Chapter 15

factory wages

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

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

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

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

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

Those who have investigated the conditions of women workers in towns are agreed as to the enormous influence of class and æsthetic feelings in narrowing the competition. "The girl who makes seal-skin caps at a city warehouse does not wish to work for an East End chamber-master, even though she could make more at the commoner work; just as a soap-box maker would not care to make match-boxes, even though skilled enough to make more by it."[261]This sensitiveness of social distinction in industrial work, based partly upon consideration of the class and character of those employed, partly upon the skill and interest of the work itself, is a widespread and powerful influence among women workers. It tends to bring about that equalisation of wages in skilled and unskilled industries which, as we have seen, practically exists, for if there is an economic riseof wages in the lower grades of work, it does not tempt the competition of high-skilled workers, while a corresponding rise in the wages of the higher grades would draw competitors from the lower grades to qualify themselves for undertaking work which would at once give them more money and more social respect. The lower wages often paid for more highly-skilled work simply mean that the women take out a larger portion of their wage in "gentility." This influence, which is operative amongst men, reducing the wages of routine-mental labour to the level of common unskilled manual labour, is powerful in all ranks of women, rising perhaps in its potency with the social status of the woman. Considerations of "gentility" enable us to obtain "teachers" for board schools at an average "salary" of £75 per annum, as compared with £119 for men, the fixed scale of women teachers in the same grade being 16 per cent. less than for men.

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

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

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

Weekly Wages.Average.Cotton.s. d.Woollen.s. d.Worsted.s. d.Linen.s. d.Men25 323 223 419 9Lads and boys9 48 66 66 3Women15 313 311 118 11Girls6 107 56 24 11[264]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Movement along the line of strongest human feeling. Weakest workers are protected first, pauper children who are the least "free" parties in a contract, then protection advances to other children, young persons, women, men.2. Protective legislation moves from the more highly organised to the less highly organised structures of industry. Cotton-mills are sole subjects of earliest Factory Acts, then woollen, then other textile trades, trades subsidiary to textile industries, non-textile factories, larger workshops, domestic workshops, retail trade, domestic service.3. Growing complexity of aims and of legislative machinery. Primarily Factory Acts aim at regulation of quantity of labour. Reductions of the working-day forms a backbone of this legislation. A twelve-hour day, ten, nine, eight, covering wider classes of workers and applied to a larger number of industries, marks the line of movement. With each advance the basis of protection is broadened, other considerations of machine-fencing, sanitation, education, etc., entering more largely into the Acts.4. Increased effectiveness of legislation with growth of centralised control. Local initiative and control proves ineffective, yields to State inspection, the number of inspectors growing, and their power increasing. Improvements in the mechanism of central control, an increased number of inspectors, working men and women inspectors, are the distinguishing features of recent State protection of labour.

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

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

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

Date.Industries affected.Class of Workers chiefly protected.Nature of Regulations.Mode of Administration.Effectiveness.1802Cotton and 'other mills' (applied exclusively to cotton).Apprenticed Pauper Children.12 Hours Day. Night-work regulated. Education, sanitation.Local Justices to appoint visitors.Virtually inoperative.1819}Do.ChildrenProhibition of workDo.Do.1820}Do.(not Paupers).under 9 years. Young persons (under 16) a 12 hour day. Regulation for meal-time. Amendment of 1802 Act.1825Do.Do.Shortened Saturday labour. Penalties provided for breach of Factory Regulations.Do.(Millowners and relatives prevented from acting on the Bench in reference to Factory Acts.)Generally evaded.1833}1834}All Textile Industries.Children and Young Persons.48 Hours Week for Children (9-13), 69 Hours for Young Persons (13-18). Prohibits night-work for Young Persons. Children in Silk Mills, 10 Hours Day.Government Inspectors (4).1 out of every 11 millowners convicted in 1834, in spite of defiant attitude of magistrates.1842Mines.Children and Women.No underground work.Mine Inspectors.1844}to }1846}Printworks.Children, Young Persons, Women.Factory Acts applied. 'False relay' system for children checked. 6-1/2 Hours Day for Children. Female Young Persons age raised to 21. 12 Hours Day for Women. No night-work for women.Government Inspectors.Improved administration, but 'false relay' system reestablished. Fines inadequate.1847}to }1850}Textile Factories, Printworks, etc.Do.10 Hours Day, afterwards 10½ Hours Day for Young Persons and Women, practically for Men.Increased Staff of Government Inspectors.Largely defied or evaded for some time.1860Bleaching and Dyeing.Do.Do., with special regulations for overtime.1860Coal and Iron Mines.All Workers.Restriction on male labour under 12. Safety, ventilation, etc.Mine Inspectors.1863Finishing processes in Bleaching and Dyeing, Bakehouses, Alkali Works.Children, Young Persons, Women.Factory Acts generally applied.1864Non-textile Factories, (Earthenware, Fustian Cutting, Cartridges, Lucifer Matches, Paper-staining).Do.1867All Factories & Workshops.Do.Factory Acts Extension Act. Workshops Regulation Act, applying to Workshops. Factory rules affecting hours, education, etc. in modified form.Workshops Act left at first to local authorities, brought under Factory Inspectors, 1871.Workshops Act dead letter in 1868-69. Later, fines inadequate. Inspectors inadequate.1867Agriculture.Children, Women.Act for Suppression of Agricultural Gangs fixing minimum age at 8, regulating employment of Women.1870Printworks, Bleaching, Dyeing.Children, Young Persons, Women.Application of chief provisions of 1867 Factory Act.1871Brickworks and Fields.Children and Young Female Persons.Forbids employment. Improved conditions for Women.1873Agriculture.Children.Minimum age raised to 10.1878Factories, Workshops, Agriculture.Children, Young Persons, Women, (incidentally Men).Consolidation of Factories & Workshops Act (extending some provisions to agriculture).Increased Staff of Inspectors.1891Do.Do.Amendment of Factories & Workshops Act. Age for Children raised to 11. Protection in dangerous trades.Board of Trade power to schedule dangerous trades.1892Shops.Children, Young Persons.Limits working-day.1893Various Trades.All workers.Restrictions on dangerous trades.Appointment of working men and women Inspectors.1893Railways.Adult malesRestrictions on hours of labour.Increased number of Inspectors.

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

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

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

[242]Report to Commission of Labour on Employments of Women, pp. 142, 146.

[243]Quoted Wells,Contemporary Review, 1887, p. 392.

[244]Marsden,Cotton Spinning, p. 296, etc. S. Andrew,Fifty Years Cotton Trade, p. 7.

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

[246]Report to Commission of Labour on Employment of Women, p. 141.

[247]Webb,Economic Journal, vol. i. p. 658.

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

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

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

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

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

[253]Labour and Life of the People, vol. i. p. 410.

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

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

[256]Gunton,Wealth and Progress, p. 169.

[257]Report of the Statistics of Labour, p. 71.

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

[259]Labour and Life of the People, vol. i. p. 469.

[260]Labour and Life of the People, vol. i. p. 460.

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

[262]Smart,Woman's Wages, p. 23.

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

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