. This is the
dilemma which has to be faced by advocates of public workshops. Nor can
it be eluded by supposing that the public may use the unemployed labour
either in producing some new utility for the public use, such as
improved street-paving, or a municipal hot-water supply. For if such
undertakings are of a character which a private company would regard as
commercially sound, they ought to be, and will be, undertaken by wise
public bodies independently of the consideration of providing work for
unemployed. If they are not such as would be considered commercially
sound, then in so far as they fall short of commercial soundness, they
will be "charity" pure and simple, given as relief is now given to able-
bodied paupers, on condition of an expenditure of mere effort which is
not a commercial _quid pro quo_.

If the State or municipality were permitted to conduct business on
ordinary commercial principles, it might indeed be expected to seize the
opportunity afforded by a large supply of unemployed labour, to
undertake new public works at a lower cost than usual. But to take this
advantage of the cheapness of labour is held to be "sweating." Public
bodies are called upon to disregard the rise and fall of market wages,
and to pay "a fair wage," which practically means a wage which is the
same whether labour is plentiful or scarce. This refusal to permit the
ordinary commercial inducement to operate in the case of public bodies,
cuts off what might be regarded as a natural check to the accumulation
of unemployed labour. If public bodies are to employ more labour, when
labour is excessive, and pay a wage which shall be above the market
price, it must be clearly understood that the portion of the wages which
represents the "uncommercial" aspect of the contract is just as much
public charity as the half-crown paid as out-door relief under the
present Poor Law. Lastly, the establishment of State or municipal
workshops for the "unemployed" has no economic connection with the
"socialist" policy, by which the State or municipality should assume
control and management of railways, mines, gas-works, tramways, and
other works into which the element of monopoly enters. Such a
"socialist" policy, if carried out, would not directly afford any relief
to the unemployed. For, in the first place, the labour employed in these
new public departments would be chiefly skilled, and not unskilled.
Moreover, so far as the condition of the "wor