4. D. in thirty-seven weeks made £10 19s. 5½d., practically 6s. per week; if on full wage her average would have been 11s. 10½d.
5. E. in forty-seven weeks made £14 9s. 4½d., or 6s. 2d. per week; if on full pay her average would have been 12s. 3¾d.
6. F. in forty-three weeks made £12 12s. 3d., 5s. 1½d. per week; if on full pay her earnings would have been 11s. 8¾d.
It is obvious that when a worker is sufficiently expert to make an average of 11s. or 12s. on full pay, it is a great temptation to save on the bills by giving her as much work as possible at half-price. The employer looks upon this profit as the return made to him for teaching the girl, or, to speak more correctly, for allowing her to pick up the trade in his shop. It really means that a heavy premium is being paid in instalments. Possibly, when small fixed wages are paid, the employer's profits are even higher, but in that case the learner has not that temptation to sacrifice quality to quantity, and to be content with "slapdash" work which is the inevitable consequence of a piecework system worked under such conditions, and which is specially injurious to the young hands.
Compositors.
The training given to women compositors varies very much. As is well known, boys are apprenticed to this trade for seven years at wages which usually begin at 8s. a week, and rise 2s. a year. In some cases, however, a proportion of their piece-rate earning is given in addition.
When Miss Faithfull started the Victoria Press, girls were indentured for four years, and paid a premium of ten guineas. During the first six months they received nothing; for the remaining three and a half years they were given two-third piece rates. By 1869, when Mr. Head was running the business, this system had been changed. In an article in the Printers' Register for October 6th, 1869, we read that at the Victoria Press, apprenticeship, "a relic of the ignorance and shortsightedness of our forefathers, which is maintained in our own day chiefly by the prejudices of Trades Unions, is entirely abolished. Girls begin to earn at once," with the consequence that the work is much better. The Women's Printing Society started with an apprenticeship of three or four years, the wages rising from 2s. 6d. to 10s.
At the present time the training varies in different houses, from one where the girls are regularly indentured for four years, pay a premium of £5, and receive 4s. for the first year and 5s., 6s., 7s. a week in the ensuing years, to one where, with a premium of three guineas, the training lasts for three months only, and the worker is put on piecework after that period.
Two women compositors who had served for four years gave it as their opinion that two years were sufficient to learn; during the remaining years "you are expected to do as much as a full hand and get only half wages."
It is obvious, however, that much depends on the amount of work taught, and the complaint is reiterated over and over again that girls will only learn the easy, plain work: "they want to make money at once."