[Greek:  g].  Since this foreign immigration weakens the industrial condition of our low-skilled native labour by increasing the supply, it will be evident that any cause which decreases the demand for such labour will operate in the same way.  The free importation from abroad of goods which compete in our markets with the goods which “sweated” labour is applied to make, has the same effect upon the workers in “sweating” trades as the introduction of cheap foreign labour.  The one diminishes the demand, the other increases the supply of unskilled or low-skilled labour.  The import of quantities of German-made cheap clothing into East London shops, to compete with native manufacture of the same goods, will have precisely the same force in maintaining “sweating,” as will the introduction of German workers, who shall make these same clothes in East London itself.  In each case, the purchasing public reaps the advantage of cheap labour in low prices, while the workers suffer in low wages.  The contention that English goods made at home must be exported to pay for the cheap German goods, furnishes no answer from the point of view of the low-skilled worker, unless these exports embody the kind of labour of which he is capable.

[Greek:  d].  The constant introduction of new machinery, as a substitute for skilled hand-labour, by robbing of its value the skill of certain classes of workers, adds these to the supply of low-skilled labour.

[Greek:  e].  The growth of machinery and of education, by placing women and young persons more upon an equality with male adult labour, swells the supply of low-skilled labour in certain branches of work.  Women and young persons either take the places once occupied by men, or undertake new work (e.g. in post-office or telegraph-office), which would once have been open only to the competition of men.  This growth of the direct or indirect competition of women and young persons, must be considered as operating to swell the general supply of unskilled labour.

[Greek:  z].  In London another temporary, but important, factor must be noted.  The competition of provincial factories has proved too strong for London factories in many industries.  Hence of late years a gradual transfer of manufacture from London to the provinces.  A large number of workers in London factories have found themselves out of work.  The break-up of the London factories has furnished “sweating trades” with a large quantity of unemployed and starving people from whom to draw.

Regarded from the widest economic point of view, the existence of an excessive supply of labour seeking employments open to free competition must be regarded as the most important aspect of the “sweating system.”  The recent condition of the competition for casual dock-labour brought dramatically to the foreground this factor in the labour question.  The struggle for livelihood was there reduced to its lowest and most brutal terms.  “There is