Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



567 



women and girls. When the effective work 

 done within this small area is deducted from the 

 whole, the inspection outside this boundary 

 would seem farcical, were it not tragic. Within 

 this district each workplace is inspected once in 

 every two years — not very often, it must be 

 admitted. But outside this district a systematic 

 inspection more than once in twenty-five years is 

 impossible. 



COMPLAINTS OF WORKERS. 



The complaints which the inspectors have to 

 deal with must occupy a great deal of time, 

 entailing as they often do prosecutions under 

 the Factory Act. They are classified according 

 to their nature as relating to sanitation and 

 safety, illegal employment, truck, etc., etc. 

 One inspector finds that complaints received 

 from the workers have in nearly every case been 

 justified, and says they are most valuable in dis- 

 closing conditions which could hardly have been 

 otherwise detected. Another, speaking of 

 special visits spread over so wide an area as that 

 of the Midland Division, says that to a worker 

 in Grimsby or North Wales the address of a 

 woman inspector in Birmingham is of little help. 

 Comf)laints outside the Factory and Truck Acts 

 have also to be dealt with. 



inspectors' RECORDS. 



Many cases of children employed in dangerous 

 processes can only be discovered by the acci- 

 dental visit of inspectors. In the pottery in- 

 dustry much injury is also caused by the 

 carrying of heavy weights. One boy of 

 thirteen was found carrying a wedge of clay 

 weighing 70 lb., while he himself weighed 

 only 63 lb. It is on record that the average 

 day's work of certain children in silk mills is 

 moistening by the mouth no fewer than thirty 

 gross of reel labels. In Ireland another problem 

 is the employment of children at too early an 

 age, which is made possible by the use of forged 

 and altered birth certificates. The most difficult 

 problem of all for the inspectors arises out of 

 the employment of women before and after 

 childbirth. 



EVASION OF THE TRUCK ACTS. 



The writer says little about truck, because 

 there is so much that can be written, but two 

 ways of evading the Truck Act regulations are 

 cited. A system of fines is open to investiga- 

 tion, but an employer has only to designate as 

 *' bonus " a certain part of the sum contracted 

 to be paid to the worker, and the question of 

 payment is outside jurisdiction. Again, the 

 regulations may be evaded by what is really a 

 deduction for defective work being made in the 

 guise of a reduction of wages. 



GEORGE MEREDITH ON WOMEN. 



The letters of George Meredith which appear 

 in Scrihner for October contain some of his 

 views on women and their demands. The fol- 

 lowing was written in 1905 : — 



Since 1 began to reflect I have been oppressed, by the 

 injustice done to women, the constraint put upon their 

 natural aptitudes and their facuhies, generally much to 

 the degradation of the race. I have not studied them 

 more closely than I have men, but with more affection, a 

 deeper interest in their enfranchisement and develop- 

 ment, being assured that women of the independent 

 mind are needed for any sensible degree of progress. 

 They will so educate their daughters that these will not 

 be instructed at the start to think themselves naturally 

 inferior to men, because less muscular, and need not 

 have recourse to particular arts, feline chiefly, to make 

 their way in the world. 



MISSIONARY ADMINISTRATION. 



The share of women in the Administration of 

 Missions is the subject of an article by Minna C. 

 Gollock in the October issue of the International 

 Review of Missions. 



THE church's duty TO WOMEN. 



The writer begins by pointing out how the 

 " prudent silence " of the Edinburgh Conference 

 as to the share of women in the administrative 

 work of missions stimulated the consideration 

 of a subject which had been latent in many 

 minds — namely, the co-operation of men and 

 women in missionary administration. The Con- 

 ference of the Missionary Societies of the 

 United Kingdom took up the matter and 

 appointed a Committee to investigate and report 

 upon it. In the report the word " co-opera- 

 tion " stands for the fellow-working of men and 

 women at the same task by means of the same 

 organisation, and the Committee is strongly 

 persuaded of the desirability of all possible co- 

 operation, in the fullest sense of the word, 

 between men and women in the administration 

 of missions both at home and abroad. Women 

 serve on Royal Commissions, University 

 Senates, Boards of Education, etc., and find the 

 value of their opinion estimated apart from all 

 question of sex. But on Missionary Boards 

 such an opportunity is generally denied them. 



CO-OPERATION OF MEN AND WOMEN. 



The bulk of the work of missions at home is 

 in the hands of women ; women raise the myriad 

 small sums which form the general funds of 

 societies, and everywhere their activities are in- 

 creasing. Women's work cannot be stayed. 

 Co-operation between men and women, it is 

 claimed, would tend towards simplification and 

 lessen the danger of over-organisation, and it 

 would provide needed reinforcement for Mis= 

 sionary Committees. 



