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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