Baker, the Inspector of Factories, says, --I have myself had lately to direct prosecutions against one cotton mill occupier for having in these
pinching
and painful times deducted 10d.
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
?
?
?
?
?
5,733,828
8,377,183
12,156,998
20,102,259
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 97 Ure, l. c. , p. 18.
98 Ure, l. c. , P. 3 1. See Karl Marx, l. c. , pp. 140-141.
99 It looks very like intentional misleading by statistics (which misleading it would be possible to prove in detail in other cases too), when the English factory legislation excludes from its operation the
? 337 Chapter 15
class of labourers last mentioned in the text, while the parliamentary returns expressly include in the category of factory operatives, not only engineers, mechanics, &c. , but also managers, salesmen, messengers, warehousemen, packers, &c. , in short everybody, except the owner of the factory himself.
100 Ure grants this. He says, --in case of need,? the workmen can be moved at the will of the manager from one machine to another, and he triumphantly exclaims: --Such a change is in flat contradiction with the old routine, that divides the labour, and to one workman assigns the task of fashioning the head of a needle, to another the sharpening of the point. ? He had much better have asked himself, why this --old routine? is departed from in the automatic factory, only --in case of need. --
101 When distress is very great, as, for instance, during the American Civil War, the factory operative is now and then set by the Bourgeois to do the roughest Of Work, such as road-making, &c. . The English --ateliers nationaux? [national workshops] of 1862 and the following years, established for the benefit of the destitute cotton operatives, differ from the French of 1848 in this, that in the latter the workmen had to do unproductive work at the expense of the state, in the former they had to do productive municipal work to the advantage of the bourgeois, and that, too, cheaper than the regular workmen, with whom they were thus thrown into competition. --The physical appearance of the cotton operatives is unquestionably improved. This I attribute . . . as to the men, to outdoor labour on public works. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1863,? p. 59. ) The writer here alludes to the Preston factory operatives, who were employed on Preston Moor.
102 An example: The various mechanical apparatus introduced since the Act of 1844 into woollen mills, for replacing the labour of children. So soon as it shall happen that the children of the manufacturers themselves have to go through a course of schooling as helpers in the mill, this almost unexplored territory of mechanics will soon make remarkable progress. --Of machinery, perhaps self- acting mules are as dangerous as any other kind. Most of the accidents from them happen to little children, from their creeping under the mules to sweep the floor whilst the mules are in motion. Several ? minders' have been fined for this offence, but without much general benefit. If machine makers would only invent a self-sweeper, by whose use the necessity for these little children to creep under the machinery might be prevented, it would be a happy addition to our protective measures. ? (--Reports of Insp. of Fact. for 31st. Oct. , 1866,? p. 63. )
103 So much then for Proudhon's wonderful idea: he --construes? machinery not as a synthesis of instruments of labour, but as a synthesis of detail operations for the benefit of the labourer himself.
104 F. Engels, l. c. , p. 217. Even an ordinary and optimist Free-trader, like Mr. Molinari, goes so far as to say, --Un homme s'use plus vite en surveillant, quinze heures par jour, l'e? volution uniforme d'un me? canisme, qu'en exercant, dans le me^me espace de temps, sa force physique. Ce travail de surveillance qui servirait peut-e^tre d'utile gymnastique a` l'intelligence, s'il n'e? tait pas trop prolonge? , de? truit a` la longue, par son exce`s, et l'intelligence, et le corps me^me. ? [A man becomes exhausted more quickly when he watches over the uniform motion of mechanism for fifteen hours a day, than when he applies his physical strength over the same period of time. This labour of surveillance, which might perhaps serve as a useful exercise for the mind, if it did not go on too long, destroys both the mind and the body in the long run, through excessive application] (G. de Molinari: --E? tudes E? conomiques. ? Paris, 1846. )
105 F. Engels, l. c. , p. 216.
106 --The Master Spinners' and Manufacturers' Defence Fund. Report of the Committee. ? Manchester, 1854, p. 17. We shall see hereafter, that the --master? can sing quite another song, when he is threatened with the loss of his --living? automaton.
