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THE 
 
 MARTIN P. CATHERWOOD 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR 
 
 RELATIONS 
 
 AT 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
THE CASE FOR WAGES 
 BOAEDS. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924050067598 
 
THE CASE FOR 
 
 WAGES BOARDS. 
 
 BY 
 
 CONSTANCE SMITH. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 TEE NATIONAL ANTI-SWEATING LEAGUE, 
 133, Sahsbdey Squaeb, London, E.C, 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 Theee was a time, not very far distant, when 
 it was tacitly assumed, and even explicitly 
 asserted, that different classes of the same 
 people could be economically independent. 
 The well-being or the degradation of a single 
 division of the nation, however serious a 
 question it might appear to the moralist or 
 the humanitarian, did not present a problem 
 demanding the attention of economists 
 trained in the school of laisser-faire. The 
 influence of the school, though fast waning, 
 had still, in 1889, sufficient hold on the 
 national mind to prevent any definite action 
 from being taken on the Eeport presented by 
 the House of Lords Committee on Sweating. 
 The wave of humiliation, distress and dismay 
 which ran through the country on publication 
 of that Eeport was allowed to spend itself in 
 an outburst of I&iK»fettiP*of which the sole 
 
IV 
 
 direct practical outcome was a temporary 
 craze for " slumming " on the part of certain 
 well-to-do women. Indirectly, the Eeport 
 has not been without efEect : a deepened 
 interest in the question of housing, a greater 
 stringency in enforcing the laws of Public 
 Health, certain amendments in the Factory 
 and Workshops Act of 1901 may be traced, 
 in the past, to the new knowledge < of the 
 conditions under which work is done by the 
 poorest class of workers, conveyed to the 
 general mind and conscience through its 
 pages. But the root cause of the evil was 
 left untouched. No one in authority, 
 nineteen years ago, had the courage to 
 " strike his finger on the place " and point 
 out that, in regulation of the wages paid to 
 the sweated, lay the only reasonable hope of 
 abolishing the sweating system. 
 
 The first years of the twentieth century 
 have witnessed a very widespread and remark- 
 able change of thought on the subject of the 
 interdependence of classes. The course of 
 the world has forced us to recognise the soli- 
 darity which exists between all members of 
 the body politic. If there is one truth which. 
 
more than another, circumstances have of late 
 combined to impress upon the minds of all 
 thinking persons it is that, economically, we 
 are all members one of another. The more 
 deeply we examine into the sources of national 
 prosperity or national decline the clearer does 
 it become to us that even one unsound spot 
 in the national organism is, and must be, the 
 cause of weakness and corruption in the whole. 
 The wealth acquired on one hand by under- 
 payment of labour pays on the other — willingly 
 or unwillingly — its toll towards the mainten- 
 ance of those for whose incapacity, sickness, 
 destitution or crime such under-payment is 
 responsible. We come to realise painfully 
 that, however splendid may be the industrial 
 superstructure, if there lie about its roots a 
 mass of bad work and half-starved workers, 
 an abyss of inefficiency and misery into which 
 men and women belonging to the higher 
 working grades are in continual danger of 
 slipping, and in the midst of which armies of 
 children are being brought up to carry on the 
 evil tradition into a new generation, there 
 must be peril to the main building. More- 
 over, we foresee in the continued degradation 
 
VI 
 
 of a large class of the community an inevitable 
 lowering of both the physique and the morale 
 of our people which will presently amount, if 
 it does not do so already, to a national danger. 
 It is a sense of peril — social, industrial, com- 
 mercial, national — which, quite as much as 
 the simple instinct of compassion for the 
 suffering and indignation on behalf of the 
 oppressed, to-day impels thoughtful men and 
 women to seek with almost feverish anxiety 
 after a remedy for the sweating evil. 
 
 The consciousness of danger, the eager 
 search for a way of escape, are not confined 
 to thinkers of our own nationality. Every 
 civilised country has its own sweating 
 problem, and is more or less alive to the 
 importance of finding a solution for it. In 
 such assemblies as those of the International 
 Association for Labour Legislation, com- 
 prising members hailing from seventeen 
 different States, representing widely differing 
 political platforms and social sympathies — 
 Ministers of State, permanent officials, men 
 of science, economists. Trade Unionists, 
 factory inspectors, social reformers — the 
 question of sweating, especially as it exhibits 
 
Vll 
 
 itself in connection with home work, holds 
 a foremost place. Government after Govern- 
 ment is showing, by fresh enactments, or by 
 amendment of old laws, its sense of the 
 necessity laid upon it to deal with the matter 
 by means of legislation. And if in some 
 cases the first legislative steps do not carry 
 us very far, it must be remembered that they 
 are largely tentative. The point is that 
 everywhere legislative experiments are being 
 tried. The old easy-going method of leaving 
 things to right themselves by means of some 
 unknown mysterious economic law has been 
 abandoned, simply because its observance 
 was discovered to have landed those blindly 
 obeying it within sight of a national disaster 
 from which they have shrunk back appalled. 
 
 We stand, then, in the presence not merely 
 of a proved evil, but of a general movement 
 in favour of applying a national remedy for 
 that evil. The remedy, it is agreed, must be 
 national, since the evil is too great to be 
 tougJit and conquered by individual action. 
 Individual action will doubtless do much in 
 the future to break down the sweating system, 
 as it has undoubtedly done much in the past 
 
Vlll 
 
 to build it up, but it is incapable of exorcising 
 alone the monster it has helped to raise. 
 Even organised bands of individuals, such as 
 are to be found in consumers' leagues, are 
 powerless to affect to any great extent the 
 course of modern industry or to control the 
 wheels within wheels which make up the 
 complex machine of modern commerce. The 
 sweating system has so interwoven itself with 
 our national life that it is only by a national 
 movement we shall free ourselves from its 
 unhealthy trammels. 
 
 We shall consider here, very briefly : — 
 
 1. The principal features of the sweating 
 evil in this country; and, 
 
 2. The legislative action by which it is 
 proposed to remedy it. 
 
THE CASE FOR WAGES BOARDS. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 DEFINITION OF SWEATING. 
 
 Certain conditions of employment constitute 
 sweating. These conditions were defined, 
 in the Eeport of the Committee of the 
 House of Lords already alluded to, to be 
 (1) under-payment of the worker, (2) excessive 
 hours of labour, (3) insanitary condition of 
 workplaces. The definition can hardly be 
 improved upon. It is comprehensive, and 
 it places the causes of the evil in their 
 correct order and relation. The root cause 
 of sweating is the low wage, compelling 
 excessive hours of labour if even a bare 
 pittance is to be earned, and these conditions, 
 taken together, lead in many cases first 
 to the renting of an insanitary dwelling,, 
 because the worker is too poor to pay for 
 
better accommodation, and then, when that 
 worker is a woman, to enforced neglect of 
 the hoqae. For families or individuals 
 occupying only one or two rooms which 
 serve all the purposes of domestic life — 
 living, cooking, sleeping, washing — the fact 
 that, in the case of the home worker, they 
 have to serve as workshop besides greatly 
 adds to the difl&culty of maintaining them in 
 a wholesome state, even where the worker's 
 trade is not in itself of an unhealthy or 
 dirty nature. Yet it is in this last respect, 
 and in this alone, that the lot of the 
 sweated home worker may be said to have 
 materially improved since 1890. This im- 
 provement is due, partly to better 
 education and a higher standard of decency 
 and comfort among the workers themselves, 
 partly to increased attention paid by 
 the public to the housing question, 
 partly to greater stringency in enforcing 
 the laws of public health, and to better 
 administration of those laws by Public 
 Health Committees and by Women Sanitary 
 Inspectors and Health Visitors. It is not 
 due to a rise in the remuneration of the 
 
home worker, who is, in many trades, even 
 worse paid than she was 20 years ago, 
 and whose earnings, in certain directions, 
 show an increasing tendency to da-op; nor 
 to any diminution of the hours spent in 
 labour, which, with wages stationary or 
 faUing, remain of necessity as long as they 
 formerly were, while in some instances 
 they have grown even longer. 
 
 SWEATING IN FAOTOEIES AND WOEKSHOPS. 
 Although it is in the case of the home 
 worker that all the features of sweating are 
 most markedly present, yet it must not be 
 supposed that the evil does not, to a serious 
 degree, infect the industry carried on in many 
 factories and workshops. While the Factory 
 Acts secure to workers in such establishments 
 a minimum of conditions of safety, sanitation, 
 cleanliness and ventilation, and, where women 
 and children are concerned, a limitation of 
 the number of hours of work, they do not 
 regulate the wages paid, and these are too 
 often, especially when the workers are women 
 and girls, as truly "sweating" wages as those 
 received by the Bast End home worker from 
 
the East End slop tailor or box maker. Fac- 
 tories in plenty may be found, both in London 
 and in the Provinces — clothing factories, boot 
 factories, food factories, factories in which all 
 kinds of fancy articles are made — in which the 
 women employed cannot, after years of ser- 
 vice, hope to attain even the meagre weekly 
 wage of 10s. There are others where the 
 weekly payments vary from 3s. 9d. to 5s. or 
 6s., and 7s. is counted as a record week's pay. 
 It is clear that, given the lowest modern 
 standard of respectable living, and allowing 
 no margin for holidays, recreation or self- 
 improvement, the wages paid to employees 
 of such firms as these are absolutely 
 insufl&cient for maintenance. They have, 
 therefore, to be supplemented from other 
 sources. Where the case is that of a wife 
 whose husband is wage-earner, or of a 
 daughter living with her parents, the earn- 
 ings may be regarded as a pocket-money 
 wage ; where the worker is dependent on her 
 own exertions, the resources of the State or 
 the community are drawn upon to make up 
 the deficiency. In both cases, the industry 
 falls into the ranks of " parasitic " industries. 
 
SWEATING AND HOME WORK. 
 It is, however, in connection vsdth home 
 work that we should expect to find, and do 
 find the sweating system most firmly estab- 
 lished and most widely distributed. It is 
 impossible even to attempt to compute the 
 numbers of those who are carrying on sweated 
 industries under the domestic roof. Quite 
 recently the Home Secretary, with all the 
 aid that official information and official 
 statistics can afford at his command, declined 
 the task; and no doubt rightly, for the out- 
 workers' lists — which are as yet the only 
 registers of home workers we possess — have 
 been so imperfectly kept and checked that 
 they provide a very uncertain basis for reckon- 
 ing. Some notion of the number of workers 
 of a particular class found in a particular dis- 
 trict may be formed from time to time ; thus, 
 it has been ascertained that there are, roughly 
 speaking, 16,000 in the " dress trade," and 
 3,250 tailors and tailoresses in the Borough 
 of Stepney ; but anything like an exhaustive 
 census is, pending more thorough and vigorous 
 administration of our present law, out of the 
 question. This much, however, we know with 
 
certainty : that the sweated worker, more 
 especially the sweated woman, is to be found 
 pretty nearly everywhere up and down the 
 country. Her presence is to be detected in 
 the Provinces as well as in London, in the 
 small towns as well as in the larger cities, and 
 in many villages as well. Certain promi- 
 nently sweated industries, such as gloving, 
 have been from time immemorial carried on 
 in village homes, to which the work is brought 
 from the factory by a middleman or middle- 
 woman. 
 
 The reason for this wide distribution is 
 not far to seek. The superficial advantages 
 of employing home work are such as appeal 
 directly to the employer. Not only does he 
 escape the payment of rent and rates for 
 buildings in which to house his workers, 
 while throwing upon them such direct 
 expenses as warming, lighting, etc., but 
 he escapes also, indirectly, from certain 
 responsibilities which fall upon the man 
 who employs people to work for him on 
 his own premises : he has not to consider 
 what to do with his workers in slack 
 seasons ; and, by reason of a cheaper 
 
production, he can often manage slightly to 
 undersell competitors who employ inworkers. 
 In addition, the isolated position of his 
 employees, who are necessarily unorganised 
 and incapable of corporate action, enables 
 him, if he will, to reduce wages from time 
 to time with an ease and confidence un- 
 known to employers who come, personally or 
 through their managers, into direct touch 
 with their workpeople. It is true that 
 many of these apparent advantages are 
 illusory, and that action which at first 
 sight appears economical often proves in 
 the end productive of bad work and a 
 disproportionate waste of material. But the 
 typical sweating employer, in so far as he 
 sweats deliberately, rarely takes long views : 
 his aim is the immediate gain to be snatched 
 out of the competitive struggle. He never 
 comes into contact with the human capital 
 which he is using up. If he employs a 
 middleman, still more if, as is often the case, 
 he is only connected with the worker through 
 a whole chain of middlemen, all sense of 
 responsibility vanishes. Thus it comes to 
 pass that, as Mrs. Sidney Webb pointed out 
 
long ago, the pitiless pressure of the con- 
 sumer, caring only to get the article cheap, I 
 is brought to bear directly upon the home 
 worker, where, in the case of the factory! 
 worker, the employer, consciously or uncon^ 
 sciously, acts as a species of buffer. 
 
 CAUSES OF SWEATING. / 
 
 These are not one, but many, Eesponsi- 
 bility for the existence of the system cannot 
 be placed entirely on the shoulders of tiie 
 employers, either as individuals or as a body. 
 Individual greed or haste to be rich has 
 doubtless played its part in creating the 
 present economic conditions, but an even 
 greater part has been played by the pressure 
 of unregulated competition, by an un- 
 thinking rage for cheapness, by the national 
 acquiescence in supposed inevitable abuses. 
 With truth has it been said that the sweater 
 is the nation. 
 
 THE ALIEN IMMIGRANT. 
 
