The Sweating System.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 217, 3 November 1888, Page 3

The Sweating System.

Au Auckland merchant, well acquainted with the whole question, thus gives his views on the sweating system ; “ We are desirous of giving the top price to labour, but we can’t run our establishment on philanthropic principles and at a loss : competition must ba met by competition, and then you go round the vicious: circle till you come to ‘ the survival of the fittest.' The working classess are greatly to blame. They care only to get an article cheaply, and reck nothing as to wuet ,er it baa been purchased at that figure th; .ugh the sweat and blood ot their fellows. They could not do mueh to prevent this inordinate undercutting. Tbe whole question, I admit, is a difficult problem. As to the poor mothers, who want to take work out of the factories to their homes to maintain themselves or a sick husband, I see ho hope for them. Even with tbe ordinary sewing machine to supplement their needles, they cannot compete with a single girl, and with the latest machines being introduced into the factories, doing 8000 stitches a minute! ” It seems in some of the factories the price of the suit has not been raised through the operation of the tariff, but the difference of duty simply taken off the pay of the worker through a lowered scale for work. It is said the system has also a footing in Wellington and other places not already laetitiohedi