We have seen that the unrestricted use of cheap labour is the essence of "sweating." If the wholesome restrictions of our Factory Legislation were in fact extended so as to cover all forms of employment, they would so increase the expenses of the sweating houses, that they would fall before the competition of the large factory system. Karl Marx writing a generation ago saw this most clearly. "But as regards labour in the so- called domestic industries, and the intermediate forms between this and manufacture, so soon as limits are put to the working day and to the employment of children, these industries go to the wall. Unlimited exploitation of cheap labour power is the sole foundation of their power to compete."[28] The effectiveness of the existing Factory Act, so far as relates to small workshops, is impaired by the following considerations-- 1. The difficulty in finding small workshops. There is no effectual registration of workshops, and the number of inspectors is inadequate to the elaborate and tedious method of search imposed by the present system. 2. The limitation as to right of entry. The power of inspectors to "enter, inspect, and examine at all reasonable times by day or night, a factory or a workshop, and every part thereof, when he has reason to believe that any person is employed therein, and to enter by day any place he has reasonable cause to believe to be a factory or workshop," is in fact not applicable in the case of dwelling-rooms used for workshops. In a large number of cases of the worst form of "sweating," the inspector has no right of entrance but by consent of the occupant, and the time which elapses before such consent is given suffices to enable the "sweater" to adjust matters so as to remove all evidence of infringements of the law. 3. The restricted power in reference to sanitation. A factory inspector has no sanitary powers; he cannot act save through the sanitary officer. The machinery of sanitary reform thus loses effectiveness. Compulsory registration of workshops, adequate inspection, and reform of machinery of sanitary reform, would be of material value in dealing with some of the evils of the small workshop. But it would by no means put an end to "sweating." So far as it admitted the continuance of the small workshop, it would neither directly nor indirectly abate the evil of low wages. It is even possible that any rapid extension of the Factory Act might, by limiting the amount of employment in small workshops, increase for a time the misery of those low-skilled workers, who might be incapable of undertaking regular work in the larger factory. It is, at any rate, not evident that such legislative reform would assist low- class workers to obtain decent wages and regular employment, though it would improve the other conditions under which they worked.