TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WOMEN AND THEIR WORK.
WE hope that the letter published in another column entitled "Women's Work" will receive the close attention of our readers. It deals with a matter which not only involves a debt of honour from the nation to a !arge group of working women, but also involves economic onsiderations of a vital character. We confess that our first feeling on reading Mrs. Kinnell's letter was one of burning indignation against those who throw impediments in the way of women earning their daily bread by honest labour, whether at the lathe or any other form of engin- eering work which they may choose, or again in many branches of the building trade which are often entirely suitable for women. But indignation, however well justified and however useful on occasion, is by no means a sufficient equipment for getting the world at large, or at any rate a large part of the working men—womenkind may be said to be already converted—to realize what they are doing when they try their best to prevent women from working at particular trades, and even throw obstacles in the way of their being trained to earn their daily bread.
Before, however, we deal with this matter of women's work in detail let us say that, while we assume, and indeed are obliged to assume in the face of Mrs. Kinnell's positive statement, that the Unions of the skilled men are in fact preventing women from having a share in skilled work, it is possible that there is some misunderstanding, and that the attitude of the Unions is not really what it is said to be. If that is so, and if they make no objection to women doing skilled work or learning to do it, we shall not only be willing to recognize our blunder and to withdraw and apologize for what we have said, but shall be relieved beyond measure to have been proved to be in error. All that the leaders or representatives of the Unions need do is to send us a correction, to which we will give the utmost publicity. Pending, however, such a contradiction or explanation as we hope may be forthcoming, we can certainly do no harm in discussing the subject. "Whether the Unions have taken the line Mrs. Kinnell implies they have taken or not, there is unfortunately no doubt that there is a very general prejudice existing in the minds of many male workers against the so-called competition of women. That is, alas ! an admitted fact. The prejudice against allowing women to participate in trades and forms of work which hitherto have been exclusively, or at any rate usually, sarried on by men may be due to one of two sets of consider- ations. The first set are what may be termed moral and social considerations ; the other set are of an economic nature.
We will deal first with the moral and social considerations. It is of course quite right that these should receive the utmost attention. We are far from thinking that this is a matter in which economics alone should rule. By this we mean that if it can be shown that morally, socially, or hygienically the influx of women into the skilled trades would he in- jurious to the public welfare, then all good citizens must be against such an influx, and the State might well be justified in forbidding it. Can this be shown ? Obviously a person in weak health, either normal or temporary, should not be exposed to a severe physical strain. We believe, how- ever, that the best medical opinion would now by no means declare that hard physical work conducted under proper conditions as to hours and so on is worse for a healthy woman than for a healthy man. No doubt married women who have just brought children into the world, or who are about to bear children, or again women who are already fully occupied with the care of children and the care of households, ought not to be encouraged- to take on extra duties. We will go further, and say that theoretically it might be quite right to forbid employers to tempt them to undertake extra work by the offer of wages. Moreover, we are sure that public opinion is right in setting its face against a system of double strain. It is the husband's duty so to provide that the mother of a family shall not be forced to undertake a double service. She must not be allowed to add to the burden of bearing, and caring for, the children by also procuring them food, shelter, and clothes. That is the father's part. But though home duties may be the appropriate function for the majority of women, there is in the social life of to-day a very large class of young women who are unmarried and who, as we have seen during the war, are perfectly capable, either as workers in engineering trades or on the land or in a hundred other capacities, of doing what was once supposed to be man's exclusive work, and doing it well. We have learnt too that it is quite a mistake to suppose that indoor work is physically more suitable for women than for men. As a matter of fact outdoor work is usually quite as good for them as for men, and the ideal plan is not to keep them indoors but to get them out of doors as much as possible. In any case, we have to deal with several millions of women who claim the right to dispose of their own labour in their own way. Therefore, even if the married women are ruled out, as we hold they very largely must be, for already in various ways they are working up to their full powers, we have got to ask—Are there moral and social conditions which forbid the women who are free, from choosing their own trades ? No doubt theoretically it might be argued that there are certain trades which are more suitable to women than to men, and that therefore it would be an advantage to clalsify them and say: "This or that job is a woman's job ani must be left entirely to women and no man must be allowed to undertake it." On the other hand, there are certain jobs which in the moral and social interest of women can be best left to men. For example, it might be possible to pass an Act saying that no one must ever employ a man in domestic service such as cooking or housework, and also that as women make the best typists and shorthand writers no man shall be allowed to undertake such work, or again that the needle must be left as the instrument solely of women and that there must be no more men tailors. In the same way certain trades such as bricklaying or house-painting or working heavy machines might be allocated entirely to men.
