen that the dress, millinery and mantle-making group is
divided into two according to whether the place of manufacture is a
workshop or factory. For this purpose a workshop means a place where
mechanical power is not used, and a factory a place where such power is
used. The distinction also roughly corresponds to the difference between
ordered or bespoke and ready-made garments, ordered garments being made
principally in workshops, and ready-made garments principally though not
so exclusively in factories. This being the case it may perhaps be
surprising that the average for the workshop section, namely 13s. 10d., is
so appreciably below that for the factory section, namely 15s. 5d., and
the statistics in this respect serve to indicate that the introduction of
mechanical power and other labour-saving devices into industry by no means
implies that from the point of view of wages the workers employed will be
any worse off.
The workshop section of the dress, etc., trade is almost entirely a
woman's trade, the number of men and boys being insignificant. Within the
trade itself a considerable range of earnings exists. Fitters and cutters
form the aristocracy of the profession, but one which is recruited from
the humbler ranks. The average earnings for the United Kingdom of those
who "lived out" amounted to 33s. 5d., and of those who "lived in" 27s. 9d.
The practice of "living in" and being provided with full board and
lodging, or at any rate being provided with partial board, is a feature of
this section of the trade, some 2500 women and girls out of 40,000
included in the returns being noted as receiving payment in kind in
addition to their cash wages.
Another feature of the trade is the relatively large number of apprentices
or learners who received no wages at all, 8·7 per cent of the women and
girls in the dressmaking trade, 43 per cent of the milliners, and 17 per
cent of the mantle-makers being so returned. These, of course, would be
mostly under eighteen years of age, and their inclusion in the statistics
would not affect the average given in the table for women. Considering the
general level of earnings which the statistics disclose, one can only
conjecture that, as in certain men's professions, the existence of a few
well-paid posts exercises an attraction to enter the trade, the strength
of which is out of all proportion to the chance of obtaining one of these
prizes.
Factory dressmaking is at present a relatively small but at the same time
rapidly-growing group. Being confined mainly to the production of
ready-made clothes the process of cutting is capable of being standardised
and systematised in such a way that the degree of skill required is much
less than that looked for in the highly-paid cutter and fitter of the
"made-to-order" workshop. The other processes also tend to conform to a
certain uniform standard of skill. Hence the range of earnings is much
less wide than in the workshop section of the trade, though as before
noted the general level is higher. It should also be observed that while
time-work is the usual method adopted in the workshops, payment by piece
is very common in factories, and the detailed statistics furnished in the
official report make it clear that this method gives the diligent and
rapid worker a distinct advantage. It is worth noting that the group
showing the highest earnings is that of hand or foot machinists on piece
work. In the dress and costume section the average was 16s. 2d., and in
the mantle section 17s. 8d., as compared with 15s. 5d. for all women.
Statistics also indicate that the fluctuations of employment are much less
extreme in the factory than in the workshop section of the trade, and on
the whole, therefore, it is probably not a matter for regret that the
factory-made article is tending to displace that of the workshop. That the
process of displacement is rapid is indicated by the fact that while,
according to returns made in connection with the Factory and Workshop
Acts, the employment of women in dress, millinery and mantle-making
factories increased by 16 per cent between 1904 and 1907, the numbers
employed in workshops diminished by 7 per cent. The change from the one
system to the other does not always imply a change of workers or even of
premises. The introduction of an electric motor to drive some of the
sewing-machines is sufficient to alter the denomination of an
establishment from workshop to factory; though at the same time it is
probable that such an innovation would not take place unless some
alteration in the general method or organisation of work were also
contemplated.
The tailoring trade has many points of contact with the dress and
mantle-making trade which has just been reviewed. It too is divided with
some sharpness into a made-to-order or bespoke, and a ready-made section.
