--Because I think they are an
exception
to the rule.
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
child or young person.
?
Clause 7, which imposes a penalty for employment of children, young persons, and women, contrary to the provisions of the Act, subjects to fines, not only the occupier of the workshop, whether parent or not, but even
--the parent of, or the person deriving any direct benefit from the labour of, or having the control over, the child, young person or woman. ?
The Factory Acts Extension Act, which affects the large establishments, derogates from the Factory Act by a crowd of vicious exceptions and cowardly compromises with the masters.
The Workshops' Regulation Act, wretched in all its details, remained a dead letter in the hands of the municipal and local authorities who were charged with its execution. When, in 1871, Parliament withdrew from them this power, in order to confer it on the Factory Inspectors, to whose province it thus added by a single stroke more than one hundred thousand workshops, and three hundred brickworks, care was taken at the same time not to add more than eight assistants to their already undermanned staff. 243
What strikes us, then, in the English legislation of 1867, is, on the one hand, the necessity imposed on the parliament of the ruling classes, of adopting in principle measures so extraordinary, and on so great a scale, against the excesses of capitalistic exploitation; and on the other hand, the hesitation, the repugnance, and the bad faith, with which it lent itself to the task of carrying those measures into practice.
? 319 Chapter 15
The Inquiry Commission of 1862 also proposed a new regulation of the mining industry, an industry distinguished from others by the exceptional characteristic that the interests of landlord and capitalist there join hands. The antagonism of these two interests had been favourable to Factory legislation, while on the other hand the absence of that antagonism is sufficient to explain the delays and chicanery of the legislation on mines.
The Inquiry Commission of 1840 had made revelations so terrible, so shocking, and creating such a scandal all over Europe, that to salve its conscience Parliament passed the Mining Act of 1842, in which it limited itself to forbidding the employment underground in mines of children under 10 years of age and females.
Then another Act, The Mines' Inspecting Act of 1860, provides that mines shall be inspected by public officers nominated specially for that purpose, and that boys between the ages of 10 and 12 years shall not be employed, unless they have a school certificate, or go to school for a certain number of hours. This Act was a complete dead letter owing to the ridiculously small number of inspectors, the meagreness of their powers, and other causes that will become apparent as we proceed.
One of the most recent Blue books on mines is the --Report from the Select Committee on Mines, together with &c. Evidence, 23rd July, 1866. ? This Report is the work of a Parliamentary Committee selected from members of the House of Commons, and authorised to summon and examine witnesses. It is a thick folio volume in which the Report itself occupies only five lines to this effect; that the committee has nothing to say, and that more witnesses must be examined!
The mode of examining the witnesses reminds one of the cross-examination of witnesses in English courts of justice, where the advocate tries, by means of impudent, unexpected, equivocal and involved questions, put without connexion, to intimidate, surprise, and confound the witness, and to give a forced meaning to the answers extorted from him. In this inquiry the members of the committee themselves are the cross-examiners, and among them are to be found both mine- owners and mine exploiters; the witnesses are mostly working coal miners. The whole farce is too characteristic of the spirit of capital, not to call for a few extracts from this Report. For the sake of conciseness I have classified them. I may also add that every question and its answer are numbered in the English Blue books.
1. Employment in mines of boys of 10 years and upwards. - In the mines the work, inclusive of going and returning, usually lasts 14 or 15 hours, sometimes even from 3, 4 and 5 o'clock a. m. , till 5 and 6 o'clock p. m. (n. 6, 452, 83). The adults work in two shifts, of eight hours each; but there is no alternation with the boys, on account of the expense (n. 80, 203, 204). The younger boys are chiefly employed in opening and shutting the ventilating doors in the various parts of the mine; the older ones are employed on heavier work. in carrying coal, &c. (n. 122, 739, 1747). They work these long hours underground until their 18th or 22nd year, when they are put to miner's work proper (n. 161). Children and young persons are at present worse treated, and harder worked than at any previous period (n. 1663-1667). The miners demand almost unanimously an act of Parliament prohibiting the employment in mines of children under 14. And now Hussey Vivian (himself an exploiter of mines) asks:
--Would not the opinion of the workman depend upon the poverty of the workman's family? ? Mr. Bruce: --Do you not think it would be a very hard case, where a parent had been injured, or where he was sickly, or where a father was dead, and there was only a mother, to prevent a child between 12 and 14 earning 1s. 7d. a day for the good of the family? . . . You must lay down a general rule? . . . Are you prepared to recommend legislation which would prevent the employment of children under 12 and 14, whatever the state of their parents might be? ? --Yes. ?