Our answer to this plea is that even if theoretically there is something in it, it will be found that freedom of action will divide the work between men and women far better than the most enlightened of tyrants or the most philan- thropic of Trades Councils. If we leave the matter alone, things will adjust themselves. Especially is this adjust- ment likely to take place successfully if it becomes a rule or a custom that the rates of pay for women shall be the same as for men. And here we may say that though theoretically a woman ought to be allowed if she likes to settle her own rate of wages, we are quite prepared to think that in the interests of the women as a whole it would be better to have the rule of equal wages. We are not in the least afraid lest in the end, if complete freedom of training and work is given, this rule of equality will he injurious to women. The women showed during the war that in a great variety of trades—indeed in almost all trades —they can hold their own perfectly well with men except where exceptional physical strength and weight are necessary, as, for example, in mining operations, and navvy work and seamanship. What women lack in weight and muscular power they make up in assiduity, conscientiousness, and keen endeavour. We do not know whether it is merely a social accident or a fact of Nature, but as things are at present arranged there is little doubt that women are less inclined to be idle than men. Possibly' hygienic philo- sophers may say that this is due to the fact that women do not habitually dope themselves as men do with the sedatives .of alcohol and tobacco, both slowers-down of pace, though perhaps in the long run and in modem times useful slowers-down. The fact remains that women have far less inclination to "Ca' canny" than have men.
To sum up, we believe that the more the moral and social conditions are considered for healthy unmarried women the more it will be found that the wise and the just thing is to leave women's work alone and to let them have complete freedom of action. After all, to deny them such freedom would be a strange sequel to the grant of the franchise. And here let us say that in our opinion it was a very great mistake not to enfranchise women between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, which are the very. years when most of them are at work, and may conceivably need the vote to protect them from industrial injustice.
Now for the economic considerations, and these are the real considerations which must decide the question. Nobody who faces the facts will deny that though, as we have shown, there is a case arising from moral, social, and hygienic considerations, the real reason why the Unions in certain skilled trades forbid women's work is the fear that the men workers will be injuriously affected by the influx of female labour and that the rate of wages may fall. Our general answer to this is that wages cannot possibly fall owing to an increase of labour, unless of course wages are to be judged purely by their nominal amount ; that is, by the terms in which they are expressed in the precious metals or in paper currency. Theoretically it is no doubt probable that if in any particular trade in which there are only x men available, the labour of x divided by 2 women were added, wages expressed in metal counters would fall. On the other hand, if weekly wages were expressed in terms of purchasing-power, such as another three or four loaves of. bread, a dozen more slices of bacon, three chops, a skirt, a blouse, or a hat, then the addition of x divided by 2 producers throughout our industries must ultimately be seen to have the result not of lowering wages but of increasing them. Horne Tooke argued well when he asked : What are guineas and shillings but tickets for so much bread, beef, beer, and clothes ? " It does not matter to the man whether the ticket is a smaller or larger piece of metal. What does matter is the amount of the things just enumerated -which will be given in exchange for the said ticket. But, alas ! mankind has got a vicious habit of thinking only in metal and not in the things which the metal will buy, and, we frankly admit, is prepared for almost any extrava- gance of behaviour rather than face the beneficent fact to which we have alluded—i.e., that wages are automatically increased by the increase of production. Unfortunately work, instead of the results of the work, has come to be man's ideal. Unconsciously he is always seeking, and rightly seeking, to get himself fed, clothed, and made comfortable with the least expenditure of labour. Con- sciously he suffers from the strange delusion that he is injured by a diminution of toil.
See Smith, Jones, and Robinson in the harvest field ex- haustedand overdone with the struggle against the weather. To them enter Mary, Susan, and Jane, and, noting how tired are the male workers, they offer to help in getting in the sheaves and saving the corn from destruction. If Smith, Jones, and Robinson are natural and unsophisticated persons who have not heard of lowering the standard of wages and so on, they will gladly accept the proffered help and get in their harvest in half the time they would have done if not helped. If, however, they are strict followers of Trade Union economics, they will receive the overtures of-Mary, Susan, and Jane with the utmost rage and indig- nation, and unless prevented will drive them with stones and curses from the field for having dared to attempt to deprive the male toilers of their indefeasible right to bear, perspiring and profane, the heat and burden of the day. If anybody ventures to remark on the foolishness of this conduct, it is ten to one that Smith, Jones, and Robinson will become so zealously angry that any stones left over from the effort to drive away the women interlopers will be hurled at his head. If, however, he can induce them to stoop to argument, they will say that, though naturally they bore no illwill to the women whom they had refused to allow to work, they were obliged to act as they did lest their wages should be lowered. "Vie are sorry, but we cannot afford to let anybody else share this work with us. It is of no use for you to say that so long as there is more corn to go round it does not much matter who produces it. We know it must be done by us alone, and that what we have got to look out for in order to keep our wives and families from starving is not the amount of corn that is produced but the number stamped on the ticket that we get for our labour. The right of work belongs to us, and, we will guard it to the end. The only other thing that we need be careful about is that somebody else does not get part of our tickets."
We wonder whether it will ever be possible to persuade mankind to give up the notion that the tickets are the real thing and that what can be got in exchange for them is an insignificant matter. Possibly this is one of the delusions that mankind will cherish till the trump of doom. Anyway, we must put up what fight we can to prevent this strange delusion from doing a great injustice to the women of the world.
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