The distinction does not imply perhaps quite so clear a division between
factories and workshops, though in this trade also it may be taken as
broadly true that the bespoke is the workshop and the ready-made is the
factory section. In this connection one interesting point of contrast is
presented by the statistics, for it will be seen that while, as before
noted, the factory section of the dress and mantle-making trade showed a
higher general level of earnings than the workshop section, the reverse is
true of the tailoring trade. This is probably due principally to two
facts. The first is that while the work in the bespoke shop is usually
skilled, it does not necessitate any exceptionally well-paid work such as
that done by cutters and trimmers in the dressmaking establishment. The
cutting and other highly-skilled work is done by men, so that women enter
the trade without the inducement afforded by the chance, however small, of
rising to 35s., £2, or even £3 a week which is offered by the dressmaking
workshop. It is probable, moreover, that the small dress and mantle-making
shop enjoys a certain reputation of "gentility" which is less marked in
the tailoring establishment, and finds its equivalent in higher wages. The
second fact is that the processes of simplification and subdivision which
broadly are the characteristics of factory as distinct from workshop
methods can be carried further in the manufacture of men's suits than in
that of ladies' dresses and costumes, so that the general level of skill
requisite to the factory worker is somewhat lower in the one case than in
the other. We thus find that while the average in tailoring workshops is
14s. 2d. as compared with 13s. 10d. in dressmaking shops, the average in
tailoring factories is 12s. 11d. as compared with 15s. 5d. in dressmaking
factories.
Since the statistics were compiled minimum rates have been fixed under the
Trade Boards Act to apply to the ready-made and wholesale bespoke sections
of the tailoring trade, and there is no doubt that with the minimum rate
of 3-1/4d.[54] an hour, fixed for Great Britain, statistics relating to
the present time would show a marked improvement on those relating to
1906, since a _minimum_ rate of 3-1/4d. probably implies in most cases an
average rate of 3-1/2d. or even 3-3/4d. Moreover, on the testimony of
employers themselves the introduction of a minimum rate has had a
stimulating effect on the trade, bringing about on the part of employers a
vigilance and alacrity to make improvements in organisation, which have
had an effect on the efficiency of the workers and consequently on their
earnings, so that in many cases the Trade Board minimum has become merely
a historical landmark left behind on a road of steady progress.
So far as the 1906 figures are concerned it will be seen that the average
for the United Kingdom in the bespoke section was 14s. 2d. The detailed
statistics show that London was the highest-paid district, with 16s. 2d.,
and Ireland the lowest, with 12s.
As ladies' costume-making has points of contact with men's tailoring, so
the tailoring trade merges almost imperceptibly through various gradations
of linen and cotton jackets, overalls, etc., into the shirt-making trade,
and this again is closely combined, and, indeed, for statistical purposes
forms one group with the manufacture of blouses and underclothing.
The shirt, blouse and underclothing trade has become a factory trade to a
much more marked extent than either dressmaking or tailoring. By tradition
shirt-making is the sweated trade _par excellence_. But, as in many other
instances, tradition has outlived the fact, the statistics showing that
while the average earnings, 13s. 4d., are low absolutely, the trade is
nearer the top than the bottom of the clothing trade list, notwithstanding
the fact that the manufacture of shirts is combined for the purpose of the
statistics with that of articles, such as baby linen, in respect of which
the wages are almost certainly much lower than those for men's shirts. It
should be noted, however, that the wages of home-workers are nowhere
included in the statistics.
The boot and shoe trade, unlike most of the others in the clothing group,
is mainly a man's trade, considerably more than half of the total number
employed being males. Women are employed chiefly as machinists or upper
closers, or as fitters in both cases, being concerned with the manufacture
of the top or upper. The trade is carried on in many centres, the
principal being, perhaps, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Bristol,
Norwich, Leeds, and Glasgow. The highest earnings of women are recorded
for Manchester, the average being 17s. 6d., and the lowest for Norwich,
where the average is only 10s. 6d. It is worth noting that the high
average for women in Manchester is combined with a relatively low average
for men, namely, 27s. 8d.
The laundry trade gives employment to a large number of women, the Factory
Returns for 1907 showing that 61,802 were employed in laundries using
mechanical power, and 26,012 in laundries where such power was not used.
For the whole of the United Kingdom the averages for power and for hand
laundries were practically the same, being 12s. 10d. in the one case and
12s. 9d. in the other. In the case of power laundries Ireland is at the
bottom of the list with an average of 10s. 4d., and the best-paid
districts, namely, London, show an average of only 13s. 6d. A recent
attempt to bring the power laundry industry within the scope of the Trade
Boards Act has failed, the employers opposing the Provisional Order mainly
on the ground of certain alleged technical defects of definition.
