work suffered next morning. The same may be said
hi regard to other improvements in working conditions,
such as ventilation, cleanliness, the provision of baths,
refectories, medical aid, means of recreation ; those
who have taken such measures have found themselves
rewarded by increased output. Even from the com-
mercial standpoint we do not appear to have nearly
exhausted the possibilities of betterment. There can
be little doubt, judging from existing means of infor-
mation, that if the whole of the industry of the country
were run on shorter hours, higher wages, and greatly
improved hygienic conditions, it would be very much
more productive than it is. From the social point of
view such betterment is greatly needed, especially in
the case of the young of both sexes, whose health is
most easily impaired by over- strain, and who are
OF PART I. 203
destined to be the workers, parents, and citizens of
the next generation.
2. Status. A still more important result of the
industrial revolution is the changed status of the wage-
earner. Here it appears to me that women have pro-
fited more than men. Broadly speaking, men, what-
ever their ultimate gain in wages, lost in status through
the industrial revolution. The prospect of rising to
be masters in their own trade, though not universal,
was certainly very much greater under the domestic
system of working with small capital than under the
modern system of large concentrated capital. In this
respect women did not lose in anything like the same
proportion as did men, because they had very much
less to lose. The number of women who could rise
to be employers on their own account must have been
small. No doubt a larger number lost the prospect
of industrial partnership with their husbands in the
joint management of a small business. But for
women wage -earners the industrial revolution does
mean a certain advance in status. The woman-
worker in the great industry sells her work per piece
or per hour, not her whole life and personality. I
shall perhaps be told indignantly that the poor
woman in a low-class factory or laundry is as verit-
able a drudge as the most oppressed serf of mediaeval
times, and I do not attempt to deny it. But we
are here discussing potential changes, not the actual
conditions now in force. The drudgery performed by
women under the great industry is of the nature of a
survival, and results from the fact that women can
still be got to work in such ways for very low wages.
These conditions are largely the heritage of the past
and can be changed and humanised whenever the
204 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
women themselves or society acting collectively makes
a sufficiently strong demand.
Nor must it be forgotten that in modern industry
women have a further advantage in being paid their
own wages instead of being merely remunerated
collectively in the family, as was often the case formerly.
Modern industry thus holds for the woman-worker the
possibility of a more dignified and self-respecting
position than the domestic system of the near past.
3. The Possibilities of State Control. We next note
that the industrial revolution has led to State control,
and that the Factory Act, whatever its defects in detail
and its inadequacy to meet the situation, has greatly
improved the status of the woman-worker by giving
her statutory rights against the employer. This aspect
has often been overlooked by leaders of the women's
rights movement, who at one time tended to regard
factory legislation as putting the woman in a childish
and undignified position. But the true inwardness of
the Factory Act is the assertion that workers are persons,
with rights and needs that are sufficiently important to
override commercial requirements. It has not only aided
the progress of industrial betterment, but it has taught
women that they are of significance and importance to
the State, and has brought them out of the position of
mere servility. A great deal more may be effected
in the future when the governing class attain to more
enlightened views of civics and economics, and when
the women themselves become politically and socially
conscious of what they want.
4. Association. The factory system has also made it
possible for women to strengthen their position by associa-
tion and combination. Such association affords women
the best opportunity they have ever yet had of attain-
OF PART I. 205
ing economic independence on honourable conditions.
And it is interesting to note that just as women are
now awakening to social consciousness, and beginning
to feel themselves members of a larger whole, so the
Trade Unions are now reaching out to issues broader
than the mere economic struggle, and are beginning to
give more attention to social care for life and health.
In the past the Unions have very largely taken what
might be termed a juristic view of their functions.