107 Ure, l. c. , p. 15. Whoever knows the life history of Arkwright, will never dub this barber-genius --noble. ? Of all the great inventors of the 18th century, he was incontestably the greatest thiever of other people's inventions and the meanest fellow.
? ? 338 Chapter 15
108 --The slavery in which the bourgeoisie has bound the proletariat, comes nowhere more plainly into daylight than in the factory system. In it all freedom comes to an end both at law and in fact. The workman must be in the factory at half past five. If he come a few minutes late, he is punished; if he come 10 minutes late, he is not allowed to enter until after breakfast, and thus loses a quarter of a day's wage. He must eat, drink and sleep at word of command. . . . The despotic bell calls him from his bed, calls him from breakfast and dinner. And how does he fare in the mill? There the master is the absolute law-giver. He makes what regulations he pleases; he alters and makes additions to his code at pleasure; and if he insert the veriest nonsense, the courts say to the workman: Since you have entered into this contract voluntarily, you must now carry it out . . . . These workmen are condemned to live, from their ninth year till their death, under this mental and bodily torture. ? (F. Engels, l. c. , p. 217, sq. ) What, --the courts say,? I will illustrate by two examples. One occurs at Sheffield at the end of 1866. In that town a workman had engaged himself for 2 years in a steelworks. In consequence of a quarrel with his employer he left the works, and declared that under no circumstances would he work for that master any more. He was prosecuted for breach of contract, and condemned to two months' imprisonment. (If the master break the contract, he can be proceeded against only in a civil action, and risks nothing but money damages. ) After the workman has served his two months, the master invites him to return to the works, pursuant to the contract. Workman says: No, he has already been punished for the breach. The master prosecutes again, the court condemns again, although one of the judges, Mr. Shee, publicly denounces this as a legal monstrosity, by which a man can periodically, as long as he lives, be punished over and over again for the same offence or crime. This judgment was given not by the --Great Unpaid,? the provincial Dogberries, but by one of the highest courts of justice in London. -- [Added in the 4th German edition. -- This has now been done away with. With few exceptions, e. g. , when public gas-works are involved, the worker in England is now put on an equal footing with the employer in case of breach of contract and can be sued only civilly. -- F. E. ] The second case occurs in Wiltshire at the end of November 1863. About 30 power-loom weavers, in the employment of one Harrup, a cloth manufacturer at Leower's Mill, Westbury Leigh, struck work because master Harrup indulged in the agreeable habit of making deductions from their wages for being late in the morning; 6d. for 2 minutes; 1s. for 3 minutes, and 1s. 6d. for ten minutes. This is at the rate of 9s. per hour, and ? 4 10s. 0d. per diem; while the wages of the weavers on the average of a year, never exceeded 10s. to 12s. weekly. Harrup also appointed a boy to announce the starting time by a whistle, which he often did before six o'clock in the morning: and if the hands were not all there at the moment the whistle ceased, the doors were closed, and those hands who were outside were fined: and as there was no clock on the premises, the unfortunate hands were at the mercy of the young Harrup-inspired time-keeper. The hands on strike, mothers of families as well as girls, offered to resume work if the timekeeper were replaced by a clock, and a more reasonable scale of fines were introduced. Harrup summoned I9 women and girls before the magistrates for breach of contract. To the utter indignation of all present, they were each mulcted in a fine of 6d. and 2s. 6d. for costs. Harrup was followed from the court by a crowd of people who hissed him. A favourite operation with manufacturers is to punish the workpeople by deductions made from their wages on account of faults in the material worked on. This method gave rise in 1866 to a general strike in the English pottery districts. The reports of the Ch. Empl. Corn. (1863-1866), give cases where the worker not only receives no wages, but becomes, by means of his labour, and of the penal regulations, the debtor to boot, of his worthy master. The late cotton crisis also furnished edifying examples of the sagacity shown by the factory autocrats in making deductions from wages. Mr. R.
