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Title: Women  in the Printing Trades.
       A Sociological Study.

Author: Various

Editor: James Ramsay MacDonald

Release Date: March 8, 2013 [EBook #42275]

Language: English

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WOMEN IN THE PRINTING TRADES: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. EDITED BY J. RAMSAY MACDONALD,

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.

My only qualification for writing this preface is the circumstance that, as a representative of the Royal Economic Society, I attended the meetings of the Committee appointed to direct and conduct the investigations of which the results are summarised in the following pages. From what I saw and heard at those meetings I received the impression that the evidence here recorded was collected with great diligence and sifted with great care. It seems to constitute a solid contribution to a department of political economy which has perhaps not received as much attention as it deserves.

Among the aspects of women's work on which some new light has been thrown, is the question why women in return for the same or a not very different amount of work should often receive very much less wages. It is a question which not only in its bearing on social life is of the highest practical importance, but also from a more abstract point of view is of considerable theoretical interest, so far as it seems to present the paradox of entrepreneurs paying at very different rates for factors of production which are not so different in efficiency.

The question as stated has some resemblance to the well-known demand for an explanation which Charles II. preferred to the Royal Society: there occurs the preliminary question whether the circumstance to be explained exists. The alleged disproportion between the remuneration of men and women is indeed sometimes only apparent, or at least appears to be greater than it is really. Often, however, it is real and great where it is not apparent.

On the one hand, in many cases in which at first sight women[Pg vi] seem to be doing the same work as men for less pay, it is found on careful inquiry, that they are not doing the same work. "The same work nominally is not always the same work actually," as the Editor reminds us (Chapter IV. par. 1). "Men feeders, for instance, carry formes and do little things about the machine which women do not do." In this and other ways men afford to the employer a greater "net advantageousness," as Mr. Sidney Webb puts it in his valuable study on the "Alleged Differences in the Wages paid to Men and to Women for similar Work" (Economic Journal, Vol. I. pp. 635 et seq.). The examples of this phenomenon adduced by Mr. Webb, and in the evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour, are supplemented by these records. To instance one of the less obvious ways in which a difference in net advantageousness makes itself felt, employers say: "It does not pay to train women: they would leave us before we got the same return for our trouble as we get from men." At the same time it is to be noticed in many of these cases that though the work of women is less efficient, it is not so inferior as their pay. For instance, a Manchester employer "estimated that a woman was two-thirds as valuable in a printer's and stationer's warehouse as a man, and she was paid 15s. or 20s. to his 33s.," (p. 47, note).

In other cases the difference between the remuneration of men and women for similar work is not obvious because they work in different branches of industry. For example, only five instances of women being employed as lithographic artists are on record (Chapter IV. par. 1). Other branches of the printing trade are as exclusively women's work. Such data afford no direct and exact comparison between the remuneration of the two classes in relation to the work done by them respectively. As Mr. Webb concludes, the inferiority of women's wages cannot be gathered "from a comparison of the rates for identical work, for few such cases exist, but rather from a comparison of the standards of remuneration in men's[Pg vii] and women's occupations respectively." "Looked at in this light," he continues, "it seems probable that women's work is usually less highly paid than work of equivalent difficulty and productivity done by men." As Mrs. Fawcett points out in an important supplement to Mr. Webb's article (Economic Journal, Vol. II. p. 174), women are crowded into classes of industry which are less remunerative than those open to men.

Recognising the fact of different remuneration for the same amount of work, we have next to consider the causes. It is evident that the sort of explanation offered by Adam Smith for difference of wages in different employments will not avail much in the case with which we are dealing. The lower remuneration of women is not brought about by way of compensation for the greater "agreeableness" or other pleasurable incident or perquisite of their tasks. Possibly we might refer to this head, as well as to others, the circumstance that women having in prospect the hopes of domestic life are likely to take less interest in their trade than men do who cast in their lot for life, if this difference in future prospects is attended with a difference in the effort of attention given to work in the present. But doubtless the explanation is to be found chiefly not in compensation produced by the levelling action of competition, but in the absence of competition between men and women—in the existence of monopoly whether natural or artificial, to use Mill's distinction (Political Economy, Vol. II. Chapter XIV.), together with custom and what Mill calls "the unintended effect of general social regulations."

A natural monopoly is constituted by the superior strength of man, the occasional exercise of which, as just noticed, entitles him to some superiority of pay for work which at first sight may appear almost identical with that of women. The experience recorded in the following pages does not afford any expectation that this kind of superiority tends to vanish. "There is an almost unanimous chorus of opinion that women's work as compositors is so inferior to men's that it does not[Pg viii] pay in the long run" (Chapter IV.). Speaking of the physiological differences between men and women in relation to their work, the Editor concludes that "when all false emphasis and exaggeration have been removed a considerable residuum of difference must remain."

Custom and the somewhat capricious sense of decorum counts for more than might have been expected in restricting women to certain industries, and accordingly, on the principle emphasised by Mrs. Fawcett, depressing their wages. "I know my place, and I'm not going to take men's work from them," said a female operative to an employer who wanted her to varnish books (Chapter IV.). "Why, that is men's work, and we shouldn't think of doing it," was the answer given by forewomen and others to the question why they did not turn their hands to simple and easy processes which were being done by men (Chapter V.).

Among artificial monopolies must be placed that which is constituted by legislation. The Factory Laws, of which a lucid summary is given (Chapter VI. § 1), impose certain conditions on the work of women which, it may be supposed and has been asserted, place them at a sensible disadvantage in their competition with men, who are free from those restrictions. But the evidence now collected goes to prove that the disadvantage occasioned to women in their competition with men by the Factory Acts is not appreciable; thus confirming the conclusions obtained by the Committee which the British Association appointed to consider this very question (Report, 1903). The evidence of the large majority of employers in the printing trade is in favour of the Acts; the evidence of employees is almost unanimous. Of a hundred and three employers "not half-a-dozen remembered dismissing women in consequence of the new enactment" (Chapter VI. § 2). Of a hundred and three employers, who expressed an opinion, twenty-six stated that in their opinion legislation had not affected women's labour at all, sixty considered it to have[Pg ix] been beneficial, and seventeen looked on all legislation as grandmotherly and ridiculous (p. 82). The opinion of the employers is much influenced by the experience that "after overtime the next day's work suffers." The still stronger feeling of the workers in favour of the Factory Acts is partly based on the same fact: "Long hours," said one, "don't do any good, for they mean that you work less next day: if you work all night, then you are so tired that you have to take a day off; you have gained nothing" (p. 86). Upon the whole the moderate conclusion appears to be that "except in a few small houses the employment of women as compositors has not been affected by the Factory Acts" (p. 75). What little evidence there is to the contrary is exhibited by the Editor with creditable candour (p. 80). It is admitted that a "slight residuum of night work" may have been transferred to male hands.

Trades unionism forms another species of "artificial monopoly," the organisation of men in the printing trades being much stronger than that of women. The difference is partly accounted for by the fact, already noticed in other connections, that woman having an eye to marriage is not equally wedded to her trade. Some frankly admit that "marriage is sure to come along, and then they will work in factories and workshops no longer" (p. 42). Whatever the cause, it appears from the Editor's historical retrospect that women's unions have not flourished in the trades under consideration. All attempts to organise women in the printing trade proper, as distinguished from the bookbinding industry, have failed. Even the Society of Women Employed in Bookbinding, though organised by Mrs. Emma Paterson, seems to have had only a moderate success. Thus the men unionists have had their way in arranging that their standard wage should not be lowered by the influx of cheap labour offered by women.

Some unions indeed admit women on equal terms with men, with less advantage to the former than might have been expected. A regulation of this sort adopted by the London[Pg x] Society of Compositors is followed by the result that "it is practically impossible for any woman to join the society" (p. 28). At Perth a few years ago, when women began to be employed on general bookwork and setting up newspaper copy, the men's union decided that the women must either be paid the same rates as the men or be got rid of altogether (p. 46). One general result of such primâ facie equalitarian regulations is probably to promote that crowding of women into less remunerative occupations which was above noticed as a cardinal fact of the situation. It is for this reason apparently that Mrs. Fawcett does not welcome the principle that "women's wages should be the same as men's for the same work." "To encourage women under all circumstances to claim the same wages as men for the same work would be to exclude from work altogether all those women who were industrially less efficient than men" (see the article by Mrs. Fawcett referred to in the Economic Journal, Vol. III. p. 366, and compare her article in that Journal, Vol. II. p. 174, already cited).

Of course it may be argued that, in view of the circumstance that women workers are often subsidised by men and of other incidents of family life, to permit the unrestricted competition of men with women would tend to lower the remuneration and degrade the character of labour as a whole. Without expressing an opinion on this matter, seeking to explain rather than to justify the cardinal fact that the industrial competition between men and women is very imperfect, one may suggest that it is favoured by another element of monopoly. The employer in a large business has some of the powers proper to monopoly. As Professor Marshall says (in a somewhat different connection) "a man who employs a thousand others is in himself an absolutely rigid combination to the extent of one thousand units in the labour market." This consideration may render it easier to understand how it is possible for certain employers to give effect to the dispositions which are attributed to them in the[Pg xi] following passages: "Conservative notions about women's sphere, and chivalrous prejudices about protecting them, influence certain employers in determining what work they ought to do" (p. 52). "A rigid sense of propriety based on a certain amount of good reason, seems to determine many employers to separate male from female departments" (p. 53).

A notice of this subject would be inadequate without reference to the relation between the use of machinery and the competition of women against men. In some cases the cheapness of women's work averts the introduction of machinery. "One investigator whilst being taken over certain large printing works was shown women folding one of the illustrated weekly papers. Folding machines were standing idle in the department, and she was told that these were used by the men when folding had to be done at times when the Factory Law prohibited women's labour" (p. 98). A well-known bookbinder said: "If women would take a fair price for work done it would not be necessary to employ machinery." In the Warrington newspaper offices the cheapness of women's labour makes it unnecessary to introduce linotypes (pp. 46 and 98). On the other hand, in the case of bookbinding, the employment of machinery makes it possible for the less skilled and lower-paid women to do work formerly done by men (p. 48). But the relations are not in general so simple. Rather, as the Editor remarks, "what really happens is an all-round shifting of the distribution of labour power and skill, and a rearrangement of the subdivision of labour" (p. 48). The cheerful assumption proper to abstract economics, that labour displaced by the introduction of machinery can turn to some other employment, is seldom, it is to be feared, so perfectly realised as in the case of the bookbinders below mentioned (p. 48, note): "There was much gloom among the men when the rounding and backing machine came in, but though profitable work was taken away from the 'rounders' and 'backers' they had more 'lining up' and other work to do in consequence, so nobody was turned off."

[Pg xii]

So far I have adverted to only one of the problems which are elucidated by this investigation. A sense of proportion might require that I should dwell on other topics of great interest such as home work and the work of married women, the technique of the industries connected with printing which the Editor has described minutely, and the statistics relating to women's wages, in the treatment of which a master hand, that of Mr. A. L. Bowley, may be recognised. But I must not go on like the chairman who with a lengthy opening address detains an audience eager to hear the principal speaker. I will only in conclusion express the hope that the Committee which has obtained such useful results may be enabled to prosecute further investigations with like diligence.

F. Y. EDGEWORTH.

INTRODUCTION.

The investigation upon which this book is based was undertaken by the Women's Industrial Council; the Royal Statistical Society, the Royal Economic Society, and the Hutchinson Trustees consenting to be represented on the Committee responsible for the work. Upon this Committee, the Women's Industrial Council was represented by Miss A. Black, Miss C. Black, Mrs. Hammond, Mr. Stephen N. Fox, and Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald; the Royal Statistical Society by Mr. J. A. Baines; the Royal Economic Society by Professor F. Y. Edgeworth, and the Hutchinson Trustees by Mr. A. L. Bowley. Mrs. Hogg also represented the Women's Industrial Council up to her death in 1900.

The Committee takes this opportunity of thanking the Hutchinson Trustees for their liberal financial assistance, and of expressing its appreciation of the services so carefully and enthusiastically performed by the investigators, especially those of Mrs. Hammond, who is mainly responsible for the work done in London; of Mrs. Oakeshott, who assisted Mrs. Hammond; of Mrs. Muirhead, who supplied information about Birmingham; of Miss Harrison, who investigated Bristol and the South-West, and Leeds and district; and of Miss Irwin and Mr. Jones, who were in charge of the Scottish enquiries. To the many employers, Trade Union secretaries, and others who were so willing to give assistance to the investigators, the Committee also desires to express its gratitude.

Whoever has had experience in collecting and sifting such evidence as is dealt with in this investigation knows how difficult it is to arrive at proper values and just conclusions. And women's trades seem to offer special difficulties of this[Pg xvi] kind. There are no Trade Union conditions, no general trade rules, no uniformity in apprenticeships, so far as the woman worker is concerned, and the variations in conditions are most striking, even between neighbouring employers drawing their supply of labour from practically the same district, though perhaps not from the same social strata. That difference in strata is in some cases a predominating factor in women's employment, and it everywhere confuses economic and industrial considerations. When to this irregularity of conditions is added a reticence as to "one's personal affairs," due partly to women's lack of the sense that their position is of public interest, and also partly to an unwillingness shown by many employers to disclose the facts of cheap labour, it can readily be seen that the Committee had to exercise the greatest care in its work.

When the investigation was begun there was an idea that it should be the commencement of an enquiry into women's labour in every trade of any importance, but whether that will be carried on or not will now depend on the reception of this volume and on what further financial assistance is forthcoming. The group of trades selected for first treatment shows neither an overwhelming preponderance of women nor a very marked increase in the employment of women. But it illustrates in a specially normal way the main problems of women's labour under ordinary modern conditions. Upon one important point this group does not throw much light. The employment of Women in the Printing Trades does not show to any satisfactory extent the family influence of married and unmarried women wage earners. What information the Committee was able to gather is dealt with in its proper place, but careful enquiries will have to be made in the highly-organised factory industries before that wealth of fact can be obtained from which conclusions can be drawn, with details properly filled in, regarding the influence of women's earnings upon family incomes.

In other respects these trades have yielded most interesting[Pg xvii] information. They illustrate the industrial mind and capacity of women in the different aspects of training, rates of pay, competition with men, influence of machinery, effect of legislation, and so on. These subjects are dealt with under separate chapters, and though it has been the chief aim of the Committee to present well-sifted and reliable facts, it has stated some conclusions which are most obvious, and which appear to be necessary, if bare figures and dry industrial data are to carry any sociological enlightenment. The volume is therefore offered not as a mere description of industrial organisation, but as a study in sociology which indicates a path ahead as well as points out where we stand at the moment.

Miss Clementina Black is responsible for the description of the Trades, Mr. A. L. Bowley for the Chapter on Wages, and Mr. Stephen Fox for the legal and historical part of that on Legislation. For the rest, the Editor is responsible.

CHAPTER I. THE TRADES DESCRIBED.

The trades covered by this enquiry include a great number of processes, some brief account of which is necessary if the succeeding chapters are to be comprehensible. It will, perhaps, be the easiest way to follow the stages by which paper is converted into books and to return afterwards to such accessory matters as envelope making, relief stamping, lithography, etc.

Paper-making.—Paper-making is carried on mainly in the counties of Kent, Lancashire, Buckingham, Yorkshire, Fife, Lanark, Aberdeen and Midlothian, but mills are found scattered over the country where water is favourable to the manufacture.[1] In London, there is one mill only, and not more than thirteen women are employed in it. Of these the majority are occupied in sorting esparto grass, and throwing it by means of pitchforks into machines where the abundant dust is shaken out, and from which the grass is carried on moving bands to the vats where it is boiled into pulp. A few older married women are engaged in cutting rags, removing buttons, etc.; but at the present day paper is but rarely made from rags, and the rags so used are generally sorted and cut by machinery. This is an instance in which machinery has undoubtedly superseded the work of women; but, perhaps, few persons[Pg 2] will regret that an occupation so uninviting as the cutting up of old rags should be undertaken rather by a machine than by a human being. With the later processes in the manufacture of paper—the boiling, mixing, bleaching, and refining—women have nothing to do; but a few women are employed in "counting" the sheets of paper before they leave the mill.

The work of the women, who are time-workers at from 8s. to 10s. a week, requires no training. The working day begins at 6 a.m., an earlier hour than that of any other factory or shop dealt with in this enquiry. The machinery is kept in constant action, double shifts of men being employed, and when it becomes necessary to feed the machines with grass at night men do the work performed in the day by women.

Letter-press Printing.—The primary business of the "compositor" is to "set-up type," i.e., to arrange the separate movable types in required order for printing successive lines of words. These lines are then arranged in frames called chases, each of which containing the types is known as a forme; the formes are "locked up," that is, made firm by wooden or metal wedges called quoins, and are then carried to the press for a proof impression. The printed page passes on in the shape of proof to the "corrector," and from him to the author, and is then returned in order that corresponding alterations may be made in the placing of the type. Finally, when the whole corrected impression has been printed off, comes the "distributing"—the removal of the types from their places and re-sorting into the proper divisions in the "case." Were books the only form of printed matter, this description would cover the whole business of the compositor, but there are also handbills and newspapers—to say nothing of lithographic printing, which will be dealt with farther on. The printing of handbills, etc., and the printing of newspapers, require, each in its own way, a high degree of skill and experience, to which women, the vast majority of whom leave the trade comparatively young, seldom attain.

In the provinces, however, a few women are engaged upon the printing of weekly or bi-weekly newspapers; and in London, one establishment has been visited in which women regularly do "jobbing" or "display work"—terms which cover the printing of advertisements, posters, handbills, etc.—while at least two other firms employ each one girl upon such work.[Pg 3] "None of the other workers," it is reported, "seem to care to learn."

The difference between skilful and unskilful work in this department is far greater than an uninitiated person might suppose; and the attractiveness of a poster, advertisement or invitation card depends very largely upon the way in which the type is spaced.

In all printing houses employing women compositors, setting up, correcting, and distributing are done by women; in the Women's Printing Society women regularly "impose," that is, divide up the long galleys of type into pages and place the pages so that they may follow in proper order when the sheet is folded, and in another firm a woman was found who could impose; but as a general rule the "imposing" is the work of the man or men employed to lock-up and carry about the heavy formes. No instance has been found in which this latter work, which in some cases is extremely heavy, is done by women.

Bookbinding.—This trade covers at least two main divisions, and one of these is minutely subdivided into a great variety of processes. The first process is, in all cases, that of folding. All printed matter occupying more than a single page has to be so folded as to bring the pages into consecutive order, and this process is essentially the same whether the printed sheet be that of a book, a pamphlet, a magazine, or a newspaper. From the trade point of view, however, there is a distinction between the folding of matter intended to be bound up in a real book cover (book-folding) and matter which is not to be bound (printers' folding). As a general rule—liable, however, to many exceptions—book-folding is performed in a binder's shop and printers' folding in a printing house, whence the names. But many printers now have a regular binding department, and periodical or pamphlet work is on the other hand often folded in the workshop of the publisher's binder. The line of demarcation is therefore no very distinct one. Prospectus work is par excellence printers' folding, and so are such weekly papers as are still folded by hand.

Book-folding is done by women, of whom in theory nearly all, and in practice many, are regularly employed. The process is practically identical in both cases. Printers' folding is carried on in large firms chiefly by a regular staff; but in times of pressure "job hands" or "grass hands" are called in; and in[Pg 4] smaller workplaces job hands do the whole of the work. Great sheets of matter, fresh from the press, are distributed in thousands to the workers to be folded either by hand or by machine. In the latter case, the woman merely feeds the machine, taking care to lay the sheet in exactly the right place. In the former, she becomes practically a machine herself, so monotonous is the occupation. The sheet is folded once, twice, three, or even four times, as the case may be, on a fixed plan, and sometimes has to be cut with a long knife as well as folded. The various sheets of a book having been folded, the process of gathering follows. Each folder has received a fixed number (probably a thousand) copies of the same sheet, and when she has finished folding the gatherer places the sheets in piles of each "signature," e.g. the index letter which one observes on the first page of each sheet in a book, in regular order on a long table. She then walks up and down the side of this table collecting one copy of each sheet and so forming a complete book. The collection thus made passes from the gatherer to the collator, who runs over it, noting by means of the printer's "signature" that all the sheets are in order, and placing her mark on the book, thereby becoming responsible for its accuracy. In the case of illustrated books the process of placing comes at this stage. The plates to be inserted are "fanned out"—i.e., laid out in fan shape—each receives a narrow strip of paste at the back and is placed next, and stuck to, its proper page. This placing is sometimes done by the collator, sometimes by a separate hand. The whole process of collating is often omitted in the case of pamphlets and small work, and the sheets then pass straight from the folder to the stitcher or sewer. Of sewing or stitching there are many varieties. The threads of hand-sewn books generally pass through three bands of tape kept taut by being attached at one end to the table at which the worker sits and at the other to a horizontal bar above. Sometimes the book will have been prepared by the sawing of grooves in the back to receive the sewing. This sawing is done by men. Stitching machines vary greatly. The simplest kind merely inserts the unpleasant "staple-binder" of wire that is so large a factor in the rapid decomposition of cheap books. In these machines, one variety of which uses thread and knots it, the pamphlet or other work in hand is placed at a particular place in a kind of trough; the operator presses a[Pg 5] treadle and the wire is mechanically passed through and pressed flat. Other machines of a more complicated sort will sew with thread upon tapes. In this case one girl is required to superintend and a younger assistant to cut apart the books which are delivered by the machine fixed at intervals upon a long continuous tape. Such machines are worked by power and set going by the pressure of a treadle. Pamphlets or newspapers having neither "cover" nor "wrapper" are now finished—unless, indeed, inserts or insets are to be placed between the pages. These are those unattached advertisements which fall out upon the reader's knee on a first opening, and thereby certainly succeed in catching his attention, though not perhaps his approval. Magazines or paper-covered books are sometimes "wrappered" by women, a simple process consisting of glueing the back of each book and clapping on the cover. Bound books have end-papers added to them by women, who also paste down the projecting tapes to the fly-pages. At this stage the book passes into the hands of men to be touched no more by women, except perhaps in a few subsidiary processes. But since much debate has taken place over the allotment to men and women of other parts of the work, it becomes necessary to give a cursory glance at the further stages of a book's progress.

