But the Unions of low-skilled workers will have been organized with the view of monopolizing all the low- skilled work which the present needs of the community require to be done.

How then will the public provide low-skilled work for the unemployed?
One of two courses seems inevitable.

Either the public must employ them in work similar to that which is being done by Union men for private firms, in which case they will enter into competition with the latter, and either undersell them in the market and take their trade, or by increasing the aggregate supply of the produce, bring down the price, and with it the wage of the Union men.

Or else if they are not to compete with the labour of Union men, they must be employed in relief works, undertaken not to satisfy a public need or to produce a commodity with a market value, but in order that those employed may, by a wholly or partially idle expenditure of effort, appear to be contributing to their own support, whereas they are really just as much recipients of public charity as if they were kept in actual idleness.

This is the dilemma which has to be faced by advocates of public workshops.