Baker, the Inspector of Factories, says, --I have myself had lately to direct prosecutions against one cotton mill occupier for having in these pinching and painful times deducted 10d. a piece from some of the young workers employed by him, for the surgeon's certificate (for which he himself had only paid 6d. ), when only allowed by the law to deduct 3d. , and by custom nothing at all . . . . And I have been informed of another, who, in order to keep without the law, but to attain the same object, charges the poor children
? ? 339 Chapter 15
who work for him a shilling each, as a fee for learning them the art and mystery of cotton spinning, so soon as they are declared by the surgeon fit and proper persons for that occupation. There may therefore be undercurrent causes for such extraordinary exhibitions as strikes, not only wherever they arise, but particularly at such times as the present, which without explanation, render them inexplicable to the public understanding. ? He alludes here to a strike of power-loom weavers at Darwen, June, 1863. (--Reports of Insp. of Fact. for 30 April, 1863,? pp. 50-51. ) The reports always go beyond their official dates.
109 The protection afforded by the Factory Acts against dangerous machinery has had a beneficial effect. --But . . . there are other sources of accident which did not exist twenty years since; one especially, viz. , the increased speed of the machinery. Wheels, rollers, spindles and shuttles are now propelled at increased and increasing rates; fingers must be quicker and defter in their movements to take up the broken thread, for, if placed with hesitation or carelessness, they are sacrificed. . . . A large number of accidents are caused by the eagerness of the workpeople to get through their work expeditiously. It must be remembered that it is of the highest importance to manufacturers that their machinery should be in motion, i. e. , producing yams and goods. Every minute's stoppage is not only a loss of power, but of production, and the workpeople are urged by the overlookers, who are interested in the quantity of work turned off, to keep the machinery in motion, and it is no less important to those of the operatives who are paid by the weight or piece, that the machines should be kept in motion. Consequently, although it is strictly forbidden in many, nay in most factories, that machinery should be cleaned while in motion, it is nevertheless the constant practice in most, if not in all, that the workpeople do, unreproved, pick out waste, wipe rollers and wheels, &c. , while their frames are in motion. Thus from this cause only, 906 accidents have occurred during the six months. . . . Although a great deal of cleaning is constantly going on day by day, yet Saturday is generally the day set apart for the thorough cleaning of the machinery, and a great deal of this is done while the machinery is in motion. ? Since cleaning is not paid for, the workpeople seek to get done with it as speedily as possible. Hence --the number of accidents which occur on Fridays, and especially on Saturdays, is much larger than on any other day. On the former day the excess is nearly 12 per cent. over the average number of the four first days of the week, and on the latter day the excess is 25 per cent. over the average of the preceding five days; or, if the number of working-hours on Saturday being taken into account -- 71/2 hours on Saturday as compared with 101/2 on other days -- there is an excess of 65 per cent. on Saturdays over the average of the other five days. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1866,? pp. 9, 15, 16, 17. )
110 In Part I. of Book III. I shall give an account of a recent campaign by the English manufacturers against the Clauses in the Factory Acts that protect the --hands? against dangerous machinery. For the present, let this one quotation from the official report of Leonard Horner suffice: --I have heard some mill-owners speak with inexcusable levity of some of the accidents; such, for instance, as the loss of a finger being a trifling matter. A working-man's living and prospects depend so much upon his fingers, that any loss of them is a very serious matter to him. When I have heard such inconsiderate remarks made, I have usually put this question: Suppose you were in want of an additional workman, and two were to apply, both equally well qualified in other respects, but one had lost a thumb or a forefinger, which would you engage? There never was a hesitation as to the answer. . . . ? The manufacturers have --mistaken prejudices against what they have heard represented as a pseudo-philanthropic legislation. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1855. ") These manufacturers are clever folk, and not without reason were they enthusiastic for the slave-holders' rebellion.
