576 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION F. 



and the complicated nature of the machinery, make the employment 

 of women impracticable, except in the capacity of subordinate workers. 

 (2) The supply of labour is at present adequate to the demand, and likely 

 to remain so for some time to come. 



That women are useful mainly in subordinate capacities may be inferred 

 from the information supplied by the census figures. The printing trade, as 

 far as women are concerned, is shown to be essentially a young person's trade. 

 Thus the numbers employed between the ages of 15 and 25 years are not far 

 short of 4 times the numbers employed between the ages of 25 and 35, while the 

 number of girls of 13 and 14 years employed alone exceeds by nearly 1,000 the 

 total of women employed between the ages of 35 and 45. The greatest numbers 

 are employed between the ages of 15 and 18 years, from which point a fairly 

 rapid decline begins, those employed at 19 and 20 years being respectively 84 and 

 O'O per cent, less than those of the preceding year. And the total employed 

 between the ages of 20 to 25 is only 28,935, as compared with 41,653 between 

 15 and 20 years. 



These figures indicate that up to the present the printing trades have little 

 prospects for women, and that they are, in fact, most employable as adolescents, 

 and, as stated above, in subordinate capacitie.s. At present the employment 

 of women in the trade is in a transitional and uncertain state. As compositors, 

 for instance, their position in the Edinburgh printing trade is to be considered 

 anew in 1916. The employers' view, speaking generally, is that men are on 

 the whole to be preferred to women in nearly every branch of the trade, and 

 the employment of women is favoured only on accoimt of their lower rates 

 of pay, or, as one Trade Unionist expresses it, ' their greater docUity.' 



This is one of the chief objections urged by the Trade Unions (who, on the 

 whole, would like to see women out of the trade altogether), that the lower 

 scale of women's pay tends to depress the standard of wages in the whole 

 trade. Their other objections are : 



(I.) The strenuous and unsuitable character of much of the work, from which 

 follows as an almost inevitable consequence : 



(II.) The clear-cut division of labour into unskilled, done by women, and 

 skilled, done by men, which, they fear, may lead ultimately to an over- 

 crowding of the trade with skilled journeymen. 



As already indicated, the effect of the War on the trade is mainly one of 

 depression and only in isolated instances are women doing work new to them or 

 being employed in larger numbers in their own processes. 



Processes in which women are doing work which before the War was done by 

 men : 



(1) Feeding (Cylinder or Kotary Machines). 



To a limited extent women are taking the place of men as layers-on on 

 cylinder or rotary machines. The unsuitable conditions in which the work is 

 done and its strenuous character have hitherto prevented the employment of 

 women. The process is easily learnt, however, and is being entered in increas- 

 ing numbers. Employers state that their work is, on the whole, as good as 

 men's, but more labour is thrown upon the minder, who has to carry the 

 heavy weights for the women. Or a labourer is employed, one to three or four 

 women, to do the heavy work. An arrangement has been made by which the 

 women are to do the work for the duration of the War for 23s., instead of the 

 men's wage of 2.5s., in view of the labourer's services being required. 



Non-union women are being employed at 16s. a week. 



(2) Folding and Inserting [heavier ivork). 



A few women are being employed in the heavier part of the work, normally 

 done by men, especially for the feeding of the smaller folding machines. This 

 is piece-work, and a woman will earn up to 25s. with experience.. Overtime 

 rates differ from those paid to men, women receiving 6d. an hour instead of 

 lOrf. 



