Whether it would be possible to successfully crush the whole system of
industrial "out-work" may be open to question; but it is certain that so
long as, and in proportion as "out-work" is permitted, attempts on the
part of women to raise their industrial condition by combination will be
weak and unsuccessful. So long as "out-work" continues to be largely
practised and unrestrained, competition sharpened by the action of
married women and other irregular and "bounty-fed" labour, must keep
down the price of women's work, not only for the out-workers themselves,
but also for the factory workers. Nor is it possible to see how the
system of "out-work" can be repressed or even restricted by any other
force than legislation. So long as home-workers are "free" to offer, and
employers to accept, this labour, it will continue to exist so long as
it pays; it will pay so long as it is offered cheap enough; and it will
be offered cheaply so long as the supply continues to bear the present
relation to the demand.
But there is another force required to give any full effect to such
extensions of the Factory Act as will crush private workshops, and
either directly or indirectly prohibit out-work. The real reason, as we
saw, why woman's wages were proportionately lower than man's, was the
competition of a mass of women, able and willing to work at indefinitely
low rates, because they were wholly or partly supported from other
sources.
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