111 In those factories that have been longest subject to the Factory Acts, with their compulsory limitation of the hours of labour, and other regulations, many of the older abuses have vanished. The very improvement of the machinery demands to a certain extent --improved construction of the
? ? 340 Chapter 15
buildings,? and this is an advantage to the workpeople. (See --Rep. of Insp. of Fact. for 31st Oct. , 1863,? p. 109. )
112 See amongst others, John Houghton: --Husbandry and Trade Improved. ? London, 1727. --The Advantages of the East India Trade, 1720. ? John Bellers, l. c. --The masters and their workmen are, unhappily, in a perpetual war with each other. The invariable object of the former is to get their work done as cheaply as possible; and they do not fail to employ every artifice to this purpose, whilst the latter are equally attentive to every occasion of distressing their masters into a compliance with higher demands. ? (--An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present High Price of Provisions,? pp. 61-62. Author, the Rev. Nathaniel Forster, quite on the side of the workmen. )
113 In old-fashioned manufactures the revolts of the workpeople against machinery, even to this day, occasionally assume a savage character, as in the case of the Sheffield file cutters in 1865.
114 Sir James Steuart also understands machinery quite in this sense. --Je conside`re donc les machines comme des moyens d'augmenter (virtuellement) le nombre des gens industrieux qu'on n'est pas oblige? de nourrir. . . . En quoi l'effet d'une machine diffe`re-t-il de celui de nouveaux habitants? ? (French trans. t. I. , l. I. , ch. XIX. ) More nai? ve is Petty, who says, it replaces --Polygamy. ? The above point of view is, at the most, admissible only for some parts of the United States. On the other hand, --machinery can seldom be used with success to abridge the labour of an individual; more time would be lost in its construction than could be saved by its application. It is only really useful when it acts on great masses, when a single machine can assist the work of thousands. It is accordingly in the most populous countries, where there are most idle men, that it is most abundant. . . . It is trot called into use by a scarcity of men, but by the facility with which they can be brought to work in masses. ? (Piercy Ravenstone: --Thoughts on the Funding System and its Effects. ? London, 1824, p. 45. )
115 [Note in the 4th German edition. -- This applies to Germany too. Where in our country agriculture on a large scale exists, hence particularly in the East, it has become possible only in consequence of the clearing of the estates (--Bauernlegen? ), a practice which became widerspread in the 16th century and was particularly so since 1648. -- F. E. ]
116 --Machinery and labour are in constant competition. ? Ricardo, l. c. , p. 479.
117 The competition between hand-weaving and power-weaving in England, before the passing of the Poor Law of 1833, was prolonged by supplementing the wages, which had fallen considerably below the minimum, with parish relief. --The Rev. Mr. Turner was, in 1827, rector of Wilmslow in Cheshire, a manufacturing district. The questions of the Committee of Emigration, and Mr. Turner's answers, show how the competition of human labour is maintained against machinery. ? Question: Has not the use of the power-loom superseded the use of the hand-loom? Answer: Undoubtedly; it would have superseded them much more than it has done, if the hand-loom weavers were not enabled to submit to a reduction of wages. ' ? Question: But in submitting he has accepted wages which are insufficient to support him, and looks to parochial contribution as the remainder of his support? Answer: Yes, and in fact the competition between the hand-loom and the power-loom is maintained out of the poor-rates. ' Thus degrading pauperism or expatriation, is the benefit which the industrious receive from the introduction of machinery, to be reduced from the respectable and in some degree independent mechanic, to the cringing wretch who lives on the debasing bread of charity. This they call a temporary inconvenience. ? (--A Prize Essay on the Comparative Merits of Competition and Co- operation. ? Lond. , 1834, p. 29. )
118 --The same cause which may increase the revenue of the country? (i. e. , as Ricardo explains in the same passage, the revenues of landlords and capitalists, whose wealth, from the economic point of view, forms the Wealth of the Nation), --may at the same time render the population redundant and deteriorate the condition of the labourer. ? (Ricardo, l. c. , p. 469. ) --The constant aim and the tendency of every improvement in machinery is, in fact, to do away entirely with the labour of man, or to lessen
? ? 341 Chapter 15
its price by substituting the labour of women and children for that of grown-up men, or of unskilled for that of skilled workmen. ? (Ure, l. c. , t. I. , p. 35. )
119 --Rep. Insp. Fact. for 31st October, 1858,? p. 43.
