not secure preference for employment by offering to put up with worse conditions and less pay than the standard, because the employer, held to the standard by his collective bargain with his employees, will always select the most efficient. She therefore seeks to commend herself by a good character, technical skill, and general intelligence. The result of constant selection of the most efficient has proved a positive stimulus to the whole class of female workers to become more and more efficient; so that women's trade unions may be said to change the form of competition in lowering wages to competition in requirement to secure the higher pay. In securing legislation which has reduced the hours of labor for the workers from ninety to fifty-five and one-half hours a week and in enforcing sanitary precautions and protection trade unions have been a power in the movement.

CONCLUSIONS.

The women's trade union movement in Great Britain is in an immature stage of development or it may be merely transitional, but its development has not been arrested.

Yet women's trade unionism, developing as it has from a central organization (the Women's Trade Union League) without the difficulty of divesting already founded local trade autonomies of executive power, began at once a system of educational and defensive work among female labor which is bound to bear results.

Organizers from the Women's Trade Union League have frequently proceeded to the center of a trade dispute among women workers and as often have developed an angry, hysterical crowd, unanimously demanding the redress of a particular grievance, into a deliberative body of serious women, learning to distinguish between the shortsightedness of violent individual assertion and the wisdom of a calm presentation of the case along the lines of greatest good to the greatest number of all concerned in the revolt.

A great deal is said of the apparent indifference of the woman member to the mechanism of her union after she has once enlisted herself under the male officials, but it is doubtful whether this condition has not its exact analogy in the general apathy among all average members of the great associations of coal miners and cotton operatives, which comprise one-fifth of the total trades union membership of Great Britain.

The first and really great work of the women's trade union movement has been the awaking in women workers of a sense of their relationship to labor problems in general. There was at first great difficulty in obtaining detailed and really trustworthy information concerning those branches of labor in which women were engaged. A foolish squeamishness about disclosing their wages and the conditions

under which their work was conducted had to be dispelled before the women could understand that their position in labor was of public interest and important toward the accomplishment of ameliorated and advanced conditions for all workers. It has also been the work of the women trade unions to convince the woman wage-earner that the absence of regulation does not mean freedom. This was difficult even in Lancashire. But now that unionism is general there the Lancashire woman weaver, whose hours of labor and conditions of work are rigidly fixed and yet who enjoys for this reason more personal liberty than the unregulated laundry woman in Notting Hill, forms an object lesson which has materially helped the growth of women's organization in other trades.

The women trade-unionists of Great Britain are strongly in favor of securing their contentions for the betterment of labor conditions through protective legislation rather than by militant action of their organization. They look upon trade unions as a medium for the suggestion and as an aid in the enforcement of legally formulated rights of the worker.

So the women trade-unionists have made every effort to place the interests of the woman worker before the Government for adjudication. From the public demonstration and mass meeting with resultant petitions or resolutions for organized action through the Labor party (with which most of the organized women are affiliated) and through their unions (to which the women contribute an equal levy with the men), every effort has been made to advance matters of as vital importance to the woman wage-earner as her wages.

The consolidated Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, the Truck Act of 1896, the Workmen's Compensation Acts of 1897 and 1906, and the Trades Dispute Act of 1906 are all comparatively recent legislation which has been passed at the instigation of the trade-unionists and (it is conceded) through the emphasized endeavor of women trade union leaders.

Moreover, women's trade unions have initiated important trade movements on their own account. Among these is the crusade against the use of lead in the potteries. This is a matter which, according to the manufacturers, can not be dealt with legislatively by one nation alone; to abolish lead glazing in the English manufactories would be to annihilate the pottery industry in England, because the English products could not then compete with the highly-glazed foreign products. But the Women's Trade Union League has made every effort to mitigate the evils of lead poisoning among women workers. A potters' fund is devoted to keeping a worker in the potteries who shall report cases of suffering; the fund also provides for the relief of the sufferers. Leaflets explaining the evils caused workers by the use of lead in the manufacture of earthenware and china have been issued by the league

exhibitions of leadless glazed ware were instituted at centers throughout London to interest consumers in this humanitarian effort. Finally an arbitration committee composed of representative manufacturers in this trade and of trade-unionists (appearing for the operatives) was arranged in 1907, and the provisions agreed upon mark a considerable advance toward the elimination of the disease. By these rules a general standard of 5 per cent solubility (i. e., comparative safety) is demanded in the manufacture of lead glazes. An exemption from the standard is allowed under certain conditions, the most important of which is participation in a complete scheme of compensation for loss occasioned by illness caused by the use of lead, but the home secretary has power to forbid the use of lead altogether in places in which cases of lead poisoning recur or where the provisions of the compensation scheme are broken. As there were 103 cases of lead poisoning and 9 deaths from this cause (a) in 1907 among the operatives in potteries, it will be seen that the Women's Trade Union League has secured an important reformatory step in this arbitration, and “this experimental scheme for dealing with a disease attributable to the materials in an occupation can not fail to be an invaluable precedent for the extension of compensation in this direction." (")

The league also interested itself in the public agitation for the passage of the bill prohibiting the manufacture of phosphorus matches, which causes such horrible disfigurements and suffering as are produced by necrosis of the jaw, etc., among the women workers. The resolution to abolish the use of phosphorus in this trade had been passed by the International Association of Labor Legislation, but it is the opinion of a labor leader in Parliament that "action on the subject was hastened a long stride" by the incentive of a report prepared by the women's league on cases of victims.

