It would seem, therefore, clearly to be in the true interest of workmen to promote such legislation and such methods of organization as will afford to women the same vantage-ground as men. A good deal of nonsense is talked and written about men’s unions trampling on women’s labour. It is not to women’s labour as such that the unions are opposed; but they know from long experience that labour, whether it be men’s or women’s, that yields to the slightest pressure, and whose remuneration is subject to no given standard of living or efficiency, is the greatest danger that they could have to meet. To blame men for their action in trying to apply to women’s labour the conditions which they have found absolutely essential to their own well-being, is really to deny their own organizations any validity. It seems to me very certain that by resisting the levelling down which would follow any surrender of the standard of living as the minimum gauge of wages the men’s unions have been fighting not only against the degradation of labour generally, but for a better status for women’s labour. CHAPTER VI. _INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON HEALTH._ Economic Importance of Health--Causes of Ill-health--TEXTILE TRADES--COTTON: Steaming, Sizing, and Fluff--Children: Dr. Tarrop’s Report--LINEN: Dr. Purdon’s Report--Deaths of Belfast Mill-workers--Mortality among Women--SHODDY, SILK, and LACE--OTHER TRADES--POTTERY MANUFACTURE--WHITE LEAD: Examples of Injurious Effects--Effect on Offspring--Greater Susceptibility of Women--White Lead in other Manufactures--LUCIFER MATCH TRADE--VENTILATION IN FACTORIES. § =Economic Importance of Health.=--The economics of industry from the point of view of wealth have quite a literature of their own; but the more vital standpoint of health has been almost entirely overlooked by the economist, the sociologist, and the physiologist. It is a singular oversight, for one would have thought that the conservation of industrial energy was a tolerably important element in the field of production. But, along with certain other large assumptions, we seem to have reckoned upon an inexhaustible supply of labour. It may be considered somewhat fanciful to assume anything else when in most trades the supply of labour exceeds the demand, and machinery increasingly takes the place of physical labour. The number of the labourers who present themselves is not, however, the only matter for consideration, the quality of their labour is of the most material importance. It is a matter of the greatest moment to secure well-developed and healthy people for the industrial army.