The importance of these movements for us consists in their
firm but tacit recognition of the fact, that an excessive supply of
unskilled labour lies at the root of the industrial disease of
"sweating."
Sec. 2. The Contributing Causes of excessive Supply.--The last two chapters
have dealt with the principal large industrial movements which bear on
this supply of excessive low-skilled labour; but to make the question
clear, it will be well to enumerate the various contributing causes.
[Greek: a]. The influx of rural population into the towns constantly
swells the supply of raw unskilled labour. The better quality of this
agricultural labour, as we saw, does not continue to form part of this
glut, but rises into more skilled and higher paid strata of labour. The
worse quality forms a permanent addition to the mass of inefficient
labour competing for bare subsistence wages.
[Greek: b]. The steady flow of cheap unskilled foreign labour into our
large cities, especially into London, swollen by occasional floods of
compulsory exiles, adds an element whose competition as a part of the
mass of unskilled labour is injurious out of proportion to its numerical
amount.
[Greek: g]. Since this foreign immigration weakens the industrial
condition of our low-skilled native labour by increasing the supply, it
will be evident that any cause which decreases the demand for such
labour will operate in the same way. The free importation from abroad of
goods which compete in our markets with the goods which "sweated" labour
is applied to make, has the same effect upon the workers in "sweating"
trades as the introduction of cheap foreign labour.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117