It is urged also that if women are hindered by legislation from
fulfilling the demands of their occupation, the result will be, not that
they are protected in their occupation, but that the occupation is
protected against them. The remedy in this case is certainly difficult,
but not impossible to find. Let only the tenth part of the energy now
used in agitation for the free right of women to labour be employed in
preparing women for such labour as they are suited to undertake. But
even when this cannot be done protective legislation carries with it its
own corrective. It is always urged that the occupation will be destroyed
by protective legislation. Then new methods and new machines will be
invented to replace cheap labour power. Those who are protected often
themselves complain that they suffer economically under protective
legislation, but a long experience will show them how, through the
reciprocal effects of all factors in production, the temporary failures
will be balanced. A potent remedy for this effect of protective
legislation may be looked for in the assertion, found in the programmes
of all labour parties, of the right of the unemployed to have work, and
a fixed minimum wage. These demands along with that for a normal working
day, in which is included rest at night and rest on Sunday, and other
measures for the protection of workingmen against accident and old age,
are the chief methods by which the labour question, both for men and
women, will be solved. Until these aims are realised Ruskin's judgment
on modern industrialism which kills the real humanity in man holds good
both for men and for women. We make, he says, everything except real
men; we bleach cotton; we harden and improve steel; we refine sugar; we
make porcelain and print books; but to refine a single living soul, to
reform it, to improve it never enters into our reckoning of profit.
The women of the working classes must continue to endure the suffering,
to bear the dangers, to subject themselves to the forces which
solidarity in this great struggle implies. Only under these conditions
can men as well as women elevate themselves, partly by their own
combination, partly by the extension of the principle, more and more
coming to be recognised, that society, through its legislation, can
determine the conditions under which its members work. So will be
produced conditions of life and of work worthy of mankind,--a
healthier, stronger, and more beautiful race. In this ever continuing
progress every part is related to every other part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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