who live alone and women who are partly supported by their families. There
are also the women who have dependents. According to the 1911 population
Census over one-fifth[56] of occupied women were not single, but married
or widowed, and many of these doubtless have children to support. The
Fabian Women's Group enquiry showed that about half the women workers
canvassed had dependents. The Labour Commission of the United States, in
course of investigating the condition of women and child wage-earners,
found that in a group of 300 families 43 per cent of the family income was
contributed by unmarried women over sixteen.[57] Again, Miss Louise
Bosworth, in a study of _The Living Wage of Women Workers_, published in
1911, found that "the girls working for pin-money were negligible
factors." So far from girl workers being mostly supported at home, it
appears that in many cases the earnings of the single daughter or sister
living with her family, small as they are, are an important element in the
family income.
It has been shown in the previous section that even in the relatively
well-paid women's trades there are large numbers of adult women in receipt
of wages which are scarcely compatible with mere physical existence, much
less a decent and comfortable life. Men's wages, even in low-paid trades,
are usually sufficient to enable a man who has not undertaken family
responsibilities--which after all are entirely voluntary--to obtain a
sufficiency of food and warmth. The remuneration of working-class women
are in the majority of cases, however, barely adequate to satisfy this
austere standard. We naturally ask, therefore, why this difference should
exist.
The occupations in which men and women are indifferently employed are
relatively few in number. Even where men and women are employed side by
side in the same trade they are usually engaged on different processes.
The points where overlapping occurs are, however, sufficiently numerous to
enable us to make the generalisation that in those industrial processes in
which both men and women are employed the efficiency or output of the man
is greater than that of the woman worker. In other words, the man is
_worth_ more, and his higher wages are an expression of this fact.
Even where the man's dexterity or skill is no greater than that of the
woman's his wages still tend to be greater. Usually if an employer can get
both men and women workers he is prepared to pay somewhat more to a man
even though the man's output per hour is no greater than that of a woman.
Put bluntly, a male worker is less bother than is a female worker. A
female staff is always to some extent an anxiety and a source of trouble
to an employer in a way that a male staff is not, and to many employers it
has the great defect of being less able to cope with sudden rushes of
work. Men are, after all, made of harder stuff than women, and only in the
grossest cases do we ever give a thought to men being overworked. With
women, however, not only the Factory Act, but also decent feeling requires
an employer to be vigilant to see that undue strain is not placed on them.
The greater remuneration of men in those occupations where both men and
women are employed on the same processes is then due to the fact that the
men are preferred to women, and employers are accordingly willing to pay
more to get them.
Such occupations, however, probably form the exception rather than the
rule, and we have to consider the cases where there is apparently no sex
competition whatever. The nursery-maid wheels the baby's perambulator on
the pavement; the mechanic drives his motor van in the road. They do not
compete for employment in any sense. Generally, indeed, custom has
indicated with a fair degree of preciseness what are men's occupations and
what are women's. Why, then, in distinctively women's occupations should
the wages paid be lower than men's? The answer is not easy, but the key to
the problem is to be found in the broad statement that the field of
employment of women is much more restricted than that of men. Hence the
competition of women for employment reduces their general wage level to a
lower point than that of men, or, as an economist would put it, the
marginal uses of female labour are inferior to those of male labour.
What is needed, therefore, is an enlargement of the sphere in which women
can find employment; not, be it noted, an increase merely in the number of
occupations, but in the _kinds_ of occupations. Pursuit of this end will
no doubt raise questions regarding the displacement of male labour, but it
is fortunate that in many cases woman's claim would be most strenuously
contested in respect of those occupations which are least suited to her,
and which she ought not to enter. The need of discrimination must be
emphasised. An excursion to the black country should convince even the
most ardent feminist that at the present time tasks are permitted to women
which from every point of view--their dirtiness, their arduousness, and
the strain which they impose on certain muscles--are entirely unsuitable.
It would be folly to increase the number of such tasks. Attention should
be directed to those occupations in which womanly characteristics would
have their value, and in which a woman would not be physically at a
disadvantage. It is to be hoped that public sentiment would then be the
ally rather than the enemy of the movement. The displacement of male
typists by female typists, and the larger employment of women in clerical
occupations, and as shop assistants, to say nothing of the introduction of
women officials in the sphere of local and central government, undoubtedly
represent an advance in the right direction. Paradoxical as it may seem,
an effective means of enlarging the field of women's activities might be
found in the awakening of public feeling against employments which are
unsuitable. The process of analysis and comparison which is implied by
criticism of such employments would undoubtedly indicate directions in
which women's work could be utilised more satisfactorily. This is a
consideration of paramount importance in view of the opportunities and
necessities to which the present war has given and will give rise. It is
for those who influence public opinion to see that in the readjustment of
the economic relationship between men and women reasonable discrimination
is exercised.
The prohibition of the employment of women on unsuitable work, combined
with educational effort which would make women capable of better and more
responsible work, would give women-workers access to many kinds of
employment from which they are practically excluded at present. Much that
is unsatisfactory and regrettable in industrial life is the result of
sheer inertia and drift, and many an employer would find new and cleaner
and more remunerative methods of employing women if stimulated by the law
and encouraged by an ability on the part of the women to respond to new
methods. The principle of the Factory Acts, and of the minimum wage,
requiring a minimum of safety or comfort and of remuneration, should be
reinforced and strengthened not merely for the sake of its face
value--great though it is--but also for the sake of its stimulating effect
on the management of businesses and its consequent tendency to increase
remuneration. At the same time an attempt should be made to encourage in
girls some sense of craftsmanship and loyalty to their callings, so that
their organisation in trade unions or guilds would become possible. With a
few exceptions collective bargaining and the collective maintenance of a
standard of remuneration are, as regards women's employment, merely
sporadic and intermittent. It is the young woman, the irresponsible
immature untrained amateur worker, without an industrial tradition to
guide her, who is the despair of organised labour. The irresponsibility
and indifference to organisation which she displays are, as often as not,
due to the fact that her employment may not afford a decent livelihood,
and that she is forced to look forward to and seek marriage as the only
way out of an impossible life. But it is also true to say that her
inadequate wages are due to her irresponsibility and indifference. There
is inextricable confusion between cause and effect--a vicious circle which
can only be broken by patient methods of training, helped by the initial
impulse of a legal minimum wage and a legally prescribed standard of
general conditions.
CHAPTER VII[58]
THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN
_The Shock of War._--The great European War broke out in the summer of
1914.
The shock was felt at once by trade and industry. July ended in scenes of
widespread trouble and dismay. The Stock Exchange closed, and the August
Bank Holiday was prolonged for nearly a week. Many failures occurred, and
there was at first a general lack of confidence and credit. Energetic
measures were promptly taken by the Government to restore a sense of
security, and unemployment among men during the ensuing year was much less
than had been anticipated. Unemployment among women was for a time very
severe. For this unfavourable position of women there are several reasons.
In the first place, any surplus of male labour was met at once by a
corresponding new demand for recruits and the drafting of many hundreds of
thousands of young men into the army, aided by the rush of employment in
Government factories and workshops, served to correct the dislocation of
the male labour market. Women were unfortunate in that the cotton trade,
by far the largest staple industry in which a majority of the employees
are women, was also the trade to suffer the greatest injury by the war.
_The Cotton Trade._--Employment had begun to be slack some time
previously, and the cutting off of the German market was naturally a
considerable blow. Exact statistics are almost impossible to obtain, as
the numbers of looms stopped or working short time varied from week to
week; but figures collected for the week ending October 3 show that
between 58,000 and 59,000 members of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association
were out of work, and over 30,000 were on short time. At Burnley, over
half the looms were stopped; at Preston, over a third. In November, when
things had greatly improved, about 36 per cent of the looms were still
standing idle.
The amount of short time, or "under-employment," was also very
considerable, as is shown by the fact that the reduction in earnings
exceeded the reduction in numbers employed. The following table is taken
from the _Labour Gazette_, December 1914, and shows the state of
employment in the principal centres of the cotton trade. The figures
include men as well as women; but as women predominate in the industry,
they may be considered as a fair index to the women's position.
WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 28, 1914, COMPARED WITH SAME MONTH IN PREVIOUS YEAR.
+-------------------------------------------------+
| |Decrease per cent in|
| Districts. | Numbers | Amount of|
| |Employed.| Earnings.|
|----------------------------|---------|----------|
|Ashton | 17·6 | 26·2 |
|Stockport, Glossop, and Hyde| 11·6 | 22·0 |
|Oldham | 8·4 | 17·5 |
|Bolton | 2·6 | 13·5 |
|Bury, Rochdale, etc. | 7·4 | 17·7 |
|Manchester | 3·3 | 15·5 |
|Preston and Chorley | 14·6 | 31·7 |
|Blackburn, etc. | 18·0 | 40·9 |
|Burnley, etc. | 4·3 | 47·6 |
|Other Lancashire towns | 15·4 | 32·0 |
|Yorkshire towns | 13·0 | 20·1 |
|Other districts | 11·2 | 20·6 |
| |---------|----------|
| Total | 12·1 | 27·1 |
+-------------------------------------------------+
In all these districts women would be affected much the same as men, and
would be out of work in about the same proportion, but as women form a
majority of the occupation, a much larger number of women were in distress
and were without any resource comparable to that open to the men of
recruiting age. In these circumstances the funds of the Unions suffered a
terrible strain. The workers' organisations were faced with the dilemma
whether to pay stoppage benefit to members with a generous hand, in which
case they ran the risk of depleting their funds and losing the strength
necessary for effective protection of the standard of life; or, on the
other hand, to guard their reserve for the future and leave many of their
members to suffer distress with the inevitable result of loss of health
and efficiency.
As the winter 1914-15 wore onwards unemployment in the cotton trade
gradually became less acute, but for several months the suffering of the
operatives must have been considerable.
_Some other Trades._--In London the position was of course extremely
unlike that of Lancashire, but we again find the women suffering heavily,
and (but for comparatively a few) without the support and assistance of a
union. At the first news of war, dressmakers, actresses, typists,
secretaries, and the followers of small "luxury trades" (toilet
specialities, manicuring, and the like) were thrown out of work in large
numbers. Not only in London, but in the country at large, the following
trades were greatly depressed: dressmaking, millinery, blouse-making,
fancy boot and shoe-making, the umbrella trade, cycle and carriage making,
the jewellery trade, furniture making, china and glass trades. In some
cases the general dislocation was intensified by a shortage of material
due to war: the closing of the Baltic cut off supplies of flax from
Russia, on which our linen trade largely depends. The closing of the North
Sea to fishers stopped the curing of herrings, which normally employs
thousands of women, and both the chemical and confectionery trades
suffered from the stoppage of imports from Germany.
The Board of Trade's Report on the State of Employment in October 1914
gave the reduction of women's employment in London as 10·5 per cent in
September, 7·0 per cent in October. But this estimate was for all
industries taken together, some of which were in a state of "boom" owing
to the war, and it is certain that the occupations referred to above must
have suffered much more heavily than the average. Many girls spent weeks
in the heart-sickening and exhausting search for employment. In November
the dressmaking, mantle-making, and shirt- and collar-making were in a
worse condition than in the previous month, although trade generally had
improved.
_The Woollen and Clothing Trades._--In these trades the war brought a
veritable "tidal-wave" of prosperity. The industrial centres of our Allies
were to a considerable extent in the hands of the enemy; thus, not only
new clothes for our regular troops and reserves, and uniforms for the new
armies that were shortly recruited, but also those for the troops of our
Allies were called for in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The woollen towns
of this district became the busiest places in the world, and orders
overflowed into Scotland and the somewhat decayed but still celebrated
clothing region of the West of England.
