This responsibility imposed by law has been strengthened as an effective safeguard of the interests of the workers by combination among the latter. In skilled industries where strong trade organization exists, the practical value of such combination exceeds the value of restrictive legislation. "In their essence Trade Unions are voluntary associations of workmen, for mutual protection and assistance in securing the most favourable conditions of labour." "This is their primary and fundamental object, and includes all efforts to raise wages or prevent a reduction of wages; to diminish the hours of labour or resist attempts to increase the working hours; and to regulate all matters pertaining to methods of employment or discharge, and modes of working."[27] Engineers, boiler- makers, cotton-spinners, printers, would more readily give up the assistance given them by legislative restriction than the power which they have secured for themselves by combination. It is in proportion as trade combination is weak that the actual protection afforded by Factory and Employers' Liability Acts become important. Just as we saw that sweating trades were those which escaped the legislative eye; so we see that they are also the trades where effective combination does not exist. Where Trade Unions are strong, sweating cannot make any way. The State aid of restrictive legislation, and the self help of private combination are alike wanting to the "sweated" workers. Chapter VI. Remedies for Sweating. § 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. These remedies will fairly fall into three classes. The first class aim at attacking by legislative means, the small workshop system, and the evils of long hours and unsanitary conditions from which the "sweated" workers suffer. Briefly, it may be said that they seek to increase and to enforce the legal responsibility of employers, and indirectly to crush the small workshop system by turning upon it the wholesome light of publicity, and imposing certain irksome and expensive conditions which will make its survival in its worst and ugliest shapes impossible. The most practical recommendation of the Report of the Lords' Committee is an extension of the sanitary clauses of the Factory Act, so as to reach all workshops.