 It is natural to inquire, at this point, how 
 far the presence of the alien immigrant among 
 us is responsible for the prevalence of 
 sweating. Now, it would be idle to deny 
 
that, in certain localities, and in certain 
 branches of trade, the cheap labour of the 
 Eussian or Polish Jew has helped to lower 
 the already low wage of the English boot 
 closer and the English tailoress. But the 
 evidence of to-day, confirming the evidence 
 tendered to the Lords Committee nineteen 
 years earlier, clearly establishes the fact that 
 the alien immigrant, while he complicates 
 our problem, has in no sense created 
 it. In 1908, as in 1889, Eussian and 
 Polish workers are only to be found in 
 appreciable numbers in London, Manchester, 
 and Leeds. Yet sweating obtains, as we 
 have already had occasion to show, in 
 numberless other places. Nor is it confined 
 to industries in which foreigners compete 
 with our own workers. There is no worse 
 sweated industry than that of chain and nail- 
 making, a trade which, as is well known, is 
 entirely confined to our own country-people. 
 Again, in the tailoring trade, where, as 
 regards certain branches, Jewish competition 
 is admittedly keen, the pulling down of 
 tailors' wages by cheap female labour carried 
 on at home far exceeds the depression 
 
10 
 
 wrought by the rivalry of the Jewish worker. 
 If the ahen here has slain his thousands, 
 assuredly the wife of the casual labourer has 
 slain her tens of thousands. For along with 
 casual labour goes, by a fateful, inevitable 
 connection, sweated home work. On the 
 other hand, the existence of sweated home 
 work, wretchedly paid as it is, makes possible, 
 in many instances, the continued existence 
 of the casual labourer doing two or three 
 days' work a week ; and so the whole system 
 revolves in a vicious circle. 
 
 PEINCIPAL SWEATED INDUSTRIES. 
 First in order and importance come the 
 great trades of tailoring in all its branches, 
 wholesale dressmaking (which includes the 
 making up of mantles, jackets, blouses, 
 pinafores, aprons and skirts) and what is 
 known as the white trade (shirts, and all 
 kinds of underwear except hosiery). These 
 employ a huge army of workers, much of 
 whose work is done for export. The most 
 heavily sweated articles, especially in clothing 
 trades, are frequently found among the goods 
 manufactured for colonial and foreign use. 
 
11 
 
 It is no secret that an immense proportion of 
 the ready-made wearing apparel sold at home 
 or exported from our shores is made up by- 
 outworkers living under miserable conditions, 
 but it is not, perhaps, generally known that 
 many expensive garments made to order are 
 similarly " finished " in the dirty and in- 
 sanitary dwellings of sweated tailors and 
 seamstresses. Much of the cheaper boot and 
 shoe trade is also carried on in domestic 
 workshops. In addition, there are a host of 
 small piecework trades which are very largely 
 home industries. Eeference has already been 
 made to the chain and nail industry at 
 Bromsgrove and Dudley. Outworkers are 
 also employed in the making of locks, latches 
 and keys, and in file making. Clipping and 
 finishing of machine-made laces and nets is a 
 considerable home industry. Among the 
 numerous home trades in which women are 
 chiefly or exclusively employed may be 
 mentioned cap-making, tie-making, belt- 
 making; making, repairing, and finishing of 
 umbrellas and sunshades, artificial flower- 
 making, tent and sack-making, covering of 
 racquet and tennis balls, box-making, paper 
 
12 
 
 bag-making, glove stitching, bead work, 
 manufacture of clay pipes and cigarette 
 holders, military embroidery, cheap saddlery, 
 shawl fringing, carding and boxing of buttons 
 and hooks and eyes, brush-making, feather 
 sorting, fur-pulling and sewing, basket- 
 making, and the manufacture of stuffed toys. 
 
 EXAMPLES OP BAENINGS. 
 
 In all these trades the average wage of 
 the home worker is excessively low. Out 
 of the hundreds of examples to be gathered 
 from official records, such as the Blue Book 
 issued in 1907, containing the Report of the 
 Home Work Committee, or from the reports 
 of investigations made by such bodies as 
 the Besearch Committee of the Christian 
 Social Union, and the Women's Industrial 
 Council, only a very few can here be given. 
 They are selected, not as extreme cases, but 
 rather as being fairly typical of the position 
 of the worker engaged in that trade of 
 •which they illustrate the conditions. For 
 instance, one of the factory inspectors, giving 
 evidence last June before the Home Work 
 
13 
 
 Committee, stated the following to be 
 "common rates of pay for certain classes 
 of work in London: — 
 
 Boys' knickers, making throughout, 2d. pair ; 
 
 Men's coats, making throughout, 4d. to 9d. ; 
 
 Vests with five pockets, making throughout, 
 3^d. each ; 
 
 Boys' cotton blouses. Is. Id. a dozen." 
 
 The inspector goes on to state that in 
 Bristol the making of trousers is paid at 
 from 5d. to 8jd. a pair; common coats, 
 from 4d. to 8d. ; while in Beading trousers 
 are made throughout in the outworkers' 
 homes for 4d., 6d. and 6d. The rate of 
 pay in London for common export shirts 
 with collar band only is put by the same 
 authority at lOd. a dozen (making through^ 
 out) ; but at Woolwich Miss Squire found 
 such shirts being made for no more than 6d. 
 a dozen. In these cases " sewings " — i.e., 
 cotton for sewing the shirts — are found by 
 the worker and form, consequently, a 
 deduction from her earnings. A case cited 
 by the inspector whose evidence has been 
 quoted is of interest as being, on the 
 witness's testimony, typical of a large 
 number of these outwork cases. It was 
 
14 
 
 that of a young widow supporting herself 
 and two children by shirt making. Miss 
 Squire found her making skirts at 8|d. a 
 dozen. She bought sewing cotton at 4d. a 
 reel, using one reel for three dozen shirts. 
 By a special effort she could make three 
 dozen in a day, but it was elicited by 
 cross-examination of the witness, that this 
 was an effort which could not possibly be 
 maintained day after day. The earnings 
 of the woman, a steady worker, whose 
 house the inspector noted as " beautifully 
 kept," varied from 6s. to 8s. a week. On 
 the occasion when Miss Squire visited her 
 she had made 40 shirts between Tuesday 
 evening, when she fetched them out, and 
 the Thursday morning when she took them 
 back to the factory. 
 
 Some interesting particulars with regard to 
 corset making were tendered by the same 
 official witness. Makers of " common " cor- 
 sets (selling at from Is. Id. to Is. lid. each) 
 receive Is. 7jd. for making a dozen pairs, but 
 out of this there are deductions for cane and 
 cotton, which on two dozen pairs reach a total 
 of Is. 6d. The net amount of wage earned on 
 
15 
 
 two dozen pairs is therefore Is. 9d., or 10 Jd. 
 a dozen. These, it is specially noted, were 
 the earnings of a skilled worker who, by the 
 inspector's testimony, " worked admirably 
 and rapidly." Yet this admirable and rapid 
 workwoman could only complete her two 
 dozen pairs in three days, thereby earning the 
 daily wage of 7d. if she worked at high pres- 
 sure, and did not have to fetch or carry to or 
 from the factory. 
 
 The cases just given can be easily paral- 
 leled in the industry of wholesale dressmaking. 
 Here we find muslin blouses with twenty 
 tucks made for 3s. a dozen, nightgowns with 
 frills and insertion for 2s. 9d, a dozen, dress- 
 ing gowns elaborately trimmed for 6s. 6d, a 
 dozen. The average earnings in this case, 
 typical of thousands of others, were 7s. per 
 week for a day lasting from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. 
 
 Another witness before the Home Work 
 Committee (Mr. Thomas Holmes, formerly 
 the well known Police Court Missionary, now 
 Secretary of the Howard Association), showed 
 the Committee a skirt and coat made through- 
 out by two women, who found their own 
 machine and thread, for Is. Id. He testified 
 
16 
 
 that these two women, a mother and daughter, 
 had been doing the same work at this price 
 for twenty years, making seven costumes in 
 about two days, by working from 9 in the 
 morning to 12-30 at night, with the short 
 intervals needed for cooking and eating their 
 simple meals and doing their housework. 
 
 Sweating in the boot trade is much on the 
 increase. In London the uppers of ladies' 
 boots are being machined at Is. 6d. the dozen 
 pairs, while in Leicester the same work is 
 done for lOd. The men engaged in the 
 Bristol boot trade are actually making boots 
 throughout in their own homes at 9d. a pair, 
 with attendant expenses for rivets and 
 grindery amounting to Is. 6d. a dozen. 
 
 Nor are things better in those smaller 
 trades of which we have given a list. Brush- 
 making is a skilled trade ; yet a rate of 5d. to 
 6^d. a dozen is common in London, Leeds, 
 Bristol, Birmingham, and other principal 
 brush-making centres, and 8s. a week is 
 considered a good wage for a steady average 
 worker. The average earnings of box makers 
 vary from 4s. 6d. to about 7s. 6d. a week; 
 match boxes are paid at 2jd. a gross. This 
 
17 
 
 for steady work. Nor is this net profit, A 
 farthing a gross must be deducted, for flour 
 has to be bought to make the paste ; in 
 addition, a fire must be kept up to warm the 
 paste and to dry the boxes. 
 
 Sack-sewers are even worse off, 6s. a week 
 for very hard work representing high earnings 
 in the case of ordinary sacks, though a clever 
 worker " sitting at " Navy sacks the whole 
 day can earn a daily wage of Is. 4d. 
 
 In tent-making we find a tent 16 yards 
 long with 58 holes to make and 110 eyes to 
 sew on, taking a worker a whole day to finish, 
 paid for at 9^d. Army bell-tents are a little 
 more profitable, bringing in 2s. each. But in 
 this case the workers find their own thread, 
 which costs 2d. per ball. 
 
 Three shillings and sixpence per gross 
 is paid for strawberry baskets. But 
 as the worker finds the wood, which 
 costs 2s.,, and it takes two days to. 
 make a gross, her net earnings amount to 
 9d. per day. With the small hardware 
 trades of Birmingham we touch, apparently, 
 the lowest rates. The Superintending Factory 
 Inspector for the Midlands gives 4s. 3d. 
 
18 
 
 as the highest weekly earnings he has been 
 able to discover in the case of a competent 
 hook and eye carder doing ten hours pretty 
 constant work a day, even with the help 
 of her children (the average rate is put at 
 3s. 2jd.) Payment for a "pack" (a gross 
 of cards on each of which a gross of hooks 
 and eyes has been sewn) varies from 8d. 
 to Is. 2d., according to the size of the 
 hooks and eyes, the smallest sizes being 
 the best paid. Out of this Is. 2d. or 8d., Jd. 
 for needles and thread have to be found, 
 and, unless the worker fetches the work 
 from the factory and takes it back 
 herself, a penny a pack in addition must 
 be paid to a collector for collection and 
 delivery. Button carding, again, produces 
 net earnings of 2s. to 3s. a week, working the 
 whole week through ; 4s. 3d. was the largest 
 weekly amount earned by any one of the 
 considerable number of women visited by 
 Mr. G-raves and his assistants. 
 
 FALL IN HOMEWOEK WAGES. 
 Ample evidence, official and unofficial, is 
 forthcoming to show that, low as are the 
 wages in the trades just discussed, they 
 
19 
 
 tend steadily to fall still lower. Those in 
 the hook and eye trade are said to have 
 been stationary for 40 years, but in nearly 
 all the others the tendency is downwards. 
 One of the witnesses before the Home Work 
 Committee, a tailor's machinist, gave the 
 following figures in connection with reduc- 
 tion of wages on Government contracts in 
 his own trade : — 
 
 Khaki jackets, paid for at 2s. T^d. aach in 1904, 
 are in 1908 being made for Is. 5^d. 
 
 Making of Post Office uniforms has fallen from 
 15s. to 10s. 2d. 
 
 Police tunics, from 28. 8d. to Is. 9d. 
 
 Mr. Ho wart b and Miss Mona Wilson, in 
 the valuable study of employment and wages 
 which forms one of the most important 
 chapters of their volume on life in West Ham, 
 state that the same story — the story of re- 
 duced wages — comes from nearly every trade, 
 and give numerous examples in support of 
 their statement. A tailoress, who has worked 
 at her trade for 40 years and is now getting 
 28. 6d. a dozen for coats and 2s. 3d. a dozen 
 for reefers, was ten years ago receiving 6s. a 
 dozen from middlemen for the same work; 
 18 years ago, for machine work done directly 
 
20 
 
 for a factory, she got Is., Is. 6d. and 2s a 
 coat ; while in her early days, when most of 
 the work was done by hand, she was paid as 
 much as 5s. a coat. Another case is that of 
 a waistcoat maker, whose pay firom Is. to 
 Is. 4d. for a waistcoat has gradually decreased 
 to 6Jd. and 7Jd. The reduction on shirts, 
 while less perceptible in terms of hard cash, 
 is none the less real, much more elaborate 
 work being demanded for pay which was 
 formerly given for the plainest kind of shirt 
 only. A maker of girls' jackets, who can 
 remember getting 17s. 6d. a dozen 15 years 
 ago, now gets 5s. 6d. a dozen for precisely 
 the same work. Constant small reductions 
 are being made, owing to the intervention of 
 other workers who, desperate for work, ofEer 
 "to do it for less." It is a fairly common 
 experience for a home worker to be con- 
 fronted with the alternative of losing her 
 work or accepting it at a reduced rate of pay, 
 because the employer has found someone 
 "who will take it at a lower price." Home 
 workers are particularly helpless in the face 
 of such proposed reduction. When rates are 
 lowered in a factory, even if it be a factory in 
 
21 
 
 ■which the workers are wholly unorganised, 
 the employers know that they have to face a 
 certain amount of public opinion on their own 
 premises and a wider public opinion outside 
 them. Both these checks upon reckless or 
 unwarrantable lowering of wages are absent 
 in the case of the woman whose work is done 
 at home. 
 