The first expedient to cope with the enormous pressure of orders was to
relax the Factory Act. In normal times no overtime is allowed in textile
industries to workers under the operation of the Act (viz. women, girls
under eighteen, boys under eighteen, and children), and employment is
limited to ten hours a day. In view of the tremendous issues involved,
permission was given to employ women and young persons for two hours'
overtime. The results, as it turned out, soon showed, however, that
overtime is bad economy, for the number of accidents increased greatly in
the period of greatest pressure, and averaged one a day in the December
quarter, and the secretary of the Union also reported that the period
during which these very long hours were worked coincided with a
remarkable increase of illness among the operatives involved. Probably
one-third more cases were on the Approved Societies' books during December
than in September and October.[59] Although the women rose most pluckily
to the occasion and did their heavy task cheerfully in the consciousness
of supplying their country's need, it is certain that many were taxed
beyond their strength, and in January 1915 the overtime permitted was
reduced to nine hours weekly. The women, when they complained, complained
not of overwork but of insufficient pay. An increase of 1-1/2d. per hour
during overtime was asked, and considering the strain involved, seems a
far from excessive demand; but the trade is unfortunately much less well
organised than the cotton trade, and female workers--73 per cent of the
whole--could not in most districts enforce this claim. Khaki is more
trying to the operatives than some other kinds of cloth to which they are
better accustomed, and it is more difficult to weave. Even with overtime
work the women did not earn much more than they would working usual hours
on ordinary cloth. The wages paid appear to have been, as so often is the
case with women's work, chaotic. Many employers honourably paid a fair or
recognised price; others took advantage of the weakness of the workers to
pay rates not far from sweating prices. In the clothing trade the
Government was conscientiously paying handsome rates to contractors for
the making of uniforms, but without effectively enforcing the payment of
fair wages to labour by the contractors. Hence even the Trade Board
minimum--a low standard, especially considering the rise of prices--was
successfully evaded by some firms.[60]
_Maladjustment and Readjustment._--The question may well be asked, why
women should suffer unemployment in war-time at all. War produces an
urgent demand for a great deal of the work women are best fitted to do,
such as nursing, the making of clothes and underclothes, the manufacture
of food stuffs and provisions on a large scale, the organisation of
commissariat and hospitals, the collection and overlooking of stores. In
point of fact, the requirements of the troops, as we have seen, provided
increased employment for some women, though probably not for nearly as
many as those who suffered from the shrinkage of ordinary trade at the
beginning of the winter; later on the demand became so great that there
was an actual scarcity of women workers in many trades.
One strange feature of those autumn months of 1914 was that while recruits
were continually to be seen marching in plain clothes, without a uniform,
numbers of London tailors and tailoresses were without employment. Many of
the recruits were also, at first at all events, unprovided with needful
elementary comforts, and amateurs were continually pressed to work at
shirts and knitting for them. Women employed in the manufacture of stuffs
or clothing for the troops or in certain processes of the manufacture of
armaments or appurtenances were overworked, while other women were totally
or partially out of work. The characteristic immobility of labour was
perhaps never more clearly seen.
It may be admitted of course that a wholesale transference of workers from
the area of slump to the area of boom would never be possible all at once.
The machines necessary for special work will not at first be forthcoming
in numbers sufficient to meet a demand suddenly increased in so enormous a
proportion. Then, again, a new demand for labour is usually a demand
predominantly for young workers, and the older women thrown out of work
may find it very difficult to adapt themselves to new requirements. Skill
and practice in the handling of machines are necessary; machines differ
very greatly. A dressmaker cannot, off-hand, be set to make cartridges or
even uniforms. In some branches of industry a high degree of specialised
skill may be a positive disadvantage in acquiring the methods of an allied
but lower skilled trade; _e.g._ it has been found that tailors and
tailoresses who have become expert in the handwork still largely used for
the best "bespoke" work, the aristocracy of the trade, cannot easily adapt
themselves to the modern "team work" tailoring, in which division of
labour and the use of machinery play a considerable part; they may even
impair their own special skill by attempting it.[61] In some processes a
delicate sensitiveness of finger is a first essential for the work, and
the operatives dare not take up any rough work which might impair this
delicacy, their stock-in-trade and capital. Again, the difference of
wage-levels in different industries is a cause of immobility of labour.
Lancashire cotton workers might have adapted themselves without much
difficulty to the processes of the Yorkshire woollen trade, but they could
not have accepted the rates current in an imperfectly organised trade, and
there would have been obvious difficulty in paying imported workers at a
scale higher than those enjoyed by the local operatives.
A good deal of dovetailing, however, can be done to bring the work to the
workers or the workers to the work, and much more could have been done if
the Local Government Board had taken the question of unemployment more
seriously in the years preceding the war. But the local bodies were
uninstructed, and in many cases had little idea of anything better than
doles. In spite of the funds collected, there can be little doubt that
much suffering, especially among women, was neglected and let alone, and
the irregular payment of separation allowances at the beginning of the war
added to the distress.
Voluntary effort, it needs hardly saying, was instantly ready to do its
best to meet the occasion. The Suffrage Societies, in especial, did
splendid work in improvising employment bureaux and relief workrooms for
the sufferers. A special fund and committee were also formed, under the
style of the Central Committee for Women's Employment, to find new
channels of employment for women. This Committee was presided over by the
Queen, and was aided in its labours by specialists highly versed in
industrial conditions, and its efforts for adjustment are full of
interest.
The primary aim of this Committee was to equalise employment in factories
and workshops. The problem was how to achieve the adaptation, as far as
possible, of unemployed firms and workers to new and urgent national
needs. It had been supposed that only certain special firms could make
army clothing, and that the numerous women and girls thrown out of work in
ordinary wholesale tailoring would be unable to do unaccustomed work. A
business adviser of the Committee suggested to the War Office authorities
some simplifications in the make of military greatcoats and uniforms. The
experiment was tried, with the result that many thousand great-coats and
uniforms were made by firms which under the dominance of red tape must
have stopped work. In the shirt-making, also, much unemployment occurred
at first, and the Committee gave information to firms not previously
employed by Government that they could apply for contracts. Carpet-yarn
factories were utilised for the supply of yarn to satisfy the enormous
demand created by the war. Numbers of orders for shirts, socks, and belts
were placed in dressmakers' workrooms, and carried out by women whose
normal occupation had failed them.
Another field of this Committee's work was to stimulate the introduction
of new trades and open new fields of work for women wage-earners. This is
a difficult undertaking at a time when spending power must be much
curtailed, but it may be destined to have good results in happier times,
and in any case any widening of the field of employment for women, any
development of their technical skill, is much to be welcomed.[62]
Besides these deeply interesting attempts at regulating and adjusting the
market for skilled labour, there remains the vast army of the unskilled.
Here we had during the first winter of war the influence of a new idea
working, the perception that something better than relief work, something
infinitely better than charity, was possible. In some of the workrooms
started by voluntary effort orders were obtained for underlinen, toys,
etc. On a small scale there need be no great objection to this if the
educational factor were prominent, but it is necessary to point out that
no real adjustment of the labour market is effected by inducing ladies to
make purchases in a workroom that they might otherwise have made in an
ordinary shop, the employees of those shops probably themselves suffering
from shortage of employment. The workrooms started under the Central
Committee for this class of workers adopted the plan of setting them to
make useful articles, not for sale but for distribution among the poor,
such as layettes for infants and clothing for necessitous mothers, also to
the mending or remodelling of old clothes, the manufacture of cradles from
banana crates, and so forth. In most workrooms a good meal was provided in
the middle of the day, and some of the women were instructed in its
cooking and service.
The leading idea of workrooms on these lines is that temporarily the
workers should be taken off the labour market altogether, that they should
be paid not wages but relief, and that the relief should be robbed of its
degrading associations by being combined with a system of training the
women to do something they could not do before, or at all events to do it
better than before. The requirement of attendance at the workroom (usually
for forty hours weekly) was a guarantee of genuine need. This method of
dealing with the problem of distress is probably as satisfactory as any
that could be devised off-hand, though the workrooms did not escape
criticism on the score of attracting girls away from "normal
employment."[63] This is no doubt possible, the scale of women's wages in
"normal employment" being still unfortunately so low. Ten shillings a week
would not attract workers away from decently paid work done under decent
conditions. The criticisms, however, point to the desirability of such
arrangements being carefully co-ordinated to avoid overlapping, especially
with the technical training provided by the Education Authority.
Although the working of the plan was good as far as it went, it went
unfortunately only a little way. By the first week in November a couple of
dozen centres of employment had been started, and perhaps 1 per cent of
the unemployed women had been provided with work in the workrooms.[64]
There were besides uncounted thousands whose work and wages were reduced
to a mere fraction of what they had previously been. Had the local
authorities been already educated by the Local Government Board to take a
broader view of their responsibilities and more scientific measures in
discharging them, a great deal more of the ground might have been
effectively covered. It is to be hoped that if similar measures are needed
after the war, as seems likely to be the case, the experience of 1914-15
will bear fruit.
_The New Demand for Women's Labour._--With the continuance of war an
unexpected situation gradually shaped itself. The clothing and
accoutrement of the great army that was speedily recruited, as well as
urgently-needed supplies for France, and for Russia, so far as they could
be transported thither, created a huge demand for labour, and by December
the shortage of skilled labour was a serious problem. More especially was
this the case with the munitions group of trades, which became the largest
and busiest of all. With some lack of foresight too many men from these
industries had been allowed to enlist, and eventually some were even
brought back from the front. Thousands of women poured into armament
making; factories have been adapted to meet the new demands; trade union
rules and legislative requirements have been considerably relaxed; women
to a limited extent are replacing men. These are some of the outstanding
features of a situation which is already bewildering in its complexity.
The shortage of skilled workers which has formed and still forms so
serious a difficulty in supplying the army, is due not only to the
enlistment of skilled men, but also to the tendency which the past thirty
years or so have unfortunately shown to be increasing, for the
displacement of the skilled by the unskilled worker. The ignorance of
parents and the attraction of the "blind alley" occupations for the
children of poor homes, where every shilling counts, combined with the
organisation of business primarily for profit and the inadequacy of social
safeguards in this matter, have created a difficult position. The lack of
training and experience is, however, much more general among women than
among men, and has formed a serious obstacle to their employment. The
replacement of men by women in manufacturing industry has thus been less
than might have been expected. Women have to a considerable extent
replaced men in commercial and clerical work, in some occupations in and
about railway stations, also as shop assistants, lift-attendants, etc.
There are even suggestions that the underground railway service of London
might be entirely staffed with women; but up to the time of writing this
has occurred only to a limited extent. There has of course been an
enormous increase in women's employment, but a large part of the war
demand is for goods on the manufacture of which women normally
predominate, as clothing, food-stuffs, etc. Another large part of the
demand is for work on such processes as the filling of shells, and is now
swollen to an unparalleled degree. What has happened has been that
subdivision of processes and grading of labour have been introduced, as
well as mechanical adjustments to facilitate the employment of women. As
usually happens when women are introduced to a new trade or branch of a
trade, the work is more or less changed in character. No doubt the
pressure of war conditions has had the effect that women are now
performing processes that were previously supposed to be beyond their
strength or skill or both, especially in leather, engineering, and the
wool and worsted trades. The line of demarcation between men's and women's
occupations is drawn higher up. But women have not to any great extent
replaced men in the skilled mechanical trades, the immediate and
insurmountable obstacle to such replacement being their lack of skill and
training. In certain trades, however, where women have been given
opportunity and facilities to undertake work involving judgment and skill,
they have, aided by the stimulus of patriotism, shown both intelligence
and initiative, revealed unexpected powers on processes hitherto performed
by men, and done work "of which any mechanic might be proud" (see report
mentioned below; compare the _Engineer_, Aug. 20, 1915).
