A. A. Brooke

“ Again, the accumulation of human beings in a great centre like London is so vast that the purchaser of labour is in a position to compete with machinery without standing to lose. This is why the human pressure becomes so intolerable. It is a race in which the individual has to compete against organisation and machinery—usually under the most depressing conditions—in which the worker, without receiving any equivalent, carries a large responsibility, which, under organised industry, is discharged by the employer. ”

“ There are masses of workers in England who are no more free to choose their work, or to make terms for it, than were the slaves on a Virginian plantation. The Newcastle woman in the white lead works of Elswick, who counts seven little ones at her board, whose man is out of work, is tied and bound as with chains. Her man, her children, look to her for food, and at her heels are hundreds of other women in similar distress, whose breadwinners are, perhaps through no fault of their own, also out of work, or in receipt of wages wholly inadequate to the maintenance of the family. ”

“ Even though a woman’s work may be as good and as rapid as a man’s, we have seen that her scale of payment is frequently far inferior to his. She may be working on the same kind of machine, speeded at the same pace, turning out the same commodity, and yet a heavy penalty is laid on her simply because she is a woman. The experience gained in the cotton trade, however, seems to shew that in an industry where machinery is largely employed, and where the trade organization includes both men and women, the economic disadvantages under which women labour tend to disappear. ”

“ The daughter, who is apprenticed to the dressmaker or milliner, or who begins life as a half-timer in the mills, is not working for her living in the same way as the man who has to provide himself with an independence; and it is obvious that this factor, modified as it is by all the variations of the standard of family living in different parts of the country, must be at the bottom of much that is confusing, arbitrary, and inexplicable in the women’s labour movement. For instance, cases are constantly to be found of a different scale of payment for men and women for the same work. ”

“ In order to amend the conditions of their life assistants must have leisure to combine, for nothing breaks the spirit like unceasing toil. At present, as was pathetically remarked by a shop assistant, “counter and bed is the common lot of most of us,” and energies enfeebled by a long day’s work are unequal to grappling with the problem of reform. Both sexes work under the same conditions; women keep the same long hours as men; nor would they regard with approval special legislation in their favour, fearing lest the indirect result of such legislation should be to restrict their employment. ”

“ A few thoughtful parents, perceiving that such occupations as High School teaching offer but a poor reward for the energies of cultivated women, are training their daughters systematically for trade. The wisdom of such a course deserves to be highly commended, for girls so prepared will enter upon their work with every chance of success, and free from the ignorance which perpetually clogs the steps of women’s enterprise. To parents not themselves in business the matter may present some difficulties; but for girls whose fathers are in trade, the means of training are of course ready to hand. ”

“ Attitude of Men’s Unions.—Much may be hoped for the future of unionism among women, from the increased support which it receives from the leaders of men’s unions; indeed, it is not too much to say that herein lies the key to the position. It has often been cast in the teeth of Trades Unionists that while struggling for freedom for themselves they have regarded with indifference the economic position of their working sisters, and have exerted their influence rather for the restriction of women’s labour than for the improvement of its conditions. ”

“ For those who live out of sight of this great industry, never hearing the rattle of the clogs over the roads in the early morning, at the dinner hour, and again when the bell rings for ceasing work; who only know from passing them in the train the look of the huge and brilliantly lighted mills, it may require some effort of imagination to realise the importance of these matters to the operatives, who for 561⁄2 hours every week are to a greater or lesser extent working under trying conditions. ”

“ It is obviously unreasonable to throw the responsibility upon an inspector of introducing a variety of highly-technical hygienic appliances into buildings which have been designed and erected without regard to health, and in which plant and machinery have been laid down with a single eye to production—just as unreasonable in fact as to try to preserve a town from typhoid fever by taking precautions after a defective drainage system has been completed instead of before. ”

“ A woman, however, who has a fair variety of subjects at command, and can combine purely literary work with the day-to-day business of a journalist, may make a very reasonable income from her profession—say £400 a year. But a journalist beginning at the bottom of the ladder would take long to mount so high, and would probably be well content, after some years’ work, to be earning £200 a year. It should be noted that journalism among women is almost confined to London; for though there are women so engaged in the provinces, it seldom forms their regular means of livelihood. ”

“ Medicine.—The profession of medicine has at last, after long struggles, been thrown open to both sexes, and women doctors are slowly taking their place in the ranks as recognised practitioners of the healing art. Their presence will tend in an eminent degree to the preservation of health as distinct from the cure of disease, at any rate as far as women patients are concerned; since it is plain that women, and especially girls, can be more readily induced to complain of ailments in the initial and manageable stage if they are able to consult a member of their own sex. ”

