If the mere accumulation of material wealth, regardless
alike of the mode of production or of the distribution, be regarded as
the industrial goal, it is quite conceivable that a policy of utter
_laissez faire_ might be the best means of securing that end. Although
healthy and happy workers are more efficient than the half-starved and
wholly degraded beings who slaved in the uninspected factories and mines
during the earlier period of the factory system, and still slave in the
sweater's den, it may still be to the interest of employers to pay
starvation wages for relatively inefficient work, rather than pay high
wages for a shorter day's work to more efficient workers. It is to the
capitalist a mere sum in arithmetic; and we cannot predict that the
result will always turn in favour of humanity and justice.
At the same time, even if it is uncertain whether a shorter working day
could be secured without a fall of wages, it is still open to advocates
of a shorter working day to urge that it is worth while to purchase
leisure at such a price. If a shorter working day could cure or abate
the evil of "the unemployed," and help to raise the industrial condition
of the low-skilled workers, the community might well afford to pay the
cost.
Chapter VII.
Over-Supply of Low-Skilled Labour.
Sec. 1. Restatement of the "Low-skilled Labour" Question.--Our inquiry into
Factory Legislation and Trade Unionism as cures for sweating have served
to emphasize the economic nature of the disease, the over-supply of low-
skilled labour.
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