Class A (1d. (2 cents) per week) shall entitle to trade protection: (a) Assistance generally in raising wages and improving working conditions; (b) free legal advice; (c) financial support (the amount of which shall be determined by the central council, with due regard to all the circumstances of the case) in the case of a strike or lockout, provided the action of the members affected has been indorsed by the central council of the federation.

In the unions of mixed membership, as in the textile trades, the basis of payment is usually the rate of earnings and the table below, showing contributions and benefits in the Card, Blowing, Ring, and Throstle Room Operatives' Association, of Bolton, is a characteristic arrangement:

CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS IN THE BOLTON AND DISTRICT CARD, BLOWING, RING, AND THROSTLE-ROOM OPERATIVES' ASSOCIATION.

a

It should be noted that the payment of an additional contribution of 3d. (6 cents) in this class secures, in addition to the other benefits, a weekly out-of-work benefit of 10s. ($2.43), payable for 13 weeks in one year.

The Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks has an entrance fee of 1s. (24 cents) and a more varied and higher scale of contribution, and the gradations are in regard to the member's age as well as wages.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS IN THE NATIONAL AMALGAMATED UNION OF SHOP ASSISTANTS, WAREHOUSEMEN, AND CLERKS.

["C" scale open to women who declare their wages to be equal to 25s. ($6.08) per week. "D" scale open to men who declare their wages to be equal to 35s. ($8.52) per week.]

For the year 1907 there was paid out in benefits by this union £12,218 19s. 3d. ($59,463.58), but there were two prolonged strikes, which alone necessitated £1,307 6d. ($6,360.64) in unemployment pay. Labor disputes between shop assistants and the employers are, however, extremely small as compared with the area of trade affected. by a general disagreement as to wages throughout the cotton textile industries of Lancashire, in which, it will be remembered, more women than men are employed.

On November 5, 1892, the spinning companies of Lancashire locked out some 40,000 persons employed in preparing and spinning cotton, and as a result of this stoppage in the spinning department fully 20,000 operatives in the weaving department were also thrown out of work. After a total stoppage of five months work was resumed at a reduction of practically 3 per cent.

From the momentous conference between representatives from the employers' and the operatives' sides and the final all-night sitting which settled the strike came the agreement which has since governed the trade. This is known as the "Brooklands agreement," and

the clauses given below show its forceful provision for conciliatory methods of settling disputes:

That in future no local employers' association, nor the Federated Association of Employers, on the one hand, nor any trade union or federation of trades unions on the other hand, shall countenance, encourage, or support any lockout or strike which may arise from, or be caused by any question, difference, or dispute, contention, grievance, or complaint, with respect to work, wages, or any other matter, unless and until the same has been submitted in writing by the secretary of the local employers' association to the secretary of the local trades union, or by the secretary of the local trades union to the secretary of the local employers' association, as the case may be; nor unless and until such secretaries or a committee consisting of three representatives of the local trades union with their secretary, and three representatives of the employers' association with their secretary, shall have failed, after full inquiry, to settle and arrange such question, difference, or dispute, contention, complaint, or grievance, within the space of seven days from the receipt of the communication in writing aforesaid; nor unless and until, failing the last-mentioned settlement or arrangement, if either of the secretaries of the local trades union or local employers' association shall so deem it advisable, a committee consisting of four representatives of the Federated Association of Employers, with their secretary, and four representatives of the Amalgamated Association of the Operatives' Trade Unions, with their secretary, shall have failed to settle or arrange, as aforesaid, within the further space of seven days from the time when such matter was referred to them, provided always that the secretaries or the committees hereinbefore mentioned, as the case may be, shall have power to extend or enlarge the said periods of seven days whenever they may deem it expedient or desirable to do so.(a)

Besides this agreement there is in these textile trades a voluntary board of arbitration called the "Joint Committee of Employers and Operatives in Cotton Weaving Industry in North and Northeast Lancashire," the object of which is to consider in their preliminary stages all trade disputes occurring in the weaving department and coming within the knowledge of the officials of the operatives' amalgamation, with a view to preserving good feeling between employers and operatives; and to recourse to these two tribunals the women workers in cotton industries owe the general peace of wage conditions for fifteen years.