On leaving the women's hands the book—now no longer a collection of loose sheets but an entity—is placed in a machine to be "nipped," that is, to have the back pressed; then the edges are cut smooth in a "guillotine"; the back is glued upon muslin and rounded, and a groove is made, by hand or machine, at each side of the back, so that the cover may lie flat; this is called "backing," the covering boards and cloth are cut out and pasted together; the design and lettering are stamped upon them in the "blocking-room"; the books are "pasted down," that is, are fixed into their covers by means of pasting down the end leaves, and are "built up" in a large press. If the designs and lettering of the cover are to be gilded, the gold-leaf is laid on by hand according to the stamped-out pattern, which is then restamped, and any gold-leaf not firmly adhering is rubbed off with an old stocking. The stocking is burned in a crucible, and the precious remainder of the gold collected again. "Gold laying-on" is done by women; and the workers engaged in this task do nothing else. Much[Pg 6] dexterity is needed, the gold-leaf being apt to break or blow away at the slightest breath. One investigator describes as "seeming almost marvellous" the skill with which this difficult material is laid in exactly the right place by means of a knife. Women also "open-up," i.e., look through the books ready to be sent out to see that there are no flaws. Such is the life-history of the ordinary book as it comes from the publisher, but "publishers' binding" is not the only section of the binding trade, and is indeed regarded by the workers as "decidedly inferior" to "leather-work," which is emphatically distinguished as "bookbinding." Leather-binding is employed mainly for rebinding. It forms, as may be supposed, a comparatively small part of the whole trade, and is practically confined to three large firms in the West End, a few small places, and separate rooms in some general binding establishments. The chief difference of method lies in the better fixing together of back and cover, the "bound" book being laced into the cover, and in the presence of a "head-band," at top and bottom of the back. Books to be re-bound are picked to pieces by women and cleaned from glue, etc., re-folded, if necessary, collated, and after being rolled flat (by a man) are sewn at a hand press. Repairs to torn pages or plates and the removal of stains are also done by women. This last process demands great care and skill, "foxed" pages requiring to be dipped into a preparation of acid which destroys not only the objectionable stain but also the body of the paper, so that the leaf has to be newly sized and strengthened, and naturally needs very tender handling throughout this whole course of treatment. The best head-bands, too, are made by women by hand, but the head-bands of cheaper books—when they exist at all—are machine-made. Head-band makers form a special and extremely small class of workers.

A third branch of the trade is "vellum-binding," a name which covers the binding of all ledgers, account books, and bank books, whether bound in vellum or no. The workers engaged in this branch form a separate group, are rarely found on the premises of regular bookbinders, and work chiefly in a separate department in printing houses. The employments of women in vellum-binding are much the same as in publishers' binding; they fold and sew much in the usual manner, the only marked difference arising in the case of large day-books, etc.,[Pg 7] which are elaborately hand-sewn in frames, each section of the book having a separate guard of linen.

It is difficult to draw lines of demarcation between the various workers whose occupations have now been described. In large workplaces a worker will probably be kept at one minute process; the folder will do nothing but fold, the sewer will only sew, the collator only collate, and the inserter only insert. Some forewomen, however, think it better to give the women a change of employment. Gold layers-on and openers-up are always entirely apart from folders and sewers, but collators begin with folding and sewing, and in small houses sometimes combine one or both these processes with collating.

The divisions of work between men and women are not made upon any discernible principle of fitness, and except in the case of folding and sewing, which have belonged to women from time immemorial, the various processes began in the hands of men and have been gradually taken up by women. This gradual encroachment has been generally resented and often resisted by the men, and in May, 1893, an elaborate agreement was drawn up by the Bookbinding Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce representing the masters, and the secretaries of the men's unions representing the men working in the trade. The women workers were not represented or consulted. The agreement is as follows:—

Closely connected with vellum-binding are the processes of machine-ruling, numbering, paging and perforating.

Machine-ruling is the process by which lines are ruled for ledgers, invoices, etc. The machine employed resembles a hand-loom in appearance, and is in effect a framework in which pens are fixed at the required distances. Ink is conveyed into these from a pad of thick flannel above, and the page to be ruled lies on a broad band below. The re-inking of the flannel is in some cases effected by means of a reservoir and tap supplying a regulated flow, in others the ink is laid on from bowls of red or blue colour by means of a brush. Machines worked by a handle still survive in a few places, but as a general rule the machine is driven by power and the operator merely superintends, correcting the machine if it goes wrong, setting the pens and regulating the supply of ink. The newest machines require the services of neither "feeders" nor "wetters," and the simple old picturesque accessories, the cords, the wooden frame, the bowls of colour, are disappearing. Women are employed in some houses to feed the machines, which is purely[Pg 10] mechanical work; our investigators found four establishments in London in which women can rise to the higher position of "minder," and one other in which they are allowed to damp the flannel and partially "mind."

Numbering is the process by which consecutive figures are stamped upon cheques, bills, receipts, tickets, or other loose sheets. A machine worked by hand is employed, the number types changing automatically. The attention of the worker is required on three points only: the paper must be placed so as to bring the number into the right position; the machine must not be allowed to skip numbers at a jump—as it is inclined to do; and whenever an additional figure becomes necessary, a certain change must be made. The handle of the machine works up and down, and the process is different from that of stamping, to be described later. There are no power machines for numbering.

Numbering is said to try the eyes, and the working of a machine handle is considered bad for girls who have any weakness of the chest.

Paging is the process by which numbers are printed upon the pages of a bound volume. As in numbering, a change has to be made at each "100"; and there is need of further care to avoid missing pages. Where these are thin or interleaved with tissue paper omissions are very easily made.

Perforating is done by machines generally worked by power, but sometimes by treadle, with one foot; and this treadle work was described by a woman constantly employed at it as excessively hard work.

Lithography.—The work of women and girls in lithography seems to be confined to the feeding of machines. In London the introduction of female labour is comparatively recent, dating from about six or seven years ago, but in the provinces women have been employed for more than thirty years. Employers are, for some reason or another, not very ready to give information about this branch of work; but some of the investigators engaged in this enquiry have succeeded in seeing the process. A girl stands on a high platform putting sheets into the proper place in the machine until she has completed the job. A long interval may follow in which she may sew, knit or read. The noise of the machine is incessant, and the work hard, monotonous and mechanical, but if done under proper[Pg 11] conditions not necessarily unhealthy. Many working-places in London, however, where space is so valuable, are partly underground, dark and ill-ventilated, and in these the ceaseless whirring noise and the smell of the ink grow unendurably trying. Workers in such places are rough and of low social standing. Most men working in the general stationery trades, and some employers who do not employ women, condemn the doing of this work by women, and since the women have superseded not men but boys, the views of the workmen are not those of trade rivals. Girls are said to be in various ways better workers than boys—cleaner-handed, more careful and accurate, less disposed to meddle with the machinery, and therefore less liable to accidents; above all, quieter, more docile, and less apt to strike. The men employed in lithography look favourably on the employment of girls, because no girl attempts to rise into the higher grades and "pick up" the trade without apprenticeship. Girls do not, and boys as feeders do, "constitute a danger to the Society." Moreover, a trade that offers only so uncertain a chance of rising is generally disapproved for a boy.

The objection to the employment for girls is that they work among men—an objection which may be a very grave one indeed, or a comparatively slight one, according to the character of the foreman and the management of the workshop. It may be noted that respectable working-class parents almost always consider this objection serious.

A few women are reported to be employed as lithographic artists, but no one has been seen in the course of this enquiry.

Minor stationery trades are envelope-making, black bordering, plain and relief stamping.

Envelope-making has several subdivisions. The paper is first cut to shape in machines worked by men, then passed to women to be "cemented," i.e., to be gummed upon the flaps, folded or "creased," and stuck together. Finally the envelopes are packed by women.

Cementing and folding are reckoned distinct trades. One cementer explained to an investigator, however, that she described herself as a folder, "for people are so ignorant that if you say you are a cementer they think you have something to do with the pavement." Cementing may be done by hand or by machine, and the workers are not interchangeable. The hand-worker spreads out the envelopes in the shape of a fan,[Pg 12] and passes her brush over all the flaps at once. The machine-cementer puts 500 or 1,000 envelopes into a small machine, which grips them and drips gum upon their flaps. The worker extricates the envelopes one by one, and spreads them out to dry. A more complex machine is being introduced which performs the various processes for itself, requiring one girl to feed and one to take-off.

The flaps being dry, the envelopes are taken in bundles to the folders, who first "crease" them—that is, fold in the sides—then "gum" them with a brush at the required points, and fasten them. This process can also be performed by a machine, and the operator in that case merely feeds the machine with the cemented paper, and the envelope is delivered made.

The envelopes are then handed on to the "packers," who count them and make them up into packets, and the packets into parcels.

Except the original cutting, still done by men, all these processes have always been executed by women.

The trade of black bordering is carried on by women who seldom or never perform any other process. Black bordering is usually done by hand. The worker spreads out a number of sheets, cards or envelopes, in such a manner as to expose only a certain width of border, and over this exposed portion she passes a brush. Of course, only two edges of each sheet, etc., can be laid ready at one time, and each object has to be "laid out" a second time after drying. "It is marvellous to see the speed and dexterity with which the women do the 'laying-out.' They gather up a large number of sheets, lay them on the board and fan them out with a piece of wood used for the purpose, showing the most astounding accuracy of eye in leaving just the right width exposed. Sometimes the 'laying out' is done by a machine, and only the blacking by hand." This trade—a steady one on the whole—has, unlike nearly all the other stationery trades, been more prosperous owing to the South African war—a grim little example of the way in which large public events eddy away into undreamed of backwaters! Men now never do black bordering, but are reported to have done so once. Machinery is now being more widely introduced.

Plain, Relief and Cameo Stamping.—Under these heads are included all the various processes by which crests, monograms,[Pg 13] addresses, etc., are embossed upon notepaper, cards, programmes, or private Christmas cards. The trade has increased enormously of late years, and a new process has been introduced which renders it possible to employ the printing press. This, however, is only worth while when the order to be executed is a very large one; and most stamping is done by hand machines, a die being fixed into the machine and impressed by tightly screwing down. The machine is worked (like an ordinary copying press) by a horizontal bar, having a ball at each end, and swung from right to left. The lighter machines can be worked by one hand; the heavier require two, and are found fatiguing. Some are so heavy that they can only be worked by men. Practice is necessary in order to get the stamp in exactly the right place, and, in relief or cameo work, in order to mix the colours, which are rubbed on the die, to precisely the right thickness.

Plain stamping—the easiest process—is that in which letters, a coat of arms, or a trade mark, are raised but not coloured; in relief stamping the raised surface is coloured; and in cameo stamping (of which the registered letter envelope is an example) a white device stands out from a coloured background.

When two or more colours are employed considerable care, skill, and patience are needed. This work, in two or more colours, is called illuminating; in one branch of it—the highest—gold and silver are employed on a coloured surface, and here women are not employed.

Show-card Mounting.—Card mounting is a distinct trade, and is almost entirely in female hands. Almanacs, advertisements, and texts for hanging up, all belong to the province of the card mounter, whose main business is to unite the picture and cardboard that arrive separately in her workshop. The board is first cut either by a man at a cutting machine—or "guillotine"—or occasionally by a girl at a rotary machine adjustable to different gauges; then "lined," by having paper pasted over the back and edges. Inferior work is not lined. Finally, the picture or print is pasted on the card, the backs of three or four pictures being pasted at once, and each in succession being applied to its own card. Some means of hanging up is still needed, and various methods are in use. Sometimes eyelets are inserted into a punched hole by means of a small machine which a girl works by hand. Sometimes the edge is bound[Pg 14] with a strip of tin, having loops attached to it; in this case the tin strips are cut by men, and applied by hand machines, again worked by girls. Sometimes, as in the case of maps, charts, and large diagrams, a wooden rod is fixed at the top, this fixing being done by girls.

The trade is not, it will readily be perceived, one that demands great skill, practice or intelligence, and the majority of the workers are very young. Still, a certain degree of experience is necessary, since the application of either too much or too little paste results in a "blister," and blistered work is spoiled. One investigator was shown a lot of 500 cards, the estimated value of which was 6d. each, no less than 385 of which had thus been spoiled and rendered quite useless. The workers stand at their work and report that it exhausts them. It used, till about twenty-eight years ago, to be done by men; but the trade was at that time a much smaller one. Night work, when considered necessary, is still done by men.

A little laying-on of gold is done in connection with card mounting. The process has been described already under bookbinding.

The Christmas card industry (which may be considered as a variety of show-card mounting) serves to exemplify one of the anomalies of the Factory Act. These cards may be sorted, packed, etc., to any hours of the night, because mere packing is not regarded as manufacture; but if a "bow of ribbon" is to be affixed to each card, the process becomes "preparation for sale," and the regulations of the Act apply.[3]

Typefounding.—Typefounding is a small, ancient and conservative trade into which women have only crept during the last few years. In London there are only about eight typefoundries proper, and in these labour is elaborately subdivided, every workman performing but one process. Recently, however, some large printing houses have begun to cast their own type, and in these the few men employed perform all the processes, or, to use their own term, "do the work through," thus, curiously enough, reverting to an earlier stage in the development of the trade.

Women are employed in the large foundries, where they perform certain subsidiary parts of the work. Each type when[Pg 15] it comes from the machine wherein it has been cast has a little superfluous bit of thin metal, known as a "break" on its end or "foot." These bits are broken off by girls, the "foot" of the type being pressed against a table and the "break" snapped off. No great skill is required, but quickness only comes with practice. The type is also "set-up"—i.e., put in rows in a long stick or "galley"—by girls; here, again, nothing is needed beyond a certain manual dexterity. Sometimes another stage, "rubbing," intervenes between the "breaking" and the "setting-up." Rubbing is merely the smoothing off on a flat grindstone of any roughness that may be left by the machine round the "face" end of the type. In one case, in London, one or two women were once employed in rubbing, but none appear to be so engaged at present, and the newer appliances have made rubbing unnecessary. "Dressing," the final process through which the type passes, is said to be in some places performed by women; but no such instances have been found in London in the course of this investigation. The dresser receives the lines or sticks of type, polishes the sides, measures their length and breadth with a delicate spanner, "nicks" the foot of each type, and finally "picks over" the type—that is, scans the row of "faces" through a magnifying glass, and rejects any on which the letters are not absolutely truly placed.

One large London firm, employing many girls, has a different process. The types are cast in long lines and have to be divided, no breaking or setting-up being required. As one of the workers said, "This is not a trade; just any one can do it!"

Girls began to do "breaking" and "setting-up" in London about thirteen years ago. There were then but thirteen so employed. During the last few years their numbers have increased, and it is estimated that those now employed number from 100 to 150. One firm is known to employ fifty and another forty. They have superseded boys, and were mainly introduced because boys were difficult to get. The chances of rising being small for boys, they were disinclined to enter the trade. The chances for girls are nil, but this consideration does not weigh much with girls belonging to the class that supplies workers to typefounding. The female workers are all young, and at present no married women seem to be employed, a fact which may perhaps be due to the comparatively recent entrance of women into the trade.

[Pg 16]

The occupation has a special feature of unhealthiness—the danger of lead-poisoning; and the Factory Act, recognising this, prohibits women, young persons or children, from taking a meal upon the premises where typefounding is carried on. As in other lead industries, much depends on the care and cleanliness of the worker. To eat with hands lead-blackened by some hours of "breaking-off" is to run considerable risk of lead-poisoning. It is suggested that girls, being more fastidious than boys upon such points, may possibly suffer less frequently from the dangers involved in the industry of typefounding.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER II. WOMEN IN THE TRADES.

Census figures.

Before 1841 the census occupation tables do not state the numbers employed in the detailed trades, and even in that year we find either that no separate return was made for some of the industries with which this volume deals, or that no women were employed at all. Presumably, therefore, previous statistics would not have shown that women were employed in these industries to any appreciable extent.

The following tables show the employment of women in England and Wales and Scotland in the Printing and Kindred Trades according to the census returns from 1841 to 1901. The figures must be used with caution, as they include employers as well as employed (an error, however, which is immaterial in the case of women workers). Subsidiary helpers are also classified with those actually entitled to be regarded as members of the trade, and the tables do not discriminate sufficiently between the various subdivisions of occupations. These last two errors considerably affect the figures relating to women. In the bookbinding section, for instance,[4] the figures are altogether misleading, since by far the greater number of women included as bookbinders are really paper and book-folders, and are no more entitled to the name bookbinder than a bricklayer's labourer is to that of bricklayer.

Chief Factory Inspector's figures.

In 1896 the Home Office began to publish as an appendix to the Chief Factory Inspector's Report a series of figures of occupation which were exceedingly valuable for purposes of comparison, and in time would have been the best existing statistical index of industrial movements. Unfortunately these figures have not been published since 1899; but for the years that they were issued, those relating to the printing trades were as follows:—

These figures must not be compared with the census returns as they relate only to those establishments making reports to the Factory Inspectors under the Factory and Workshop Law.

[Pg 24]

CHAPTER III. WOMEN'S WORK AND ORGANISATION.

Women as Compositors. Historical.

The subdivision of labour which has broken up the original printing "profession" into a score or so of different trades, each minutely subdivided in turn, has been the chief cause of the employment of women in this industry in modern times, although it appears that nuns were engaged as compositors at the Ripoli Monastery Press in Florence towards the end of the fifteenth century,[5] within half a century of the introduction of printing. Only very exceptional women could obtain a footing in a profession which embraced typefounding, ink-making, press-carpentry, composing, folding, and bookbinding. The United States, where, in so many respects, women have stepped in advance of European conditions, boasts of Jenny Hirsch, who carried on a printer's business in Boston about 1690, and during the next two centuries women printers were common in the thirteen States. It was a woman, Mary Catherine Goddard, who printed the first issue of the "Declaration of Independence." The years of the French Revolution also seem to be marked by the number of women engaged in the printing trade, whether owing to the general emancipating impulses of the time or to the increased demand for compositors, is not quite clear. The amiable and eccentric Thomas Beddoes, moved by the interest he took in social affairs, and inspired by the emancipatory movement of his time, had been struck with the opening which the printing trades seemed to offer to women, and gave his "Alexander's Expedition"[6] to a woman of his village, Madely, to set up. "I know not," he wrote in the Advertisement to the book, "if women be commonly engaged in printing, but their nimble and delicate fingers seem extremely well adapted [Pg 25]to the office of compositor, and it will be readily granted that employment for females is amongst the greatest desiderata of society." In England, however, the labour of women outside their homes continued to be extremely limited, and the printing trades were confined to men. During the eighteenth century women seem to have been employed in folding and sewing book and news sheets, but they did not come into the trade in any considerable numbers until the nineteenth century was half spent. This was very largely owing to the heavy nature of the work and the long apprenticeship necessary to master the varied details of the craft. The Provincial Typographical Society's first constitution, issued in 1849, shows that at so recent a date the typographical apprentice had to learn "printing and bookbinding" or "printing and stationery."[7] The printing press used in 1800 was practically the same as that used by Gutenberg in 1450.

The enormous advance in the printing trades owing to the abolition of the stamp duties and the paper tax, together with the spread of education and improvement in the facilities for publishing, with their resulting large demand for printed matter, speedily revolutionised these trades and led to the introduction of the great machines. Pressmen became differentiated from compositors, "minders" from layers-on or takers-off, jobbers from book-hands, folders from makers-up; whilst bookbinding finally became a separate trade altogether. Some of these separate processes, needing but little skill and requiring no apprenticeship, involving no heavy labour and no responsibility, offered openings for women.

Conflict between men and women.

One of the earliest references to women made by the Typographical Association occurs in 1860, when the Executive of the Union mentioned them in its half-yearly report. Printing houses were then closed to Union members on account of the employment of women. The Typographical Society's Monthly Circular for August, 1865, for instance, states that a Bacup newspaper office was closed to members of the Typographical Union, owing to the employment of female labour. The exact form of employment is not given. Again, in the report for June, 1866, the Executive of the Union refers to having trouble with an employer who[Pg 26] tried to employ female labour, but who had failed "to get suitable applicants of the gentle sex." In 1886 it was agreed that women should be admitted to both the Typographical Association and the London Society of Compositors on the same terms as men, but only one woman has availed herself of this resolution.[8]

Printing Trades and the Women's Movement.

At this point, the movement for the emancipation of women contributes an interesting chapter to the history of these trades.

The printing trades were regarded by a few of the leading spirits in the agitation for "Women's Rights" as being well adapted to women's skill and physique, and in 1860 Miss Emily Faithfull not only started the Victoria Press, in which women alone were to be employed, but directed the attention of women generally to the openings afforded them by this group of trades. "The compositor trades," the Englishwoman's Journal (June, 1860) said, "should be in the hands of women only." Miss Faithfull's experiments produced some considerable flutter amongst men. At first, the men looked down upon them with the contempt of traditional superiority; women compositors were "to die off like birds in winter" (cf. Printers' Journal, August 5th, 1867, where a correspondent stated that "the day is far distant when such labour can hope to supersede our own"); but some trepidation was speedily caused when it was found that women's shops were undercutting men's, and an alarmist article in the Printers' Register of February 6th, 1869, states that "the exertions of the advocates of female labour in the printing business have resulted in the establishment of a printing office where printing can be done on lower terms than those usually charged." That year Miss Faithfull was engaged in her libel action against Mr. Grant for calling her an atheist, and the Publishers' Circular furiously attacked her work. By-and-by, however, the controversy died down. Miss Faithfull's several attempts[9] to establish permanently a printing establishment bore fruit in the still existing Women's Printing Society, started in 1874.

As an industrial factor, however, the "Women's Movement" has been altogether secondary, and women have been induced to enter the trades under review mainly because the subdivision of labour and the application of mechanical power had created simple processes; because they were willing to accept low wages; and because, unlike the men, who were members of Unions, they made no efforts to interfere in the management of the works.

