Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/670

 THE ECONOMIC JOIRN.aL at piece-work, as much as 35s. a week. Women, managing the machine with less efficiency, now do as good work, but less of it, for a fixed wage of 12s. a week. In umbrella making, too, women are being put on to clo, at a lower rate of pay, work hithe. rto clone by men. There is a separate Trade Union for each sex.  In rope making women have, of recent years, been substituted for men, in the 'heavy' work, which is now largely clone with the aid of machinery. They receive lower wages than the men did, but the change of process deprives the instance of significance. But when this year, the women in London struck for higher wages, the employers at first got their work clone by boys at slightly higher rates. The boys then refused to continue at those wages, ancl men hacl to be employeel at a man's normal wage, which was far in excess of what the women had been earning for exactly the same work. Here the different'market'rates of men's and women's wages seem to have been unconnected with their respective proficiency in this particular work. Sometimes quantity remains the same but quality suffers. One part of the saddle is known as the 'pad top.' For stitching and other work in connection with this, men receive 4s. each. In one large saclcller's women were introduced who did this work equally quickly for 2s. 3d., but did it, the men said, less well. The men's Trade Union interfered and put a stop to this practice. One instance to the contrary effect must now be given. The stitching of the serge lining to a saddle is not clone by the actual saddle maker, but is put out by him, and paid for, in London, at the fixed rate of 6d. 1Vfen formerly did this work with somewhat clumsy fingers, and earned only 25s. a week. Women are now generally employed, who perform the work equally well, and about 40 per cent. quicker. Although these women earn 35s. a week, the customary rate of 6d. has, I am informed, not been reduced. It should be noteel that the employers and paymasters are, in this case, themselves journeymen wage earners. Women employeel in aooriculture receive, by an almost in- variable custom, lower wages per week than men, and the same is true of grown lads fully equal to doing a man's work. But (in some parts of S.E. England at any rate) when, in the stress of harvesting, competition obtains free play, and labourers are em- ployed at piece-work rates, men, women, and children are pal(1  A few women French polishers in London are paid by the piece, and receive the same rates as men (but do not do so much work). But usually; the women polish the smaller articles of furniture, and men the larger.