54 



here on dangerous ground, and I shall probably cut right across Dr. 

 Phillips' opinions, but my own view is that no married woman or 

 widow with a family should be employed. I feel very strongly that the 

 widow must be excluded, and the married woman with a family also, 

 even if the husband is one of the unfortunate men disabled in the war. 

 Looking at it from the point of view of the community purely I would 

 insist that, because the future of the community depends upon the 

 children, the community should see to the proper endowment of the 

 mothers of our race. As to the basis of payment. On this point I 

 confess I am somewhat disappointed with the paper. To my mind, 

 Dr. Phillips has not tackled this difficult question, and I am sure she 

 will agree that because it is difficult that is no reason why it should 

 not be tackled. I thought she was going to deal with it when I read 

 that part of her paper in which she refers to the importance of redeeming 

 the promises to the men, while not doing anything, if we can help it, to 

 injure the interests of the women. I think we must face it from the 

 point of view that, as far as we can see at present, the pre-war standard 

 for fixing wages as between men and women is likely to remain. The 

 pre-war standard, roughly, regarded the average man as merely a 

 channel through which a certain amount of money passed which was 

 necessary to keep the community going. He was not paid so much per 

 week purely and simply because he worked so many hours, but because 

 he was looked upon as a person who was going to keep not only himself 

 but several other people, while the average woman was not in that 

 position. Before the war the situation was that the average man 

 supported, roughly, five people, and the average woman one and a half 

 people. We may be certain that as a result of the war that proportion 

 will be disturbed, and that there will be an upward tendency as regards 

 the responsibilities of working women. That fact alone would justify 

 a reconsideration of the whole question of women's wages, but it does 

 not get us away from the fundamental basis upon which wages of men 

 and women are fixed. 



Accepting the extension of women's employment in industries 

 previously open to them and their introduction into industries pre- 

 viously recruited entirely by men, we are faced with the important 

 question of maintaining, and possibly of increasing, the rates of wages 

 in these industries. War experience justifies the conclusion, I think, 

 that employers will not be eager to disturb the pre-war practice of 

 paying women a less wage because they are women, and Dr. Phillips 

 very rightly emphasises the importance of undertaking now the question 

 of organisation. In this connection we should profit by experience 

 and avoid the setting up of separate organisations on a basis of sex. 

 Women should be encouraged to join the Unions on precisely the same 

 conditions as men. They should enjoy the same benefits and under- 

 take the same responsibilities. In my own organisation this has been 

 so for years, and, on the whole, the results have justified the accept- 

 ance of dual membership. I thoroughly agree that both sexes should 

 be adequately represented on the governing bodies of the Unions, 



