Evening Post. SATURDAY. APRIL 14, 1923. WOMEN AND WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY. APRIL 14, 1923. WOMEN AND WAGES

Four years ago the British Parliament passed a Sex Disqualification Removal Act, and many people remembered the Suffragettes of 1914, heaved a sigh of relief, and said : " Thank goodness, that's settled." But it was not settled. The people who thought men and women could be made equal by Act of Parliament were to experience the disappointment of those who cherished h6pes of making people good by the> same short process. Two pronouncements of recent date have a bearing upon this point. The first is the decision of the London County Council that women teachers engaged in future shall, with certain exemptions, have their engagements terminated upon marriage unless their husbands are incapacitated or desert them. The second pronouncement comes from the Supreme Court of the United States, which has declared unconstitutional Statutes fixing a minimum wage. The Statutes, it appears, did not provide for a general minimum wage, but applied primarily to women. ,

The Court stated that women had become so neax-ly equal to men that special safeguards to protect them in making contracts for their labour were no longer needed. It also declared that a woman's morals were not as a general rule dependent upon what she earned, and attacked the Minimum Wage Board for fixing a difference in wages for women in almost similar work. .

The London County Council's dcci : sion has aroused considerable de>bafce, upon two grounds: first, that it is in contravention of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act, and, second, that it is opposed to the principle of sex equality. The American Court judgment is likely to provoke disapproval just as widespread, but for an exactly opposite reason, that it denies the fact of sex inequality.

It is difficult to reconcile these two points of view. Indeed, on the surface, they appear irreconcilable. Possibly the contradiction springs from the desire of both Council and Court to act upon some principles without paying sufficient attention to facts. " The New Statesman," in commenting upon the Council action, declared the decision to be mistaken, but was careful to steer clear of general principles.

We are not of those, it stated, who hold that marriage ought never to be regarded as a bar to the employment of women in any trade or profession, but it seems to us highly desirable that in the Education Service there should be a certain proportion of married women.

There are undoubtedly historical facts to support 'this- argument. Before education and training became so generally centralised in schools the work was done in the home:, and largely by the married women.' In the changed system it cannot be denied that married women may have a part which may not always conflict with their home duties. The London County Council's decision implies that there must always be conflict, and that women may not be left to decide which shall com© first—the home or the school. In New Zealand this decision has been left to the individual teacher, and in most cases the home has won. We believe that this is' better so, and that the majority have decided rightly; but that does not commit us to the view that a decision freely made by the majority may be forced upon all —and still be right. The London County Council decision may be acceptable in nine cases out of ten. The trouble lies in enforcing it upon the tenth.

Whether a minimum wage is constitutional or not is plainly a question of law, not to be argued by laymen. But the Supreme Court appears to have gone further than this, and to have decided that a minimum wage for women is not only unconstitutional but unnecessary and undesirable. This dictum may be open to attack upon grounds similar. to those advanced against the- County Council decision. It is too sweeping. - Now Zealand and Australia are in a position different from that of America in that they provide, through the Arbitration Courts, for minimum wages for both men and women. The argument for differentiation is, however, in itself a strong argument for a women's minimum, even where there is no minimum for men. Briefly, the principle is that women, for their own protection, fihouW wot be. permitted-to

underbid the men, or underbid other women in a different economic position. Mr. Justice Higgins has stated this principle as follows:

As women are not usually legally responsible for the maintenance of a family, a woman's minimum is based on the average cost of her own living to one who supports herself by her own exertions. A woman or girl with a. comfortable home cannot be left to underbid in wages other women or girls who are less fortunate. But in an occupation in which men as well as women, arc employed the minimum is based on the man's cost of living. [So that the woman with no family to support may not underbid the man.]

It may be argued, of course, that there are- women who have* families to support, just as there are men who have none j but in seeking to regulate wages existing facts cannot be disregarded^ There are inequalities in the present system; but if a rash, attempt were made to remove them greater injustice might be wrought. For example, if women were allowed to underbid men in mixed occupations, some women with families to support would benefit, but a greater number of women, wives and future wives, would suffer by the consequent diminution in the demand for men's labour. The Supreme Court may hold that worn.en are so nearly equal with men that they no longer need safeguards, but surely it cannot be said that the obligation upon the men to provide for a family is yet fully imposed upon all women, though it is (and always has been) upon some ? And does not this difference in itself constitute an economic inequality, from the results of which women, and men also, must be protected 1 It may be that in time this inequality will be removed, and that men and women will be more nearly economically equal; but that time will not be hastened by disregarding in law differences which are by nature and Hot the work of man.. In seeking to remove sex disqualifications we can deal only with such as are artificial. Men are different from women, and it is quite as unsound to ignore the differences as to exaggerate them.