Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/682

 660 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL what they produce is usually valued in the market at a lower rate. The facts as yet ascertained hardly warrant any definite con- clusions as to the causes of this difference. It exists both where the women are subiect to exceptional legislative restrictions, and where these do not prevail; it exists in the United States, the Colonies and France, as well as in this country; it exists in clerical and educational as well as in manufacturing work; in mental as well as manual labour; where payment is made by the piece and where it is made by time; where custom rules and where com- petition. The problem is apparently one of great complexity, and no simple or universal solution of it can be offered. I have sometimes been disposed to think that the question was mainly one of a ' non-cornpeting' set of groups of relatively redundant and inefficient labourers, but little protected by com- bination. The case of the woman worker would, on this suppo- sition, be economically analogous to that of the male unskilled labourer. But it is impossible to overlook the effect of the fact that the woman has something else to sell besides her labour; and that many women are partially maintained out of other incomes than their own. I have been unable to satisfy myself to what extent these factors affect the standard wage of female manual workers. t In so far as they do, the case becomes economically analogous to that of the unskilled labourer receiving a rate in aid of wages. Under the old poor law the labourer who, by exception, did not receive outdoor relief, found his wages reduced by the prevalence of the practice among his competitors. The following suggestions as to. causes are accordingly only put forward tentatively, as affording some indication of the directions in which further study of the question is needed: A. Custom and public opinion: forreded on the other causes, but more potent than them all, and prevailing in cases which they do not affect. Can be altered by (a) Education of the public, especially as regards salaries paid by public bodies ;2 (b) Greater  Three cases must be distinguished, viz.: (a) occasional prostitution, (b) the pos- session of small means, and (c) the employnent of married women. On the latter point the chapter by Miss Clara Collet, in Labour and L(t of the People, vol. i., should be consulted.  The influence of a lady on the Edinburgh School Board, and that o! the Socialist members o! the Newcastle School Board, has raised the salaries o! the women teachers. Ir. Fawcett, when Postmaster-General. iuduced the Treasury to raise the initial salary for female clerks from 45 to {65, irrespective of market rates. On the other hand a glaring case of the contrary view took place in connec- tion with the Royal Commission on Labour. The usual pay for clerks to temporary