Various attempts have been made to calculate the minimum sum required by a woman living independently of relatives to maintain herself in decency and with a meagre degree of comfort. The estimates point to a sum of from 14s. 6d. to 15s. a week as the minimum requirement, and this assumes that the worker possesses knowledge, which she has probably in fact had no chance to acquire, of how best to spend her money and satisfy her wants in the order not of her own immediate desires, but of their social importance. At present prices the minimum would be 17s. or 18s. In the light of this estimate we may note that in the clothing trade group, for example, 25·9 per cent of those returned earned less than 10s. per week, and applying this percentage to the total number as shown by the Factory Returns to have been employed in this particular industry in 1907, namely, 432,668, we arrive at the conclusion that no fewer than 111,681 women were in receipt of wages which, measured by a not very exacting standard, were grossly inadequate. The figures with which we have been dealing are, however, those for a week of full time. No allowance has been made for sickness or holidays, and what is more important, short time or slackness. Almost every trade fluctuates throughout the year, and in many cases this fluctuation is considerable. For example, in the Dress, Millinery (workshop) Section the wages paid in the month of August were only 78 per cent of the monthly average, or, for London alone, 66 per cent. Though short time in one month is partially offset by overtime in another, there is but little doubt that in most trades and in most years the balance comes out on the wrong side, and, properly studied, the Wage Census volumes reveal the fact that unemployment and short time are important factors when considering women's wages from the point of view of the maintenance of decent conditions of living. In many respects the wages for a full-time week which we have so far been considering are indeed an artificial figure. High weekly wages in a trade where there is much slackness may obviously be less than the equivalent of low wages in a trade where conditions are steadier. If we are to consider wages in relation to the needs of the worker, therefore, it is the year rather than the week which should be taken as the unit. For many reasons, however, earnings _per year_ are extremely difficult to determine, and nothing more than an approximation is practicable.