The lack of training therefore may perhaps explain the very small results
that have so far followed from the appeal to women to register for
war-work, made by the Government in March 1915. As to the origin of this
appeal, little is definitely known. It may have been intended as a
recognition of the efforts and sacrifices already made by women during the
war. It may have been, as some suggest, probably not without foundation,
that the measure was instigated by the Farmers' Union, in the hope of
getting cheap labour on the land instead of raising the wages of men. The
women's organisations were not consulted, and even the Central Committee
on Women's Employment, then anxiously engaged in reviewing and where
possible adjusting the dislocation of women's employment, had, we believe,
no previous notice of the appeal. A very small proportion only of the
women who registered were called upon to work within the next few months;
only three or four thousand out of 80,000. This small result is said to be
due to the fact that only a very small proportion were capable of the
skilled jobs awaiting them.[65] In great part the new demand for labour
has been met by the overflow from other industries, though it has been
supplemented by the addition of voluntary workers of the class usually
termed "unoccupied," that is to say, not working for wages. There are
obvious risks in bringing women from the upper and middle classes into a
labour market the conditions of which are usually much against
working-women; on the other hand, such an arrangement as was made, _e.g._
that amateurs should train so as to replace ordinary working women for the
week-end, seems an admirable device to use the superfluous energies of
the leisured so as to give the workers time for rest and recuperation.
Another problem arising out of the present extension of women's employment
relates to the enormous strain imposed upon the women and the inadequate
pay they have in many cases received. We have touched on this point above
in connection with the wool and worsted trades. Incidentally these
conditions show that the unorganised state of women prevents their taking
full advantage of the labour market even when the position is
strategically in their favour. In some of the processes on which women
have been introduced the skill required is quite considerable, and the
output varies, depending greatly on the worker's health and strength. High
speed cannot be maintained without proper intervals of rest; prolonged
fatigue reduces capacity. The prime conditions for a persistently high
output are a scientific adjustment of hours of work, adequate food,
ventilation, and necessary comforts. These facts in the twentieth century
are not unknown, but in war-time they were practically ignored. Many of
the women on war-work were grievously overworked, and though praised for
their patriotism in working overtime, did not receive wages sufficient to
afford them the extra nourishment and comforts they should have had. In
some cases, especially if doing men's work, they were highly paid; in
others the pay was not only below the standard of a man, but was
inadequate to maintain the physical endurance required. The patriotic
feelings of women-workers were shamefully exploited, and the state of mind
revealed by persons who should have known better was deplorable. In one
case of a prosecution by the Home Office the magistrate refused to
convict, although a girl under eighteen had been employed twenty-four
hours without a break, after which she met with an accident.
Yet another problem arises out of the substitution of women for men. We
have seen reason to suppose that this is taking place less extensively
than is supposed, but it undeniably occurs, and may assume much greater
proportions before the war is over.
Are women who replace men to be paid merely the wages that women of the
same grade of skill usually are paid? In that case they will be
undercutting men, and preparing a position of extreme difficulty after the
war. Or are the women to be paid the same wages as the men they replace?
They certainly should, wherever the work is the same. As we have seen, in
many cases the women do not do exactly the same work as men, and indeed in
the interests of their health and efficiency it is often highly desirable
they should not do quite the same. It may be quite easy, _e.g._, for a
woman to cut off yards of cloth to sell across the counter, but it may
happen that the man she replaces not only did this but also at intervals
handled heavy bales of goods which are beyond her strength. In such cases
as this a rearrangement of work with due regard to relative strength is
desirable, and a rigid equality of wages should not be insisted on.
Organisation of all women-workers employed to replace men is become a more
pressing need than ever, to ensure first that women should not be paid
less than men merely because they are women; second, that women should not
have work thrust upon them that is an injurious strain on their
constitutions; third, that the future interests of the men now serving in
the field should not be disregarded. The point insisted on in Chapter
IV., that women need not only to be enrolled in Unions but to have a voice
in the management and control where they are organised along with men, has
been made plainer than ever. So strongly was this felt at Manchester that
a special committee was formed for the protection of women's interests in
munition work, and for co-operation with the interested trade unions in
any movement towards the organisation of the women. A special campaign for
the organisation of munition workers was initiated and carried on by the
National Federation of Women Workers.
_The Results the War may have._--It is impossible as yet to estimate what
effects the war will ultimately have in modifying the position of women.
The surplus of women, in itself a source of much social ill, will be
increased; the young girls of to-day have a diminished prospect of
marriage. At the same time the spending power of the community must almost
certainly be curtailed, and apart from military requirements there will be
a less demand for women's work in many occupations. Thus at the very time
that women will need more than ever to be self-dependent, their
opportunities of self-dependence will be narrowed. Another aspect, a more
hopeful one, is that the scarcity of men may improve the position of women
and lead to their being entrusted with posts, not necessarily identical
with those of men, but more responsible and more dignified than those
women have usually filled. Objections of a merely conventional nature are
likely to disappear. It seems also possible that the present shifting of
women's employment out of the luxury trades that ebb and flow according to
fashion and idle caprice, into Government service and trades vitally
necessary to national existence, may remain after the war, only that
women's energies may then, as we hope, be turned once again to save life
rather than destroy it.
There are signs that a deeper and more intimate consciousness of society
as a whole may operate in favour of women. The recruiting campaign, for
instance, may induce certain reflections. Between 1891 and 1900, 781,475
male infants died under a year old in England and Wales alone, making an
average death-rate of 168 per thousand births. If even the very mild
measures for the improvement of sanitation and the care of infants and
nursing mothers that have been adopted in recent years had been customary
twenty years ago, we should have now in England some hundreds of thousands
more lads of recruiting age or approaching it than are actually here, and
many of those who survived the high death-rate of those years would have
escaped damage in early years and be stronger and finer men than they are.
If we now adopted much more generous measures to the same end, we could
probably save some hundreds of thousands more to serve their country in
twenty years' time. And all this would cost an infinitesimal sum in
comparison with what is now being poured forth to make these young men as
strong and fit for the field as possible. The militarists, if they were
consistent, would realise that at the back of the army stands another
army--the army of the poor working women, underfed, overworked, badly
housed, and insufficiently clad. The patriots, if they were more
clear-sighted in regard to their own desires, would spend a great deal
more time and energy in demanding, for the sake of military efficiency,
that the conditions under which the nation's babies are brought into the
world and the mother nursed and nourished should be changed in a quite
revolutionary manner. Some of us may not love this style of argument; the
view of men as "food for powder" and women as mere feeders of the army may
seem an ignoble one. Those who hold such views will, however, have to
consider their implications more closely.
It was a curious coincidence, perhaps even not a wholly fortuitous one
(who can say?), that in the very week preceding our declaration of war,
when Europe was already resounding with the tramp of armed men and the
rumble of artillery wheels, the Local Government Board should have issued
its first memoranda on the subject of Maternity and Child Welfare. These
circulars, addressed to County Councils and Sanitary Authorities,
advocated a considerable extension of the work of Public Health
Departments in the direction of medical advice and treatment for pregnant
and nursing mothers and their infants, and an extensive development of the
system of home-visiting of women and infant children already in existence
in some places. Parliament has already voted a grant to the extent of 50
per cent of the cost in aid of local schemes for Maternity and Child
Welfare. The immediate appeal of the War Relief Fund and the difficulties
of its administration have, no doubt, combined with the inertia
characteristic of many local authorities to efface any very bold
initiative on the more fundamental but less clamant questions raised in
the Local Government Board memorandum. Still, the fact remains that the
needs of the woman and the young child have been at last recognised as
vital, however inadequate the means taken to meet them have so far been.
These needs will be urged by Women's Societies and by labour
organisations, and the war will have the effect of bringing them into
stronger relief as time goes on, and may supply the impetus for a still
more drastic scheme, on the lines advocated by the Women's Co-operative
Guild.[66]
It is now recognised, or is coming to be recognised, that it is not alone
the soldier who serves his country in war; the great part played by
industry in building up the nation's life is equally vital. "Industry and
commerce," writes Mr. Arthur Greenwood, "are not primarily intended as a
field for exploitation and profit, but are essential national services in
as true a sense as the Army and Navy." Such a recognition should have its
effect in raising the woman's position, the special economic weakness of
which is, that her value to the community is greater than any that can be
measured in pounds, shillings, and pence, while nevertheless she, like
others in a competitive society, is compelled to measure herself by
competitive standards. During the war industrial women have been working
day and night to supply military and naval requisites, taking their part
in national defence as truly as if they could themselves aid in
slaughtering the enemy, and not without considerable overstrain and damage
to their own health and strength. Others, again, have spent their time and
strength toiling to make good the deficiencies in Government organisation,
not only for the relief of distress and unemployment, but even for the
needs of recruits themselves. Working women in their homes bear a
disproportionately heavy share of the burden of trouble and anxiety caused
by the rise of prices in the necessaries of life. Vast numbers of women
have offered up their sons and brothers in battle; hundreds of thousands
have lost their employment and been reduced to poverty and distress. The
efforts and sacrifices made by women cannot have passed wholly unnoticed
by the Government, and we may hope that some real development of the
position of woman, especially of the working woman, will follow the
hoped-for settlement of this terrible crisis.
Even the thoughtless sentimentality of the well-to-do leisured woman has
been touched to finer issues. Impelled to "do something" for the soldiers,
she turned instinctively to the traditional or primeval occupations of
women, and wanted to make shirts, etc., with her own hands. She was,
however, here confronted with the new idea that the needs of the
unemployed working woman must be considered. In the autumn it was
suggested those who could afford new clothes should order some to
stimulate employment. In the spring and early summer, on the contrary, the
utmost economy was advocated, capital being scarce. The most irresponsible
class in the community were thus asked to realise themselves as members of
society, to understand that philanthropy was not merely an opportunity for
them to save their own souls, that even their personal expenditure was not
a merely private matter, but that both must be considered in relation to
the needs of the commonweal.[67]
_Constructive Measures._--The experience of the war should certainly lead
to some better-thought-out method of dealing with times of stress and
unemployment than has ever yet been in operation, especially with regard
to women. It would be beyond the scope of this volume to draw up such a
scheme in detail, but some points may be indicated. The need of better
training has become plain. To raise the upper limit of school attendance
is urgent, if education is to be worthy of the name. A better all-round
training at school would give girls more choice of occupation, and would
not leave them so much at the hazard of one particular process or trade.
Develop a girl's intelligence, train her hand and eye, and she will be
helped to master the technical difficulties of whatever occupation she may
wish to follow or work she may need to do. For older girls special
technical and domestic courses may be most valuable, especially if taught
in such a manner as to occupy the mind and increase the capacity, and not
as mere mechanical routine. It was noted during the boom of work for the
army that girls who had been trained in a trade school could adapt
themselves more readily to a new and unaccustomed process than could those
who had only ordinary workshop training. As a further development of the
education question the experience of 1914-15 should lead to the provision
of increased facilities for physical exercise in the open air (and time to
use them) for young people of both sexes. In the first winter of war we
were all amazed at the change effected by a few months' training and fresh
air, at the fine well-set-up young men who had lately been weedy clerks
and pale-faced operatives. It may perhaps dawn upon us after the war that
if the country can afford to satisfy the elementary needs of healthy life
in young men when they stand a good chance of dying for her, it might be
worth while to do something of the same kind for those who are to live for
her and make her future. Perhaps eventually even the physical health and
soundness of girls may be held to justify some provision for exercise in
the open air.
In the second place, the local authorities should at times of stress offer
all the useful employment they possibly can find to women at fair rates of
wages. The more genuine employment a municipal body can find for women in
time of need the better, whether by anticipating work that would normally
be wanted a few months later or by increasing the efficiency of special
services, such as the educational or health services, district nursing,
cleansing and sweeping of schools and other buildings. Why not organise a
grand "spring cleaning" of neglected homes, with domestic help to aid the
overtaxed mothers of families? Special investigation of particular
industrial or sanitary conditions as to which information was needed might
well be carried out at times when educated women of the secretarial and
clerical professions are unemployed.
It is evident that we need a better scheme of Employment Bureaux for
women. There should be a centre of information and a clearing-house where
workers, found superfluous in their previous occupation, could be drafted
into such new ones as they were capable and willing to undertake, and this
might possibly be worked in conjunction with a system of training. The
comparative success of the work hurriedly improvised, and with many
difficulties, by the Central Committee on Women's Employment, is a clear
indication that some similar organisation on a larger scale, say a
National Advisory Council, linked up with the Labour Exchanges and
representative of women's organisations, might be infinitely valuable.
