The following is a list of the average wages paid for different kinds of factory work in London.

Artificial flowers    8 to 12 shillings. 
Bookbinding           9 "  11      "
Boxmaking             8 "  16      "
Brushes               8 "  15      "
Caps                  8 "  16      "
Collars              11 "  15      "
Confectionery         8 "  14      "
Corsets               8 "  16      "
Fur-sewing            7 "  14      "
Fur-sewing in winter  4 "   7      "
Matches               8 "  13      "
Rope                  8 "  11      "
Umbrellas            10 "  18      "

These are ordinary wages.  Very good or industrious workers are said to get in some cases 20 per cent, more; unskilful or idle workers less.

It must be borne in mind that these sums represent a full week’s work.  The importance of this qualification will appear presently.

It is obvious at a glance that these wages are for the most part considerably lower than those paid for any regular form of male labour.  But there is another fact which adds to the significance of this.  Skilled labour among men is much more highly paid than unskilled labour.  Among women’s industries this is not the case to any great extent.  Skilled work like that of book-folding is paid no higher than the almost unskilled work of the jam or match girl.  This is said to be due partly to the fact that the lower kinds of work are done by girls and women who are compelled to support themselves, while the higher class is done by women partly kept by husband or father, partly to the pride taken in the performance of more skilled work, and the reluctance to mingle with women belonging to a lower stratum of society, which prevents the wages of the various kinds of work from being determined by free economic competition.  A bookbinding girl would sooner take lower wages than engage in an inferior class of work which happened to rise in the market price of its labour.  But whatever the causes may be, the fact cannot be disputed that the lower rates of wages extend over a larger proportion of women workers.

Again, the wages quoted above refer to workers in factories.  But only three women’s trades of any importance are managed entirely in factories, the cigar, confectionery, and match-making[34] trades.  In many of the other trades part of the work is done in factories, part is let out to sweaters, or to women who work at their own homes.  Many of the clothing trades come under this class, as for example, the tie-making, trimmings, corset-making trades.  The employers in these trades are able to play the out-doors workers against the indoors workers, so as to keep down the wages of both to a minimum.  The “corset” manufacture is fairly representative of these trades.  The following list gives the per-centage of workers receiving various sums for “indoors” i.e. “factory” work.

       s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. 
  Under 4 3—­6 8—­10 10—­12 12—­15 Over 15
 2.94 p.c. 50 p.c. 2.94 p.c. 5.9 p.c. 14.7 p.c. 22.52 p.c.