They have been concerned mainly with wage-questions,
with the prevention of fraud through " truck," oppres-
sive fines and unfair deductions ; they have penalised
backwardness in the improvement of machinery. As
the management of a cotton mill concentrates on
extorting the last unit of effort from the workers, so
the Unions in the past have very largely concentrated
on securing that the workers at any rate got their
share of the results. But in more recent years the
Unions are beginning to see that this, though good, is
not enough. Industrial efficiency may be too dearly
bought if it involves a loss of health, character, or
personality, and recent reports of the cotton Unions
show that the officials are increasingly aware of the
seriousness of this matter from the point of view of
health. E.g., the heavy rate of sickness among
women-workers disclosed by the working of the In-
surance Act has turned the attention of the Weavers'
Amalgamation towards the insanitary conditions in
which even now so many operatives do their work.
" Fresh air, which is such an essential to health, is a bad
thing for the cotton industry ; what is wanted is damp
air, and calico is more important than men and women.
When they are not well they can come on the Insurance
Act. We want to talk less about malingering and
206 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
more about insanitary conditions, which is the real
cause of excessive claims." * Just as the woman's
movement is widening its vision to understand the
needs of labour, so the Unions now are widening theirs
to understand the claims of life and health. The
officials are already alive, if unfortunately thej Lanca-
shire parents are not, to the evils of the half-time
system. And the co-operation of women in the active
work of the Union will strengthen this conviction.
The Future Organisation of Women. As women come
more and more into conscious citizenship they will, as
Professor Pearson prophesied twenty years ago, demand
a more comprehensive policy of social welfare. We
may expect in the future that the care of adolescence
and the care of maternity will be considered more closely
than it ever has been ; also that such social provision
for maternity as may be made will be linked up with
the working life of women, so that marriage shall not
be penalised by requiring women against their will
to leave work when they marry, and on the other
hand, that the home-loving woman of domestic tastes
shall not be forced, as now so often happens, to leave
her children and painfully earn their bread outside
her home.
One of the great obstacles in the way of attaining
such measures of reform has been, not only the com-
parative lack of organisation of women-workers but the
difficulty of adapting existing organisations, devised
for the trade purposes of the workers at a single in-
dustrial process, to these broader social purposes. The
majority, as we have seen, in Chapter III., leave work
on marriage, and the problem results, how to bridge
1 Northern Counties Amalgamation of Weavers, etc. Report for
July 1913.
OF PART I. 207
the " cleft " l in the woman's career and give her an
abiding interest in organisation. How, the old-
fashioned craft organiser asks with a mild despair, how
is he to organise reckless young people for whom work
is a meanwhile employment, who go and get married
and upset all his calculations ? How are women, whose
work is temporary, to be given a permanent interest
in their association ? For some women, no doubt, their
work is a life-work, but it is most unlikely it will ever
be so for the majority. Mr. Wells's idea, shared with
the late William James, of a kind of conscription of the
young people to do socially necessary work for a few
short years has a curious applicability to women.
There are certain distinct stages in a woman's life
which the exigencies of the present commercial society
fit very badly. One can foresee a society arranged to
do more justice to human needs and aptitudes in which
girls might enter certain employments as a transition
stage in their careers ; then marry and adopt home-
making and child-tending as their occupation for a
period ; then, when domestic claims slackened off in
urgency, devote their experience and knowledge of life
to administrative work, social, educational, or for public
health. Other women with a strong leaning to a
special skilled occupation might prefer to carry it on
continuously. Different types of organisation will be
needed for different types of work. If the craft Union
cannot fit all types of male workers, much less can it
fit all women. Trade Unionism as we have known it
mostly presupposed a permanent craft or occupation,
and one of the great troubles of Trade Unions for women
1 I owe the suggestion of a " cleft " (Spalte) in the woman-
worker's career to Madame E. Gnauck-Kuhne, who developed it in
her book, Die deutsche Frau. Compare " Statistics of Women's Life
and Employment," Journal of the Statistical Society, 1909.
