A
fuller, clearer realization of the importance of this subject is much
needed at the present time. The industrial emancipation of women,
favoured by the liberal sentiments of the age, has been eagerly utilized
by enterprising managers of businesses in search of the cheapest labour.
Not only women, but also children are enabled, owing to the nature of
recent mechanical inventions which relieve the physical strain, but
increase the monotony of labour, to make themselves useful in factories
or home-work. Each year sees a large growth in the ranks of women-
workers. Eager to earn each what she can, girls and wives alike rush
into factory work, reckless of the fact that their very readiness to
work tells against them in the amount of their weekly wages, and only
goes to swell the dividends of the capitalist, or perhaps eventually to
lower prices. The improving mechanism of our State School System assists
this movement, by turning out every year a larger percentage of half-
timers, crammed to qualify for wage-earners at the earliest possible
period. Already in Lancashire and elsewhere, the labour of these
thirteen-year-olders is competing with the labour of their fathers. The
substitution of the "ring" for the "mule" in Lancashire mills, is
responsible for the sight which may now be seen, of strong men lounging
about the streets, supported by the earnings of their own children, who
have undersold them in the labour market.
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