 IRREGULAEITY OP EAENINGS. 
 The earnings of the home worker are not 
 only low but irregular. It is a characteristic 
 of the industries which employ outworkers 
 that, unlike the greater industries of the 
 country, they have no wage standard. So 
 far from a market rate, general or local, 
 being established in these trades, it is not 
 uncommon to find an employer of labour 
 totally unaware of the rates which are being 
 paid by his rival in the next street. Thus 
 it comes about that one worker is often 
 employed by two firms to do precisely similar 
 work for quite different pay. A case of this 
 kind came recently within the personal 
 experience of the writer. The worker was 
 a box maker employed by two firms in the 
 East End of London. For each she made 
 
22 
 
 boxes of precisely the same quality and size, 
 but from one of these she received 4jd. per 
 gross more than from the other. As she 
 could not obtain sufficient work by which to 
 maintain herself from the better paying firm, 
 she was obliged to eke out a living by accept- 
 ing a certain number weekly of the worse 
 paid boxes. The evil of such a system, or 
 want of system, does not end with the 
 particular case. In a short time we may 
 expect to find that, in obedience to the law 
 of competition, the better paying firm will 
 have cut down its wages to the lower rate. 
 In addition to irregularity as between firm 
 and firm, a considerable amount of suoh 
 irregularity is found in different " orders " 
 issued by the same firm. 
 
 UNCERTAINTY OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 Uncertainty of employment is one of 
 the peculiar griefs of the home worker. 
 Over and above the general fluctuation of 
 trade, necessarily affecting the volume of 
 employment, and the ebb and flow of the 
 tide of seasonal work, she has to suffier 
 from the absence of any contract with her 
 employers beyond that which binds her to 
 
23 
 
 bring back, completed, her last bundle of 
 piecework. This absence of contract works 
 to her disadvantage, even when she continues 
 to obtain employment, by waste of her sole 
 capital — her time. The long hours spent 
 in going to and fro to fetch work from 
 the factory and to carry it back, or in 
 waiting for the work to be given out at 
 the office or warehouse, are as truly a 
 deduction from the worker's meagre wages 
 as the sums paid, where home and factory 
 lie far apart, in tram and omnibus fares. 
 FINES AND DEDUCTIONS. 
 The cost of" journeys " in actual pence paid 
 out day by day forms a serious item in the 
 home worker's budget of expenditure. Nor 
 do these payments, and the amounts deducted 
 for materials, exhaust the list of those which 
 have to be struck off the total weekly earnings 
 before calculating the net gain on the week's 
 work. To these should be added, in many 
 cases, the cost of firing ; in all, where long 
 hours are worked, money paid out for light, 
 whether in the form of kerosene or " penny-in- 
 the-slot" gas; in the clothing trade, the 
 hire or gradual purchase of a machine must 
 
2i 
 
 be included. There is, farther, the serious 
 question of fines for damaged or imperfect 
 work. Case after case is found in which 
 the worker is compelled on account of 
 some slight flaw in her work, to purchase 
 the article made at its full price. This 
 practice of compelling the workers to buy 
 damaged articles prevails in connection 
 with factory as well as home work ; in too 
 many factories it has led to the objectionable 
 practice of raffling; on the home worker it 
 frequently imposes a burden which can 
 only be worked oflE by degrees. The case 
 of the Bristol tailoress fined £2 for wrongly 
 placing pockets in the pair of trousers she 
 was finishing for a few pence is, perhaps, 
 an extreme example of this kind ; but official 
 reports abound in cases which, in a scarcely 
 less startling fashion, set at nought the *' fair 
 and reasonable " clause of the Truck Act. 
 To take a few of these as they occur in 
 factories : In a tailoring case in Leeds, 
 four girl machinists were compelled to buy 
 some men's trousers that had been found 
 to have a spot of oil on them. There was 
 no proof that one of the four girls had 
 
25 
 
 €ven seen or touched the trousers, and only 
 one could, by the employer's admission, be 
 in fault ; yet three had Is. 2d. each deducted 
 from their wages. One of the senior women 
 inspectors reports an instance of a hosiery firm 
 which, paying its workers 3Jd. per dozen for 
 stockings, imposed a fine of 16s. for alleged 
 bad work, and yet was unable, upon a 
 prosecution being taken, to produce any 
 proof of negligence. Another inspector 
 found an employer preparing to impose 
 fines for imperfect work in the case of 
 women employed on minute operations in 
 connection with the production of a cheap 
 warming pan, paid for at Jd. a gross. The 
 subdivision of labour in this case was so 
 great that it took 25 women to produce 
 the article; and work was carried on with 
 such extreme rapidity that any care or 
 excellence in workmanship was out of the 
 question. In a case that came before one 
 of the London Stipendiary Magistrates, it 
 was found that in a collar factory a fine 
 of £1 Os. 6d. had been imposed on a girl 
 for stitching 6 dozen collars nearer the 
 edge than the order given her set down, 
 
26 
 
 thft payment for stitching the collars being 
 Is. 9cl. For a similar error a fine of 9s. 
 was imposed on a stitcher who received 
 five farthings a dozen for her work. 
 Instances in which apprentices, from whom 
 a certain amount of imperfect or spoiled 
 work must be expected, have been fined 
 out of all proportion to any payments 
 made to them, are common ; as an ex- 
 perienced factory inspector recently observed, 
 in certain establishments the whole training 
 of the young worker appears to be carried 
 on by means of fines. Allusion has already 
 been made to deductions for materials. 
 These, even when they represent only the 
 cost price of those materials, are a serious 
 drawback upon small earnings. It is not, 
 however, disputed that the workers frequently 
 pay more than the cost price. The Eeport 
 of the Chief Inspector for the year 1906 cites 
 the case of a woman making skirts in a 
 factory who, out of one week's estimated 
 earnings of 18s. lOd., received only lis. Id., 
 the remaining 7s. 9d. having gone to pay 
 for power, cotton and needles. The Eeport 
 for the previous year mentions firms of 
 
27 
 
 glove makers which were accustomed to 
 make 10, 14, and even 20 per cent, on 
 the " sewings " supplied to their workers. 
 A boot factory deducted grindery from the 
 operatives' wages at a higher rate than 
 that charged by retail shops. From the 
 wages of a majolica paintress in the 
 Potteries, earning lis. a week, Is. 2d. was 
 deducted, 6d. of the deduction being for 
 expenses connected with the carrying out 
 of the special rules, which it was clearly 
 the business of the employer to bear 
 himself. Examples, officially reported, ot 
 compulsory deductions for payments to a 
 cook for warming food, to an errand girl, 
 for use of stove, boiling water and dining 
 room, even in cases where the workers do 
 not avail themselves of these services and 
 conveniences, occur over and over again. 
 Nor are instances wanting of deductions 
 for contributions to hospitals, for certifying 
 surgeons' fees, and even for the annual 
 beanfeast fund. 
 
 While the case of factory workers in 
 respect of fines and deductions is hard, 
 that of outworkers is harder still. If 
 
28 
 
 employed by a middleman they are outside 
 the protection of the Truck Acts; even if 
 they take their work direct from a factory, 
 they are, few of them, in a position to 
 dispute the pronouncement of the manager 
 or forewoman who declares them to have 
 forfeited so much out of their estimated 
 earnings. They may know, like the girls 
 who were well aware, when paying Id. each 
 for machine needles which could be bought 
 at the rate of eight-a-penny outside the 
 factory, that they are being grossly over- 
 charged for materials; but, since the 
 alternative to acceptance of the charge is 
 dismissal, they will leave it unchallenged. 
 The poorest and most ignorant workers 
 are particularly exposed to oppression of 
 this kind. Thus we find the handkerchief 
 sewers of Belfast paid at the rate of |d. per 
 dozen, subject to a fine of 4d. per dozen for 
 any mistake. A better kind of handkerchief, 
 paid for at 3id. a dozen, carries a fine of 
 Is. 3d. Where the wages are as low as those 
 commonly received by the home worker in the 
 clothing or smaller piecework trades, the 
 deduction of even a few pence becomes of 
 
29 
 
 vital importance to the wage earner. The 
 economic helplessness of the home workers 
 is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than 
 in their inability to protect themselves 
 against excessive fines and deductions. 
 THE SWEATED WOEKEE. 
 This inability need surprise no one who 
 knows from what ranks of the population the 
 main body of those workers who are popularly 
 described as " sweated " is recruited. The 
 men are those who have never had a chance 
 in life or who, having had one, have, some- 
 times through their own fault, but more often 
 through physical defect, mental feebleness or 
 lack of equipment, failed to keep their hold 
 upon it. They are for the most part sons of 
 sweated workers like themselves, turned out 
 upon the world to pick up their living with* 
 out having been taught how to earn it. The 
 women are the wives of casual labourers, of 
 men out of work, of men unable or unwilling 
 to work, the widows with families to bring up, 
 the deserted wives, the daughters with aged 
 or infirm parents dependent on their labour. 
 To all of them the one absorbing question is 
 the immediate earning of a few shillings or 
 
30 
 
 pence. They are of those who never have 
 been able and never will be able to make pro- 
 vision for the future. They live on the edge 
 of the abyss of destitution, and all their 
 energies are bent to the effort of saving 
 themselves from toppling into it. Such 
 people have neither expectations nor re- 
 serves; their one ambition is to retain the 
 work by which they exist, however miserably; 
 their one fear, lest it should be taken from 
 them. 
 
 DIEECT EFFECTS OF SWEATING, 
 (a) On the Home. 
 
 The direct effects of sweating are easily 
 seen. Over-work, imperfect nourishment, 
 insufficient rest and clothing produce results, 
 physical, mental and moral, which proclaim 
 themselves even to a careless observer. 
 "Where the sweating system invades the 
 homes, its results are not confined to the 
 sweated worker, but extend more or less to 
 the whole family. Home work, it has been 
 said with truth, is too often the negation of 
 home life. "Where, as is most commonly the 
 case, the sweated worker is the wife and 
 
31 
 
 mother, the conditions under which she 
 works are frequently more disastrous to her 
 children than to herself. 
 
 (b) Infant Mobta.lity and Child Laboub. 
 The sweated worker's infant is handicapped, 
 even hefore birth, by prenatal conditions : 
 the exhaustion of the mother, by toil carried 
 on up to the very day of her confinement, 
 predisposes her offspring to the atrophy and 
 debility which are fatal to so large a number 
 of infants ; and her early return after child- 
 birth to that toil, coupled with imperfect 
 nutrition, due to lack of means with which to 
 purchase nourishing food, greatly diminishes 
 its chance of life. When we come, in official 
 reports, upon such a case as that of the 
 blousemaker who was found by the factory 
 inspector sitting up in bed engaged in work 
 six hours after the birth of her child, we 
 expect to find the infant mortality rate among 
 the children of home workers a high one. For 
 the children who live to grow up, the danger 
 presents itself that they will either be pressed 
 into the service of the home industry at the 
 earliest possible moment, or forced at an 
 early age, while still in attendance at school, 
 
32 
 
 into some other occupation unsuitable to 
 
 their age and injurious to their health. The 
 
 business of street trading, though not wholly 
 
 confined to the children of the very poor, 
 
 certainly draws many of its recruits from just 
 
 that class of home in which the brushmaker 
 
 or the matchbox maker plies her trade ; and 
 
 official evidence in abundance exists to show 
 
 that the practice of employing children as 
 
 assistants in many home industries is a 
 
 widespread one. Miss Squire stated before 
 
 the Home Work Committee that they were 
 
 very " considerably employed " in some of the 
 
 clothing trades, such as gloving ; while in 
 
 Nottingham, in the lace trade, she asserted 
 
 their emplojrment to be "very prevalent." 
 
 There they work, it seems, in the dinner 
 
 hour, between two school attendances^ 
 
 without removing their hats or jackets^ 
 
 eating their food on the return walk to school. 
 
 They work again in the evening on 
 
 their return, and in neighbours' houses as 
 
 well as at home. Their employment begins 
 
 at six years old, and e-ven under. The 
 
 Superintending Factory Inspector for the 
 
 Midlands gave the age at which the child 
 
33 
 
 hook and eye carders of Birmingham begin 
 work as three, and stated that he had 
 himself seen children of three, four and 
 five regularly engaged in the business of 
 " linking." Again, Dr. Agnew, the Medical 
 Superintendent Officer of Health for the 
 Urban District of Lurgan, in drawing the 
 attention of his Council to the employment 
 of children in the operation of drawing hand- 
 kerchiefs " under circumstances that are 
 entirely inconsistent with their physical 
 development," states that they are " often of 
 the tenderest years." He goes on to say — • 
 " In the poorest and most unhealthy of our 
 dwellings this variety of home work is carried 
 on to an inconceivable extent, and in some 
 streets one could hardly enter a house without 
 seeing two, three, four, or more children, 
 varying in age from six to twelve years, 
 sitting round a table, all intently busy trying 
 
 to earn a miserable pittance Not 
 
 only are these children kept close at work 
 from the time they return from school until 
 late bed-time, but very often the most flimsy 
 pretexts are made for keeping them at home, 
 so that they may even be kept at work during 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 school hours." In a supplementary state- 
 ment, Dr. Agnew adds that "it was in the 
 lowest class of houses, not fit to harbour 
 children at any time, that one saw children 
 of from three to twelve sitting wearing their 
 eyes out." The price paid for drawing two 
 dozen handkerchiefs was Ijd. 
 
 (c) Deteeioeation of Woek. 
 The work suffers as well as the worker. 
 Haste, over-strain, a system of industry which 
 makes quantity in production at once the sole 
 aim and the over-mastering motive of labour, 
 will of necessity produce a poor and shoddy 
 type of manufactured article. A vast pro- 
 portion of the articles produced by sweated 
 labour, sold at fabulously cheap prices, and 
 eagerly bought up by the public, especially by 
 its less well-to-do members, are so flimsy in 
 construction, so rough and imperfect in finish, 
 that they have little or no lasting quality, 
 and require to be continually replaced. This 
 may benefit a limited class of manufacturers ; 
 it certainly does not serve the interests of the 
 great body of purchasers. There is often, even 
 among the sweated home workers, a quite 
 remarkable manual dexterity. But speed is 
 
35 
 
 naturally their first object, and, where this is 
 the case, care for thoroughness is sure to go 
 to the wall. 
 
 INDIRECT EFFECTS OF SWEATING, 
 (a) Ok the futube op the Eaoe. 
 
