ox women's labour. 323 



enlightened firms had already adopted ; this tends to force out of the 

 trade competitors who cannot keep up to a high standard and whose em- 

 ployees are subject to conditions detrimental to the community. For 

 example, in most of the industries where overtime has been diminished, it 

 is the larger firms who are best able to apply pressure on their customers 

 to give their orders early, can make most easily internal arrangements to 

 meet a sudden demand, and can afford to keep enough machinery and 

 enough working-room beyond the requirements of a slack season (see 

 the references given in the discussion of overtime ; also Yorks.). 



In this way the Acts hasten the general progress towards the use of 

 machinery and the growth of businesses with large capital ; e.g., in the 

 Bristol boot trade : ' Machinery made the factory and the employment of 

 capital necessary, and the Factory Acts have not hindered but furthered 

 this development ' {Boots). The sanitary regulations, which to some 

 extent aSect factories where women are employed differently from 

 others, have helped this development {ibid.). The observations of Mr. 

 Wood, together with those of one of H.M. Inspectoi's, show that the 

 prohibition of overtime for 'male young persons ' in 1895 gave a great 

 impetus to the factory system, since the smaller shops could not do 

 without overtime, and had to give place to the factories employing power. 

 Women being thus brought into the factories, the restrictions on their 

 overtime acted in the same direction ; thus the legislation affecting 

 women hastened the development of the factory system {ibid.). 



Again, we learn from Northampton that legislation chiefly ' hampered 

 people whose methods are getting out of date for general business 

 efficiency,' and merely anticipated the results that competition would lead 

 to a little later {Northamjyton) . We are told that in Liverpool 'the 

 most far-reaching effect (of legislation) has been to place a premium upon 

 the employer of labour who can afford to lay out the capital required to 

 introduce improved methods of industry, labour-saving machines, and 

 large premises with accommodation for additional workers in busy 

 seasons ' {Liverpool). The allege.] acceptance of overtime restriction by 

 large chocolate manufacturers, who can keep their premises cool enough 

 for work on hot summer days, has been instanced as an unfair advantage 

 taken on their part over their smaller competitors.^ In the South Wales 

 tinplate industry it is said that the less efficient mills have not been 

 able to stand the expense of setting up the machinery which the 

 abolition of women's night-work has introduced {Tinplate). The 

 experience of laundries in this respect is interesting. In Nottingham, 

 for example, the smaller laundries cannot reconcile their customers to the 

 methods necessary to suit overtime regulations, while the larger laundries, 

 with a difierent class of custom, have less difficulty {N'ottingham) ; but 

 this experience is not confirmed by the exhaustive account of laundry 

 development given in Miss Anderson's report {A2)p. II.). In this, as 

 in other industries, it is not possible to discriminate between the effects 

 of increasing use of machinery and of legal regulation. In the case of 

 laundries, where the workers are mainly women and gii-ls, we may 

 include health and sanitary regulations under our reference ; the 

 requirements of these are said {Nottingham, Canning Toivn) to press 

 heavily in small laundries, which indeed were the first to come under sani- 

 tary regulations. On the other side we may notice that it is more difficult 



' Women under tlie Faciiry Act, by JIiss Coucherett, p. 147. 



