CHAPTER XI.ToC

[225]Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 86.

[226]Cf.Northern Tour, vol. ii. p. 86.

[227]It is true that out-and-out defenders of the factories against early legislation sometimes had the audacity to assert the "economy of high wages," and to maintain that it governed the practice of early mill-owners. So Ure, "The main reason why they (i.e.wages) are so high is, that they form a small part of the value of the manufactured article, so that if reduced too low by a sordid master, they would render his operatives less careful, and thereby injure the quality of their work more than could be compensated by his saving in wages. The less proportion wages bear to the value of the goods, the higher, generally speaking, is the recompense of labour. The prudent master of a fine spinning-mill is most reluctant to tamper with the earnings of his spinners, and never consents to reduce them till absolutely forced to it by a want of remuneration for the capital and skill embarked in his business" (Philosophy of Manufactures, p. 330). This does not, however, prevent Dr. Ure from pointing out a little later the grave danger into which trade-union endeavours to raise wages drive a trade subject to the competition of "the more frugal and docile labour of the Continent and United States" (p. 363). Nor do Dr. Ure's statements regarding the high wages paid in cotton-mills, which he places at three times the agricultural wages, tally with the statistics given in the appendix of his own book (cf. p. 515). Male spinners alone received the "high wages" he names, and out of them had to pay for the labour of the assistants whom they hired to help them.

[228]Der Grossbetrieb, p. 132. In regarding the advance of recent average wages it should be borne in mind that the later years contain a larger proportion of adults. In considering the net yearly wages a deduction for unemployment should be made from the sums named in the table.

[229]Account must be taken of the depressed condition of hand-loom weavers, who had not yet disappeared.

[230]Here Schulze-Gaevernitz appears to strain his argument. Though official reports lay stress upon the silver question as an important factor in the rise of Bombay mills, there seems no doubt of the ability of Bombay cheap labour, independently of this, to undersell English labour for low counts of cotton in Asiatic markets. Brentano in his work,Hours and Wages in Relation to Production, supports Schulze-Gaevernitz.

[231]Mr. Gould's general conclusion, from his comparison of American and European production, is "that higher daily wages in Americado not mean a correspondingly enhanced labour-cost to the manufacturers" (Contemporary Review, Jan. 1893). This he holds to be partly due to superior mechanical agencies, which owe their existence to high wages, partly to superior physical force in the workers. But Mr. Gould's evidence and his conclusion here stated, taken as testimony to the "economy of high wages," are insufficient, for they only show that high wages are attended by increased output of labour, not by an increasecorrespondentto this higher wage.

[232]Ure'sPhilosophy of Manufactures, pp. 367-369. Dr. Ure regarded mechanical inventions as the means whereby capital should keep labour in subjection. In describing how the "self-acting mule" came into use he adds triumphantly: "This invention comprises the great doctrine already propounded, that when capital enlists science in her service the refractory hand of labour will always be taught docility" (p. 368).

[233]"No. 64 Consular Report" (quoted Schoenhof, p. 209).

[234]Schoenhof, p. 216.

[235]Der Grossbetrieb, p. 167.

[236]Vide supra, p. 269. These wages, however, are the average of all the labour employed in the weaving-sheds, not of "weavers" alone.

[237]E.R.L. Gould,Contemporary Review, January 1893.

§ 1.How far the different Working Classes gain from the Fall of Prices.§ 2.Part of the Economy of Machine-production compensated by the growing Work of Distribution.§ 3.The Lowest Class of Workers gains least from Machine-production.

§ 1.How far the different Working Classes gain from the Fall of Prices.

§ 2.Part of the Economy of Machine-production compensated by the growing Work of Distribution.

§ 3.The Lowest Class of Workers gains least from Machine-production.

§ 1. In considering the effect of machine-production upon a body of workers engaged in some particular industry we are not confined to tracing the effects of improvements in the arts and methods of that single branch of production. As consumers they share in the improvements introduced into other industries reflected in a fall of retail prices. Insomuch as all English workers consume bread they are benefited by the establishment of a new American railway or the invention of new milling machinery which lowers the price of bread; as all consume boots the advantage which the introduction of boot-making machinery confers upon the workers is not confined to the higher wages which may be paid to some operatives in the boot factory, but is extended to all the workers who can buy cheaper boots.

How far do methods of modern capitalist production tend to benefit the labourer in his capacity as consumer?

Economic theory is in tolerably close accord with experience in the answer it gives to this question. Each portion of the working classes gains in its capacity of consumer from improved methods of production in proportion to the amount by which its income exceeds the bare subsistence wage of unskilled workers. The highly-paid mechanic gainsmost, the sweated worker least. The worker earning forty shillings per week gains much more than twice as much as the worker earning twenty shillings from each general cheapening in the cost of production. There are several reasons why this is so.