In 1908, however, another acute situation over the cotton spinning wage scale developed in Lancashire and proceedings under the Brooklands agreement were for a time sterile of trade settlement. The operatives offered dogged resistance to the 5 per cent reduction in wages proposed by the employers, and the conciliation conference having ended in failure, there was an army of cotton operatives

a Report on Rules of Voluntary Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, p. 168. Board of Trade. 1907.

300,000 strong out on strike. The unemployment was a matter of only a few weeks' duration, for the operatives were persuaded to go back to work temporarily at the 5 per cent reduction rate.

The writer of this article was present at the first conference in this dispute, held in Manchester, August 4, 1908, between representatives of the Federation of Cotton Spinners' Associations and representatives on behalf of the Operative Spinners' Amalgamation, the Card Room Workers' Amalgamation, and the Federation of Reelers and Winders' Union. About thirty members of the general committee of the employers' federation and twenty-four representing the operatives' interest were in attendance, and at the dissolution of the first day's session neither side appeared disposed to yield.

The general attitude of the women members of the unions and federations who were interviewed in the mills of the surrounding towns seemed to be one of indifference, or at least one of complete confidence in the ability of the union officials charged with the negotiations to secure a satisfactory adjustment or to provide strike pay should the employees be called out.

The women's trade union organizers interviewed agreed that they faced one of the biggest industrial fights on record, and they stated that they would rather see a compromise effected through an independent mediator than have the disastrous lockout which would follow should both sides remain hard-headed in regard to the proposals each had submitted to the conference. Unemployment occasioned by a prevailing slackness in a trade causes the woman worker to suffer much more than the man, since the men can turn elsewhere and be absorbed by other trades, but women who have been cotton operatives all their lives and are anchored with their families in the settlements about the mills must sit there and look at the closed doors without the opportunity to do anything else.

Except in the textile group of trade unions, and to a small extent in the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, women's organizations have not the benefit of established conciliation boards, which are so important a factor in controlling trade disputes in the great industrial groups in which only men are employed. (")

But whenever the Women's Trade Union League officials are appealed to for help in labor difficulties among women workers, the first effort is toward mediation by a deputation to the employer or a petition for the appointment of a board of arbitration.

"Of the 7,248 cases settled by conciliation boards in ten years, 1897-1906, only 92 (or 1.3 per cent) were preceded by a stoppage of work. Most of the boards provide that all their decisions, or the award of their arbitrators, etc., shall be final and binding, and a few boards go further and impose a money penalty for breach of agreement or award.-Report on Rules of Voluntary Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, pp. 236, 237. Board of Trade. 1907.

4764-No. 83-09- 4

RELATION OF WOMEN'S TRADE UNIONS TO LOW WAGES AND THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

The greatest endeavor on the part of the women's trade union leaders at the present time is to accomplish the extension of the board of arbitration prerogative to an authoritative institution for legal decision in wage disputes and the establishment by law of a minimum wage in the different trades.

The deplorable condition of female labor has been one of the chief stimuli to attempted organization among the women workers in England, the hope being that the strength of collective demand would automatically adjust the rate of pay to a living wage. But in the small factories and workshops, and above all in the case of work distributed as domestic labor or home work, organization has not flourished or has been found impossible, and the female trade-unionist believes that the law must intervene before these trades can develop sufficient financial and moral strength for a reformation of the bad conditions.

In the last few years the leaders in the women's trade union movement have gone out as personal investigators of the present economic and sanitary demoralization among all classes of home workers, and the results of this study, as given in their testimony before the select committee on home work and proclaimed in addresses during the conference on a minimum wage held at the Guildhall, London, October 24, 25, and 26, 1902, has done much to enlist public sentiment in their cause.

It was the publication of certain distressing cases that gave impetus to the early organization of women. In 1889 a case in Manchester was brought to public notice where the father was disabled through an accident and the mother and a daughter of 15, the oldest of four children, by shirt making could earn only 12s. ($2.92) a week, 3s. 9d. (91 cents) going for rent. The father finally poisoned himself. This led to the formation of a trade league among women workers. (") It was impossible to support organization among the sweated workers here as elsewhere, but the idea of combination spread into the textile trades and contributed greatly to the universality of trade unionism in Manchester.

A comparison between wages and conditions in the small trades before the existence of women's trade unions in England and what exists to-day in the home-work districts of London does not reveal any differentiation in favor of later-day conditions. In fact, it was brought out in the evidence taken before the select committee of the

a Annual Report of Women's Trade Union League for 1889.