=Factory and Home Work.=--Trades carried on wholly in factories have hitherto proved the most amenable to combination. Low wages and irregular employment, though sufficiently serious obstacles, are not so prejudicial as the division of a trade into factory and home work, or the existence of domestic workshops. In those of Cradley Heath, near Birmingham, the isolation of the workers keeps down wages, and the home, instead of being saved by the workshop, as some would have us believe, is, upon the testimony of Miss Orme, Senior Assistant Commissioner, almost always “desolate.” Where work is done wholly at home it is difficult to bring influence to bear upon the women to induce them to combine, and yet it is here that combination is most necessary, since the workers have neither the support of companionship nor the protection of the Factory Acts. With regard to domestic workshops, it seems probable that legislation will in time bring these irregular divisions of the labour army into line with the main body. The first step has already been taken in the regulation which compels employers to post up a list of their outworkers. All progress in this direction is an aid to combination. In the joint influence of legislation and unionism, aided where necessary by a more efficient system of inspection, lies the chief hope of improvement in the less fortunate branches of labour. An evil which appears to belong exclusively to women’s labour is the custom, prevalent among girls whose parents are fairly well off, of working for pocket-money. Even where the parents are poor the cheapness of boarding at home often induces girls to work for a rate of wages which would be cruelly low for those who have to maintain themselves entirely. Miss Collet’s report to the Labour Commission lays great stress on this point. In Bristol, girls working in a cigar factory often earn no more than 7_s._ 6_d._ or 9_s._ a week, pay 4_s._ or 5_s._ to their parents for weekly board, and seem “quite content” with their low wages. The disastrous effect of this policy upon the general standard of women’s wages needs no explanation. It is sufficient to point out here that the practice forms a serious obstacle to successful combination among women.