 It is not difficult to trace the disastrous 
 influence of the sweating system on lives 
 that have grown up under its shadow. The 
 children of the hook and eye carders and 
 the handkerchief drawers are doomed, by the 
 fact of a childhood and youth passed without 
 training, without discipline, without adequate 
 care, to just such an existence as that of their 
 parents before them. The boys will become 
 casual labourers if they do not become loafers. 
 The girls will marry men like their brothers, 
 and supplement the meagre wages irregularly 
 brought home by their husbands by working 
 at sweated rates in some home piecework 
 trade. To preach to households like those 
 of which we have written the value of skilled 
 training for their boys and girls is to waste 
 breath. The time for training cannot be 
 afforded. So the child goes forth to the 
 industrial battle unequipped with the armour 
 
36 
 
 of knowledge or the weapons of skill ; 
 physically feeble and undeveloped, by reason 
 of the over-work and under-feeding of his 
 early years ; intellectually backward, because 
 bodily fatigue and a too precocious initiation 
 into the round of mechanical toil has dulled 
 wits that at the beginning were, perhaps, 
 bright enough. His moral character will 
 almost certainly be exposed as soon as he 
 emerges from boyhood to the very hardest 
 test to which moral character can be put — 
 that of intermittent employment : of spells of 
 hard work, alternating with much longer 
 spells of enforced idleness. Need we be 
 surprised if he does not stand the test ? 
 The moral wrecks to be found among the 
 children of the sweated are frequently as 
 much the products of the sweating system as 
 their sickly, feeble-minded and defective 
 brothers and sisters. Together they help to 
 furnish recruits to the growing army of the 
 unemployed and unemployable, to fill our 
 workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and prisons. 
 (6) On the Laboue Maekbt. 
 We have already noted the close connection 
 that exists between sweated home work and 
 
37 
 
 casual labour. The former helps to maintain 
 the latter. In certain districts it has 
 an even more disastrous effect : it encourages 
 the men to lead lives of idleness, leaving the 
 task of supporting the household to their 
 wives. But sweating, in the sense of under- 
 payment — the remuneration of labour by less 
 than a living wage — is not, as we have already 
 pointed out, confined to industries carried on 
 in the home. Where sweated wages are paid 
 in factories or workshops to women, for work 
 that might be done by men, and, but for the 
 cheapness of unorganised women's labour, 
 would be done by men, the economic and 
 social effects are disastrous : the rightful 
 bread-winner remains unemployed, the wife 
 and mother is taken from the home which 
 requires her presence, while the family re- 
 ceives an insufficient sum for its maintenance. 
 Where these conditions prevail throughout a 
 whole city or district, we get such a case as 
 that of Dundee, where, it has been bitterly 
 said, " all the women work and all the men 
 loaf." They do not all loaf, as a matter of 
 fact; they go away to places where work may 
 be had. Consequently, the female population 
 
38 
 
 of Dundee at the present time is to the male 
 as three to one, and every social problem 
 takes there an aggravated form — aggravated 
 by the condition of chronic poverty, varied 
 by crises of acute distress, in which the people 
 live. 
 
 (c) On the Community. 
 It is clear, from the examples already given 
 of the earnings of different home workers, all 
 of them typical examples illustrating the 
 position of classes, not the exceptional 
 suffering of individuals, that many such 
 workers cannot, given the cost of lodging, 
 food and firing in towns, live on their earnings. 
 For as much as their means fall short of the 
 sum sufficient to maintain bare existence, the 
 community bears the burden of their main- 
 tenance. By Poor Law allowances, by the 
 action of Distress Committees, by private 
 charity, we are helping to foster the sweating 
 system. Miss Squire told the Home Work 
 Committee that " a good number of box- 
 makers " are always in receipt of parish 
 relief. A recent inquiry in Woolwich shows 
 that home workers in a number of trades 
 in that borough have regular allowances from 
 
39 
 
 the Guardians. Such allowances serve, as 
 truly as did those granted to agricultural 
 labourers before the passing of the New Poor 
 Law, as rates in aid of wages. In short, 
 the community is here directly taking upon 
 itself the duty of supplementing the insujBficient 
 payments of the employer. The indirect 
 expenditure thrown upon it by reason of the 
 sickness, destitution and crime bred of the 
 sweating system, expenditure which finds its 
 outward expression in a host of Government 
 and charitable institutions in every corner of 
 the land, is incalculably vast, and represents 
 a waste of national income as well as of 
 national capital, of pounds, shillings and 
 pence in the present, as well as of human 
 lives in the future, which it would be well fot 
 business men, no less than social reformers, 
 to consider. 
 
PAET II. 
 
 THE CUBE OF SWEATING. 
 
 No one concerned for the welfare of this 
 country can hold the facts briefly presented 
 under Part I. to be of slight importance. 
 Sweated workers form already a large class of 
 the community, and their numbers are being 
 constantly added to. A fluctuation of trade, a 
 change of fashion, or a commercial crisis will 
 alike send a host of workers, living previously 
 just above the poverty line, across it into the 
 ranks of the sweated. In individual cases, 
 the illness of the bread winner, or the failure 
 of an employing firm is often sufficient to 
 bring a whole family within the grip of the 
 sweating system. This means, as we have 
 seen, gradual deterioration of the national 
 type, both on its physical and on its moral 
 side. The need of some common effort for the 
 overthrow of an evil so widespread and so 
 far-reaching in its consequences, which has 
 already tainted to so ? great an extent the 
 springs of our national life, is urgent, and is 
 
41 
 
 felt to be so. The individual is powerless in 
 the matter — powerless, that is, as far as any 
 impression on the system is concerned ; asso* 
 ciations of individuals are in little better 
 case. While consumers' leagues have their 
 uses as forms of public protest against 
 an iniquity which has roused the public 
 conscience to revolt, they are ineffective 
 instruments of radical reform. Nor can 
 Trade Unionism, which has done so much in 
 the past to raise the status and improve the 
 condition of the worker, help effectually here. 
 Attempts to organise the home worker have 
 been made, without success, again and again 
 in this country. For organisation to succeed 
 there must be some bond of common labour, 
 some spirit of comradeship, at the lowest 
 some opportunity for communication and 
 interchange of ideas between member and 
 member. None of these things exist or 
 can exist in connection with home work. 
 The out-workers attached to a factory 
 do not know one another, and have no 
 leisure to come together in voluntary 
 assembly. Neither can they, for the most 
 part, spare even a few pence in the week to 
 
42 
 
 pay a Trade Union subscription of the most 
 modest kind. Time, money, opportunity — it 
 •must be added, heart and enterprise — in fine, 
 all the things needful for a successful com- 
 bination are lacking in them; their circum- 
 stances forbid them to band themselves 
 together for any object, even the bettering of 
 their condition. Unless the nation, acting 
 through the State, steps in to help them, that 
 condition will remain unaltered, or rather, 
 since no condition is stationary, it will go 
 from bad to worse. The remedy must be 
 legislative. And if we accept the principle 
 that has hitherto governed British industrial 
 legislation, namely, that the protection of the 
 State may rightly be claimed on behalf of 
 those incapable of protecting themselves, we 
 shall acknowledge that a fair case for legisla- 
 tion has been here made out. It remains to 
 indicate the kind of legislation which will 
 meet the diflS.culties of the case. 
 
 THE LICENSING EEMEDY. 
 
 A proposal to extend to this country the 
 
 system of licensing home workplaces which 
 
 prevails in New York and in some other 
 
 American States has found favour with a 
 
43 
 
 ■certain number of social reformers. Eeports 
 from the United States are not altogether 
 encouraging as to the success of the system, 
 even in respect of its very limited object : its 
 promoters themselves appear disappointed 
 with its results, and admit that it 
 has led to much corruption and fraudu- 
 lent sub -letting of licenses by workers 
 to other workers. Purther, the system seems 
 to place the responsibility for the condition of 
 the workplace on the wrong shoulders. By 
 legally relieving employers of outworkers of 
 all such responsibility we should be fostering 
 rather than discouraging the present ten- 
 dency to "give out" work in increasing 
 quantities. There are those who see in the 
 issue of licenses by the factory inspector a 
 useful method of getting into touch with the 
 out-worker, particularly in view of the close 
 inspection that will be needed to enforce 
 minimum rates fixed by Wages Boards when 
 these shall be established. It is, however, a 
 question whether the existing out-workers' 
 lists, properly worked, would not supply all 
 the machinery needful for this purpose, while 
 the improved conditions which licensing 
 
u 
 
 is directed to secure would result auto- 
 matically from the improvement in the 
 condition of the worker, brought about by 
 better and more regular wages. If this 
 process of gradual improvement seems too 
 slow, and immediate action be desired in the 
 interests of the pubHc health and safety, no 
 objection need be taken to licensing as an 
 adjunct to Wages Boards, but it should be 
 clearly understood that the measure in 
 contemplation belongs rather to the category 
 of Public Health Acts than to that of laws 
 regulating industry. That which we have 
 defined as the root cause of sweating — 
 wages — would be wholly untouched by it. 
 WAGES BOAEDS. 
 No legislation which does not propose to 
 cut at this root of evil will avail to shake the 
 hold of the sweating system upon the lower 
 branches of industry. The promoters of the 
 National Anti-Sweating League realised this 
 when they founded their association; and 
 their activities have from the outset been 
 concentrated upon the wages question. 
 Their belief found concrete expression in 
 the Sweated Industries Bill, which passed 
 
45 
 
 its second reading in the House of Commons 
 on the 21st February, 1908, without a divi- 
 sion. The aim and scope of the Bill are well 
 set forth in the Memorandum which accom- 
 panies it, which we proceed to quote in full: — 
 " The object of this Bill is to provide for 
 the establishment of Wages Boards with 
 power to fix the minimum rate of wages to 
 be paid to workers in particular trades. The 
 Bill will apply in the first instance only to 
 the trades specified in the schedule. Power 
 is given to the Home Secretary to say to 
 what other trades the Bill is to be extended, 
 and no doubt at first the extension will be made 
 only to what are known as the " sweated 
 industries," that is, industries in which out- 
 workers are largely employed, and in which 
 the rate of remuneration is low. A Wages 
 Board will have power to fix a minimum rate 
 for any single kind of work, and will have the 
 widest discretion as to fixing time rates or 
 piecework rates, and as to varying the 
 minimum according to the locality, the kind 
 of work, and the persons employed. The 
 Bill provides that a Wages Board shall be 
 composed of representatives of employers and 
 
46 
 
 representatives of employed in equal numbers, 
 with a chairman chosen by the members or 
 nominated by the Home Secretary. It is 
 proposed to entrust the enforcement of 
 payment of the minimum rate to factory 
 inspectors.* 
 
 The Bill, it ■will be seen, is a modest one. 
 It deals, not with an ideal minimum wage, to 
 be fixed in accordance with the workers' 
 supposed needs, but with actual ratefe of 
 payment in existing industries. It is frankly 
 experimental, and it limits the initial field of 
 experiment to three trades. Those named in 
 the schedule are tailoring, dressmaking, and 
 the making, altering, trimming, finishing and 
 repairing of shirts, all three heavily sweated 
 industries, employing a large number of 
 women workers, in which payment by 
 piecework rates is customary. On examining 
 the clauses of the Bill itself, it will be noted 
 that it is proposed to appoint separate Boards, 
 not only for different trades, but for different 
 areas, so that full allowance may be made for 
 variation of local conditions. The fact that, 
 with the exception of the chairman, these 
 
 * For the Bill itself see Appendix. 
 
47 
 
 Boards are to consist exclusively of representa- 
 tives of employers and employed, and that the 
 minimum rate determined will therefore be 
 fixed by persons conversant with the trade, 
 aware what it is fit to bear locally, and having 
 all alike an interest in keeping it alive, is the 
 best guarantee that those rates will not be 
 ruinous to the industry. Clause 5 provides 
 for the greatest elasticity in the method of 
 calculating the minimum rates of wages. 
 The rates may be calculated either by 
 time or by piecework (rates for home 
 workers being necessarily calculated by 
 piecework only), they may be different not 
 only for different kinds of work but for 
 difierent parts of a district ; they may 
 even be " different for different classes of 
 persons employed" — a provision doubtless 
 intended to meet the case of " the old 
 and slow worker." Great importance is 
 attached by the promoters to clause 2. 
 This clause lays down that when applica- 
 tion for the establishment of a Wages 
 Board for any trade in any district is made 
 to the Secretary of State by any Trade 
 Union or Trades Council, representing 
 
48 
 
 persons employed in the trade in the district, 
 or by any six persons who are either local 
 employers of labour or local workers in the 
 trade in question, the Secretary of State 
 shall cause an inquiry to be held into the 
 desirabihty of appointing such a Wages 
 Board. To those who have studied the 
 proceedings of Joint Committees established 
 in connection with the great organised 
 industries of the country, and of Con- 
 ciliation Boards working under the presidency 
 of an arbitrator appointed by the Board 
 of Trade, know the immense value of the 
 face to face meeting of employers and 
 employed which these Committees and 
 Boards compel : such meeting is often the 
 first necessary step to mutual understanding 
 and co-operation. A complete separation, 
 for the most part, of the sweated workers, 
 more particularly of the sweated home 
 workers, from their employer, has hitherto 
 existed, and has been found a principal bar to 
 any improvement in the condition of such 
 workers. The retention of this clause in any 
 measure founded on the present Bill (which, it 
 is acknowledged, cannot pass into law during 
 
49 
 
 the present year) is, therefore, of fundamental 
 importance. As in the Victorian Act, on 
 which the Bill has been modelled, not only 
 is the payment or ofiering of wages at a 
 lower rate than the minimum made an 
 offence subject to penalties, but provision 
 for the recovery of the deficiency by a worker 
 who has been receiving the lower rate is 
 also included. 
 
