“ 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. ”

“ The manager of a firm with an extensive business in popular periodical literature says: "Folding, which was all hand work and women's work, is now largely done by machines managed by men. Wrapping, of which the same was true, is also largely done by machines which are managed by men.... If the machine is large and complicated, men will replace women, if it is small and simple, women will replace men." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No employer acknowledged that women were ever kept overtime, although, from the account of one worker, apparently this does sometimes occur.
All concurred that the cheapness of women's work compared to men's outweighed any inconvenience arising from special legislation for women and young persons. In no case was the cheapness of women's work attributed to legislation, but to absence of unionism and different standards of life for men and women, and inferiority of physical strength and mental ingenuity, and also to custom. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Training and Wages.—Machine Ruling is the only process for which training can be said to exist. In some houses women are still articled or apprenticed to this branch, but in many they simply learn their trade as they can, from the foreman or forewoman. They generally begin as machine feeders of the ruling machine. The secretary of the Union of Bookbinders and Machine Rulers gave the information that women had been first employed as machine rulers about twenty years ago. He himself had learnt his trade under a woman who was head of the whole department. ”

“ A manager of a firm dealing largely in magazines and periodical issues says: "The effect of legal restrictions on our business is to make women work hard for two weeks and slacken off for two weeks. There is no thought of giving the work to men, or of sending it home, or of employing job hands." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is curious to notice how few married women there are in the printing trade in Birmingham compared to the pen trade, for example. A better class of girl seems to go into the printing trade, coming from better homes than women employed in the hardware trades. It is very exceptional for a girl who marries a skilled artisan in Birmingham to continue her work, and in these trades girls appear to belong more to the skilled artisan class. Several employers refuse married women; one employer told me that he never had had an application for work from a married woman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”