It is quite true, as the suffragists so constantly tell us, that the only states having eight-hour laws for women in industry are woman suffrage states. But it is true, too, that the eight-hour laws of California, Oregon, and Washington, of which so much is heard, are not to be taken at their face value, since they do not cover the canning industry, which is the chief industry in all those states. It is true, also, that what is considered by experts the most advanced step in protective legislation for women in industry, the prohibition of night work, has been taken only in male suffrage states. In Massachusetts and Nebraska the laws provide for a 54-hour week for women in industry, provide for one day's rest in seven, and prohibit night work. Will any one deny that these laws are infinitely better for women in industry than the boasted eight-hour law of Colorado, under which it is permissible for a woman to work nights and Sundays and 56 hours a week? Now as to the question of "fair wages." The suffragists tell us that women in industry are entitled to equal pay with men, and that this will follow upon the heels of woman suffrage. Here again we have experience to guide us, and we find upon investigation that in no state has the ratio between men's and women's wages been affected by doubling the electorate. Dr. Helen Sumner, who made a thorough investigation of this point, says in her book entitled _Equal Suffrage:_ "Taking the public employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerably less remuneration than men. It is the old story of supply and demand in the commercial world, and suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages of either men or women. The wages of men and women in all fields of industry are governed by economic conditions." By tables carefully compiled, Dr. Sumner shows that in Colorado, women in private employment receive an average of only 47 per cent of the average of men's wages, while in the United States as a whole the average for women is 55.3 per cent of the average for men, and in Massachusetts, where woman suffrage was recently defeated by nearly two to one in the largest vote in the state's history, women receive 62 cents for every 100 cents paid to men in wages. No one can deny, of course, that the wages of women in industry average considerably lower than those of men. But the reasons for this are found entirely outside of politics. The average girl is a transient in industry, going into it as a temporary expedient to tide her over until she attains her natural desire, which is to marry, settle down, and raise a family. She is, therefore, not so good an investment for her employer as the boy who works beside her, who has gone into the business with the idea of making it his life work, and who has a stronger incentive to make himself more valuable.