Wage-earning work for children of school age is another interesting question. The number of children of school age engaged in such work is very great, and most of them are engaged in domestic industry. For a proportion of school children, the holidays mean simply harder work than ever, because, when school attendance ceases for a time, there is no hindrance to their exploitation. _The Causes of Child-Labour._--Capitalism, notwithstanding the ever-increasing utilisation of machines, still needs a larger and larger supply of human labour-power. Competition becomes increasingly fierce, and therefore the capitalists are driven to seek cheaper and ever cheaper human labour-power. The material needs of children are much smaller than those of adults. In Austria, the earnings of children engaged in domestic industry for eight hours a day, in addition to their school work, amount to from 6 to 20 keller (6d. to 2d.) daily. In Germany, the wages of children per hour seldom exceed 7 or 8 pfennig (about one penny). The development of technical science leads to a simplification of the process of manufacture by means of a continually-increasing division of labour. This renders it possible to employ in the work of production persons who have no technical training whatever, and whose bodily powers are very small. In the case of children, technical training and bodily strength are less than in the case of adults. The employers gladly make use of the working powers of children for the following reasons: the children are inexperienced, they are less inclined to combine with their fellow-workers, they can more readily be forced to accept unfavourable conditions of work, and in the struggle with his adult employees the possibility of replacing their labour by that of children can be used by the employer as a trump card. Through the employment of the labour of children, the total quantity of labour available for employment is increased. It is owing to this fact, and to the greater cheapness of their labour, that the employment of children in wage-labour helps to force down the wages of adults. It is through poverty as a rule that children are forced to adopt wage-labour. The earnings of the parents and of other adult members of the family are so small that the earnings of the children are absolutely indispensable, and constitute no inconsiderable addition to the family income. The parents, who, according to the existing laws, for the most part have full control over the earnings of children under age, have a direct interest in sending the child to work. Many parents even believe that they have unrestricted rights over their children, and that there is no reason why they should not send the latter to the hardest possible work in the earliest years of childhood. Many parents think that it is good alike for them and for their children that the latter should work for wages. They are too ignorant to understand that this expectation will prove