Of other trades in which women are largely employed the following
selection may be made forming a somewhat miscellaneous group.
TABLE C
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Percentage number of | |
| | women working full time | |
| | whose earnings in the | |
| | last pay-week of | |
| Industries. | September 1906 fell | |
| | within the | |
| | undermentioned limits. | Average |
| |-------------------------|earnings for|
| |Under| 10s. and |15s. and| full time. |
| | 10s.|under 15s.| over. | |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|All paper, printing, etc., | | | | s. d. |
| trades | 26·5| 52·2 | 21·3 | 12 2 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Bookbinding | 19·3| 55·4 | 25·3 | 12 10 |
|Printing | 28·0| 49·2 | 22·8 | 12 3 |
|Cardboard, canvas, etc., | | | | |
| box manufacture | 24·7| 55·1 | 20·2 | 12 3 |
|Paper stationery manufacture| 30·4| 49·5 | 20·1 | 11 11 |
|Paper manufacture | 25·9| 55·8 | 18·3 | 11 11 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|All pottery, brick, glass, | | | | |
| and chemical | 31·0| 49·7 | 19·3 | 11 10 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Explosives | 32·3| 35·0 | 32·7 | 13 1 |
|Soap and candle | 24·3| 50·5 | 25·2 | 12 5 |
|Porcelain, china, and | | | | |
| earthenware | 29·0| 50·0 | 21·0 | 11 11 |
|Brick, tile, pipe, etc. | 25·7| 64·4 | 9·9 | 11 5 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|All food, drink, and tobacco| 37·8| 44·2 | 18·0 | 11 5 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Tobacco, cigar, cigarette, | | | | |
| and snuff | 31·1| 46·0 | 22·9 | 12 0 |
|Cocoa, chocolate, and sugar | | | | |
| confectionery | 40·5| 37·2 | 22·3 | 11 9 |
|Preserved food, jam, pickle,| | | | |
| sauce, etc. | 44·4| 43·0 | 12·6 | 10 11 |
|Biscuit making | 33·6| 53·5 | 12·9 | 10 10 |
|Aerated water, etc., | | | | |
| manufacture and general | | | | |
| bottling | 54·8| 42·7 | 2·5 | 9 7 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Miscellaneous | .. | .. | .. | 12 4 |
|----------------------------|-----|----------|--------|------------|
|Umbrella, parasol, and | | | | |
| stick making | 10·1| 38·5 | 51·4 | 15 7 |
|Portmanteau, bag, purse, and| | | | |
| miscellaneous leather | | | | |
| manufacture | 20·3| 56·3 | 23·4 | 12 8 |
|India-rubber, gutta-percha, | | | | |
| etc. | 14·7| 68·3 | 17·0 | 12 8 |
|Saddlery, harness, and whip | | | | |
| manufacture | 37·5| 55·7 | 6·8 | 10 7 |
|Brush and broom | 47·0| 42·5 | 10·5 | 10 6 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
Of the above trades, cardboard box-making, sugar confectionery,
jam-making, and food preserving come within the scope of the Trade Boards
Act, and for these occupations minimum wages have been fixed. The jam and
food preserving trade showed in 1906 the low average for women of 10s.
11d., 45 per cent of the women employed earning less than 10s. and over 26
per cent less than 9s. for a full week. This trade is also remarkable for
heavy seasonal fluctuations.
By whatever standard the average weekly earnings of women in the trades
which have been noted are judged, the outstanding conclusion is that they
are generally low to a degree which suggests a serious social problem.
Averages of less than 13s. are frequent in all three Tables which have
been presented, and the reader should be again reminded that these
averages are for women over eighteen years of age working a _full_ week.
Girls and also women working short time have been excluded. For the sake
of brevity, details have not been given in many cases of the percentages
of women earning wages between certain stated limits. But it needs to be
recognised that an average suggests wages which are below as well as above
that figure. Generally it may be stated that where an average is given,
from 40 to 50 per cent of the women employed earn wages at less, and in
many cases at very much less than the average.