The London experience.

Partly owing to the nature of the work done and partly to the power of the London Society of Compositors, no systematic attempt seems to have been made generally to introduce women compositors into London houses since 1878, and it is of some significance to note that most of the London firms which employed women compositors between 1873 and 1878—the period when the attempt was most actively made—have since disappeared, owing to bad equipment and the inferior character of their trade.

But the opposition to women lingered on after the attempts to introduce them more generally had ceased. In 1879 the London Society of Compositors decided that none of their members should finish work set up by women, and the firm of Messrs. Smyth and Yerworth was struck by the men's Union.[10]

Commenting on this trouble, the Standard, in a leading article (October 8th, 1879) cynically remarked: "What women ask is not to be allowed to compete with men, which the more sensible among them know to be impossible, but to be allowed the chance of a small livelihood by doing the work of men a little cheaper than men care to do it. This is underselling of course, but it is difficult to see why, when all is said and done, men should object to be undersold by their own wives and daughters."

"Capital and Labour," as quoted by the Victoria Magazine,[11] put the case for the women thus: "This work is much more remunerative, and far less toilsome and irritating than the occupation of the average nursery governess, and we anticipate that, with proper arrangements, there will be a large addition to the number of women compositors. The reasons [Pg 28] assigned against their employment in this capacity seem to be the outcome of pedantry, prejudice, and jealousy; and no trade rules can be permitted to interpose obstacles to the attainment of such a desirable object as furnishing occupation to a number of females who are qualified by deftness of hand and mental capacity to earn in it an honourable livelihood. What would one of the men, who chose to leave Messrs. Smyth and Yerworth at the behest of the Union, say, if having a daughter of his own to assist him in his occupations, she were to be compelled to sit idle while he was made to employ a male assistant at high wages? Yet these men, though intelligent, capable, and industrious, deliberately throw themselves out of work, and become for the time paupers of their Union, because it will not permit them to assist in perfecting any processes which have been begun by women. This is the way in which men run their heads against a brick wall."

In December, 1882, the Printers' Register published the following notice: "In a West End office, objection having been made to the introduction of female labour, and an undue number of turnovers, a strike appeared imminent, but the Committee of the Society succeeded in settling the dispute to the satisfaction of both sides."

The question does not appear to have troubled the London Society again, but in 1886, a Conference of the Typographical Societies of the United Kingdom and Continent, held in London (October 21st-23rd), resolved:

"That while strongly of opinion that women are not physically capable of performing the duties of a compositor, this Conference recommends their admission to membership of the various Typographical Unions, upon the same conditions as journeymen, provided always the females are paid strictly in accordance with scale."

This resolution was subsequently adopted by the London Society of Compositors as noted above, and is at present in force, with the result that it is practically impossible for any woman to join the Society.[12]

Provincial experience.

The Scottish compositors are organised in the Scottish Typographical Association, which has no women members. Women, particularly in Edinburgh and Perth, and to a smaller extent in Aberdeen, have been employed to defeat the ends of the Society.[13]

The few attempts made to organise women in the printing trades have failed. Women have been introduced into these trades at times of trouble with the men's Unions, and are consequently not likely to form organisations of their own. Their work has been so precarious and so largely confined to the mechanical and lower grades of labour,[14] that they have had no incentive to aspire to high standards of wages or other industrial conditions. The women employed in the actual printing processes do not seem to have regarded their work as their permanent means of livelihood to the same extent as folders, for instance, have done, and have been less interested, consequently, in improving their trade conditions; and, finally, the men's Societies, for various reasons, some well-founded and some groundless, have regarded women printers as a form of cheap labour—"undercutters"—and have looked upon them as dangerous intruders.

When, however, we turn to the organisation of women in the trades dealing with printed matter, especially folding and bookbinding, we find much greater collective activity and closer co-operation both amongst themselves and with the men. Their Trade Union record is still but scanty, nevertheless, the frequent and persistent efforts of women to act jointly, without establishing a permanent organisation, form one of the characteristic features of the trade. This apparently is almost entirely due to the fact that women's labour in bookbinding, e.g., in folding, was accepted by the men, and that in all workshop matters women were the fellow-workers and not the rivals of the men. This distinction between[Pg 30] printing and bookbinding is most marked and requires to be emphasised.

Organisation amongst bookbinders.

The bookbinders' organisation sprang up in 1779-80, as most organisations then did, from friendly meetings in certain houses of call. It was at first known as "The Friends." In 1786, the working day was from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., with certain breaks for meals, giving, perhaps, an actual working time of twelve and a half hours per day. But in March of that year, a Conference of the sections decided to ask for a reduction of an hour per day, and their petition was followed by the discharge of workmen.[15] The employers then went further, and in May, 1786, indicted twenty-four of the ringleaders for conspiracy. In a manifesto to the public, the men complained that their wages were only from 15s. to 18s. per week, rising in a few cases to a guinea, and proceeded to charge the employers with having "with vindictive rage forced into the sweet retreats of domestic felicity" wives who were employed in the trade. This action on the part of the employers was not prompted, however, by an objection to women, for, according to the testimony of Mr. W. M. Hall,[16] one of the men indicted, an attempt was made to supply the book market as a temporary makeshift during the dispute with the imperfect work of women. He says, "I cannot remember the exact time of striking the women. This I remember, it was on account of them and the apprentices doing books in boards, by the booksellers consenting to take them so for a time, I was appointed to strike Black Jock's[17] women. I went at one o'clock to see Maria, his forewoman, who used to dine in the shop, she being single. I told her she must inform the other women of the injury they were doing us by continuing at work. If they were willing to serve our interest and leave their work, they should receive their wages for doing nothing. If we gained our cause, they should be sure of employ, and the advantage of the hour also. Coming downstairs, I met Mr. McKinley.

"'Well, Mr. Hall, are you coming to work again directly?'

"'Sir, if you will grant the hour——'

"'Come in here,' he says, going into his dining-room, and setting down a large square bottle of Hollands to give me a glass, taking one himself and pouring out another. Pat, pat, pat! came our ladies downstairs. 'What is all this about?' I was glad to make my escape. The six or seven women were all subpœnaed against me on the trial."

The narrative of this famous struggle—one of the most important in the history of Trade Unionism, involving persecution, imprisonment, and death—contains no further records of the part played by women in it, but Mr. Hall's reminiscence indicates how they behaved. The men were successful, and in 1794, the working day was again reduced, so that it lasted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Presumably the women shared in these advantages, and also in that of an afternoon tea half-hour, which was theirs exclusively until 1806, when the men, during a period of active trade and overtime, demanded the same privilege. James Watson, in his "Recollections,"[18] hints that the kind indulgence of the women to the men, permitted in some shops, made the afternoon tea half-hour a general demand. "Their kind friends, the ladies, while preparing for their own comfort, neglected not those of their less fortunate companions, but contrived by making their tea to accommodate them as much as possible, and the men, if not immediately under the eye of their employer, would seat themselves on the end of their presses for ten minutes or so and thus partake of it." A strike to secure the half-hour was unsuccessful, but the men gradually won their point. Mr. Watson tells how, after the strike, it happened that he was being engaged by one of the opposing masters. The master, "being pressed upon the point, damned the half-hour, but said I might come in and do as I liked. I accordingly accepted the situation, and at tea-time, when I prepared to sit down, I expected to be supported by the men of the shop who were well aware of my intention, but not one of them would move. I was thus placed in an awkward position, and could only turn to my good friends, the ladies, to countenance my proceedings, who kindly invited me to their tea table." In about a month, Mr.[Pg 32] Watson informs us, every man in the place was following his example.[19]

The Bible Society controversy.

The struggle which the bookbinders fought with most pertinacity was, however, that which they waged against the Religious Societies—particularly the British and Foreign Bible Society—when attempting to cheapen the production of religious literature by means which, the bookbinders contended, involved unreasonably low rates of pay. In this struggle women played a prominent part.

It broke out as early as 1825 when the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge reduced its prices and the master bookbinders working for it reduced wages. The strike which followed collapsed for want of funds. In 1833 the contest was resumed with the British and Foreign Bible Society. That year the five houses then employed by the Society reduced wages, and it appears that when the dispute was about to be settled by both sides accepting a compromise, a representative of the Bible Society instructed the masters to hold out. The men appealed to the Society, but were told that it could not intervene. No definite settlement was ever arrived at.

The first petition which the men addressed to the Society in 1833 made special reference to the condition of the women workers. "Your memorialists beg leave to state," they wrote, "that there are a number of females (about 200) employed in binding the books of your Society, the whole of whose wages have been reduced in consequence of the late alteration in the prices of these books. Their wages were before very low. Your memorialists respectfully submit that the making it more difficult, and in some cases impossible, for females to earn an honest subsistence, by their labour, is in the same proportion[Pg 33] to give potency to the seducers of female virtue." Reply and counter-reply were made, and the Society was heartily attacked by the Union with texts from Scripture and reflections on applied Christianity. In the defence which the Society issued in 1834, it is stated that its binders informed it that "competent and industrious men in our employ earn on an average 6d. an hour or 30s. weekly when in constant work; and women in the same description from 8s. to 10s. and upwards."

Mr. Dunning, the Union Secretary, replied that he could prove that the scale given was an "entire falsehood," and published a second "Address to the Religious Public," in which the wages paid by the principal firm were given, the average for thirteen men working out at a small fraction over a guinea per week, and of twenty-four women at 5s. 11d. per week. In 1843 the dispute was allowed to end, when the five firms promised to pay the women on timework at rates between 7s. 6d. and 15s. per week, and to work them only ten hours per day.

In 1845 the Society decided to give all its binding to one firm, the proprietress of which was Miss Watkins, and four years later the most famous dispute of the series broke out. The "controversy," as it is called in the bookbinders' records, opened by an appeal addressed to the Society on August 17th, 1849, by the journeymen bookbinders of London and Westminster, in which it was alleged that Miss Watkins had returned to piecework, and that the wages she was paying to women averaged only 5s. 6d. to 6s. per week for a longer day than ten hours. Learners were taken on and were discharged so soon as they were entitled to increases in wages, and a rule was said to be in operation by which, so soon as a woman worker was qualified to be paid more than 7s. a week, she was discharged. "Exorbitant" fines were also imposed. "Females," remarks the appeal, "often have not the power to plead their own cause in such matters, and being helpless in many respects where their wages are concerned, they are trodden down until a state of things such as described in the 'Song of the Shirt' appals the mind with the enormity of their injuries, their suffering, and their moral condition." The appeal contained the following table, showing the difference in wages paid to women working for the Bible Society and those working for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[Pg 34]

One of the grievances specially mentioned in this appeal was that women were not allowed hot water, except between 4 and 4.30 p.m., and were then charged 1d. per week for it.

Immediately (August 22nd, 1849) after the issue of the "Appeal" the women employed by Miss Watkins were asked to sign a statement that they were perfectly satisfied with their pay and conditions. Several signed, not knowing the purport of the paper; others refused. On the advice of the men's Union a counter-statement was drawn up and signed, and sent in to the Bible Society, and on finding that the forewoman who had taken their part, together with the active promoters of the counter-petition, were to be discharged, the women left work, and demanded:—

1. That prices should be raised to the standard paid by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

2. That fines should be abolished.

3. That they should have access to cold water as well as hot for tea.

4. That after the learners then employed had completed their apprenticeship, not more than twenty learners should be employed at one time.

About a hundred women had come out, and the men's Union organised a relief fund.[20]

Miss Watkins replied, denying every charge made by Mr. Dunning, and giving 10s. as the earnings for a week of sixty [Pg 35] hours. The Union replied by asking that a deputation should be allowed to inspect the wages books of the firm. It claimed to be in possession of the rates of wages paid to ninety-seven folders and sewers for three weeks in August, and gave the average as 6s. 2½d. for a sixty-hours' week, and in other respects it supported its original charges.

The Times of January 25th, 1850, contains in its advertisement columns the report of a Committee of the Southwark Auxiliary of the Bible Society, which examined Miss Watkins' books, and it supported her statements. The women earned from 9s. to 14s. per week. But Mr. Dunning was not silenced, and on March 25th he issued a long pamphlet, the last of the "controversy" for the time. In it, it is stated that the committee of investigation had been deceived so as to mistake wages paid for ten days as though they were paid for a week, and a table of wages for three weeks in September and October, for the week ending July 28th, 1849, and for the four weeks preceding the strike, was printed.[21] The wage average of the periods was from 5s. 9½d. to 6s. 4½d. per week of sixty hours.

The agitation failed. The women either found work elsewhere, or went back under the conditions against which they had struck. Mr. Dunning could only say that the dispute had arrested a downward tendency in prices and wages.

The dispute cost the men's Union £146. This was spent mostly in printing and postage, but it included grants amounting to £22 given to the separate Women's Committee, which had collected an additional fund of £650 to aid the strikers.

The finishers had strongly opposed the support which the Union had given to the women, and their section, to the number of 150, was finally expelled from the Union.

But whilst this unusual harmony existed between the men's Union and the women workers, no serious attempt had been made to organise the women permanently, either as members of the men's Society, or in one of their own. In 1833, in an address to the London journeymen bookbinders, a Mr. Benjamin Teasdale, of Manchester, advised the formation of a women's Society, but nothing appears to have been done. In 1855 they were allowed to borrow books from the men's library on the payment of 6d. a quarter. It is impossible to ascertain how far[Pg 36] the agreement between men and masters for a nine hours' day in 1872 really affected women, as a considerable proportion of them had been working only for nine hours before the agreement was made.

The Society of Women employed in Bookbinding.

Not till 1874 was there a determined and successful attempt made to organise women bookbinders into a Union. On September 12th of that year "the first Society formed for women," the Society of Women employed in Bookbinding, was formed by Mrs. Emma Paterson, the pioneer of women's Trade Unions in England,[22] and in the following year Mrs. Paterson was sent as its delegate to the Trade Union Congress meeting in Glasgow. This was the first time that a woman had appeared at these parliaments of Trade Unionism, which had been held annually since 1868. From the commencement the relations between the men's and the women's Societies were most cordial, and at the first annual meeting of the latter Mrs. Paterson read a letter she had received "some years ago" from Mr. Dunning, in which he advised "the formation of Trades' Societies for women." The cordial greetings extended to the new Society by its brother organisation did not meet it everywhere. A congratulatory resolution was moved at the London Trades' Council, and though it received the support of the veteran George Odger, it was met with considerable opposition. Women's labour was cheap labour, and many of the delegates to the Trades' Council could not get beyond that fact.

It is unnecessary to detail the somewhat uneventful career of the Union. Mrs. Paterson, at the end of eighteen months, was succeeded by Miss Eleanor Whyte, who still occupies the position of secretary.[23] The membership began at 66 and [Pg 37] reached 275—of whom only 200 were financial members—at the end of the first year. From that time till now the membership has been exceedingly variable, and no full and reliable records seem to exist. But from the disconnected information which is at our disposal, it would appear that the two most successful years of the Society were 1876 (when 63 new members were enrolled), and 1890 (when 67 were enrolled). In 1870 the membership was given at 210; in 1884 at 200; in 1891 at 240; in 1901 at 270; the period of depression from 1883 to 1889 seems to have tried the Society very severely.

The objects of this Society are stated to be: "To maintain and protect the rights and privileges of the trade and to grant relief to such members as may be out of work, or afflicted with illness." The subscription is 2d. per week, and an entrance fee of 1s. is imposed.

It can hardly be expected that a Society whose membership has probably never exceeded 270, could have much fighting force. But agitation has never been the policy of the Society. It has refused to join with the men in making demands upon the employers; its representatives at Trade Union Congresses and elsewhere have steadily resisted legal restrictions upon labour; it has not shown itself anxious to seize what the men regarded as opportunities to make itself felt.[24]

Perhaps the Union has been too willing to make requests to good employers for better conditions, and too timorous in helping to level up the general conditions of the trade. Employers have not been hostile. Mr. B. Collins, the publisher, for instance, presided over the annual meeting for 1891, and Mr. Longmans and other publishers have done the same in other years. "I know an employer," says a writer in the British Bookmaker of September, 1891, "who will give £100 to see a good women's Union established. Why? Because if it could be done, its effect upon other employers would remove the [Pg 38] gross inequalities of prices that at present exist to his detriment." But this Union has never reached that point of strength when it could bring pressure to bear on the trade for the mutual advantage of the good employer and the woman worker.

As a consequence, the good relations between the men and the women in the trade have not always been maintained, and there was considerable ill-feeling between the two sections during the eight hours' agitation from 1891 to 1894.[25]

At the present moment this Society is regarded by both men and women mainly as a benefit club. In this respect it has been most successful and has paid with excellent regularity.

The Book-folders' Union.

An attempt was made in 1892 to start another Union for women engaged in folding in printing houses. The sponsor of the new Society was the Printers' and Stationers' Warehousemen's and Cutters' Union. It is a significant fact, and one which throws a great deal of light upon the very little which one section of workers knows even of those working at their elbow, that the organisers of the new Union were quite unaware of the existence of the Women Bookbinders' Society. The new Society, which called itself the Book-folders' Union, was started during the flood of Trade Union sentiment which followed the London Dock Strike in 1889, and its membership grew rapidly. Within five months of its formation it is said to have numbered 500,[26] and later on the figure of 700 was quoted. A popular employer, Mrs. Bond, had been elected secretary, and an assistant was appointed at a wage of 18s. per week. This new Union was determined to be as active as the older one had been inactive. It demanded a minimum wage of 15s., time-and-a-quarter pay for overtime, and "no apprentices." It also demanded exemption from the nightwork prohibition clauses of the Factory and Workshop Acts. But the Union was doomed to an early and ignominious end.[Pg 39] During the absence of the secretary the finances became hopelessly involved, and a deficit in cash decided the members to close the whole matter.[27]

The Society would not even formally amalgamate with the older Society, partly owing to differences in method, and partly to its disgust with its failure and disgrace.

National Book-folders and Kindred Trades Union.

One more attempt to found a fighting women's Union was made in 1894 by the Printing and Kindred Trades Federation. All women employed in the Printing and Kindred Trades were to be eligible for membership. The attempt arose out of two disputes. In one, the women employed by a certain firm had successfully struck for an increase of wages and against certain conditions of labour; in the second, women had come out to show their sympathy with some locked-out men.[28] In recognition of the women's "courage and loyalty" the men promoted the Union. In a month or two its membership stood at 100, and by March 1896, 350 members had joined. The membership at the end of 1902 was 150, mostly book-folders, and the following points are prominent in the Union's demands:—

1. To obtain and maintain the recognised minimum scale of pay for every member;

2. To reduce hours of labour;

3. To regulate the relations between employers and employed.

It had no sick benefits, but paid £5 at death, and offered strike pay on condition that the strike was sanctioned by the committee. The reserve fund in 1902 was under £100.

In 1903 the Society approached the Printers' and Stationers' Warehousemen praying to be recognised as a branch of that [Pg 40] Union. A ballot of the men was taken, when 700 voted that the request be granted and 334 that it be not. The Women's Society has therefore ceased to exist as a separate organisation.

The Manchester Society.

A Manchester Society,[29] "The Manchester and Salford Society of Women Employed in the Bookbinding and Printing Trades" has gained some definite success in increasing wages during its six years of existence. In its third Annual Report, 1899, it is stated that in May, 1898, the Society began an attempt to increase wages to a 10s. minimum after a three or four years' apprenticeship, that as a consequence the wages of forty girls were raised in September from 9s. to 10s., and that subsequently thirty others received the shilling advance. In its next Report, 1899-1900, it states, without giving the number of girls affected, that "they now all receive 11s. and 12s. per week, where, prior to joining the Union, they earned 9s. and 10s. per week." Next year the membership was 165, and the last issued Report, 1902, whilst stating that "a slight increase of membership" had taken place during the year, gives no figures. "Losses through marriage and other circumstances," the 1901 Report says, "have been great," and the Society is kept going mainly by the devotion of one or two persons.[30]

[Pg 41]

Attempts have been made to organise women elsewhere as, for instance, in Edinburgh, where a Union of women compositors existed for a year; also in Birmingham, where ten years ago a Union was formed specially to include the machine-rulers who had been introduced about ten years previously. But the movements have failed.

Such is the record of the organisation of women in the trades with which we are dealing. It is almost exclusively confined to London and Manchester, and in London, out of 19,000 women connected with bookbinding, most of whom are book- and paper-folders, certainly not more than 500 are organised. In 1901, in the seven Men's Unions covering these trades there were 41,907 members, whilst the total membership of the Women's Unions was well under 1,000.

Maintaining standards without organisation.

Our enquiries have discovered, however, the existence of a kind of loose organisation of majority-rule and custom in some firms. Standards of prices and conditions are thus kept up. It must not be forgotten that where men and women work together all concessions won by the men's Unions are shared by women, as for instance, when the Typographical Association of Scotland secured a fifty hours' week for Aberdeen compositors. This is an interesting feature of feminine methods. In one house we came across two collating-rooms, one of which was staffed by older hands, who stood upon their dignity and would not accept inferior work or tolerate reductions in wages. The other room was conducted after the methods of the ordinary employer of cheap women's labour; the workpeople were careless and casual and the room had no traditions and no industrial "public opinion." This force of opinion, which assumes almost the nature of caste, is most strongly developed amongst job hands. These women manage to keep up a comparatively high standard of pay, and we have discovered the most unusual circumstance that in one or two instances the wages of job women have been cut down to the Union rates. We have been told on most trustworthy authority that the unwritten laws of these job hands are sometimes enforced upon recalcitrant work-women by "a hiding."

Organisation in the miscellaneous trades.

As regards organisation in the more miscellaneous trades included in our investigation, little has to be said. A few card[Pg 42] mounters once joined the Women's Printing and Kindred Trades Union after a strike, but soon fell away, and a Union started in 1890, of which little information can now be obtained, included some envelope makers: but by 1893 it, too, seems to have died.

No attempt has been made to organise women engaged in the preparation of materials for printing either in London or the provinces.

The attitude of employers.