Another constructive movement that seems to be gaining ground is that for
the organisation of women as consumers. At the end of Chapter V., written
early in 1914, I ventured to prophesy that some such form of association
would be needed as a complement to the work of organising industrial
women-workers. In June 1915 a number of women's societies were engaged in
forming an association to take measures to counteract the war scarcity and
increase the supply of food, to extend agricultural and horticultural
training for women, to improve the feeding of children in schools, to
establish cost-price restaurants for the poor, and to urge the Government
to form an Advisory Committee to deal with the whole subject and take
steps to control the rise of prices, such a committee to include
representatives of women householders.[68] Such an association may have
great results, directly in the attainment of the objects set forth,
indirectly in the stimulating of public spirit and a sense of citizenship
among women.
There is, however, little ground for hoping that the war will of itself
lead to social measures of reconstruction or to the development of a
better-organised state, whether in regard to women or in regard to labour
generally. Some can find spiritual comfort and sustenance in the idea that
by fighting German militarism we are destroying tyranny and despotism
among ourselves. On the contrary, it may be that in fighting we are
impelled to use as a weapon and may be giving a new lease of life to
precisely those tendencies, those forces in our own social life which we
are opposing among the Germans for all we are worth. Class domination, the
rule of the strongest, and the idealisation of brute force are not
peculiar to Germany, although unquestionably, as we have been driven to
see, they have there reached an extraordinary exuberance. But the same
tendencies are here, and we may be sure democracy will not come of itself,
merely as a result of the war. War inevitably means for the time the
predominance of man over woman, the predominance of the soldier over the
industrial, the predominance of reaction over democracy. It is significant
that the stress of war was quickly seized as a pretext for suspending the
protection of industrial workers by the State, and for relaxing the
Education Acts which normally interpose some hindrance to the exploitation
of children by the capitalist employer. The clamour for compulsion and the
shameless underpayment of women in some branches of war work are signs of
the same reaction. Yet in the long run the apparently weaker elements of
society are as vitally necessary as the stronger, and to ignore or silence
their needs is to strike at the heart of life. The problems offered by the
great war, gigantic and staggering as they are, are not so different in
kind from, though vaster in degree and more appalling than, the problem of
the industrial revolution itself. Each is a problem of the development of
material civilisation, which has (we know it now too poignantly) far
outdistanced the growth of civilisation on its social and spiritual side.
Each includes the question whether man is to be the master or the slave of
the mechanic powers his own genius has evoked. Neither can ever be solved
without the conscious co-operation of Woman and Labour, failing which we
must for ever fall short of the highest possibilities of our race. "If
Great Britain is to lead the way in promoting a new spirit between the
nations, she needs a new spirit also in the whole range of her corporate
life. For what Britain stands for in the world is, in the long run, what
Britain is, and when thousands are dying for her it is more than ever the
duty of all of us to try to make her worthier of their devotion."[69]
CHANGES IN EMPLOYMENT DURING THE WAR 1914-1915.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| I. _Contraction of Employment of Women and Girls. |
| Board of Trade Figures._ |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| Reduction in Numbers as compared with July 1914. |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| Sept 1914. | Oct. | Dec. | Feb. 1915. |
|-----------------|--------------|------------|-----------------|
| 8·4 | 6·2 | 3·2 | 1·5 |
|===============================================================|
| II. _Cotton Trade. All Work-people, Women predominating._ |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| | Reduction of Employment | Reduction of Earnings |
| |per cent of previous year. |per cent of previous year. |
| 1914. |---------------------------|---------------------------|
| | Lancashire and | Burnley. | Lancashire and | Burnley. |
| | Cheshire. | | Cheshire. | |
|-------|----------------|----------|----------------|----------|
| Aug. | 42·1 | 46·0 | 60·9 | 70·7 |
| Oct. | 18·3 | 32·6 | 37·1 | 57·7 |
| Dec. | 9·7 | 19·3 | 20·8 | 38·5 |
| Feb. | 6·3 | 9·3 | 9·0 | 11·4 |
| April | 6·7 | 10·4 | 4·9 | 4·7 |
| June | 6·9 | 6·7 | 5·8 | 6·5 |
|===============================================================|
| III. _Percentage Increase or Decrease compared with |
| same Month in Previous Year._ |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| | Sept. | Nov. | Jan. |March. | May. |
| | 1914. | | 1915. | | |
|-----------------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
|London Dressmakers, | | | | | |
| chiefly West End | -11·6 | -14·9 | -14·7 | -15·4 | -13·2 |
|Court ditto | -17·3 | -33·2 | -37·2 | -28·1 | -23·3 |
|Mantle, costume, etc., | | | | | |
| makers | -15·3 | -7·6 | -11·2 | - 2·5 | + 0·6 |
|Shirt and collar makers| -11·7 | 11·8 | -10·2 | - 1·5 | - 2·1 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS II. AND IV.
DOCUMENTS AND EXTRACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE POSITION OF WOMEN DURING THE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
_Thoughts on the Use of Machines in the Cotton Manufacture._ By a Friend
of the Poor. Manchester Reference Library, 677, 1, B. 12. (Barnes, 1780.)
"What a prodigious difference have our machines made in the gain of the
females of the family! Formerly the chief support of a poor family arose
from the loom. The wife could get comparatively but little on her single
spindle. But for some years a good spinner has been able to get as much as
or more than a weaver. For this reason many weavers have become spinners,
and by this means such quantities of cotton warps, twists, wefts, etc.,
have been poured into the country that our trade has taken a new turn. All
the spinners in the country could not possibly have produced so much as
this, as are now wanted in a small part of our manufacture. If it were
true that a weaver gets less, yet, as his wife gets more, his family does
not suffer. But the fact is that the gains of an industrious family have
been upon the average much greater than they were before these
inventions."
Page 16. "When I look upon our machines, with a regard to the _Poor_, and
as _their friend and well-wisher_, my heart glows with gratitude and
pleasure on their account, in the full hope that, by means of them, our
manufactures will _continue_, and be _extended_ and _improved_, from age
to age. _Perhaps_, e'er long, our manufacture may be _chiefly of cotton_.
_Linen_ may be almost _laid aside_. Suppose, for instance, _common yearn_
could be brought to market, made with _cotton warps_. What a sale might we
expect! _Such goods_ would have the demand of _all the world_. Nor is this
at all unlikely to be the case, in some future time. Already cotton yarn
has been offered to sale, as I am very credibly informed, _almost_, if not
_entirely_, as cheap as linen yarn, of the _same length_. _Germany_ and
_Ireland_ then _have_ reason to be alarmed at our machines. Their yarn
manufactures may suffer severely. But surely this will be the highest
advantage to us, by increasing the quantity of _labour_ amongst ourselves
and keeping so much _money_ at home. _Perhaps_, by new improvements, we
may vie with the _East India_ goods in fineness and beauty. And then--what
a prospect would open upon us! But you say all this is a mere _perhaps_.
It is so. And I only offer it as such. But, I ask, is it more _unlikely_
than our present improvements were, _twenty years ago_? I believe not.
Some tradesmen thought the cotton manufacture at its _highest pitch then_.
It was _then_ but in its infancy. Perhaps it is so yet. Human ingenuity,
when spurred on by proper rewards, _may leave_ whatever has been done
_already_ at a vast distance. We may have goods brought to market,
_cheaper, finer, better_. The necessary consequence of this will be, the
demand _will increase_ and all the world become our _customers_. If we can
_undersell_ all the world, we may have the _custom_ of all the world.
Merchants are alike all the world over. They will go to the _cheapest
market_. What a pleasing thought is this! But in order to do this it is
necessary to _encourage_ our machines, and to keep them as much as
possible to _ourselves_."
Description of Interior of a Cotton Mill, in _A Short Essay for the
Service of the Proprietors of Cotton Mills and the Persons Employed in
Them_. Manchester, 1784. (M/c Library, 28269/4.)
(Quotes instances of jail fever from overcrowding, etc.)
Page 9. "The Cotton Mills are large buildings, but so constructed as to
employ the greatest possible number of persons. That no room may be lost,
the several stories are built as low as possible. Most of the rooms are
crowded with machines, about which it is necessary to employ a
considerable quantity of oil in order to facilitate their motion. From the
nature of the manufacture, a great deal of cotton dust is constantly
flying about, which, adhering to the oil and heated by the friction,
occasions a strange and disagreeable smell. The number of people who work
in the mill must certainly be proportioned to the size of it. In a large
one I am informed there are several hundreds.... The manufacturers, in
many instances, constantly labour day and night.[70] Of course a great
number of candles must be used, and scarce any opportunity for ventilation
afforded. From hence it is evident that there is a considerable effluvia
constantly arising from the bodies of a large number of persons (well or
in a degree indisposed, just as it happens), from the oil and cotton dust,
and from the candles used in the night, without any considerable supply of
fresh air. There are indeed trifling casements, sometimes opened and
sometimes not; but totally insufficient to subserve any valuable
purpose.... What consequences must we expect from so many pernicious
circumstances? What are the consequences which have actually proceeded
from them? As we have already observed, it is well known that there has
been a contagious disorder in a cotton mill in the neighbourhood of
Manchester which has been fatal to many, and infected more.... Most of the
patients that were ill, having been asked where they caught the fever,
either replied that they caught it themselves at the cotton mill or were
infected by others that had. Several were asked what kind of labour they
followed who were first seized with the disorder. They all replied, they
were the people that worked in the cotton mill."
Leicester, 1788. British Museum Tracts, B. 544 (10).
Humble Petition of the Poor Spinners, which on a very moderate calculation
consist of Eighteen Thousand, Five Hundred, employed in the Town and
Country aforesaid,
Sheweth, that the business of _Spinning_, in all its branches, hath ever
been, time out of mind, the peculiar employment of women; insomuch that
every single woman is called in law a _Spinster_; to which employment your
Petitioners have been brought up, and by which they have hitherto earned
their maintenance. That this employment above all others is suited to the
condition and circumstances of the _Female Poor_; inasmuch as not only
single women, but married ones also, can be employed in it consistently
with the necessary cares of their families; for, the business being
carried on in their own houses, they can at any time leave it when the
care of their families requires their attendance, and can re-assume the
work when family duty permits it; nay, they can, in many instances, carry
on their work and perform their domestic duty at the same time;
particularly in the case of attending a sick husband or child, or an aged
parent.
That the children of the poor can also be employed in this occupation more
or less, according to their age and strength, which is not only a great
help to the maintenance of the family, but inures their children to habits
of industry.
* * * * *
It is therefore with great concern your Petitioners see that this antient
employment is likely to be taken from them--an employment so consistent
with civil liberty, so full of domestic comfort, and so favourable to a
religious course of life. This we apprehend will be the consequences of so
many spinning mills, now erecting after the model of the cotton mills. The
work of the poor will be done by these engines, and they left without
employment.
The proprietors of the spinning mills do indeed tell your Petitioners that
their children shall be employed after the manner of the children at the
cotton mills. Your Petitioners have enquired what that manner is; and with
grief of heart they find that a vast number of poor children are crowded
together in an unhealthy place, have no time allowed them for recreation
and exercise, are kept to work for ten or twelve hours together, and that
in the night-time as well as by day; hereby they become cripples and
emaciated beyond measure. That no care is taken of their morals, as your
Petitioners can learn; though these very children are the means by which
their masters are raised to wealth and honours too; for we have heard that
a certain great _mill-monger_ is newly _created_ a knight though he was
not _born_ a gentleman.
* * * * *
The adventurers are turning their cotton mills into jersey mills, and new
ones are daily erecting; and our masters show what their expectations are
by undervaluing our work and beating down our wages.[71]
1800. Broadsheet, pp. 942, 72, L. 15 (M/c Library).
(This broadsheet records the resolutions carried at a special meeting of
merchants, manufacturers, and cotton spinners held at Manchester, May 2,
1800, to consider proceedings of meetings recently held for the purpose of
getting Parliament to put a duty on exportation of cotton twist.)
