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president’s ADDRESS — SECTION G. 
point at which they can get the work done. So far as sweating goes 
on, then, it is Government that is the sweater. 
Now, if we consider this state of things satisfactory, there is 
nothing more to be said or done. Bat if we think otherwise, can we 
do anything to alter it for the better? To forbid sub-contracting 
would not serve the purpose. If the first contractor finds it to his 
advantage to sublet the work, and if the workers go to the sub- 
contractor instead of the first contractor for employment, that must 
be because tbe sub-contractor contributes in some way towards the 
result. If those who deal with him consent to do so on terms that 
leave him a profit, it must be because he renders some service. To 
exclude him would be to make it more difficult to get that service 
rendered, and would consequently increase the cost to the public 
without benefiting the wage-earners. One reason at least for the 
existence of sub-contracting in this business appears to be that the 
man who knows how to organise and superintend the work does not 
usually possess capital enough to give the high guarantee required by 
Government, and consequently cannot tender directly for the contract. 
Mr. Charles Booth, in his evidence before the English Commis- 
sion on Labour, says on this point — tc Sweating and sub- contracting 
are very far from being synonymous. The middleman’s profits are a 
charge on the work, not on the workman’s wages. He is paid for 
organising labour otherwise very difficult to organise, and his elimina- 
tion would not, as a rule, improve the condition of the workers.” 
But we can, if we choose, have inserted in the contracts a 
condition that wages shall be paid at a rate not less than, say, 6d. an 
hour, or its equivalent for average workers in piecework, with further 
regulations as to hours and conditions of work, sanitation of work- 
rooms, and, perhaps, limitations on employment of apprentices. This 
course has not hitherto been adopted in New South W ales in the 
matter of clothing contracts, though it would seem that the need for 
it is greatest in this business. 
A committee of the London County Council, to which the ct fair 
wages” resolution was referred, reported against fixing a minimum in 
clothing contracts, “ owing to the absence of unanimity among the 
trade unions concerned.” But it is difficult to see how a want of 
unanimity among trade unions makes the evil of low wages less 
serious ; and it might rather have been expected that a governing 
body which aims at mitigating that evil would have begun with those 
trades in which the evil is manifestly at its worst. Can it be that the 
reason is to be looked for partly in the fact that the workwomen and 
foreign immigrants chiefly employed in these trades in London are 
not, like the stronger trade unions, able to bring voting power and 
political pressure to bear on the Council — that, in fact, the most 
helpless classes can be neglected with impunity ? Perhaps the com- 
mittee had other and better reasons for its recommendation ; but it 
does not give them. 
However, the question for us is whether there is any good reason 
why our Australian Governments should not fix a minimum in these 
contracts. If we desire to do so, and are willing to pay the cost, it is 
difficult to see why we should not allow ourselves that indulgence, as 
well as many others which we now order and pay for through our 
Governments. 
