that must be done at home.  On the other hand, though women can do many kinds of work as well as or better than men, it so happens that for much the greater number of services, which are in large demand in the business world, men are the more efficient.  Incidentally, it happens that many occupations which women might do as well as men are closed to them by exclusive regulations.  The resultant of these forces is that men and women are for the most part employed in different occupations, and the scale of payment in women’s occupations is far lower than that in men’s.  Of this last fact singularly small complaint is made.

It is otherwise, however, when we come to occupations where men are either wholly or partially employed, where women are at least approximately as efficient as men, and where the barriers to their entry are at least formally removed.  There a ferocious controversy rages over what is known as the principle of “equal pay for equal work.”  It is easy to understand why the male trade unionists in, let us say, the engineering trades, should support this claim.  It is also, indeed, intelligible why the enthusiasts for Women’s Rights should urge it; but it is much more doubtful whether they are wise.  Possibly they are wise enough in their generation, since it might not serve them on this matter to get across the men.  But it is clearly not prudential considerations of this kind by which they are mainly actuated.  They make the demand, with extreme intensity of feeling, as a demand for fundamental justice.  They are also very obviously inspired with the belief (similar to the illusion which is a point of honor with the male trade unionist) that high wages for women in well-paid occupations will help to raise the wages of sweated women workers in other trades.

Now, here again, any lack of candor would be inexcusable.  The effect of this policy on the wages in women’s trades is certainly to reduce them.  The policy serves, as powerfully as any trade union custom, to restrict the entry of women into the men’s employments, and often spells virtual exclusion.  For the “equal efficiency” may be approximate only, and there may be advantages in male labor from the employer’s standpoint which are none the less important, because they are not easy to define.  Moreover, from the employer’s standpoint, the efficacy of female labor will be largely a matter for experiment, and “equal pay” will give him no inducement to experiment at all.  The diminished number of women in these occupations (as compared with what might have been) increases the number who must fall back on the purely women’s trades; and it must serve to reduce the wages there, where organization is by no means strong.  I am far from asserting that this consideration is conclusive against the principle of “equal pay for equal work” (though I think it conclusive against a rigid interpretation of it); for other matters, such as the standpoint of the male trade unionist must be taken into account.  But the reactions on the wages in women’s trades permit of no ambiguity.