120 --Rep. lnsp. Fact. for 31st October, 1856,? p. 15.
121 Ure, l. c. , p.
8,377,183
12,156,998
20,102,259
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 97 Ure, l. c. , p. 18.
98 Ure, l. c. , P. 3 1. See Karl Marx, l. c. , pp. 140-141.
99 It looks very like intentional misleading by statistics (which misleading it would be possible to prove in detail in other cases too), when the English factory legislation excludes from its operation the
? 337 Chapter 15
class of labourers last mentioned in the text, while the parliamentary returns expressly include in the category of factory operatives, not only engineers, mechanics, &c. , but also managers, salesmen, messengers, warehousemen, packers, &c. , in short everybody, except the owner of the factory himself.
100 Ure grants this. He says, --in case of need,? the workmen can be moved at the will of the manager from one machine to another, and he triumphantly exclaims: --Such a change is in flat contradiction with the old routine, that divides the labour, and to one workman assigns the task of fashioning the head of a needle, to another the sharpening of the point. ? He had much better have asked himself, why this --old routine? is departed from in the automatic factory, only --in case of need. --
101 When distress is very great, as, for instance, during the American Civil War, the factory operative is now and then set by the Bourgeois to do the roughest Of Work, such as road-making, &c. . The English --ateliers nationaux? [national workshops] of 1862 and the following years, established for the benefit of the destitute cotton operatives, differ from the French of 1848 in this, that in the latter the workmen had to do unproductive work at the expense of the state, in the former they had to do productive municipal work to the advantage of the bourgeois, and that, too, cheaper than the regular workmen, with whom they were thus thrown into competition. --The physical appearance of the cotton operatives is unquestionably improved. This I attribute . . . as to the men, to outdoor labour on public works. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1863,? p. 59. ) The writer here alludes to the Preston factory operatives, who were employed on Preston Moor.
102 An example: The various mechanical apparatus introduced since the Act of 1844 into woollen mills, for replacing the labour of children. So soon as it shall happen that the children of the manufacturers themselves have to go through a course of schooling as helpers in the mill, this almost unexplored territory of mechanics will soon make remarkable progress. --Of machinery, perhaps self- acting mules are as dangerous as any other kind. Most of the accidents from them happen to little children, from their creeping under the mules to sweep the floor whilst the mules are in motion. Several ? minders' have been fined for this offence, but without much general benefit. If machine makers would only invent a self-sweeper, by whose use the necessity for these little children to creep under the machinery might be prevented, it would be a happy addition to our protective measures. ? (--Reports of Insp. of Fact. for 31st. Oct. , 1866,? p. 63. )
103 So much then for Proudhon's wonderful idea: he --construes? machinery not as a synthesis of instruments of labour, but as a synthesis of detail operations for the benefit of the labourer himself.
104 F. Engels, l. c. , p. 217. Even an ordinary and optimist Free-trader, like Mr. Molinari, goes so far as to say, --Un homme s'use plus vite en surveillant, quinze heures par jour, l'e? volution uniforme d'un me? canisme, qu'en exercant, dans le me^me espace de temps, sa force physique. Ce travail de surveillance qui servirait peut-e^tre d'utile gymnastique a` l'intelligence, s'il n'e? tait pas trop prolonge? , de? truit a` la longue, par son exce`s, et l'intelligence, et le corps me^me. ? [A man becomes exhausted more quickly when he watches over the uniform motion of mechanism for fifteen hours a day, than when he applies his physical strength over the same period of time. This labour of surveillance, which might perhaps serve as a useful exercise for the mind, if it did not go on too long, destroys both the mind and the body in the long run, through excessive application] (G. de Molinari: --E? tudes E? conomiques. ? Paris, 1846. )
105 F. Engels, l. c. , p. 216.
106 --The Master Spinners' and Manufacturers' Defence Fund. Report of the Committee. ? Manchester, 1854, p. 17. We shall see hereafter, that the --master? can sing quite another song, when he is threatened with the loss of his --living? automaton.
107 Ure, l. c. , p. 15. Whoever knows the life history of Arkwright, will never dub this barber-genius --noble. ? Of all the great inventors of the 18th century, he was incontestably the greatest thiever of other people's inventions and the meanest fellow.
? ? 338 Chapter 15
108 --The slavery in which the bourgeoisie has bound the proletariat, comes nowhere more plainly into daylight than in the factory system. In it all freedom comes to an end both at law and in fact. The workman must be in the factory at half past five. If he come a few minutes late, he is punished; if he come 10 minutes late, he is not allowed to enter until after breakfast, and thus loses a quarter of a day's wage. He must eat, drink and sleep at word of command. . . . The despotic bell calls him from his bed, calls him from breakfast and dinner. And how does he fare in the mill? There the master is the absolute law-giver. He makes what regulations he pleases; he alters and makes additions to his code at pleasure; and if he insert the veriest nonsense, the courts say to the workman: Since you have entered into this contract voluntarily, you must now carry it out . . . . These workmen are condemned to live, from their ninth year till their death, under this mental and bodily torture. ? (F. Engels, l. c. , p. 217, sq. ) What, --the courts say,? I will illustrate by two examples. One occurs at Sheffield at the end of 1866. In that town a workman had engaged himself for 2 years in a steelworks. In consequence of a quarrel with his employer he left the works, and declared that under no circumstances would he work for that master any more. He was prosecuted for breach of contract, and condemned to two months' imprisonment. (If the master break the contract, he can be proceeded against only in a civil action, and risks nothing but money damages. ) After the workman has served his two months, the master invites him to return to the works, pursuant to the contract. Workman says: No, he has already been punished for the breach. The master prosecutes again, the court condemns again, although one of the judges, Mr. Shee, publicly denounces this as a legal monstrosity, by which a man can periodically, as long as he lives, be punished over and over again for the same offence or crime. This judgment was given not by the --Great Unpaid,? the provincial Dogberries, but by one of the highest courts of justice in London. -- [Added in the 4th German edition. -- This has now been done away with. With few exceptions, e. g. , when public gas-works are involved, the worker in England is now put on an equal footing with the employer in case of breach of contract and can be sued only civilly. -- F. E. ] The second case occurs in Wiltshire at the end of November 1863. About 30 power-loom weavers, in the employment of one Harrup, a cloth manufacturer at Leower's Mill, Westbury Leigh, struck work because master Harrup indulged in the agreeable habit of making deductions from their wages for being late in the morning; 6d. for 2 minutes; 1s. for 3 minutes, and 1s. 6d. for ten minutes. This is at the rate of 9s. per hour, and ? 4 10s. 0d. per diem; while the wages of the weavers on the average of a year, never exceeded 10s. to 12s. weekly. Harrup also appointed a boy to announce the starting time by a whistle, which he often did before six o'clock in the morning: and if the hands were not all there at the moment the whistle ceased, the doors were closed, and those hands who were outside were fined: and as there was no clock on the premises, the unfortunate hands were at the mercy of the young Harrup-inspired time-keeper. The hands on strike, mothers of families as well as girls, offered to resume work if the timekeeper were replaced by a clock, and a more reasonable scale of fines were introduced. Harrup summoned I9 women and girls before the magistrates for breach of contract. To the utter indignation of all present, they were each mulcted in a fine of 6d. and 2s. 6d. for costs. Harrup was followed from the court by a crowd of people who hissed him. A favourite operation with manufacturers is to punish the workpeople by deductions made from their wages on account of faults in the material worked on. This method gave rise in 1866 to a general strike in the English pottery districts. The reports of the Ch. Empl. Corn. (1863-1866), give cases where the worker not only receives no wages, but becomes, by means of his labour, and of the penal regulations, the debtor to boot, of his worthy master. The late cotton crisis also furnished edifying examples of the sagacity shown by the factory autocrats in making deductions from wages. Mr. R.
