There would of course be a natural check to this flow.

As the State drained off all surplus labour, the market value of labour would rise, greater regularity of employment would be secured, and the general improvement of industrial conditions would check the tendency of workers to flow towards the public workshops.

This consideration has led many of the leaders of labour movements to favour a scheme of public workshops, which would practically mean that the State or Municipality undertook to limit the supply of labour in the open market, by providing for any surplus which might exist, at the public expense.

The effect of such a policy would be of course to enormously strengthen the effective power of labour-organizations.

But while the advocates of public workshops are fully alive to these economic effects, they have not worked out with equal clearness the question relating to the disposal of the labour in public workshops.