 EXISTING MINIMUM BATES. 
 Before proceeding to enumerate the 
 probable effect of Wages Boards, it may 
 be useful to point out that the principle 
 of the minimum rate is not a new one in 
 this country. In the great Goverrmaent 
 factories and workshops — arsenals, dock- 
 yards, clothing manufactories — it obtains, 
 and is carried into practice, fixed rates being 
 paid to all the different classes of , labour 
 employed. The great organised trades have, 
 by the method of collective bargaining, 
 and the action of the Joint Committees, 
 and Conciliation Boards already referred 
 to, succeeded in establishing minimum rates 
 in the different departments of their own 
 industries. Coal miners, engineers, cotton 
 
 E 
 
60 
 
 operatives, all work under this system. 
 More recently, the arbitrations conducted 
 by Mr. G. E. Askwith, K.C., for the Board 
 of Trade, have succeeded in establishing 
 the same system in a large number of trades 
 less perfectly organised than the mining, 
 cotton or engineering industry. Few ot 
 these are simple trades presenting small 
 difficulties of calculation; some, like the 
 lace trade, are as complicated and as subject 
 to disturbance by the introduction of new 
 patterns as any trade can well be. Much has 
 been said of the impossibility of getting a 
 satisfactory piecework list fixed by a Wages 
 Board for a trade having so many branches as 
 tailoring. That which has been successfully 
 accomplished, with acknowledged benefit to all 
 concerned, in the case of Lancashire " lists " 
 and Nottingham "cards" should not, and 
 we may be sure will not, present insuperable 
 difficulties in that of an industry considerably 
 less complex. 
 
 WHAT WAGES BOAEDS MAY BE EXPECTED 
 TO DO. 
 The first effect of Wages Boards will be 
 one of steadying and regulating rather than 
 
51 
 
 of greatly raising wages. They will set a 
 limit to undercutting. They will check that 
 continual lowering of the price of the article 
 by Jd. or Jd., which bears so hardly on the 
 conscientious employer who desires to keep 
 up a decent level of wages. At present all 
 those trades which can be described as 
 "sweated" have no wage standard at all. 
 Miss Macarthur, in her evidence before the 
 Home Work Committee, showed that on one 
 side of a street in Whitechapel there is a 
 standard firm where girls can earn 14s. and 
 16s. a week in tea-packing, while close by 
 there is another tea-packing firm where the 
 average wage is not more than 7s. 6d. for a 
 practically similar output. She referred also 
 to a recent trade dispute with an East End 
 blacking firm, which arose because the girls 
 employed in filling bottles at piecework rates, 
 whose wages worked out at 10s. and 12s. a 
 week, suddenly found from a notice put up 
 in the factory that the piecework rates were 
 about to be reduced by one-half, bringing 
 down their earnings to 5s. and 6s. per 
 week. The dispute was settled by the 
 girls going back on the old terms at the 
 
52 
 
 end of two days. Thus, a reduction of 
 practically 50 per cent, was made and 
 cancelled within little over 48 hours. It 
 would be difficult to find an instance better 
 illustrating what Miss Macarthur rightly 
 called "the present chaos in the payment of 
 wages " in the trades under consideration. 
 
 To judge from the effect of Wages 
 Boards where they have been already 
 set up, we may certainly expect a gradual 
 rise in the rate of wages under a Wages 
 Board system. But this would not be 
 obtained by any wholesale change in the rate 
 for a trade or district, but rather by the 
 levelling up of the rates paid by the worst 
 employers to the standard of those paid by 
 the better class of firms. The worst kind of 
 sweating being thus done away with, and the 
 most miserable workers raised a degree in 
 the industrial scale, there would ensue an 
 increase of purchasing power among the 
 workers which would stimulate production 
 and add at once to the volume of employment 
 and to the wages fund. The pocket-money 
 worker, who at the present time frequently 
 obtains employment by under-selling the 
 
63 
 
 competitor who depends upon her work for 
 her living, would be discouraged and gradually, 
 it is to be hoped, eliminated under a system 
 which makes such under-selling illegal. The 
 genuine workers, being placed under the 
 direct protection of the law in respect of their 
 wages, would learn to claim the protection of 
 that law as they have done in the case of other 
 laws directed to secure their personal 
 safety, to preserve their health and to limit 
 their hours of labour. Nor is it unreasonable 
 to suppose that the spirit of combination 
 in which the home workers have shown 
 themselves hitherto entirely lacking, and 
 which has but a feeble existence among 
 low-paid factory workers, would, under 
 improved and improving conditions, inspire 
 these workers to personal organised effort on 
 their own behalf. A greater sense of stability 
 would prevail in the industries affected, to 
 the advantage of employers and employed 
 alike. The workers would be free from the 
 burden of uncertainty in earning which is 
 one of the grimmest features of their lot. 
 The masters would no longer have to 
 contend with the competition of rivals, 
 
54 
 
 either without conscience, or with so little 
 capital that they cannot afford to listen to 
 its dictates. This kind of security need not 
 check enterprise ; it should rather tend to 
 promote it. It is not when a factory owner 
 can barely keep his head above water that 
 he is likely to try fresh experiments or to 
 develop new lines of business or manu- 
 facture; it is not when the operative's 
 wage is irregular, precarious and unstable, 
 when he is without guarantee that good 
 and careful work will meet with any better 
 reward than that which is superficial and 
 perfunctory, that he puts his best brains 
 and skill to the matter in hand. 
 
 COLONIAL SYSTEMS OF EEGULATING 
 WAGES. 
 
 Fortunately we are not left to infer the 
 probable effects of a system of Wages 
 Boards from what we know of human nature, 
 nor to gather them for the beneficial working 
 of voluntary Conciliation Boards. Colonial 
 legislation offers us an example and an object 
 lesson of the exact kind which we require. In 
 
55 
 
 all our Australasian colonies wages are now, 
 in one way or another, fixed and regulated 
 under the sanction of the State. This 
 sanction works, in the Dominion of New 
 Zealand and in New South Wales, by means 
 of Arbitration Acts; in Victoria, which has 
 been taken as a model by the smaller 
 Australian colonies, and by Sir Charles Dilke 
 and all subsequent promoters of Wages 
 Boards Bills in Great Britain, the more 
 elastic system of nominated special Boards 
 representing employers and employed in equal 
 proportion has been adopted. This system 
 has naturally commended itself for initiation 
 in our own country, rather than that preferred 
 in New Zealand, as being, from the very fact 
 that it is framed on less rigid lines, more 
 easily susceptible of adaptation to the needs 
 of an old and complicated civiHsation. In 
 this choice, the fact that the principle of com- 
 pulsory arbitration has never found favour 
 with any class engaged in industry in this 
 country, and that it has again and again been 
 deliberately rejected by the representatives of 
 organised labour, had also to be taken into 
 account. 
 
56 
 
 VICTOEIAN WAGES BOAEDS. 
 
 The first Wages Boards, dealing with seven 
 industries, were estabhshed in Victoria, 1896. 
 The Boards now number 49, and have been 
 constituted for the following trades : — 
 
 Aerated Water 
 Agricultural Implements 
 Artificial Manures 
 Bedstead and Fender 
 
 Making 
 Boot Making 
 Brass Workers 
 Baking 
 Breweries 
 Brick Making 
 Brush and Broom Making 
 Butchers 
 Candle Makers 
 Cardboard Boxes 
 Cigar Making 
 Clothing Trade 
 Confectionery 
 Coopers 
 Cycle Trade 
 
 Dress and Mantle Making 
 Engraving 
 Farriers 
 Fellmongers 
 Mour 
 Furniture 
 Ironmoulders 
 
 Jam, Pickle, and Sauce 
 
 Making 
 Jewellery 
 Leather Goods 
 Malting 
 Milliners 
 
 Millet Broom Making 
 Oven and Stove Making 
 Paper Bags 
 Pastrycooks 
 Plate Glass 
 Pottery 
 Printers 
 Saddlery 
 Shirt Making 
 Stone Cutting 
 Soap and Soda 
 Starch 
 Tanning 
 Tinsmiths 
 Underclothing 
 Waterproof Clothing 
 Wicker Work 
 Wood Workers 
 Woollen Trade 
 
57 
 
 The number of these Boards may be added 
 to by a resolution of both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, and such additions have been made at 
 intervals since the Boards were first estab- 
 lished eleven years ago. A Board consists of 
 not less than four or more than ten members, 
 of whom half come from the ranks of the 
 employers, and half from those of the 
 employed, with an outside chairman. For- 
 merly the members of the Board were elected. 
 At present they are nominated by the 
 Minister of Labour, to whom appeal may be 
 made against the Board's decisions. Appoint- 
 ments to any special Board are for three 
 years only, but members may be re-appointed 
 at the expiration of that term. The function 
 of the Board is "to determine the lowest 
 prices or rates which may be paid to any 
 person or persons, or class of persons, 
 employed either inside or outside a factory 
 or workroom."* Their business is to ascertain 
 the average " prices or rates of payment 
 . . . . paid by reputable employers to 
 employees of average capacity," and they may 
 
 * In Victoria, four persons other than Chinese, and one iChinese, 
 constitute a factory. Places where out-work is done, and outside 
 workers, are all registered and subject to inspection. 
 
58 
 
 not fix a minimum higher than these average 
 prices or rates. But they are at liberty, 
 should they consider the average wage an 
 inadequate minimum, to make a report to the 
 Minister, who has then to bring the question 
 before the Court constituted as a Final Court 
 of Appeal for such cases. Provision is made 
 for the fixing of special prices or rates in the 
 case of " aged, infirm or slow workers." 
 
 The award of a Board is called a Deter- 
 mination. A Determination remains in force 
 until the issue of a fresh Determination, 
 unless amended or revoked by the Court of 
 Industrial Appeal. Every employer is bound 
 to affix in his factory or workshop a copy of 
 the Determination applying to the industry 
 there carried on. Penalties for the breach of 
 Determinations are attached to the Act. 
 The penalty for " employing or attempting 
 to employ, authorising or permitting to 
 be employed " any person at less than 
 the minimum established by the Deter- 
 mination, is, in the case of a first conviction, 
 to be not more than £10; of a second, 
 not less than £5 nor more than ^25, while, 
 for any subsequent ofience the fines range 
 
59 
 
 from jESO to £100. In addition, the balance 
 of wages of which the worker has been de- 
 frauded is recoverable by him, on his suing 
 for payment within twelve months, even 
 though he has signed an agreement to ac- 
 cept a wage lower than the minimum. On 
 a third conviction the registration of the con- 
 victed employer's place of business is can- 
 celled. 
 
 Mention has been made of appeal. Not 
 only may the majority of representatives 
 either of employers or employed on any 
 Board appeal against a Determination of a 
 majority of the whole Board, but such right 
 of appeal is also enjoyed by 25 per cent, of 
 the total workers in a trade or by employers 
 employing 26 per cent, of such workers. The 
 judgment of the Court is final. It consists of 
 a Judge of the Supreme Court, who is ap- 
 pointed by the Governor in Council, and 
 two Assessors appointed by the Judge him- 
 self. It is the duty of the Court, before 
 deciding to uphold or quash a Determination, 
 to take into consideration whether it is likely 
 to injure the trade to which it applies, by 
 checking its progress or diminishing the 
 
60 
 
 amount of employment in the trade. It is 
 free to amend as well as to adopt or reject 
 any Determination. 
 
 THE OEIGIN OF THE BOARDS. 
 In Victoria, as with ourselves, the Wages 
 Boards movement originated in a public 
 desire to put down sweating. Eleven years 
 ago, sweating, especially in certain trades — 
 among which we may name particularly 
 baking, bootmaking, and all branches of the 
 clothing trade — was rife in Melbourne. It 
 is claimed by supporters of the Wages Boards 
 system that, by its means, the evil has been 
 practically stamped out, nor has any serious 
 testimony been offered in contradiction of 
 this assertion. While accepting in its full 
 force the warniog of Mr. Ernest Aves in his 
 recent report on The Wages Boards and 
 Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Acts 
 of Australia and New Zealand, to remember 
 that the eflEeots of Wages Boards in Victoria 
 have hitherto been felt only during a period 
 of prosperity, it is impossible to accept the 
 (possibly) implied argument that sweating 
 might have disappeared automatically by 
 reason of the growing wealth of the colony, 
 
61 
 
 seeing that sweating does not appreciably 
 diminish during periods of prosperity in 
 Germany, in the United States of America, 
 and in our own country, but is found to 
 flourish in good and bad times aUke. In 
 Victoria, as at home, one of the strongest 
 arguments in favour of special legislation 
 was to be found in the condition of the 
 outworker, and the depressing effect of 
 outwork in industry in general. There, 
 as here, the most striking examples of this 
 effect were to be found in the clothing trades. 
 In 1890 the Chief Inspector of Factories in 
 Victoria showed that, in tailoring, outside 
 prices ruled 30 to 40 per cent, below those 
 paid in the factory, while in bootmaking they 
 stood at 16 per cent, below, in addition 
 to certain expenses. The Keport of the 
 Factories Act Inquiry Board of 1893 pro- 
 duced still more striking examples of dis- 
 parity. To quote two or three : Coats made 
 inside for 2s. 9d. to 3s. 6d. brought the home 
 worker Is. 3d. only. The inside figures for 
 boys' coats were found to be Is. 9d., the 
 outside, 6d. ; men's trousers, inside, Is. 3d. ; 
 outside, 6d. Five years later, in the 
 
62 
 
 underclothing trade, the Chief Inspector 
 adduced the following figures to show the 
 difference between prices paid to outworkers 
 and fair rates for similar goods in factories : 
 
 T>_;„- „.{a .„ Price paid in a 
 
 ^„?tSJitr Pactorf for Low- 
 Outworker. cla.9Good8. 
 Per doz. Per doz. 
 
 Night Dresses 2 6 ... 6 9 
 
 Knickers 16 ... 2 11 
 
 Chemises 16 ... 2 9 
 
 Pillow Cases (with frill) 9 ... 2 5 
 
 Pillow Cases (plain) 4^ ... 1 6 
 
 Apart from the hardship imposed upon 
 employees working at home by such dis- 
 crepancies in the rates, these were tending to 
 affect the general course of trade ; with the 
 increase of home work came the closing 
 down of factories, and the better class cf 
 factory employers began to suffer from the 
 pressure of competition founded on the 
 underpayment of the worker. It will be 
 seen that the Victorian problem, in all its 
 main features, resembles our own; indeed, 
 in Victoria in 1896 we may see reflected on 
 a diminished scale the present position of 
 Great Britain with respect to her sweated 
 industries. 
 
