the knowledge that such a fund exists helps in itself to prevent the occasion for its employment arising. The general public has little idea of the extent to which unscrupulous employers take advantage of the helpless position of working women. So widely separated are classes in this country that a man may grind the faces of the poor and pass for a saint among those of his own class. An employer remarked recently to a friend who was advocating unions for women that they were not necessary in his factory, as the women had already a fund to which they subscribed. Further questioning elicited the fact that the “fund” was derived from fines wrung from the women, and was managed entirely by the employers. The firm is known for zeal and munificence in connection with religious bodies, and the case is by no means an isolated one. It is impossible to read the Report of the Lady Assistant Commissioners without becoming convinced that combination is absolutely necessary, if working women are to secure a reasonable modification of the scandalous fines and deductions to which their wages are subjected. The extent to which these iniquities prevail is now fully revealed for the first time, and if the unions could attack this one point alone with success they would have done much to raise the economic status of working women. =Attitude of Men’s Unions.=--Much may be hoped for the future of unionism among women, from the increased support which it receives from the leaders of men’s unions; indeed, it is not too much to say that herein lies the key to the position. It has often been cast in the teeth of Trades Unionists that while struggling for freedom for themselves they have regarded with indifference the economic position of their working sisters, and have exerted their influence rather for the restriction of women’s labour than for the improvement of its conditions. It is a question, however, whether unionism in its early years, struggling hard to maintain its existence, could have undertaken the additional burden of organising the women. Sometimes the objections raised to women’s work were exceedingly flimsy, and it is small credit to a section of working men that they have shown themselves ready to raise the cry of impropriety, and even immorality, against women upon grounds which cannot bear the test of examination. Even were the conditions of women’s work such as ought not to be tolerated (and no one who knows the facts would say that this is never the case), the true cure lies in the formation of unions among the women, since one of the first things which a strong union would do is to stand out for decent arrangements and reasonable conditions of work. The general public often joins in and swells the cry against some particular employment for women, instead of casting about to see if its defects cannot be remedied. Thus, when the agitation was raised a few years ago against the employment of women at the pit brows in Lancashire, the