New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-06-11
oYrlTrNG AND SWARMERY.

Tho sweating system by which working
noonle are furnished with employment IN
various trades at starvation wages is attract
inc mncb attention in England. Royal
Commission has been collecting evidence on
tho subiect and has established the fact that
the victims of the system are not employed
in factories or ordinary worlrooms Dut III
sweaters dens. Under an Act of Parliament
factories and workshops are subject TO Official
inspection, and overcrowding and unsanltary
conditions can be prevented. There is no
authority of law for the control of dwelling
houses which may be used as workrooms ana
IL is in these that the mddlemen who supply
manufacturers with the cheapest OF cheap labor
collect their bands of underpaid workers. The
only practical reform which the COMMISSION
will be apt to favor points TO the extension OF
the operation Of the Factory and workshop
Acts so as to include any apartments in tene-
ment or dwelling houses where working people
are employed. The effect of the rigid inspec-
ton and possible suppression OF these unin.
spected workrooms would be to drive needy
and starving artisans into the factories, which
are already ove4crowded. II additional accom-
modations be afforded for them there, they
will be brought into direct competition with
workers now receiving higher wages. a
general reduction of wages will follow and the
" sweating' rates now paid by the mddlemen
will become uniform. An intelligent English
artisan. who discusses the question in 1.-The
st. Jamess Gazette" makes these Judlclous
remarks
The suppression OF unnspected workrooms would
not wipe out the hands who at present compete Tor
work at sweaters prices. Their number ana Their
necessity would still be as great, and their poverty
II not their WILL would still consent TO their competing
for bare subsistence rates OF pay whether such pay
came from middlemen or manufacturers Ihat In all
the leading Industries there manufacturers VINO
woud fully avail themselves Of such competition in
order TO meet the demand for cheap goods Is qute
certain; and the action Of such manufacturers would
afford others an excuse II not for doing like
wise 1t is the pressure of their own numbers ana
their own competition that brings about the miserable
condition Of the hands In the sweating trahes' IL
is this pressure that makes the sweating system pos
sibe and, whatever we may do or attempt 10 90 III
matters of detail, the same causes, II they remain
operative, Will produce essentially the same results
Legislation can do but tle for It is admitted on all
sides that It would be madness to attempt to regu-
late wages by Act Of Parllament-and the rate OF
wages Is after ALL the point We may take the lower
and lowest grades of the hands in the sweating trades
and put them I'm factories to work; but If they can
only earn starvation wages their condition VIII re-
main much the same They Will have TO continue 10
live in unhealthy overcrowded dens Will still be
underfed insufclenty clad, and especially suscep-
| tlble to epidemic diseases.
The simple fact of the matter is that suffer
| ing from swarmery. As chronic condition OF IN
dustry we have hosts Of hands In the labor MARKET
for whom even In times Of good trade there IS not
enough work at living rates Of wages II IS the COM
petition of these surplus hands that accounts for star
walton rates OF wages, and that Is tending 10 lower
1 the condition Of the working classes all round. IT
IS said by some who profess be champions Of work
| ng class interests that II labor were properly or
ganzed and the fruits Of productive labor Justly dis
rlbuted there would be enough for all to live
| I'm comfort. How that may bo abstract propo-
| sition We need not pause to inquire. Swarmery Is
concrete and operative fact in relation to the exist
ing conditions and methods OF Industrial system.
1t Is fact that will have to be reckoned with, and TO
which all other facts in the connection will have
be regarded incidental If the condition OF the poor
| is to be generally and appreciably improved.
| If this candid workingman were to borrow
President Cleveland's phrase, he would say that
| il is a condition and not theory that confrOntS
men of his class in England. There is a
surplus of workers in nearly every trade: if
men and women dependent upon their labor
cannot get living wages, they must put up
with starving and dying wages; nnderfed,
half-clothed and sckly, they will work for
the lowest pttance that is offered to them:
and even if the sweating dens are broken
| up, the sweating wage will be continued in
| order that English manufacturers may glut
| the markets of the world with the products
| and wares of cheap labor. II is swarmery.
| to use this artisans own word, that produces
sweating in nearly all the manual trades and
| occupations of free-trade England There is
a surplus Of labor and there is a scarcity Of
employment, even in good times and the
workers are undergrad, underfed and crushed
to the earth.
This is the class Of labor with which Presi-
dent Cleveland and the Democratic party
aim to bring American workingmen into active
competition. The tariff protects every class
of workers here. 1t not only furnishes them
with employment in their varied industries.
but it makes their labor far more valuable
to them even with shorter hours, than the
same grade of work is abroad. President
Cleveland's policy will throw down the barriers
between American protected labor and English
free-trade labor, with its sweating and
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