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(ns. 107-110). Vivian: --Supposing that an enactment were passed preventing the employment of children under the age of 14, would it not be probable that . . . the parents of children would seek employment for their children in other directions, for instance, in manufacture? ? --Not generally I think? (n. 174). Kinnaird: --Some of the boys are keepers of doors? ? --Yes. ? --Is there not generally a very great draught every time you open a door or close it? ? --Yes, generally there is. ? --It sounds a very easy thing, but it is in fact rather a painful one? ? --He is imprisoned there just the same as if he was in a cell of a gaol. ? Bourgeois Vivian: --Whenever a boy is furnished with a lamp cannot he read? ? --Yes, he can read, if he finds himself in candles. . . . I suppose he would be found fault with if he were discovered reading; he is there to mind his business, he has a duty to perform, and he has to attend to it in the first place, and I do not think it would be allowed down the pit. ? (ns. 139, 141, 143, 158, 160).
II. Education. - The working miners want a law for the compulsory education of their children, as in factories. They declare the clauses of the Act of 1860, which require a school certificate to be obtained before employing boys of 10 and 12 years of age, to be quite illusory. The examination of the witnesses on this subject is truly droll.
--Is it (the Act) required more against the masters or against the parents? ? --It is required against both I think. ? --You cannot say whether it is required against one more than against the other? ? --No; I can hardly answer that question. ? (ns. 115, 116). --Does there appear to be any desire on the part of the employers that the boys should have such hours as to enable them to go to school? ? --No; the hours are never shortened for that purpose. ? (n. 137) Mr. Kinnaird: --Should you say that the colliers generally improve their education; have you any instances of men who have, since they began to work, greatly improved their education, or do they not rather go back, and lose any advantage that they may have gained? ? --They generally become worse: they do not improve; they acquire bad habits; they get on to drinking and gambling and such like,, and they go completely to wreck. ? (n. 21 1. ) --Do they make any attempt of the kind (for providing instruction) by having schools at night? ? --There are few collieries where night schools are held, and perhaps at those collieries a few boys do go to those schools; but they are so physically exhausted that it is to no purpose that they go there. ? (n. 454. ) --You are then,? concludes the bourgeois, --against education? ? --Most certainly not; but,? &c. (n. 443. ) --But are they (the employers) not compelled to demand them (school certificates)? ? --By law they are; but I am not aware that they are demanded by the employers. ? --Then it is your opinion, that this provision of the Act as to requiring certificates, is not generally carried out in the collieries? ? --It is not carried out. ? (ns. 443, 444. ) --Do the men take a great interest in this question (of education)? ? --The majority of them do. ? (n. 717. ) --Are they very anxious to see the law enforced? ? --The majority are. ? (n. 718. ) --Do you think that in this country any law that you pass . . . can really be effectual unless the population themselves assist in putting it into operation? ? --Many a man might wish to object to employing a boy, but he would perhaps become marked by it. ? (n. 720. ) --Marked by whom? ? --By his employers. ? (n. 721. ) --Do you think that the employers would find any fault with a man who obeyed the law. . . ? ? --I believe they would. ? (n. 722. ) --Have you ever heard of any workman objecting to employ a boy between 10 and 12, who could not write or read? ? --It is not left to men's
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option. ? (n. 123. ) --Would you call for the interference of Parliament? ? --I think that if anything effectual is to be done in the education of the colliers' children, it will have to be made compulsory by Act of Parliament. ? (n. 1634. ) --Would you lay that obligation upon the colliers only, or all the workpeople of Great Britain? ? --I came to speak for the colliers. ? (n. 1636. ) --Why should you distinguish them (colliery boys) from other boys? ?
