ON women's LAI30UR. 327 



if allowed. Another South London biscuit firm has to employ men on 

 women's work occasionally ' at three times the wages.' In priniinff and 

 kindred trades, men sometimes follow the girls at 9 p.m. in card-mounting 

 in London,' and men do overtime in Bristol and Liverpool on women's 

 work ; while folding (see above) must often be done by men. In paper- 

 making men occasionally tend cutting and glazing machines after women's 

 hours, yet in two cases women have recently supplanted men at these 

 machines (Paper). Occasionally in the watch-factory already mentioned 

 men do women's work overtime, but do not do it so well. 



In some important cases men do night-work on the same processes as 

 women work at in the day-time. One instance is printers' folding {London 

 and the Derby case already mentioned). Again, in or near Derby mQn do 

 cotton doubling at night, and young men some of the preparatory pro- 

 cesses for lace. There is also the very important instance of combing in 

 Bradford {Yorks.), and other instances given in last year's report.'- In 

 these cases women would not improbably do overtime and even night- 

 work, if allowed. The remaining case is in the South Wales tinplate manu- 

 facture, which is detailed under {(j) below. 



(c) Rearrangement of WorJi. 



In the discussion of overtime above it was shown that the restric- 

 tion of hours was often met by a rearrangement of processes. The 

 references there given will support the following general statement : In 

 the great majority of industrial processes carried on by women, their work 

 is cheaper and often more efficient than any that can be substituted for 

 it ; restriction is therefore met by adaptation of manufacture or rearrange- 

 ment of numbers employed and time at which work is done, women still 

 being employed at the work. Under the headings (a) and (b) all the cases 

 to the contrary which have come under the notice of the Committee are 

 detailed, and all the investigators made a special inquiry on this head. 

 The Committee therefore endorses the remarks of H.M. Chief Inspector 

 Redgrave in 1881 ^ as being in the main applicable to the present time. 



' The objection that by placing restrictions upon a certain class of labour 

 there will be so much repugnance to the employment of that class of labour 

 that it will be dispensed with, and the place be supplied by unrestricted 

 labour, is not made for the first time in the history of factory legislation. 



' The employment of labour by an employer is governed purely by 

 economical principles. The dismissal from a shop of the young persons 

 and women sewing in it must be followed by the engagement of men at a 

 much higher rate to do their work. The question the employer will put 

 to himself will be whether, it being a regulation that all in the same kind 

 of trade shall be subject to precisely the same kind of restriction, it will 

 be more economical to him to keep his shop open for fair and moderate 

 hours with moderately paid young persons and women, or to keep his shop 

 open well into the night with all its attendant increase of cost and with 

 more highly -paid assistants. 



' All our experience (says Mr. Redgrave) goes to show that employers 

 prefer moderate hours under reasonable restrictions to unlimited labour. 

 Very few employers of any class are to be found in occupations under 

 the operation of the Factory Act prepared to say they would willingly 



' In this connection see last year's Report (Belfast), p. 306, line 4, and p. 293, note. 

 - Pp. 291, 292. "^ Factory Inspector's Report, 1881, p. 41. 



