324 REPORT — 1903. 



for large than for small firms to escape inspection, and for the actual 

 history of the industry we refer to Appendix I. below. 



The regulations may have various effects on the amount of work given 

 out from large factories or workshops to small employers or to individual 

 workers. Some of the cases have been mentioned already. Some 

 employers {Glasgow, Clothing) have stopped giving out work to their 

 re<^ular hands, because the regulations were so troublesome. Others evade 

 the law or continue out-work under its restrictions. Some (Stockport, see 

 above) have increased out-work since overtime reductions. It may also 

 be the case that work is passed on from the large to the smaller firms, to be 

 done by them in illegal hours, or passed on again to uncontrolled workers. 

 The Committee have not received sufficient evidence as to the circumstances 

 in the scattered and complex clothing trades of London, Leeds, and other 

 great towns, to express an opinion as to the relative prevalence of these 

 methods. 



We have not examined the effect of the legislation in the early years 

 of its application in relation to this Section, and therefore have not 

 considered whether, as has been alleged, any immediate increase of work 

 doae under unsatisfactory conditions was due to unequal incidence of 

 restriction. 



Section IV. — Effect on the Employment of Wompn, and on the 

 Re-arrangement of Methods of Production. 



This Section includes many highly involved questions, which may be 

 analysed as follows : — 



{a) Women may be actually excluded from particular processes ; or 



(h) They may lose only part of the work done, the remainder being 

 done by other workers or on other methods ; or 



(g) The work may be re-arranged so as to be dcme by the same or a 

 different number of women ; so that 



{d) The total demand for women workers may be increased or 



diminished ; or 



(e) The age or class of the body of women employed may be altered. 

 (/) In cases (a) and (6) the work may be done by unrestricted 



workers ; or 



(g) By machinery, which may be more expensive or may be economical, 

 only needing an impetus for its introduction. 



(h) Employment of women in new directions may have been hindered. 



The Committee has evidence that each of these developments has 

 occurred in one place or another, except (A), which is of a hypothetical 



nature. 



(rt) Exclusion of Women. 



The cases where women have been excluded from particular work 

 in favour of unrestricted workers are extremely rare. Throughout our 

 reports we find that the line of demarcation between men and women's 

 work is in the great majority of cases rigidly fixed by physical suitability, 

 by relative cheapness, or by custom. This is undoubtedly the general 

 rule and the following exceptions are the only cases which a thorough 

 search has brought to light in the industries investigated, where women 

 have been displaced completely by men owing to legislation. In the 

 printing and kindred trades : In Derby the curtailment of overtime from 