Resolved--1. That cotton spinning is a manufacture of the first importance
to this country. That it gives employment to a considerable part of the
national capital and to a very large portion of the poor of this county
and of several other counties, the chief part consisting of women and
children who, by means of this manufacture, are rendered highly useful to
the community at large instead of _being a burthen on it, as they would be
if not employed in cotton mills_ (italics added).
Broadsheet in Manchester Library (n. d.).
(Purports to be by an old weaver, deprecating attacks on machinery.) "If
machinery is destroyed, how are your children to be employed, who now, at
an age in which children in other countries gain nothing, can support
themselves? Yes, and not only this, but can earn as much, or even more,
than a hardworking man in other countries, where there are not these
improvements? It is thus that our poor are enabled to marry early and
support a family, as the children, instead of being a deadweight upon
their parents, can more than do for themselves. So great, indeed, have
been our comforts from the demand for our cheap manufactures and the
plenty of employ, that people have flocked into Lancashire from all parts
of the kingdom by thousands, tens of thousands, aye, and hundreds of
thousands too.
* * * * *
"If they (machines) are destroyed, how then are you to find support for
yourselves and your families? Where will your children of seven, eight, or
nine years old find employment and money to contribute to the comforts of
all? Will our barren moors support them?"
From Alfred's _History of the Factory Movement_, vol. i. p. 16.
When the first factories were erected, it was soon discovered that there
was in the minds of the parents a strong repugnance to the employment thus
provided for children: the native domestic labourers, being then able
amply to provide for their children, rejected the tempting offers of the
mill-owners, the parents preferring to rear their children in their own
homes, and to train them to their own handicrafts. For a long period it
was by the working people themselves considered to be disgraceful to any
father who allowed his child to enter the factory--nay, in the homely
words of that day, as will be remembered by the old men of the present
age, "that parent made himself the town's talk"--and the unfortunate girl
so given up by her parents in after life found the door of household
employment closed against her--"Because she had been a factory girl." It
was not until the condition of portions of the working class had been
reduced that it became the custom with working men to eke out the means of
their subsistence by sending their children to the mills. Until that sad
and calamitous custom prevailed, the factories in England were worked by
"stranger-children," gathered together from the workhouse.
Under the operation of the factories' apprentice system parish apprentices
were sent, without remorse or enquiry, from the workhouses in England, to
be "used up" as the "cheapest raw material in the market." This inhuman
conduct was systematically practised; the mill-owners communicated with
the overseer of the poor, and when the demand and supply had been arranged
to the satisfaction of both the contracting parties, a day was fixed for
the examination of "the little children" to be inspected by the
mill-owner, or his agent, previous to which the authorities of the
workhouse had filled the minds of their wards with the notion that by
entering the mills they would become ladies and gentlemen.... It sometimes
happened that traffickers contracted with the overseers, removing their
juvenile victims to Manchester, or other towns, on their arrival; if not
previously assigned, they were deposited sometimes in dark cellars, where
the merchant dealing in them brought his customers; the mill-owners, by
the light of lanthorns, being enabled to examine the children, their limbs
and stature having undergone the necessary scrutiny, the bargain was
struck, and the poor innocents were conveyed to the mills. The general
treatment of those apprentices depended entirely on the will of their
masters; in very many instances their labour was limited only by
exhaustion after many modes of torture had been unavailingly applied to
force continued action; their food was stinted, coarse, and unwholesome.
In "brisk times" the beds (such as they were) were never cool, the mills
were worked night and day, and as soon as one set of children rose for
labour the other set retired for rest. We dare not trust ourselves to
write all we know on this subject, much less all we feel.... The moral
nature of the traffic between parish authorities and the buyers of pauper
children, may be judged from the fact that in some cases one idiot was
accepted with twenty sane children.... In stench, in heated rooms, amid
the constant whirling of a thousand wheels, have little fingers and little
feet been kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by
blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless overlooker, and the
infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment invented by the
sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness.... Some of the helpless
victims ... nightly prayed that death would come to their relief; weary of
prayer, some there were who deliberately accomplished their own
destruction. The annals of Litten Mill afford an instance of this kind.
"Palfrey the smith had the task of riveting irons upon any of the
apprentices whom the master ordered, and these were much like the irons
usually put upon felons. Even young women, if suspected of intending to
run away, had irons riveted upon their ankles, and reaching by long links
and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and
from the mill and to sleep. Robert Blincoe asserts that he has known many
girls served in this manner. A handsome-looking girl, about the age of
twenty years, who came from the neighbourhood of Cromford, whose name was
Phoebe Day, being driven to desperation by ill-treatment, took the
opportunity one dinner-time, when she was alone and supposed no one saw
her, to take off her shoes and throw herself into the dam at the end of
the bridge, next the apprentice-house. Some one passing along and seeing a
pair of shoes stopped. The poor girl had sunk once, and just as she rose
above the water he seized her by the hair.... She was nearly gone, and it
was with some difficulty her life was saved. When Mr. Needham heard of
this, and being afraid the example might be contagious, he ordered James
Durant, a journeyman spinner, who had been apprenticed there, to take her
away to her relations at Cromford, and thus she escaped."
The Factory System. _Enquiry into the State of the Manufacturing
Population._ London, 1831.
Page 12. "As a second cause of the unhealthiness of manufacturing towns we
place the severe and unremitting labour. Cotton factories (which are the
best in this particular) begin to work at half-past five or six in the
morning and cease at half-past seven or eight at night. An interval of
half an hour or forty minutes is allowed for breakfast, an hour for
dinner, and generally half an hour for tea, leaving about twelve hours a
day clear labour. The work of spinners and stretchers (men) is among the
most laborious that exist, and is exceeded, perhaps, by that of mowing
alone, and few mowers, we believe, think of continuing their labour for
twelve hours without intermission.... The labour of the other classes of
hands employed in factories, as carders, rovers, piecers, and weavers,
consists not so much in their actual manual exertion, which is very
moderate, as in the constant attention which they are required to keep up
and the intolerable fatigue of standing for so great a length of time. We
know that incessant walking for twenty-four hours was considered one of
the most intolerable tortures to which witches in former times were
subjected, for the purpose of compelling them to own their guilt, and that
few of them could hold out for twelve; and the fatigue of standing for
twelve hours, without being permitted to lean or sit down, must be
scarcely less extreme. Accordingly, some sink under it, and many more have
their constitutions permanently weakened and undermined.
"III. The third cause we shall assign is perhaps even more efficient than
the last. The air in almost all factories is more or less unwholesome.
Many of the rooms are obliged to be kept at a certain temperature (say 65
degrees Fahrenheit) for the purpose of manufacture, and from the speed of
the machinery, the general want of direct communication with the external
atmosphere, and from artificial heat, they often exceed the
temperature.... But in addition to mere heat, the rooms are often
ill-ventilated, the air is filled with the effluvia of oil, and with
emanations from the uncleanly persons of a large number of individuals;
and, from the want of free ventilation, the air is very imperfectly
oxygenated and has occasionally a most overpowering smell.[72] In a word,
the hands employed in these large manufactories breathe foul air for
twelve hours out of the twenty-four, and we know that few things have so
specific and injurious an action on the digestive organs as the inhalation
of impure air, and this fact alone would be almost sufficient to account
for the prevalence of stomachic complaints in districts where
manufactories abound.
"The small particles of cotton and dust with which the air in most rooms
of factories is impregnated not infrequently lay the foundation of
distressing and fatal diseases. When inhaled, they are a source of great
pulmonary irritation, which, if it continues long, induces a species of
chronic bronchitis, which, not rarely, degenerates into tubercular
consumption....
"IV. The fourth cause of the ill-health which prevails among the
manufacturing population may be traced to the injurious influence which
the weakened and vitiated constitution of the women has upon their
children.[73] They are often employed in factories some years after their
marriage, and during this pregnancy, and up to the very period of their
confinement, which all who have attended to the physiology of the subject
know must send their offspring into the world with a debilitated and
unhealthy frame which the circumstances of their infancy are
ill-calculated to remove; and hence, when these children begin to work
themselves they are prepared at once to succumb to the evil influences by
which they are surrounded."
At page 27. "We hope we shall not greatly offend the prejudices either of
political economists or practical tradesmen when we state our firm
conviction, that a reduction in the hours of labour is _most important_ to
the health of the manufacturing population, _and absolutely necessary_ to
any general and material amelioration in their moral and intellectual
condition.... It will be urged in opposition that all legislative
interference in commercial concerns is, _prima facie_, objectionable, and
involves the admission of a dangerous and impolitic principle. That
legislative interference is in itself an evil we deeply feel and readily
admit; but it is an evil like many others which necessity and policy may
justify, and which humanity and justice may imperiously demand.
Legislative interference is objectionable only where it is injudicious or
uncalled for. It will also be objected, and with more sound reason, that a
reduction of the hours of labour would cause a corresponding reduction in
the quantity produced, and consequently in the wages of the workmen; and
would also diminish our power of competing with other manufacturing
nations in foreign market, and thus, by permanently injuring our trade,
would be productive of greater evils to the labouring classes than those
we are endeavouring to remove. This objection, though very reasonable, we
think is considerably overstated. That 'a reduction of the hours of labour
would cause a _corresponding_ reduction in the quantity produced' we
entirely deny. What _would_ be the actual loss consequent upon a reduction
of the hours it is impossible to state with any certainty, but it is
probable that if factories were to work ten hours instead of twelve the
loss in the quantity produced would not be one-sixth, but only about
one-twelfth, and in Mule Spinning perhaps scarcely even so much. We
_know_ that in some cases when the mills only worked four days in the
week, they have often produced five days' quantity, and the men earned
five days' wages. That this would be the case to a considerable extent
every one must be aware; as all men will be able to work much harder for
ten hours than they can for twelve. The objection above mentioned we
consider to be much over-stated; and we are convinced that the _loss_
incurred would only amount to a _part_ of the reduction. And we think that
_all_ loss to the masters might be prevented, and the necessity of a
_real_ reduction of wages obviated, were all duties on raw materials, and
those taxes which greatly raise the price of provisions, abolished by the
legislature. It is principally the shackles and drawbacks to which the
Cotton Manufacture is subjected which renders it so difficult, and as some
think so impracticable, to adopt a measure without which all extensive and
general Plans for improving and regenerating our manufacturing poor must
approach the limits of impossibility. At present (in the cotton trade at
least, which is already restricted by law) the hours of work generally
extend from half-past five or six in the morning till half-past seven or
eight at night, with about two hours' intermission, making in all about
twelve hours of clear labour. This we would reduce to _ten_ hours (if such
a measure should be rendered practicable and safe by a removal of all
taxes on manufactures and provisions); and we again express our
conviction, after regarding the subject in every possible point of view,
that till this measure is adopted all plans and exertions for ameliorating
the moral and domestic condition of the manufacturing labourer can only
obtain a very partial and temporary sphere of operation. We say this with
confidence, because in every project of the kind which we have been
enabled to form, in every attempt for this purpose which our personal
acquaintance and habitual intercourse with the people could suggest, we
have been met and defeated by the long hours (absorbing in fact the whole
of the efficient day) which the operative is compelled to remain at his
employment. When he returns home at night, the sensorial power is worn
out with intense fatigue; he has no energy left to exert in any useful
object, or any domestic duty; he is fit only for sleep or sensual
indulgence, the only alternatives of employment which his leisure knows;
he has no moral elasticity to enable him to resist the seductions of
appetite or sloth, no heart for regulating his household, superintending
his family concerns, or enforcing economy in his domestic arrangements; no
power or capability of exertion to rise above his circumstances or better
his condition. He has no time to be wise, no leisure to be good; he is
sunken, debilitated, depressed, emasculated, unnerved for effort,
incapable of virtue, unfit for everything but the regular, hopeless,
desponding, degrading variety of laborious vegetation or shameless
intemperance. Relieve him in this particular, shorten his hours of labour,
and he will find himself possessed of sufficient leisure to make it an
object with him to spend that leisure well; he will not be so thoroughly
enervated with his day's employment; he will not feel so imperious a
necessity for stimulating liquors; he will examine more closely, and
regulate more carefully, his domestic arrangements, and what is more than
all, he will become a soil which the religious philanthropist may have
some chance of labouring with advantage. We do not say that a reduction in
the hours of labour would do everything; but we are sure that little can
be done without it."
