TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 219 



certain political conditions. Iudiie»trial proo-ress aud political freedom are so closely 

 united that John Bright spoke at a meeting of trade-unions and trade societies in 

 18G6 and said : — " Your duty, your ob\'ious duty, a duty from which you cannot 

 escape," is to bring all your organization to bear " on the working out of your 

 political redemption." The homes, the wages, the wealthy unions of enfrancliised 

 artisans, contrasted with the condition of unenfranchised agricultural labourers, 

 seeking charity to fly from their tumble-down cottages and hopeless future here 

 for lands across the sea, bear out the wisdom of his words. 



Why should not working women benefit, as worldng men have done, by the same 

 means ? It is said that thej' do not stand in need of the suffrage because in all ranks 

 men and women are so closely connected that the interests of every class of women 

 are watched over by some men as if identical with their own. The weakness of 

 this assertion is shown by tlie fact that men make laws for women which men in 

 the same position of life reject for themselves. The Factory Act of 1874 was 

 pressed upon the consideration of Mr. Mundella by working men. As a boon for 

 working women, many of the factory women were very much against it, for they 

 saw that less work meant less food or clothing ; some of them in Leeds had an 

 interview with the candidates for the representation of the borough, and urged 

 their views with cogent reasoning ; they were as courteously received as non-electors 

 usually are. But the folly of electors has more weight in Parliament than the 

 common sense of the unrepresented. The Factory Act became law, and Parliament 

 lent itself to one of the worst mistakes of the first Trade-Unions ; for to limit the 

 wages of men to one standard and to make a hard and fast line for the length of 

 time women shall work, though different in detail, are one in principle. Women's 

 wages have already been reduced in many places where the Act applies ; women 

 lose by the shilling or sixpence taken off their wages, and the country loses by the 

 lesser jn-oductiveuess of the 392,9^6 hands employed in the manufacture of te.vtile 

 goods. W'orking women are beginning to be alarmed at the dangers which 

 threaten them, aud are forming unions for their own protection. At the Trades 

 Congi-ess in January last, an excellent letter was read from Mrs. Paterson, the 

 Secretary of a League in London ; and the National L^nion of working women sent 

 a delegate, to endeavour to dissuade the Congress from pressing for further legisla- 

 tive restriction. The Congress strongly condemned such legislation for men, but 

 upheld it for women ; they said they were acting entirely in the interests of women : 

 and two delegates said women ought to be prevented from working in some 

 trades altogether, for the work was not tit for them ; and added, they took lower 

 wages than men, and brought men's wages down. A new element was here 

 brought into the discussion, but no one took any notice of this ; and with onlv one 

 dissentient (the women's delegate) it was agreed that the Parliamentary Com- 

 mittee should endeavour to obtain an extension of the Factory Act to other trades 

 where women are emploved. 



Women would not work twelve or fourteen hours a day for a mere pittance if 

 they could enrn bread more easily, nor follow repulsi^'e callings if lighter trades 

 were open to them. It is clear that the interests of worldng women are not repre- 

 sented by the class of men to whom they belong, and that the industrial position 

 of women is suffering at their hands. The policy is as short-sighted as it is selfish ; 

 for if women have to live at all they must eat; and if they are shut out from iudus- 

 trial pursuits, they must live on the earnings of others, either on money supplied 

 directly by individuals or indirectly by the State. A country must lose in wealth 

 if a number of its inhabitants, who coidd be productive labourers, are made idle bv 

 force. If women worlced for their own bread, they would spend their monej' again 

 aud stimulate other trades. Productive industry is in if.self so expansive 

 that no one can determine the bounds which it shall not pass. In En-^land 

 where the employers of labour are ever supplementing the toil of the workman by 

 new inventions, new machinery, there must be room for more labourers if the laws 

 or the usages of society did not hold them back. The difficulty women find in 

 getting work is not because there is none in the country to be clone, but because 

 they are held in by artificial barriers, within which they crowd and jostle and 

 tread one another down in a terrible struggle to live. If these arbitrary hindrances 

 were taken away, the industrial efforts of women would find ample and enricliin"- 

 scope ; to do this, to remove these barriers, they must have their due share in the 



