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THE LANCET.

LONDON: SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1919.

Women in Industry. THE report of the War Cabinet Committee on

Women in Industry, which has just been presentedto Parliament, is a document of the first interest.The Committee, it may be remembered, was com-posed of the following members: Sir J. R. ATKIN,Miss JANET CAMPBELL, M.D., Sir L. L. MACASSEY,K.C., Sir W. W. MACKENZIE, K.C., Mrs. SYDNEY WEBB,and Sir MATTHEW NATHAN, who acted as secretary,assisted by Mr. J. C. STOBART. For a time Mr.J. L. HAMMOND sat on the Committee as repre-sentative of the special Women’s EmploymentCommittee of the Ministry of Reconstruction.The *War Cabinet Committee was appointedto investigate and report on the relation whichshould be maintained between the wages ofwomen and men, having regard to the interests ofboth, as well as to the value of their work. Further,the Committee was asked in its recommendationsto think not only of the output necessitated by thewar, but of the progress and well-being of industryin the future. Several alterations in circumstancessince the original reference to the Committee haveobviously taken place, owing to the suspension ofhostilities, making the output of war material amatter of history, while the grant of unemploymentdonations introduced a new factor into the delibera-tions. The report took definite colour from thesecircumstances.The recommendations of the Committee, deal-

ing with the principles governing the relationsbetween men’s and women’s wages-alike thosesuggesting the respective remuneration of men

and women, those dealing with the conditions ofthe future employment and wages of women, and,lastly, those replying to the various allegations asto non-fulfilment of Government pledges to women- will certainly be circulated in full for the imme-diate and earnest attention of all employers andall employed, which in the Great Britain of thefuture is another way of describing the great majorityof the adult population. They form 31 brief, busi-nesslike, and drastic messages to the public, and arecovered to some extent by the first, which runs:" That women doing similar or the same workas men should receive equal pay for equal work inthe sense that pay should be in proportion to efficientoutput." This recommendation is intended tocover the principle that on systems of payment byresults equal payment should be made to both sexesfor equal accomplishment, while the relative valueof the work done by women and men employed ontime, on the same or similar work, should be

agreed between employers and trade-unions, actingthrough recognised channels of negotiation, as, forinstance, Trade Boards or Joint Industrial Councils.The recommendations take note of the introduction

of women to do work hitherto performed by men,the onus of proving that the women’s work isinferior to the men’s work lying with the employer;and if, in order to maintain the principle of equalpay for equal work, it is essential to employ menand women of the same grade, capacity, and

training, equal pay is found not to attract the samegrade of man as of woman, then the difference ofattractiveness, it is suggested, may be counter-acted by the payment to married men of children’sallowances. It is unnecessary to medical readers todwell on the vital importance of this recommenda-tion. A valuable memorandum from Dr. JANETCAMPBELL upon the health of women in industryfollows the majority recommendations of the

Committee, from which Mrs. SYDNEY WEBB alonedissents in a minority report. Mrs. WEBB dwellson the industrial chaos produced by the war, rejectsthe principle of individual bargaining and theformula " equal pay for equal work," and recom-mends the adjustment of money wages to meetincreases in cost of living, and the adoption of theprinciple that there must be closer correspondenceof occupational rates,to relative efforts and needs.Mrs. WEBB’s able document indicts the Governmentfor ignoring the pledge given to women that, wheresubstituted for men in the performance of war

work, they should receive the same pay.The relation of men’s and women’s wages

being clearly dependent in large measure on therelative health and physical capacity of the twosexes-for physical and industrial efficiency aremutually interdependent-the medical issues raisedby the inquiry are thus fundamental, andDr. JANET CAMPBELL has dealt with them

thoroughly. After discussing. the general andphysiological considerations arising out of thephysical development of women, the function of

maternity, the relative amount of food required bymen and women respectively, and the particularbearing of industrial fatigue and its causes in relationto women, Dr. CAMPBELL outlines the conditionsin which women were employed prior to the war.It is difficult to differentiate the effect of employ-ment upon the health of the woman worker fromthe effect of social conditions in general-indeed,Dr. CAMPBELL says that it is admitted to be impos-sible to obtain particulars of the occupational death-rates of women, and not easy to state definitely theailments which arise directly from employment;but she comes to the conclusion that while the con-ditions of work have been such as not to causeactual disablement and disease, they have favouredgeneral constitutional ill-health and lowered powerof resistance. Women have been attracted by theconditions of work yielding relatively high pay,and neither they nor their employers have appre-ciated the serious damage to health which mightpossibly result. This is a state of things whichexisted before war employment exaggerated itseffects. The incidence of sickness among women wasrevealed for the first time under the operationsof the National Health Insurance Act, when aremarkable frequency of minor and major sicknessamong girls and young women came to light. The

Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit

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Claims, appointed under the National InsuranceAct to inquire into alleged excessive claims in

regard to sickness benefit, showed a great deal ofanaemia and debility directly attributable to the

conditions of employment, and proved that the

impression among medical men that the amountof sickness was greater among women than amongmen was justified beyond a doubt. Further evidencereceived by the War Cabinet Committee has

supported and emphasised the fact. Again, anindication of the injury to health which may followincreased industrialism among women is suggestedby the rise in the tuberculosis death-rate during thewar. A Special Committee of the Medical ResearchCommittee, under the chairmanship of Dr. LEONARDHILL, has, in the columns of THE LANCET,1 dis-cussed recently the high incidence of phthisis inthe urban male population, and Professor BENJAMINMOORE, a member of this Special Committee,pointed out that after the thirtieth year of agethere was found a great preponderance of thedisease among urban males not shared by females,attributing the circumstance to the conditions ofdaily occupation. Since 1914 the mortality rate oftuberculosis among urban women is shown by Dr.T. H. C. STEVENSON, Superintendent of Statistics,General Register Office, in a review of the vitalstatistics of the country for, 1916, to have under-gone substantial increase, and there is no doubtthat the subjection of women., at a susceptibleage, to increased risks of infection has had a

serious outcome. Dr. JANET CAMPBELL’s generalconclusions cannot be summed up by statingthat the average woman is physically weakerthan the average man, but her opinion that shecannot compete with him satisfactorily in opera-tions requiring considerable physical strength willbe generally accepted. Competition between theaverage man and the average woman in operationsof even a less arduous and exacting character maybe detrimental to the woman’s health, in that herpower of endurance and her reserve energy are

usually less than a man’s, while she is often obligedto spend time and strength on domestic tasks whichdo not fall to his lot. That is the great point, andthis valuable report teems with information to usall as to the various social difficulties whichunderlie the situation, their causes, their fosteringinfluences, and their remedies.

The Hygienic Conscience in Rela-tion to Coal-getting.

THE Coal Industry. Commission as they proceedwith their deliberations are clearly establishing onefundamental matter—viz., the absence of reliableand scientifically collected information relatingto the social conditions and well-being of miners,and yet, after agriculturists, they form numeri-cally the largest industrial group in the kingdom.When the question of their hours of labour was underreview no information was forthcoming as to theinterdependence in the mining industry of fatigueand output; or as to the effect upon workingcapacity of the high humid temperature often

THE LANCET, Nov. 9th (p. 618) and 16th (p. 680), 1918.

existing in mines. The housing conditions are

now admitted to be bad, but no investigationhas established the number of miners’ familiesdomiciled in, one, two, three, or four rooms; butthe conditions were drawn attention to inCHADWICK’S reports as long ago as 1842. Beat

knee, beat hand, and beat elbow occur, but theirdistribution according to process is not workedout. The miner is compensated, the owner isinsured ; there the matter ends. The miner worksin darkness, and may say with Wen T’ien-hsing :"My dungeon is lighted by the will-o’-the-wispalone; no breath of spring cheers the murkysolitude in which I dwell"; nystagmus follows;the miner is compensated; the owner is insured ;no remedy is found. Explosions and accidentsoccur, and these are considered in a fashion.They are intimately associated with getting thecoal upon which dividends and royalties depend,and they must be kept in check somehow.Evidence is presented that the mortality -of

miners, apart from accidents, compares not un-

favourably with that of agriculturists. True ; butmortality rates do not tell of oscillating eyeballsand crooked joints. Compare rather a miner70 years of age-there are a few-with an agri.cultural labourer of that age. Yet evidence hasdeclared that the miner must once have been strongin wind and limb in order to have become a miner.

Appeals to statistics resemble the waters of the

Dead Sea-buoyant, indeed, but brackish: no

amount of figures will make us think well of thesocial conditions at present existent in the miningindustry. Whatever step may be taken with regardto the nationalisation of mines, we would urgewith all emphasis that immediate action be takenon the lines suggested by Dr. FRANK SHUFFLEBOTHAM,who gave evidence out of his experience in theMinistry of Munitions. His recommendationswere :-

1. That provision be made for reducing the temperatureof hot seams in the coal-mines, and that a temperature ofgreater than 770 (Fahr.) (wet bulb) be regarded as injuriousto the health of the worker.

2. That the question of increased candle-power of theminers’ safety lamp be considered without delay.

3. That the housing question of miners be dealt with in apractical way, and with all possible speed.

4. That investigations be made by a Research Committeeas to the causation and prevention of miners’ diseases.

5. That means be taken to ensure the best possible after-treatment for miners who sustain injuries or contractdiseases which are directly due to their employment in themines.

The first of these recommendations embodiesthe actual standard adopted in France, and everyone of them requires only a moment’s attentionto see that it embodies a practical reform.That improvements in conditions of labour are

possible of attainment under State control has

recently been demonstrated by the pioneer work ofthe Ministry of Munitions during only three years.Workers were housed; canteens were erected;washing accommodation and cloak-rooms were

provided; personal supervision was established;and doctors working whole-time were appointedto different factories, directed in their work by amedical headquarters staff associated with a