208 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
is that so many women do not aspire to a permanent
occupation. The " clearing-house " type of Union
suggested by Mr. Cole to accommodate workers who
follow an occupation now in one industry, now in
another, might possibly be adapted to meet the needs
of women. Perhaps a time will come when the Unions
that include the " woman-worker " will be linked up
with societies like the Women's Labour League or the
Women's Co-operative Guild, whose membership con-
sists mainly of " working women," that is to say of
women of the industrial classes who are not themselves
earners.
These speculations may seem to run ahead of the
industrial world we now know. But all around us the
Trade Unions are federating into larger and larger
bodies, and when these great organisations have
attained to that central control and direction they have
been feeling after for generations, they will certainly
discover that it is essential for them to develop a con-
siderable degree of interdependence between the Trade
Unions and consumers' co-operation. Therewith they
can hardly fail to grasp the latent possibilities of the
membership of women. The woman is much less an
earner, much more a consumer and spender than is
the man ; she is more interested in life than in work,
in wealth for use than in wealth for power. She suffers
as a consumer and a spender both when prices go up
and when wages go down. It is difficult to believe that
the working classes will not before long develop some
effective organisation to protect themselves against the
exploitation that is accountable, in part at least, for
both processes. Mrs. Billington Greig's masterly study
of the exploitation of the unorganised consumer is a
demonstration of the need of awakening some collective
OF PART I. 209
conscience in a specially inert and inarticulate class,
and Miss Margaretta Hicks is making most valuable
experiments in the practical work of organising women
as consumers. The supposed apathy and lack of public
spirit in women has been largely due to the lack of
any visible organic connection between their industrial
life as earners and their domestic life as spenders and
home-makers. Probably the future of the organisation
of women will depend on the degree in which this
connexion can be made vital and effective.
PART II
CHAPTER VI.
WOMEN'S WAGES IN THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906.
BY J. J. MALLON.
UNTIL a few years ago no statistics comprehensive in
character relating to women's wages were available.
In 1906, however, the Board of Trade took " census "
of the wages and hours of labour of the persons em-
ployed in all the industries of the country, and the
result has been a series of volumes which, though
becoming rapidly out-of-date, nevertheless throw much
light on the general level of wages in various trades and
occupations.
The enquiry made by the Board of Trade was a
voluntary enquiry : that is to say, it was left to the
public spirit and general amiability of the employer to
make a return or not as he pleased. There was no
penalty for failure to furnish information. The response
to the Board of Trade efforts was not, however, un-
satisfactory, and returns were forthcoming, roughly
speaking, in respect of nearly half the wage-earners
employed in the different industries. Unfortunately,
however, the fact that the authorities were dependent
for their information on the goodwill of the employers
213
214 WOMEN'S WAGES IN
has probably given the statistics a certain bias. The
schedules supplied were somewhat forbidding in appear-
ance, and often troublesome to fill in, and it may fairly
be surmised that it was the good rather than the bad
employers who put themselves to the trouble of comply-
ing with the official request. Hence of all the workers
employed in the United Kingdom it was probably
those who were more fortunately placed in regard to
whom we now have statistics. The condition of those
working for employers who thought that the less
said about their wages-sheets the better, still remains
obscure. The statistics upon which comments are
now offered may therefore convey a more favourable
impression than the facts, if fully known, would justify,
especially when it is remembered that 1906, the year
of the census, was one of good trade. On the other
hand, it needs to be borne in mind that since the enquiry
was made, the level of wages in many trades is known
to have been raised.
The Earnings and Hours of Labour Enquiry, as it
was officially called, was directed primarily to ascertain-
ing for each of the principal occupations in the various
trades what were the usual earnings or wages of a worker
employed for full time in an ordinary week, the last
pay week in September being the particular week
suggested subject to the employer's view as to its
normality.
