People who have no practical experience are apt to think that economists are theorising in speaking of "customary" wage. It will be said that the steady replacing of hand labour by machinery, and of old machines by improved machines, breaks up the continuity of wages, and weakens the element of custom. A simple illustration from a trade I know very well will show how far this is true. In the cotton thread trade, spooling--that is, winding the thread on the small bobbin familiar to every work-basket--was for many years done by women sitting at single machines not unlike sewing machines, filling one spool at a time. The customary wage was sixpence per gross of 200-yard spools; a good worker could spool at least four gross per day, and make twelve shillings a week. As in all industries, machinery was gradually introduced by which cunning arrangements of mechanism did the greater part of the work; instead of turning out one spool at a time the girl now watched the machine turning out six, or nine, or twelve spools. When these machines were introduced, how were the wages determined? For a few weeks the girls were put on day wages, and when the machines were in good working order, and the average production per machine had been ascertained, the piece-work rate was fixed so as to allow of the girl making the same average wage as she did before. That is to say, if the new machine turned out in the same time six gross for every one gross turned out by the hand machine, the price of labour per gross was reduced from sixpence to one penny, and the wage continued at the customary level. So far as sacrifice or skill goes, there was no reason why the worker should get more, as, on the whole, it required less skill and attention to turn out the six gross than it did to turn out the one. Thus it is, I believe, over all the textile manufactures, with the exception, perhaps, of weaving. The introduction of new processes displaces labour, but the labour left does not get higher wages. This, then, is the first conclusion I would come to: that in more cases than we would believe the wage of women-workers is a "customary wage," fixed at a time when the world was poorer, and capital was more powerful. This conclusion is, I think, strengthened by the case which, at first sight, would seem to refute it. The great outstanding exception to low wages in women's industries is, as before noted, in the Lancashire weaving. There, not only are the rates of piece-work the same, but men and women do exactly the same work side by side, practically under the same Factory Act restrictions, and earn equal wages, namely, an average of from 17s. 1d. in Carlisle to 21s. 4d. in Burnley.