128

CHAPTER VIII,

obvious is the loss of wages to the women, for whom alternative employ-
ment is not available and, where these are the wives or connections of
the male workers, a corresponding reduction in the family income.
Against this, in the opinion of competent observers, must be set the in-
creased effort evoked by the new conditions and greater regularity of
attendance on the part of male workers. If this proves to be the case,
the change will be all for the good ; but the adjustment is not likely to be
easy and, for some years, special importance must be attached to pro-
viding every possible method of increasing the miner's efficiency. We
recommend that, in order to mitigate hardship amongst women excluded
or about to be excluded from underground workings, employers should
reserve for them vacancies occurring among surface workers, wherever
practicable. Secondly, since the work of women underground has
been the loading of the cut coal into tubs, in future this work will have
to be done by some other means, either by the coal cutter himself, by male
workers or by machinery. Figures for 1929 show that the number of
male loaders has increased from 8,774 in 1928 to 12,592 in 1929, i.e., by
43%, so that this adjustment should not be difficult. Thirdly, the
release of so many women of the miners’ families from the industry
should make possible the raising of the miners’ standard of home life,
with a consequent increase in their efficiency, to the benefit of employer
and employed. But this advantage will not be gained without effort
on the part of the employer, for, unless conditions of life on the collieries
are improved, miners will not bring their women to the mining areas when
their power to earn is gone, and these areas will not escape the evils result-
ing from a marked disparity in the sex ratio. In our opinion the intro-
duction of improvements is not only a moral obligation but is also dictated
by the interest of the employer.
The Ten Year Period.
We have given consideration to the suggestion made before
us that there should be a shortening of the ten year period which has to
elapse before women are completely excluded. It was suggested to us
that the period would be shortened in practice, and that by 1934 there
would be few women working underground. The employment figures
for 1929 support this view. We trust the forecast will materialise, but
in any case no recommendation of ours could take effect until a large
part of the period had already expired. It is unwise to disturb an
arrangement which was the outcome of so much discussion and, we
therefore, make no recommendation for the statutory reduction of the
period.
Open Workings,

The regulations for the exclusion of women do not apply to
quarries and open workings, and some witnesses suggested that they
should be extended to them. In their opinion the limitation to under-
ground workings gives an unfair advantage in the market to coal raised
from quarries. In particular, concerns working second class coal feel
themselves handicapped in competing for the railwav market with coal