more than 25s. per week. Every new introduction of machinery displaces labour, and every improvement therefore may be said to cheapen labour—the labour of home-builders. Formerly, that is before the introduction of machinery, the wage-earner knew what to expect, but to-day he cannot know, and his wife shares his anxieties. So she goes out to work herself. In Lancashire 62 per cent. go out to work, in Manchester and Birmingham 63 per cent, and in Stockport and Dundee the number of outworking women is even greater.
It is clear, however, that all these are not married women. A great many wage-earning women—the majority indeed—are unmarried. School-teachers, journalists, domestic servants, shop-assistants, and a great army of producers in an infinite number of trades—among these are many women who support their parents, and fatherless children or orphaned children. They are out in the world, and are bread-winners, not because they chose to labour in this way, but because the conditions of modern industrial life have compelled them. Woe to them if they hesitate!
I have in my mind the sad case of a noble, womanly woman, skilled in all womanly arts, left to struggle alone with her young orphan children. She sewed, she cooked, she kept her home as clean as a jewel; she nursed and tended and taught her little ones. She earned money, too, by taking in washing and going out to cook sometimes, and she died of exhaustion and semi-starvation at last. Her case is not a very uncommon one. A home may be a necessity, but for many it is a luxury. "She should
