The case for the factory acts / edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb ; with a preface by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
- Date:
- 1902
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The case for the factory acts / edited by Mrs. Sidney Webb ; with a preface by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Source: Wellcome Collection.
52/260 page 32
![We now see why sweating must be barred in the interests of our international position, as well as of our insular soundness. We see our country, not as a single shop competing with the great shops of a dozen other nations for the custom of the planets, but rather as a great bazaar in which all the dealers compete with one another for the custom of the foreigner as he strolls past the booths. In that bazaar the cotton-spinner and the coal-hewer com- pete with the farmer, and the farmer with the optician and watchmaker. Every English manu- facturer and trader competes with all the other English manufacturers and traders, bazaar fashion ; and the fact that they all mistake the foreigner for their competitor, and honestly condo]e with one another on the losses which they themselves have mutually inflicted on each other, has to be dis- counted by the statesman as he discounts so many other popular delusions. Now there are two main ways of competition in trade, whether for home or foreign custom—an upward way and a downward way. On the up- ward way the competitor strives to succeed by increased efficiency of production, by more intelli- gent and therefore more economical organisation, by the invention or adoption of new processes, and by improving the character, and therefore the product, of the labour employed. On the down-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24850457_0052.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