--Because I think they are an exception to the rule. ? (n. 1638. ) --In what respect? ? --In a physical respect. ? (n. 1639. ) --Why should education be more valuable to them than to other classes of lads? ? --I do not know that it is more valuable; but through the over-exertion in mines there is less chance for the boys that are employed there to get education, either at Sunday schools, or at day schools. ? (n. 1640. ) --It is impossible to look at a question of this sort absolutely by itself? ? (n. 1644. ) --Is there a sufficiency of schools? ? - --No". . . (n. 1646). --If the State were to require that every child should be sent to school, would there be schools for the children to go to? ? --No; but I think if the circumstances were to spring up, the schools would be forthcoming. ? (n. 1647. ) --Some of them (the boys) cannot read and write at all, I suppose? ? --The majority cannot. . . The majority of the men themselves cannot. ? (ns. 705, 725. )
III. Employment of women. - Since 1842 women are no more employed underground, but are occupied on the surface in loading the coal, &c. , in drawing the tubs to the canals and railway waggons, in sorting, &c. Their numbers have considerably increased during the last three or four years. (n. 1727. ) They are mostly the wives, daughters, and widows of the working miners, and their ages range from 12 to 50 or 60 years. (ns. 645, 1779. )
--What is the feeling among the working miners as to the employment of women? ? --I think they generally condemn it. ? (n. 648. ) --What objection do you see to it? ? --I think it is degrading to the sex. ? (n. 649. ) --There is a peculiarity of dress? ? --Yes . . . it is rather a man's dress, and I believe in some cases, it drowns all sense of decency. ? --Do the women smoke? ? --Some do. ? --And I suppose it is very dirty work? ? --Very dirty. ? --They get black and grimy? ? --As black as those who are down the mines . . . I believe that a woman having children (and there are plenty on the banks that have) cannot do her duty to her children. ? (ns. 650-654, 701. ) --Do you think that those widows could get employment anywhere else, which would bring them in as much wages as that (from 8s. to 10s. a week)? ? --I cannot speak to that. ? (n. 709. ) --You would still be prepared, would you,? (flint-hearted fellow! ) --to prevent their obtaining a livelihood by these means? ? --I would. ? (n. 710. ) --What is the general feeling in the district . . . as to the employment of women? ? --The feeling is that it is degrading; and we wish as miners to have more respect to the fair sex than to see them placed on the pit bank. . . Some part of the work is very hard; some of these girls have raised as much as 10 tons of stuff a day. ? (ns. 1715,1717. ) --Do you think that the women employed about the collieries are less moral than the women employed in the factories? ? --. . . the percentage of bad ones may be a little more . . . than with the girls in the factories. ? (n. 1237. ) --But you are not quite satisfied with the state of morality in the factories? ? --No. ? (n. 1733. ) --Would you prohibit the employment of women in factories also? ? --No, I would not. ? (n. 1734. ) --Why not? ? --I think it a more honourable occupation for them in the mills. ? (n. 1735. ) --Still it is injurious to their morality, you think? ? --Not so much as working on the pit bank; but it is more on the social position I take it; I do not take it on its moral ground alone. The
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degradation, in its social bearing on the girls, is deplorable in the extreme. When these 400 or 500 girls become colliers' wives, the men suffer greatly from this degradation, and it causes them to leave their homes and drink. ? (n. 1736. ) --You would be obliged to stop the employment of women in the ironworks as well, would you not, if you stopped it in the collieries? ? --I cannot speak for any other trade. ? (n. 1737. ) --Can you see any difference in the circumstances of women employed in ironworks, and the circumstances of women employed above ground in collieries? ? --I have not ascertained anything as to that. ? (n. 1740. ) --Can you see anything that makes a distinction between one class and the other? ? --I have not ascertained that, but I know from house to house visitation, that it is a deplorable state of things in our district. . . . ? (n. 1741. ) --Would you interfere in every case with the employment of women where that employment was degrading? ? --It would become injurious, I think, in this way: the best feelings of Englishmen have been gained from the instruction of a mother. . . . (n. 1750. ) --That equally applies to agricultural employments, does it not? ? --Yes, but that is only for two seasons, and we have work all the four seasons. ? (n. 1751. ) --They often work day and night, wet through to the skin, their constitution undermined and their health ruined. ? --You have not inquired into that subject perhaps? ? --I have certainly taken note of it as I have gone along, and certainly I have seen nothing parallel to the effects of the employment of women on the pit bank. . . . It is the work of a man. . .