Arthur Arnold. _Cotton Famine._ 1864.
(Describing factory work.) Page 56. "In these days of automaton machinery
there are many moments in every hour when the varied and immense
production of a cotton factory would continue though 95 per cent of the
hands were suddenly withdrawn. The work is exciting but not laborious. It
quickens the eye and the action of the brain to watch a thousand threads,
being obliged to dart upon and repair any that break, lest even a single
spindle should be idle; and it strengthens the brain to do this with
bodily labour which is exercising but not exhausting. It polishes the
mental faculties to work in continued contact with hundreds of others, in
a discipline necessarily so severe and regular as that of a cotton
factory. The bodily system becomes feverishly quickened by thus working in
a high and moist temperature. Even the rattle of the machinery contributes
to preserve the brain of the operative from that emptiness which so
fatally contracts its power."
THE SURAT WEAVER'S SONG
From Edwin Waugh's _Factory Folk_, p. 238. By Samuel Laycock.
Confound it! aw ne'er wur so woven afore;
My back's welly broken, mi fingers are sore;
Aw've bin stannin' an' workin' among this Surat
Till aw'm very neer gettin' as blint as a bat.
Aw wish aw wur fur eneagh off, eawt o' th' road,
For o' weaving this rubbitch aw'm gettin' reet sto'd;
Aw've nowt i' this world to lie deawn on but straw,
For aw've nobbut eight shillen' this fortnit to draw.
Oh dear! if yon Yankees could nobbut just see
Heaw they're clemmin' an' starvin' poor weavers like me,
Aw think they'd soon settle their bother an' strive
To send us some cotton to keep us alive.
There's theawsan's o' folk, jist i' th' best o' their days,
Wi' traces of want plainly sin i' their face;
An' a future afore 'em as dreary as dark,
For when th' cotton gets done we's be o' eawt o' wark.
We've bin patient an' quiet as long as we con;
Th' bits of things we had by us are welly o' gone;
Mi clogs an' mi shoon are both gitten worn eawt,
An mi halliday cloaths are o' gawn "up th' speawt"!
Mony a toime i' mi days aw've sin things lookin' feaw
But never as awkard as what they are neaw;
If there is'nt some help for us factory folk soon,
Aw'm sure 'at we's o' be knock'd reet eawt o' tune.
Darwen Weavers. Report, March 1911, _The Driving Evil_.
During the last few months we have experienced a decided improvement in
the demand for cotton goods, and which has naturally provided fuller
employment for those employed in the weaving branch. We regret, however,
to state that this improvement has brought with it that curse of our
industry--the driving evil. We still have a number of employers who resort
to any artifice in order to exact the last ounce of effort out of their
work-people. Very little regard appears to be paid to the possibility that
the health of the operatives may be endangered by the process; nor is much
consideration given to the difficulties that they have to contend with in
the shape of inferior material in the loom and the higher standard of
quality demanded in the warehouse. Indeed the only thing that seems to be
of any importance is the average, and woe be to the unlucky individuals
whose earnings fall below it. The weak and the strong are set in
competition one with another, with the inevitable result that the weaker
or less efficient work-people resort to such practices as working during
the meal-hour, etc., in their efforts to keep up the unequal race, whilst
on the top of all is the dread of what may happen after making up time.
When the earnings of an overlooker's set fall below the amount required by
the management, pressure is brought to bear on the over-looker, and in
turn they (_sic_) are expected to put more pressure on the weaver to
increase the output. The methods of speeding-up the weaver are varied.
Sometimes a hint is conveyed by a distinctive mark on their wage-tickets,
in other cases the weavers are spoken to about their earnings, not always
in the best manner or in the choicest language. This is far from being an
ideal state of things for young persons or persons of a sensitive nature
to be employed in, and has in the past been responsible for some of the
tragedies that are a blot on the record of the cotton industry. We think
it is high time that a number of employers should give this matter their
careful consideration, and look upon their work-people as human beings
and not as mere machines to be worked at the utmost speed. We hope that an
early improvement will be made at some of the local concerns, otherwise
there is every probability of serious trouble.
EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF THE PRINCIPAL LADY INSPECTOR OF FACTORIES, AND
SOME OF HER COLLEAGUES, ILLUSTRATING THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE WOMAN
WORKER.[74]
1. _Women and Girls show more Courage in voicing their Needs._
While we can see a great number and variety of deplorable contraventions
of the actual requirements and spirit of the law and an amount of
apparently preventable suffering and overstrain and injury to life, limb,
and health that is grievous to dwell upon (except for action in the way of
removal), we can see also, most clearly, signs of improvement and the
promise of much more. The promise lies in the fact that the movement to
secure better conditions is not confined to any one class or group. The
women and girls at last begin to press their claims for a better life than
the one they have, not only by increasing appeals to Inspectors to put the
law in motion, but also by criticism of the limitations of the law and by
signs of fresh courage in organising and voicing their needs to the
employers. Employers are initiating reforms not only as outstanding
individuals and firms, but are beginning to do so at last by associated
action and effort. Without these two responsive sides of the movement the
best efforts of social reformers and legislators would end but poorly. As
strikingly illustrating the need of betterment, I would point not only to
the instances of excessively long hours inside and outside the factories,
insanitary conditions; lack of seats, mess-rooms; accidents and unfenced
machinery; employment of young workers in operating and clothing dangerous
machines; in excessively heavy weight carrying, but behind, and through,
and over all, to the undermining influence for the real health of the
nation in the grinding methods of payment and deductions from payment of
women and girls. Even of industrial poisoning Miss Whitlock says: "Poverty
with its attendant worry and lack of nourishment appeared to be a
predisposing cause in many cases, and the youth of many of the workers
affected was noticeable," and when a woman heavily laden and worn asks,
"Is it right I should have to do this kind of work and only have 8s. a
week?" the Inspector can only listen and report. The sinister instances of
use of homework after the legal factory day to reduce piece rates, of new
deductions covering cost of employers' contributions under the Insurance
Act, of old-standing large non-payments for work done to punish small
unpunctualities in arrival at the factory, and of fine added to entire
loss of a hardly-earned week's wage for alleged damage, are only
outstanding illustrations of an extensive pressure on women's wages that
prevents them from developing their full natural vitality. In every
direction the testimony of the Inspectors to the value of the spirit of
the industrial girl or woman is the same. Of a girl of seventeen,
partially scalped, Miss Martindale says: "Her pluck and bravery were
noteworthy, in fact these qualities show themselves in a remarkable degree
in working girls when they meet a severe physical shock"; of another,
whose hand had to be amputated after vain attempts to save it, she says
that the girl mastered her disappointment, and in two or three days after
the operation began to practise writing with her left hand, and in a month
had become almost as proficient in writing as with the right hand. The
value they attach to inspection is obvious from what follows in this
report, and is shrewdly summed up in a remark overheard by a Senior Lady
Inspector in a northern mill: "Yon's a Lady Inspector, nay, but it's time
we had one."
2. _A Factory Worker's Letter._
_Miss Slocock._--The complaints outside the Acts received during the year
have been interesting, and they often indicate in a remarkable way the
workers' needs and the omissions of present legislation. Irish workers
express themselves graphically and exceedingly well in writing, and the
following letter is a typical one: "Dear Madam, I am sure you will think
it presumption on the part of a factory worker to write to you however as
pen and paper refuses nothing I venture to write you this annonamos
letter. When you come to inspect a factory, does it ever strike you to
look around and see if any of these weary women and girls have a seat to
sit down on. I am a winder myself I have worked in a great many factories
for the last 30 years one looks on their workshop just like their home why
should we be denied a seat I suppose you think our work very light so it
is we have no extra heavy lifts we have mettle cups that I suppose they
would be 2 lb. weight or more we are pushing these up continually the
whole thing is tedious just look around you and you will see some winders
have not so much as a lean for their backs. I hope Dear Lady you see to
this. You would never think of putting a servant to work in a kitchen
without a chair in it, she would not stick it, the winders are an
uncomplaining lot if you asked them would they like to be provided with
seats they would smile and say they were all right, it would look to them
like making complaints behind backs but don't ask us but think about us
and do something for us and our children will rise up and call you
blessed. I hold that rest is essential to Good Health."
3. _Lighting._
_Principal._--An increasing number of complaints is received with regard
to defective natural lighting and badly adjusted or otherwise defective
artificial lighting. The Inspectors do what they can to secure
improvements, though, as the matter is outside the Factory Act, in
general no contravention notice or other official action is as yet
practicable. Two bad cases concerning women compositors in different parts
of the kingdom are specially reported; in both artificial lighting was
required during the greater part of the day, and in only one of these
instances is a remedy being supplied by removal to better premises. In the
other case, when the women learned that lighting is still outside the
Factory Act so far as their case is concerned, they exclaimed to the
Senior Lady Inspector, Miss Squire, "but this is the most important thing
of all to us."
_Miss Squire._--Badly adjusted light which hurts the eyes was found in
boot factories, where out of nine visited in one town four had the
sewing-machine rooms provided with ordinary fish-tail burners on a jointed
bracket at every machine--these, unshaded, were on a level with the
workers' eyes and close to the face. The girls complained that the light
was poor and had a smarting effect upon the eyes. The adaptation of
artificial lighting to the requirements of the work receives in general
very little attention, but I find that a desire for some guidance in the
matter is growing among employers and managers. One difficulty is that of
procuring any shade for the large metal filament electric lamps now so
largely used. The glare of these in the eyes of machine operatives in all
classes of factories is a troublesome accompaniment of the work, and one
finds much makeshift screening by workers where such individual effort is
permitted.
4. _Sanitary Accommodation._
_Principal._--It is impossible to modify in any general way the adverse
description of the existing state of matters as regards actual provision
of sanitary conveniences for women and girls in factory industries which I
found it necessary to give in last Annual Report, and to that statement I
must refer again and again until there is real and complete reform. The
women Inspectors have nearly doubled their efforts to raise the standard
somewhat in factories, and notices about them to local sanitary
authorities have risen from 538 in 1912 to 1029 in 1913, in addition to
146 notices with regard to workshops. Direct contravention notices to
occupiers numbered 249, while complaints from workers numbered 170, some
of them being very strong in regard to the unsuitability of the
conveniences provided. The one important area in which a decided
improvement is reported is the potteries area, where members of this
branch have been steadily at work for many years, but on the whole the
Midlands and the Lancashire Divisions have still most work to be done in
this direction, for in the former Miss Martindale reports that 381 of the
notices to sanitary authorities touched this one matter, and in the latter
Miss Tracey reports similarly 308 notices.
_Miss Tracey._--The outstanding defect of all others in this north-west
division is the sanitary accommodation provided for women. It is
impossible to describe in a public paper how low the standard has been and
still is, in many places, where in other respects the conditions are not
only not noticeably bad, but are quite good.... Absence of doors and
screens, uncleanliness and insanitary conditions can all be remedied by
the sanitary authority, and in the large towns at any rate notices of
these matters have received prompt attention, but there still remains the
question of unsuitability of position. Many examples might be given. In a
waterproof factory four or five girls were employed in an "overflow"
workroom of a larger factory, and worked in an upper room; in the lower
room about a dozen men and youths were at work. To reach the sanitary
convenience it is necessary for the girls to walk across the men's room
and through a narrow space between rows of machines at which the men are
sitting, and the wall at the far end of which the sanitary convenience is
situated.... There is no doubt that glass panels in doors, commoner still,
no doors, no bolts, no provision for privacy is all calculated to "prevent
waste of time," and it is a pathetic comment on employment that there
should be this improper supervision and control of decent and respectable
women. That they do sometimes stay longer than is actually necessary in
these places is of course a fact well known to me, but to my thinking it
only shows how great the strain is on women and girls that they should
desire rest so obtained. When one thinks of the perpetual striving, the
work which must never slacken, the noise which never ceases and of the
legs which are weary with constant standing, of the heads which ache,
because the noise is so great no voice can be heard above the din, one can
understand that to sit on the floor for a few moments' talk, as I have
often seen, is a rest which under even such horrid circumstances is better
than nothing. Proper conveniences and the supervision of a nice woman
would do away with all the drawbacks which employers foresee in complying
with the standard laid down in the Order of the Secretary of State so long
ago as 1903.
