A large factory cannot stop at all without serious loss; a full-sized workshop will make great efforts to keep going; but the man who employs only two or three others in his own house can, if work fails, send them all adrift to pick up a living as best they can."[26] Since a smaller sweating-master can set up business on some L2 capital, and does not expect to make much more profit as employer than as workman, he is able to change from one capacity to the other with great facility.
2.

The high rent for large business premises, especially in London, makes for the small workshop or home-work system.

The payment of rent is thus avoided by the business firm which is the real employer, and thrown upon the sub-contractor or the workers themselves, to be by them in their turn generally evaded by using the dwelling-room for a workshop.
Thus one of the most glaring evils of the sweating system is seen to form a distinct economic advantage in the workshop, as compared with the large factory.

The element of rent is practically eliminated as an industrial charge.
3.

The evasion of the restrictions of the Factory Act must be regarded as another economic advantage.