They
developed
gradually out of circumstances as natural laws of the modern mode of production.
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
90
Thereupon the author of the --Essay on Trade and Commerce? replies:
--If the making of every seventh day an holiday is supposed to be of divine institution, as it implies the appropriating the other six days to labour? (he means capital as we shall soon see) --surely it will not be thought cruel to enforce it . . . . That mankind in general, are naturally inclined to ease and indolence, we fatally experience to be true, from the conduct of our manufacturing populace, who do not labour, upon an average, above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear. . . . Put all the necessaries of the poor under one denomination; for instance, call them all wheat, or suppose that . . . the bushel of wheat shall cost five shillings and that he (a manufacturer) earns a shilling by his labour, he then would be obliged to work five days only in a week. If the bushel of wheat should cost but four shillings, he would be obliged to work but four days; but as wages in this kingdom are much higher in proportion to the price of necessaries . . . the
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manufacturer, who labours four days, has a surplus of money to live idle with the rest of the week . . . . I hope I have said enough to make it appear that the moderate labour of six days in a week is no slavery. Our labouring people do this, and to all appearance are the happiest of all our labouring poor,91 but the Dutch do this in manufactures, and appear to be a very happy people. The French do so, when holidays do not intervene. 92 But our populace have adopted a notion, that as Englishmen they enjoy a birthright privilege of being more free and independent than in any country in Europe. Now this idea, as far as it may affect the bravery of our troops, may be of some use; but the less the manufacturing poor have of it, certainly the better for themselves and for the State. The labouring people should never think themselves independent of their superiors. . . . It is extremely dangerous to encourage mobs in a commercial state like ours, where, perhaps, seven parts out of eight of the whole, are people with little or no property. The cure will not be perfect, till our manufacturing poor are contented to labour six days for the same sum which they now earn in four days. ? 93
To this end, and for --extirpating idleness debauchery and excess,? promoting a spirit of industry, --lowering the price of labour in our manufactories, and easing the lands of the heavy burden of poor's rates,? our --faithful Eckart? of capital proposes this approved device: to shut up such labourers as become dependent on public support, in a word, paupers, in --an ideal workhouse. ? Such ideal workhouse must be made a --House of Terror,? and not an asylum for the poor, --where they are to be plentifully fed, warmly and decently clothed, and where they do but little work. ? 94 In this --House of Terror,? this --ideal workhouse, the poor shall work 14 hours in a day, allowing proper time for meals, in such manner that there shall remain 12 hours of neat-labour. ? 95
Twelve working-hours daily in the Ideal Workhouse, in the --House of Terror? of 1770! 63 years later, in 1833, when the English Parliament reduced the working day for children of 13 to 18, in four branches of industry to 12 full hours, the judgment day of English Industry had dawned! In 1852, when Louis Bonaparte sought to secure his position with the bourgeoisie by tampering with the legal working day, the French working people cried out with one voice --the law that limits the working day to 12 hours is the one good that has remained to us of the legislation of the Republic! ? 96 At Zu? rich the work of children over 10, is limited to 12 hours; in Aargau in 1862, the work of children between 13 and 16, was reduced from 121/2 to 12 hours; in Austria in 1860, for children between 14 and 16, the same reduction was made. 97 --What a progress,? since 1770! Macaulay would shout with exultation!
The --House of Terror? for paupers of which the capitalistic soul of 1770 only dreamed, was realised a few years later in the shape of a gigantic --Workhouse? for the industrial worker himself. It is called the Factory. And the ideal this time fades before the reality.
Section 6: The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation by Law of the Working-Time.
English Factory Acts, 1833
After capital had taken centuries in extending the working day to its normal maximum limit, and then beyond this to the limit of the natural day of 12 hours,98 there followed on the birth of machinism and modern industry in the last third of the 18th century, a violent encroachment like that of an avalanche in its intensity and extent. All bounds of morals and nature, age and sex, day and night, were broken down. Even the ideas of day and night, of rustic simplicity in the old
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statutes, became so confused that an English judge, as late as 1860, needed a quite Talmudic sagacity to explain --judicially? what was day and what was night. 99 Capital celebrated its orgies.