With a view to supplementing or checking the
details of actual earnings in a particular week, informa-
tion was also sought with respect to the total wages
paid in an ordinary pay week in each month, and also
with respect to the total wages paid in the year. From
this last-mentioned body of information it is possible
to deduce some tentative conclusions in regard to the
THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906 215
extent to which the industry suffers from seasonal
variations. This matter will be further considered
below. It is, however, mainly the information in
regard to full-time earnings in an ordinary week with
which it is proposed to deal. Statistics, it may safely
be assumed, are abhorred of the general reader ; but
they are the alphabet of social study and cannot be
dispensed with, and certain tables must now be intro-
duced showing the relative wage level for women in a
number of important industries. It should be noted
that the abstract " woman " who is dealt with in the
statistics is a female person of eighteen years of age or
over. She may be, though is not likely to be, a new
recruit or learner. She may, on the other hand, be
very old and infirm, though here again the probabilities
are against it. In all cases, however, she works full
time, which roughly we may regard as being about
fifty to fifty-two hours a week.
The following table shows the average weekly full-
time earnings of women employed in the principal
textile industries. In addition to the average, which
may of course be a compound of a great many widely
differing conditions, the proportion or percentage of
women whose earnings fall within certain limits is also
shown. 1
1 Earnings and Hours Enquiry: Textile Industries, Cd. 4545,
1909; Clothing Trades, Cd. 4844, 1909.
2l6
WOMEN'S WAGES IN
TABLE A
.
Percentage numbers of women
Industry.
working full time in the last pay-week
of September 1906, whose earnings
fell within the undermentioned limits.
Average
earnings for
Under IDS.
ios. and
under 155.
155. and
over.
s. d.
All textiles .
I33
38-8
47'9
15 5
Cotton
3-o
20'9
76-!
18 8
Hosiery-
14-5
44'4
4 I-1
M 3
Wool, worsted .
107
55-6
33'7
13 10
Lace .
18-1
49-3
32-6
13 5
Jute .
6-2
66-4
27-4
13 5
Silk ... ,
38-9
47-8
13-3
II 2
Linen
41-7
49-1
9-2
10 9
The cotton industry stands out conspicuously as
showing a relatively high level of earnings, and we find
in marked contrast to the other trades in this group
that only 3 per cent of the women earned less than
ios. a week. The results coincide of course with popular
impression, it being well known that the mill lasses of
Lancashire are the best paid probably because the
best organised large group of women workers in the
country.
The woollen and worsted industry, like the cotton,
is localised, being confined mainly to Yorkshire, though
the woollen industry of the lowlands of Scotland is
also important. In this trade the results are much
less satisfactory, the average being 135. iod., and con-
siderably more than half the total number employed
earning less than 153. It may be noted, however, that
in one town, Huddersfield, where women and men are
THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906 217
engaged largely on the same work, the average, 175. id., is
considerably higher than that for the United Kingdom.
Hosiery is also strongly localised, the majority of
the workpeople being employed in Leicestershire,
Nottinghamshire, and certain neighbouring parts of
Derbyshire. It will be seen that in order of average
earnings this industry stands next to, though a good
distance from, cotton, the average being 145. 3d. The
best-paid centre is Leicester itself, where the average is
i6s. 2d. Even in this relatively highly paid trade,
however, more than half of the women earned less than
155., and it should be noted that this result applies to
factory workers only. In the hosiery trade a consider-
able amount of homework is also carried on, and though
statistics are not at present available, it may safely
be assumed that earnings in the homework section of
the trade are less than in the factory section.
At the bottom of the list is the linen industry. The
average here is only los. gd. ; less than one-tenth of the
women employed earned more than 155., while between
one-third and one-half earned less than los. The
industry, as is well known, is centred mainly in the
North of Ireland, but is also carried on to a considerable
extent in Scotland and to a small extent in England.
The figures for Ireland, however, are not markedly
lower than those for the other districts. It is true that
for the whole of Ireland outside Belfast the average
is only 95. 9d., but the figure for Belfast itself, namely
los. iod., coincides with that for England.
The manufacture of jute is carried on almost entirely
in the neighbourhood of Dundee. The average is
therefore a local average.
The other industries require no special comment.