63 
 
 WOEK OF THE BOARDS. 
 Perhaps the most striking testimony to this 
 work lies in the fact that legislation, frankly 
 experimental in 1896, and repeatedly re- 
 enacted for a fixed period only, was in 1905, 
 after nine years' experience of its working, 
 when the six original Special Boards had 
 already risen in number to 37, carried beyond 
 the experimental stage, no time limit being 
 imposed by the consolidating act of that year. 
 The growing favourable opinion of employers 
 must also be taken into account. Naturally 
 there was among these, in the first instance, 
 considerable opposition to the new departure; 
 nor should we expect to find, even at the 
 present time, employers' opinion unanimous 
 in its favour. There is only one negative 
 point on which, in this connection, Mr. Aves 
 pronounces employers to be absolutely unani- 
 mous : namely, the conclusion that special 
 Boards are preferable to Arbitration Courts. 
 But as early as the close of 1898 the 
 Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers was 
 generally agreed that benefits had resulted 
 from the Act, and advocated its extension 
 to several trades then untouched by it. 
 
64 
 
 The conversion of Sir Frederick Surgood, 
 one of the leading business men in Austra- 
 lasia, from opposition to the principle of 
 Special Boards in 1906 to convinced 
 advocacy of the extension of that principle 
 to additional trades in 1900, when the 
 clause empowering either House to bring 
 new trades under the Act was before the 
 Upper House of the Legislature, is a 
 powerful argument on the side of those 
 who contend that the establishment of a 
 minimum wages for sweated industries 
 would operate in favour of the employer 
 as well as of the employed. The fact 
 recorded by Mr. Aves, that the system 
 has not proved prejudicial to the small 
 as compared with the large employer is 
 also a point to be noted. The same 
 investigator, who, in his report, as 
 in his evidence before the Home Work 
 Committee, adopts an attitude of strict — 
 we had almost said, of superhuman — > 
 impartiality, notes, further, that of the 
 replies sent in response to a form of 
 questions circulated by him, a majority 
 for all trades "reflect opinion that as regards 
 
65 
 
 output the Boards have had no appreci- 
 able effect," while an employer holding a 
 representative position gives it as his 
 general opinion that the system has "made 
 for better goods." In writing on "The 
 Test of Experience and Opinion," Mr Aves 
 states that — "there is also a very wide- 
 spread belief that the Boards have been 
 instrumental, some say in abolishing, and. 
 others in modifying the evils of sweating, 
 and, from complex motives, there is in 
 Victoria a great preponderance of opinion 
 among all classes in favour of the retention 
 of the Boards." Further on he remarks — 
 " In general it may safely be affirmed that so 
 wide an acquiescence in the operations of the 
 Special Boards is a demonstration that, under 
 the circumstances of the moment, the 
 Determinations are on the whole not con- 
 sidered to militate seriously against either 
 regularity or certainty of employment." Mr. 
 Aves is of opinion that "in industries in 
 which the problem of underpayment was most 
 urgent " the present favourable view taken of 
 the Special Boards will endure, since "the 
 lesson appears to be being learned that low 
 
66 
 
 wages are not necessarily the cheapest." 
 He also notes the good moral effect of the 
 Special Board Determination in "fixing a 
 standard price which other trades tend to 
 follow," and also in creating " a very active 
 sentiment hostile to sweating." Mr. Aves' 
 witness on the relation between increased 
 wages and increased cost of production and 
 price of article, by many persons assumed to 
 be inseparable, is instructive and important. 
 " Some of the fallacies, mainly traceable to an 
 assumed fixity in the determining conditions, 
 personal and economic, which underlie this 
 assumption in its application to certain in- 
 dustries are recalled by Victorian experience, 
 and the extent to which the combined view 
 is held that Special Boards have increased 
 wages and have not increased cost is of 
 practical significance, since it is found to 
 prevail in several of those trades in which 
 the evil of under-payment is apt to be most 
 prevalent. The Special Boards themselves 
 may or may not have sent wages up to the 
 extent often assumed or even at all. The 
 fact remains that in several trades in which 
 wages have tended upwards there is much 
 
67 
 
 testimony to the fact that neither cost nor 
 price have been similarly affected, and in some 
 instances it has been admitted that they have 
 tended in the opposite direction." The Mel- 
 .bourne manager of one of the largest importing 
 and manufacturing firms in Australia is quoted 
 as saying : " they (the Special Boards) have 
 made no difference in business and no trace- 
 able difference in prices." Another employer 
 in the clothing trade gave an experience of 
 several years during which, while wages had 
 increased 20 %, costs had diminished 35 %. 
 In the replies furnished to the questions set 
 forth in Form B of Mr. Aves' Eeport, 28 
 persons state that they are unable to mention 
 a single case in which Special Boards have 
 led to an increase in price, while nine only 
 answer doubtfully or in the opposite sense. 
 The advantage of a greater equality of con- 
 ditions on both sides, secured by a minimum 
 rate, appears to be strongly felt in Victoria, 
 and the fact that the honest employer is, 
 xmiei a Special Board, placed on an equality 
 with the sweater is forcibly insisted on. 
 " This point is mentioned repeatedly." So 
 cautious and careful a collector of evidence 
 
68 
 
 as Mr. Aves feels constrained to add that 
 " from this point of view, which is reflected in 
 connection with trades of many descriptions 
 — ^from engineering down to white work — the 
 Special Boards may almost be regarded as 
 having won general approval." 
 
 BENEFITS TO THE WORKERS. 
 The greater equality of conditions produced 
 under Special Boards is even more important 
 to the worker than his employer. This, to- 
 gether with the " steadying " of wages, both as 
 regards uniformity of payment for the same 
 kind of work and fixation for a period, are 
 frequently mentioned by Victorian workers as 
 among the chief advantages which Special 
 Boards have brought them. Men and women 
 "know the rate," and have learned to claim 
 it. Though the actual rise in wages has in 
 many instances been small, the upward ten- 
 dency has been constant, while the downward 
 has been absolutely checked. The variations 
 in increase as between trades is very great, 
 and shows incidentally that the natural play 
 of economic forces is not arrested by the 
 action of the Boards. Actual increases in 
 the average weekly wages, aljove the average 
 
69 
 
 before the Determinations came into force in 
 each case, range from Id. (ovenmakers) to 
 lis. 4d. (coopers). The Eev. John Hoatson, 
 late Vice-President of the Victorian wAnti- 
 Sweating League, speaking at the Guildhall 
 Conference on a Minimum Wage, in October, 
 1906, gave figures showing that the average 
 of increments in the 37 trades having 
 Special Boards at that date, was over 
 4s. 4d. ; the average of increments in eight of 
 those trades, in which female labour is chiefly 
 or largely employed, being a fraction under 
 2s. Such increments, though they may 
 appear small to persons whose weekly income 
 is not reckoned in pence, represent a very 
 real advance in comfort to the workers con- 
 cerned. The fact that these increased wages 
 are ensured to them under legal sanction for 
 a certain period may be said to double their 
 actual economic value. 
 
 Mr. Hoatson's figures were taken from the 
 Chief Inspector's Eeport of 1904. Coming to. 
 the report of 1906, we find the upward ten- 
 dency previously noted steadUy maintained. 
 A few examples, selected chiefly from those 
 industries in which under-payment was 
 
70 
 
 prevalent before the first Determinations 
 came into force in 1896, may be both' 
 interesting and instructive : — 
 
 
 Average Wage 
 
 Average Wage 
 
 Qeneial average 
 increase for 
 
 
 before 
 Determination. 
 
 under 
 Board 1906. 
 
 eaab employ^ in 
 trade. 
 
 
 £ a. a. 
 
 £ a. d. 
 
 £ a. d. 
 
 Bootmakers ... 
 
 .13 2 
 
 ... 1 6 11 
 
 ...0 8 9 
 
 Bakers 
 
 . 1 12 6 
 
 ...228 
 
 ... 10 2 
 
 Brushmakers .. 
 
 .13 1 
 
 ...18 9 
 
 ...0 5 8 
 
 GonfectioDers .. 
 
 . 16 11 
 
 ... 19 9 
 
 ... 2 10 
 
 Dressmakers*.. 
 
 . 11 11 
 
 ... 12 8 
 
 ...0 9 
 
 Pottery 
 
 .18 1 
 . 11 3 
 
 ... 1 11 3 
 
 ... 12 11 
 
 ...032 
 
 Underclothing.. 
 
 ...0 18 
 
 There is a general concensus of opinion, 
 that the position of the home worker has 
 been greatly improved through the Deter- 
 minations, and that " unless handicapped by 
 some personal disability or by claims of 
 alternative duties," their earnings correspond 
 to those of others in the trades concerned. 
 There seems, as the Special Commissioner 
 observes, no reason to believe that less than 
 the legal rates are paid to home workers 
 under the Wages Boards system. 
 
 * The DiesBmaking Board was not formed till 1901. The figures 
 given, therefore, represent two years' working only. The small 
 advance in average wages is due to the presence in the trade of a 
 very large proportion of juvenile workers — 4,578 to 2,383 adults. 
 The average wage of the adult dressmaker has risen under the 
 Board from IBs. 8d. to 21b. 4d., an average of 2s. 8d. for each adult 
 worker. 
 
71 
 
 A few individual oases cited by Mr. Hoatson 
 from official records exhibit the effect of the 
 Determinations upon the worst forms of 
 sweating : — 
 
 (a) A trouser finisher (1893), working ten 
 to twelve hours per day, earned 6s. in a 
 week ; minimum now, 20s. Average of piece 
 workers, 21s. 6d. 
 
 (6) A shirt finisher (1890), "good worker," 
 maximum, 2s. 6d. per day. Others (1893-4), 
 per week, "working constantly," 7s. to 8s.; 
 minimum now, 16s. Average in-worker, 
 20s. 6d. ; out piece-worker, 15s. 
 
 (c) Shirtmakers of one class, before Deter- 
 mination, 2s. 4d. per dozen; afterwards (1898), 
 3s. 3d. Finishers, before Determination, 
 4jd. per dozen ; afterwards, 8d. 
 
 (d) Mole trousers : pay increased from 5d. 
 to 9id, (Board's log) per pair ; stock vests, 
 6s. per dozen, increased to lis. ; stock coats. 
 Is. 3d, each, increased to 2s. 3d. 
 
 DISPARITY OF EARNINGS IN TRADES NOT 
 HAVING SPECIAL BOARDS. 
 
 Mr. Villiers, speaking in the House of 
 Commons on the Second Beading of the 
 
72 
 
 Sweated Industries Bill, pointed out that, 
 taking all the Victorian industries together, 
 the average wage per week was higher by 
 5s. 9jd. in trades having Boards than in 
 trades having none. The conclusion to be 
 drawn from these general figures is confirmed 
 when we come to examine the cases in detail, 
 and to compare like with like. For instance, 
 in the dressmaking trade, the average wage 
 in 1903, before the appointment of a Board, 
 was lis. lid. per week, as compared with 
 12s. 7d. in the comparatively inferior under- 
 clothing trade; 14s. lOd. in the shirt industry, 
 and 22s. 2d. in the clothing, which had each 
 a Special Board. The milliners, who remained 
 outside the Act until 1906, had then an 
 average wage of 9s. lOd. per week, a weekly 
 wage lower by 4s. 9d. than that being earned 
 by the shirtmakers. Dissatisfaction with the 
 low prices ruling in the trade created a 
 demand for a Special Board, which has been 
 duly appointed and has made a Determination. 
 Statistics of the result of this Determination 
 are not yet published, but will be shortly 
 available. 
 
73 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 The enforcement of the Peterminations 
 ■was at first attended in Victoria by a certain 
 amount of difficulty. No determined or 
 organised attempt at evasion, however, seems 
 to have taken place, and administration of 
 the Act has gradually become easier until, in 
 his latest Eeport (1906), the Chi^f Inspector 
 has little to complain of on this score. The 
 reports sent in by his staff are almost 
 unanimous on the point of due observance of 
 the law. Thus, one Inspector writes — " The 
 Determination is well complied with, and I 
 have not received a single complaint since it 
 came into force." Another : " The Deter- 
 mination is well observed and legal rates are 
 being paid." A third : " No difficulty is 
 
 experienced in applying the wages con- 
 ditions." A fourth: " I have no trouble in 
 carrying out this Determination." With 
 respect to nearly every trade and in every 
 district the story is the same. Only one 
 serious breach of a Determination is recorded. 
 It affected a large number of confectioner's 
 employees, but was apparently due to 
 an oversight, and was at once rectified 
 
74 
 
 by the payment of arrears of wages amounting 
 to over £100. Only in the case of the 
 furniture trade, which is largely in the 
 hands of the Chinese, have the determina- 
 tions been found unworkable. Eeadiness to 
 enforce the Act seems to be found in equal 
 measure with justices of the peace and police 
 magistrates. 
 
 VICTOEIAN WAGES BOAEDS AND 
 FLOUEISHING TBADE. 
 
 It is worth note that, along with the 
 multiplication of Special Boards and general 
 compliance with the Determinations has gone 
 most satisfactory growth in the prosperity 
 of the colony, and an increasing volume of 
 trade. In the Keport of the Chief Inspector, 
 previously quoted, reference is again and 
 again made by the inspectors to " the satis- 
 factory state " of their respective districts. 
 Such expressions as " Trade is brisk," " Trade 
 was good during the year," " A very good 
 year was experienced." " This trade is having 
 its share of the general prosperity," frequently 
 recur. To argue from this pleasing state of 
 things that Wages Boards conduce to com- 
 mercial prosperity would be to attempt to 
 
75 
 
 prove too much. But we may be permitted 
 to infer that they do not act as a check 
 upon the course of such prosperity. 
 
 SOME OBJECTIONS DISCUSSED. 
 
 Many of the objections ordinarily advanced 
 against Wages Boards, or, indeed, against any 
 proposal to regulate wages, are little more 
 than a re-statement of the arguments em- 
 ployed to defeat the passing of the earlier 
 Factory Acts. They rely for support on the 
 principle, more or less disguised, of laisser 
 /aire. It would not be profitable, and is 
 hardly necessary, to discuss them here. But 
 there are some others, more strictly addressed 
 to the practical proposal now before the 
 country, to which it seems desirable to give 
 such brief consideration as space permits. 
 