As soon as the working-class, stunned at first by the noise and turmoil of the new system of production, recovered, in some measure, its senses, its resistance began, and first in the native land of machinism, in England. For 30 years, however, the concessions conquered by the workpeople were purely nominal. Parliament passed 5 labour Laws between 1802 and 1833, but was shrewd enough not to vote a penny for their carrying out, for the requisite officials, &c. 100
They remained a dead letter. --The fact is, that prior to the Act of 1833, young persons and children were worked all night, all day, or both ad libitum. ? 101
A normal working day for modern industry only dates from the Factory Act of 1833, which included cotton, wool, flax, and silk factories. Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of capital than the history of the English Factory Acts from 1833 to 1864.
The Act of 1833 declares the ordinary factory working day to be from half-past five in the morning to half-past eight in the evening and within these limits, a period of 15 hours, it is lawful to employ young persons (i. e. , persons between 13 and 18 years of age), at any time of the day, provided no one individual young person should work more than 12 hours in any one day, except in certain cases especially provided for. The 6th section of the Act provided. --That there shall be allowed in the course of every day not less than one and a half hours for meals to every such person restricted as hereinbefore provided. ? The employment of children under 9, with exceptions mentioned later was forbidden; the work of children between 9 and 13 was limited to 8 hours a day, night-work, i. e. , according to this Act, work between 8:30 p. m. and 5:30 a. m. , was forbidden for all persons between 9 and 18.
The law-makers were so far from wishing to trench on the freedom of capital to exploit adult labour-power, or, as they called it, --the freedom of labour,? that they created a special system in order to prevent the Factory Acts from having a consequence so outrageous.
--The great evil of the factory system as at present conducted,? says the first report of the Central Board of the Commission of June 28th 1833, --has appeared to us to be that it entails the necessity of continuing the labour of children to the utmost length of that of the adults. The only remedy for this evil, short of the limitation of the labour of adults which would, in our opinion, create an evil greater than that which is sought to be remedied, appears to be the plan of working double sets of children. ?
. . . Under the name of System of Relays, this --plan? was therefore carried out, so that, e. g. , from 5. 30 a. m. until 1. 30 in the afternoon, one set of children between 9 and 13, and from 1. 30 p. m. to 8. 30 in the evening another set were --put to,? &c.
In order to reward the manufacturers for having, in the most barefaced way, ignored all the Acts as to children's labour passed during the last twenty-two years, the pill was yet further gilded for them. Parliament decreed that after March 1st, 1834, no child under 11, after March 1st 1835, no child under 12, and after March 1st, 1836, no child under 13 was to work more than eight hours in a factory. This --liberalism,? so full of consideration for --capital,? was the more noteworthy as Dr. Farre, Sir A. Carlisle, Sir B. Brodie, Sir C. Bell, Mr. Guthrie, &c. , in a word, the most distinguished physicians and surgeons in London, had declared in their evidence before the House of Commons, that there was danger in delay. Dr. Farre expressed himself still more coarsely.
--Legislation is necessary for the prevention of death, in any form in which it can be prematurely inflicted, and certainly this (i. e. , the factory method) must be viewed as a most cruel mode of inflicting it. ?
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That same --reformed? Parliament, which in its delicate consideration for the manufacturers, condemned children under 13, for years to come, to 72 hours of work per week in the Factory Hell, on the other hand, in the Emancipation Act, which also administered freedom drop by drop, forbade the planters, from the outset, to work any negro slave more than 45 hours a week.
But in no wise conciliated, capital now began a noisy agitation that went on for several years. It turned chiefly on the age of those who, under the name of children, were limited to 8 hours' work, and were subject to a certain amount of compulsory education. According to capitalistic anthropology, the age of childhood ended at 10, or at the outside, at 11. The more nearly the time approached for the coming into full force of the Factory Act, the fatal year 1836, the more wildly raged the mob of manufacturers. They managed, in fact, to intimidate the government to such an extent that in 1835 it proposed to lower the limit of the age of childhood from 13 to 12. In the meantime the pressure from without grew more threatening. Courage failed the House of Commons. It refused to throw children of 13 under the Juggernaut Car of capital for more than 8 hours a day, and the Act of 1833 came into full operation. It remained unaltered until June, 1844.