“ It is in those industrial departments where the human processes are most mechanical and lend themselves after a short training to almost automatic performance, that the field of women’s labour under the factory system for the most part lies. All those who are at all conversant with the movements of industry and mechanical invention will be able to call to mind examples in point. Of course the same process is taking place where men only are employed. The skilled artizan has become less of a necessity as the skilled machine becomes more common ”

“ The disastrous consequences of throwing female assistants—often mere girls—upon their own resources on the day in the week when respectable means of shelter or refreshment are least accessible can easily be imagined. Here again a strong Trade Union seems to afford the only possible chance of dealing with the evil. The stress of competition is ever at work, driving employers to diminish their expenses in every possible way in order to sell their wares at the cheapest rate; and it is so easy to effect the needful economies out of the domestic establishment of their assistants. ”

“ Once our women workers see how much depends on their co-operation, on their self-restraint, on their standing firm, they will not fail their men, and the difficulties which beset them and their position in the labour movement of the day, once solved in the full light of that which is best for the family, best for our society and best for our national life, we shall assuredly be far on our way towards the settlement of those less pressing grievances which are put forward by the idle classes. ”

“ In the first place, it is because labour has become so much lighter, and trades so much more easily learned, that the demand for women’s labour has grown so immensely of late years; in the second place, machinery, the great leveller, is tending to abolish rapidly such differences as have existed between men’s and women’s labour; and, in the third place, that whether legislation or organisation be attempted in the interests of the workers, it must embrace men and women alike. ”

“ Many singers high in the ranks will not look at a modern song unless they are paid a handsome royalty for singing it, and thus a valuable means of advancing the reputation of a young composer is rendered useless.
Painting and sculpture are so purely an affair of the individual that it is more difficult to make general statements with regard to them than with any other artistic profession. Each artist works on his own lines; there is no general or usual rate of remuneration, and no one can predict with any certainty the prospects of the profession even to a painter of talent. ”

“ Basis of Men’s and Women’s Wages.—But another condition which faces one at every turn of the labour market, goes so far to differentiate the work of men and women, that it may seem to make all the levelling influences which we have just considered of no account. In the case of men wages are based upon the cost of living. They approximate to a man’s standard of existence and that of his family for the time being. ”

“ A woman considers what it will be worth while to add to the family revenue, rather than what her work is really worth. This fact more than anything else accounts for the immense difficulties of introducing order and humanity into the field of woman’s labour; for, obviously, if the woman worker is to acquire any form of economic independence she must be able to earn such a rate of wages as will enable her to maintain a decent standard of subsistence. ”

“ It cannot be too strongly urged that these exceptions are entirely contrary to the spirit of factory legislation, which is based upon the doctrine that trade must adapt itself to what is necessary for the workers in regard to their health and requirements as human beings, and that it is entirely opposed to the theory that human beings must adapt their standard of health and leisure to the conveniences and exigencies of trade. Whether the maximum hours of labour fixed for the textile trades, viz., fifty-six per week, are not too many is another question. ”

“ Extent of Combination.—Whilst Lancashire and Yorkshire afford the most instructive field for studying the influence of factory legislation upon labour, the information that may be gleaned there respecting combination as an element in the economic and social life of women is no less instructive. Side by side with one another you find two great kindred industries—the woollen and the cotton—and the level of one, so far as women are concerned, is far below that of the other. No explanation based on competition, either in commercial or labour markets, can account for this difference. ”

“ Engagement is almost always for the run of a single piece only, and there is usually no payment for rehearsals. Thus, after weeks of rehearsal, if the piece is unsuccessful, a girl may only earn a fortnight’s salary. In these matters actors and actresses are not well used, and when they have learnt the value of united effort they will certainly combine for securing juster terms. There is less cause for complaint in the rate of payment, which is generally fair, and often very good; while a successful actress can of course make a very large income. ”

“ The requirement of 400 cubic feet of space is an instance of the official brain working in a vacuum, and here again the administrative side is not to be blamed. How is a factory inspector to see that every person who works overtime gets his 400 feet? How can he calculate? Is he to set his calculation against that of the manufacturer who is anxious to keep all his hands [157] working extra hours, and who assures him that, after making due deduction for bench room, machinery, and the like, each person will enjoy his allotted share? ”

“ Now unfortunately the more “noble” a profession is considered, the greater is the tendency to neglect the material [29] well-being of those concerned in it; and nurses have reason to feel the full force of this misplaced sentiment. The policy followed in their regard is as foolish as it is unjust. The inevitable fatigues of a nurse’s life require to be counteracted by the most careful provisions for her comfort, if full efficiency is to be kept up; and Hospital Boards would do well to remember that more professions are now open to women than there were when nursing first became popular. ”

“ Anyone who has watched the white-lead women passing backwards and forwards in their long, weary trampings under their heavy loads, clambering up and down the ladders, or passing the lead from hand to hand up a staging beside the stoves where it has to be [134] heated, must realise how thoroughly retrograde in its tendency, as well as mischievous in its physical and moral effects, is the existence of a class of cheap and unresisting labour which the manufacturer can bend into any shape, or turn to any purpose that he chooses. ”

