The improving mechanism of our State School System assists this movement, by turning out every year a larger percentage of half- timers, crammed to qualify for wage-earners at the earliest possible period.

Already in Lancashire and elsewhere, the labour of these thirteen-year-olders is competing with the labour of their fathers.

The substitution of the "ring" for the "mule" in Lancashire mills, is responsible for the sight which may now be seen, of strong men lounging about the streets, supported by the earnings of their own children, who have undersold them in the labour market.

The "ring" machine can be worked by a child, and can be learned in half an hour; that is the sole explanation of this deplorable phenomenon.
In the case of child-work, with its degrading consequences on the physical and mental health of the victim thus prematurely thrust into the struggle of life, legislation can doubtless do much.

By raising the standard of education, and, if necessary, by an absolute prohibition of child-work, the State would be keeping well within the powers which the strictest individualist would assign to it, as it would be merely protecting the rising generation against the cupidity of parents and the encroachments of industrial competition.
The case of married women-workers is different.