Various attempts have been made to calculate the minimum sum required by a
woman living independently of relatives to maintain herself in decency and
with a meagre degree of comfort. The estimates point to a sum of from 14s.
6d. to 15s. a week as the minimum requirement, and this assumes that the
worker possesses knowledge, which she has probably in fact had no chance
to acquire, of how best to spend her money and satisfy her wants in the
order not of her own immediate desires, but of their social importance. At
present prices the minimum would be 17s. or 18s.
In the light of this estimate we may note that in the clothing trade
group, for example, 25·9 per cent of those returned earned less than 10s.
per week, and applying this percentage to the total number as shown by the
Factory Returns to have been employed in this particular industry in 1907,
namely, 432,668, we arrive at the conclusion that no fewer than 111,681
women were in receipt of wages which, measured by a not very exacting
standard, were grossly inadequate.
The figures with which we have been dealing are, however, those for a week
of full time. No allowance has been made for sickness or holidays, and
what is more important, short time or slackness.
Almost every trade fluctuates throughout the year, and in many cases this
fluctuation is considerable. For example, in the Dress, Millinery
(workshop) Section the wages paid in the month of August were only 78 per
cent of the monthly average, or, for London alone, 66 per cent. Though
short time in one month is partially offset by overtime in another, there
is but little doubt that in most trades and in most years the balance
comes out on the wrong side, and, properly studied, the Wage Census
volumes reveal the fact that unemployment and short time are important
factors when considering women's wages from the point of view of the
maintenance of decent conditions of living.
In many respects the wages for a full-time week which we have so far been
considering are indeed an artificial figure. High weekly wages in a trade
where there is much slackness may obviously be less than the equivalent of
low wages in a trade where conditions are steadier. If we are to consider
wages in relation to the needs of the worker, therefore, it is the year
rather than the week which should be taken as the unit. For many reasons,
however, earnings _per year_ are extremely difficult to determine, and
nothing more than an approximation is practicable.
Dr. Bowley's[55] method is to compare the full-time weekly wage multiplied
by fifty-two with the total wage bill for the year, divided by the number
employed in the busiest week: that is, the week when it may be assumed
that all persons dependent on the trade will be employed except those who
are prevented by ill-health. Supposing, for example, the total wages bill
in a certain trade were £400,000, and the number of persons employed in
the busiest week were 16,000. The average amount per person per year would
be £25 as compared with, say, £29 : 5s., which represents 52 times an
assumed full-time weekly wage of 11s. 3d. We can thus say in this
supposititious case that the yearly earnings of the workers in fact equal
only 52 × 25/29-1/4, or 44 weeks at the full-time weekly wages.
Owing to certain gaps in the statistical information these results are
subject to certain qualifications of a nature somewhat too technical to
enlarge upon in such a book as this. They may be accepted, however, as
substantially establishing the fact that overtime does not in general
counterbalance short time and slackness, and that in the foregoing review
of earnings on the basis of a full-time week we have been dealing with
figures which are distinctly rosier than the facts warrant.
THE MOVEMENT AND TENDENCIES OF WOMEN'S WAGES
A retrospect of women's wages based on such data as are available confirms
the view that, low as is the present level, the movement is nevertheless
in an upward direction.
In the cotton trade, employing more than half the women in all textile
trades, women's wages have risen continuously throughout the period of
which we have information. Mr. G. H. Wood, F.S.S., who has made the
movement of wages his special study, estimates that taking the general
level of women's wages in 1860 as 100, the level in 1840 would be
expressed by 75 and in 1900 by 160, so that in the period of sixty years
covered by these figures women's rates of wages would appear to have
increased by more than 100 per cent. Though perhaps not so considerable, a
similar movement has occurred in other trades, and it is interesting to
note that in Mr. Wood's view women's wages have risen relatively more than
men's. Unfortunately, however, the statistics which are available, and on
which his conclusion is based, do not include the great clothing and
dressmaking industry which, from the point of view of women's employment,
is so important. An enquiry on the lines of the 1906 Census was indeed
attempted in the year 1886, but the results are meagre. It may be noted,
however, that comparison of the results with those for 1906 tends to show
that in some branches of the clothing trades wages declined. This fall in
the rate of wages, if such a conclusion is justified, is, however,
probably to be regarded as an exception to the general tendency as
exhibited in the cotton and certain other trades.