The second large group of trades, important from
218
WOMEN'S WAGES IN
the point of view of women's employment, is the clothing
industry. Although the averages in this group do not
show the extremes of the textile group, the industry
is nevertheless one in which a great variety of skill and
remuneration prevails. The following are the statistics,
certain of the smaller trades such as silk and felt hat-
making and leather glove-making being omitted for
the sake of brevity :
TABLE B
Percentage numbers of women
Industry.
working full time in the last pay-week
of September 1906, whose earnings
fell within the under-mentioned limits.
Average
earnings for
Under IDS.
IQS. and
under 155.
155. and
over.
full time.
All clothing ...
21-6
45'i
33-3
s. d.
13 6
Dress, millinery,
etc. (factory) .
12-6
39'5
47'9
15 5
Tailoring (be-
spoke)
15-4
42-4
42-2
I 4 2
Dress, millinery,
etc. (workshop)
28-0
36-2
35-8
13 10
Shirt, blouse,
underclothing,
etc. .
22-2
46-0
3i-8
13 4
Boot and shoe
(ready-made) .
12-4
58-9
287
13 i
Tailoring (ready-
made)
24-0
46-6
29-4
12 II
Laundry (factory)
2O'5
52-0
27'5
12 10
Corsets (factory) .
28-8
48-3
22-9
12 2
It will be seen that the dress, millinery and mantle-
making group is divided into two according to whether
the place of manufacture is a workshop or factory.
THE WAGE CENSUS OF 1906 219
For this purpose a workshop means a place where
mechanical power is not used, and a factory a place
where such power is used. The distinction also
roughly corresponds to the difference between ordered
or bespoke and ready-made garments, ordered garments
being made principally in workshops, and ready-made
garments principally though not so exclusively in
factories. This being the case it may perhaps be
surprising that the average for the workshop section,
namely 135. iod., is so appreciably below that for the
factory section, namely 155. 5d., and the statistics in
this respect serve to indicate that the introduction of
mechanical power and other labour-saving devices into
industry by no means implies that from the point of
view of wages the workers employed will be any
worse off.
The workshop section of the dress, etc., trade is
almost entirely a woman's trade, the number of men
and boys being insignificant. Within the trade itself
a considerable range of earnings exists. Fitters and
cutters form the aristocracy of the profession, but one
which is recruited from the humbler ranks. The
average earnings for the United Kingdom of those who
" lived out " amounted to 335. 5d., and of those who
" lived in " 275. 9d.
The practice of " living in " and being provided
with full board and lodging, or at any rate being provided
with partial board, is a feature of this section of the
trade, some 2500 women and girls out of 40,000 included
in the returns being noted as receiving payment in
kind in addition to their cash wages.
Another feature of the trade is the relatively large
number of apprentices or learners who received no
wages at all, 87 per cent of the women and girls in
220 WOMEN'S WAGES IN
the dressmaking trade, 43 per cent of the milliners, and
17 per cent of the mantle-makers being so returned.
These, of course, would be mostly under eighteen years
of age, and their inclusion in the statistics would not
affect the average given in the table for women. Con-
sidering the general level of earnings which the statistics
disclose, one can only conjecture that, as in certain
men's professions, the existence of a few well-paid posts
exercises an attraction to enter the trade, the strength
of which is out of all proportion to the chance of obtain-
ing one of these prizes.
Factory dressmaking is at present a relatively small
but at the same time rapidly-growing group. Being
confined mainly to the production of ready-made clothes
the process of cutting is capable of being standardised
and systematised in such a way that the degree of skill
required is much less than that looked for in the highly-
paid cutter and fitter of the " made-to-order " work-
shop. The other processes also tend to conform to a
certain uniform standard of skill. Hence the range
of earnings is much less wide than in the workshop
section of the trade, though as before noted the general
level is higher. It should also be observed that while
time-work is the usual method adopted in the workshops,
payment by piece is very common in factories, and the
detailed statistics furnished in the official report make
it clear that this method gives the diligent and rapid