But taken early enough and fed, clothed and housed like the children of the better paid artisan, the same man might have become healthy of body and alert of mind; a reader of books, a player of outdoor games, a skilled craftsman taking delight in his good work, a citizen rendering intelligent public service, a parent of healthy hopeful children, enjoying and creating prosperity. There are hundreds of such men among the superior artisans of this country. It has been my lot to know many of them, and it is my belief that on the whole they and their families form the happiest, the most valuable and the best conducted portion of our nation. To bring up into that class those compatriots of theirs and ours who now, by no fault of their own, suffer not only the privations but also the degradations of extreme poverty is no impossible feat, and would be the greatest possible of national services. Happily there are signs of a growing public desire to remedy the appalling evils vaguely summarised under the word “sweating,” and of a growing inclination to seek the remedy along the lines of endeavour marked out by our colonial brethren. In the earnest hope that such an endeavour may be made, quickly, yet not hastily, by the law of Great Britain, and that these chapters may as soon as possible become out of date, I offer to my fellow countrymen the conclusions gradually shaped in my own mind by nearly twenty years of work among industrial problems. INDEX Adler: Miss Nettie, 108, 123, 124 Aftalion: A., 2, 255 Alien immigration, 197 America: Children’s work in, 115, 119–122, 128; “sweating” in, 143; a living wage in, 149–151; low cost of production, 184; cotton trade, 221; child labour in cotton mills, 226; southern states, 227 Anti-Sweating league: in Melbourne, 247 Apprentices, parish: Act of, 218 Arbitration Courts in New Zealand, 235, 236 Army and Navy Stores, 176, 177 Australia: wage board in Victoria, 246; in Melbourne, 247; minimum wage in Melbourne, 251; legislation in New South Wales, 257 Babies’ shoe making, 105 Bake houses: boys working in, 109 Ball covering, 15 Bird cage making, 14 Boot finishing, 15 Boot making, 105 Booth: Chas., 6, 65, 148, 155, 201 Bosanquet: Mrs, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159 Box making: children’s work, 106 Brickfields: children working in, 110 Cabmen, 76 Cabs and Omnibuses Bill: report of select committee, 82, 83, 97 Cadbury: Edward, 3 “Case for the Factory Acts: The,” 114 Chapman: Prof. S. J., 220 “Child Labour” (_No. 93, Annals_ _of American Academy_), 119 120–122, 125, 128–130