THE PRESENT POSITION OF WOMEN 95 



number of children produced in the class to which 

 they belong ; and we cannot doubt that the result which 

 has been noticed in France will occur in any other com- 

 munity which bases its efficiency on the possibility of 

 obtaining a large supply of female labour. 



Apparently, for a time, we can shift a great part of 

 the industrial and administrative burdens of the country 

 on to women, who can undersell their husbands and 

 brothers. We probably effect thereby a real improve- 

 ment of environment, since a woman of better training 

 and aptitudes can always for reasons we have given 

 above be secured at a lower rate of pay. But we are 

 consuming our one essential form of life-capital, female 

 humanity ; and for us, as for all nations, the process 

 must end in disaster. 



It is in France, where in certain years the number of 

 deaths has equalled the births, that the most systematic 

 attempts of the modern world are being made to 

 counteract the biological effect of modern tendencies. 

 A few of the enactments may be here quoted. 

 Throughout the whole country, absence from work on 

 the part of a woman for eight weeks consecutively 

 before and after childbirth does not allow her employer 

 to break his contract with her for her services, except 

 under payment of damages with interest, and no private 

 agreement to the contrary will be upheld in law. 

 Absence for two months with full salary is allowed by 

 the State to school-mistresses, half to be taken before 

 and half after the birth of a child. The Credit 

 Lyonnais, a great banking concern, and the Grands 

 Magasins du Louvre allow respectively thirty days' and 



