But it often happens that neither the time wage worker nor the piece wage worker has any say in the matter at all, for the very simple reason that the introduction of the machine enables the employer to “slack the lot” and replace them by girls who are only machine minders. And we have already seen what the effect of women’s and girls’ labor has on wages. Besides, Trade Unionism is weaker among women than among men, because, as most women regard industrial employment as merely a temporary expedient to keep them going until they get married, they will not take the duty of combination as seriously as the men, who know that they will be industrial employees all their lives. In the Lancashire weaving industry, where women do not retire from the factory when they marry, the women’s unions are as strong as the men’s. In the long run the reserves of the employer are so much greater than those of the employees that though John Stuart Mill’s statement in the middle of last century that the wage workers had not benefited by the introduction of machinery is no longer quite true, yet they have gained so little in comparison with the prodigiously greater national output from the machines, that it is putting it very mildly to say that they have not only not gained but lost ground heavily relatively to the capitalists. 50 DIVIDE AND GOVERN The weakness of Trade Unionism was that the concessions wrung from the employers when trade was good were taken back again when trade was bad, because, as the employers commanded the main national store of spare money, they could always stop working without starving for longer than their employees. The Trade Unions soon had to face the fact that unless they could get the concessions fixed and enforced by law, they were certain to lose by the lock-outs all they gained by the strikes. At the same time they saw that Parliament had put a permanent stop to the sweating of very young children in factories; and though, as I have explained, their members had been driven by poverty to object to this reform, nevertheless it convinced them that Parliament, if it liked, could fix any reform so firmly that the employers could not go back on it. They wanted a permanent reduction in the then monstrous length of the factory working day. The cry for a reduction to eight hours was set up. At first it seemed an unattainable ideal; and it is still very far from being completely attained. But a ten hours day for women and children and young persons seemed reasonable and possible. As to the men, they were told they were grown-up independent Britons, and that it would be an outrage on British liberty to prevent an Englishman from working as long as he liked. But when the women and young children go home the factory engine is stopped, because its work cannot go on without them. When the engine stops the men may as well go home too, as their work cannot go on without the engine. So the men got the factory