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The object of this volume is to collect, arrange, and examine some of the leading facts and forces in modern industrial life which have a direct bearing upon Poverty, and to set in the light they afford some of the suggested palliatives and remedies. Although much remains to be done in order to establish on a scientific basis the study of "the condition of the people," it is possible that the brief setting forth of carefully ascertained facts and figures in this little book may be of some servic

§ 1.The National Income, and the Share of the Wage-earners. --To give a clear meaning and a measure of poverty is the first requisite. Who are the poor? The "poor law," on the one hand, assigns a meaning too narrow for our purpose, confining the application of the name to "the destitute," who alone are recognized as fit subjects of legal relief. The common speech of the comfortable classes, on the other hand, not infrequently includes the whole of the wage-earning class under the title of "the p

§ 1.Centralizing-Influence of Machinery. --In seeking to understand the nature and causes of the poverty of the lower working-classes, it is impossible to avoid some discussion of the influence of machinery. For the rapid and continuous growth of machinery is at once the outward visible sign and the material agent of the great revolution which has changed the whole face of the industrial world during the last century. With the detailed history of this vast change we are not concerned, but only w

§ 1.Movements of Population between City and Country. The growth of large cities is so closely related to the problems of poverty as to deserve a separate treatment. The movements of population form a group of facts more open than most others to precise measurement, and from them much light is thrown on the condition of the working classes. That the towns are growing at the expense of the country, is a commonplace to which we ought to seek to attach a more definite meaning. We may trace the infl

§ 1.Origin of the Term "Sweating." --Having gained insight into some of the leading industrial forces of the age, we can approach more hopefully the study of that aspect of City poverty, commonly known as the "Sweating System." The first thing is to get a definite meaning to the term. Since the examination of experts before the recent "Lords' Committee" elicited more than twenty widely divergent definitions of this "Sweating System," some care is required at the outset of our inquiry. The common

§ 1.The excessive Supply of Low-skilled Labour. --Turning to the industrial system for an explanation of the evils of "Sweating," we shall find three chief factors in the problem; three dominant aspects from which the question may be regarded. They are sometimes spoken of as the causes of sweating, but they are better described as conditions, and even as such are not separate, but closely related at various points. The first condition of "sweating" is an abundant and excessive supply of low-skil

§ 1.Factory Legislation. What it can do. --Having now set forth the three aspects of the industrial disease of "Sweating"--the excessive supply of unskilled labour, the multiplication of small employers, the irresponsibility of capital--we have next to ask, What is the nature of the proposed remedies? Since any full discussion of the different remedies is here impossible, it must suffice if we briefly indicate the application of the chief proposed remedies to the different aspects of the disease

§ 1.Restatement of the "Low-skilled Labour" Question. --Our inquiry into Factory Legislation and Trade Unionism as cures for sweating have served to emphasize the economic nature of the disease, the over-supply of low-skilled labour. Factory legislation, while it may abate many of the symptoms of the disease, cannot directly touch the centre of the malady, low wages, though by securing publicity it may be of indirect assistance in preventing the payment of wages which public opinion would condem

§ 1.The Number of Women engaged in Industrial Work. --The evils of "sweating" press more heavily on women workers than on men. It is not merely that women as "the weaker sex" suffer more under the same burden, but that their industrial burden is absolutely heavier than that of men. The causes and the meaning of this demand a special treatment. The census returns for 1901 showed that out of 4,171,751 females engaged in occupations about 40½ per cent. were in domestic or other service, 38½ per cen

§ 1."Moral" View of the Causes of Poverty. --Our diagnosis of "sweating" has regarded poverty as an industrial disease, and we have therefore concerned ourselves with the examination of industrial remedies, factory legislation, Trade Unionism, and restrictions of the supply of unskilled labour. It may seem that in doing this we have ignored certain important moral factors in the problem, which, in the opinion of many, are all important. Until quite recently the vast majority of those philanthrop

§ 1.Legislation in restraint of "Free" Contract. --The direct pressure of certain tangible and painful forms of industrial grievance and of poverty has forced upon us a large mass of legislation which is sometimes called by the name of Socialistic Legislation. It is necessary to enter on a brief examination of the character of the various enactments included under this vague term, in order to ascertain the real nature of the remedy they seek to apply. Perhaps the most typical form of this social

§ 1.The Concentration of Capital. --It must be remembered that we have been concerned with what is only a portion of the great industrial movement of to-day. Perhaps it may serve to make the industrial position of the poor low-skilled workers more distinct if we attempt to set this portion in its true relation to the larger Labour Problem, by giving a brief outline of the size and relation of the main industrial forces of the day. If we look at the two great industrial factors, Capital and Labou

By far the most valuable general work of reference upon Problems of Poverty is Charles Booth's Labour and Life of the People (Williams & Norgate). By the side of this work on London may be set Mr Rowntree's Poverty: A Story of Town Life (Macmillan). A large quantity of valuable material exists in The Report of the Industrial Remuneration Conference , and in the Reports of the Lords' Committee on the Sweating System and of the Labour Commission . Among shorter and more accessible works de