1. Where there exists a constant over-supply of labour competing for what must be regarded at any particular time as a fixed quantity of employment, wages are determined with tolerably close reference to the lowest standard of living among that class of workers, and not by any fixed or customary money wage. This is particularly the case in the "sweating" trades of large towns. Here such improvements in machinery and methods of industry as lower the price of articles which fall within the "standard of living" of this class are liable to be speedily reflected in a fall of money wages paid for such low-skilled work. In other words, a "bare subsistence wage" does not gain by a fall in the price of the articles which belong to its standard of comfort.

Even in the lowest kinds of work there is no doubt some tendency to stick to the former money wage and thus to raise somewhat the standard of real wages, but where the competition is keenest thisvis inertiæis liable to be overborne, and money wages fall with prices. As we rise to the more highly skilled, paid, and organised grades of labour, we come to workers who are less exposed to the direct constant strain of competition, where there is not a chronic over-supply of labour. Here a fall of retail prices is not necessarily or speedily followed by any corresponding fall of money wages, and the results of the higher real wages enjoyed for a time impress themselves in a higher habitual standard of comfort and strengthen the resistance which is offered to any attempt to lower money wages, even though the attempt may be made at a time when an over-supply of labour does exist.

In proportion as a class of workers is highly paid, educated, and organised, it is able to gain the benefit which improved machinery brings to the consumer, because it is better able to resist the economic tendency to determine wages by reference to a standard of comfort independent of monetary considerations. So far as the lowest waged and most closely competing labourers have gainedby the fall of prices, it has been due to the pressure of sentiment on the part of the better class of employers and of the public against the lowering of money wages, even where the smaller sum of money will purchase as much as a larger sum previously.

2. The smaller the income the larger the proportion of it that is spent upon commodities whose expense of production and whose price is less affected by machinery. Machine-production, by the fall of prices it brings, has benefited people in direct proportion to their income. The articles which have fallen most rapidly in price are those comforts and luxuries into which machine-production enters most largely. The aristocracy of the working classes, whose standard of comfort includes watches, pianos, books, and bicycles, has gained much more by the fall of prices than those who are obliged to spend all their wages on the purchase of bare necessaries of life. The gain of the former is manifold and great, the benefit of the latter is confined to the cheapening of bread and groceries—a great benefit when measured in terms of improved livelihood no doubt, but small when compared with the increase of purchasing power conferred by modern production upon the Lancashire factory family, with its £3 or £4 a week, and in large measure counterbalanced by the increased proportion of the income, which, in the case of town operatives, goes as rent and price of vegetables, dairy produce, and other commodities which have risen in price.

3. The highly-paid operatives generally work the shortest hours, the low-paid the longest. So far as this is not compensated by an increased intensity of labour on the part of those working short hours, it implies an increased capacity of making the most out of their wages. Longer leisure enables a worker to make the most of his consumption, he can lay out his wages more carefully, is less tempted to squander his money in excesses directly engendered by the reaction from excessive labour, and can get a fuller enjoyment and benefit from the use of the consumables which he purchases. A large and increasing number of the cheapest and the most intrinsically valuable commodities, of an intellectual, artistic, and spiritual character, are only open to the beneficial consumption ofthose who have more leisure at their command than is yet the lot of the low-skilled workers in our towns.

§ 2. If we compare the statistics of wages we shall find that the largest proportionate rise of money wages has been in the highly-organised machine industries, and that the benefit which machinery confers upon the workers in the capacity of consumers falls chiefly to the same workers.

It must not, however, be assumed that improved methods of production yield their full benefit through competition to the consuming public. On the contrary, much of the economy of machine-production fails to exercise its full influence upon retail prices. There are two chief reasons for this failure. To one of these adequate attention has been already drawn, the growth of definite forms of capitalist monopoly, which secure at some point or other in the production of a commodity, as higher profits, that which under free competition would pass to the consumer through lower shop prices. The second consists in the abnormal growth of the distributive classes, whose multiplication is caused by the limitation which the economy of machinery imposes upon the amount of capital and labour which can find profitable employment in the extractive and manufacturing processes. A larger and larger number of industrial workers obtain a living by a subdivision of the work of distribution carried to a point far beyond the bounds of social utility. For, on the one hand, when competition of manufacturers and transporters is more and more confined to a small number of large businesses which, because their united power of production largely transcends the consumption at profitable prices, are driven into closer competition, a larger amount of labour is continually engaged in the attempt of each firm to secure for itself the largest share of business at the expense of another firm. On the other hand, shut out from effective or profitable competition in the manufacturing industries, a larger amount of capital and labour seeks to engage in those departments of the distributive trade where new-comers have a better chance, and where by local settlement or otherwise they have an opportunity of sharing the amount of distribution that is to be done. Hence a fall of wholesale prices is usually not reflected in a corresponding fall of retail prices, for competition in retail trade, as J.S. Mill clearlyrecognised, "often, instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gains of the high price among a greater number of dealers."[238]

