Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 13 July 1935, Page 4

This question of women in industry is becoming a strious one, assorts the Glasgow Herald. The trend of industrial development is in their favour. The new industries depend on automatic machinery which requires neither strength nor skill to operate. It would be uneconomic to emnlov adult male labour upon it, and for this reason the proportion of women jn insurable employment is increasing more rapidly than that of men. Between 1911 anu 1934 the number of women gainfully employed has advanced by almost a million, from 5,423,944 to 6,265,000. In the last eleven years 483,440 women and girls have boon absorbed into industry, as against 455,439 men anu boys. The significance of these figures needs no emphasis. This state of matters is the inevitable outcome of the trend of industry, with its introduction of light, fool-proof machines, especially in the newer enterprises, which have been showing expansion. It is a natural evolution, though somewhat disturbing to the sociologist. A ukase forbidding the employment of women would he of the same order as an instruction to the tide to stand still. That is not the line of treatment. Where the sexes are in direct competition measures uiughr he taken to ensure that women are not prelerred because of cheapness, and ''-here is something to be said lor the slogan of the Labour women —“Equal pay for equal work.” Another point to Be kept in mind is that probably 30 per cent of the women in industry are married and-that many of them are responsible for the family income. Most of them are driven by greater or less necessity to leave their homes; with the majority it is not a- matter of inclination. We have to recognise the existence of this problem of women in industry and consider it without prejudice. Men have no prescriptive right to do the work of the world, and women will have to be admitted, perhaps to an. increasing share, if they continue to prove themselves more fitted for certain branches, as recently they have been doing. This concludes tlie Glasgow Herald, is one of the results of the second Industrial Revolution.