 WAGES BOABDS AND UNEMPLOYMENT. 
 
 First, there is the fear frequently expressed, 
 that Wages Boards would increase unemploy- 
 ment, by pushing out of the labour market 
 the less competent worker, who is unfit to earn 
 even the minimum rate, and by giving the 
 coup de grdce to weak and tottering industries. 
 We have seen that the proposed Wages 
 Boards legislation of Great Britain, like the 
 
76 
 
 existing Wages Boards legislation of Victoria, 
 makes special provision for the case of the old 
 and slow worker. But granted that there are 
 individuals of this class who will be unable, 
 under the new conditions, to find employment, 
 even at special rates, there still remains the 
 question whether it is not wiser, on purely 
 economic grounds, to face boldly the necessity 
 of maintaining for a while a certain number 
 of persons physically or mentally incapable of 
 fully maintaining themselves, rather than of 
 condemning to " half employment," to borrow 
 an excellent phrase from Miss Clementina 
 Black, an infinitely greater number of people 
 who, given a fair chance, are perfectly able to 
 earn their own living. By choosing the lesser 
 evil, we limit the period of our responsibility, 
 which at present is being indefinitely ex- 
 tended to future generations, as the children 
 of the sweated workers who are our con- 
 temporaries grow up and follow in the foot- 
 steps of their parents. 
 
 But sound economists who have carefully 
 studied the subject do not hold that under 
 a Wages Boards system we should have a 
 "net" reduction of employment. Since the 
 
77 
 
 first result of the establishment of such a 
 system will be an increased wages bill, in- 
 volving the transference of a fresh portion 
 of wealth to the pockets of certain classes of 
 workers, there must at once follow an in- 
 creased purchasing power on the part of those 
 workers — Lord Hugh Cecil lately reminded 
 UB that unemployment is fundamentally due to 
 lack of purchasing power — and a raising of the 
 general standard of consumption in the com- 
 munity. Workers will not only buy more, but 
 better articles, and this movement must 
 inevitably tend both to greater volume and 
 greater regularity of employment. 
 
 With regard to those industries which are 
 so deficient in capital or in organisation that 
 they can only maintain a precarious foothold 
 in the competitive area by under-payment of 
 the workers they employ, it is clear that the 
 community would be better off for their 
 disappearance. Such trade as they have 
 hitherto managed to divert from more stable 
 and better conducted businesses would 
 flow, on their disappearance, into healthier 
 channels: the amount of employment which 
 they represent would not be destroyed 
 
78 
 
 with them, but would gather itself about 
 fresh centres of industry. 
 QUESTION OF INCEEA8ED COST AND PRICE. 
 Would the cost of production, and 
 consequently the price of the article to 
 the consumer, be greatly raised by the 
 establishment of minimum rates ? We 
 have seen, that, as far as Victoria is 
 concerned, the balance of testimony is 
 ■in favour of a negative reply to this 
 question. There are, moreover, other and 
 wider grounds than a limited Colonial 
 experiment on which to base such a 
 reply. Daily experience shows that, in a con- 
 siderable number of industries, there is a 
 margin which could safely be drawn upon 
 for the levelling-up purposes of a minimum 
 rate. Cases are not infrequently found, for 
 instance, in trades employing women's labour 
 at a sweated wage, where vigorous represen- 
 tation on behalf of the workers, acting upon 
 a wholesome fear of publicity on the part of 
 the employing firm, has produced a consider- 
 able increase, amounting on occasion to 
 something like a doubling of the rate of 
 pay. It must be remembered, further, that 
 
79 
 
 the cash margin is not the only one at the 
 disposal of employers of labour. Human 
 nature is lazy, and most people need some 
 stimulus to enterprise. The economy which 
 is now too often effected by taking a penny 
 or a halfpenny off the wages of the employes, 
 would, were that method made impracticable 
 by a Wages Board Determination, be other- 
 wise contrived: by the introduction of im- 
 proved machinery, by better organisation (as 
 has been done in the greater factory indus- 
 tries since they were denied the easy solution 
 of their problems by overtime), by checking 
 the reckless waste which, where a vast 
 quantity of very cheap articles are made 
 by indifferent workers labouring desperately 
 against time, swallows up, according to 
 trustworthy expert testimony, a consider- 
 able amount of profit every year, and by 
 abolition of the ruinous practice of selling 
 under cost price in the case of certain 
 of the articles manufactured, in order to 
 make a market for the rest. Further, all 
 industrial experience teaches, as the leaders 
 of industry are themselves increasingly 
 forward to acknowledge, that with the 
 
80 
 
 improvement of the workman comes improve- 
 ment also in his work, even where this is 
 highly specialised. Witness the increase 
 rather than the decrease of output which 
 followed the shortening of hours in the cotton 
 industry. As was recently pointed out by 
 Mr. Alfred Mond, M.P., if an industry stood 
 to rise or fall by the cheapness of the labour 
 employed, Lancashire, instead of being at the 
 head of the cotton trade would have already 
 yielded her place to Germany and Japan; it is 
 by virtue of the superiority of her products 
 that she retains it. Nor is cost of production 
 necessarily lowest where the wages are low 
 and the hours long. Mr. Mond gave, in this 
 connection, a striking example to the contrary 
 in his own industry. It is in Great Britain 
 that the employees of that industry earn the 
 highest wages and work the shortest hours ; 
 it is in Bussia that they work longest and 
 earn least. Yet the cost of production per ton 
 is lower in Great Britain, and higher in Eussia, 
 than in any of the other European countries. 
 MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM. 
 Apprehension is often expressed lest the 
 minimum wage, once established in an 
 
81 
 
 industry, should become the maximum 
 in that industry ; and assertions that 
 this actually occurs have not been wanting. 
 Again, there is much testimony from 
 Victoria to support the contrary view. 
 Opening, almost at haphazard, the latest 
 Beport of the Victorian Chief Inspector of 
 Factories, we find, under the heading of the 
 Aerated Water Trade Board — " The Determin- 
 ation is well complied with, the wages of 
 many of the men and hoys being above the 
 minimum." Again, in a report on the Brick 
 Trade Board — " Some of the employees receive 
 above the wage as stated in the Determina- 
 tion." Once more, an Inspector under the 
 Jam Trade Board writes : " In some factories, 
 wages in excess of Determination rates are 
 paid." A similar state of things is found to 
 obtain at home in industries where minimum 
 rates have been fixed by means of collective 
 bargaining or arbitration under the Board of 
 Trade. Here, too, the more skilled, 
 industrious and capable worker is able to 
 earn a higher wage than that calculated on 
 the average capacity of the average man or 
 woman. 
 
 a 
 
82 
 
 WAGES BOAEDS AND PEOTECTION. 
 There are those who believe that Wages 
 Boards can only be successful in conjunction 
 with a Protectionist system. This belief Mr. 
 Aves, who is not personally in favour of 
 giving a legal sanction to the Determinations 
 of Wages Boards in this country, states to be 
 wide-spread in Australia. He adds, justly, 
 that " this point is of very different relevancy 
 in different industries," and dwells, in 
 connection with it, on "the large body of 
 opinion in the clothing trade which agrees 
 that cost and price have not increased." We 
 have, however, less reason to concern ourselves 
 on this point, since leading men of the 
 Tariff Eeform party in this country, among 
 them Lord Milner and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, 
 have made it clear that their adhesion 
 to the Wages Boards experiment does 
 not depend upon its connection with a 
 policy of Tariff Eeform, and it is admitted 
 that the reform of the tariff and colonial 
 preference would not of themselves provide a 
 solution of the sweating problem. This, in 
 so far as it is affected by international 
 competition, will better be dealt with by 
 
83 
 
 international agreements on the model of 
 those entered into at Berne in 1906. Recent 
 legislation has shown that the Grovernments of 
 Europe are fully alive to the pressing nature 
 of a question which is quite as serious on the 
 Continent as with ourselves, and the inquiries 
 instituted by certain of these Governments, 
 with a view to ascertaining the extent to 
 which the products of sweated home labour 
 enter into international competition marks the 
 first step towards common action in the matter. 
 THE QUESTION OP ADMINISTRATION. 
 This will naturally be more difficult of 
 solution in England than in Victoria. But, 
 with goodwill on the part of the nation, the 
 difficult should not prove insoluble. The 
 staff of our factory department is probably 
 unequalled, and we have only to increase its 
 numbers sufficiently to render it capable of 
 grappling with the fresh task to which we invite 
 it. The national goodwill alluded to must, 
 however, display itself in readiness to expend 
 some money in the enforcement of the law ; 
 an Act to establish Wages Boards, unaccom- 
 panied by provision for sufficient and efficient 
 inspection would be foredoomed to failure. 
 
84 
 
 We should expect that after brief trial of the 
 Act, the workers themelves would speedily 
 become active assistants in the business of its 
 administration, by insisting on enforcement 
 of its provisions against any attempt at 
 evasion on the part of their employers. 
 "FREEDOM OF CONTEACT." 
 The last objection to be considered is what 
 may be called the moral objection. Many of 
 those who have not been brought into personal 
 contact with sweated workers, and with the 
 conditions under which sweated industry is 
 carried on, deprecate the setting up of any 
 machinery which appears to limit the oppor- 
 tunity for free bargaining between employer 
 and employed. They are afraid that such 
 machinery may destroy the spirit of enter- 
 prise, and that the assumption of responsi- 
 bility in the matter of wages by the State will 
 tend to weaken the personal relation between 
 masters and men. To such objectors the best 
 reply is an invitation to study the situation 
 at close quarters and at first hand. They 
 cannot then fail to perceive that the 
 outstanding features in the present position 
 of the sweated worker, especially when that 
 
85 
 
 worker is a woman, are absolute inability to 
 bargain freely and total lack of independence. 
 Such a worker must take the work offered, at 
 any terms that may be proposed, under 
 penalty of an immediate drop into the abyss 
 of destitution. The spirit of enterprise is 
 rarely found to animate those who are 
 working excessive hours for a bare pittance ; 
 it is only when people have been raised 
 from the lowest deeps of poverty that they 
 develop, as a rule, a divine discontent 
 with their lot. The depressing quality of 
 thoroughly bad conditions produces rather 
 a kind of fatalistic acquiescence in a social 
 system which the sufferer feels herself 
 powerless to alter. As to the "personal 
 relationship," it is useless to devise schemes 
 for preserving it ; for good or evil, it is 
 practically a thing of the past. More and 
 more, industry and commerce, like battleships, 
 tend towards the " all big " type. Every- 
 where, the business that was formerly the 
 affair of an individual or a family is now the 
 result of the activities of an association or a 
 limited company acting through its salaried 
 servants. We may deplore the change, but 
 
86 
 
 we are powerless to resist it. Its conquest of 
 the territory of industry, already widespread, 
 promises at no distant period of time to be 
 complete. In face of its advances it is absurd 
 to talk of leaving to the more enlightened 
 conscience or the heightened moral sense of 
 the employer of the future, the task of reform- 
 ing the abuses of the sweating system and 
 deahng justly with his employees. In a great 
 number of cases the employer is practically 
 powerless, even now, so to deal. In time to 
 come, as he becomes increasingly the instru- 
 ment of great impersonal forces, financial and 
 social, behind him, all capacity for such 
 individual dealing will be taken from him. 
 It is only by accepting under the sanction of 
 the State the regulation of wages in those 
 industries where it has hitherto gone unregu- 
 lated, with such results in the shape of 
 economic chaos and human degradation as 
 we have been considering, that the best 
 employer can save himself from being 
 ultimately dragged down to the level of the 
 worst. For him, as for his workers, an Act 
 establishing Wages Boards would be a 
 genuine measure of protection. 
 
87 
 
 POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 WeuiE the foregoing pages were passing through the 
 press, the Beport of the Home Work Committee was 
 placed in the hands of the public. It is not too much 
 to say that this Beport is a document of great national 
 importance. The unanimous recognition by a Parliamen- 
 tary Committee, on which employers as a class were 
 strongly represented, of the fact that " no proposals 
 which fail to increase the income of ' Home Workers ' 
 can have any appreciable effect in ameliorating their 
 condition," and the equally unanimous recommendation 
 that, in the case of home workers, an attempt should be 
 made to regulate wages by means of a system of Wages 
 Boards, together show what a profound impression was 
 produced upon the minds of those who heard it by the 
 testimony of the witnesses from whom I have quoted, 
 and how overwhelming was the conclusion from this 
 testimony, that the sole remedy for the evils of which it 
 established the existence, is to be found in a legal 
 minimum rate. 
 
 These pronouncements of the Committee, accompanied 
 by a resolution to report the Sweated Industries Bill 
 unamended to the House, clear the way for future 
 Government action on the lines of that Bill. 
 
 In view of the complete admission in the Beport of 
 the premises put forward by the advocates of Wages 
 Boards, the decision of the majority of the Committee 
 
88 
 
 to recommend the setting up of such Boards to regulate 
 the earnings of home workers only, leaving untouched 
 " the very low rates of remuneration . . . by no 
 means confined to them, but . . . not infrequently 
 the lot of factory workers also in the trades in which 
 home work is prevalent " — to quote its own words — 
 appears illogical as well as open to practical objection. 
 It needs no profound official experience to anticipate the 
 numerous admim'strative difficulties *hat must inevitably 
 arise should an attempt be made to legislate separately 
 for different groups of workers in the same industry* 
 Other drawbacks to this method of procedure readily 
 suggest themselves, such as the futility of legislation 
 directed to the prevention of sweating in the home, 
 while permitting it to rule unchecked in the factory; 
 and the serious risk that, under a system of partial regu- 
 lation, home work would — contrary to the expressed 
 desire of the Gommittee-r— be killed out, not owing to a 
 salutary change in habits or an improvement in the 
 economic situation, but because the employer would 
 prefer to produce entirely in factories where he was free 
 to pay his employees at rates below the local minimum. 
 Further, the exclusion of factory workers necessitates 
 the establishment of an artificial time-rate, with all its 
 attendant difficulties. 
 
