TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 517 



services for a period of years on a tacit understanding that later he will be 

 able to obtain a rapid and substantial increment of wages. In the case of a 

 woman, however, assuming that her industrial career is shorter than the average 

 man's and that in the majority of cases she has fewer prospects and is only 

 employed for her intrinsic output, it would seem only equitable that, other 

 things being equal, a woman's wage in the earlier stages, instead of being 

 lower than that of a youth doing the same work, should be on a higher scale. 

 In comparing men's and women's wages it is further necessary to discover 

 how far the work done by each is substantially the same. Even during the 

 present time of stress, when women are to a certain extent doing work which 

 would normally be done by men, the work, as shown in the detailed portion 

 of this Report dealing with separate trades, is very rarely similar either as 

 regards process or conditions. With the introduction of women the work has 

 often to be subdivided, and the men generally have at least the arduousness 

 of their work increased with ofttimes the addition of overtime and night work 

 and a larger amount of work entailing a greater strain. Where workshops 

 have been recently built for women workers they have been equipped with 

 machinery of a very different type from what would have been installed had 

 the management been able to procure skilled men. Whilst women can readily 

 be trained to work such tools as capstan lathes without any great difficulty, a 

 long training is necessary in operating other tools for producing the same 

 fittings. In many of the textile trades it is found that where men and women 

 work the same machines the work is unequal, as only in rare instances can the 

 women ' tune ' or ' set ' their machines. The assistance of a male ' tackier ' is 

 required, and time is lost as well as extra expense incurred. The apparent 

 simplicity of the ' equal pay for equal work ' test is in practice found to be 

 extremely complicated and difficult to apply. 



Social Cu!>tom. 



The second group of reasons advanced by employers for paying women 

 at a lower scale of wages depends more upon custom and social outlook. Thus 

 many employers excuse the lower wages of women on the ground that the 

 needs of women are smaller than those of men. It is argued that a man's 

 wages has normally to be used for the support of a household, while a large 

 proportion of working women have only themselves to support. Some employers 

 also state that as women ask for less wages than men they are paid less in 

 consequence. Others follow social custom in regarding women workers as of a 

 lower status than men. 



These reasons are apparently regarded as adequate and conclusive by many 

 employers, but they are looked upon by representative working-class opinion 

 with great suspicion. Our evidence goes to show that the difference between 

 the wages of men and women is often more than can be justified by any 

 difference in efficiency, and that this has the result of making it profitable 

 for a firm to introduce the largest possible amount of female labour. For the 

 most part Trade Union (male) opinion agrees that on the basis of ' to everyone 

 according to his needs,' the lower wages of women might be justified, although 

 they believe that the low demands of women workers are partly the result of 

 lack of organisation and of industrial ambition among them. Whether, however, 

 payment of a lower wage to a woman be unjust to her or not, the Trade Unions 

 maintain that it is unjust to the man whom she is thus able to underbid. 



In this connection it is only fair, however, to state that the evidence of 

 some employers goes to .show that where they have replaced men by women 

 their wages' bills for the same output have been greater than when they 

 employed men only. Often two women have had to be employed instead of 

 one man, and three women instead of two men is a fairly common occurrence. 

 This, of course, only illustrates the familiar contention for which in recent 

 years the Trade Boards Act has supplied additional proof, that low-paid 

 inefficient labour is by no means ' cheap ' labour. Many of the best employers 

 recognise this, and for this reason are not always anxious to replace trained 

 men by untrained women. But when a greater subdivision of processes is 

 introduced the employment of women at lower wages is frequently found to 



