There are 1,371,426 women laborers in Italy. Their condition is wretched. In agriculture, as well as in the industries, they are given the rough, _poorly paid_ work to do. They are exploited to the extreme. Women straw plaiters have been offered 20 centimes, even as little as 10 centimes (4 to 2 cents), for twelve hours' work. The average daily wage for women is 80 centimes to 1 franc (16 to 20 cents). The maximum is 1 franc 50 centimes (30 cents). The law has fixed the maximum working day for women at twelve hours, and prohibits women under twenty years of age from engaging in work that is dangerous and injurious to health. There are maternity funds for women in confinement, financial aid being given them for four weeks after the birth of the child. Under all these circumstances the organization of women is exceedingly difficult. Even the Socialists have neglected the organization of workingwomen. Socialist propaganda among women agricultural laborers was begun in 1901. In Bologna, in the autumn of 1902, there was held a meeting of the representatives of 800 agricultural organizations (having a total membership of 150,000 men and women agricultural laborers). The constitution of the society is characteristic; many of its clauses are primitive and pathetic. This society is intended to be an educational and moral organization. Women members are exhorted "to live rightly, and to be virtuous and kind-hearted mothers, women, and daughters."[93] It is to be hoped that the task of the women will be made easier through the efforts of the society's male members to make themselves virtuous and kind-hearted fathers, husbands, and sons. Or are moral duties, in this case also, meant only for woman?