In the ten years during which it regulated factory work, first in part, and then entirely, the official reports of the factory inspectors teem with complaints as to the impossibility of putting the Act into force. As the law of 1833 left it optional with the lords of capital during the 15 hours, from 5. 30 a. m. to 8. 30 p. m. , to make every --young person,? and every --child? begin, break off, resume, or end his 12 or 8 hours at any moment they liked, and also permitted them to assign to different persons, different times for meals, these gentlemen soon discovered a new --system of relays,? by which the labour-horses were not changed at fixed stations, but were constantly re- harnessed at changing stations. We do not pause longer on the beauty of this system, as we shall have to return to it later. But this much is clear at the first glance: that this system annulled the whole Factory Act, not only in the spirit, but in the letter. How could factory inspectors, with this complex bookkeeping in respect to each individual child or young person, enforce the legally determined work-time and the granting of the legal mealtimes? In a great many of the factories, the old brutalities soon blossomed out again unpunished. In an interview with the Home Secretary (1844), the factory inspectors demonstrated the impossibility of any control under the newly invented relay system. 102 In the meantime, however, circumstances had greatly changed. The factory hands, especially since 1838, had made the Ten Hours' Bill their economic, as they had made the Charter their political, election-cry. Some of the manufacturers, even, who had managed their factories in conformity with the Act of 1833, overwhelmed Parliament with memorials on the immoral competition of their false brethren whom greater impudence, or more fortunate local circumstances, enabled to break the law. Moreover, however much the individual manufacturer might give the rein to his old lust for gain, the spokesmen and political leaders of the manufacturing class ordered a change of front and of speech towards the workpeople. They had entered upon the contest for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and needed the workers to help them to victory. They promised therefore, not only a double-sized loaf of bread, but the enactment of the Ten Hours' Bill in the Free-trade millennium. 103 Thus they still less dared to oppose a measure intended only to make the law of 1833 a reality. Threatened in their holiest interest, the rent of land, the Tories thundered with philanthropic indignation against the --nefarious practices? 104 of their foes.
This was the origin of the additional Factory Act of June 7th, 1844. It came into effect on September 10th, 1844. It places under protection a new category of workers, viz. , the women over 18. They were placed in every respect on the same footing as the young persons, their work time limited to twelve hours, their night-labour forbidden, &c. For the first time, legislation saw itself
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compelled to control directly and officially the labour of adults. In the Factory Report of 1844- 1845, it is said with irony:
--No instances have come to my knowledge of adult women having expressed any regret at their rights being thus far interfered with. ? 105 The working-time of children under 13 was reduced to 61, and in certain circumstances to 7 hours a- day. 106
To get rid of the abuses of the --spurious relay system,? the law established besides others the following important regulations: -
--That the hours of work of children and young persons shall be reckoned from the time when any child or young person shall begin to work in the morning. ?
So that if A, e. g. , begins work at 8 in the morning, and B at 10, B's work-day must nevertheless end at the same hour as A's. --The time shall be regulated by a public clock,? for example, the nearest railway clock, by which the factory clock is to be set. The occupier is to hang up a --legible? printed notice stating the hours for the beginning and ending of work and the times allowed for the several meals. Children beginning work before 12 noon may not be again employed after 1 p. m. The afternoon shift must therefore consist of other children than those employed in the morning. Of the hour and a half for meal-times,
--one hour thereof at the least shall be given before three of the clock in the afternoon . . . and at the same period of the day. No child or young person shall be employed more than five hours before 1 p. m. without an interval for meal-time of at least 30 minutes. No child or young person [or female] shall be employed or allowed to remain in any room in which any manufacturing process is then [i. e. , at mealtimes] carried on,? &c.
It has been seen that these minutiae, which, with military uniformity, regulate by stroke of the clock the times, limits, pauses of the work were not at all the products of Parliamentary fancy.
They developed gradually out of circumstances as natural laws of the modern mode of production. Their formulation, official recognition, and proclamation by the State, were the result of a long struggle of classes. One of their first consequences was that in practice the working day of the adult males in factories became subject to the same limitations, since in most processes of production the co-operation of the children. young persons, and women is indispensable. On the whole, therefore, during the period from 1844 to 1847, the 12 hours' working day became general and uniform in all branches of industry under the Factory Act.
The manufacturers, however, did not allow this --progress? without a compensating --retrogression. ? At their instigation the House of Commons reduced the minimum age for exploitable children from 9 to 8, in order to assure that additional supply of factory children which is due to capitalists, according to divine and human law. 107
The years 1846-47 are epoch-making in the economic history of England. The Repeal of the Corn Laws, and of the duties on cotton and other raw material; Free-trade proclaimed as the guiding star of legislation; in a word, the arrival of the millennium. On the other hand, in the same years, the Chartist movement and the 10 hours' agitation reached their highest point. They found allies in the Tories panting for revenge. Despite the fanatical opposition of the army of perjured Free- traders, with Bright and Cobden at their head, the Ten Hours' Bill, struggled for so long, went through Parliament.