5. _Fire Escapes._
_Miss Tracey._--In one factory I visited to see an escape recently put up
at the instance of the local authority, and I found quite a good iron
staircase and platform. This was reached by a window which had been made
to open in such a way that it completely blocked the staircase and gave
but a tiny space even on the platform, and the aid of the local officer
was again invoked. Miss Stevenson reports that in the newer cotton mills a
proper outside iron staircase with a handrail is to be found, but the
construction of the older fire escapes shows a great lack of common sense.
In the first place, the narrow, almost perpendicular ladder without a
handrail is peculiarly unsuited for the use of women. The openings from
the platform to the ladders are exceedingly small, and the exit window is
generally 3 to 4 feet above the floor level, no steps or footholds being
provided. To increase the difficulty the exit window is sometimes made to
swing out across the platform, cutting off access to the downward ladder.
In two cases the ladder, and in one case a horizontal iron pipe also, ran
right across the window, rendering egress impossible except to the
slender. In both cases the next window was free from obstruction.
_Miss Taylor._--Sometimes as many as 100 persons are employed on each
floor of a high building, so that if the outside staircase had to be used
those in the upper floors would, as they descended, meet the occupants of
the lower floors crowding on to the landings. I have never been to a
factory where they had such a fire drill as might obviate the possibility
of overcrowding on these escapes. The women flatly, and I think, rightly,
decline to attempt the descent, on the plea that they do not wish to incur
the danger of it until it is absolutely necessary. I have sometimes been
told by the managers of the factories that they themselves would never
reach the bottom safely if they attempted to go down. Such escapes are to
be found on quite 50 per cent of the cotton mills in Lancashire, and as
they were put up on the authority of the sanitary authority it is
difficult to get rid of them, but one cannot help thinking that there may
be very serious loss of life if the circumstances of a fire should be such
that the workers were obliged to resort to these outside escapes.
6. _Lead Poisoning._
_Miss Tracey._--I spent many days in visiting the cases which had been
certified, and in visiting other cases of illness which were not directly
certified, as due to lead. I visited these workers at their homes and
found them in different stages of illness and convalescence. Their pluck
will always remain fixed in my mind; although many of them were unable to
put into words the sufferings they had gone through, yet not one of them
but was eagerly wishing to be well enough to go back to work. When, as is
so common now, women are accused of malingering, I often wish that
complainants would accompany me on my investigation of cases of accident
or poisoning at the workers' homes, for I know that, like me, these people
would return in a humbled frame of mind, recognising courage and
endurance under circumstances which would break many of us. Without these
home visits it would have been impossible to gauge the extent and severity
of the outbreak of illness.
7. _Hours of Work and Overtime._
_Miss Tracey._--Often we receive complaint of the burden of the long
twelve hours' day, and the strain it is to start work at 6 A.M. A
well-known man in a Lancashire town was telling me only the other day
about how he would wake in the morning to the clatter of the girls' and
women's clogs as they went past his house at half-past five in the dark on
their way to the mills. He had exceptional opportunity of judging of the
effect of the long day's work, and he told me how bonny children known to
him lost their colour and their youthful energy in the hard drudgery of
this daily toil. How the girls would fall asleep at their work, and how
they grew worn and old before their time. We see it for ourselves, and the
women tell us about it. Sometimes one feels that one dare not contemplate
too closely the life of our working women, it is such a grave reproach. I
went to a woman's house to investigate what appeared a simple, almost
commonplace, accident. She was a middle-aged, single woman, living alone.
Six weeks before my visit she had fainted at her work, and in falling (she
was a hand gas ironer) she had pulled the iron on her hand, that and the
metal tube had severely burnt both arm and hand. She was quite
incapacitated. She told me she left home at 5.15, walked 2-1/2 miles to
the factory, stood the whole day at her work, and at 6, sometimes later,
started to walk home again, and then had to prepare her meal, mend and do
her housework. This case is only typical of thousands of women workers.
She got her 7s. 6d. insurance money, and that was all. She made no effort
to enlist my sympathy, but just stated the facts quite simply. Her case is
not so bad as many, for in addition to their own needs, a married woman or
a widow with children has also to see to the needs of the family, meals,
washing and mending, and the hundred and one other duties that are
required to keep a home going.
In Scotland Miss Vines says that the largest proportion of complaints
relates to excessive hours of employment, while on investigation they are
found sometimes to be within the legal limits, and "there is no doubt that
the working of the full permissible period of employment does sometimes
entail an intolerable strain on the workers."
_Miss Meiklejohn._--There has again been in West London a marked decrease
in the overtime reported this year. The opinion seems to be that
systematic overtime in the season does not really help forward the work,
and that the extension should be used, as was intended, in an emergency
only. There is a tendency to shorten the ordinary working hours, as well
as to work as little overtime as possible.
8. _Employment of Women before and after Childbirth._
There can be little doubt that provision of maternity benefit under the
Insurance Act has materially lightened the burden of compliance with the
limit of women for four weeks after childbirth before they may return to
industrial employment. Complaints of breach of s. 61 have dropped to eight
in 1913, and complaints (outside the scope of the section) of employment
just before confinement have dropped to one. Even in Dundee, where this
evil of heavy employment of child-bearing women has been probably the
worst in the kingdom, an improvement of the situation is seen.
_Miss Vines._--I visited a group of twelve jute-mill working mothers
within a month after their confinement and found that only one of them had
returned to work, nine of the mothers were married and experiencing the
good effects of the Insurance Act benefit. The unmarried women were, of
course, getting less benefit, and were not so well off; one of them worked
as a jute spinner in a jute mill till 6 P.M. on the night her baby was
born.
9. _Truck Act._
_Principal._--The illustrations sent me of the mass of work done in 1913
under the modern part of the law relating to truck are too numerous to be
reproduced here. Typical instances must be selected from different
industrial centres for the main points of (_a_) disciplinary fines, (_b_)
deductions or payments for damage, short weight, etc., (_c_) deductions or
payments for power, materials or anything supplied in relation to labour
of the worker; abuses of the "bonus" system may be connected with (_a_) or
(_b_). The main features of these illustrations are the poverty of the
workers, the rigidity and poverty of mind that controls workers by such
methods, and the need for fresh and living ideas to sweep away all these
defective, obsolete ways of control.
_Disciplinary Fines._
_Miss Tracey._--I had a long struggle with the occupier of a large laundry
in Lancashire over fines for coming late. The work started at 6, and it
was said that only three minutes (supposed to be five), were allowed as
grace. The weekly wages were phenomenally small, but no work was demanded
on Saturdays unless under exceptional circumstances. If a girl came to the
laundry after the gate was closed (three minutes after 6 A.M.), she was
shut out till after breakfast, a fine was inflicted for late attendance,
and if this happened more than once, one-sixth of the total wage was
deducted for Saturday, although no work was required. I found these fines
to amount to as much as 1s. 8d. out of a wage of 4s. 6d., and other sums
in proportion. This iniquitous custom had been followed for twenty years,
and I was assured that it was a case of "adjustment of wages" and did not
come under the Truck Act. However, my view eventually prevailed; certain
sums were repaid and the whole system done away with, without bringing the
case into Court. In other respects, the laundry was a good one, and no
work on Saturday is an arrangement that is of great benefit to young and
old workers alike. The plan now adopted is that a girl consistently
unpunctual during the week will be required to come in on Saturday morning
to do a few hours' work--this plan has worked so well that no one, when I
last visited, had been in the laundry on Saturday at all.
_Miss Slocock._--(1) Two girls, aged respectively eighteen and nineteen,
employed as cutters, were fined £2 : 14s. and 11s. 2d. for cutting some
handkerchiefs badly and damaging the cloth. The deductions were made at
the rate of 1s. per week, and at the time of my visit, each worker had
already had 10s. 6d. deducted from her wages. Proceedings were considered,
but the employer, directly his attention was drawn to the matter, refunded
5s. 6d. to one worker and agreed not to make any further deduction from
the other, so that one girl paid 5s. for damage amounting to 11s. 2d. and
the other 10s. 6d. for damage amounting to £2 : 14s. These amounts, 11s.
2d. and £2 : 14s. represented exactly the whole loss to the firm caused by
the damaged work, and the employer thought that he was acting legally so
long as the deductions did not exceed that amount. The fact that the Truck
Act specifically draws attention to this limitation is constantly brought
to my notice, and used as an excuse for putting the whole cost of any
damage on the workers. The average gross weekly wage earned by these
workers for the eleven weeks during which deductions were being made was
8s. 1d. and 10s. 10-1/2d. respectively.
(2) Two workers employed as shirt machinists were told they would both be
fined 5s. for spoiling two shirts each by mixing the cloth. The difference
in the cloth was so slight that I could hardly distinguish it in daylight,
and the workers had machined the shirts by artificial light. The contract
under which these deductions were made provided that the cost price of the
material damaged should not be exceeded; the firm admitted that the cost
price of the material was not more than 1s. 6d. each shirt, and a fine of
2s. 6d. from each worker (1s. 3d. for each shirt) was ultimately imposed.
_Miss Escreet._--Many instances of deductions for damage have touched the
borderland where non-payment of wages for work done badly approximates to
a deduction of payment in respect of bad work. Action in such cases is
very difficult--when sums like 5s. 5d. and 3s. are deducted from wages of
10s. 7d. and 13s. 4d. in a weaving shed and metal factory respectively,
there is no question that the workers look rightly for the protection of
the Truck Acts, which were surely framed to control this very kind of
arbitrary handling of hardly earned wage. Enquiry into these cases
invariably brings to light other considerations than the mere fact of
damaged work. Some managers find it difficult to realise that bad work is
bound to be a feature attendant on pressure for great output, especially
if the workers are inexperienced and ill-taught, or if the piece-work
rates are so low that the workers cannot afford to use care, and are
obliged to trust to luck and a lenient "passer."
10. _Lenience of Magistrates to Employer._
_Principal._--We have to occasionally reckon with Benches who consider a
few shillings' penalty, or even 1d. penalty, sufficient punishment for
excessive overtime employment of girls, or with others who are reluctant
to convict, or punish with more than cost of proceedings, law-breaking
employers who are shown to have been thoroughly instructed in the law they
have neglected to obey. It is in my belief an open question whether the
tender treatment of the Probation of Offenders Act was ever designed to
apply to the case of fully responsible adults officially supplied by
abstracts with the knowledge and understanding of an industrial code which
is intended to protect the weakest workers.
(_A Leaflet issued from a Trade Union Office_)
-------- & DISTRICT WEAVERS, WINDERS,
WARPERS & REELERS' ASSOCIATION.
(Branch of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association)
OFFICES: TEXTILE HALL, --------.
WINDERS AND THE BARBER KNOTTER.[75]
A Few Facts for Non-Union Winders.
Have you ever considered what it costs you through not joining your Trade
Union?
Study the following facts:
Many winders have five per cent. deducted each week from their wages for
using the "Barber" Knotter.
Five per cent. on 15s. per week is 9d.
9d. per week is £1 17s. 6d. for every 50 weeks you work. If you work with
one of these knotters for three years your employer has been paid =more=
than the original cost; but they continue to stop the five per cent. and
the knotter still belongs to the employer. If you work at a mill ten years
and pay five per cent. all the time you cannot take the knotter with you
when you leave.
Think about it. You pay for it three or four times over, but it doesn't
belong to you. =Oh, no!=
We ask you to pay =5d.= to your Trade Union so that we can =stop your
employer from keeping 9d. out of your wages=.
If you would rather pay 9d. to your employers than 5d. to your Trade Union
you have =LESS SENSE= than we thought you had.
