cipline of the workshop has been carried very often into the private lives 

 of the workers. The dangers of this are too obvious to need comment. 

 But while we can see in many directions that the pressure of war 

 needs has had its bad sides, that women have in certain respects lost 

 protective legislation which once helped them, and that the home 

 conditions have been worsened in many ways, it has always to be 

 remembered that before the war the conditions for women, so far as 

 wages were concerned, were so intolerable that anything which relieve? 

 the economic pressure upon them has a balance of advantages. I am 

 inclined to think that the essential condition, the primary condition 

 for welfare, is sufficient food, and I know that many working women 

 have for the first time known what it is to get sufficient food since 

 they began to do war work. They have not all succeeded even in that, 

 but the level of food consumption amongst women and girls has risen 

 surprisingly and has created a new demand which the future will 

 have to try and satisfy. 



Their old industrial slavery was a slavery of a hopeless kind. The 

 low wages and the lack of scope together pressed them down into a 

 helpless kind of drudgery. The possibilities of good industrial work, 

 even when not achieved, are a hopeful feature, and every woman is 

 affected by the sense that she may rise to a higher industrial level. 



But in the brief sketch I have given of the significant features of 

 to-day, I hope that I have not painted too sharp and distinct a picture. 

 I have tried to bring out the salient points and, to sum them up in the 

 fewest words, I should say that they were these : 



A demand for women in industry of all kinds, and the opening 



to them of skilled and well paid work. 

 A general raising of wages, from amounts of a few shillings to 



treble or quadruple their former earnings. 

 A raising of the woman's standard of life and expectation for the 



future. 

 Heavy pressure upon physical strength and a general dispersion 



and scattering of home groups. 



A great influx into industry of married women with young children. 

 A great growth of independence of mind and action amongst 



women and girls. 

 A growing belief in capacity and desire for equality with male 



workers- 

 There has been an increase of women workers over pre-war numbers 

 of something little short now of one million, and about half of these 

 have gone into industry. How far all of these will desire to remain 

 in employment it would be hard to say. But this is clear the woman 

 who has earned a good wage and known what it is to have her own 

 money to spend will not readily give up the economic freedom and 

 scope in life that it has given to her. On the other hand, women are 

 as interested as men, since most women become wives, and so enter 

 into a close partnership with the male worker, in the maintenance 

 of a high standard of wages for men and also in the sufficiency of 