The new Factory Act of June 8th, 1847, enacted that on July 1st, 1847, there should be a preliminary shortening of the working day for --young persons? (from 13 to 18), and all females
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to 11 hours, but that on May 1st, 1848, there should be a definite limitation of the working day to 10 hours. In other respects, the Act only amended and completed the Acts of 1833 and 1844.
Capital now entered upon a preliminary campaign in order to hinder the Act from coming into full force on May 1st, 1848. And the workers themselves, under the presence that they had been taught by experience, were to help in the destruction of their own work. The moment was cleverly chosen.
--It must be remembered, too, that there has been more than two years of great suffering (in consequence of the terrible crisis of 1846-47) among the factory operatives, from many mills having worked short time, and many being altogether closed. A considerable number of the operatives must therefore be in very narrow circumstances many, it is to be feared, in debt; so that it might fairly have been presumed that at the present time they would prefer working the longer time, in order to make up for past losses, perhaps to pay off debts, or get their furniture out of pawn, or replace that sold, or to get a new supply of clothes for themselves and their families. ? 108
The manufacturers tried to aggravate the natural effect of these circumstances by a general reduction of wages by 10%. This was done so to say, to celebrate the inauguration of the new Free-trade era. Then followed a further reduction of 8 1/3% as soon as the working day was shortened to 11, and a reduction of double that amount as soon as it was finally shortened to 10 hours. Wherever, therefore, circumstances allowed it, a reduction of wages of at least 25% took place. 109 Under such favourably prepared conditions the agitation among the factory workers for the repeal of the Act of 1847 was begun. Neither lies, bribery, nor threats were spared in this attempt. But all was in vain. Concerning the half-dozen petitions in which workpeople were made to complain of --their oppression by the Act,? the petitioners themselves declared under oral examination, that their signatures had been extorted from them. --They felt themselves oppressed, but not exactly by the Factory Act. ? 110 But if the manufacturers did not succeed in making the workpeople speak as they wished, they themselves shrieked all the louder in press and Parliament in the name of the workpeople. They denounced the Factory Inspectors as a kind of revolutionary commissioners like those of the French National Convention ruthlessly sacrificing the unhappy factory workers to their humanitarian crotchet. This manoeuvre also failed. Factory Inspector Leonard Horner conducted in his own person, and through his sub-inspectors, many examinations of witnesses in the factories of Lancashire. About 70% of the workpeople examined declared in favour of 10 hours, a much smaller percentage in favour of 11, and an altogether insignificant minority for the old 12 hours. 111
Another --friendly? dodge was to make the adult males work 12 to 15 hours, and then to blazon abroad this fact as the best proof of what the proletariat desired in its heart of hearts. But the --ruthless? Factory Inspector Leonard Horner was again to the fore. The majority of the --over- times? declared:
--They would much prefer working ten hours for less wages, but that they had no choice; that so many were out of employment (so many spinners getting very low wages by having to work as piecers, being unable to do better), that if they refused to work the longer time, others would immediately get their places, so that it was a question with them of agreeing to work the longer time, or of being thrown out of employment altogether. ? 112
The preliminary campaign of capital thus came to grief, and the Ten Hours' Act came into force May 1st, 1848. But meanwhile the fiasco of the Chartist party whose leaders were imprisoned, and whose organisation was dismembered, had shaken the confidence of the English working-
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class in its own strength. Soon after this the June insurrection in Paris and its bloody suppression united, in England as on the Continent, all fractions of the ruling classes, landlords and capitalists, stock-exchange wolves and shop-keepers, Protectionists and Freetraders, government and opposition, priests and freethinkers, young whores and old nuns, under the common cry for the salvation of Property, Religion, the Family and Society. The working-class was everywhere proclaimed, placed under a ban, under a virtual law of suspects. The manufacturers had no need any longer to restrain themselves. They broke out in open revolt not only against the Ten Hours' Act, but against the whole of the legislation that since 1833 had aimed at restricting in some measure the --free? exploitation of labour-power. It was a pro-slavery rebellion in miniature, carried on for over two years with a cynical recklessness, a terrorist energy all the cheaper because the rebel capitalist risked nothing except the skin of his --hands. ?
To understand that which follows we must remember that the Factory Acts of 1833, 1844, and 1847 were all three in force so far as the one did not amend the other: that not one of these limited the working day of the male worker over 18, and that since 1833 the 15 hours from 5. 30 a. m. to 8. 30 p. m. had remained the legal --day,? within the limits of which at first the 12, and later the 10 hours' labour of young persons and women had to be performed under the prescribed conditions.
