708 REPORT — 1902. 



numtev of inspectors of workshops. This might be done by the method of 

 o-rants-in-aid, the Government contributing towards the salaries of the inspectors, 

 with power to withdraw the grant in case the local authorities do not come up to 

 the required standard of efficiency. 



In towns where special inspectors of workshops have been appointed, evidence 

 is given that effective administration is possible under the present system of dual 

 control. With the further extension of the regulation of home work, the proposal 

 to transfer the entire supervision of workshops to the Home Office becomes more 

 and more impracticable, for the discovery and inspection of domestic workshops can 

 be undertaken only by those who are authorised to carry on a house-to-house 

 visitation for sanitary purposes. 



4. Natures Economics. By Miss Helen Blackburn. 



Legislation regarding the economics of industry should be in harmony with 

 the economics of nature, which requires of all human beings that they seek the 

 control of their own surroundings as much as in them lies. 



The old phrase, ' spear side and spindle side,' by which our forefathers ex- 

 pressed the industrial conditions of earlier days, indicates the direction of the chief 

 occupation of women, while men and women worked into each other's hands in 

 many directions. 



By the aid of science, with its introduction of steam power, industrial econo- 

 mics entered a new era. We read of a parallel change going on in South Africa 

 which illustrates this. The introduction of the plough which is drawn by cattle 

 is robbing the native women of the field work which they regard as their right, 

 for with the South African native the management of cattle is the e.xclusive 

 privilege of men. So with ourselves by means of machinery the domestic arts of 

 women have been carried into the province of men. They find themselves by no 

 fault or choice of their own in competition with men. 



The moral effects are more serious than the industrial. Home is no longer a 

 school of domestic art. Legislation is invoked to readjust harmony. 



By the common application of few rules and simple, nature provides har- 

 monious variety. Our industrial legislation on the contrary works by excep- 

 tions, thereby bringing about class legislation, which always falls heaviest on the 



weakest. 



In the textile trades women have natural special advantages over men, but in 

 the greater number of trades the fitness of men or women for the work is a matter 

 of personal capacity and circumstances. In these a very small consideration turns 

 the scale and causes women to be regarded as rivals, not as helpmates. 



Our economic jurisprudence, weakened by the exclusion of women from repre- 

 sentation, induces the sentimental idea of control from without. 



5. The Regulation of Wages in Developed Industries. 

 By Professor S. J. Chapman, M.A. 



This paper does not deal with the fundamental determinants of wages, but merely 

 with the principles adopted for deliberately regulating them_ (where they are 

 deliberately regulated), and the machinery by which the principles are applied. 

 It is now" commonly assumed that wages (whether time-rates or piece-rates) 

 should vary with profits, but ' profits ' may stand for several different concep- 

 tions. There are ' particular ' profits— j.e., the profits of particular firms ; and 

 ' general ' or ' normal ' profits — i.e., ' marginal ' profits ; ' average ' profits, in 

 addition, are frequently referred to during disputes as to wages, but by these 

 'marginal' profits or 'normal' profits are to be understood as a rule. In some 

 businesses in which the relations between the several human factors employed are 

 close wao-es may be settled by the rise and fall of * particular ' profits ; but in 

 general, if profits are to rank as determinants, the ' normal ' profits in the industry 

 must be understood. The regulation of wages by normal profits is not so simple 



