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But it must be admitted, firstly, that the very addition of their number to the total of competitors for low-skilled work, forces down, and keeps down, the price paid for that work; and secondly, that if they choose, they are enabled to underbid at any time the labour of women entirely dependent on themselves for support.
Now it will be evident that the unskilled or low-skilled workers cannot depend upon the methods which are adopted by Unions of skilled workers, to limit the number of competitors for work.
Thus an eight hours day would at once solve the problem of the "work-less," and raise the wages of low-skilled labour. The effect would be precisely the same as if the number of competitors for work were suddenly reduced.
Whatever the effect of this might be upon the industrial condition of the skilled industries subjected to the increased competition, there can be no doubt that the wages of low-skilled labour would rise.
Are we then to regard Unions of low-skilled workers as quite impotent so long as they are beset by the competition of innumerable outsiders? Can combination contribute nothing to a solution of the sweating problem? There are two ways in which close combination might seem to avail low- skilled workers in their endeavours to secure better industrial conditions.
Moreover, the massing of the poor in large centres of population, producing larger areas of solid poverty, presents new dangers and new difficulties in the application of remedial measures. However we may estimate progress, one fact we must recognize, that the bulk of our low-skilled workers do not yet possess a secure supply of the necessaries of life.
Since a higher standard of comfort means economically a restriction in the number of persons willing to undertake work for a lower rate of wage than will support this standard of comfort, it may be said that moral remedies can be only effectual in so far as they limit the supply of low-skilled, low-paid labour.
So far as it admitted the continuance of the small workshop, it would neither directly nor indirectly abate the evil of low wages. It is even possible that any rapid extension of the Factory Act might, by limiting the amount of employment in small workshops, increase for a time the misery of those low-skilled workers, who might be incapable of undertaking regular work in the larger factory.
In order to keep the wage of low-skilled labour down to this minimum, which can only rise with an improvement in the alternatives, it is not required that there should at any time exist a large number of unemployed. A very small number, in effective competition with those employed, will be quite as effectual in keeping down the rate of wages.
Can Low-skilled Workers successfully combine? Now the question which concerns our inquiry may be stated thus. Supposing that the workers in "sweating" industries were able to combine, would they be able to secure themselves against outside competition as the skilled worker does? Will their combination practically increase the difficulty in replacing them by outsiders?
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