Clause 7, which imposes a penalty for employment of children, young persons, and women, contrary to the provisions of the Act, subjects to fines, not only the occupier of the workshop, whether parent or not, but even
--the parent of, or the person deriving any direct benefit from the labour of, or having the control over, the child, young person or woman. ?
The Factory Acts Extension Act, which affects the large establishments, derogates from the Factory Act by a crowd of vicious exceptions and cowardly compromises with the masters.
The Workshops' Regulation Act, wretched in all its details, remained a dead letter in the hands of the municipal and local authorities who were charged with its execution. When, in 1871, Parliament withdrew from them this power, in order to confer it on the Factory Inspectors, to whose province it thus added by a single stroke more than one hundred thousand workshops, and three hundred brickworks, care was taken at the same time not to add more than eight assistants to their already undermanned staff. 243
What strikes us, then, in the English legislation of 1867, is, on the one hand, the necessity imposed on the parliament of the ruling classes, of adopting in principle measures so extraordinary, and on so great a scale, against the excesses of capitalistic exploitation; and on the other hand, the hesitation, the repugnance, and the bad faith, with which it lent itself to the task of carrying those measures into practice.
? 319 Chapter 15
The Inquiry Commission of 1862 also proposed a new regulation of the mining industry, an industry distinguished from others by the exceptional characteristic that the interests of landlord and capitalist there join hands. The antagonism of these two interests had been favourable to Factory legislation, while on the other hand the absence of that antagonism is sufficient to explain the delays and chicanery of the legislation on mines.
The Inquiry Commission of 1840 had made revelations so terrible, so shocking, and creating such a scandal all over Europe, that to salve its conscience Parliament passed the Mining Act of 1842, in which it limited itself to forbidding the employment underground in mines of children under 10 years of age and females.
Then another Act, The Mines' Inspecting Act of 1860, provides that mines shall be inspected by public officers nominated specially for that purpose, and that boys between the ages of 10 and 12 years shall not be employed, unless they have a school certificate, or go to school for a certain number of hours. This Act was a complete dead letter owing to the ridiculously small number of inspectors, the meagreness of their powers, and other causes that will become apparent as we proceed.
One of the most recent Blue books on mines is the --Report from the Select Committee on Mines, together with &c. Evidence, 23rd July, 1866. ? This Report is the work of a Parliamentary Committee selected from members of the House of Commons, and authorised to summon and examine witnesses. It is a thick folio volume in which the Report itself occupies only five lines to this effect; that the committee has nothing to say, and that more witnesses must be examined!
The mode of examining the witnesses reminds one of the cross-examination of witnesses in English courts of justice, where the advocate tries, by means of impudent, unexpected, equivocal and involved questions, put without connexion, to intimidate, surprise, and confound the witness, and to give a forced meaning to the answers extorted from him. In this inquiry the members of the committee themselves are the cross-examiners, and among them are to be found both mine- owners and mine exploiters; the witnesses are mostly working coal miners. The whole farce is too characteristic of the spirit of capital, not to call for a few extracts from this Report. For the sake of conciseness I have classified them. I may also add that every question and its answer are numbered in the English Blue books.
1. Employment in mines of boys of 10 years and upwards. - In the mines the work, inclusive of going and returning, usually lasts 14 or 15 hours, sometimes even from 3, 4 and 5 o'clock a. m. , till 5 and 6 o'clock p. m. (n. 6, 452, 83). The adults work in two shifts, of eight hours each; but there is no alternation with the boys, on account of the expense (n. 80, 203, 204). The younger boys are chiefly employed in opening and shutting the ventilating doors in the various parts of the mine; the older ones are employed on heavier work. in carrying coal, &c. (n. 122, 739, 1747). They work these long hours underground until their 18th or 22nd year, when they are put to miner's work proper (n. 161). Children and young persons are at present worse treated, and harder worked than at any previous period (n. 1663-1667). The miners demand almost unanimously an act of Parliament prohibiting the employment in mines of children under 14. And now Hussey Vivian (himself an exploiter of mines) asks:
--Would not the opinion of the workman depend upon the poverty of the workman's family? ? Mr. Bruce: --Do you not think it would be a very hard case, where a parent had been injured, or where he was sickly, or where a father was dead, and there was only a mother, to prevent a child between 12 and 14 earning 1s. 7d. a day for the good of the family? . . . You must lay down a general rule? . . . Are you prepared to recommend legislation which would prevent the employment of children under 12 and 14, whatever the state of their parents might be? ? --Yes. ?
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(ns. 107-110). Vivian: --Supposing that an enactment were passed preventing the employment of children under the age of 14, would it not be probable that . . . the parents of children would seek employment for their children in other directions, for instance, in manufacture? ? --Not generally I think? (n. 174). Kinnaird: --Some of the boys are keepers of doors? ? --Yes. ? --Is there not generally a very great draught every time you open a door or close it? ? --Yes, generally there is. ? --It sounds a very easy thing, but it is in fact rather a painful one? ? --He is imprisoned there just the same as if he was in a cell of a gaol. ? Bourgeois Vivian: --Whenever a boy is furnished with a lamp cannot he read? ? --Yes, he can read, if he finds himself in candles. . . . I suppose he would be found fault with if he were discovered reading; he is there to mind his business, he has a duty to perform, and he has to attend to it in the first place, and I do not think it would be allowed down the pit. ? (ns. 139, 141, 143, 158, 160).
II. Education. - The working miners want a law for the compulsory education of their children, as in factories. They declare the clauses of the Act of 1860, which require a school certificate to be obtained before employing boys of 10 and 12 years of age, to be quite illusory. The examination of the witnesses on this subject is truly droll.
--Is it (the Act) required more against the masters or against the parents? ? --It is required against both I think. ? --You cannot say whether it is required against one more than against the other? ? --No; I can hardly answer that question. ? (ns. 115, 116). --Does there appear to be any desire on the part of the employers that the boys should have such hours as to enable them to go to school? ? --No; the hours are never shortened for that purpose. ? (n. 137) Mr. Kinnaird: --Should you say that the colliers generally improve their education; have you any instances of men who have, since they began to work, greatly improved their education, or do they not rather go back, and lose any advantage that they may have gained? ? --They generally become worse: they do not improve; they acquire bad habits; they get on to drinking and gambling and such like,, and they go completely to wreck. ? (n. 21 1. ) --Do they make any attempt of the kind (for providing instruction) by having schools at night? ? --There are few collieries where night schools are held, and perhaps at those collieries a few boys do go to those schools; but they are so physically exhausted that it is to no purpose that they go there. ? (n. 454. ) --You are then,? concludes the bourgeois, --against education? ? --Most certainly not; but,? &c. (n. 443. ) --But are they (the employers) not compelled to demand them (school certificates)? ? --By law they are; but I am not aware that they are demanded by the employers. ? --Then it is your opinion, that this provision of the Act as to requiring certificates, is not generally carried out in the collieries? ? --It is not carried out. ? (ns. 443, 444. ) --Do the men take a great interest in this question (of education)? ? --The majority of them do. ? (n. 717. ) --Are they very anxious to see the law enforced? ? --The majority are. ? (n. 718. ) --Do you think that in this country any law that you pass . . . can really be effectual unless the population themselves assist in putting it into operation? ? --Many a man might wish to object to employing a boy, but he would perhaps become marked by it. ? (n. 720. ) --Marked by whom? ? --By his employers. ? (n. 721. ) --Do you think that the employers would find any fault with a man who obeyed the law. . . ? ? --I believe they would. ? (n. 722. ) --Have you ever heard of any workman objecting to employ a boy between 10 and 12, who could not write or read? ? --It is not left to men's
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option. ? (n. 123. ) --Would you call for the interference of Parliament? ? --I think that if anything effectual is to be done in the education of the colliers' children, it will have to be made compulsory by Act of Parliament. ? (n. 1634. ) --Would you lay that obligation upon the colliers only, or all the workpeople of Great Britain? ? --I came to speak for the colliers. ? (n. 1636. ) --Why should you distinguish them (colliery boys) from other boys? ?
