My view is, that the sweating system impoverishes and weakens the whole community, because it saps the stamina and diminishes the productive power of thousands of workers, and these in their turn drag others down with them. "Unduly low rates of wages, excessive hours of labour, insanitary condition of workplaces"--what does all that mean? It means an industry essentially rotten and unsound. To say that the labourer is worthy of his hire is not only the expression of a natural instinct of justice, but it embodies an economic truth. One does not need to be a Socialist, not, at least, a Socialist in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used, as designating a man who desires that all instruments of production should become common property--one does not need to be a Socialist in that sense in order to realise that an industry, which does not provide those engaged in it with sufficient to keep them in health is essentially unsound. Used-up capital must be replaced, and of all forms of capital the most fundamental and indispensable is the human energy necessarily consumed in the work of production. A sweated industry does not provide for the replacing of that kind of capital. It squanders its human material. It consumes more energy in the work it exacts than the remuneration it gives is capable of replacing. The workers in sweated industries are not able to live on their wages. As it is, they live miserably, grow old too soon, and bring up sickly children. But they would not live at all, were it not for the fact that their inadequate wages are supplemented, directly, in many cases, by out-relief, and indirectly by numerous forms of charity. In one way or another the community has to make good the inefficiency that sweating produces. In one way or another the community ultimately pays, and it is my firm belief that it pays far more in the long run under the present system than if all workers were self-supporting. If a true account could be kept, it would be found that anything which the community gains by the cheapness of articles produced under the sweating system is more than outweighed by the indirect loss involved in the inevitable subsidising of a sweated industry. That would be found to be the result, even if no account were taken of the greatest loss of all, the loss arising from the inefficiency of the sweated workers and of their children, for sweating is calculated to perpetuate inefficiency and degeneration.