Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/228

 an over-supply of women who can do those kinds of work.

The feminist maintains, and not only the feminist but humane people of every class and of every political party, that there are points at which the law must be set in motion to control the law of supply and demand; that limit must be set to the exploiting power of the employer of labour. Quite recently Wages Boards were established, which have fixed the legal minimum, below which no employer may go, in four of the country's most sweated industries—lace-making, tailoring, chain-making, and box-making.

Those interested in the sweated woman worker are endeavouring to bring certain other disreputable and badly-paid work under the Wages Boards Act, such for instance as the hollow ware makers, who have just won the princely wage of twopence an hour after a prolonged strike involving hideous sufferings. Those poor creatures who make a dozen blouses for ninepence, a dozen shirts for the same sum, finding their own thread and machine, ought to be protected by law. So ought the cigarette makers, the paper-flower makers, the hook-and-eye carders, and a score of other kinds of workers whose miserable wages vary from one penny to threepence an hour. Even the Government of the country is not guiltless of exploiting its defenceless, voteless