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Within a year or two the report of the Belgian commissioners has shown a state of things in the coal mines, pictured with tremendous power by Zola in his novel "Germinal," but in no sense a new story, since the conditions of Belgian workers are practically identical with those of women-workers in Silesia, or at any or all of the points on the continent where women are employed.
One who goes below the surface of Paris industries is amazed to discover how large a proportion of women-workers come under this head; and their numbers have been one of the strongest arguments for industrial education, and some development of the sense of what value lies in good work of any order.
Statistics taken in Germany and at other points all went to show that in the matter of out-door labor at the harvest season, when all women-workers are in the fields, the deaths of nursing infants were three times as great as in the other nine months. For details and deduction from these facts the reader is referred to the reports themselves. "I go so far," wrote Mr.
Many women-workers, the locality of whose home depends on the work of their husband or father, are obliged to travel every day long distances to and from their work. The waste of time, the weariness, and sometimes the expense of 'bus or train thus imposed on them, is in thousands of cases a heavy tax upon their industrial life.
"I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so different?" "They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete, "and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the army of the men.
They were busily "unhaling" the rick, that is, stripping off the thatch before beginning to throw down the sheaves; and while this was in progress Izz and Tess, with the other women-workers, in their whitey-brown pinners, stood waiting and shivering, Farmer Groby having insisted upon their being on the spot thus early to get the job over if possible by the end of the day.
In munitions, for instance, private employers were the first to recognize that they had in women-workers a labor force worth the cost of training. The best of the skilled men in many cases were told off to give the necessary instruction.
Everything depends upon the words "as strongly organized." It is the general industrial weakness of the condition of most women-workers, and not a sex prejudice, which prevents them from receiving the wages which men might get, if the work the women do were left for male competition alone. An employer, as a rule, pays the lowest wages he can get the work done at.
But to the majority of women-workers no such opportunities are open. Even the factory workers are for the most part employed in small groups, and are dispersed in their homes. Combination among the mass of home-workers or workers in small sweating establishments is almost impossible. The women's Unions have hitherto been successful in proportion as the trades are factory trades.
"I don't want it for myself, because I shouldn't know what to do with it, and I haven't much time to find out. But I want fair play for women-workers generally, and if that is the only way to get it, I hope it will come quickly." "What do you mean by fair play?" "Just whatever is fair play.
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