" Here is a case of arrested development in
the evolution of industry. It is even worse than that; for some trades
which had been subject to the concentrating force of the factory system,
have fallen into a sort of back-wash of the industrial current, and
broken up again into smaller units. The increased proportion of the
clothing industries conducted in private houses and small workshops is
the most notorious example. This applies not only to East London, but to
Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and other large cities, especially where
foreign labour has penetrated. For a large proportion of the sweating
workshops, especially in clothing trades, are supported by foreign
labour. In Liverpool during the last ten years the substitution of home-
workers for workers in tailors' shops has been marked, and in particular
does this growth of home-workers apply to women.
A credible witness before the Lords' Committee stated that "at the
present moment it would be safe to say that two-thirds of the sweaters
in Liverpool are foreigners," coming chiefly from Germany and Russian
Poland. In Leeds sixteen years ago there were only twelve Jewish
workshops; there are now some hundreds.
Since a very large proportion of the worst sweating occurs in trades
where the work is given out, either directly or by the medium of sub-
contract, to home-workers, it is natural that stress should be laid upon
the small private workshops as the centre of the disease.
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