nce, would probably in the long run be less expensive than the
dismissal, at the zenith of their powers, of experienced workers,
who have to be replaced by younger and less efficient women. It
is, moreover, a truism that the best work is produced by the
most contented worker. A fundamentally happy woman, continually
strengthened and refreshed by affectionate companionship, is obviously
better able to endure the strain of professional work than her
unmarried sister, who at best, is deprived of the normal joys
of fully--developed womanhood. The action of Central and Local
Authorities and of other employers who make marriage a disability
for their women employees, is alluded to by our contributors with an
indignation, the more striking for the studied calm with which it is
expressed.[2]

The future as foreshadowed in these papers seems to us bright with
hope. In spite of difficulties, opposition, rebuffs, and prejudice,
professional women workers are slowly but surely advancing in status
and in recognition. They are gaining courage to train themselves
to claim positions of responsibility and command, and to refuse, if
occasion arises, to be subordinated, on the ground of their
womanhood, to men less able than themselves. They are learning by
experience,--many have already learned,--the need for co-operation and
loyalty to one another. While they are thus gaining new and valuable
qualities, they have never lost, in spite of many hardships, the
peculiar joy and lofty idealism in work which are, in part, a reaction
from ages of economic and personal dependence.

[Footnote 1: For an analysis of the whole scheme of work of the Fabian
Women's Group, _see_ Appendix I.]

[Footnote 2: In Western Australia the following Amendment, 340A.,
to the Criminal Code has passed the third reading in the Legislative
Assembly, and is expected to pass the Legislative Council before this
book appears:--

(1) Any person, who, either as principal or agent--_(a)_ Makes
or enters into or enforces or seeks to enforce any rule, order,
regulation, contract, agreement or arrangement in restraint of or
with intent to restrain, prevent or hinder the marriage of _any person
(N.B._ A woman is a "person" in Western Australia) who is in his
employment or in the employment of his principal, and is of the age of
twenty-one years or upwards; or

_(b)_ Dismisses or threatens to dismiss any person from his employment
or the employment of his principal, or