The attitude of employers and employed to Trade Unions at the present moment is most varied. Naturally, a good many employers are in no mood to encourage Unions, because they do not know what might happen if the women's organisations became as strong as the men's. But, on the other hand, a considerable number of employers working under fair conditions and doing a trade of good quality, would welcome combination. It would help them against their cutting competitors, and they do not object to meet the reasonable demands of their women. In thirty-four cases employers were not aware of the existence of a Union at all. Fourteen forewomen knew about a Union, eleven denied its existence.[31] In no instance in London was a non-Union woman bookbinder discovered who knew of the existence of both the Unions, though the majority of the women knew of the existence of one or the other.

The women's attitude.

We were anxious to find out why they did not join. Some spoke with scorn of the older Union because it was only a benefit Society; others said, "No use in joining; you get nothing out of it;" others thought it dangerous; others suspected all Unions; others frankly admitted that marriage was sure to come along, and then they would work in factories and workshops no longer. An eloquent commentary upon this sentiment is to be found in the figures extracted from the Factory Inspector's Annual Reports and printed in Chapter II. When one works out from these tables the proportion between the males of over 18 years of age and the total number of males employed in the various trades and compares [Pg 43] it with that of the females, it will be found that a comparatively excessive percentage of the latter are under 18 years of age. The same point is brought out with more emphasis and detail in Appendix VII. The women do not, in fact, feel it necessary to organise themselves, and a manager of a Co-operative Printing Works, where membership of a Union is compulsory upon women, informed us that they grumble when they are made to join and surrender their membership as soon as they can. The notes of some of the conversations reported are valuable indications of the mind of the woman wage-earner in this respect.

We can only say in conclusion that, in the first place, women do not take that strenuous interest in their labour conditions which is essential to successful organisation. In the second place, it appears that, except at occasional times of dispute, their work is so well marked off from that of men, that the men's Unions in these trades are coming more and more to the conclusion that it does not pay them to organise the women. In the third place, we have been surprised to find that the great majority of employers and of their women employées assume that wages are fixed and that any effort to alter them by organisation will be doomed to failure.[32] Our investigators have been given instance after instance of both increase and reduction in wages, but the general tenor of conversation is a pessimist and listless view that whatever is, is fixed.

CHAPTER IV. MEN AND WOMEN AS WORKERS.

Do women displace men?

One of the most important questions relating to women as workers is the exact relationship between their work and that of men, i.e., how far they are rivals in competition and how far they are helpers in co-operation. In some of these trades, such as that of the lithographic artists, this question has never arisen, because women have rarely entered the trade. Only five instances of women working as lithographic artists are known to the head of St. Bride's Institute. But that men and women have been rivals from time to time is placed beyond doubt, although it must always be remembered that the same work nominally is not always the same work actually.[33]

Gold laying for cloth binding has, within the last quarter of a century, become the work of women who have taken the place of old "finishers" in some bookbinding firms,[34] and at [Pg 45] Dunstable women are reported as doing binding throughout. Women are employed as compositors much more frequently in the provinces than in London. In Edinburgh and Aberdeen, for instance, women are reported as being engaged in every process, except making-up and the heavy work of carrying type, in which men alone are employed. Type-setting and distribution of type are often done by women in Scotland. In some of the Edinburgh printing establishments women do practically the same work as men. The extensive employment of women during the compositors' strike in Edinburgh in 1872 to secure a fifty-one hours' working week[35] was the result of the determination of the employers to defeat the Typographical Association, and at least one firm in London tried the same policy during the bookbinders' strike for an eight-hours' day in 1902 though apparently with no success. The enthusiasts for the introduction of women into the printing trades had for some time been trying to get a hold upon Edinburgh printing offices, but had failed until the strike of 1872. An enterprising employer then trained some girls from the Merchant Company's Schools—a better class of girls whom we find described sometimes as "stickit teachers"—to compose. The results were satisfactory, and the example was speedily followed. The strike failed and the displacement of men continued.

The Perth dispute.

Something similar happened in Perth, where twenty-five years ago four girls were taken into the newspaper department of the offices of the Perthshire Advertiser. About seven years ago they were introduced into a commercial printing office, and a year later the Perthshire Constitutional began to employ them on general bookwork and setting-up newspaper copy, the proprietor claiming that he had the same right as the other offices to have cheap female labour. Thus the practice threatened [Pg 46] to spread throughout the other commercial printing offices, and the men's Union thought it was time to bestir itself. It decided that the women must either be paid the same rates as the men or be got rid of altogether. This ultimatum was sent to the employers. The Constitutional complied with the demands of the Union and dismissed its women workers. The Advertiser at first proposed gradually to replace the girls by men in the commercial department, but to continue to run the newspaper department by female labour. The proprietor contended that this would not give him an unfair advantage over the other firms, as they employed linotype machines. The Union then decided to strike, and took thirty men out of the Advertiser office. Four remained in, and some other non-Union men were also engaged. The office continues to work under this system.

Value of women's work.

There has also been trouble in Grimsby (1899), owing to the employment of women on a bi-weekly newspaper, at Redhill (1898-1900), and at Reading (1902). Other places where the Typographical Association report women to be employed are, Louth (Lincolnshire), Aylesbury, Beccles, Fakenham, Warrington,[36] etc.; whilst in Birmingham the experiment was tried about 1890, but has been abandoned. They are also employed at Bungay, but in decreasing numbers, because their proofs require so much more correcting than the men's that the valuable time thus lost is not compensated for by the cheapness of their labour. The same is true of Edinburgh, where their wages have fallen from a rate of 1s. 6d. to 1s. per average page. In Leicester a firm tried to employ women in distributing type at low rates of pay, but a protest from the local executive of the Typographical Association led immediately to the experiment being discontinued. There is an almost unanimous chorus of opinion that women's [Pg 47] work as compositors is so inferior to men's that it does not pay in the long run. From the days of Miss Faithfull's experiments, the men have been able to boast that women could not touch them at the case. In Aberdeen the unwillingness of boys to submit to a long apprenticeship and the fear of parents that the linotype has spoiled the typographical trade, are said to be the main reasons necessitating the employment of women compositors.

The men's view.

Men in these trades have never looked upon women competitors with a friendly eye, the reason being that so many branches are just on the margin line of those occupations which are so light and easily picked up that women can supplant men in them altogether.[37] The Typographical Association for over a quarter of a century has had to carry on a constant struggle with the employers in order to protect the journeymen printers against three forms of cheap labour—apprentices, unskilled men and women.[38] Employers in a small way of business, maintaining establishments on little capital, where efficiency is not high, employ women on work done in larger and better equipped establishments exclusively by men. Here there is rivalry and competition, and women are preferred mainly because they accept lower wages, and [Pg 48] because they are not members of Unions;[39] and their lack of technical skill is not found to be a sufficient counterpoise to these advantages. But in these places an inferior kind of work is done, and if men were employed they would either have to accept wages below the generally enforced scale, or the whole character of the work and organisation of the business would have to be changed.

Apparent rivalry.

In the better equipped houses, where women are employed on work generally done by men, as in composing, only parts of a compositor's duty are performed by women, and the heavier or the more technical duties, such as carrying about the formes or imposing, are done as a rule by boys or men.[40] So that here the rivalry is but partial, and, moreover, the employment of women does not always pay. It appears that in some cases, particularly in bookbinding, the application of machinery[41] makes it possible for the less skilled and lower paid women to do work formerly done by men, so that men regard women plus the machine as their competitor. On the other hand machines have displaced women and have made new openings for men, as in the case of one of the most recently introduced folding machines which feeds itself. But the re-organisation of the workshop which follows the introduction of the machine cannot be regarded merely as a substitution of men's labour by women's or the opposite, for what really happens is an all-round shifting of the distribution of labour-power and skill, and a re-arrangement of the subdivision of labour.[42] Men are transferred from [Pg 49] one kind of work to another, owing mainly to a change in the volume of production; women are introduced not so much to take men's places as to fill places created by the re-organisation of work; youths also find a footing more often at the expense of women than of men. At certain points the machine simplifies processes and abolishes the need of paying for skill in the worker; at others it makes skill (sometimes, perhaps, a new kind of skill) more necessary; at one point it abolishes the need of paying for strength, at another it makes a new opening for strength. Thus the displacement which occurs, and the competition set up are often more apparent than real.

A miscellaneous survey.

In the more miscellaneous trades over which this enquiry ranged a considerable mass of evidence points to the displacement of men by women. General statements to this effect are common in the evidence of both employers and employed. In firm A. it is alleged that women do the same work in card mounting as used to be done by men, and are paid 2s. for work which used to be paid for at 10s. Paging and numbering used to be men's work, but is now almost exclusively done by women. Plain relief stamping and black bordering have also drifted into the hands of women, whilst in various directions, such as the making and binding of cases, wrappering, or feeding printing and particularly lithographic machines, women are beginning to encroach upon men. These displacements are very often only local. Manchester has one experience; Edinburgh another. Leeds was agitated because women were displacing men on a French ruling machine, whilst elsewhere no similar move was taking place. But it must be emphasised again that in many of these instances careful enquiry shows that when men were employed they did something that the women do not now do,[43] and that the employment of women was owing to an increased volume of trade, when new machinery or some other change had made a greater subdivision of labour possible and profitable. In [Pg 50] some cases girls displace boys for no other reason than that boys cannot be found to do the work; this was the case in Manchester some ten years ago, when girls took the place of boys in letterpress work.

Conclusions.

Generally, the results of our investigations show the following summary of the advantages and disadvantages of women's labour to the employer, and their employment in preference to men depends upon how far in any given case or under any given circumstances the balance of these advantages and disadvantages is on the side of the women—or, it must also be said, how far the employer is bound by conservative use and wont so as to be protected against any impulse to employ the best organisation for the efficient conduct of his business.

The advantages of the woman worker are:—

1. That she will accept low wages; she usually works for about half the men's wages.

2. That she is not a member of a Union, and is, therefore, more amenable to the will of the employer as the absolute rule of the workshop.

3. That she is a steady[44] worker (much emphasis must not be placed upon this, as the contrary is also alleged), and nimble at mechanical processes, such as folding and collecting sheets.

4. That she will do odd jobs which lead to nothing.[45]

Her disadvantages are:—

1. That she has less technical skill than a man, and is not so useful all round.

2. That she has less strength at work and has more broken time owing to bad health and, especially should she be married, domestic duties, and that her output is not so great as that of a man.[46]

3. That she is more liable to leave work just when she is getting most useful; or, expressing this in a general way, that there are more changes in a crowd of women workers than in a crowd of men workers.

4. That employers object to mixed departments.[47]

One interesting point must be noted in connection with these conclusions. In London, where women mainly work on the more unskilled and irregular processes, it is often difficult to see what industrial influence they are exerting. In Edinburgh or Aberdeen that is not so much the case. And one thing which is observable in these places is that the employment of women of itself leads to those minute subdivisions of labour characteristic of machine industry. "There are more subdivisions of labour amongst women than amongst men in the printing trade. For example, one girl will set-up the type, another will "brassout" (put in heads and finish it), or two may sometimes be employed in finishing it."[48]

Cheap, mechanical and light work consequently tends to be done by women, whilst the men enjoy almost undisputed possession of the rest. The woman worker, for instance, competes with the man in binding the cheap light notebook, whilst she rarely interferes with him in binding heavy ledgers.[49] On the other hand, in some of the more mechanical departments, such as examining sheets of paper by touch, she attains a wonderful dexterity.

We have also to note how very effectively conservative[Pg 52] notions about women's sphere and chivalrous prejudices about protecting them, influence certain employers in determining what work they ought to do.

Technical training.

We have endeavoured to ascertain how far technical training would increase the pressure of competition between men and women, but in the present rudimentary state of such training there are few data to guide us to any very positive conclusion.

It is difficult, however, to see how in these trades the technical training of women would threaten men, except perhaps in the artistic branches. The use of the various mechanical typesetting machines has already led to some displacement of labour, and though the technique of setting and spacing might be taught to women in trade classes, the greater regularity of the male worker, and his remaining longer at the trade must always, in so skilled an industry as this, give him advantages over his female competitor. Nor would classes for women in bookbinding injure men bookbinders. For in this as in other trades women are not handicapped only by a want of skill, and if they attended classes, presumably they would be taught chiefly the arts and crafts side of bookbinding, and thus be led into branches of the trade at present undeveloped.

"Use and wont."

Moreover, a curious fact has to be kept in mind. Women workers are so lethargic that they are largely governed by use and wont. No remark is more frequent in the investigators' reports, than one to this effect, "That is men's work. Why? We do not know, but it is men's work, and we do not think about it." In some instances this use and wont is based on experience; in others, as in the backwardness of London employers in putting women to feed lithographic[Pg 53] machines, its rational explanation is not obvious.[50] In this respect the women themselves are very "loyal." "Once the employer wanted her," writes an investigator, "to varnish books, and offered her 5s. a book: she has a steady hand and could have done it quite well. It meant following a delicate zig-zag pattern with a paint brush. She refused indignantly, and said, 'I know my place and I'm not going to take men's work from them.'" And, again, a rigid sense of propriety, based on a certain amount of good reason, seems to determine many employers to separate male from female departments without further question.[51]

Girls v. Women.

So much is heard of women as rivals of men that we forget that women themselves are often preyed upon by still cheaper rivals, and the real value of technical training for women seems to lie in the fact that such training might protect them against these. Owing to the unskilled nature of their work, however, even technical education can afford to them only an unsatisfactory security against younger and cheaper persons. One of the investigators, for instance, reports:—

"It is the regular custom in A.'s now to have little girls at 3s. and 4s. a week doing work which women at 11s. and 12s. ought to do. They put a little girl beside a regular hand, and as soon as the little one masters the work [show-card mounting is being reported upon], they discharge the big one. When the little one asks for a rise, they give her 6d. or 1s. more, and when she wants still more, she goes." Figures follow showing that just under one-ninth of the women employed in this department at A.'s are "old hands." Then the report proceeds: "A. discharged about forty hands on the plea of slackness a little while ago, and then put up bills for learners." The investigators found that amongst the employées there was a very widespread opinion that "the learners always get all the best work," and that one of the regular features of [Pg 54] the trade is, that it employs a large fluctuating number of learners, whilst a smaller number of skilled hands are kept in tolerably regular work.[52]

The old hands occasionally object to teach the young ones, but nothing comes of their opposition to a system by which they are compelled to train their own executioners.

[Pg 55]

CHAPTER V. INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.

1. THE TRAINING.

How girls are taught.

At the present moment such training as is given generally begins in the workshops so soon as the girl has left school.[53] Girls are, in the best houses, employed on the recommendation of workers already there. Much of the work, such as folding, is merely a matter of mechanical quickness and accuracy, and after a few weeks' practice the girl is as useful as she is ever likely to have an opportunity to be. A great deal of the work women do in stationery factories (such as stamping, black bordering, numbering pages) is of a routine nature, and this work is generally paid by the piece. For such departments, no premium is asked as a rule.[54] Sometimes the beginner is paid a small wage—2s. 6d. or thereabouts—to encourage her at first. Sometimes she works a few weeks for nothing.[55] Sometimes she has [Pg 56] to pay a tuition fee to the woman under whose charge she is put. Sometimes this woman gives her a small sum as a gift in respect of the help she renders. Some firms make the training period fairly long, in order that it may be impossible for the lower class of girls to accept the conditions of employment. By-and-by the learner is paid half of what she earns, and finally she is put on regular piecework, her advancement depending on her nimbleness. If she is in a large house she is only taught one process, but if quick, and employed in a smaller house, she may be taught several. In almost every instance she is put upon piecework as soon as possible after she begins. In an overwhelming number of cases the beginners are simply placed beside a regular hand, and pick up their skill by watching the old hand and then turning and doing it themselves. The girl who "picked up vellum-sewing[Pg 57] and wire-stitching" whilst engaged as a folder, and she who was transferred from tie-making to stitching and folding, are types. The phrase "serving her time" survives, but the apprenticeship which is indicated hardly now exists.

Of the firms about which we have information for bookwork and printers' folding, seven require a three years' training; twenty, two years; thirty-three, one and a half years; nineteen, one year; two, fifteen months; and seven, periods under a year. Eleven firms have no settled apprenticeship time, advancement depending entirely on the quickness of the learner. In places where gold laying-on is done the same time is usually served as for the other branches, i.e., from a few weeks to three years. In the case of vellum work, seven firms require three years; eight, two years; three, one and a half years; one, one and a half to two years; two, six months; and eight, no settled time.

In some of these firms, however, a genuine attempt to teach apprentices is made;[56] and in at least one large and well-known London house the system of indenture has been revived, owing to the difficulty which was experienced in retaining girls after they became competent. On the other hand, several wellknown firms have ceased to employ learners because they are too troublesome, and depend upon women trained elsewhere. But we have found that in only a very few cases is the beginner, whether an apprentice or not, thoroughly taught every process of her trade. She is generally put to one process and kept at it, so that the mechanical dexterity she may acquire is in no [Pg 58] sense genuine trade skill.[57] This distinction between trade skill and mechanical dexterity in one process must be kept in mind as a fundamental consideration in every problem concerning the woman wage-earner.

The question of how much a girl learns during her time is a vital one. Much depends on the forewoman. As one of the workers put it, "How much you learn depends on the forelady, and whether she takes a fancy to you; some girls will have a turn at everything, others only learn sewing or folding. Dress makes a great difference; the poorer you are, the less chance you have of getting on."

The obverse of this from the forewoman's point of view is that "girls if quick are taught all branches, but with some girls it is all you can do to teach them one." It seems the general opinion amongst all the older hands that the "training is not what it used to be;" and, certainly, the few instances we have come across of women who can do bookwork, vellum work, and also stationery work, are amongst the older hands. The complaint, however, that the trade was not properly taught, occurs in the evidence given to the Commission of 1843, when it seemed to be one of the principal grievances complained of. Masters, it was said by one worker, often took girls, pretended to teach them, and discharged them at the end of their time, when they had to go elsewhere to learn. Three girls gave evidence that they were tricked into serving from three to eight months for nothing, and came away no wiser. At another shop the employer expatiated on the thoroughness of the training offered by him; but seven of his journeywomen, aged nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, and sixteen, declared indignantly that they had not learnt their business thoroughly, and would never have gone to him if they had known his methods. The truth [Pg 59] apparently is that in 1843, as to-day, some firms are better for apprentices than others, and that a generation ago a good firm doing general work offered better opportunities for training than good firms conducted under up-to-date conditions can now give.

The following table shows the changes that have been made in the conditions of apprenticeship by certain leading London firms.

The important point, however, is not so much the nominal length of apprenticeship, but the fact that the work which an "apprentice" now does is less educative than it was, and that wage-earning considerations now enter at an earlier stage into the apprentice's thoughts.

[Pg 61]

The learner as workwoman.

The low wages paid to learners offer great temptations to employers to set these extra cheap workgirls upon certain "fat" kinds of work. Some kinds of work, e.g., gathering, have thus come to be regarded as learners' perquisites, and in one extreme instance a worker made as much money when a learner on half pay as she did subsequently on whole pay.[58]

In several cases we have been able to trace the exact amount gained by the employer:—

1. A. in the last sixteen weeks of her half-pay period made £3 18s. 6d., an average of 4s. 10¾d. per week. For the next sixteen weeks, when a full hand, her average was 9s. 8d.

2. B. in twenty-three weeks before she became a full hand made £4 9s. 10d., or an average of 3s. 10¾d. per week. During the next twenty-three weeks her average was 7s. 0-½d., a few pence less than double.

3. C. in fifty-one weeks made £15 5s. 4½d., practically 6s. per week; if on full wage, her average would have been 11s. 11½d.

4. D. in thirty-seven weeks made £10 19s. 5½d., practically 6s. per week; if on full wage her average would have been 11s. 10½d.

5. E. in forty-seven weeks made £14 9s. 4½d., or 6s. 2d. per week; if on full pay her average would have been 12s. 3¾d.

6. F. in forty-three weeks made £12 12s. 3d., 5s. 1½d. per week; if on full pay her earnings would have been 11s. 8¾d.

It is obvious that when a worker is sufficiently expert to make an average of 11s. or 12s. on full pay, it is a great temptation to save on the bills by giving her as much work as possible at half-price. The employer looks upon this profit as the return made to him for teaching the girl, or, to speak more[Pg 62] correctly, for allowing her to pick up the trade in his shop. It really means that a heavy premium is being paid in instalments. Possibly, when small fixed wages are paid, the employer's profits are even higher, but in that case the learner has not that temptation to sacrifice quality to quantity, and to be content with "slapdash" work which is the inevitable consequence of a piecework system worked under such conditions, and which is specially injurious to the young hands.

Compositors.

The training given to women compositors varies very much. As is well known, boys are apprenticed to this trade for seven years at wages which usually begin at 8s. a week, and rise 2s. a year. In some cases, however, a proportion of their piece-rate earning is given in addition.

When Miss Faithfull started the Victoria Press, girls were indentured for four years, and paid a premium of ten guineas. During the first six months they received nothing; for the remaining three and a half years they were given two-third piece rates. By 1869, when Mr. Head was running the business, this system had been changed. In an article in the Printers' Register for October 6th, 1869, we read that at the Victoria Press, apprenticeship, "a relic of the ignorance and shortsightedness of our forefathers, which is maintained in our own day chiefly by the prejudices of Trades Unions, is entirely abolished. Girls begin to earn at once," with the consequence that the work is much better. The Women's Printing Society started with an apprenticeship of three or four years, the wages rising from 2s. 6d. to 10s.

At the present time the training varies in different houses, from one where the girls are regularly indentured for four years, pay a premium of £5, and receive 4s. for the first year and 5s., 6s., 7s. a week in the ensuing years, to one where, with a premium of three guineas, the training lasts for three months only, and the worker is put on piecework after that period.

Two women compositors who had served for four years gave it as their opinion that two years were sufficient to learn; during the remaining years "you are expected to do as much as a full hand and get only half wages."

It is obvious, however, that much depends on the amount of work taught, and the complaint is reiterated over and over again that girls will only learn the easy, plain work: "they want to make money at once."

[Pg 63]

Women and technical classes.

