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.

In occupations of another type, the issue takes a somewhat different
form. In the teaching profession, "equal pay" would not exclude the
women; it would be far more likely to exclude the men. For, though the
advocates of the principle would declare that their intention is that
the salaries of women should be leveled up to those of men, it is more
probable that the ultimate outcome would be a leveling down.
Educational authorities have the ratepayer and the taxpayer to
consider; and, apart from this, they have their own interpretation of
"what should be." To pay a woman less than a man for the same work may
seem glaringly unfair; but it is not very clear why a woman, who is an
elementary school teacher, should be paid much more than, say, a
hospital nurse, merely because in the former case a number of men
happen also to be employed. In fact, there is a clashing of equities
in this connection; and there is little doubt which of them the
educational authorities would prefer. A leveling down of the men's
salaries would make it all but impossible to attract men of the
desired type into the profession, and would thus lead to the virtual
extinction of the male elementary school teacher. This might seem in a
narrow sense to be economically desirable. Why should not men take
their services to the tasks for which they can command a higher
reward, and which women cannot do as well? But whether this would be
desirable in the true interests of education is a far more doubtful
matter. And this is the real problem of "equal pay for equal work" for
male and female school teachers. The reader will notice that I have
refrained from alluding to the controversy as to whether men should
receive more on the grounds that they have wives and families to
maintain. That, although a most absorbing issue, is not the real issue
in practice at the present time. The real issue is a clashing between
a sense of "what should be" on obvious general grounds and a sense of
"what should be" in the particular, derived from the very patent and
general "what is" that men receive as a rule far