[254] It must, however, be borne in mind that the results of such a policy followed by Lancashire, or any other single part of the textile industry of the world, would be qualified or even negatived if the example was not followed by their competitors. [255] This effect of industrial opportunities for women and children in promoting early and more fruitful marriages is also illustrated in Lancashire; the average family of the factory operative is considerably higher than the average for the working classes as a whole. [256] Gunton, _Wealth and Progress_, p. 169. [257] _Report of the Statistics of Labour_, p. 71. [258] Dr. Smart has a valuable treatment of the subject in his pamphlet, _Women's Wages_, pp. 22-25. [259] _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i. p. 469. [260] _Labour and Life of the People_, vol. i. p. 460. [261] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 459; cf. also p. 469. [262] Smart, _Woman's Wages_, p. 23. [263] In some cases where women are found getting the same rate of wages as men, the industry is a woman's industry in which a few lower-skilled or inferior male workers are employed. The woman's scale dominates, the men who are employed descending to it. This is the case in some weaving trades where men work still almost entirely with hand-looms, leaving women with a practical monopoly of power-loom work. (_Report of Woollen Manufactures in Miscellaneous English Towns_, pp. 98, 99.) Where both men and women are freely engaged in the same class of work, the men are always (save in the area of the Lancashire trade unions) paid at higher rates: where the same rates are paid they are determined upon the woman's scale. The comparison between Huddersfield and other cloth-making towns in Yorkshire establishes this point. "In the cloth mills of these three districts, Bradford, Huddersfield, and Leeds, men and women engaged upon the same work at the looms receive the same pay. In the Huddersfield district the proportion of men to women among the weavers is much greater than it is in the districts of Bradford, Halifax, or Leeds, and in the Huddersfield districts alone there is a weaver's scale, according to which women are paid from 15 to 50 per cent. below men. The proportion of women is, however, rapidly increasing; and I found many firms where the scale is not in operation. At some places men and women were paid alike _upon the woman's scale_. At other firms men were paid at a slightly higher rate than women, the women's scale being the basis of calculation for all classes of work." (Miss Abraham in _Reports on Employment of Women to the Labour Commission_, p. 100.) [264] _Report on Principal Textile Trades_, p. xxv. [265] The evidence adduced by Dr. Arlidge in his _Diseases of Occupations_ regarding the effects of factory life upon the physique of children is conclusive. See p. 38, etc. [266] See Appendix on Factory Legislation. CHAPTER XIII. MACHINERY AND THE MODERN TOWN.