Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/149

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142
CHILD LABOUR PROBLEM.

the student to reject this fourth proposal, and to insist that a combination of the three foreign methods of dealing with the problem would be most effective in the United States.

The first step in the consummation of such a programme is to secure and maintain a wage which will provide a minimum of subsistence. The enforcement of such a wage would be particularly advantageous in sweated industries which do not afford an opportunity for the workers to combine and make effective their demands. The form of the law and the method of its enforcement might well be governed by Australasian experience.

In the second place, some system of compulsory insurance should be adopted which would guarantee the family against unforeseen contingencies such as sickness, accident, and death, all of which prove so disastrous to necessitous families. In the enactment and enforcement of such a law we might well be governed by German experience.

In the third place a school lunch should be provided and served at cost to those who