¥ ECONOMICS . 113 



' set ' the machines on which they work. They were never given the 

 opportunity of learning how to perform these operations (Economic 

 Journal, 1918, p. 4). Exchision may also be effected by regulating 

 that women entering an industry should conform in every particular to 

 arrangements which are specially suited to male workers. Of such rules 

 Mrs. Fawcett has well written, ' to encourage women under all circum- 

 stances to claim the same wages for the same work would be to exclude 

 frorn work altogether all those women who wero industrially less effi- 

 cient than men. A woman who was less capable of prolonged physical 

 toil, who was less adaptive and versatile than the average man, would 

 be forbidden to accept wages which recognised these facts of her indus- 

 trial existence' (Economic Journal, 1894, p. 366; cp. 1904, p. 296). 

 The exclusiveness of male trade unions has been in the past at least 

 fostered by prejudices and conventions that are becoming obsolete.. 

 Before the Labour Commission, for instance, a witness was asked, 

 ' What is there unwomanly in steering a barge ? ' Answer : ' It is a 

 work that is entirely unfit for women ' ; also ' it reduces the wages of 

 men.' Before an earlier Committee it was testified of another occupa- 

 tion : ' It is most degradiiig for women ... it weakens their constitu- 

 tion . . . and not only so, but it is depriving men of their proper 

 labour.' It should be remembered, however, that many of the prohibi- 

 tions and prejudices here mentioned as contravening free competition 

 were adapted to avert that catastrophic competition (4) which we here 

 conveniently suppose to be excluded. 



10. The oppressive action of male unions should be counteracted by 

 pressure on the part of women workers acting in. concert. Suppose 

 now that these balanced forces encounter the resistance of the em- 

 ployers, themselves perhaps associated, what will be the resultant? 

 We may assume that the resulting arrangement will not be in strong 

 conflict with the natural forces of competition. Probably an arrange- 

 ment that the weekly earnings of women should be the same as those 

 of men, though the actual value of a woman as a worker was about 

 30 per cent, below that of an average man employed in the same capacity 

 (as testified by a majority of employers before a Committee of the 

 British Association, Kirkaldy, 'Credit, Industry, and the War,' 1915, 

 p. 108) could not be maintained without tyranny on a Eussian scale. 

 But within limits thus prescribed there is room for a considerable variety 

 of arrangements. On what principle, then, will a more exact 

 determination be obtained? Tlie principle most congenial to the 

 present subsection is that which is suggested by Walker's doctrine, 

 that * competition, perfect competition, affords the ideal condition 

 for the distribution of wealth' ('Political Economy,' 2nd ed., 

 s. 466; cp. s. 343). W© should then not only keep within those 

 limits outside which it would be futile to set up any arrange- 

 ment, as it would be swept away by the forces of competition, 

 but also v/ithin the wide tract thus delimited we should endeavour to 

 find the particular point which would 1x3 determined by ideal competition. 

 The first of these precepts may conceivably be carried out by a board 

 of employers and employees. But the second is evidently a counsel 

 of perfection. As Professor Pigou says with reference to railway rates,' it 



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