depend upon the methods which
are adopted by Unions of skilled workers, to limit the number of
competitors for work. A test of physical fitness, such as was recently
proposed as a qualification for admission to the Dock-labourers Union,
will not, unless raised far above the average fitness of present
members, limit the number of applicants to anything like the same extent
as the test of workmanship in skilled industries. Neither could rules of
apprenticeship act where the special skill required was very small. Nor
again is it easy to see how funds raised by the contribution of the
poorest classes of workers, could suffice to support unemployed members
when temporarily "out of work," or to buy off the active competition of
outsiders, or "black-legs," to use the term in vogue. The constant
influx of unskilled labour from the rural districts and from abroad,
swollen by the numbers of skilled workmen whose skill has been robbed of
its value by machinery, keeps a large continual margin of unemployed,
able and willing to undertake any kind of unskilled or low-skilled
labour, which will provide a minimum subsistence wage. The very success
which attends the efforts of skilled workers to limit the effective
supply of their labour by making it more difficult for unskilled workers
to enter their ranks, increases the competition for low-skilled work,
and makes effective combination among low-skilled workers more
difficult. Though we may not be inclined to agree with Prof. Jevons,
that "it is quite impossible for Trade Unions in general to effect any
permanent increase of wages," there is much force in his conclusion,
that "every rise of wages which one body secures by mere exclusive
combination, represents a certain extent, sometimes a large extent, of
injury to the other bodies of workmen."[31] In so far as Unions of
skilled workers limit their numbers, they increase the number of
competitors for unskilled work; and since wages cannot rise when the
supply of labour obtainable at the present rate exceeds the demand,
their action helps to maintain that "bare subsistence wage," which forms
a leading feature in "sweating."

Are we then to regard Unions of low-skilled workers as quite impotent so
long as they are beset by the competition of innumerable outsiders? Can
combination contribute nothing to a solution of the sweating problem?
There are two ways in which close combination might seem to avail low-
skilled workers in their endea