The English midwives are vehemently complaining because the new Midwives Act will be deliberated on by a commission having no midwife as a member. The superintendent of the London Institute for Midwives has protested against this on behalf of 26,000 midwives.
Another woman, Octavia Hill, participated in the official inquiry of the living conditions of the London East End, which led to a systematic campaign against the slums. This work is at present continued in London by 31 or more women sanitary officers. They supplement the work of the factory inspectors, since they inspect the conditions under which women home-workers live. In the whole country there are more than 80 such women sanitary officers.
The home-workers are mostly women. Half of the 900,000 or more English women engaged in the manufacture of ready-made clothing are permitted to work at home. Their wages are wretchedly low. The government, which pays the men of the Woolwich Arsenal trade-union wages, is one of the worst exploiters of women (who do not have the right to vote); in the Army Clothing Works the government employs women either directly or indirectly (as home-workers through sweaters).[50]
The urgent need of widening woman’s field of labor and improving her conditions of labor is clearly stated in a lecture which Miss B. L. Hutchins delivered before the Royal Statistical Society. According to the census of 1901 there were 1,070,000 more women than men in Great Britain. In 1901, of every 1000 persons 516 were women (in 1841, only 511 were women). The longevity of women is higher than that of men (47.77 to 44.13). When the old age pensions were introduced, 135 women to every 100 men applied for aid. Only half of the adult women (5,700,000) are provided for through marriage, and then only for 20 to 30 years of their lives. Previous to marriage, and afterward, most of the women are dependent on their own work for a living. Because English women know from experience that their conditions of labor can be improved only through the exercise of the suffrage, they have adopted their “militant tactics.”
In the field of poor-relief England again has taken the lead, inasmuch as she has permitted women to fill honorary posts in the municipal administration of the poor-law. At the present time 1162 women are engaged in this work, 147 of whom are rural district councillors.
The chief reform efforts of the women were directed to the care of children and to the workhouses, through which channels private aid reaches the recipient. Still, among 22,000 guardians of the poor the number of women hardly reaches 1000. The old prejudice against women asserted itself even in this field. A “Society for Promoting the Return of Women as Poor-law Guardians” is endeavoring to hasten reform.[51]
The Englishman has the valuable characteristic of forming organizations that strive to achieve very definite, though often temporary, ends, thus giving private initiative great flexibility. Such an organization, with a limited purpose, is the “Woman’s Coöperative Gild,” founded in 1883. Its purpose is to promote the coöperative movement (as far as consumption is concerned) among women, and to show them their enormous social and economic power as consumers. Women are the chief purchasers, as they purchase the housekeeping supplies. It is to their interest to purchase through the coöperative associations that exclude the middlemen, and at the end of the year pay a dividend to the members of the associations. These associations can exercise an important social influence inasmuch as they create model conditions of labor for their employees (short working day, high wages, early closing of the shops, no work on Sundays or holidays, opportunity to sit down during working hours, insurance against sickness, old age insurance, sanitary conditions of labor, etc.). The Gild organizes women into coöperative societies, and by theoretical as well as practical studies informs the women of the advantages of the coöperative system. The movement to-day numbers 26,000 members.
In England a marked increase in the use of alcoholic liquors among women was noticed; whereupon legal and medical measures were taken to curb the evil. The most effective measure would be an attack on the drunkenness of the husband, which destroys the home.
The official report of the first English school for mothers, located in St. Pancras, London, has just appeared. This report shows that the experiment has been entirely successful. Of all measures to decrease the death rate among children, the establishment of schools for mothers is the best. During the course of instruction the young married women were recommended to organize mothers’ clubs in order to secure the necessaries of life more cheaply. The school for mothers also attempts to give the young mothers nourishing meals, which can be furnished for the low sum of 2¾ pence (about 6 cents).
In the field of morals English women have achieved a success which might well excite the envy of other countries; viz. the repeal of the law of 1869 concerning the state regulation of prostitution. The law had hardly been accepted by an accidental majority when public opinion, under the leadership of members of Parliament, doctors, and preachers, protested against the measure. Nothing made such an impression as the public appearance of a woman on behalf of the repeal of this measure concerning women. In spite of all scorn, all feigned and frequently malicious pretensions not to comprehend her, in spite of all attempts, frequently brutal, to browbeat her,—Josephine Butler from 1870 to 1886 unswervingly supported the view that the regulation was to be condemned from the legal, sanitary, and moral viewpoint. Through the tireless work of Mrs. Butler and her faithful associates, Parliament in 1886 repealed the act providing for the regulation of prostitution. Since 1875, Mrs. Butler has organized internationally the struggle against the official regulation of prostitution. On December 30, 1906, death came to the noble woman.