Just as we saw that
sweating trades were those which escaped the legislative eye; so we see
that they are also the trades where effective combination does not
exist. Where Trade Unions are strong, sweating cannot make any way. The
State aid of restrictive legislation, and the self help of private
combination are alike wanting to the "sweated" workers.
Chapter VI.
Remedies for Sweating.
Sec. 1. Factory Legislation. What it can do.--Having now set forth the
three aspects of the industrial disease of "Sweating"--the excessive
supply of unskilled labour, the multiplication of small employers, the
irresponsibility of capital--we have next to ask, What is the nature of
the proposed remedies? Since any full discussion of the different
remedies is here impossible, it must suffice if we briefly indicate the
application of the chief proposed remedies to the different aspects of
the disease. These remedies will fairly fall into three classes.
The first class aim at attacking by legislative means, the small
workshop system, and the evils of long hours and unsanitary conditions
from which the "sweated" workers suffer. Briefly, it may be said that
they seek to increase and to enforce the legal responsibility of
employers, and indirectly to crush the small workshop system by turning
upon it the wholesome light of publicity, and imposing certain irksome
and expensive conditions which will make its survival in its worst and
ugliest shapes impossible.
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