REPORT OF GENERAL MEETING. 29 



three weeks of training. If the employer thinks training is 

 necessary, the Board of Agriculture for Scotland will pay the 

 workers 15s. a week for the first three weeks. After three weeks 

 the employer has to guarantee the wage of i8s. Some of the 

 workers get 15s. a week and a free cottage and perquisites, 

 that is, coal, light, and probably potatoes. I know from the 

 experience we have had in placing university and other educated 

 girls, that they are quite willing to work on piecework if the 

 employer wishes it. Probably the idea of piecework is that the 

 employees will work better. When educated girls are employed 

 they can be trusted to carry out the work, and they do not 

 require to be supervised as the regular working girls have to 

 be. You can rely on educated girls. If you guarantee them 

 a fixed wage they will work quite as well as if on piecework. 

 With regard to the housing conditions at Achnacarry, where 

 girls are working, an empty manse furnished by the employer 

 was put at their disposal, and a woman was provided to cook 

 for them. They got 15s. a week, with coal and light. In 

 Roxburghshire there are six girls working, and they are housed 

 above a stable in two rooms furnished by the employer. The 

 girls have been working there since June, and are going 

 to work for the whole summer. They cook their own food. 

 They get one hour off in the middle of the day. They take 

 their breakfast before they go out in the morning, take lunch 

 out with them, and have dinner at night. They just keep 

 regular hours the same as the men. I have had reports from 

 the employer there, and he is entirely satisfied with the work 

 the girls are doing. In Dunblane and Dunkeld the girls are 

 housed in shooting lodges. All the reports we have had of the 

 girls employed on forestry work, doing timber peeling, brushwood 

 burning, or tree planting, have been satisfactory. Some of the 

 medical students are willing to undertake forestry till the session 

 resumes. We have other girls willing to work where required 

 on forestry in Scotland." 



The Chairman. — "With regard to the difference between piece- 

 work and regular wages, I would like to ask whether the 

 advantage of piecework would not be that better work would 

 be given, but that the women would not work more than they 

 were physically fit for? If they have regular wages they are 

 bound to keep regular hours, whereas under piecework they them- 

 selves would be the judges of what they would be able to do." 



