During the last decade they have been entering more
and more into direct competition with British labour in the cabinet-
making, shoemaking, baking, hair-dressing, and domestic service
occupations. Lastly, they enter into direct competition of the worst
form with English female labour, which is driven in these very clothing
trades to accept work and wages which are even too low to tempt the Jews
of Whitechapel. The constant infiltration of cheap immigrant labour is
in large measure responsible for the existence of the "sweating
workshops," and the survival of low forms of industrial development
which form a factor in the problem of poverty.
Chapter IV.
"The Sweating System."
Sec. 1. Origin of the Term "Sweating."--Having gained insight into some of
the leading industrial forces of the age, we can approach more hopefully
the study of that aspect of City poverty, commonly known as the
"Sweating System."
The first thing is to get a definite meaning to the term. Since the
examination of experts before the recent "Lords' Committee" elicited
more than twenty widely divergent definitions of this "Sweating System,"
some care is required at the outset of our inquiry. The common use of
the term "Sweating System" is itself responsible for much ambiguity, for
the term "system" presupposes a more or less distinct form of
organization of industry identified with the evils of sweating. Now as
it should be one of the objects of inquiry to ascertain whether there
exists any one such definite form, it will be better at the outset to
confine ourselves to the question, "What is Sweating?"
As an industrial term the word seems to have been first used among
journeymen tailors.
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