 Logic, practical considerations, and administrative 
 convenience then alike urge the conclusion that the 
 Wages Boards experiment, if it is to be a fair, must be 
 a full one. It is true that the case of the home wprkers 
 was that specifically submitted to the Committee for 
 
89 
 
 investigation; but this is no reason for ignoring the 
 showing of the evidence that it is a case which cannot be 
 isolated for remedial purposes from that of the sweated 
 worker in general. The Committee, varying slightly the 
 schedule of the Sweated Industries Bill, recommends as 
 first subjects for the operation of Wages Boards, "tailoring, 
 the making of shirts, underclothing and baby-linen, and 
 the finishing processes of machine-made lace." Perhaps 
 it may be found desirable to begin with one of these 
 trades only. There need be no complaint on this score 
 and no misgivings, so long as provision is made that the 
 minimum rate shall apply to both branches of the 
 selected trade — to in as well as to out-work. But to 
 discriminate between the two would be a fatal error. 
 The experiment in such a case, being incomplete, must 
 necessarily be also inconclusive. 
 
90 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SWEATED INDUSTEIES BILL. 
 
 MEMORANDUM. 
 
 The object of thiR Bill is to provide for the establishment of 
 Wages Boards with power to fix the minimam rate of wages to be 
 paid to workers in particuhir trades. The Bill will apply in 
 the first instance only to the trades specified in the Schedule. 
 Power is given to the Home Secretary to say to what other 
 trades the Bill is to be extended, and no doubt at first the 
 extension will be made only to what are known as the " sweated 
 industries," that is, industries in which outworkers are largely 
 employed, and in which the rate of remxmeration is low. A 
 Wages Board will have power to fix a, minimum rate for any 
 single kind of work, and will have the widest discretion as to 
 fixing time rates or piece-work rates, and as to varying the 
 minimum according to the locality, the kind of work, and the 
 persons employed. The Bill provides that a Wages Board shall 
 be composed of representatives of employers and representatives 
 of employed in equal numbers, with a chairman chosen by the 
 members or nominated by the Home Secretary. It is proposed to 
 entrust the enforcement of payment of the minimum rate to 
 factory inspectors. 
 
 A 
 
 BILL 
 
 TO 
 
 Improve the Conditions of Employment, inclading the 
 
 establishment of a Legal Minimmu Wage of Persons 
 
 employed in certain Industries. 
 
 BB it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with 
 
 the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and 
 
91 
 
 Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same, as follows : — 
 
 Appointment and Powees op Waqes Board. 
 1. — (1) Wages boards shall be established throughout the 
 United Kingdom, for the trades specified in the schedule hereto, 
 and shall act for such areas as the Secretary of State may 
 determine. 
 
 (2) The Secretary of State may, if he thinks fit, on application 
 being made and an inquiry being held as hereinafter provided, 
 direct that a wages board shall be established for any other trade 
 in any district. 
 
 (3) A wages board shall have power to make regulations fixing 
 the minimum rate of wages to be paid to persons employed in their 
 district in or about their trade. 
 
 Applications and Inquieies. 
 
 2. — (1) Application for the establishment of a wages board for 
 any trade in any district may be made to the Secretary of State 
 by any trade union or trades council which represents persons 
 employed in the trade in the district, or by any six persons who 
 are either employers of labour or employed in the trade in the 
 district. 
 
 (3) On application being made as provided in this section, -the 
 Secretary of State shall cause an inquiry to be held into the 
 desirability of appointing a wages board in accordance with the 
 application, and the provisions of sections forty-five and forty-six 
 of the Coal Mines Begulation Act, 1887, shall apply to the inquiry 
 with the necessary modifications. 
 
 Composition and mode op Appointment op 
 Wages Boabds. 
 
 3. — (1) A wages board shall consist of a chairman and such 
 number of other members, not less than six and not more than 
 ten, as the Secretary of State in each case may determine. 
 
 (2) One half of the nnmber of members other than the 
 chairman shall be representatives of employers and one half 
 representatives of persons employed in the trade in the district. 
 
 (3) The representatives of employers and of persons employed 
 shall be chosen by the employers and the persons employed 
 respectively in such manner as the Secretary of State may on 
 each occasion determine, or in default of such choice being made 
 shall be nominated by the Secretary of State. 
 
92 
 
 (4) The chairman shall be chosen by the other members within 
 fourteen days from their appointment, or in default shall be 
 nominated by the Secretary of State. 
 
 Term op Ofpick, Besignation, and Casual vacancies. 
 i. — (1) The term of office of a wages board shall be five years, 
 or such shorter time not being less than two years as the Secretary 
 of State may in any case at any time determine, and at the end of 
 snch term of office all the members' of the board shall go out of 
 office. 
 
 (2) The chairman or any other member of a wages board may 
 resign on giving to the board one month's previous notice in 
 writing of his intention to do so. 
 
 (3) A casual vacancy on a wages board among the representa- 
 tives of employers, or among the representatives of persons 
 employed, shall be filled by the remaining representatives of 
 employers or of persons employed, as the case may be, within 
 fourteen days after the vacancy occurs, or in default the Secretary 
 of State shall nominate a new representative of employers or of 
 persons employed. 
 
 MANNEB OF CALCUIiATING MINIMUM RATE OP WAGES. 
 
 S. — (1) The minimum rate of wages fixed by a wages board 
 may be calculated either by time or by piece-work, or so as to 
 give an employer the option of paying either by time or by piece- 
 work, except that in case of work given out from a factory 
 or workshop or other place to be done elsewhere it shall be 
 calculated by piece-work only. 
 
 (2) The minimum rate of wages may be fixed for any kind 
 or kinds of work in a trade, and may be different for different 
 kinds of work, and for different parts of the district, as the 
 board think fit. 
 
 (3) The minimum rate of wages may be fixed for any class or 
 classes of persons employed in a trade, and may be different for 
 different classes of persons employed, as the board think fit. 
 
 Establishment, Publication, and evidence op Minimum 
 Rates op Wages. 
 6. — (1) Regulations made by a wages board fixing a minimum 
 rate or rates of wages for a trade in their district shall state the 
 date from which the minimum rate or rates of wages shall be 
 established, and the minimum rate or rates of wages shall be 
 
93 
 
 established for that trade in that district as from that date, and 
 shall continue established until they are cancelled by the wa^es 
 board or their successors. 
 
 (2) Such regulations shall be published as soon as they are 
 made, in such manner as the Secretary of State may direct. 
 
 (3) Section eighty-six of the Factory and Workshop Act, 
 1901, so far as it relates to the publication of regulations under 
 that Act in factories and workshops, shall apply to the publication 
 of regulations under this Act as if they were regulations under 
 that Act. 
 
 (4) A document purporting to be a copy of regulations tmder 
 this Act, and to be signed by an inspector appointed under the 
 Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, shall be evidence (but not 
 to the exclusion of other proof) of the regulations and of the 
 minimum rate or rates of wages fixed by them, and of the fact 
 of the due establishment of the minimum rate or rates under 
 this Act. 
 
 Proceedings of Wages Boabds. 
 
 7. — (1) Any determination of a wages board under this Act 
 may be made by a majority of the members present. 
 
 (2) The Secretary of State when determining the number of 
 members of a wages board shall determine what number of 
 members, not being more than one half of the total number of 
 members, shall form a quorum, but the formation of a quorum 
 shall not depend on the presence of any number or proportion of 
 representatives either of employers or of persons employed. 
 
 Offences, Penalties, and Bbcoveby of Deficiency. 
 8. — (1) Where a minimum rate of wages is established in any 
 district for any class of persons employed in any kind of work in 
 any trade, any person carrying on business in the district who 
 pays or offers wages, or on whose behalf wages are paid or offered, 
 at a lower rate than the minimum, to any person of that class 
 employed by him in that kind of work in that trade, shall be 
 guilty of an offence against this Act. 
 
 (2) If wages are paid or offered by time where the minimum 
 rate established is calculated by piece-work, or if wages are paid 
 or offered by piece-work where the minimum rate established 
 is calculated by time, the wages shall be deemed to be paid o' 
 offered at a lower rate than the minimum. 
 
94 
 
 (3) Any person guilty of an offence against this Act shall he 
 liable on summary conviction in case of a first conviction to a fine 
 of not less than one pound or more than five pounds for each 
 offence, and in case of a second or subsequent conviction within 
 two years from the last conviction to a fine of not less than two 
 pounds and not more than twenty pounds for each offence. 
 
 (4) When u person has been paid wages at a rate less than 
 the minimum rate fixed under this Act, and applying to him, 
 he shall be entitled to recover the deficiency. 
 
 Enforcement of Act by Factory Inspectors. 
 
 9. It shall be the duty of inspectors appointed under the 
 Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, to enforce the provisions of 
 this Act within their districts, and for this purpose they shall 
 have the same powers and authorities as they have for the purpose 
 of enforcing the provisions of that Act, and all expenses incurred 
 by them under this Act shall he deemed to he expenses incurred 
 by them under that Act. 
 
 Interpretation. 
 
 10. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires — 
 
 The expression " trade " means any manufacture, process, 
 traide, or business ; 
 
 The expression "district" means any local area, whether 
 county, borough, part of a county, or part of a borough, 
 within the discretion of the Secretary of State. 
 
 COUMENCEMENT OP ACT. 
 
 11. This Act shall come into operation on the first day of 
 January one thousand nine hundred and nine. 
 
 Short Title. 
 
 12. This Act may be cited as the Sweated Industries Act, 1908. 
 
 SCHEDULE. 
 
 Trades to which the Act applies in the 
 First Instance. 
 Tailoring ; 
 Dressmaking ; 
 The making, altering, trimming, finishing, and repairing of shirts. 
 
Publications on Sweating. 
 
 <* The following publications may be obtained from the 
 National Anti- Sweating League, and will be found of much 
 value in the study of the Sweating Question: — 
 
 Post Fbbb. 
 
 " Sweating as it is " Id. 
 
 " Sweated Industries " : Speech delivered 
 
 by Lord Milner Id. 
 
 " Eeport of Queen's Hall Demonstration "... l^d. 
 
 " Sweating and Home Work" (Fabian Tract) IJd. 
 
 " Bibliography of Sweating and the Mini- 
 mum Wage" S^d. 
 
 " Eeport of the Guildhall Conference " 7d. 
 
 " The Case for Wages Boards.'' By Miss 
 
 Constance Smith Is. 2d. 
 
 " Case for the Factory Acts." Mrs. Sidney 
 
 Webb and others , Is. 2d. 
 
 " Sweating " (Social Service Series). Ed. 
 
 Cadbury and George Shann Is. 2d. 
 
 " Child Life and Labour " (Social Service 
 
 Series). Mrs. Percy Alden Is. 2d. 
 
 " The Lament of the Sweated." By James 
 Samuelson, of the Middle Temple, 
 Barrister-at-Law ISi 2d. 
 
 " Beport of Evidence Given Before the Select 
 
 Committee on Home Work." Vol. I ... 2b. 6di 
 
 Ditto. — Vol. II. (Containing the findings of 
 
 the Committee) 2s. 6d. 
 
 " Factory and Shop Acts of the British 
 Dominions." By Miss Markham, pre- 
 face by Mrs. H. J. Tennant 2s. 9d. 
 
 " Sweated Industries." By Miss Clementina 
 
 Black 3b. lOd. 
 
 " Women's Work and Wages " : A Phase of 
 Life in an Industrial City. By E. 
 Cadbury, M. C. Matheson, and Geo. 
 
 Shann 68. M. 
 
 Other Books on Social and Industrial Subjects will be 
 forwarded on request. 
 
National Anti-Sweating League 
 
 TO SECURE A MINIMUM WAGE. 
 
 PnMldeat ■ ■ ■ ■ Mb. QEOBQE CASBURT. 
 Hon. TrtMturer Earl Biaucsamf, 
 
 BXBCUTIVB COMMITTEE. 
 
 Cbalrmaa . . . . Mb. A. O. OABDINEB. 
 
 Mr. Georie N. Barnes, M.F. 
 
 Mils Clemsntina Blnok. 
 *Mr. Hertwit Burrows. 
 *Mrs. M. A, OasaoD. 
 
 Mrs. Hsrbeit Oladstone. 
 •Miss M. B. MoArthur 
 •Mr. Ii. a. C. Money. M.P. 
 
 Mrs. W. Pember Beeres. 
 
 •Mr, George Shann, M.A. 
 
 Mrs. Bernard Shaw, 
 
 Mrs. H, J. Tennant. 
 
 The BeT. Peter Thompson, 
 •Miss Oertrnda TackwaU. 
 
 Mr, Fabian A. Q. Ware. 
 
 BeT. J, E. Watts-Ditchfield. 
 
 The BeT. H. J. Bunsell Wakeaeld. 
 
 • M4mbert of iht Qerteral Purpout Commitite, 
 Stcntary : Mr. Jas. 3. Millok. 
 
 The National Anti- Sweating League was formed at the close 
 of the Queen's Hall Sweated Industries Exhibition to work to 
 secure the payment of minimum rates for workers in the 
 sweated trades. Its activity is carried on under three heads — 
 
 1. PROPAGANDA.— The League organises Exhibitions of 
 
 Sweated Goods and Workers. It holds demonstrations, 
 distribuiea literature, lends lantern slides and collections of 
 sweated exhibits, and suppUes [lecturers to interested 
 societies. 
 
 2. INVESTIGATION.— The League carries out inqniries into 
 
 existing conditions. An investigation of certain London 
 trades is now completed, and its results will be shortly 
 issued in book form. 
 
 3. LEGISLATION.— The League has promoted the Sweated 
 
 Industries Bill (see Appendix), which passed its Second 
 Beading on February 29th, 1908. The proposal of the Bill 
 to create Wages Boards has since been endorsed by the 
 unanimous findings of a Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 For the development of the work of the League money is 
 urgently required. Sympathisers are asked to send sub- 
 scriptions or donations to the Secretary, at 133, Salisbury 
 Square, £.C. 
 
 CO-OPKBAHTX PBIHTISa SoaETT LlKTBD TlIDOB STBBBT IlOHOOH, E.Oi 
 
3 1924 050 067 598 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLORD