Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-24
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
SIX AND A HALF MILLIONS
STRUGGLE IN FRANCE.
Inadequate Wages Paid Furnishes
Cheapest Labor in Land Of
the Lily.


played for years past by the Chinaman In
America and the coole In Africa She fur
| nishes the capitalist and employer of labor
| with weapon to be used against herself
and against all employees generally. Her
own urgent need of means of livelihood.
and the limited scope given her. compel her
| to cheaper all labor by accepting a mini
| mrm wage for 'he days work which she is
| only too eager to be allowed to do. Such
are the views set forth by Nine. Daniel
Leseur. by Mile. Marie Laparceri and by
other leaders of the woman's movement in
! Paris
Apart from the essentially feminine work
or sewing, the opening up of the various
! departments of labor to women in France
| is OF comparatively recent date Accord
| ing to the latest census the number of
women now working in the country is
about 6.5OO,0O0. or these nearly 1000 Ocp
| are employed In factories and about 100000
| In trade. In the cloth factories the leather
ana paper works, even in the metal foun-
| dries, the number of women employed in
creases daily. This has, of course, been the
case for mahy years in the United States of
America and Great Britain but essentially
| conservative as the French are the radical
change In the constitution of the home
wrought by the employment of women out
side that home could only be effected
Slowly. In a land where the marriage in
s,tutlon is based upon financial partner
ship. each of the contracting parties con-
tribut1ng his or Ter share of money to
maintain the home. in the face of the in
cfeasing poverty brought about by costly
wars and heavy consequent taxation wom-
en- have found themselves reluctantly COM
PEELED to become wage earners-if not in
order to insure marriage at least to helm
support their families. While debarred in
almost every land from the heavier kinds
OF toil. such as work in mines tending fur
naces, smelling works, etc. the introduce
tion In recent times of machinery into
/ every branch of manufacture has benefited
n Ia
comparatively light work in which care
patience and suppleness are more essential
IMAM physical strength. And for such
| work French women are better fitted than
| French men.
Reduce Value of Labor.
! In thus entering the lists with men wo-
| men have seriously reduced the market
| value of all labor. and are themselves The
| greatest sufferers In consequence COM
| narison of the rate of wages paid 10 the
TWO sexes will show how heavily handf-
capped the weaker are In the struggle for
HE. In agriculture the average daily wag.
| for man Is from frame IS centimes 10 z
francs 10 confines: for a woman If is from
~ centimes to francs. In factories It
averages Tor woman from franc 20 CEN
ZINES 10 $ francs; for man it is double.
| IN Paris the average is a little higher than
| II is In the country. but the proportion -e-
mains fnvariab bic. 1t Is more particularly
In the textile manufactures, where women
total
employed that the sex IL the worst nail
Inc recent strike among the women Weay-
ers on the Belgian frontier has made known
| the painful fact that there are many amo-g
Inc hanos whose weekly wage amounts TO
no more than francs which is the eouIya
lent IN united States money to $1.6O
But this pitifully inadequate wage Is by
no means peculiar to France. In Belgium
Hlne-tehtnS or the women workers earn an
average daily pittance of no more thai, p
francs DO confines 600 cents)-that Is one
i nan OF the wage earned by men: in some
large cities of Germany the ayera pe wapa
OF the female employee is only l franc 10
| centimes for day of eleven hours
Inc wages above mentioned refer only TO
ne ome lowest form OF labor. Turning, how
ever, TO skilled labor. performed by The
more Cultured classes of women the same
CRYING ev1l Is apparent-an are hopeiessIy
uhueIpald. The teaching profession is
H plSe paiu In France. perhaps. than any,
where else, and the modern extension Of
the nigh school system Oycees) has cut the
GROUND from under the feet of a large num-
Der or educated women who used to .,,n
port themselves by giving private leseons
NOW II is by no means uncommon t. hear
L franc an hour go cents) offered for i Ian
suage lesson and many women have been
thankful to accept plain needlework yhicn
by one wholesale house in Paris is given
out to ladies only" The scale of To-
Enumeration paid by this apparently phi!an-
i inso pr llrms is only equaled by the sweat
| ing or certain firms In London Handkrr-
chiets to be neatly hemmed by hand are
paid al the rate of 10 cents a dozen. d,sr
ers, cents a dozen; buffers aprons. of
Haru coarse cloth. at francs (40 cents) a
oozen- French women claim that such
| prices cannot be said to represent a living
wage. and call loudly for reform.
Require No Intoxicants.
The cause of these abuses is variousjy
explained. 1t is generally said to be based
on the fact that the needs of women ara
so much smaller than those of men. Mile.
marie Leparcerie. who is foremost in the
Woinans movement in France, declares
that this Is only specifically true While
1t is the fact that women REQUIRE less sinh
stantial food than men. and that tobacco
and drink do not enter into their daily ex-
pendlture' It Is also true, says Mile. La
parcerle, that almost every woman in
France has somebody dependent on her
aged parents, young children, helpless
brothers or sisters. and yet what en-
pioyer of labor ever takes such consdera-
tons as these into account? The wage of
the woman remains stationary, notwith-
standing her needs In Mile. Laparce. les
opinion the real cause is that the openings
Tor women are still tCo few, and that the
sex has rot yet learned the value Of asso-
citation. Conscious only of her own press
ing individual needs, woman accepts the
starvation wage held out to her and by so
doing destroys herself and her sister work
crs.
The motto of the French syndicates "To
equal work, equal wage" must perhaps
eAiStliS COlluliloES De considered
Utopian, and yet something might be done
by judicious legislation. Interna tional
treaties Ike that o. 1889. in which Swift ger
land took the initiative, or that of Berlin.
which followed shortly after. did some thing
toward regulating the conditions of labor,
principally from the point of view of n.y.
gfene The labor conference al Basic dur
ing last summer also accomplished useful
work The" eX-minister of commerce, NJ
Millerand, has still more recently called
public attention to the urgent need of fur
Their regulation of the female labor market.
and In the front rank of reforms called for
he places the question OF night labor Bur
unril the women themselves make an eff
fort in the right direction little good win
be achieved The only real cure for the
evil is association, and this is the great
principle that now guides the womens
movements I'm France