factories and becomes a part of the district association. Through this district association all these workers are affiliated with a federation or an amalgamation of societies, having wider geographical scope over unionists in the same branch of trade, stronger financial backing, and pursuing a more militant policy. Then, these federations of local unions, composed of operatives engaged in the same form of industry, are themselves affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions, gaining for their members a connection with a national organization.

For example, in Lancashire among operatives in the various processes of weaving one finds a district organization like the Blackburn and District Power Loom Weavers' Association, which had in 1908 a membership of 5,100 males and 11,900 females, or the Burnley and District Weavers, Winders, and Beamers, with 7,438 males and 10,705 females; and each of these associations includes in its membership the organized workers who live within a radius of 5 or 12 miles of the central town.

The rules of these district associations make provision for sick benefit, death payment, and stoppage-of-work pay. Sometimes one benefit is made use of, sometimes another, and in some cases all three.

The Northern Counties Amalgamated Association of Weavers, to which the members of the district associations mentioned above (together with over thirty more mixed unions with about the same sex proportions) are affiliated, has as a principal duty the supervision of the wage scale in the trade, and it allows strike pay in disputes arising from efforts to maintain a uniform rate of wage or to resist fines and deductions. This amalgamation is governed by a general council, elected by the district committee, and the representation allowed to each district is, up to 1,000 members, one representative; for 1,500 members, two representatives; and an additional representative for every 1,000 members thereof. This special council elects at its annual meetings a committee of nine, called the central committee, the members of which watch over, direct, and control the general proceedings of the amalgamation, with the restriction that under no circumstances shall they order any weavers out on strike involving more than 5,000 looms before consulting and receiving the approval of at least three-fourths of the members of the council.

Each association of weavers upon joining this association pays an entrance fee of 1d. (2 cents) for each member and an annual levy which is regulated by the general committee in accordance with the state of the emergency fund.

The female trade-unionist does not feel this as a personal tax, since it comes as a lump sum from her district association's treasury, and in case she is included in a dispute sanctioned by the general

council of the amalgamation (") she receives her share of the benefits apportioned to her union.

There are no women secretaries among the local unions in the weaving trades and no woman has held a place on the general council or, of course, on the central committee of the Northern Counties Amalgamation. Women members play no active part in shaping the policy or in directing the expenditure of funds of the organization. They pay their dues, report their grievances to men officials, and await their benefits from payments for temporary accidents or for breakdowns or stoppage of machinery from fire or failure to the fulfillment of the death claim their family shall make.

And if this quiescent attitude of the average female trade-unionist is true in the organized branches of the textile industries, where the women predominate numerically, it is also true of the comparatively few who are affiliated through membership in mixed unions with the great trade councils, where societies from all trades and occupations are linked together for greater effectiveness in defense in labor disputes in any given area.

In the Manchester and Salford Trades and Labor Council, representing a membership of 30,000 there are only three or four representatives of female labor. About 20 of the women's unions in this district are united under the Women's Trades and Labor Council and the Women's Trades Union Council, with women officials. But in the Liverpool and Vicinity Trades Council, with a membership of 33,000, and in the Birmingham Trades Council, with over 35,000 trade-unionists, women have no representation; and even in the trades council for Oldham and Vicinity and in that for Nottingham and District, where female labor is far from being a negligible quantity, there has never been a woman trade-unionist appointed delegate.

Coming to the national organization, the General Federation of Trade Unions, the secretary pointed out that although there were some half dozen societies-out of the 122 affiliated societies-that represented

a 12. Should a dispute arise in any district, or districts, for which the assistance of the amalgamation is required, the local committee, or committees, shall after using every effort to bring about an amicable and satisfactory settlement, lay before the central committee the whole of such grievances, who shall cause full and complete inquiries to be made, and afterwards, if necessary, lay the matter before the general council, which shall be called as early as possible afterwards, to consider the matter in dispute.

13. In the event of any district having a dispute entertained by the general council, they shall receive support in accordance with the number of members entered and payable in this amalgamation. In case of any dispute no person shall receive support from the funds of this amalgamation unless they have been members of the same for the previous thirteen weeks.

32. That before the council undertake any dispute 75 per cent of the work people in the mill, or mills affected, shall be members of the association.— Rules of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association.

unions with female members, the entire number of female trade-unionists thus allied would amount to less than 1 per cent of the 689,674.

Naturally, with no woman holding an official position in the separate federations, there would be no female trade-unionist sent as a delegate to the general council, the governing body of this national organization.

The unions of small groups of women workers who have organized themselves directly under the National Federation of Women Workers, with a woman secretary, joined the General Federation of Trade Unions only in the third quarter of 1907, and they will eventually have representation in the general council. (a)

The shop assistants' unions are not affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions, but in their own national amalgamation they have a woman assistant secretary, who has been sent three times as a delegate to the trade union congress.

ADVANTAGES OF REPRESENTATION IN THE TRADE UNION

CONGRESS.

Representation in the trade union congress marks a most important step toward assertive participation in labor problems on the part of the women's trade union movement; for in this annual congress is elected by ballot the parliamentary committee, the legislative guardians of British organized labor. This committee consists of sixteen members, one from each of the large groups of unions classified according to form of industry, and five representatives of the smaller departments of labor classified as "miscellaneous trades." Women are not elected as members of this committee, and women delegates seldom attempt to speak in the congress, though this, as was pointed out by a labor member, is due to the size of the halls in which the gathering of 531 delegates is now held rather than to any sex prejudice. Five of the trade groups represented on the parliamentary committee have women unionists in their membership, and the resolutions debated in the congress and transferred to the parliamentary committee as a basis for their national legislative action are prepared in the various federations of trades represented and sent in, together with the nomination for the parliamentary committeeman, some months before the annual convening of delegates, thus giving the female trade-unionist an equal opportunity for registering their interests and ambitions.

a Rule No. 2 of the Rules of the General Federation of Trades Unions provides as follows:

The governing body shall be termed the general council, and consist of one delegate from societies of 10,000 or less, two delegates from societies of over 10,000 and not more than 25,000, three delegates from societies of over 25,000 and not more than 50,000, and six delegates from societies of over 50,000.

The convening of the trade union congress is also used by the Women's Trade Union League as a time for holding a separate conference of all the delegates representing trades in which there are women workers. In 1907 this annual conference was attended by over 250 delegates, and the following resolutions, directly bearing upon the amelioration of labor conditions for women, were passed and laid before the home secretary by a deputation from the committee: That this conference of trade-unionists, representing trades in which women are employed, condemns the action of the Government by which a weak and confused measure dealing with laundries has been passed into law, and maintains that no amending measure will be satisfactory to labor which does not extend to laundries the full protection accorded to other factories and workshops.

That this conference of trade-unionists, representing trades in which women are employed, in view of the powerlessness of existing truck laws to check fining, and the number of cases in which deductions are made by employers from workers' wages to meet the cost of insurance under the Workmen's Compensation Act, asks for an immediate report from the committee appointed to inquire into the working of the Truck Act.

There is, besides, always a public meeting of women workers of the district in which the congress is held. These meetings are addressed by labor representatives in Parliament and by the leaders of the women's trade union movement, and the result is sometimes the formation of a new union and always a strengthening of membership in the existing organization.

The expense of sending delegates to the trade union congress is inconsiderable and not a drain upon the resources of even so small an organization as the National Federation of Women Workers. The subscription fee is £1 10s. ($7.30) for every 1,000 or fraction thereof of the numerical strength of the society, with 10s. ($2.43) for each delegate, (") this representation being based on 1 delegate for every 2,000 members or fraction thereof. The National Federation of Women Workers, with its membership of 3,000, sent two delegates to the last congress (1908) at a cost of £5 10s. ($26.77).

a The congress shall consist of delegates who are or have been bona fide workers at the trade which they represent, and are legal members of trade societies; but no person can be a delegate to the Trade Union Congress unless he is actually working at his trade at the time of appointment, or is a permanent paid working official of his trade union. No representative shall be accepted as bona fide other than direct representation from trade unions. The delegate's name, together with the amount of his society's contribution, shall be forwarded to the secretary of the parliamentary committee 14 days prior to the meeting of congress.-Section 3 of the Trade Union Congress standing orders.

ADVANTAGES OF AFFILIATION WITH THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS.

But this expenditure, of course, does not bring any direct monetary benefit as does affiliation with the General Federation of Trade Unions.

This national federation has two scales of contribution. Societies joining on the higher scale pay an entrance fee of 6d. (12 cents) per member, and those on the lower, 3d. (6 cents) per member. Each society pays for 90 per cent of its total membership; each society entering on the higher scale pays quarterly the sum of 4d. (8 cents) per member on 90 per cent; each society on the lower scale pays quarterly 2d. (4 cents) per member on 90 per cent. The benefit payment in strikes is 5s. ($1.22) per member on the higher scale, and 2s. 6d. (61 cents) per member on the lower. So that, to use again the National Federation of Women Workers as an illustration, because it is the only society composed solely of female members affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions, while the entrance fee on the lower scale was £42 17s. 6d. ($208.65) and the contributions for the two remaining quarters of the year ending March 31, 1908, in which it joined, amounted to £69 ($335.79), the women in the small unions composing the National Federation of Women Workers have now the financial backing of the £162,210 8s. 6d. ($789,397.03) in the fund of the General Federation of Trade Unions, should a strike become inevitable.

In the separate women's unions, the usual entrance fee is 6d. (12) cents) with usually two rates of subscription and benefit-2d. (4 cents) per week entitling a member to a grant of 4s. (97 cents) per week for a period of six weeks, if unemployed or sick (confinement cases excepted), in any 52 weeks, and 3d. (6 cents) per week entitling a member to 6s. ($1.46) per week under the same conditions. The following variation is also a typical scale of payment:

The subscription is..

Sick benefit:

For the first 10 weeks.

For the second 10 weeks..

Out-of-work benefit:

For the first 6 weeks_

For the second 6 weeks_

Per week. $0.0608

1. 4600 9733

1. 4600

.9733

The National Association of Telephone Operators has a still lower scale of contribution of 11⁄2d. (3 cents) weekly, which entitles a member to all the benefits of the association except sick and out-of-work benefits, with the proviso that "the committee shall have power to make a special grant to members under this class, when sick or unemployed, should the circumstances warrant such a course."

The National Federation of Women Workers deals with this class of payments as follows: