The following quotation from the Report of the Lords’ Committee sums up the chief industrial forces which are at work, and likewise illustrates the confusion of causes with symptoms, and casual concomitants, which marks the “common sense” investigations of intricate social phenomena.  “It will be seen from the foregoing epitome of the evidence, that sweating in the boot trade is mainly traced by the witnesses to the introduction of machinery, and a more complete system of subdivision of labour, coupled with immigration from abroad and foreign competition.  Some witnesses have traced it in a great measure, if not principally, to the action of factors; some to excessive competition among small masters as well as men; others have accused the Trades Unions of a course of action which has defeated the end they have in view, namely, effectual combination, by driving work, owing to their arbitrary conduct, out of the factory into the house of the worker, and of handicapping England in the race with foreign countries, by setting their faces against the use of the best machinery."[24]

Shirt-making.—­Perhaps no other branch of the clothing trade shows so large an area of utter misery as shirt-making, which is carried on, chiefly by women, in East London.  The complete absence of adequate organization, arising from the fact that the work is entirely out-work, done not even by clusters of women in workshops, but almost altogether by scattered workers in their own homes, makes this perhaps the completest example of the evils of sweating.  The commoner shirts are sold wholesale at 10s. 6d. per dozen.  Of this sum, it appears that the worker gets 2s. 11/2d., and the sweater sometimes as much as 4s.  The competition of married women enters here, for shirt-making requires little skill and no capital; hence it can be undertaken, and often is, by married women, anxious to increase the little and irregular earnings of their husbands, and willing to work all day for whatever they can get.  Some of the worst cases brought before the Lords’ Committee showed that a week’s work of this kind brings in a net gain of from 3s. to 5s.  It appears likely that few unmarried women or widows can undertake this work, because it does not suffice to afford a subsistence wage.  But if this is so, it must be remembered that the competition of married women has succeeded in underselling the unmarried women, who might otherwise have been able to obtain this work at a wage which would have supported life.  The fact that those who work at shirt-making do not depend entirely on it for a livelihood, is an aggravation rather than an extenuation of the sweating character of this employment.

Sec. 4.  Some minor “Sweating” Trades.—­Mantle-making is also a woman’s industry.  The wages are just sufficiently higher than in shirt-making to admit the introduction of the lowest grades of unsupported female workers.  From 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. a day can be made at this work.