Enquiries were addressed to the Secretaries of Technical Education Committees in every town in the kingdom where the printing and kindred trades are of any importance, asking—

"1. Whether, in connection with your technical and other schools, any provision is made for the training of women in the bookbinding or in any of the printing or stationery trades;

"2. Whether the classes have been attended by any numbers of women; and

"3. Whether you have received at any time from employers statements showing the effect of such classes upon these trades?"

Seventeen replied that no provisions were made, six that the matter was under consideration, but only in one case was it stated that classes had been opened, and then the women had not taken advantage of them. The London County Council Technical Education Board has had only one application (to which it could not accede [59]) from a woman who desired to attend bookbinding classes.

This shows that in these trades the school, so far as women are concerned, has not yet been brought into contact with the workshop. Nominally the classes are open to women actually engaged in the trade, but women do not attend. This seems to be partly owing to the attitude of the men, and partly owing to the lack of interest on the part of the woman worker in the few facilities afforded to her by Technical Education Committees.

The Home Arts and Crafts Association and kindred movements have taught women amateurs bookbinding and leather work in a good many centres, but this training has had no general industrial effect. The Association for the Employment of Women has offered facilities for the training of women in working the linotype, but it has met with but scanty response. "It is work which needed more skill," said one employer, "than women possessed."[60]

Here again we have had evidence of the most conclusive nature to show that the work of women is special in its[Pg 64] simplicity, and that the craftswoman is hardly to be found anywhere. And they seem to have accepted the position, and make no attempt to move out of it.[61]

2. WHY WOMEN DO NOT TRAIN.

Some explanation is required for the fact that women have so little ambition to become skilled, especially seeing that their lack of technical knowledge and their willingness to remain at work which is merely mechanical, i.e., folding, etc., explain their low wages, casual employment, and careless organisation.

Marriage as an industrial influence.

The physiological differences between men and women have sociological results. These differences have no doubt been exaggerated and emphasised by traditions of propriety, and the change of opinion indicated generally by the expression, "the woman movement," has done a great deal to bring down those differences to their natural proportions and relations. If certain claims of equality, such as women's suffrage, were generally accepted, men and women might tend to occupy a much more equal industrial status. But when all false emphasis and exaggeration have been removed, a considerable residuum of difference must remain.

The special status of the married woman will no doubt survive all readjustment of traditional modes of thought, and will tend to withdraw her mind from the steady pursuit of industrial efficiency, because she will never consider wage earning to be her special task in the world. That has tempted her hitherto to steer off from the currents in the mid-stream of industrial life, and float upon those that flow more sluggishly by the margin. Hence she has entered industry, not with expectations of long employment, but with hopes of a speedy release, and she has therefore been in haste to earn money at once, and unwilling to sink capital (either in time or money) in making herself efficient. She is found in the more mechanical and more easily acquired branches of work, and also in those which [Pg 65]provide no future for men,[62] and her willingness to take low wages has been her great protection against competing machinery. She has preferred to remain incompetent. "Out of twenty-six girls," is the report from the manager of a well-known firm for high-class artistic bookbinding, "not one could he trust as a forewoman."

The lack of openings and ambition.

Moreover, this enquiry has shown that there is but little chance for women in these trades to improve themselves. Openings for responsible employment are few, and the ambition of the woman is not stirred by the possibility of material improvement as the reward of skill and industry. When responsible places become vacant, it is sometimes difficult to get women to consent to fill them. They seem to have little of that divine discontent which is the mainspring of progress. "They never ask for a rise as a man would, ... though after a time when they are useful, the firm would be quite willing to give one." "He finds that girls want to earn a certain wage. As a rule they will not take less, and they don't trouble to earn more." A Manchester correspondent reports: "There is very little chance of rising, and no particular desire for it, on the part of the ordinary girl, whose main aspirations are otherwise directed."

Reporting generally on her enquiries, an investigator writes: "The progressive young woman, eager to show that she is man's equal and can do man's work, seems to be a product of the middle classes. I never met girls with ambitions of that sort among the employees I talked with. On the other hand, I have met with cutting reproofs from forewomen and others in the bookbinding houses when I tried, in my innocence, to find out why they did not turn their hands to simple and easy processes which were being done by men. 'Why, that is man's work, and we shouldn't think of doing it!' is the usual answer[Pg 66] given with a toss of the head and a tone insinuating that there is a certain indelicacy in the question." Another investigator reports: "In a paper-staining department an attempt was once made to have a forewoman instead of a foreman over the girls, but she was not successful in watching the colours and had to be replaced by a man. The employer in consequence came to the conclusion that such a feat was beyond a woman's power, and the workers themselves are of the same opinion and scorn the idea of a forewoman."

Sex reputation.

Women in slowly increasing numbers seem to be settling down to a thorough industrial training, but except when they start businesses of their own, the general reputation of woman as workers, especially their liability to marry and leave, must permanently handicap the most efficient in search of employment.

Even the woman who has paid a premium of £50 or £100 for thorough instruction in the art of bookbinding is warned that "a worker cannot be taken on anywhere, but has to set up on her own account," and even then she often does not enter the regular open competitive market, but attaches certain customers to herself, owing to her special work.

The exceptional woman will always have to bear the burden of the average woman.

The questions put to employers upon this point received very emphatic replies: "It does not pay us to train women," they said in some form or another; "We only want them for simple processes such as folding, and if we tried to make them skilled in more complicated work they would leave us before we got the same return for our trouble as we get from men."

Physique, hours, etc.

The low standard of women's living also diminishes their stamina and strength, and though in the course of this enquiry we have not discovered any very serious complaint that women were irregular at their work owing to ill-health (a common complaint against women in offices), yet the drawback has been mentioned.

Moreover, it must be noted that when a girl's work in the workshop is finished she has often to go home to commence a new round of domestic tasks from which a boy is exempted. This aggravates the seriousness of her long hours of mechanical work as a wage-earner, and increases the difficulties placed in her way should she desire to attend evening technical classes.[Pg 67] The directors of several educational institutions and the teachers of technical classes for women have strongly urged this point upon us.

We have to face the fact that, for various reasons, in modern industrial society there is of necessity a tendency to specialise the work of men and women and centre the one in the workshop and the other in the home, and to incline women to take a place in industry second to their male relations. Hence, in the workshop women have hitherto been adjuncts to machines; they have taken up simple mechanical processes, and have shown little interest in complete series of industrial operations. They have picked up the arts, but have shunned the sciences. The factory and the workshop have been to them the scenes of "meanwhile" employment.

Gentility in trade.

In such circumstances one is not surprised to find such considerations as conventional gentility determining the branches of trade taken up by the women. The printing trades generally do not attract the most genteel girls, but there are grades within them. One informant says, "In Manchester, up to 1870, to be a folder was looked upon as being next door to being on the streets;" but now folders look down upon feeders. "Folding and sewing girls look down on the machine girls tremendously, and would not sit at the same table with them for anything." Perhaps the manager who said in a shocked tone of voice that "The women never care to talk of the Sunday's sermon" was hypercritical, but undoubtedly certain sections of these trades are staffed by rather rough specimens of women.

Then again, a folder, despised herself by those above her, is reported to "look down upon the litho and bronzing girls. They are of the very lowest class (she says), with hardly a shoe on their feet. They are on quite a different floor and have nothing to do with the folders." Or again, for reasons of gentility, girls prefer to become book-folders, where the hours are longer and the pay lower, rather than to become paper-bag makers. The distinction between these various sections is not similar to that between skilled and unskilled labour. The simple explanation is that amongst women engaged in industry convention is particularly potent in determining what trades are desirable and proper and what are not, so that when certain employments acquire a reputation for gentility, the others will be filled by a[Pg 68] goodly proportion of unassorted girls, and will ultimately acquire characteristics which appear to justify the feminine prejudices against them. It has been suggested that these notions of gentility have, as a matter of fact, a deeper significance, and that the favoured trades are the lighter ones. To some extent this is true. The heavier employments are staffed by a rougher class of women. But, as in the case of the Manchester folders cited above, fashions change, and we must recognise that reputation for gentility is a very important factor in determining the distribution of character amongst the trades. This appears to be the main reason why high wages do not always attract the better class of girls to certain kinds of employment, and also why there is a reluctance on the part of many self-respecting girls to enter a course of industrial training.

[Pg 69]

CHAPTER VI. LEGISLATION.

1. THE LAW.

The printing and allied trades were not brought within the scope of legislation until Mr. Walpole's Factory Acts' Extension Act of 1867.

Conditions of employment, 1866.

The Commission on Children's Employment in 1866[63] first disclosed the fact that substantial abuses prevailed throughout the printing and kindred trades. Long hours, frequent nightwork, Sunday labour, irregularities regarding meal times, and insanitary conditions—such, roughly speaking, were the hardships which made it desirable to bring them under State supervision. Mr. Lord, who took an active part on these Commissions, said that the general state of printing houses in London was very bad; not only were the composing rooms generally overcrowded and ill-ventilated, but even machine rooms were often extremely dirty, close and unhealthy. He cites the case of a machine room, where the roof was so low that a hole was cut in the ceiling for the head of the boy who was "laying-on" to go through. "The heat of steam printing," says he, "is very deleterious in close cellars, such as many places in this town are."

Speaking of the factories of wholesale stationers, the same witness says, "Many of the workrooms are ill-ventilated and overcrowded. The cubical contents of one large room measured by me were 136 ft. per head; those of another only 87 ft. per head."

With regard to hours, the Commissioners report: "These ordinary hours (viz., 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for females, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. for men and boys) are from time to time exceeded to the extent of one or two hours, and sometimes more. In the case of those who bind for publishing houses the four or five winter months are the busy season, and the six weeks immediately [Pg 70] preceding Christmas those of the greatest pressure; at one such place work often continued from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in those six weeks. The 'push' of 'magazine day' also affects this trade as it does the printer, keeping the workpeople for several days at the end of each month until 10 or 11 p.m., and on rare occasions till 1 or 2 a.m. The case of railway guides is even worse than that of magazines, for females sometimes have to work the whole night through till 6 a.m., returning to work at 10 on the same morning, and when the first of a month is on a Monday, work the whole of the preceding Sunday. On Sunday, April 30th this year, at one place twenty females worked from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and after a rest of two hours went on again through the night. Even girls of thirteen had worked in the same week once from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m., and twice from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Another rather older (fourteen and a half) worked on one day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on the preceding day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. A boy aged fourteen had worked two or three times in a week from 7 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. and three Sundays through."

"With paper-box makers," the Commissioners say, "it is not uncommon to make two or even three hours overtime (this after a day of from 9 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m.). For two months in spring and six weeks in autumn fourteen hours is the usual length of a female's working day. At one place females over fifteen are said to work constantly in the busy time from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and in some places till 1 or 2 a.m., especially with 'little men' working at home with their family and two or three girls to help. These are instances of London work, but in Manchester the hours are even longer. One girl worked, at sixteen years old, night after night in succession, from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.; the younger ones there worked from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; at another place the same witness had frequently worked from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Another, at nine years old, worked from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. generally; she said that the older ones worked a good deal later than that. Some young women had worked on three or four occasions all the night through."

"Boys of fourteen and fifteen employed at making cardboard, have in some cases worked from 8 a.m. till 10 or 11 p.m. twice a week for four or five weeks running, but that is not general in the trade. Girls of that age have worked at making paper bags nearly every night for a similar period, till 10 or 11 p.m.[Pg 71] from 8 a.m., and were very much tired by it. As paper-box making is all handwork and paid for by the piece, it is not uncommon for work to go on in the meal hours—'they please themselves.'"

The following was the experience of one girl which she gave before the Commissioners. "I am thirteen; I have been here twelve months. Some of the girls worked all night last month for two nights together. I call 'till 4 in the morning' all night. We generally work one night till 4 a.m., and three or four nights till 12. My mother thought all night hurt me and so would not let me go on, but I work till 12. Last month I worked five times in the night till 12. It is only in that week; we get very tired towards the end of it."

With regard to the moral conditions of the workers the Commissioners reported: "The indiscriminate mixing of the sexes which still prevails in many workrooms is generally condemned. The evil of such a practice is especially conspicuous where they are late and irregular in their hours. The bad language and conduct of the boys is made the subject of very strong comment by two witnesses, who go so far as to say that there is a marked deterioration in this respect during the last ten years."

Again, "The younger children were in many cases unable to read. The evil of late and irregular work in letting women loose on the streets at all hours of the night is justly censured by an employer as necessarily leading to great immorality."

Legislation, 1867.

In consequence of the Report of the Commissioners, the Factory Act Extension Act, 1867, was passed. It applied specifically to any premises where paper manufacture, letter-press printing and bookbinding were carried on; and generally to any premises where fifty or more people were employed in any manufacturing process. The hours allowed for women and young persons were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., or from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with intervals amounting to one and a half hours for meals; on Saturday, work had to cease at 2 p.m. By way of exception, women employed in bookbinding could work fourteen hours a day, provided that their total hours did not exceed sixty per week.

To those trades, such as litho-printing, that did not come under the above Act, was applied the Workshops Regulation Act of the same year, the provisions of which resembled, though they did not coincide with those of the foregoing enactment.[Pg 72] The same aggregate number of hours per day and week was established, but more elasticity was permitted in workshops, women and young persons being allowed to work in them for the hours specified at any time between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., and until 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Factory and Workshop Act, 1878.

The discrepancies in the regulations applying to different classes of work were productive of a good deal of inconvenience, and after the Commission of 1876 came the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, having as its object the consolidation and amendment of the existing statutes with a view to rendering their administration more even and secure. The main provisions of the law as it now affects the printing and kindred trades were laid down, although since that date there have been various additions and amendments. By this Act a distinction was drawn between factories and workshops, the chief difference being that, in the former, machinery propelled by steam, water, or other mechanical power must be in use; while in the latter, no such agency must be employed. Certain classes of works, however, apart from all question of mechanical power, were defined as factories and not workshops. Under these came paper-staining works, foundries (including typefoundries), except premises in which such process was carried on by not more than five persons, and as subsidiary to the repair or completion of some other work—paper mills, letter-press printing works, and bookbinding establishments.

Factory and Workshop Act, 1901.

As regards hours of work and overtime, slight modifications have been effected by legislation subsequent to the year 1878, and the present state of the law as laid down in the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, is as follows:—The regular hours for women and young persons except Saturday, are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with an allowance of one and a half hours for meals, one hour of such meal-time being before 3 p.m. On Saturday the period of employment may be 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with not less than half-an-hour for meals. But where a woman or young person has not been actually employed for more than eight hours on any day in a week, and notice of this has been affixed in the factory or workshop and served on the inspector, she may be at work on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an interval of not less than two hours for meals.

[Pg 73]

There are various special restrictions and exceptions applying to different classes of work. No protected person may take a meal or remain during meal-time in any part of a factory or workshop where typefounding is carried on, or where dry powder or dust is used in litho-printing, playing-card making, paper-staining, almanac-making, paper-colouring and enamelling. In certain industries, including printing, bookbinding, machine ruling and envelope making, women may work three days a week, and for thirty days during the year, two hours overtime, provided that such employment ceases at 10 p.m., and that they have two hours for meals. But this limit of overtime applies to the factory or workshop as a whole, and not to the overtime of individual workers.

2. ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF LEGISLATION.

The foregoing brief summary of the law has naturally preceded the question as to how far legislation has affected women in these particular trades. When restrictions are imposed upon the labour of any class of wage-earners, their economic position must be altered for good or evil, unless the trade can so adjust itself as to meet exactly the requirements of these restrictions. If the worker is of great importance, an effort will be made to adapt the trade to the novel conditions; if another class of workers or machinery, free from all restrictions, can be as easily used, it is probable that the labour affected will be ousted.

Has legislation displaced women?

Is there, then, evidence to show that any material displacement of women or girls in these trades followed the enforcement of factory legislation? Instances of dismissal must obviously be sought for soon after the Act of 1867, as the employer then knew on what terms he engaged his staff, and, except in a few cases where deliberate evasions of the law might be attempted, the effect of legislation would be to deter him from employing women, rather than lead him to dismiss them. Owing to the lapse of time, it is difficult to find out from those in the trade the immediate consequences of this Act, nor does the Commission of 1876 give much assistance. Of 103 employers questioned by us, not half a dozen remembered dismissing women in consequence of the new enactment.

One employer turned off ten or twelve women "folders" and[Pg 74] introduced machinery, alleging as his reason the want of elasticity in the Factory Act. His ordinary hours were from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but on certain days in the week it was necessary to begin work at 6 a.m. He made arrangements that the total number of hours should not exceed those sanctioned by the Act, but the variation was not allowed. If his women began work at 6 a.m. on any day, his hours had to be regularly 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., except in the case of thirty nights in the year when overtime was permitted. As this did not suit his business, he dismissed the women and had recourse to folding machines. Personally he gained, as the machinery proved an economy, but it told hardly on the women, whom otherwise he would have kept on as they were old hands.

Another employer told a similar tale regarding the introduction of folding machinery, but stated that he had been obliged to dispense with female operatives by reason of the strict enforcement of the regulations regarding overtime only.

In both these cases it is clear that the state of the trade was such that it required only a very slight disability on the part of the worker to make it worth while for the employer to use machinery.

Quite apart from any effect of legislation the machine was destined to supplant manual labour; its advent was merely accelerated by the Act. Its first introduction caused isolated cases of hardship, but its ultimate results were beneficial. Thus at the present day women and girls are largely employed upon the very machines which once seemed to threaten their industrial existence.

The case of women compositors.

In the Economic Journal of 1899 an interesting paper by Miss Bradby and Miss A. Black discusses the position of women compositors in Edinburgh, and deals with the subject of legislation. After an exhaustive investigation, no single instance was discovered of the displacement of a woman by a man owing to the Factory Acts.

The chief contention of those who oppose special factory legislation on the ground that it limits the usefulness of women compositors is, that women are not employed on newspaper work, and they give the legal prohibition of nightwork for women as the reason. Careful enquiry has shown that reason to be purely imaginary. Women are not employed on evening papers, though the factory law does not stand in their way.[Pg 75] In the provinces women set-up one or two weekly or bi-weekly journals, the firms employing them preferring them solely on the ground of cheapness. Experience shows that women are not suited for newspaper work, unless the paper does not appear more frequently than, say, twice a week, and if the factory code disappeared to-morrow, morning daily newspapers would afford to women compositors no fresh openings.

Have their opportunities been limited?

As regards the further point whether more women would be employed if they were unprotected by law, the views of representative employers and managers of labour are here set forth.

Out of thirty-five,[64] twenty-eight were emphatic in their assurance that the Factory Acts did not affect the question. Seven, on the other hand, were inclined to think otherwise. Of these, five were unable to say that they really would employ more women if freed from restrictions, but two of them thought that "there might be something in it," though the point had "never occurred to them before." Only three of them were of the opinion emphatically that legislation was certainly one amongst the obstacles to the employment of women.

When, on the other hand, we turn to the opinions of those acquainted with the conditions of the trade, either as workers (chiefly women) or Trade Union officials, we find practical unanimity. The eighteen persons[65] of this description questioned were strong in their declarations that the employment of women was not affected by the Factory Acts. To most of them, indeed, the idea of any harmful connection between the two was novel and ridiculous. This of course proves nothing; but if legislation had, to any considerable extent, hampered the work of women, the women themselves would doubtless have become aware of it.

The evidence available leads to the conclusion that, except in a few small houses, the employment of women as compositors has not been affected by the Factory Acts.

Legislation and home work.

The earlier stages during which the protection conferred by the Legislature was enforced, were marked by attempts on the part of certain employers to evade the spirit of the law by means of home work.[66]

One example of this practice was given by the Rev. H. W. Blunt in his evidence before the Commission of 1876. He says that much work was sent to be completed after factory hours. For instance, in one book-folding firm which had occasional rushes of work, a girl was employed till 11 p.m. on the Monday before Christmas. She was then told with the other girls that they must take home 1,000 quarto sheets to fold by the morning. Several did so, but she refused, because her mother was on the point of death, and the doctor said there must not be a light in the room. She was consequently dismissed at once. Mr. Blunt says further that religious "weeklies," the sheets of which came off the press at 12 o'clock at night, were sent out to be folded by 8 a.m. They were taken away in perambulators, children being employed to do this every week.

Work sent to "folding houses."

Another immediate result of legislation was the expedient of sending out work to "folding houses" which did not come within the definition of a factory or workshop. Such places may be premises belonging to a factory and yet separate from it. Mr. Henderson, of the Factory Department, in giving evidence before the Commission of 1876, says: "Some years ago I came across Messrs. X., where newspapers were folded wholesale by steam machinery, and I thought it was a factory. Messrs. X. resisted the idea. Boys were employed at irregular hours, but the Crown officers decided that it was not a factory." Christmas card packing and sorting are in the same position. Miss Deane, a lady factory inspector, who made a special investigation into the conditions of the Christmas card industry as recently as 1899, points out that many of the workplaces are outside the operation of the Act.

In the Report on Factories and Workshops for 1899, she says: "A large number of Christmas cards, almanacs, etc., are made in Germany and are sent to England, where girls are employed in sorting and repacking and arranging them, for the purpose of being sold wholesale. Such places, unless attached to some factory or workshop, being unregulated by the Act, the girls are without the protection afforded by the law regarding length of hours, meal-times, etc. It was impossible not to be struck by the difference between the conditions found in one such place and those found in the large airy sorting[Pg 77] rooms of a publishing factory close by—yet the girls in the stuffy workroom of the former were without the protection given by the law in the latter workplace. A curious instance arose in connection with one such place where about forty girls had been employed in packing and sorting for illegal hours. The occupier took to employing some of them in affixing a minute bow of ribbon to the cards, and during this temporary employment all the girls could claim and were accorded the protection of the Factory Acts. Excessive hours in hitherto unsuspected workrooms were also found to be worked in the processes of adapting and preparing bonbons for sale. In some cases, baskets, boxes and bags, were trimmed for the reception of these articles, in others they were merely selected and arranged in patterns in fancy boxes subsequently tied up with ribbon. In the first case clearly, and in the last also probably, the definition of workshop under the Act applies. Instructions were given and better conditions have gained the day." Speaking of these unregulated workplaces, in the same report, Miss Deane remarks: "In the course of some inspections after midnight last winter near the City, I came across several of these workplaces where women, girls and children, were then at work under deplorable conditions—dirty rooms, foul, gassy air, and overcrowding. In one of them I was met by the observation that 'I might come in if I liked, but I could do nothing there.'"

