And the lowest price is always the price which the bulk of the workers are content to live upon.
In all foreign nations where the standard of living is lower than in England, you will find that the wages are lower also.
Have we not often heard our manufacturers declare that if the British workers would emulate the thrift and sobriety of the foreigner they might successfully compete against foreign competition in the foreign market? What does that mean, but that thrift would enable our people to live on less, and so to accept less wages?
Why are wages of women in the shirt trade low?
It is because capitalism always keeps the wages down to the lowest standard of subsistence which the people will accept.
So long as our English women will consent to work long hours, and live on tea and bread, the "law of supply and demand" will maintain the present condition of sweating in the shirt trade.
If all our women became firmly convinced that they could not exist without chops and bottled stout, the wages must go up to a price to pay for those things.
Because there would be no women offering to live on tea and bread; and shirts must be had.
But what is the result of the abstinence of these poor sisters of ours? Low wages for themselves, and, for others?——