A woman ought not to work for the last three months of her pregnancy or during the three months after her child is born. Further, if the child is to be fed as Nature intended it should not be weaned until about the seventh or eighth month of its life.
What cognizance does the law now take of these simple physiological facts? The Factory Act is not aware that pregnancy precedes childbirth. It recognizes, however, that children are born, and provides that the occupier of a factory or laundry shall not allow a woman to be employed "within four weeks after she has given birth to a child." Thus a feeble attempt is made to protect the working mother for a month after childbirth, but no law whatever protects the child. It is legal for the mother to go back to the factory on the twenty-ninth day and leave the child to take its pitiful chance.
The "four week" provision is largely a dead letter. How is an employer to "know," when a woman applies to him for work, that she bore a child a fortnight before her application? And who shall blame the woman for seeking work, when she must work or starve? Miss A. M. Anderson, Principal Lady Inspector of Factories, gives the following three cases found in a single town in one week's inquiry:—[42]
A. B., aged 24, unmarried, jute worker, had to leave work, being unfit, seven weeks before confinement. Became destitute, and found work with new employer, saying nothing about the baby. Earns 9s. 8d. per week.
C. D., aged 34, married, jute spinner; the child illegitimate. Went back to work three weeks after childbirth. The new employer knew nothing of the confinement.
F. F., aged 32, married, jute spinner. Went back to work in 15 days—to a new employer. Earns 11s. to 12s. per week. Father out of work and disappeared one week after the birth. The woman's mother "takes care" of the new baby and two other children, the eldest of whom earns 8s. a week in a jute mill. Thus 19s. or so per week supports two adults and three children. They all live in a single room which is very dirty.
In spite of an overwhelming mass of evidence as to the devastating effect of the employment in factories and workshops of pregnant women and mothers, the Physical Deterioration Committee's recommendations on the subject were exceedingly timid. They appear to have been impressed with the terrible consequences of the employment of women "from girlhood, all through married life and through child-bearing"; they realized that "the decreasing physical capacity of the child-bearing woman brings her at last some relief at the hands of the manager of the mill and she is sent away, often to take up the equally unsuitable occupation of charwoman or house scrubber." But, after setting out pages of good reason for action, the Committee, in effect, came to the conclusion that little or nothing could be done, because they were reminded of "the enormous practical difficulties that would accompany any sort of legal prohibition." Even as to extension of the period after confinement during which employment is forbidden, a point as to which, as in many other matters, we are falling behind Western civilization as a whole, the Committee did not advocate the enactment of a longer period than four weeks. They pinned their faith to a medical certificate as to fitness, and production of proof that reasonable care is made for the child in a municipal crèche or otherwise. They also strongly urged the application of "voluntary assistance" in the shape of maternity funds.
Thus lastly they came to the crux of the matter, the subject of "ways and means." The cause of the Committee's timidity is only too plain. It is impossible to make a recommendation of any value which does not entail expense. What is the use of talking of "medical certificates," unless we can ensure that, when the medico has certified unfitness, the poor mother shall have the means of refraining from work? Of what use to talk of "reasonable care" of the infant, unless the means of reasonable care be provided, and what form of care other than that of the mother is "reasonable"?
The whole aspect of the question is changed when we consider the extent of our national resources. Miss Anderson, in the invaluable memorandum on the subject which she supplied to the Committee, said: "It ought not to be impossible to link together in one great national provident and protective association all the isolated, half-informed societies and agencies at work in aid of maternity and for the saving of infant life. More than that, I believe, with Miss Squire (Lady Factory Inspector), that all over the country, but particularly in the great centres in the Midlands and the North, it needs only an organizing mind and purpose to bring such a national movement into being."
The Committee did not take up the idea of a "national movement." They preferred to urge that "voluntary assistance" should devote itself to the formation of maternity funds. But a problem of so much gravity demands national effort, and the use of the national purse. Out of the labour of the poor is drained the rents, profits and dividends which make the gross assessment to income tax in 1908-9 as much as £1,010,000,000. Of this sum, how much is needed to deal with the problem of the poor mother?