The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-04-12

Women as well as men are suffering
| from lack of employment. Many
women are casual or irregularly en-
ployed workers; many women's trades
are peculiarly seasonal fluctuations.
That some provision for unemployed
women, as distinguished from unem-
ployed men, is required, can be doubted
by no person acquainted with the con-
ditions of industrial life; and if such
provision is to be really helpful it must
he built-just as any such provision for
men needs to be-upon basis of care
full examination and classification.
Certain differences in the industrial
positions of men and women were
recently dealt with by Miss Wyatt
Papworth who pointed out: a. The
way of escape provided for women by
various forms of domestic service; (2)
the fact that, because many women
are not dependent upon their own
earnings. the wages of women often
tend to be calculated upon what may
be termed parasitic" basis; (3) the
willingness of women to accept forms
of work and rates of pay to which men
will not stoop. Touching lightly upoIs
the facts that the total proportion OK
employed women to that of employed
men slightly but steadily declines,
while that of women in factory work
increases, the paper went on to classify
unemployed women under four heads:
~ Casual or irregular workers; (2)
workers in season trades; (3) workers
not wanted in the callings they at
tempt; az workers personally defec-
tive or economically inefficlent-a group
which might include "large numbers Of
women over forty" With the genuine
ly idle-the female counterpart of the
loafer and the tramp-Miss Papworth
did not deal; and the omission is just,
for such women soon drop out of even
the lowest ranks of labor; their case
forms, indeed, a serious social problem,
but the problem is not industrial.
Next came references to the various
existing agencies for meeting the trou-
BILE, and remark upon the necessarily
misleading character of statistics de-
rived from reglstries and employment
bureaus, as at present arranged, since
the figures cannot possibly show either
the degree of overlapping or the degree
to which the clients of these institu-
tions are merely actuated by desire for
change of employment.
None of these agencies, however,
most of which exist for other ends
can claim to have solved the problem.
Miss Papworth classifies suggested
remedies under three heads: a. Those
dealing with improved conditions of
work; (2) those dealing with improved
education and training; (3) those deal
ing with the provision of work or Of
opportunities. 1t was justly pointed
out that physical degeneracy is the
most irremedal cause, and the effect
also, of unemployment. Therefore any
thing that is done TO improve the ma
tional physique is a direct contribu-
tion" toward the solution of the prob
lem. Among such measures were noted
the prevention of child labor, and the
leveling up of the conditions of home
work by registration and inspection.
Shortened hours and better pay con-
duce also to physical efficiency.
What we need, first OF all, is to bring
order into the chaos OF industrial COM
petition, to make, as Germany has
made, centres OF communication be-
tween the work seeking worker and the
work-seeking employment. Clemen-
tina Black, in the London Chronicle.