The manufacturers began by here and there discharging a part of, in many cases half of the young persons and women employed by them, and then, for the adult males, restoring the almost obsolete night-work. The Ten Hours' Act, they cried, leaves no other alternative. 113
Their second step dealt with the legal pauses for meals. Let us hear the Factory Inspectors.
--Since the restriction of the hours of work to ten, the factory occupiers maintain, although they have not yet practically gone the whole length, that supposing the hours of work to be from 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. they fulfil the provisions of the statutes by allowing an hour before 9 a. m. and half an hour after 7 p. m. [for meals]. In some cases they now allow an hour, or half an hour for dinner, insisting at the same time, that they are not bound to allow any part of the hour and a half in the course of the factory working day. ? 114 The manufacturers maintained therefore that the scrupulously strict provisions of the Act of 1844 with regard to meal- times only gave the operatives permission to eat and drink before coming into, and after leaving the factory - i. e. , at home. And why should not the workpeople eat their dinner before 9 in the morning? The crown lawyers, however, decided that the prescribed meal-times
--must be in the interval during the working-hours, and that it will not be lawful to work for 10 hours continuously, from 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. , without any interval. ? 115
After these pleasant demonstrations, Capital preluded its revolt by a step which agreed with the letter of the law of 1844, and was therefore legal.
The Act of 1844 certainly prohibited the employment after 1 p. m. of such children, from 8 to 13, as had been employed before noon. But it did not regulate in any way the 61/2 hours' work of the children whose work-time began at 12 midday or later. Children of 8 might, if they began work at noon, be employed from 12 to 1, 1 hour; from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, 2 hours; from 5 to 8. 30 in the evening, 31/2 hours; in all, the legal 61/2 hours. Or better still. In order to make their work coincide with that of the adult male labourers up to 8. 30 p. m. , the manufacturers only had to give them no work till 2 in the afternoon, they could then keep them in the factory without intermission till 8. 30 in the evening.
--And it is now expressly admitted that the practice exists in England from the desire of mill-owners to have their machinery at work for more than 10 hours a-
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day, to keep the children at work with male adults after all the young persons and women have left, and until 8. 30 p. m. if the factory-owners choose. ? 116
Workmen and factory inspectors protested on hygienic and moral grounds, but Capital answered:
--My deeds upon my head! I crave the law, The penalty and forfeit of my bond. ?
In fact, according to statistics laid before the House of Commons on July 26th, 1850, in spite of all protests, on July 15th, 1850, 3,742 children were subjected to this --practice? in 257 factories. 117 Still, this was not enough. The Lynx eye of Capital discovered that the Act of 1844 did not allow 5 hours' work before mid-day without a pause of at least 30 minutes for refreshment, but prescribed nothing of the kind for work after mid-day. Therefore, it claimed and obtained the enjoyment not only of making children of 8 drudge without intermission from 2 to 8. 30 p. m. , but also of making them hunger during that time.
--Ay, his breast. So says the bond. ?
This Shylock-clinging118 to the letter of the law of 1844, so far as it regulated children's labour, was but to lead up to an open revolt against the same law, so far as it regulated the labour of --young persons and women. ? It will be remembered that the abolition of the --false relay system? was the chief aim and object of that law. The masters began their revolt with the simple declaration that the sections of the Act of 1844 which prohibited the ad libitum use of young persons and women in such short fractions of the day of 15 hours as the employer chose, were --comparatively harmless? so long as the work-time was fixed at 12 hours. But under the Ten Hours' Act they were a --grievous hardship. ? 119 They informed the inspectors in the coolest manner that they should place themselves above the letter of the law, and re-introduce the old system on their own account. 120 They were acting in the interests of the ill-advised operatives themselves, --in order to be able to pay them higher wages. ?
"This was the only possible plan by which to maintain, under the Ten Hours' Act, the industrial supremacy of Great Britain. ? --Perhaps it may be a little difficult to detect irregularities under the relay system; but what of that? Is the great manufacturing interest of this country to be treated as a secondary matter in order to save some little trouble to Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Factories? ? 121
All these shifts naturally were of no avail. The Factory Inspectors appealed to the Law Courts. But soon such a cloud of dust in the way of petitions from the masters overwhelmed the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, that in a circular of August 5th, 1848, he recommends the inspectors not
--to lay informations against mill-owners for a breach of the letter of the Act, or for employment of young persons by relays in cases in which there is no reason to believe that such young persons have been actually employed for a longer period than that sanctioned by law. ? Hereupon, Factory Inspector J. Stuart allowed the so-called relay system during the 15 hours of the factory day throughout Scotland, where it soon flourished again as of old. The English Factory Inspectors, on the other hand, declared that the Home Secretary had no power dictatorially to suspend the law, and continued their legal proceedings against the pro-slavery rebellion.
