more in the long run under the present system than if all
workers were self-supporting. If a true account could be kept, it
would be found that anything which the community gains by the
cheapness of articles produced under the sweating system is more than
outweighed by the indirect loss involved in the inevitable subsidising
of a sweated industry. That would be found to be the result, even if
no account were taken of the greatest loss of all, the loss arising
from the inefficiency of the sweated workers and of their children,
for sweating is calculated to perpetuate inefficiency and
degeneration.

The question is: Can anything be done? Of the three related
evils--unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, and
insanitary condition of work-places--it is evident that the first
applies equally to sweated workers in factories and at home, but the
two others are to some extent guarded against, in factories, by
existing legislation. This is the reason why some people would like to
see all work done for wages transferred to factories. Broadly
speaking, I sympathise with that view. But if it were universally
carried out at the present moment, it would inflict an enormous amount
of suffering and injustice on those who add to their incomes by home
work. Hence the problem is twofold. First, can we extend to workers in
their own homes that degree or protection in respect of hours and
sanitary conditions which the law already gives to workers in
factories? And secondly, can we do anything to obtain for sweated
workers, whether in homes or factories, rates of remuneration less
palpably inadequate? Now it certainly seems impossible to limit the
hours of workers, especially adult workers, in their own homes. More
can be done to ensure sanitary conditions of work. Much has been done
already, so far as the structural condition of dwellings is concerned.
But I am afraid that the measures necessary to introduce what may be
called the factory standard of sanitariness into every room, where
work is being done for wages, would involve an amount of inspection
and interference with the domestic lives of hundreds of thousands of
people which might create such unpopularity as to defeat its own
object. I do not say that nothing more should be attempted in that
direction, quite the reverse; but I say that nothing which can be
attempted in that direction really goes to the root of the evil, which
is the insufficiency of the wage. How can