secretary to increase the force one writer makes the following statement:

The department was created mainly in the interest of women workers. A principal, assisted by three seniors, organized it. Ten female inspectors had been appointed at wages ranging from £200 to £300 ($973.30 to $1,459.95) a year, and valuable services have been rendered, especially in laundries. But there are one and a half million women workers in factories and mills.

What were ten among so many?

These women can not give their whole time to watching factories; much is absorbed in replying to inquiries, drafting reports, and traveling. Being few, they have to cover wide areas and spend no small portion of their working days in railway trains. In 1905 two inspectors traveled nearly 16,000 miles each. Labor laws have been broken and evaded. Fines are unjustly imposed; there is extreme humidity in cotton factories; there is dust in card rooms, causing injury to chest and lungs. Time cribbing is largely practiced; many workers must make their employers a weekly free gift of two hours' labor. Long hours of illegal overtime have to be endured, a wrong that presses with most severity upon young girls. (")

The trade union official, with his hand on the pulse of the particular body of workers he represents, can supplement the work of the State in detection of violation or irregularity.

In cases where bad cotton is supplied to the operatives, and the resultant discarding of portions of it is adjudged “willful and deliberate waste of material," or the finished article condemned as bad workmanship, the trade union officials represent the right of the worker in fixing the responsibility.

In almost every book of rules issued by the women's trade unions there is to be found one section devoted to "condition of membership" and one upon the requirements of an "employment register," and on these provisions hangs much of the success of a women's union along the lines of practical accomplishment.

The employment register clause generally reads as follows:

A book shall be left at the office of the secretary, in which the secretary shall enter for the information of the members, free of charge, any vacancies which may come to her notice. Members out of work will also register there.

The condition of membership generally requires some testimony to the competency of the applicant in her trade, or at least evidence that she is working at some trade at the time of seeking membership. Employers are glad to avail themselves of the registry system, because they are able to secure labor of certified ability; also, the system abolishes the old custom of shop-to-shop canvas for work on the part of women wage-earners. Many applications are directed to the

a William C. Anderson, in The Woman Worker for August 17, 1908.

secretary of the Women's Trade Union League in London by managers and employers desiring workwomen.

The officials in charge of the women's trade union movement in Great Britain maintain that the main object of these unions shall be to force up wages and secure a standard rate and other economic advantages to the woman worker, yet they grant that the success of the individual union often depends largely upon the benefits offered. They deprecate the overestimating of the provident side of the union while appreciating that if the provident side can be included, i. e., insurance against sickness or unemployment, it helps to prevent loss of members and the consequent weakening of the union's force for economic action.

If a girl is paying 3d. (6 cents) a week to a trade society and knows that 1d. (2 cents) of the 3d. (6 cents) goes to protect her trade interests, while the other 2d. (4 cents) is invested to meet the out-of-work emergency or the expense of sickness she is not likely to give up her membership and lose benefits for which she has paid. This is equally true of the male trade-unionist. A comparative study of the fluctuations, through a number of years, of the trade union membership in the main groups of trades leads to the deduction "that the unions paying the most varied and liberal scales of benefits suffer least from loss of membership in periods of bad trade." (")

THE MARRIAGE DOWRY.

The Women's Trade Union League also recognizes the institution of the marriage dowry as a possible element of further success in the organization of women. This is to take the place of the death insurance in men's societies. If a woman has paid into a trade union for some years and has not received any monetary benefits during that time, she naturally feels that in case she is leaving the trade on her marriage and terminating her membership with the union she ought to draw what the insurance companies call a bonus, as a kind of commutative value for the money paid in.

The National Federation of Women Workers has included a marriage dowry in its constitution, but the federation is too young to have produced data to prove its success as an auxiliary inducement for membership. The stipulation on this subject reads as follows:

In the event of the marriage of a member, if she has been a full member for 2 years, and has not received out-of-employment or sick benefit during the period of her membership, the central council shall refund 50 per cent of the amount of her contributions, provided she is leaving her trade and terminating her membership.

a Report of the Chief Labor Correspondent of the Board of Trade on Trade Unions, 1902-1904, p. XX.

The Shop Assistants' Union until recently had a system of marriage dowry payments. In 1907 the union accounts showed £79 8s. 1d, ($386.42) devoted to this form of benefits, but at a recent conference it was decided to discontinue the marriage benefits. This was done largely because the union's funds were not considered to be in an entirely satisfactory condition, and the marriage dowry was stopped concurrently with a reduction in a number of other benefits and contributions which applied to men and women alike.

CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION.

Perhaps the most tangible success attributed to the women's trade union movement in the industrial world is the method in which strikes conducted under its supervision have been carried on and the gradual substitution by women unionists of the less openly belligerent process of settling trade disputes by conciliation and arbitration, so that among organized women in Great Britain strikes are now comparatively rare.

THE WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE.

The root of the women's trade union movement is in the Women's Trade Union League; its highest branching is found at present in the affiliation of women's unions with the General Federation of Trade Unions and in representation in the annual trade union congress, composed of delegates from all the large organizations in Great Britain as well as from the American Federation of Labor.

METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE LEAGUE.

A review of the growth of the movement reveals the completeness of mechanism for organization to which the individual union for women falls heir as a consequence of the circle-without-circle perfection of the long-established combinations of male labor throughout the country.

The Women's Trade Union League, although an evolution from the Women's Provident and Protection League founded in 1874, has no strike fund and pays no benefits but exists for the purpose of propagating the principles of trade unionism among women; of organizing the women in industry, and in supplying an executive head for the affiliated unions from the trades in which women are employed. All secretaries of affiliated London trade unions are ex officio members of the league committee, on which are also a certain number of members elected at the annual meeting. There is also a committee of counsel, consisting of leading trade-unionists, usually the men secretaries of unions containing female members, that advises the league, and its members are present at the annual meeting at which

officials for the ensuing year are elected. The officials of the league are a chairman, a secretary, two official organizers (although the chairman and secretary, both women, are also actively engaged in this work throughout the year), and an honorary treasurer. The general committee, which is the administrative body for the league, consists of the executive committee and of ten or twelve additional members chosen from among the students of industrial conditions and from among labor representatives in Parliament. The league from its headquarters in London acts as the agent of women trade-unionists in making representations to government authorities or to parliamentary committees in regard to the legislation required, or in bringing forward specific grievances in individual trades or factories, by means of questions and written forms of presentation by members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Complaints as to breaches of the Factory and Workshop Acts, when sent to the league are investigated carefully and referred to the proper officials for correction or enforcement. Cases under the compensation, truck, and other industrial laws referred to the league are investigated and advice is given by the secretary of the legal advice department or action is taken under the league's legal advisers. But the greatest endeavor on the part of the Women's Trade Union League is to increase the ranks of women trade-unionists. It is prepared at all times to send organizers to the London or to any provincial district to form new or to strengthen existing trade unions. In fact, the payment of the affiliation fee of 2s. 6d. (61 cents) per 250 women members, or 10s. ($2.43) per thousand, which resolves itself into a theoretical tax of one-half cent every two years to every woman, carries with it the right to have an annual visit from one of the league's organizers for a single meeting or for a week's organization. This visit is free except that the society visited is expected to provide hospitality for the organizer. In case a longer visit is required by affiliated unions outside the London district fees are charged at the rate of 15s. ($3.65) for a second week, and a fee of 30s. ($7.30) is charged for a third week. Fares must be paid if more than one visit is paid in the year.

Inside the London district, owing to the entirely different conditions with regard to distance, arrangements must in each instance be made with the league secretary.

In the case of the formation of a new union, a visit will be paid by a league organizer, free of charge, at the request of any men's union or other bona-fide organization which is helping to form the new union.

In the case of a nonaffiliated society applying to the league for an organizer, the charges are 10s. and 15s. ($2.43 and $3.65) and expenses for a single meeting outside the London district, and 5s. ($1.22) and expenses within London. The charges for a week's organizing to such societies is 30s. ($7.30) and expenses. The committee reserves

the right to remit any part of these charges if good reason for such remission is shown in any special case.

As a rule a union, once organized by the league, prefers an independent management, and calls upon the central society for help only in case a rally to awaken flagging interest in membership is necessary or a trade dispute occurs in which the local union members are involved. There are at present 136 unions or branches of unions affiliated with the league.

Whenever, on the other hand, notice of a strike among as yet unorganized women workers in any part of the country reaches the league, one of the officials immediately proceeds to the locality and, if possible, acts as mediator between the employer and the workers in rebellion. No matter whether a simple agreement is effected, or whether the more complicated process of reference to a committee of arbitration is necessary, as soon as terms are adjusted the league official attempts to form a union among these workers who have so recently experienced the futility of opposing existing conditions without financial backing or the machinery for united action.

Where there has been no crisis in the affairs in the trade but where a desire for better conditions exists the local women interested in the matter apply to the league for the services of an organizer. First there are leaflets (a) distributed among the workers as they leave the factory or workshop, explanatory of the advantages of organization. These are followed by cards announcing the date of the addresses by the officials from the Women's Trade Union League, and at the meeting the enrollment of members for the new union is made.

The local union having been formed, it appoints a secretary and draws up its book of rules (constitution), or more often the women thus organized find it acceptable to the men in the same branch of trade to enter under the rules and government of the established male union.

When the organization is but a unit in a large industry, like a branch of the textile manufacture, it joins with the fellow-workers who have been already recruited into unionism from the surrounding

a The following extract gives an idea of the accepted form of this propaganda by leaflet:

A trade union enables women to make better terms with their employers, to get grievances redressed, and their general conditions of labor improved. Experience proves that a union is badly needed in. The workers in other towns are well organized, and consequently wages and conditions are good. Why should we lag behind? If you have never thought of joining a union before, think about it now and become a member. Some women are aware of their great need of organization, but say, "It is no use my joining a union unless my fellow-workers do so too." If such women join the union they set an example which is noticed, and lead others to think seriously of belonging to a union, with the result that after a time there is quite a large number of women in that mill belonging to the union.