§ 3. The wide difference between the economic position of the skilled mechanic and the common labourer shows how fallacious is that treatment of the influence of machinery upon the condition of the working classes which is commonly found in treatises of political economy. To present a comparative picture of the progress of the working classes during the last half century, which assigns to them an increase of money wages, obtained by averaging a number of rises in different employments, and reduces this increase to real wages without any reference to the different use of wages by different classes, is an unscientific and mischievous method of dealing with one of the most important economic questions. The influence of machine-production appears to be widely different upon the skilled mechanic and the common labourer considered both as producers and consumers, and tends to a wide difference in standard of comfort between the two classes. This difference is further enhanced by the indirect assistance which machinery and large-scale industry gives to the skilled workers to combine and thus frequently to secure wages higher than are economically requisite to secure their efficient work. On the other hand, growing feelings of humanity and a vague but genuine feeling of social justice in an ever larger portion of the public often enable the low-skilled worker to secure a higher standard of comfort than the operation of economic competition alone would enable him to reach. But after due allowance is made for this, the conclusion is forced upon us that the gain of machine-production, so far as an increase in real wages is concerned, has been chiefly taken by the highly-skilled and highly-waged workers, and that as the character of work and wages descends, the proportionate gain accruing from the vast increase of productive power rapidly diminishes, the lowest classes of workers obtaining but an insignificant share.

[238]Principles of Political Economy, Bk. ii., chap. iv. § 3.

§ 1.Growing Employment of Women in Manufacture.§ 2.Machinery favours Employment of Women.§ 3.Wages of Women lower than of Men.§ 4.Causes of Lower Wages for Women.§ 5.Smaller Productivity or Efficiency of Women's Labour.§ 6.Factors enlarging the scope of Women's Wage-work.§ 7."Minimum Wage" lower for Women—Her Labour often subsidised from other sources.§ 8.Woman's Contribution to the Family Wages—Effect of Woman's Work upon Man's Wages.§ 9.Tendency of Woman's Wage to low uniform level.§ 10.Custom and Competition as determinants of Low Wages.§ 11.Lack of Organisation among Women—Effect on Wages.§ 12.Over-supply of Labour in Women's Employments the root-evil.§ 13.Low Wages the chief cause of alleged Low "Value" of Woman's Work.§ 14.Industrial Position of Woman analogous to that of Low-skilled Men.§ 15.Damage to Home-life arising from Women's Wage-work.

§ 1.Growing Employment of Women in Manufacture.

§ 2.Machinery favours Employment of Women.

§ 3.Wages of Women lower than of Men.

§ 4.Causes of Lower Wages for Women.

§ 5.Smaller Productivity or Efficiency of Women's Labour.

§ 6.Factors enlarging the scope of Women's Wage-work.

§ 7."Minimum Wage" lower for Women—Her Labour often subsidised from other sources.

§ 8.Woman's Contribution to the Family Wages—Effect of Woman's Work upon Man's Wages.

§ 9.Tendency of Woman's Wage to low uniform level.

§ 10.Custom and Competition as determinants of Low Wages.

§ 11.Lack of Organisation among Women—Effect on Wages.

§ 12.Over-supply of Labour in Women's Employments the root-evil.

§ 13.Low Wages the chief cause of alleged Low "Value" of Woman's Work.

§ 14.Industrial Position of Woman analogous to that of Low-skilled Men.

§ 15.Damage to Home-life arising from Women's Wage-work.

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

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

M. 1841. F.M. 1851. F.M. 1861. F.M. 1871. F.M. 1881. F.M. 1891. F.Earthenware23,6007,40034,80011,70042,50013,40049,70017,70052,20019,70064,30023,800Fuel, Gas, Chemicals5,80030016,4001,70024,8001,50034,9004,10044,0004,00066,4006,300Fur, Leather, Glue31,6002,40044,5006,50047,3008,30049,40010,20049,40013,30059,10018,200Wood Furniture, Carriages, etc.147,5004,900180,2008,900202,20014,100214,20019,500221,60018,400253,60023,300Paper, Floorcloth, Waterproof, etc.8,9003,20013,6008,30014,60010,70020,30013,40024,60023,20028,60034,200Textiles, Dyeing346,200257,600462,400472,100439,700526,500414,500555,500396,400566,200430,500585,600Dress343,600177,200397,500471,200378,600550,900363,300552,700344,700609,300353,800681,300Food, Drink, Smoking82,7008,000120,90012,400133,40015,600145,70018,500152,30028,900173,10050,200Watches, Instruments, Toys19,60080023,5001,30032,8002,90035,9003,00041,7003,40044,6005,500Printing, Bookbinding, etc.21,1001,80030,4003,80041,3006,20057,6008,60075,00013,100102,10019,100TOTAL1,030,600463,6001,324,200997,9001,357,2001,150,1001,385,5001,203,2001,401,9001,299,5001,576,1001,447,500

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

Textile WorkersTEXTILE WORKERS.

TEXTILE WORKERS.

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

Dress WorkersDRESS WORKERS.

DRESS WORKERS.

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

Employment figures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.Causes relating to "productivity" or efficiency of labour.b.Causes relating to "needs" or standard of comfort.c.Causes relating to character and intensity of competition.

a.Causes relating to "productivity" or efficiency of labour.

b.Causes relating to "needs" or standard of comfort.

c.Causes relating to character and intensity of competition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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