46 



admitted women into their more highly skilled and better paid branches. 

 It would be the beginning of that joint control of industry within 

 those trades which many of us hope will be an immediate outcome of 

 the war, a joint control which shall gradually merge into the sole control 

 of the people, acting through their organisations under the final 

 control of the State. But that takes us into a realm of controversy 

 which I need not enter here. The questions raised by the woman in 

 industry are not so barren of controversial points that we need go 

 seeking them ! 



These proposals complete the machinery, other than that of Trade 

 Union organisation, which seems to me necessary. Organisation is a 

 necessity if the suggested scheme is to work. The women, if ad- 

 mitted into a trade on Trade Union conditions and such would be 

 the result of the decisions of these Boards must logically be admitted 

 into full membership of the Trade Unions. But there is an undoubted 

 need for special arrangements for organising women within the Unions. 

 The same weapons of organisation, the same methods of educating 

 the members, the same approach does not do for both sexes. The 

 women and girls must be reached by women organisers if they are 

 to be gained in full numbers. Especially is this necessary in the case 

 of less skilled workers. They must have their own meetings, their 

 own propaganda the same in its ends but differing in its ways, and 

 they must be brought into the task of taking responsibility and office 

 in their own organisation. There must also be fuller representation 

 of women by women on the governing bodies of the Unions. 



The fact of the matter is that women workers have been in the 

 past badly neglected by the male trade unionist. This is not in the 

 least degree surprising indeed, it was inevitable. The Trade Union 

 had its set ways of working, and had developed for men under the 

 guidance of men, and was not to be easily adapted to the differing 

 methods needed to draw in the women. Efforts were often made that, 

 after a momentary success, ended in failure. The poverty of the woman 

 worker was the cause, first and foremost ; but there were other reasons, 

 too. Discouraged by failure, the Unions, with hands full of more 

 business than their officers, so largely voluntary and with a full day's 

 work at other tasks, could get through, naturally found it difficult 

 to make another attempt ; and there has been the fundamental 

 difficulty that the sense of equality was not felt, though lip service 

 might be given it at conferences and the like. The men have believed 

 that women had a naturally inferior industrial position to themselves, 

 just as the employers believed it ; in fact, the community in general 

 accepted it. The war has so largely broken through that belief that 

 it seems unlikely that it can ever be set up again. 



There is this to be said for the women of this country : in strikes 

 and other industrial battles women have been wonderfully firm and 

 loyal, and that in spite of the severe privation from which they have 

 so often suffered. There is a readiness to keep the solidarity of the 

 ranks, especially in times of crisis. This has been tested and proved. 