The experience of two of our investigators corroborates the above statement. One of them says: "At about 2.45 a.m. we went to see newspapers folded by women in the City. It was done in an old tumble-down room opposite a printing shop. We peeped in through a chink in the shutters—it was a boiling night, and the shutters were closed—and we could see a man carrying in a load of paper from time to time. When we entered we found four women streaming with perspiration in the foul hot atmosphere, folding away at the ... News. They were quite friendly and communicative, and told us they came every Thursday night about 11 p.m. and stayed till they had done. They were paid three times as much as day-workers and did no regular work in the daytime. Before beginning work they had a cup of tea. They said they liked the work and were glad that the Factory Act could not stop them; the police had been round to them and also two young ladies, but nothing had[Pg 78] happened; and they considered that they were quite old enough to do nightwork if they liked."

Folding houses are growing fewer in number owing, no doubt, to the fact that rent is so high in the City and space so valuable, that it is not worth while to erect them separate from a factory. Viewed also with dislike by factory inspectors as a means of evading the law, their tenure of life is not likely to be long.

Nightwork.

Employers admit that the effect of the Factory Acts has been to make them reduce nightwork. In criticising the Act before the Commission of 1876, Mr. Bell, of the firm of Darton, Bell and Thomas, bookbinders, says: "The Factory Act of 1867 has been a boon to employers and employed, because it has enabled us to put pressure on customers. Now we can say to the public 'We can't go beyond certain hours,' and, therefore, work not new has to be sent in earlier."

Mr. Darton, of the same firm, adds: "We have persuaded booksellers to give out stock work in June and July instead of September or October, and so begin the work earlier and avoid nightwork." This stimulus is undoubtedly good, and these views are echoed by other employers.

The whole question of how far the practical prohibition of overtime for women has limited the volume of work available for them, and thus diminished their aggregate wages, needs very careful consideration, as mistaken conclusions may easily be formed. The matter was carefully considered by a Committee of the Economic Section of the British Association, appointed in 1901, to enquire into the effect of special legislation on women, and the following extracts from its final report[67] are of some interest:—

"A very important, perhaps from the economic point of view the most important, effect of legislation has been to spread the period of work more uniformly through the week, month, and year than had been the case before regulation" (p. 5).

"The tendency to put off giving orders to the last moment is easily checked when the customer can be met with a universal legal prohibition" (p. 7).

"Restriction is met by adaptation of manufacture or [Pg 79] rearrangement of numbers employed and time at which work is done, women being still employed at the work" (p. 13).

"Except for a few complaints as to the abolition of the possibility of payment for overtime, which, as has been pointed out, by no means prove any loss of earnings ... the Committee have no record ... of any loss of wages or earnings traceable to the [Factory] Acts" (p. 25).

Thus, it will be seen that the loss of overtime is not necessarily a loss of work, but a re-distribution (and an economical one, too) of the times at which work is done, and does not therefore mean a loss in income, but a steadying and regulation of income.

Nevertheless, before the re-organisation which has been consequent on Factory legislation, overtime and nightwork were necessary in order to turn out a certain volume of trade by a certain number of workpeople, and the influence of restrictive legislation has been shown in the following directions:—

1st. An increase in the class of workers called "job hands";

2nd. An enlargements of the permanent staff;

3rd. A rearrangement of the employment of male and female labour.

The third of these changes we have found to be practically imperceptible, whilst the second has affected women most beneficially.

The job hand.

On the margin of casual and regular labour the job hand stands—the reserve battalion of this section of the labour army. She is generally a married woman, and commonly the wife of a faulty husband. She does not want regular work, and only desires to earn a certain limited wage. When she goes to a factory in search of work, she has to wait idle for hour upon hour, but she generally stays at home until summoned by her forewoman. Certain kinds of cheap seasonal work as, for instance, penny almanacs, are almost exclusively done by her,[68] and she is commonly employed either periodically, e.g., for weekly papers and monthly magazines, or casually, e.g., prospectus work, for rushes. A notice in certain public-houses, or information supplied to certain known agents, brings her to the place where she is wanted.

Job hands existed before 1867, but at that time they did not hold quite the same position in the trade as they do now. They were the hands who went to different firms for two or three nights a month to help in a recognised rush of work which occurred regularly. In the Commissioners' Report for 1876, mention is made several times of job hands who were employed quite regularly for definite pieces of work at definite times during the month. Firms publishing certain weekly papers were in the habit of employing women in folding during the early hours of the morning before distributing the papers to the newsagents. Firms which printed monthly magazines needed women to fold all night for two or three nights or more at the end of each month. Such employment naturally came to an end as soon as the Act of 1867 came into operation; but the job hand only changed her hours. It became necessary during rushes of work to call in extra hands, in order to comply with the clauses of the Act, and many firms solved the difficulty by employing job hands during the day instead of at night, for a few days to meet the emergency.[69] This work was generally taken up by married women who had served in the trade before marriage, and who were glad to get a few days' employment from time to time.

Increase of permanent staff.

The second method of solving the difficulty—by employing a larger permanent staff—involves the erection of more extensive premises, and can only be adopted by firms whose financial position enables them to meet a considerable outlay. It is probably the best means for ensuring that work shall be done efficiently for the employer, and conducted under the most favourable conditions for the employed.

Nightwork and overtime.

But there still remains a slight residuum of nightwork which has to be done by men. To this extent, and to this extent only, can restriction be said to have hindered the employment of women.

We have tried to ascertain how much this really means to the women workers. Thirty-three firms stated that work of the same character as that performed by women in the daytime[Pg 81] was sometimes given out to men at night. We cannot, however, assume that the work is always given to men on account of legal restrictions, and it does not follow that the abolition of such restrictions would induce all masters to introduce women for nightwork. Several of them, indeed, emphatically deny that they would adopt this practice; and in some instances we have been told that it was not observed in the best firms before the law prohibited it, e.g., "Mr. A. remembers the time before the Act of 1867 (he has been in the trade since 1851). He could have worked women at night, but never would because of questions of morality."

These statements are, however, only part of the case, because nightwork is generally overtime, and we must consider how far employers care to practise it.

There seems to be an almost unanimous opinion against overtime, and any mention of factory legislation appears to suggest overtime at once to both employers and employed. Experience has driven it home to them that overtime is a most uneconomical method of work;[70] and as there does not appear to be any demand for women's labour at night except occasionally as overtime, the factory law in this respect is only a protection to the employée engaged by the employer who is still experimenting with this unproductive use of labour.

Testimony of employers.

Some employers, like Mr. Bell,[71] admit candidly enough that legislation enables them to be more humane (and humanity in this respect pays) than they could otherwise afford to be. The Act is "a great relief," such an employer has said. "Legislation is an excellent thing; existing hours are quite long enough. If a person has not done her work by the time they are up, she never will do it." "The Factory Acts[Pg 82] are a very good thing," another has said. "Long hours diminish the output"; or again: "Factory legislation is a capital thing; I only wish it could be extended to men." "Women are not so strong as men, and therefore the law rightly steps in." "I think it would be very inadvisable to employ women at night. I think legislation a very good thing. Overtime is not really worth it." "Legislation is a very good thing. I don't believe in long hours. Employers are often shortsighted and think that workers are like machines—the longer you work them the more they do, but this is not really the case; if they work from 9 to 7 they have done as much as they are good for." "The good done by the Factory Acts has quite outweighed any evils or hardships." Another employer remarked: "I shouldn't like my own daughter to do it, and I don't see why other women should do so. I should think it a very bad thing for women to go home in the early hours of the morning." On hearing that restrictions were objected to on the score that they hindered the employment of women, he replied scathingly that it was rubbish, but that "ladies must have something to talk about."

From this it is evident that protection is viewed favourably by many employers, on the specific ground that it prevents systematic overtime. On the whole, they are of the opinion that nightwork is harmful to women, and that after overtime the next day's work suffers. Some are doubtful whether they would employ women at night even if the law permitted it. Nightwork, they assert, is unfit for women, not merely on account of the harm to health, but because of the insult and temptation to which they are exposed in going home. Whether these views would have been held so generally before the passing of the Factory Acts it is not possible to say; probably the results have justified the Act, and experience has provided moral reasons for legal limitations.

Such in the main is the attitude of employers towards legislation. Of 103 who expressed an opinion, twenty-six stated that legislation had not affected women's labour at all, sixty considered it to have been beneficial, and seventeen looked on all legislation as grandmotherly and ridiculous—one among these thinking that legislation was all very well, and much needed in the City, but that Southwark should be free from[Pg 83] interference. The attitude of those employers who objected to interference was expressed generally in some such way as that it was "unnecessary" for their trade at least, even if desirable for others. Pressed to explain what "unnecessary" meant, they said that women could take care of themselves; that protection was all very well for young girls, but when women arrived at the age of forty or fifty they could do what they liked; that it was hard on women that they should not be allowed to work day and night as well; that women could stand overtime just as well as men; and, finally, that legislation pressed very severely on the employer, who had to use the more expensive medium for doing nightwork, viz., men.

Such is the attitude of these employers, and it is fairly well expressed in the following quotation from The Stationery Trades' Journal, September, 1880:—

"We report in another column a case in which Messrs. Pardon & Co. were summoned for an offence under the Factory Acts. Four women were employed during the night to fold a periodical which is printed by Messrs. P. The youngest of the four women was a married woman of thirty-five, whose husband is unable to work, and she, like the rest, prized the job because it afforded the means of earning a little extra money for the support of her family. Under the pretence of protecting these women, the law steps in and says: 'Your families may starve or go to the workhouse, but you shall not work overtime or go beyond the limits prescribed by the Act. You cannot be trusted with the care of your own health. You may fast as much as you like; it will do you good and help your children to grow up stalwart men and women—but you shall not endanger your health by working too many hours at a time.' This in substance is what the law does for women. As regards the employment of children and young persons, the Act is no doubt beneficial, but surely women of thirty-five and forty do not need the same legislative protection as children. A great deal of sentimental nonsense is written and spoken by benevolent busybodies without practical knowledge of the subjects with which they meddle; and one of the results is the application of the Factory Acts to women who are old enough to judge for themselves. In the case alluded to there was more real benevolence in providing work for women than in limiting their hours of employment." As a contrast to these opinions, the[Pg 84] views on overtime expressed in the Factory Inspector's Report for 1899 are worth noting:—

"The prohibition of overtime for young persons imposed by Section 14 of the Factory Act of 1895 has, in my opinion, proved to be the most beneficial clause of that Act. It has, moreover, been carried out without any serious interference with trade and without causing much difficulty to the inspectors.

"The further restriction in the same clause of the overtime employment of women by reducing the number of times on which it may be worked in any twelve months from forty-eight to thirty was also a step in the right direction. If overtime were abolished altogether except for preserving perishable articles, the season trades would soon accommodate themselves to doing without overtime in the same way that the cotton, woollen, linen and silk manufacturing trades have done, for they also are season trades."

Opinion of employées.

Among the older workers in the trade are men and women who remember conditions before the passing of the 1867 Act, and the experience of some of them and the comparison they make between work done before and after the Act is worthy of note.

A. used to work till 10 every night when she first entered the trade. She was glad when the Act was passed to get home early, and never liked working late.

B. used to work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. regularly, including Saturdays. Frequently she had to work till 10 or 12 and sometimes to begin at 5 a.m. The "young governor" used to take her and some of the other girls home at night as they were afraid to go alone. She disliked overtime, was tired out at the end of a day's work, and thought the other women were too, and she had often noticed how badly the work was done after eight or nine hours at it. Later on, as a forewoman, she noticed that the girls after overtime always loafed about the next day and did not work well. Some women liked overtime, but she noticed it was always those who spent the extra money earned on drink. She did not think that work had gone from the women in consequence of factory legislation, but thought that married women were employed for a little while during a rush of work where before the regular hands were kept working late. She remembered how tiresome it was for the married women to[Pg 85] get home in time to fetch their babies from the crêches when the hours were from 8 to 8.

C. has often heard her mother-in-law say that as a girl she constantly worked all night and then had to work just the same the next day. She used to consider that to get home at 7 on Saturday was early, and now every young lady looks forward to her Saturday afternoon. Workpeople have a much better time than they used to. There were no proper meal hours. She used to get "just a snack between her work."

D. remembers that when they were busy they had to work all night and all the day before and the next day too. They used to work on Sundays and were given a glass of gin. She never knew anyone who wanted to do nightwork, and thinks eight and a half hours quite long enough for anyone to work, especially when there is housework, too, when one gets home.

E. remembers the time when he was a boy and women were kept at work all night; he remembers shops where they worked regularly all night after working all day, for two or three times a week.

F. a bookbinder, remembers women who worked all night frequently. They were very poor, very rough, and of very low moral standing. "Some of the women who worked could hardly be said to belong to their sex." Respectable girls would not come for such low wages, and also because they had to go home alone through the streets. After the Factory Acts the moral tone and respectability increased greatly; wages were no lower and there were fewer hours of work.[72]

G. says, "We used to have to come in at 6 in the morning and work till 10 or 11 at night, and then be told to come back again at 6 next day. I often used to faint; it took all my strength away." She considers the Factory Act an unmixed blessing.

H., before the Factory Act, has worked from 9 to 7, 8, 9, or 10. Often as a learner she stayed till 11 or 12, and once till 12 several nights running. Once she remembers being turned out in a thunderstorm at midnight, and how frightened she was. Occasionally she worked all night; they used to be given coffee at 2 a.m. Once or twice she worked from 9 a.m. one[Pg 86] day to 2 p.m. next day; "Excitement keeps you up." They were allowed to sing at their work and be as merry as they could; "We didn't count it much of a hardship." Some women after leaving the factory would go and work all night in printing houses; one woman would leave at tea-time and go to spend the night at the "Athenæum" until 7 a.m. After the Factory Act no one might stay beyond 10 without special permission. Once she did work all night; they put out the lights in the front and worked at the back. The only result of the Factory Acts that she could see was that employers had to have larger premises and employ more hands, instead of working a small staff hard.

J. says "I entered the trade in 1863 when I was thirteen. Boys and porters came at 6 a.m.; journeymen at 8 a.m. (sixty hours a week); women at 8 or 9 a.m. All had to stay as long as they were wanted, i.e., till 10 or 11. Boys were frequently kept till 11 p.m. I was never kept all night. Conditions have improved for both sexes, men's owing to Trade Unionism, women's to factory laws."

The opinions of forewomen.

The testimony of the forewomen is to the same effect. A. a forewoman, used to work often till 10, 11, or 12 at night, sometimes all night. Sometimes she was obliged to keep her girls all night when there was work that had to be finished, but usually she gave them a rest the next day. She thinks it a very good thing that they should not be allowed to work all night; the work is piecework and long hours don't do any good, for they mean that you work less next day: if you work all night, then you are so tired that you have to take a day off; you have gained nothing. She used to find that so herself.

B. a forewoman, thought the Factory Acts a very good thing. Girls grumbled if they had to stop till 8, and she never heard of any of them wanting to stay longer. "If you work till 8 for many weeks you get used up; there is no change in your life, and as soon as you get home you have to go to bed, you are so tired."

C. is a forewoman. As a girl she used to work from 8.30 a.m. to 9 or 10 at night every day from September to Christmas. She had to stay till 2 a.m. one night and come again just the same next day; she had to work from 3 a.m. one Good Friday morning and sometimes had to come to work at 1 on Sunday[Pg 87] mornings. This nightwork was only occasional, but she thinks it a very good thing that it has been stopped; she never found it pay; the girls were so tired the next day.

Another forewoman gave it as her deliberate opinion that when overtime is worked the piece workers do not make more as a rule, for they get so tired that if they stay late one night, they work less the next day.

This is the unanimous view held by the forewomen, and it comes with considerable force from them, as it is they who have to arrange to get work done somehow within a certain time. They are the people who have to put on the pressure, and are in such a position as to see how any particular system of getting work done answers.

Exceptions.

Among the younger women—the girls who have had no experience of conditions before 1867, the opinion about overtime is not so unanimous. Some few like what little overtime is allowed to them and say they would not mind more. One such worker was met, just arrived home from her factory late one Saturday afternoon. She had been working overtime as a consequence of the Queen's death—the envelope makers and black borderers were all working late just then. It was a bleak and wet afternoon, and she came in in high spirits, evidently regarding all life as a joke, and frankly confessing that factory life especially was a joke, particularly when they had overtime. "It is 'larks' working late, and the governor he up and spoke to us so nice. He says, 'Girls, you won't mind doing a bit of overtime for the sake of our dear Queen?' and we says 'No.' I shouldn't mind doing overtime every day of the week. I like the factory and should hate to be out of it." A few such girls there are who are in excellent health, like the work and don't find it monotonous, and, above all, enjoy the larger life that they meet in a factory just as girls in another social scale enjoy public school or college life. It is these who revel in their day's work and are not tired at the end of it, but how in actual fact they would like longer hours or systematic overtime it is impossible to say. It is probably the rarity of it, the stimulus and excitement of working against time for once in a way, the being put on their mettle by the "governor" himself, that make the enjoyment. We must also remember that the younger hands are those who take the most anti-social views of work and care least about[Pg 88] industrial conditions. But even by these few, when the idea of all night work is suggested, it is scouted with horror. On the whole, the view adopted is that when you have done your day's work, you have done enough. A worker in the stationers' trade assured us that overtime means a doctor's bill, so you don't really make anything by it. The experience of two women who had tried nightwork illegally was also instructive.

Overtime experience.

A. an apparently strong woman was once offered a night job when she was hard up, and thought that it would be a "lark" to take it. She went in about 8 a.m. on Friday and worked on with intervals for meals till 3 p.m. on Saturday, being paid piece rates for the day hours and 6s. for the work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. She was utterly done up in consequence of this work and lost more money next week than she made by the whole job.

B. once worked all night in a City shop for 5s. and got no good out of it, for she was so done up that she could not work at all next day, and very little the day after.

Three girls working at the same factory, and speaking of conditions there, said that when they were busy after 9.30 p.m. men were put on to do the card mounting. These girls ridiculed the idea that they disliked this or wanted to stay. "You feel quite done for by 9 o'clock. Girls sometimes cry, they get so tired in the evening." None of the three had ever heard of any girls who objected to the Factory Acts. "The little ones do not mind overtime so much because they get 3d. an hour the same as the full hands, but the full hands do mind. Overtime, i.e., till 4 p.m., on Saturdays is not so bad because you ain't so worn out."

C. thinks it a very good thing that women may not work at night—"hours are quite long enough as it is—you feel quite done up after working from 8 a.m. to 9.30 p.m."

D. is very much opposed to the idea of women working at night; she hears that in some places they work till 9 p.m. and thinks that dreadful. She has never heard anyone grumble that they cannot work longer, and scoffed at the idea. She herself hates overtime.

E.'s views are that if you've had work from 9 to 7 that is quite as much as you can do properly. She never likes her daughters to work overtime, because it only tires them out. It is sometimes rather provoking when a job comes in late after[Pg 89] you've been sitting idle and you have to leave it, but thinks that it is better on the whole. Some women wouldn't mind working "all the hours that God gives," but it is very selfish of them. Most can't stand it. If she had to be at the factory by 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m., she never did any more work, because she was so tired.

So the instances could be multiplied. There is no mistaking the note of relief that runs through the experiences of the workers who have worked both before and after 1867. Forewomen, employers and factory inspectors, who are in the position of the "lookers-on at the game," from different standpoints are nearly unanimous in agreeing that protective legislation is beneficial.

The thirty-three firms, the authorities of which are returned as having stated that they give men at night work done by women during the day, consist for the most part of printing houses, and the work done by women was folding. The result produced by legislation is that men do the folding at night and on Saturday afternoons, when there is a press of business, but in one or two cases, a regular staff of night workers is employed. As the men are slower workers than the women, and charge a far higher price for their labour, it is to the employer's interest to reduce nightwork to a minimum. Prospectuses, however, and weekly newspapers have to be folded during the night, and this must fall to the men's lot. In two firms, men occasionally do relief stamping for Christmas cards when there is a great press of work, and in one firm they do card mounting. In none of the above firms is there any question of employing men instead of women in the daytime. In one of the remaining two—a printing house—the manager said that perhaps he might have more women for folding; and in another the employer distinctly said that he would employ women for feeding his printing machines were it not for the limitations on their hours, which renders it impossible to keep them when a press of work comes in. These few cases can scarcely claim to constitute a serious hindrance to women's employment; nor, in view of the chorus of gratitude for factory legislation, can they be regarded as a serious indictment against that legislation.

Has legislation affected wages?

On the question as to whether the restrictions of the Factory[Pg 90] Acts have affected wages, it is almost impossible to obtain any trustworthy information. In briefly touching on it, we must be careful to distinguish between the rate of wages and the sum total earned. There seems an entire lack of evidence that the rate of wages has been affected, although the sum total of women's earnings collectively and individually is obviously lowered, when some of their work is given to men. But even then the mere deprivation of the chance of working unlimited overtime is an altogether exaggerated measure of the loss in wages. A human being differs from a machine, for, even when the work done is mechanical, an interval of leisure and rest is essential, after a certain point, before the output can be continued. Experience has abundantly proved that for the regular worker overtime does not pay, and is also a wasteful expedient from the point of view of the employer.

The Factory Commission of 1866 published evidence that may be accepted as reliable regarding the wages paid in the trade before legislation intervened. Mention is made in the Report of one firm of printers who employed four girls for folding and stitching, three of whom, under thirteen years of age, earned from 2s. to 3s. 6d.; the fourth, a sort of overlooker, earned 12s. Another firm of printers paid the younger girls 4s. to 5s. a week; the older ones 8s. and 10s. The women employed by a third firm earned at least 14s. a week and 3d. an hour overtime. In a fourth a young girl earned 9s. 10½d. for fifty-three hours, another 12s. 10¾d. for forty-eight hours, another 13s. for fifty-seven hours, and the journeywoman 17s. 6d. for sixty hours.

