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getting 2 to 3, and even 4, and that is a very big change from the 

 old idea, and I am quite sure that women's independence has distinctly 

 increased. Now that women get more money they feel very differently 

 about their work ; they will not go back to the old position. 



Some of you men are really hypocrites, and the women do not take 

 you quite seriously when you talk about your great concern for us. The 

 treatment of women, industrially or socially, by men in the past has not 

 been such that women take so much notice of what you say on this score. 

 If you honestly said " We fear you will pull down wages " we should 

 have a great deal more respect for you. Of course women should not 

 be employed on tramway shifts that take them to work at 3 o'clock 

 in the morning, but that does not mean that all employment of the 

 kind is unsuitable. Look at the employment that women take part 

 in to-day the horrible little sweat-shops, the abominable conditions 

 under which they work, the tin box making trade and the jam factory, 

 the long hours and the hideous conditions, for low wages for which 

 they cannot possibly get enough to eat. Do you think these really 

 compare well with tram and 'bus conducting ? It is one thing to make 

 a fuss about that but if you made a fuss about the other as well 

 I should have much more sympathy with you. As to the exclusion 

 of women, it will not work, and is unfair. Do married women not work 

 in the textile trades because of their economic position ? They know 

 their families can get a great deal more of the necessaries of life if they 

 are at work than if they are not, and I do not think that the ordinary 

 wage of the working man is so large that there is no economic necessity 

 for the wives not to work. The vast majority of women do not wish 

 to go out to work if they can get along comfortably in their homes 

 without doing so, but there are women who are better at work than at 

 home. Some find it better for themselves and their families to make 

 a good wage at their particular work than to stay at home looking 

 after children, which may not happen to be the job suited to their 

 temperament : it is no more a fact that every woman is a good house- 

 keeper and mother than that every man is a good painter. One other 

 point the plan set out in the paper is a fairly definite one as to the 

 question of conditions in industry, and it is a practical thing to put 

 forward, but it does not necessarily mean that because you say you 

 want equal pay for equal work you must have piecework for 

 everything. Men have time rates, and if the men in any occupation 

 have a time rate you must also reckon what it shall be for women. 

 Whatever plan you have in various kinds of work you can have the 

 same plan for men and women ; there is no need for any difference 

 in practice. Such Boards as we suggest would be the best sort of body 

 to decide what to do. In regard to Mr. Newlove's remarks, I do not 

 think that you can say there was a definite pre-war standard for 

 fixing wages between men and women. Wages were not fixed on such 

 a definite standard, but the men protected their standard rate against 

 the vast mass of unorganised unskilled labour, both of men and women, 

 especially against women, by their general exclusion from the skilled 