Baker, the Inspector of Factories, says, --I have myself had lately to direct prosecutions against one cotton mill occupier for having in these pinching and painful times deducted 10d. a piece from some of the young workers employed by him, for the surgeon's certificate (for which he himself had only paid 6d. ), when only allowed by the law to deduct 3d. , and by custom nothing at all . . . . And I have been informed of another, who, in order to keep without the law, but to attain the same object, charges the poor children
? ? 339 Chapter 15
who work for him a shilling each, as a fee for learning them the art and mystery of cotton spinning, so soon as they are declared by the surgeon fit and proper persons for that occupation. There may therefore be undercurrent causes for such extraordinary exhibitions as strikes, not only wherever they arise, but particularly at such times as the present, which without explanation, render them inexplicable to the public understanding. ? He alludes here to a strike of power-loom weavers at Darwen, June, 1863. (--Reports of Insp. of Fact. for 30 April, 1863,? pp. 50-51. ) The reports always go beyond their official dates.
109 The protection afforded by the Factory Acts against dangerous machinery has had a beneficial effect. --But . . . there are other sources of accident which did not exist twenty years since; one especially, viz. , the increased speed of the machinery. Wheels, rollers, spindles and shuttles are now propelled at increased and increasing rates; fingers must be quicker and defter in their movements to take up the broken thread, for, if placed with hesitation or carelessness, they are sacrificed. . . . A large number of accidents are caused by the eagerness of the workpeople to get through their work expeditiously. It must be remembered that it is of the highest importance to manufacturers that their machinery should be in motion, i. e. , producing yams and goods. Every minute's stoppage is not only a loss of power, but of production, and the workpeople are urged by the overlookers, who are interested in the quantity of work turned off, to keep the machinery in motion, and it is no less important to those of the operatives who are paid by the weight or piece, that the machines should be kept in motion. Consequently, although it is strictly forbidden in many, nay in most factories, that machinery should be cleaned while in motion, it is nevertheless the constant practice in most, if not in all, that the workpeople do, unreproved, pick out waste, wipe rollers and wheels, &c. , while their frames are in motion. Thus from this cause only, 906 accidents have occurred during the six months. . . . Although a great deal of cleaning is constantly going on day by day, yet Saturday is generally the day set apart for the thorough cleaning of the machinery, and a great deal of this is done while the machinery is in motion. ? Since cleaning is not paid for, the workpeople seek to get done with it as speedily as possible. Hence --the number of accidents which occur on Fridays, and especially on Saturdays, is much larger than on any other day. On the former day the excess is nearly 12 per cent. over the average number of the four first days of the week, and on the latter day the excess is 25 per cent. over the average of the preceding five days; or, if the number of working-hours on Saturday being taken into account -- 71/2 hours on Saturday as compared with 101/2 on other days -- there is an excess of 65 per cent. on Saturdays over the average of the other five days. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1866,? pp. 9, 15, 16, 17. )
110 In Part I. of Book III. I shall give an account of a recent campaign by the English manufacturers against the Clauses in the Factory Acts that protect the --hands? against dangerous machinery. For the present, let this one quotation from the official report of Leonard Horner suffice: --I have heard some mill-owners speak with inexcusable levity of some of the accidents; such, for instance, as the loss of a finger being a trifling matter. A working-man's living and prospects depend so much upon his fingers, that any loss of them is a very serious matter to him. When I have heard such inconsiderate remarks made, I have usually put this question: Suppose you were in want of an additional workman, and two were to apply, both equally well qualified in other respects, but one had lost a thumb or a forefinger, which would you engage? There never was a hesitation as to the answer. . . . ? The manufacturers have --mistaken prejudices against what they have heard represented as a pseudo-philanthropic legislation. ? (--Rep. of Insp. of Fact. , 31st Oct. , 1855. ") These manufacturers are clever folk, and not without reason were they enthusiastic for the slave-holders' rebellion.