In a firm where women made envelopes, one girl working from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, and till 3 p.m. on Saturdays, said she could earn 10s. 6d., and a journeywoman earned from 10s. to 12s. Women making envelopes for another firm earned 9s. or 10s. a week.

Paper-box makers earned, on an average, 9s. or 10s., some made 15s. or more. In another firm they earned 7s. or 8s. up to 25s. on piecework. Timeworkers earned 12s. or 14s.; young girls earned 2s. 6d.

These wages are very much the same as those paid to-day, and the hours then were undoubtedly longer.[73] Nor must it be [Pg 91] assumed that wages would have risen more satisfactorily had there been no Factory Acts. Had there been any tendency for wages to rise which the Factory Law was retarding, that tendency would have shown itself in a marked way during the intervals between each Act, but no such thing is observable, as Mr. Wood's figures in the footnote indicate. Moreover, taken all together, the evidence gathered by this investigation proves that neither the demand for improvement nor the organisation to make that demand effective exists in the case of the woman worker. On the other hand, there is no evidence to show that legislation has improved wages, except in so far as it has reduced hours without apparently having lowered rates.

On the whole there seems to be no ground for considering that special legislation for women in this trade has materially injured the value of their labour. There is nothing to show that their wages have decreased, that legislation has acted as a drag upon their income, or that they have lost employment to any appreciable extent.

Want of elasticity in the law.

A lack of elasticity in the law seems to be the greatest complaint of the employers. On the face of it, it looks like a piece of senseless red-tape that, because it is usually preferable to an employer to open his factory between the hours of 8 to 8, he may not when it is more convenient to him, open it between 6 and 6 or 7.30 and 7.30. It seems absurd that it was an illegal act of an employer to allow two young women to begin work at 6 a.m. and work till 8 p.m., whereas it would have been quite legal if they had begun work at 8 a.m. and worked till 10 p.m., due notice having been given to the Home Office.[74]

Mr. Henderson, as above quoted, gives it as his opinion that "a wide limit of law is necessary for printing offices where women may not work after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m. Hours for adult women other than at present should be allowed by the Secretary of State, as for instance the folders of weeklies."

[Pg 92]

Again, it is felt that a greater freedom is needed with regard to overtime. Mr. Vaughan, the Factory Inspector for North London, in the Factories and Workshops Report for 1899 says: "I find in some trades, e.g., Christmas cards, great dissatisfaction at the curtailment of overtime from five to three nights a week, when the busy season lasts only for a month or so; the allowance of thirty nights a year is not required, but an allowance of more nights during these few weeks would be an enormous assistance. The temptation in such cases to work more nights a week than are allowed is universally great."

It appears to be a great hardship that women who have not been working by day may not upon occasions work by night, and both employers and employées are unanimous in demanding that the law should recognise this distinction. There is a great difference between retaining an ordinary worker through the night, or for more than a certain number of hours per week, and drafting in a fresh set of workers to do work by night at stated periods in the month or at times of emergency.

Whether or not the law can be made sufficiently elastic to allow of greater freedom with regard to period of employment, overtime, and nightwork, raises difficult questions. No doubt it would be an advantage both to employées and employers, if the law could be made so elastic, but the difficulty of effective inspection would be so great as to outweigh any possible advantage. The early history of factory legislation and its working shows clearly that the intention of the Act was defeated because employers could so easily evade its clauses. At present it is known to a factory inspector that a factory that opens at 6 always opens at 6 and closes at 6, unless notice has been given that overtime is being worked; if, however, an employer were free to open his factory at 6 or 7 or 8, as occasion demanded, and close accordingly, the difficulty of administration would obviously be greatly increased.

The same point arises with regard to nightworkers. It is quite impossible to know among a staff of nightworkers, who has been working all day and who are bonâ fide job hands. Such cases as the following, which was the cause of a prosecution, would occur far more frequently.

"Twenty-four girls who were employed at a neighbouring printing and bookbinding firm, worked for twelve hours at that firm on Friday, November 20th. They then went straight to[Pg 93] the Carlyle Press, and worked all night, going back to their regular work at the other firm at 8 the next morning. The forewoman employed by the latter firm said that she did not know these girls had been working all day, or she would not have admitted them."[75]

It must be remembered that so far as the class of job hands is concerned, they owe their present position in a large measure to factory legislation. By utilising them, the employer has been able to meet a sudden press of work, and yet to comply with the provisions of the law, so that, without the legislation of which they now complain, many of them would not have found employment. Moreover, job hands are not numerous when compared with regular workers, and the provisions in the Factory Acts which seem to bear hardly on casual labour have rightly been passed in the interest of the permanent staff. To accede to the demand for greater elasticity is to suppose a higher code of morals on the part both of employers and of employed than experience justifies, and it would also render necessary a far more elaborate and irritating system of inspection than at present exists. The efficiency of modern factory industry depends very greatly upon automatic working—upon its standardisation of conditions, and the existing factory law with its inelastic provisions is, in reality, a great aid in maintaining those conditions of efficiency. Now and again an employer complains of some hard experience, and forgets that a departure from rigid rule would destroy the certainty which he feels that the law is treating him exactly as it is his competitors. Such a feeling of security is essential to business enterprise.

[Pg 94]

CHAPTER VII. WOMEN AND MACHINERY.

There is a general opinion amongst the women workers themselves that the introduction of machinery has ruined these trades for them. But we have found that certain opinions prevail, not because they have stood the test of investigation, but because they are passed round, and have never been subjected to enquiry. We have already referred to the question in a general way.[76]

Effect of machinery.

The impression of workers that machinery is displacing them, must be received with a great deal of reserve as they rarely take long or broad views.

Mechanical aid is very imperfect in most of these trades, and in book folding, envelope making, black bordering, etc., its use has hitherto been greatly restricted owing to the nature of the work.

The census figures, moreover, seem to be pretty conclusive that, taking the trade as a whole, machinery cannot have had such a very destructive influence upon women's employment.[77]

The following statement by a Trade Union official is at once the most emphatic and most detailed of a considerable mass of information on this subject:—

"Folding and stitching machines have largely superseded female labour and men's labour too. E.g., A. (a certain weekly paper), if folded, etc., by hand, would employ thirty hands—now it is all done by machinery. B. (another similar paper) by hand would employ 100 girls and, say, twenty or thirty men—now no girl touches it except just to insert 'things,' e.g., advertisements, and men merely pack it; machinery does the rest. Even wrapping is done by machinery—one machine with one[Pg 95] man does the work of eight men. At X. (a well-known London firm) ten folding machines do the work of 100 girls."

As a matter of fact the papers referred to have been created by the cheap work of machines, and no labour has been displaced by their employment. They have rather increased the demand for labour. But the statement shows the efficiency of machinery worked under the best conditions.

Another statement by a woman worker, typical of many others, is as follows:—"Machinery is ruining the trade, and workers are being turned off; thirty were turned off a few months ago, and twenty more will have to go soon."

This applies to a certain well-known London firm of bookbinders, and it is curiously corroborated by other investigators who found in other firms traces of the women discharged from this one. The firm's own statement, however, was that they had to turn away "ten hands (young ones), the other day, because of the introduction of folding machines"; but this information was received five months before the woman employed quoted above was seen.[78]

Displacement.

That there is some displacement, either directly or by the substitution of younger workpeople, cannot be gainsaid with reference to particular processes.

The class most affected is the sewers. The evidence in support of their displacement places it beyond dispute, and though the increased facility for sewing has created an extra demand for folding, and some sewers have turned to folding in consequence, this class as a whole has suffered by machinery. Folders have been less affected.

The way in which the displacement is brought about is of some interest. We have, to begin with, the general apparent inability of women to manage machines, and we find that the folding machine has tended to reintroduce men to aid in work which for many years has been exclusively women's.[79] Here we[Pg 96] have a case of men and machinery doing women's work. On the other hand, the sewing machine does not appear to have had that tendency, the only explanation apparently being that convention determines that in these trades sewing machines and women go together. Sewing machines are domestic implements in men's eyes. It is very curious that it should be so, but we are driven to that as the only possible explanation of well-observed facts. In this instance machines alone displace women.

No process—excepting the few rare instances in the typographical trade—seems to have been opened up to women in consequence of the introduction of machinery; and, on the other hand, the instances where young persons, either boys or girls, have been put to women's work owing to the introduction of machinery are very rare. So all that has happened has been that machines have somewhat changed the character of women's work, and their chief effect, beyond the displacement of sewers, has been to prevent the taking on of some learners who otherwise might have been employed in certain branches of these trades.

Conclusions can be arrived at with more accuracy in respect of the paper-colouring and enamelling processes.

Paper colouring and enamelling hardly exists as a separate trade now. Paper is coloured or enamelled, as a rule, in the mill where it is made, and the processes are carried out by machinery.

This trade, then, affords a definite instance of the replacement of women's work by machinery, handwork being now a rare survival. In one firm where forty-five women were formerly employed twelve now work. The process of colouring by hand is very simple. The sheet of paper to be coloured is placed in front of the woman who wets it over with the required colour by means of a long thin brush like a whitewash brush, which she dips into a bowl. She then takes another round brush, about 10 ins. in diameter, and brushes over the whole surface, so that the colour shall lie quite evenly. The process is now complete, and the sheet of paper is taken up and hung on a line to dry. Enamelling is done in precisely the same way, enamel, instead of colour, being applied.

[Pg 97]

These hand processes apparently survive in the case of small quantities of paper which it is not worth while to colour or enamel by machine. Those who have seen the process cannot regret the abolition of hand labour. The work is rough and dirty; the workers and the walls are all splashed over with the colour, the result being picturesque, but not healthy. When dry powder or dust is used in the process, meals may not be taken on the premises. The work does not attract a high grade of workers; they are of the job-hand type, friendly, rough and ready, and by no means tidy or "genteel."

Paper colouring and enamelling was once a man's trade but women replaced men for the same reason that machinery has now replaced women, i.e., cheapness.

Machine ruling has also been slightly affected. One of the investigators reports of an Edinburgh factory: "In this factory I was shown a ruling machine which was provided with an automatic feeder, in the form of two indiarubber wheels, which drew each sheet of paper into the machine with great exactness. The machine, after ruling one side, turned the paper and ruled the other without any adjustment by hand being necessary. After being set, this machine required only the occasional supervision of one man operative. It was estimated that its output equalled that of twelve persons on the old machines, whilst on some work of a simple kind which was merely to be run through, it might replace the work of thirty."

Cheap labour and mechanical appliances.

In these circumstances it is hardly to be expected that much evidence could have been collected leading to very definite conclusions regarding how far the cheapness of women's labour retarded the introduction of machinery, and the efficient organisation of these industries.

With the large up-to-date employers, the fact that women's labour is cheap counts for little in face of the fact that machinery is rapid, and enables them on a small area and with a productive capital charge, to turn out large volumes of produce. "When we see a good machine," said one of these employers, "we try it, and we do not think of the cheapness or dearness of the labour it may displace." But with small employers, and with those producing for a lower class or special market, considerations of wages do enter greatly into calculations of the utility of a new machine, and to some slight[Pg 98] extent the cheapness of women's labour has retarded the application of machinery in these trades. One investigator states of a large West End stationer:—"Undoubtedly he would put up steam folding and stamping machines if women's labour were not so cheap." A printer who prints some of the best-known weekly papers and reviews is reported to have said:—"Taking it broadly, the cheapness of men's or women's work undoubtedly tends to retard the introduction of machinery."

But the most striking proof of the connection between cheap labour and handwork is given by one investigator who, whilst being taken over certain large printing works was shown women folding one of the illustrated weekly papers. Folding machines were standing idle in the department, and she was told that these were used by the men when folding had to be done at times when the Factory Law prohibited women's labour.[80] Another employer stated that he had introduced folding machines as a consequence of the legal restrictions placed upon women's labour, whilst another well-known bookbinder said:—"If women would take a fair price for work done it would not be necessary to employ machinery."

A large printer of magazines reports: "The saving in cost, and therefore the inducement to put in machinery, is much less if higher wages are paid for men doing the work." The scarcity of women's labour, we are told, induced a Manchester printing firm to adopt folding machines; whilst, on the other hand, the cheapness of women's labour has kept linotypes out of Warrington composing rooms.

[Pg 99]

CHAPTER VIII. HOME WORK.

Census figures.

The table of occupations compiled from the census of 1901 for the first time indicates the number of home workers. For these trades the figures for women are as follows:

It is always difficult to trace out the home worker, and the information we obtained was collected through communication with School Board officers, Charity Organisation Society secretaries, district nurses, sanitary inspectors, and workpeople. The groups of trades investigated are mainly factory and workshop trades, and are becoming more so. Home work is not so prevalent in them as it used to be, and it is now somewhat difficult to trace its effects in its present decayed importance.

Home work drawbacks.

There used to be a good deal of home work in these trades, but the growth of large firms and the introduction of machinery[82] have discouraged it.[83] The material is very heavy and sometimes costly, and has to be carefully[Pg 100] handled. It is therefore difficult to move from workshop to dwelling-place; and when handled in kitchens or other living rooms it runs a great risk of being stained and spoiled. The home workers find some of their own material, e.g., paste and brushes for bag making, and they save light and rent for employers; but, on the other hand, they are apt "to send back their work with the mark of teacups upon it," or spoiled in some other way, and it is difficult to get them to return it punctually. So in these trades, home work really does not pay.

The Trade Unions prohibit home work when they are able to detect it. There is, generally, a healthy feeling opposed to this method of employment, and firms deny practising it.

Home work processes.

Home work is now mainly confined to book and paper folding, sewing printed matter, black bordering and folding envelopes, making paper bags, and designing and painting Christmas cards which is done at home not so much because employers encourage it, but because it is undertaken by a class of women indisposed to enter a workshop. The folding is mostly of cheap printed matter like popular almanacs and other street literature. Also, a good deal of folding thin paper Bibles and prayer books is done at home.

Some paper staining is also done in living rooms by workpeople, but the practice is less common than it was. "One paper colourer, a married woman, whom we saw, told us that her mother worked at the trade before her at home, and when she herself was a baby her cradle was rocked on the colouring board. 'Many was the night' that she sat up as a child helping her mother to do the work. She certainly throve on it and seemed immensely proud of her industrial career."

[Pg 101]

The home worker.

What home work is still done is given mainly to women employed in the workshop during the day, and is therefore illegal.[84] In addition, women who have married whilst working in certain firms, or widows of men who have been workmen in these trades, keep up old connections by occasional—if not systematic—home work. But as it hardly pays the employer to avail himself regularly of domestic workers, the work now done at home is chiefly given out to meet a temporary pressure of demand, and would practically disappear if these exceptional pressures did not take place.

Paper-bag making.

The making of paper bags is, of this group of trades, most extensively and systematically practised as a home industry. This is particularly the case in the neighbourhood of busy street markets, such as are found in South London. The work is mostly done by married women of a rough class, as a supplement to their husbands' wages.[85] Reporting upon one such worker an investigator says: "Mrs. —— is one of nine daughters, and seven are paper-bag makers. All her cousins, aunts and relations-in-law have taken it up.... A niece of hers was consumptive and could not earn her living, but she was fond of dress. Mrs. —— taught her paper-bag making and she soon earned 8s. or 9s. a week." The profit which yielded this income is stated to be 6d. or 7d. per thousand bags. Many women who occasionally work at paper-bag making only do so to earn a particular sum of money of which they are in need—say 10s. When that is earned they cease work. Such is the casual nature of the employment and the disorganised state of the labour employed in it.

The homes.

The practically unanimous report of the investigators is that these home workers' home conditions are of the very worst. "A very squalid and evil-smelling slum," "Very poor and miserable house shared by others," are typical descriptions of the dwellings to which the home work investigations led us.

[Pg 102]

CHAPTER IX. THE MARRIED AND THE UNMARRIED.

The investigators tried to obtain information bearing upon the interesting and important question of the influence of the married and the unmarried woman worker on industry, on the home, and on the family income. But the difficulty of following up statements and testing their accuracy has been so great and some of the factors in the problem so elusive under the conditions of the trades investigated, that conclusions are stated with considerable reserve.

The custom in the trades under review undoubtedly is that married women should not work in them; and, as a rule, only widowhood, or a bad or sickly husband, or a slack time, brings a woman back to them after marriage.[86] Sometimes, however, she comes back, because it is too dull at home.[87] This is more generally the case in the provinces than in London, where certain job departments, especially certain kinds of folding, are filled by rather a rough class of women, amongst whom the proportion of married is exceptionally high. Throughout the reports sent in, it is most interesting to note how strongly the sense of feminine respectability opposes their fellow workwomen working after marriage, "unless they have been unfortunate in their husbands."[88]

The average age of the women regularly employed is low,[89] because as a rule girls leave at marriage. The investigators generally report that the age in workrooms appears to be [Pg 103] mainly between eighteen and twenty-three. The report that "Four girls here out of thirty or forty are over eighteen" (Leeds bookbinder's), is typical of many others. This fact alone has an enormous influence on women's wages and makes it necessary to be very careful in drawing conclusions under the headings dealt with in this chapter.

Wages and expenditure.

An attempt has been made to discover how far the earnings of women workers in these trades are only supplementary to family income, and how far the family worker is entirely dependent upon them for her livelihood. On the whole (but with important exceptions) they appear to be supplementary. In cases, certain fixed weekly payments are made for board and lodging to the relatives who are heads of the households, but these payments are not enforced in times of unemployment and are reduced when work is slack. Even when being made in full they do not always represent the actual cost of accommodation and living. It is becoming less and less common, it seems, for the wives of idle and improvident husbands to eke out their household income by casual or seasonal work, but the practice is still followed and in London prevails to a relatively considerable extent. In such cases the women do not work for mere pocket-money, nor again, do their wages cover the full cost of their living.

"Miss —— lives at home and her parents are evidently in comfortable circumstances," runs one report of a book-folder. "I went into the best parlour, where there was a piano—also a high hat in the corner!"

The following gives a somewhat fuller picture of these workers:—"Mrs. —— is a widow and has no children. She looks about sixty and is probably about fifty. She lives on the top floor in model dwellings (three rooms, for which she pays 5s. 9d.) Her husband died in 1891 of consumption, and she does not know what she would have done had she not been made forewoman (in a book-folding room). She does not see how a pieceworker can support herself. She must live at home. Most of the girls working under her live at home and give their mothers 7s. a week, keeping the rest for themselves. She was doing some washing and mangling when I called. A little girl comes to help clean, but otherwise she does everything for herself."

A fairly large employer in London stated that his "girls are living with their parents and work for pocket-money." Another[Pg 104] "would think that about half lived at home." One woman stated, "A bit of extra money comes in handy. It is nice for a woman to put a little by—you cannot expect her to save out of her husband's money"; another said: "A woman ought never to let her husband know what she earns—if she is foolish enough to do that, he at once becomes lazy and extravagant. A woman should only work after marriage either to save a little money, or to help a sick or delicate husband." A well-known London general stationery dealer reports: "Some of the women employed are the wives of the porters and packers, but in the majority of cases the husbands are worthless, and the earnings of the women are the chief support of the household." In one case reported upon, a girl, working in a Bible and prayer-book house, having to support herself, could not do it, and began pilfering prayer-books to make both ends meet. She was turned away as a thief.

For the purpose of throwing light upon the problems with which this chapter deals, particulars have been obtained from one firm in London where eighty-six women are employed. The married women are described as follows:—

1. A widow.

2. Has a husband, a bookbinder in good work, but they are extravagant.

3. Has a husband in work.

4. A widow.

5. A widow with a daughter to support.

6. A widow.

7. Has a husband in work. Has been summoned for boys not attending school.

8. Has a husband who drinks. Looks after her children and goes home at dinner time.

9. A widow with recalcitrant boy.

10. Has a husband in work.

11. Has a husband irregularly employed. Very poor and slatternly.

12. Has a husband who drinks.

Of the unmarried workers, one learned the trade when on in years because, owing to a misfortune, she had to bring up her brothers and sisters. She was very slow and her earnings only averaged about 7s. per week. Two support themselves. The others live at home and pay 6s. or 7s. per week, or hand over[Pg 105] everything they make, and receive back small sums for pocketmoney.

A report from another well-known firm of bookbinders in London states that in a room of ten women, five support themselves. In some instances it is noted that married women have to receive charitable aid in looking after their children when they themselves go to work. Of a large printing firm it is said, "Most of the girls at ... don't seem to mind if they make money or not. They couldn't possibly keep themselves on what they earned." This was the statement of a girl working with the firm and erred in being too absolute; but an examination of the wage returns showed that, somewhat modified and limited, it was true. A manager of a co-operative bookbinding establishment estimated that, from his experience, not more than 25 per cent. of the girls working in that trade, regarded their wages as the only means by which they supported themselves. The forewoman of a large stationery department stated that only three out of twenty girls under her had to depend on their own wages. The conclusion of a report submitted by an official of the Typographical Association in Coventry may be taken as being true of the provinces generally. "The females for the most part are young girls, with a sprinkling of experienced and older hands who leave when about entering married life."

Evidently it is a very common thing for such workers to pay so much into a common purse from which general family expenses are drawn, and into which the individual contributions vary with the state of trade.

The industrial effect of these conditions is obvious. The women keep no vigilant eye upon wages which are fixed rather by use and wont than by competitive pressure. Employers have rarely[90] to offer high pay as an inducement to women to enter these trades, and, consequently, there is always a downward drag upon wages, and although the women spasmodically interest themselves in their conditions, they feel so little dependence on wages that they can never be taught to make that steady upward pressure which would improve the organisation of these trades and yield more return for labour. Hence, [Pg 106] the low rate of wages obtainable by those who have to maintain themselves is kept down almost solely by the circumstance that such a large proportion of the women employed remain part of families and share in general family income. It should be noted that it is often the policy of employers to be "careful only to take respectable young girls who live with their parents." The economic influence of this "respectable" standard is obvious.

