The competition among small employers is greatly accentuated by the existence of a form of middleman known as the "factor," who is an agent who gets his profit by playing off one small manufacturer against another, keeping down prices, and consequently wages, to a minimum.

A large number of the small producers are extremely poor, and owing to the System which enables them to obtain material from leather-merchants on short credit, are constantly obliged to sell at a disadvantage to meet their bills.
The "factor," as a speculator, takes advantage of this to accumulate large stocks at low prices, and throwing them on the market in large quantities when wholesale prices rise, causes much irregularity in the trade.
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.