=Foreign Competition.=--Foreign competition is often advanced as an argument against raising wages, and it cannot be denied that in some cases it has force. It is safe, however, to say that there is little warrant for its employment in wholesale condemnation of attempts to raise wages in the worst-paid trades. We are told, for instance, that matches made in the east end of London are undersold by the still cheaper products of Sweden; yet match factories often pay high dividends, and it is well known that the profits in a trade bear little relation as a rule to the rate of wages paid to the workers. It is generally found that where work is concentrated in large factories under employers possessed of considerable capital fair wages are obtainable, and the wretched rate of payment which prevails in many of the East London trades is probably due more than is supposed to the hole-and-corner manner in which the business is carried on. Where foreign competition is not pressing, the necessity for producing cheap goods is often urged as a valid reason for abstaining from any efforts to secure reasonable wages for the producers. Desirable, however, as cheapness may be, it is possible to purchase its advantages too dearly. If the effect of combination among workers were to be a rise in the price of matches, slop clothing, or fancy boxes, the consumer would have little cause of complaint, and would soon acquiesce philosophically in the altered condition of things. Nor can purchasers, however well disposed toward the working classes, effect any change on their own account. Such devices as a “Consumers’ League,” whose members would bind themselves to deal only with firms paying a fair rate of wages, must obviously fail, or if conceivably successful must do as much harm as good until our means of obtaining information are much more perfect than they are at present. No such rough-and-ready way of forcing on reforms is of the slightest use; the workers themselves must improve their condition by slow and patient effort. Outsiders may aid and stimulate, but they cannot do the work. DIRECTORY OF WOMEN’S TRADES UNIONS, WITH NUMBER OF MEMBERS, WHERE KNOWN. Unions marked with an asterisk enrol both men and women. The numbers refer to women only. _LONDON UNIONS._ THE WOMEN EMPLOYED IN BOOKBINDING.--Secretary, Miss E. Whyte. 280. SHIRT AND COLLAR MAKERS’ SOCIETY.--Secretary, Mrs. Houlton. 50. UPHOLSTERESSES’ SOCIETY.--Secretary, Miss Mears. 35. Office for the above Societies, Club Union Buildings, Clerkenwell Road, E.C. TAILORESSES’ TRADE UNION.--Westminster and Pimlico Branch. Secretary, Mrs. Cooper, 7, Carnaby Street, W. TAILORESSES’ Auxiliary to the Amalgamated Society of Tailors.--Secretary, Miss Hicks. 260. DRESSMAKERS, MILLINERS, AND MANTLE-MAKERS.--Secretary, Miss Addis, 129, Marylebone Road, N.W. 30.