Influence on family income.

On the question whether an extensive prevalence of "supplementary earnings" tends to reduce the wages paid to other members of the family, our investigations in these trades threw no light. Only in one case, where a husband and wife were questioned, was the opinion stated that, "Now that women go into trades so much, a man and a woman together only make as much as a man used to." The question is one which can be answered only by investigation in other trades, the circumstances of which are more favourable for its elucidation.

Wages rates and married women.

What little influence the married woman has upon wages seems to be to raise and not to lower them. That is the unanimous opinion of the forewomen in London, and they know best.[91]

In a good many instances, the married women complained that the unmarried ones accepted reductions, and at a Conference held at Manchester in connection with this investigation, the opinion was unanimously expressed that married women do not lower wages, but, "on the contrary, the casuals grumble most and get most."[92] "I know of a case," writes a Plymouth correspondent, "where a married woman would not work for less than 15s., which she obtained and retained for a year or two." Out of a batch of ninety employers who had definite opinions upon the influence of married women upon the standard of wages, seventy-seven said they did not lower it, and thirteen that they did. The married woman is more able than the unmarried girl to appreciate the relation between wages and living expenses, and when she returns to the workshop, it is as a worker who accepts the life of the wage earner as a final fact and not as a mere interval between school and marriage.

The married woman is more independent and disinclined to accept low rates when offered, and she is generally chosen to go on deputations making complaints to employers. A Trade Union official said that theoretically the married woman ought to reduce wages, but that he was bound to say that his experience in the trade taught him that she did not. She has acquired the right to grumble, and she is put down in a considerable proportion of the reports as the centre from which general discontent in the workrooms emanates. Many employers object to her in consequence.

[Pg 108]

She seems to regard herself as a permanent worker when she is a widow, and generally remains for a considerable time—twenty or thirty years—with her employers without thinking of changing. She is not so "particular" as her unmarried co-worker, and does not give herself so many "airs." She cleans litho-rollers without "turning up her nose." She is, in short, part and parcel of the fellowship of wage earners; her unmarried sister is not.

She is more rarely found in the provinces than in London in these trades. Leeds and Bradford, and Bristol and the surrounding district may be taken as typical, and the reports of the investigators who visited these towns are quoted in full below on this point.

The employment of married women. (a) London.

In London, several firms refuse to employ married women as regular hands. In some cases this is a policy of the forewoman only, and not a rule of the firm. In others the head of the firm is responsible for the order. The motives vary. Some refuse on principle, holding that husbands should support their wives; e.g., "She won't countenance husbands living on their wives' earnings and idling themselves"; or, again, that it is "hard on single girls," or undesirable to have married women working amongst unmarried girls, because, "They spoil a shop by talking about all sorts of things." Other employers refuse to have them because they are too irregular—"You can't get them in in time"; others because "one has no hold over them," or because "they are tiresome, being so cocky." "Out of seventy-five girls," runs one of our reports, "he had none married till recently, when he failed to get enough unmarried. Dislikes having them because influence bad."[93]

As a rule, however, there is a certain number of married women on the staff, and all houses who have recourse to job [Pg 109] hands in busy seasons must, on occasions, have married women on their premises, though they may object to employ them as regular workers.

The exact proportion of married to unmarried women in these trades is impossible to judge. Accuracy could only be obtained by taking a census of each shop. Estimates vary. A forewoman of experience calculated that more than half were married. A Trade Union secretary and an experienced worker estimated that about half were married, whilst of the job hands taken separately, more than three-fourths were married women. Another Union official, however, reckoned that, taking the trades as a whole, there were four unmarried to one married; taking job hands separately, two were married to one unmarried. Most of those conversant with the trade are careful to give no figures, "a large proportion" are married, or a "good few," and so on, are the common expressions. All, however, agree that the largest proportion of married to unmarried is found amongst the job hands; that, in fact, the majority of that class of workers have husbands. A few instances of the proportion amongst the regular staff in houses taken at random are given below. In most cases, it was impossible to obtain any figures, but the following may be taken to be types:—

A. Printing.—12 married out of 86.

B. Printing and Magazine Binding.—Half the staff.

C. Printing.—2 regular hands unmarried, 1 married taken on when busy.

D. Envelopes, etc.—5 girls, 2 married.

E. Binding.—3 married out of 20.

F. Card Mounting, etc.—2 married out of 30.

G. Binding.—3 married in machine room out of 60; 1 in perforating department.

H. Stationery.—9 married out of 20.

J. Printing.—1 married out of 10.

K. Binding.—2 married out of 30.

L. Printing and Magazine Work.—5 married out of 100.

M. Printing.—1 or 2 out of 56.

N. Printing.—2 out of 128. (In most departments won't take them.)

These houses show a much lower percentage of married workers than anyone hazarded at a guess.

[Pg 110]

(b) Bristol and district.

"Seventeen houses in Bristol, employing about 1,170 women, have no married hands. In three of these, it is the rule that girls must leave on marriage, because the employer or the forewoman dislikes having married women, either 'because they are not such good workers after they have got the breakfast for their husbands and children, and seen to the house, and are not then much good for work in a factory,' or else because of a feeling that it is wrong to take married women from home duties.

"In eight houses, employing about 1,200 women, there is no rule against employing married women, and a few are employed. The exact proportions were impossible to ascertain, but mostly box-makers.

"So few married women are employed in these trades in Bristol that it is impossible to find any evidence of their influence on rates of pay, and the generalisations as to the quality of married women's work are made on very little information. One employer (B.) declared that married women are better workers because they do not go out unless they have good-for-nothing husbands and have to be the breadwinners, a remark corroborated by G., who assigned the same reason for their superiority, adding that married women make 2s. or 3s. a week more at piecework than the unmarried, and seem more anxious to get on. C. regards them as steadier than girls: "They take life more seriously."

"In two houses in Gloucester with twenty-two and fifty-five girls, there are no married women. 'They don't want to stay.'

"In Frome, a leading printing establishment employs 130 girls, but none are married. There is a rule against employing married women. It is regarded as immoral to do so—'It means that the husband spends the extra money in beer.'

[Pg 111]

"In Stroud, amongst thirty girls, none were married.

"In Bath, in a firm employing forty girls, a few were married, but none whose husbands were in work. 'That would be considered infra dig.'

(c) Leeds and Bradford.

"Married women are rarely employed in these trades in Leeds. Out of seventeen houses visited, only three had married women as regular workers. One of these is an accountbook maker's, where a few out of the thirty hands are married; another is a wallpaper manufacturer's, where no difference is made when girls marry, and the third is a paperbag house, where a few out of the thirty women employed are married. In the remaining fourteen houses, comprising about 930 girls, no married women work. It is a custom recognised by masters and workers alike that women leave on marriage, so that the industrial career of these workers stops usually at twenty-two or twenty-three. In two houses old hands who have married are taken on for occasional rushes of work.

"This dearth of married women in these trades seems strange in a town where married women's work is such a common feature in the mills, but is accounted for by the fact that the girls employed in the printing trades belong to a comparatively comfortable class, marry in their own class, and are not expected to be breadwinners. One employer suggests that the work requires more regularity than can be expected from a married woman, but this does not seem to be a serious difficulty in London.

"Bradford conditions are practically the same. Seven firms have no married women, one has one married out of 100 workers, and this is an exception, married women not being employed as a rule. As in Leeds, the hands who have married come in to help when there is a rush of work. One manager remarked that, if the girls think they are not going to marry they leave for the mills, where pay is higher."

The moral influence of the married worker.

There seems to be a pretty widespread objection to the moral influence of married women in the workshop. "Mr. —— objects to the employment of married women. He dislikes the way they talk to the unmarried girls.... Lately he has been obliged to employ them as he could not get enough unmarried women."

[Pg 112]

Family health.

As regards the effect of work in these trades on family life, again the evidence is sparse, but so far as it is clear it tends to show that the employment of women makes little difference to the ordinary state of things. The work is not unhealthy, and the woman worker does not do much of the heavy tasks, such as lifting formes, using presses, and so on. The instances where she does this are rare, and the men have always, in this respect, turned their chivalrous instincts to industrial purpose and to protect their own interests. One investigator reports that a girl suffers from weak knees on account of long spells of standing at a machine for making envelopes, and that a vellum-folder complains of having to lift heavy weights. Another reports against "powdering" in bookbinding; and employment in typefoundries, where girls handle type, is dangerous, since it may lead to lead-poisoning. Another says that bronzing, even when the bronzing machine is used and the precautions specified by the Factory Act are taken, is unhealthy. A case is given of a woman permanently injured by the excessive strain of working a guillotine cutting machine.

The bookbinders have always been ready to point out that certain parts of their work are too heavy for women, and the compositors have done the same. The latter also show that consumption is a trade disease amongst them, and recently have defended their attempts to exclude women from working the linotype on the ground that the fumes and gases which are generated by its typefounding arrangement are injurious to health. They also maintain that standing for long periods at a stretch is injurious to women, but in at least one large printing firm in the provinces women were seen by our investigators setting type whilst sitting on stools in front of the case. The conditions of some wallpaper factories seem to be unhealthy, partly owing to the hot air, the smell, and some of the material used, especially the arsenic. Some reports state that the constant "standing about" necessary in these trades gives headaches and produces anæmia. What valid objection there is against married women leaving their homes and children for long periods at a time during the day, must of course be added to this, in common with all other kinds of continuous work in which married women engage, but there is no special danger to life or health in these industries from which the coming generation may suffer.

[Pg 113]

CHAPTER X. WAGES.

We have succeeded in getting the authentic records of wages from about eighteen firms in London, representing every branch of work in connection with printing, binding, and despatch, and employing together 1,000 hands—more in busy, less in slack weeks. We have also less detailed information about some half-dozen other firms.

These studied together and apart will no doubt give a correct general impression of the amount and variability of wages paid, but circumstances have made it very difficult to group them so as to give a simple bird's-eye view of the whole.

These circumstances are partly due to the very great differences between the class of work done by the various firms, and the difficulty of tabulating the workers under a few definite heads; partly to the difficulty of collecting records. Our investigators were recommended:—

i. To get complete wage sheets for as many weeks as their time and the courtesy of the manager allowed, making the record as complete as possible for 1899, and extending their researches back as far as the books existed, choosing the wage sheets of one week in every month.

ii. To trace individual workers through as long a period as possible, choosing workers who would best illustrate all the various conditions of employment.

iii. To note any other information.

As regards i., we have the wage sheets for some 470 separate weeks, in addition to the complete lists of two very small firms for one and four years respectively; ii., the complete earnings of about 130 hands for periods varying from one to fourteen years.

Owing to the fact that it was impossible to get the complete lists through 1899 for many firms, and that the periods of slackness and full work were not the same in different places, it proved very difficult to handle the wage lists. At last the[Pg 114] plan was adopted of getting complete lists of one busy week, one typical week, and one slack week in 1899, leaving the employers to choose the weeks, unless our investigators could make a complete record. In the following analysis we have endeavoured to bring out the salient features of the statistics of each firm separately, and we have then grouped together all the typical weeks, either chosen by the employer or selected by us from the series; and it is believed that this grouping gives an adequate idea of the wages at a time which the trade regards as ordinary.

The earnings of the 130 individual hands is a very valuable and, it may be, almost unique record. Many interesting facts are brought out by their study, and the records should have a place in sociological literature apart from their interest in the present connection.

It has been necessary to make a technical use of averages in collating and tabulating the material, and we offer the following explanations. Where the word "average" is used without qualification, it is the ordinary arithmetic average, obtained by dividing the total by the number of payees. This is the best for general quantitative measurements.

In most cases the median and quartiles and sometimes the dispersions have been calculated. They may be explained as follows. Suppose the wages of, say, sixty persons to be arranged in ascending order, e.g., 5s., 5s. 3d., 6s., 6s. 1d. ... 11s. 9d., 12s., 12s. 6d., then the wage halfway up the list is the median wage; thus, there are as many individuals above the median as below it. The wages halfway from the ends to the median (i.e., fifteenth and forty-fifth from bottom), are the quartiles, so that between the quartiles half the wages are grouped. Thus, if the median and quartiles in the above list were 7s. 6d., 10s. 6d., 12s. 6d., there would be fifteen earning less than 7s. 6d., fifteen more than 12s. 6d., thirty between 7s. 6d. and 12s. 6d., thirty below and thirty above 10s. 6d. For a single measurement of the grouping of the wages about their median, the distance between it and the quartiles is significant: in this example 3s. and 2s. are these distances. The more convenient way of stating this is to express half the distance between the quartiles (2s. 6d.) as a fraction of their average 10s., which is generally very nearly the median. This fraction (1/4 or ·25) we call the dispersion, and it enables us to study[Pg 115] the changing character of a group in a very simple and efficient manner.

I.—STATISTICAL VIEW OF THE VARIOUS FIRMS.

FIRM A.—Information obtained.—Wages of thirty-six hands tabulated week by week through 1899.

Total amount paid in wages and total number employed each week, 1885-1899.

The whole wages sheet for one week in July and one week in November for each of these fifteen years.

A. is a firm employing from fifty to one hundred and ten women and girls as folders, stitchers and sewers. The number employed has changed gradually; in 1885-7 there were about a hundred: from 1888 to 1894 the number continually diminished to sixty, and after a brief spurt in the autumn of 1894 to one hundred and fifteen and a rapid fall, has from 1895 to 1899 gradually risen from fifty to ninety.

Through the fifteen years which the statistics cover, 1885-1899, the annual average (roughly calculated) has fluctuated within the narrow limits of 8s. 9d. and 10s. 6d.; it was above 10s. in 1888, 1889, 1897, 1898, 1899; below 9s. in 1886 and 1894. This average includes the learners. But when examined more minutely it is seen that the fluctuations week by week and month by month are very rapid. Briefly, there is a change of about 4s. in four-weekly cycles. Thus in November, 1899, the averages for the five weeks were 10s., 11s. 2d., 13s. 9d., 13s. 10d., 12s.

In November the wages are much higher than in July, and evidently more regular in character; the number earning near the average is also greater. Thus the "dispersion" in November is generally about ·2 (the quartiles and median being, for example, 12s., 15s., 18s.); while in July it is generally about ·4 (e.g., 3s. 9d., 6s. 3d., 8s. 9d.). Again, it seems quite doubtful each year whether there will be any July wages worth the name; the median in four weeks selected each year in July changes from 2s. 11d. to 8s. 2d.; while that for selected weeks in November is from 10s. 8d. to 17s. 11d., a smaller proportionate variation.

The majority are piece workers.

The following table shows the wages in two weeks (slack and[Pg 116] busy) in 1899. The figures are probably typical of similar weeks in previous years.

FIRM B.—Information obtained.—Wages of five hands tabulated week by week, for years 1886-99, 1887-99, 1896-99, 1898-99, 1899, respectively.

[Pg 117]

Monthly earnings and half-yearly bonus for all regular hands, 1888-99.

Weekly wages of all hands throughout eighteen months in the years 1886-96 and 1899, three weeks in 1877 and two in 1898.

This firm employs folders, stitchers, and sewers.—The number of permanent hands employed increased with slight variations from two in 1886 to twelve in 1899. Jobbers are occasionally employed, sometimes as many as there are permanent hands.

Considering the regular hands and choosing each year a wage earner near the median for that year, we have the following table.

FIRM C.—Information obtained.—Complete list of wages for first week in every month, from January, 1897, to February, 1900.

Full lists in five weeks described as "slack," "busy," or "typical."

[Pg 118]

The wages of fifteen hands tabulated, most of them throughout 1897-99.

The work is divided into four departments:—

Binders, from twenty-nine to thirty-eight hands. The median wage fluctuated in the three years between 11s. and 17s., excluding holiday weeks; 13s. is the general average. About six are on time wages.

In the warehouse, where Government folding is done, five hands are employed. The median wage of this group fluctuated in 1897 between 16s. and 27s., being low at the end of 1897. In 1898 and 1899 it was a little steadier, averaging about 21s. (piece rates).

In the envelope room, where folding and relief stamping is done, seven to thirteen hands are employed. The median wage is very variable, fluctuating from 9s. to 16s., and averaging about 12s., chiefly time wages.

Machine ruling is done by from four to eleven girls. Their median wage was nearly steady at 6s. in 1897 and 1898, and rose regularly to 8s. in 1899. Nominally these were time wages.

The following table shows detailed wages in five selected weeks (learners excluded).

[Pg 119]

FIRM D.—Information obtained.—Complete lists of wages in all weeks in 1899. Wages of thirty-one hands tabulated week by week through 1899.

The lists are made up in five divisions.

1. Sixty-five to seventy-eight employed in sewing, folding and collating (of whom eleven to seventeen are learners). Excluding Bank Holiday weeks and learners, the average wage fluctuates only between 10s. and 13s. 9d. Average for 1st half, 12s.; 2nd half, 11s. 6d.; year, 11s. 9d.

2. Eighty to ninety (including sixteen to twenty-three learners), collating and sewing. Average from 10s. 7d. to 16s. 3d. Average for 1st half, 13s. 5d.; 2nd half, 13s. 2d.; year, 13s. 3d.

3. Eighty-three to ninety-two (including thirteen to thirty learners), folding. Average from 10s. 6d. to 16s. 5d. Average for 1st half, 13s.; 2nd half, 13s.; year, 13s.

4. Layers-on, about six. Average fluctuates from 12s. to 24s. 8d.; 1st half, 15s. 7d.; 2nd half, 16s. 11d.; year, 16s. 3d.

5. Lookers-over, four or six. Fluctuates from 11s. 8d. to 15s. 10d. Average for year, 13s. 8d.

[Pg 120]

The following table shows detailed wages in five selected weeks.

FIRM E.— Information obtained.—Complete wage list for one week each month from August, 1894, to December, 1899.

Wages of eight hands tabulated, five through the whole period.

Folding, stitching and sewing are done. Number employed was nearly regular, but increased from forty to sixty, and fell back to fifty.

The median fluctuates rapidly and greatly, but shows a gradual rise from 13s. (with fluctuations down to 8s. and up to 16s.) to 16s. (with fluctuations down to 10s. and up to 19s.). The "dispersion" has changed little, and was about ·15.

The following weeks (table p. 121) show the general run of wages.

[Pg 121]

FIRM F.—Information obtained.—Wages for all hands each week in 1896, and until March, 1900. So few are employed that no average can be given, and the wages are treated later under individual hands.

Also a small bookbinding firm.

1. A quick folder; wages generally from 12s. to 16s., but fluctuations down to 5s. and up to 20s.

2. A quick sewer; very fluctuating, about 10s.

3. A collator at 3¼d. per hour; 12s., with fluctuations.

FIRM G.—Information obtained.—List of wages paid in 2nd week in each month, 1896, February, 1900, and four other weeks.

Wages of fourteen hands; six throughout the period.

Machine Ruling.—Four to nine hands, generally seven to nine. Time wages. Median moves slowly and steadily from 6s. to 7s. during 1896-99.

[Pg 122]

Binding room, including despatch, till middle of 1897, when numbers fell from forty to twenty. The despatch room, beginning with twenty, increased to thirty hands.

FIRM H. —Information obtained.—Wage list, 3rd week in every month, 1895-98. Every week in 1899, and eight special weeks. Wages of three hands tabulated throughout period.

Work done.—Printers' folding, sewing, magazines. No bookbinding. Twenty-four to thirty-eight hands. Median very variable; e.g., July, 1899, 14s. 2d., 16s. 6d., 13s. 7d., 15s. 10d.

[Pg 124]

FIRM I. —Publishers and bookbinders. No printers' folding. Information obtained.—Wage lists: 2nd week in each month, October, 1898, to March, 1900. Total wages every week to March, 1900. Wages of nine hands tabulated throughout.

[Pg 125]

[Pg 126]

FIRM J. —A firm undertaking magazine work. Information obtained.—General statement of ordinary wages. Wages in three selected weeks.

Bookfolding, stitching, wrapping, etc. (magazine work). Work is regular for three weeks; none in the fourth.

FIRM K. —A publisher's bookbinder. Information obtained.—Wage sheet for three selected weeks in 1898-9.

A week as slack as the slack week here given, was only experienced two or three times.

[Pg 127]

FIRM L. —Compositors.—Information obtained: Complete wages of the six hands employed through 1900.

No. 1 has been in the trade two and a half years. In 1900 she was away seven weeks (three, slack trade; two, holidays; two, ill); in the remaining forty-five weeks her wages fluctuated between 5s. and 18s. 3d., reached a total of £28 15s. 9d., making an average of 11s. 1d. weekly through the year, or 12s. 7d. per week employed.

No. 2 lost four weeks in 1900 through slack trade. In the remaining forty-eight weeks her wages fluctuated between 5s. 6d. and 23s.; reached a total of £40 4s. 11d., making an average of 15s. 6d. weekly through the year.

No. 3 made £52 9s., working fifty-one weeks at £1 per week, making 29s. overtime, and taking one week's holiday; average, 20s. 2d. weekly for the year.

No. 4 made £37 16s. in forty-four weeks, lost five weeks[Pg 128] through slack trade, and took three weeks' holiday; average, 14s. 6d. weekly for the year.

No. 5 made £39 1s. 9d. in forty-six weeks, lost four weeks through slack trade, was ill one week and took one week's holiday; average, 15s. weekly for the year.

No. 6 made £22 1s. 6d. in forty-eight weeks, lost three weeks through slack trade, was ill for one week. She was unsuccessful in her work, and only averaged 8s. 4d. a week through the year.

FIRM M.—A press warehouse. Information obtained.—Wage list in three selected weeks.

[Pg 129]

FIRM N. —Bookbinders. Information obtained.—Complete wage sheets for three selected weeks. Folders, piece; collators, time.

FIRM O. Information obtained.—Wage lists in three selected weeks, probably in first half of 1900. Five hands.

[Pg 130]

FIRM P. Information obtained.—Wage lists in three selected weeks. Wages of twelve selected workers in these weeks.

FIRM Q. Information obtained.—Wage lists in eleven selected weeks. Work done—machine ruling in its higher branches, usually done by men; also paging and numbering (see table, p. 131).

[Pg 131]