111 In those factories that have been longest subject to the Factory Acts, with their compulsory limitation of the hours of labour, and other regulations, many of the older abuses have vanished. The very improvement of the machinery demands to a certain extent --improved construction of the
? ? 340 Chapter 15
buildings,? and this is an advantage to the workpeople. (See --Rep. of Insp. of Fact. for 31st Oct. , 1863,? p. 109. )
112 See amongst others, John Houghton: --Husbandry and Trade Improved. ? London, 1727. --The Advantages of the East India Trade, 1720. ? John Bellers, l. c. --The masters and their workmen are, unhappily, in a perpetual war with each other. The invariable object of the former is to get their work done as cheaply as possible; and they do not fail to employ every artifice to this purpose, whilst the latter are equally attentive to every occasion of distressing their masters into a compliance with higher demands. ? (--An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present High Price of Provisions,? pp. 61-62. Author, the Rev. Nathaniel Forster, quite on the side of the workmen. )
113 In old-fashioned manufactures the revolts of the workpeople against machinery, even to this day, occasionally assume a savage character, as in the case of the Sheffield file cutters in 1865.
114 Sir James Steuart also understands machinery quite in this sense. --Je conside`re donc les machines comme des moyens d'augmenter (virtuellement) le nombre des gens industrieux qu'on n'est pas oblige? de nourrir. . . . En quoi l'effet d'une machine diffe`re-t-il de celui de nouveaux habitants? ? (French trans. t. I. , l. I. , ch. XIX. ) More nai? ve is Petty, who says, it replaces --Polygamy. ? The above point of view is, at the most, admissible only for some parts of the United States. On the other hand, --machinery can seldom be used with success to abridge the labour of an individual; more time would be lost in its construction than could be saved by its application. It is only really useful when it acts on great masses, when a single machine can assist the work of thousands. It is accordingly in the most populous countries, where there are most idle men, that it is most abundant. . . . It is trot called into use by a scarcity of men, but by the facility with which they can be brought to work in masses. ? (Piercy Ravenstone: --Thoughts on the Funding System and its Effects. ? London, 1824, p. 45. )
115 [Note in the 4th German edition. -- This applies to Germany too. Where in our country agriculture on a large scale exists, hence particularly in the East, it has become possible only in consequence of the clearing of the estates (--Bauernlegen? ), a practice which became widerspread in the 16th century and was particularly so since 1648. -- F. E. ]
116 --Machinery and labour are in constant competition. ? Ricardo, l. c. , p. 479.
117 The competition between hand-weaving and power-weaving in England, before the passing of the Poor Law of 1833, was prolonged by supplementing the wages, which had fallen considerably below the minimum, with parish relief. --The Rev. Mr. Turner was, in 1827, rector of Wilmslow in Cheshire, a manufacturing district. The questions of the Committee of Emigration, and Mr. Turner's answers, show how the competition of human labour is maintained against machinery. ? Question: Has not the use of the power-loom superseded the use of the hand-loom? Answer: Undoubtedly; it would have superseded them much more than it has done, if the hand-loom weavers were not enabled to submit to a reduction of wages. ' ? Question: But in submitting he has accepted wages which are insufficient to support him, and looks to parochial contribution as the remainder of his support? Answer: Yes, and in fact the competition between the hand-loom and the power-loom is maintained out of the poor-rates. ' Thus degrading pauperism or expatriation, is the benefit which the industrious receive from the introduction of machinery, to be reduced from the respectable and in some degree independent mechanic, to the cringing wretch who lives on the debasing bread of charity. This they call a temporary inconvenience. ? (--A Prize Essay on the Comparative Merits of Competition and Co- operation. ? Lond. , 1834, p. 29. )
118 --The same cause which may increase the revenue of the country? (i. e. , as Ricardo explains in the same passage, the revenues of landlords and capitalists, whose wealth, from the economic point of view, forms the Wealth of the Nation), --may at the same time render the population redundant and deteriorate the condition of the labourer. ? (Ricardo, l. c. , p. 469. ) --The constant aim and the tendency of every improvement in machinery is, in fact, to do away entirely with the labour of man, or to lessen
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its price by substituting the labour of women and children for that of grown-up men, or of unskilled for that of skilled workmen. ? (Ure, l. c. , t. I. , p. 35. )
119 --Rep. Insp. Fact. for 31st October, 1858,? p. 43.
120 --Rep. lnsp. Fact. for 31st October, 1856,? p. 15.
121 Ure, l. c. , p.