“ Shop assistants are apt to regard such measures as suitable only to artisans and labourers, failing to perceive that from lack of combination they themselves are often much worse treated than the labourers whose methods of self-defence they despise. No artisan would think for a moment of enduring the conditions with regard to fines, forms of agreement, and method of living, which are imposed upon shop assistants, whose hours of labour are also, as I have shown, far beyond those worked by factory “hands.” [14] The fear of dismissal is a more real cause for hesitation ”

“ The same too may be said of the disastrous effect on the market of that increasing supply of cheap labour which is ever swelling to larger and larger proportions through the influx of our women. Instead of encouraging them to enter into competition with men, and by so doing to drag wages down to lower and yet lower levels, the task before us is to teach them that the interests of labour are one, and that wherever they enter a trade they [xii] must in self-protection refuse to sell their labour for less than a rate proportional to that demanded by their men. ”

“ But, along with certain other large assumptions, we seem to have reckoned upon an inexhaustible supply of labour. It may be considered somewhat fanciful to assume anything else when in most trades the supply of labour exceeds the demand, and machinery increasingly takes the place of physical labour. The number of the labourers who present themselves [120] is not, however, the only matter for consideration, the quality of their labour is of the most material importance. It is a matter of the greatest moment to secure well-developed and healthy people for the industrial army. ”

“ Those who encourage our women to treat men as their rivals, to compete with them, and by their competition to persistently reduce the earnings of men, are doing their [x] best to aggravate this state of things. The wages of the husband and father being reduced by the entrance into his trade of the women who undersell him, the wife and mother needs must turn her back upon her home, and give her working day to make up the difference. In this way the homes of our working classes are too often destroyed, and the health of future generations sacrificed. ”

“ Nor can purchasers, however well disposed toward the working classes, effect any change on their own account. Such devices as a “Consumers’ League,” whose members would bind themselves to deal only with firms paying a fair rate of wages, must obviously fail, or if conceivably successful must do as much harm as good until our means of obtaining information are much more perfect than they are at present. No such rough-and-ready way of forcing on reforms is of the slightest use; the workers themselves must improve their condition by slow and patient effort. ”

“ Besides the few novelists whose names are widely known, [4] there are a multitude of scribblers of lesser fame who yet make a good living by their profession. There are grades in these things, and writers whose works are seldom found on the shelves of the fastidious are yet in good demand at the libraries, and have a circulation and a public of their own. An immense amount of second class fiction is written by women, who seem to have a special gift for producing tales that are readable and brightly written without ever rising above the level of mediocrity. ”

“ A teacher of cookery in elementary schools can earn from £80 to £100 a year in a fairly agreeable manner, and private and visiting teachers often earn more. Dressmaking and laundry work are also in great demand, particularly in evening continuation schools; and if to these subjects is added a knowledge of sick-nursing and elementary hygiene, the combination forms an admirable stock-in-trade for a teacher. In some towns School Boards are training their own teachers, probably with more haste than thoroughness, to fill the posts for which such a sudden demand has arisen. ”

“ To ignore the women workers would have been fatal in an industry which numbers them by tens of thousands. Accordingly the policy of the Unionists has been to bring men and women together into the same organization; to treat their labour as one and the same; and to provide equal rules for the remuneration and protection of all. The most notable result has been that women weavers in the cotton trade are paid precisely the same wages as the men ”

“ Shop Assistants.—When we come to the lower grades of employment, to the work of shop assistants and book-keepers, the proportion quickly alters, and the women far outnumber the men. There are unfortunately no means of ascertaining the number of women so employed, but the total number of both sexes in the retail trade is about one million, and about four-fifths of the assistants in the drapery trade are women. In other trades the proportion is not quite so high, and in the grocery trade about nine-tenths are men. ”

“ The strain upon the muscle and bodily strength may be less, but the nervous wear and tear, the mental strain, the storm and stress of the mill, have been also steadily increasing. The history of the troubles of the Lancashire and Yorkshire operative is not then a closed chapter; for that matter no department of industry in these days is or can be. Changes and improvements in manufacturing processes and machinery are so constant and sweeping that the worker is ever face to face with new problems, many of which, indeed, are directly due to the rising standard of his own life. ”

“ If women have entered but timidly into this fair kingdom, it has not been for want of fitness, as the rapid success of a few among them clearly shows; the hindrance has lain rather in the prejudices of society and the lack of proper training. Though rapidly disappearing, the former are not yet extinct; means of training are not the same for both sexes, nor have women ceased to suffer from the blasting influence of Puritanism upon art. Anything that damages the social reputation of a profession bars it more or less to women ”