"But," you say, "we can earn more money with a knotter." Quite true, but
you are paid on "=production=," so if you get more money it is only
because you turn more work off, and in turning more work off your
Employers get a Greater Production
but they make =YOU= pay for it.
The knotter enables you to piece up at a quicker rate; this saves time. It
enables you to make smaller knots, thus making better work. The two
combined makes
Quantity and Quality.
The employers get =both= and make you pay for it.
We say to you that it is no part of your duty to pay for improved
machinery. If it is beneficial to the employers to improve any part of any
machine they'll do it without consulting you, but we hold that if by doing
this they get a greater and better production then they ought to =ADVANCE=
your wages and not deduct five per cent. from them.
Think! Think! Think!
View the matter over in your own minds.
Reason the matter from your own point of view.
If you are satisfied with the present system, well, =DON'T GRUMBLE=.
If you're not, =What are you going to do to stop it?= Have you a remedy?
If so, what is it?
If you haven't, =WE HAVE!=
Organisation is the only solution!
Trade Unionism will solve the problem for you, but
You'll have to pay and not pout!
" " act " shout!
Pay 5d. and keep the 9d.! Fight and don't Funk.
DON'T HESITATE--AGITATE!
If you have eyes--SEE! If you have ears--HEAR!
JOIN THE UNION!
Bring your grievances to the Officials!
But join--Delay is Dangerous--Join at once!
--------, Secretary.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.
RESOLUTIONS SUBMITTED BY THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN WORKERS TO THE
TRADE UNION CONGRESS, 1915.
"(_a_) That all women who register for war service should immediately join
the appropriate trade union in the trade for which they are volunteering
service, and that membership of such organisation should be the condition
of their employment for war service, and that those trade unions which
exclude women be urged to admit women as members.
"(_b_) That where a woman is doing the same work as a man she should
receive the same rate of pay, and that the principle of equal pay for
equal work should be rigidly maintained."
MANCHESTER AND DISTRICT WOMEN'S WAR INTERESTS COMMITTEE.
The Committee was formed as a result of the Joint action of the Women's
Emergency Corps and the Manchester and District Federation of Women's
Suffrage Societies. Representatives were invited from the Women's
organisations ... and the trade unions interested in women in munition
works. The Gasworkers and the Workers' Union also asked for representation
and were accepted.
The Committee carried through an investigation of women in munition works,
and discovered that 12s. to 15s. was the standard wage, which was lower
than the standard, or usual women's rates in the district, which were
about £1.
It was therefore proposed that the Committee work for a minimum wage for
women in munition works, and the programme, of which a copy is enclosed,
was drawn up. This was presented to the Trade Union section of the
Lancashire No. 1 Armaments Output Committee and received their hearty
support.
The Amalgamated Society of Engineers recognised the National Federation of
Women Workers as the organisation to take in women munition workers, and
the local secretaries were instructed to co-operate with this body
wherever a branch exists. There being no branch in the Manchester area the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers recognised the Women's War Interests
Committee as the representative women's organisation. Great help has been
given to the Committee by their officials.
The Committee does not itself undertake to organise the women, but passed
a resolution to the effect that it would co-operate with any movement
towards organisation of the women which is undertaken as a result of joint
agreement with the interested trade unions.
* * * * *
The following proposals have been agreed upon by the Committee for the
employment of women in ammunition works, to form the basis of
representations to the Ministry of Munitions:--
_Wages._--That a guaranteed minimum of £1 per week of 48 hours should be
paid to every adult woman worker (over 18 years) employed on munitions.
Piecework rates, irrespective of class of labour employed, should remain
unaltered.
_Hours._--That a three-shift system of 8 hours is preferable to continuous
overtime for women. No woman should be employed on night work for more
than two weeks out of six.
_Conditions._--That ample canteen provision be provided, this to be
obligatory where night work is in operation.
AUTHORITIES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PEARSON, KARL. Woman as Witch, in the Chances of Death, vol. ii.; and Sex
Relations in Germany, in the Ethic of Freethought, p. 402.
MASON, OTIS. In the American Antiquarian, Jan. 1889, p. 6.
ELLIS, HAVELOCK. Man and Woman. Fourth Edition. Introduction and chap.
xiv.
RECLUS, E. Primitive Folk, pp. 57-8. Contemporary Science Series. 1891.
FRAZER, J. G. The Magic Art, ii. 204.
MAN, E. H. Journal of the Anthropological Institute. August 1893.
SERVANTS IN HUSBANDRY.
THOROLD, ROGERS. History of Agriculture and Prices, i. pp. 273-274, and
iv. 495. Compare Bland, Brown, and Tawney, English Economic History, p.
347, for approximation between men's and women's wages.
EDEN, SIR FREDERICK. State of the Poor, iii. lxxxix.
TEXTILES: WOOL AND LINEN.
SCHMOLLER. Strassbürger Tücher- und Weberzunft, p. 354.
Archaeologia. Vol. xxxvii. pp. 91 and 93; vol. x. Plates XX., XXI., and
XXII.
ANDREWS. Old English Manor, p. 272.
DELONEY. Jack of Newbury, p. 59.
WRIGHT, T. Womankind of Western Europe, pp. 59, 177-8.
AUBREY. History of Wiltshire. Quoted in Archaeologia xxxvii. p. 95.
WARDEN, A. The Linen Trade. Longman, 1867. (2nd ed.), pp. 355-6.
ROCK, D. Textile Fabrics, p. 11. 1876.
ECKENSTEIN, LINA. Women under Monasticism.
Ancren Riwle. Reprinted in the King's Classics, p. 317.
BÜCHER. Industrial Evolution. Translated by S. M. Wickett, pp. 265-7.
JAMES, JOHN. History of Worsted, p. 289.
Victoria County History. Yorkshire, ii. p. 43.
WRIGHT, T. Homes of Other Days, p. 434.
CHAUCER. Wife of Bath's Prologue.
BEARD, C. Industrial Revolution, p. 25.
FITZHERBERT. Book of Husbandry. 1574. Edited by Skeat, par. 146.
TEMPLE, SIR W. Quoted in Cunningham's Growth of Industry and Commerce,
Modern Times, p. 370. (Ed. 1907.)
Shuttleworth Accounts, Chetham Society, vol. xlvi. p. 1002.
MARKHAM, G. The English Housewife, pp. 167, 172. (Ed. 1637.)
WEAVING AND SPINNING AS A WOMAN'S TRADE.
ABRAM, A. Social England in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 133-4.
Ancient Book of the Weavers' Company. (Facsimile in the British Museum
Library.)
FOX AND TAYLOR. Weavers' Gild of Bristol, p. 38.
UNWIN, G. Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries, p. 229.
LAMBERT. Two Thousand Years of Gild Life, pp. 206-10.
THOMSON, D. The Weaver's Craft, p. 22.
Records of the City of Norwich, ii. p. 378.
For Rates of Pay to Weavers, etc., see a volume of tracts in the British
Museum Library, numbered 1851, c. 101.
Howard Accounts. Published by the Roxburgh Club, vol. li.
MARKHAM, G. The English Housewife, pp. 174-5. (Ed. 1637.)
DUNLOP AND DENMAN. English Apprenticeship and Child Labour, chap. ix.
DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISTIC INDUSTRY.
UNWIN, G. In the Victoria County History, Suffolk, ii. pp. 258-9.
BAINES, E. History of Cotton Manufacture, p. 91.
GREEN, MRS. ALICE. Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, ii. p. 100.
Ordinances of Worcester. Edited by Toulmin Smith. Early English Text
Society.
HAMILTON. History of Quarter Sessions, pp. 164, 273.
LEONARD. Early English Poor Relief.
ASHLEY, W. J. English Economic History, Part II., chapter on the Woollen
Industry.
YOUNG, ARTHUR. Northern Tour, vol. i. p. 137. Second edition. 1770.
YOUNG, ARTHUR. Tour in East of England, ii. pp. 75, 81.
WARNER, TOWNSEND. In Traill's Social England, vol. v. p. 149.
MANTOUX. La Révolution industrielle, p. 36.
BONWICK. Romance of the Wool Trade, p. 435.
Lancashire Worthies, i. p. 307.
WEBER, MARIANNE. Ehefrau und Mutter, Tübingen, 1907, p. 252.
SILK.
CAMPBELL, W. Materials for History of the Reign of Henry VII., pp. 13, 15,
168, 170, etc.
Victoria County History, Derby, ii. p. 372.
OTHER INDUSTRIES.
TRAILL. Social England, vol. i. p. 658.
LAPSLEY, G. T. "Account Roll of a Fifteenth-Century Ironmaster," in the
English Historical Review, vol. xiv., July 1899, p. 51.
Victoria County History. Derbyshire, pp. 328-9, 332, 343.
Some Account of Mines. British Museum, 444, a 49, p. 62.
GALLOWAY. Annals of Coal Mining, pp. 91, 232, 234, 354 _passim_.
Case of Sir H. Mackworth. British Museum, 522, m. 12 (2).
Case of the Mine Adventurers in the same volume, No. 26.
YOUNG, ARTHUR. Northern Tour, vol. ii. pp. 189, 254-5. Second Edition.
1770.
YOUNG, ARTHUR. Six Weeks' Tour, pp. 150, 109. 1768.
CHAPTER II.
THE COTTON INDUSTRY.
BAINES, EDWARD. History of the Cotton Manufacture, 1836, pp. 97, 100, 115,
116 n., 446.
GUEST. History of the Cotton Manufacture.
RADCLIFFE, W. Origin of the New System of Manufacture, 1828, p. 59, etc.
GASKELL, P. Manufacturing Population of England, 1833, pp. 42, 43, 60.
BEARD, C. A. The Industrial Revolution.
MANTOUX. La Révolution industrielle, pp. 208-11.
ELLISON, T. The Cotton Trade of Great Britain, 1886.
LAW, ALICE. Social and Economic History, in the Victoria County History,
Lancashire, vol. ii. p. 327.
CHAPMAN, S. J. The Lancashire Cotton Industry.
CUNNINGHAM, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times, p.
654. (Ed. 1907.)
THE DECAY OF HANDSPINNING.
EDEN, SIR FREDERICK. State of the Poor, vol. iii. pp. 768, 821, 847.
THE HANDLOOM WEAVER'S WIFE.
GASKELL, P. Manufacturing Population, p. 40.
MANTOUX. La Révolution industrielle, pp. 442-3.
Report of Committee on Ribbon-Weavers, 1818, vol. ix. p. 124.
Report on Handloom Weavers, 1834, vol. x. Evidence of Brennan.
THE FACTORY.
TUCKETT, J. D. History of the Labouring Population, pp. 208-9.
AIKIN, J. Country Round Manchester, pp. 167, 192.
URE. Philosophy of Manufactures, pp. 312-3.
GASKELL, P. Manufacturing Population of England, chap. i.
TAYLOR, W. COOKE. Factories and the Factory System, 1844, pp. 1, 45-6.
FIELDEN, J. Curse of the Factory System, 1836, p. 43.
Assistant Poor Law Commissioners. Report on Employment of Women and
Children in Agriculture, p. 25. Parliamentary Papers, 1843, xii.
GASKELL, MRS. Mary Barton.
THE WOMAN WAGE-EARNER.
Report on Artizans and Machinery. Parliamentary Papers, 1824, vol. v.
Evidence of Dunlop and Holdsworth, compare evidence of M'Dougal and
William Smith.
Report on Manufactures and Commerce. Parliamentary Papers, 1833, vol. vi.
p. 323.
Report on Combinations of Workmen. Parliamentary Papers, 1838, viii. q.
3527-31.
Report on Handloom Weavers, 1840, vol. xxiii. p. 307.
GASKELL, P. Artizans and Machinery, pp. 143, 331.
GASKELL, P. Manufacturing Population of England, pp. 186-8.
Report on Employment of Children in Factories. Parliamentary Papers, 1834,
xix. p. 297.
SCHULTZE-GÄVERNITZ. The Cotton Trade in England and on the Continent.
Translated by O. S. Hall. 1895.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN NON-TEXTILE TRADES.
Children's Employment Commission. 1843. Reports on Birmingham District.