Along this line it is interesting to note, as significant of the complete veering of popular opinion toward the women's trade union efforts that when in 1892 an inquiry into factory conditions was made and published the author was successfully sued for libel, while to-day lists of prosecutions with names of firms, violations, and judgments in full are published in the records of all women's trade unions with no fear of legal recourse on the part of the accused employer.

By clause 22 of the act of 1895 the hours of labor in laundries were fixed at 10 in a day and 30 in a week for children; at 12 in a day and 60 in a week for young persons, and at 14 in a day and 60 in a week for women. Violations of even these hours are of most frequent occur

"Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1907, p. 308.

Annual Report of Woman's Trade Union League, 1907.

rence, and the 7,362 cases of overtime in laundries registered in 1907(a) by no means represent the infringements throughout the trade. The Women's Trade Union League has instituted a supervision of the hours of work, the proper guarding of machinery, ventilation, air space, and general sanitation which has so supplemented the factory inspector's work that conditions of work in this occupation have improved greatly in the last 15 years.

Laundries not being classed among the "dangerous trades" are not regulated so closely as the trades in which industrial poisoning is a menace, and not having any "common rules," such as exist in the textile industries for the regulation of the amount of humidity in the weaving sheds, etc., there is great need of outside help in improving conditions for the women, girls, and boys working long hours in this trade. The Women's Trade Union League has proved an effectual legal agent in many cases discovered among these workers. It has proved impossible to preserve stable organization among laundry workers because of the long hours and low rates of pay, but whether organized or not organized the Women's Trade Union League has always fought in their interest and has given them some of the benefits accruing to women workers in the well-organized industries.

In summing up it may be said that the women's trade union movement has in some instances been directly responsible for increase of wages, though in this line of endeavor it is realized that the legal recognition of a minimum wage is necessary before widespread organization and raised pay and standard of living can be maintained. Women's trade unionism has, however, added most successful pressure to the initiation and furtherance of protective legislation.

The women trade-unionists, their individual resources reenforced through affiliation with large district and national federations, have been an element in the fight and have shared the victories, while the Women's Trade Union League has, through enforcing prescribed conditions, accomplished much toward the conservation of health and the promotion of safety among local workers, where little or no local organization can yet be effected.

The opinions of two leading captains of industry in England give as emphatic an exposition of trade union work and achievement as can be procured. The first deals with trade unionism in general, and the second is an excerpt from a letter written by the proprietor of one of the largest cocoa and chocolate works in England and a leading propagandist for the women's trade union movement of which he writes.

"Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for 1907, p. 303.

Mr. W. Mather, in the Contemporary Review for November, 1892, has declared:

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We employers owe more than, as a body, we are inclined to admit to the improvement of our methods of manufacture due to the firmness and independence of trade combinations. The energy and pertinacity of trade unions have caused acts of Parliament which would not otherwise have been promoted by employers or politicians, all of which have tended to improve British commerce. * Every intelligent employer will admit that his factory or workshop, when equipped with all the comforts and conveniences and protective appliances prescribed by Parliament for the benefit and protection of his work people-though great effort, and it may be, even sacrifice, on his part has been made to procure them-has become a more valuable property in every sense of the word, and a profit has accrued to him owing to the improved conditions under which his work people have been placed.

From Mr. Edward Cadbury, October 7, 1908, was received the following expression in regard to women's trade unions:

From my own point of view as an employer I advocate the formation of trade unions among women for the following reasons: A supply of intelligent workers who are satisfied with their remuneration and with their condition of work is an indispensable requirement of proper and efficient management, and such labor will always compete successfully in every respect with that of the underpaid worker who is dissatisfied and physically inefficient. Wages are the foundation of efficiency, as the feeding, clothing, and housing of the workers must depend upon their adequate remuneration. From my own experience I have found that an eight-hour day is long enough for the average girl; if she works longer hours, she begins to flag and her output tends to fall off. The question of hours, wages, and just treatment should not be left to the arbitrary decision of an employer or manager, no matter how good his intentions may be, and if the workers are to mantain their rights a well-managed organization, composed of a large majority of the employees, is necessary. Trade unionism also tends to a sense of self-respect and esprit de corps among the workers. It promotes a spirit of independence, foresight and fellowship, and its educational effect can not be overestimated. It is only just, too, that the employees should have the most skilled assistance they can command in order to state their case when grievances as to hours, pay, discipline, etc., arise, just as an employer is entitled to be assisted by his staff in the consideration of the matter; otherwise the workers are unfairly handicapped in dealing with an employer who is so assisted. It is often found that unorganized girls act on impulse and stop work without the slightest deliberation, and without recognizing the damage they may do to themselves or their employers, and trade unionism would stop this and do away with the friction caused by petty complaints and ill-considered strikes.

It would be well both for men and women if the men workers would be less selfish and take a deeper and more enlightened interest in the work of women. Experience seems to suggest that when men and women do the same quality of work it would be to the advantage of