themselves.... But most of all I have
put my faith in the practical effect of a powerful band of
employers, perhaps a majority, who, whether from high motives or
self-interest, or from a combination of the two--they are not
necessarily incompatible ideas--will form a vigilant and instructed
police, knowing every turn and twist of the trade, and who will
labor constantly to protect themselves from being undercut by the
illegal competition of unscrupulous rivals."

Mr. Churchill claims that employers who are trying to pursue such
trades with modern machinery and modern methods are more seriously
hampered by the competition of the "sweaters" than they are by that of
foreign employers. "I cannot believe," he concludes, "that the process
of raising the degenerate and parasitical portion of these trades up to
the level of the most efficient branches of the trade, if it is
conducted by those conversant with the conditions of the trade and
interested in it, will necessarily result in an increase in the price of
the ultimate product. It may even sensibly diminish it through better
methods."[62] Mr. Churchill is able to point out, as with most of the
other reforms, that in one country or another they are already being put
into effect, the legislation against "sweating" being already in force
in Bavaria and Baden, as well as in Australia, under a somewhat
different form.

But the most striking of the British labor reforms has yet to be
mentioned. Not only were the present old age pensions established by the
common consent of all the political parties, but a law has now been
enacted--also with the approval of all parties (and only twenty-one
negative votes in Parliament)--to apply the same methods of state
insurance of workingmen to sickness, accidents, and even to
unemployment. The old age pensions were already more radical than those
of Prussia in that the workingmen do not have to contribute under the
British law, while the National Insurance Bill as now enacted surpasses
both the former British measure and the German precedent in everything,
except that it demands a lesser total sum from the government. In the
insurance against accidents, sickness, and unemployment the government,
instead of contributing the whole amount, gives from two ninths to one
third, one third to one half being assessed against employers and one
sixth to four ninths against employees. At first this reform, it is
ex