It must always be an absorbing interest to a Trades Union to maintain the industrial welfare of its members by preventing what it must regard as an "over-supply" of labour.

No organization of labour can effect very much unless it takes measures to restrict the competition of "free labour"; each Union, by limiting the number of competitors for its work, increases the competition in trades not similarly protected.

So with every growth of Trade Unionism the pressure on unprotected bodies of workmen grows greater.

Thus it would seem that while organization of labour may become a real remedy for "sweating" in any industry to which it is vigorously applied, it cannot be relied upon ever entirely to crash out the evil.

It can only drive it into a smaller compass, where its intenser character may secure for it that close and vigorous public attention which, in spite of recent revelations, has not been yet secured, and compel society to clearly face the problem of a residue of labour-power which is rotting in the miserable and degraded bodies of its owners, because all the material on which it might be productively employed is otherwise engaged.
Sec.7.Public Workshops .-- Those who are most active in the spread of Unionism among the low-skilled branches of industry, are quite aware that their action, by fencing off section after section of labour from the fierce competition of outsiders, is rendering the struggle more intense for the unprotected residuum.