Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

Acts, so far as women workers are concerned, in regard to the matters emphasised by Dr Janet Campbell, viz. (a) hours of work, including intermittent spells and pauses, overtime, and night-work; (b) the provision of seats, labour-saving devices, etc., to avoid unnecessary fatigue; (c) improved sanitation, i.e. sanitary conveniences, lavatories, cloak-rooms, etc., ventilation and general hygiene; (d) the provision of canteens, restrooms and surgeries; (e) the general supervision of health. .This will require an increased staff of Home Office Factory Inspectors—a change which has long been wanted. Employers may object to such control, but times have changed since Halifax employers described the first Bill to limit the employment of women and children as the death-blow to British industry, and since John Bright thundered against the ten-hours' Bill of 1847 as 'one of the worst measures ever passed.' The writer has seen during the war the health of women workers and their output in the munition factories advanced materially by the introduction of proper wages, proper conditions and proper health supervision; and it always will be so. In the allocation to women of work suitable so their strength, powers and aptitude, there is no great lifficulty. This was one of the writer's duties during the var. It can in each trade be done effectively by Whitley Councils, subject to the supervision of the Factory nspectors.

The third root principle governing the future of women in industry is that they should not displace or ndercut men. I have expressed my view that with creased production there is room and need for both. ut undercutting is a more subtle matter. That danger ill always recur, owing to the ample supply of women. ndercutting can only of course occur in the case of omen entering 'men's trades' or doing men's work in omposite trades. To prevent it the men have raised e claim of Equal pay for equal work.' It is not ossible within the limits of this article to enter on e metaphysical tangle into which that topic has deenerated. The matter can nevertheless be explained ite simply. Some sections of men, notably those enged in the skilled trades, claim that any women put to do the whole or any part of the work customarily

[ocr errors]

Such

done by a man should, irrespectively of her efficiency or output, be paid the same time-rates as are paid to the men. That claim is made with a twofold intention: first, to keep women out of the trade altogether, as it undoubtedly would; secondly, to prevent any lowering of the men's standard trade rates of pay. is the skilled workman's idea of 'equal pay for equal work.' But most women advance the claim in a different sense, namely that women put on to do the whole or any part of the work of a man should receive, in respect of so doing, the whole of the men's time-rate, if women's efficiency is equal to that of men, and, if not, a rate of pay based on the proportion which women's efficiency bears to that of men. This is the average woman worker's idea of 'equal pay for equal work.' Her intention is also twofold: to eliminate sex-prejudice and to secure 'justice.' The men's rejoinder is that the relative efficiencies of men and women can with difficulty be ascertained, and that employers would continually be altering the conditions under which the work was done by women as compared with men, in order, ostensibly on the ground of simplification, to lower the rate of wages to be paid to women, and ultimately to bring down the men's trade rates for the work in question.

[ocr errors]

The writer can, however, say that even on the Clyde he found himself able, with the assistance and concur rence of employers and men and women, and to their mutual satisfaction, to determine approximately the relative average efficiencies of women as compared with men. If for given efficiency or output the employer is paying the woman rateably on the man's time-rate, there is no inducement to the employer to prefer women to men, and therefore no question really of cheap labour." Curiously enough, men admit the propriety of payment proportioned to output in the case of piece-work. They then insist, as a rule, that a woman doing, on piece-work, work customarily done on piece-work by a man shall receive the man's piece-prices. If she does only half the work of the man, she will naturally be paid only half the man's earnings. This the men accept as fair, nor do they regard it as being in any way subversive of the piece-prices established in their trades.

This latter sense-namely payment in proportion to

output is that in which the principle of equal pay for equal work has been endorsed by the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry. There are naturally, in practice, many complicated cases to which the principle as so defined is difficult of application, but its essential intention is quite clear.

It is more in favour of the men

than appears at first sight, for a woman doing a particuar part of a man's work receives for a man's output the full rate of pay earned by a man.

But the man is able

ible to do the one job only. In conceding to the woman the woman may be he full trade rate for each job of the trade, the man's Orinciple to be followed precludes any reduction of a eneral trade position is therefore safeguarded. The voman's pay on account of the greater costliness (in the natter of establishment charges) of employing women lue to the causes described earlier in this article.