The occupation of women in many fields of employment with which they are
still principally associated, such as spinning and the making of clothes,
is probably as ancient as the industries themselves. The employment of
women as wage-earners in such work is, however, comparatively recent. As a
member of a family, or as a servant or retainer, woman has worked for
generations in many tasks which formerly were, but now, with the increased
specialisation of industry, have ceased to be, part of the ordinary
routine of domestic activity. From this condition it was an easy
transition to the frequent employment of women to assist in their master's
craft, or in the deliberate production for sale of a surplus of articles
beyond what were required for family needs.
It was probably not until the factory system developed, however, in the
latter half of the eighteenth century, that women were employed to any
considerable extent as wage-earners in industry, and even when they were
so employed there was an intermediate stage in which it was not unusual
for the father or head of the family to appropriate their earnings and
apply them as he pleased. Gaskell lamented the fact that the custom was
creeping in of paying individual wages to women and children, thinking
that it would break family ties. Though it still sometimes happens that
members of a family work together in mills, Gaskell's fears were
undoubtedly justified. Family ties, however, are of many kinds, and it is
probably not correct to assume that the disintegration of the family as a
producing or industrial unit indicates a relaxation of these emotions of
affection, loyalty, and responsibility which spring to mind when the
family is regarded in its social and ethical relationships.
The fact must, moreover, be noted as bearing directly upon the chief
problem of women's wages that although the family as a producing unit is
no longer of considerable importance, as a spending unit it exercises a
fundamental influence on the industrial system. From the point of view of
food, lodging, medicine, and other items of expenditure, a person is more
interested as a rule in the collective income of the family group to which
he belongs than in his own individual contribution. Many mining districts
in which men can earn large wages show a low wage level for women, while
in such a district as Hebden Bridge, where, as the phrase goes, it pays a
man better to have daughters than sons, the opposite condition prevails.
In both cases the wages are influenced, broadly speaking, by the standard
of comfort of the family rather than by that of the individual.
If it were the invariable rule for a worker to belong to a family group,
and if families were uniform as regards the number and sex distribution of
their members, there would be no great cause to regret the influence of
the collective family budget upon wages. But conditions are not uniform,
and in districts or trades in which the wage level is largely affected by
the presence of women whose fathers and brothers are relatively
well-to-do, the position of a woman living alone in lodgings is apt to be
a hard one. Where a father earns enough to maintain his family in
reasonable comfort, the daughters going to work in a factory may be
willing to accept wages no more than sufficient to provide them with
clothes and pocket-money, but quite inadequate to afford their workmate
who is living independently a sufficient livelihood.
These considerations are closely connected with the question whether, in
estimating what is a fair wage for a woman, we should proceed on the basis
of a woman living alone in lodgings, or whether we should admit as a
proper consideration the fact that in many cases the woman would live with
her parents and family, and would have the advantage, if not of assistance
from them, at least of that economy in expenditure which the family group
represents.
Statistics as to the number of women who live independently are difficult
to obtain, and it is doubtful whether such women form the majority of
those employed. It may be granted, however, that in certain districts and
certain trades the proportion is small, and in these cases it might be
asked whether we should not ignore the type which is exceptional and
consider the wages paid on the basis of actual rather than hypothetical
needs. This, it may be argued, is already done in the case of children or
young persons, in connection with whom the question is never asked whether
the wages paid are sufficient to maintain them independently.
The answer appears to be clear, though it brings us up against certain
moral considerations. It may be true that the women in a certain industry
or town, in spite of low wages, are all in fact well nourished and
comfortable, members as they are of families which as families are
well-to-do. Great as may be the respect which kinship deserves, it is
submitted, however, that no normal woman should be compelled by economic
exigencies to live with persons towards whom she has not voluntarily
undertaken responsibilities, and that the freedom which economic
independence implies is a right to which every woman willing to work may
properly lay claim.
Even, therefore, though we dismiss from consideration the great number of
women who have no choice but to live entirely on their own earnings, there
are still grounds on which the position can be maintained that the single
woman living alone with reasonable frugality is the proper test by which,
from the point of view of what is right and desirable, wages should be
measured.