f other
textile work not nearly so well paid. It is beyond doubt the power of
the joint union of male and female weavers that alone maintains these
wages for women. The same is the explanation of the equality of wages
paid to men and women in the Sheffield file-making.

"But what if the Union should break down? It is as certain as anything
based on experience can be, that in a few weeks, or even days, it
would be possible for the employers to reduce the wages of the
women-weavers; that rather than lose their work, women would consent
to the reduction; that as they accepted lower wages, men would drop
off to other industries, and would cease to compete for the same
work; and that in a comparatively short time power-loom weaving would
be left, like its sister, cotton-spinning, to women workers
exclusively, and wages fall to the general level of women's
wages."[262] Where these conditions of strong combination in trades
unions do not exist we find that women's weekly wages fall
considerably below men's in the weaving trades. This is so in most of
the woollen industries of Yorkshire, and still more in the minor and
more scattered textile work in other counties.[263] In the
spinning-mills of Lancashire the women, combined in unions of their
own, are able to obtain wages considerably higher than those which
prevail elsewhere for similar work, though not so high as that of
weavers. The following table, in which spinning and weaving and other
departments are "pooled" for purposes of wages, is sufficient to
indicate the advantage Lancashire women enjoy from their strong
industrial position, as compared on the one hand with average factory
work and wages, on the other hand with the less favourably placed
worsted and linen industries, and even with the woollen.

Weekly Wages. Average.
Cotton. Woollen. Worsted. Linen.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Men 25 3 23 2 23 4 19 9
Lads and boys 9 4 8 6 6 6 6 3
Women 15 3 13 3 11 11 8 11
Girls 6 10 7 5 6 2 4 11[264]

Thus we see that whereas men's wages are nearly the same in the three
chief English industries, women's wages vary widely, yielding a very
great advantage to the Lancashire cotton-workers.

Sec. 12. It cannot, however, reasonably be