--Because I think they are an exception to the rule. ? (n. 1638. ) --In what respect? ? --In a physical respect. ? (n. 1639. ) --Why should education be more valuable to them than to other classes of lads? ? --I do not know that it is more valuable; but through the over-exertion in mines there is less chance for the boys that are employed there to get education, either at Sunday schools, or at day schools. ? (n. 1640. ) --It is impossible to look at a question of this sort absolutely by itself? ? (n. 1644. ) --Is there a sufficiency of schools? ? - --No". . . (n. 1646). --If the State were to require that every child should be sent to school, would there be schools for the children to go to? ? --No; but I think if the circumstances were to spring up, the schools would be forthcoming. ? (n. 1647. ) --Some of them (the boys) cannot read and write at all, I suppose? ? --The majority cannot. . . The majority of the men themselves cannot. ? (ns. 705, 725. )
III. Employment of women. - Since 1842 women are no more employed underground, but are occupied on the surface in loading the coal, &c. , in drawing the tubs to the canals and railway waggons, in sorting, &c. Their numbers have considerably increased during the last three or four years. (n. 1727. ) They are mostly the wives, daughters, and widows of the working miners, and their ages range from 12 to 50 or 60 years. (ns. 645, 1779. )
--What is the feeling among the working miners as to the employment of women? ? --I think they generally condemn it. ? (n. 648. ) --What objection do you see to it? ? --I think it is degrading to the sex. ? (n. 649. ) --There is a peculiarity of dress? ? --Yes . . . it is rather a man's dress, and I believe in some cases, it drowns all sense of decency. ? --Do the women smoke? ? --Some do. ? --And I suppose it is very dirty work? ? --Very dirty. ? --They get black and grimy? ? --As black as those who are down the mines . . . I believe that a woman having children (and there are plenty on the banks that have) cannot do her duty to her children. ? (ns. 650-654, 701. ) --Do you think that those widows could get employment anywhere else, which would bring them in as much wages as that (from 8s. to 10s. a week)? ? --I cannot speak to that. ? (n. 709. ) --You would still be prepared, would you,? (flint-hearted fellow! ) --to prevent their obtaining a livelihood by these means? ? --I would. ? (n. 710. ) --What is the general feeling in the district . . . as to the employment of women? ? --The feeling is that it is degrading; and we wish as miners to have more respect to the fair sex than to see them placed on the pit bank. . . Some part of the work is very hard; some of these girls have raised as much as 10 tons of stuff a day. ? (ns. 1715,1717. ) --Do you think that the women employed about the collieries are less moral than the women employed in the factories? ? --. . . the percentage of bad ones may be a little more . . . than with the girls in the factories. ? (n. 1237. ) --But you are not quite satisfied with the state of morality in the factories? ? --No. ? (n. 1733. ) --Would you prohibit the employment of women in factories also? ? --No, I would not. ? (n. 1734. ) --Why not? ? --I think it a more honourable occupation for them in the mills. ? (n. 1735. ) --Still it is injurious to their morality, you think? ? --Not so much as working on the pit bank; but it is more on the social position I take it; I do not take it on its moral ground alone. The
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degradation, in its social bearing on the girls, is deplorable in the extreme. When these 400 or 500 girls become colliers' wives, the men suffer greatly from this degradation, and it causes them to leave their homes and drink. ? (n. 1736. ) --You would be obliged to stop the employment of women in the ironworks as well, would you not, if you stopped it in the collieries? ? --I cannot speak for any other trade. ? (n. 1737. ) --Can you see any difference in the circumstances of women employed in ironworks, and the circumstances of women employed above ground in collieries? ? --I have not ascertained anything as to that. ? (n. 1740. ) --Can you see anything that makes a distinction between one class and the other? ? --I have not ascertained that, but I know from house to house visitation, that it is a deplorable state of things in our district. . . . ? (n. 1741. ) --Would you interfere in every case with the employment of women where that employment was degrading? ? --It would become injurious, I think, in this way: the best feelings of Englishmen have been gained from the instruction of a mother. . . . (n. 1750. ) --That equally applies to agricultural employments, does it not? ? --Yes, but that is only for two seasons, and we have work all the four seasons. ? (n. 1751. ) --They often work day and night, wet through to the skin, their constitution undermined and their health ruined. ? --You have not inquired into that subject perhaps? ? --I have certainly taken note of it as I have gone along, and certainly I have seen nothing parallel to the effects of the employment of women on the pit bank. . . . It is the work of a man. . .