In conclusion, the writer must in fairness inform his eaders that in hastening, as he has done, across the videly extended subject of women's future economic phere in industry, he has turned aside from the comonly trodden and tortuous paths and tried to beat out new straight path over uplands with commanding iew-points. He hopes that from it the landmarks have learly been discerned standing out above the mists. On emote from the clash of conflicting battle-cries and to their advantage, he thinks-his readers have been tch-words. None of these assists clear thinking. They erely witness that to many working men the subject one of dark foreboding and to vast numbers of work

g women an

blic to inform themselves upon the national issues at are involved, even if only for the purpose of steady

uplifting aspiration, but they warn the

g the Government.

[merged small][ocr errors]

Art. 6.-THE ECONOMICS OF INLAND TRANSPORT.

1. First and Second Reports of the Select Committee un Transport. H.M. Stationery Office. [Cd. 130, 136.] November 1918.

2. Four Reports of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways, with Appendices. H.M. Stationery Office. [Cd. 3183, 3716, 4839, 4979.] 1906–10.

3. Interim Report of the Coal Industry Commission [Cd. 84-86.] March 1919.

THREE points in space require only three lines of inter communication, six points require fifteen lines, twelve points require sixty-six lines, and so on. The network of lines increases nearly in proportion to the square of the number of localities. If the localities increase from 100 to 200, the lines of communication increase from 4950 to 19,900. If, then, we suppose that each of thes lines is of measurable breadth, it becomes clear that a stage will be reached when the whole of the intervening space will be covered with lines of transport, leaving n area available for any other of the elementary purpose of existence except that of traffic alone.

The problem of transport, therefore, raises no difficulty until population reaches a certain density. One footpath sufficed for the cottages on Darnell Waste, but six road intersect Darnell Park; and the river, which once wa crossed by one wooden bridge, is now nearly hidden from view by half a dozen stone viaducts. Before each of these was erected there had intervened a time wher the problem of transport became acute; it had becom a necessity either that traffic should be regulated o that new lines of communication should be established.

Granted the increasing urgency of transport pro blems, it is desirable to consider whether any genera principles are discoverable whereby these problems car be attacked. What kinds of transport are there to b provided for, and how can they best be dealt with so a to harmonise individual needs with the convenience o the community? We may distinguish five kinds o transport, to one or other of which classes all movemen of commodities may be assigned:

(a) Transfer from place of origin to place of manufacture, or from place of production to place of consumption.

(b) Transfer from one process of manufacture to another.

(c) Transfer from factory to seller (wholesale).

(d) Transfer from seller to consumer (retail).

(e) Mere removal.

It seems obvious that of these five classes the first is of paramount importance. The progression from producer to consumer is a vital part of the economic organism. It might suit the purposes of political economists of the classical school to assume that the producer has in all cases a consumer at hand ready to absorb his product at the market price; but, as a matter of fact, the consumer has now retired into the distance, and is to be approached only through byways guarded by toll-gates where sit che intermediaries of commerce taking toll of all goods hat pass. Classes (b), (c), and (d) are largely concerned with forms of transport which are non-essential. They add nothing to the value of the article but frequently letract from it. Individual convenience often determines the course of commerce. The maker of an article inds it more convenient to have dealings with a few eople personally known to him than to discover for imself the ultimate purchaser. He thus prefers to nake contracts for the exclusive rights of sale and urchase for a certain period or over a certain area; nd under these contracts the goods are delivered in ulk to be afterwards split up into smaller consignments. This system is responsible for much waste of energy. or instance, a large consignment of Manchester goods eaches the wholesale dealer in the congested Crippleate district of London, where it blocks for hours he streets wherein Shakespeare and Milton once lived. "here it remains until it is split up into parcels and sent a different directions, the larger part of it perhaps etraversing the route by which it came and finding ltimate purchasers in the North of England not far rom its place of origin. From the point of view of the ommunity at large such a process is not merely unecessary but positively harmful, since it interferes with raffic which is really essential, enhances the ultimate

« PreviousContinue »