Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/200

 and the improvement of their labour conditions. Working men have demonstrated how valuable the vote may be in these respects when wisely used. By means of collective bargaining working men have won a host of reforms of their working conditions—Workmen's Compensation, Legalisation of Trade Unions, the Miners' Eight Hours Day, Factory Legislation, Unemployment Insurance, Wages Boards, Fair Wages Clauses, and the like. It is significant that the Fair Wages Clause demanded in all Government contracts does not, practically, include women within its operation, and that many women workers in Government employ are badly sweated. The anti-suffrage remedy for industrial suffering is Trade Unionism. But Trade Unionism without political power is of very little use in these days. A prominent Trade Unionist, who was asked why he did not favour the admission of women to his Union, insisting on their forming a Union of their own, is known to have replied that the status of his Union would suffer in the eyes of politicians if it were known that it contained a large percentage of non-political, non-voting members, and that, as women could not be voters, they had better form Unions of their own. It is to be feared that a women's Trade Union would have little effect upon Parliament unless it were supported by a large body of voters.