But what was the good of summoning the capitalists when the Courts in this case the country magistrates - Cobbett's --Great Unpaid? - acquitted them? In these tribunals, the masters sat in judgment on themselves An example. One Eskrigge, cotton-spinner, of the firm of Kershaw,
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Leese, & Co. , had laid before the Factory Inspector of his district the scheme of a relay system intended for his mill. Receiving a refusal, he at first kept quiet. A few months later, an individual named Robinson, also a cotton-spinner, and if not his Man Friday, at all events related to Eskrigge, appeared before the borough magistrates of Stockport on a charge of introducing the identical plan of relays invented by Eskrigge. Four Justices sat, among them three cottonspinners, at their head this same inevitable Eskrigge. Eskrigge acquitted Robinson, and now was of opinion that what was right for Robinson was fair for Eskrigge. Supported by his own legal decision, he introduced the system at once into his own factory. 122 Of course, the composition of this tribunal was in itself a violation of the law. 123
These judicial farces, exclaims Inspector Howell, --urgently call for a remedy - either that the law should be so altered as to be made to conform to these decisions, or that it should be administered by a less fallible tribunal, whose decisions would conform to the law . . . when these cases are brought forward. I long for a stipendiary magistrate. ? 124
The crown lawyers declared the masters' interpretation of the Act of 1848 absurd. But the Saviours of Society would not allow themselves to be turned from their purpose. Leonard Horner reports,
--Having endeavoured to enforce the Act . . . by ten prosecutions in seven magisterial divisions, and having been supported by the magistrates in one case only . . . I considered it useless to prosecute more for this evasion of the law. That part of the Act of 1848 which was framed for securing uniformity in the hours of work, . . . is thus no longer in force in my district (Lancashire). Neither have the sub-inspectors or myself any means of satisfying ourselves, when we inspect a mill working by shifts, that the young persons and women are not working more than 10 hours a-day. . . . In a return of the 30th April, . . . of millowners working by shifts, the number amounts to 114, and has been for some time rapidly increasing. In general, the time of working the mill is extended to 131/2 hours' from 6 a. m. to 71/2 p. m. , . . . . in some instances it amounts to 15 hours, from 51/2 a. m. to 81/2 p. m. ? 125
Already, in December, 1848, Leonard Horner had a list of 65 manufacturers and 29 overlookers who unanimously declared that no system of supervision could, under this relay system, prevent enormous over-work. 126 Now, the same children and young persons were shifted from the spinning-room to the weaving-room, now, during 15 hours, from one factory to another. 127 How was it possible to control a system which,
--under the guise of relays, is some one of the many plans for shuffling ?
Thereupon the author of the --Essay on Trade and Commerce? replies:
--If the making of every seventh day an holiday is supposed to be of divine institution, as it implies the appropriating the other six days to labour? (he means capital as we shall soon see) --surely it will not be thought cruel to enforce it . . . . That mankind in general, are naturally inclined to ease and indolence, we fatally experience to be true, from the conduct of our manufacturing populace, who do not labour, upon an average, above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear. . . . Put all the necessaries of the poor under one denomination; for instance, call them all wheat, or suppose that . . . the bushel of wheat shall cost five shillings and that he (a manufacturer) earns a shilling by his labour, he then would be obliged to work five days only in a week. If the bushel of wheat should cost but four shillings, he would be obliged to work but four days; but as wages in this kingdom are much higher in proportion to the price of necessaries . . . the
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manufacturer, who labours four days, has a surplus of money to live idle with the rest of the week . . . . I hope I have said enough to make it appear that the moderate labour of six days in a week is no slavery. Our labouring people do this, and to all appearance are the happiest of all our labouring poor,91 but the Dutch do this in manufactures, and appear to be a very happy people. The French do so, when holidays do not intervene. 92 But our populace have adopted a notion, that as Englishmen they enjoy a birthright privilege of being more free and independent than in any country in Europe. Now this idea, as far as it may affect the bravery of our troops, may be of some use; but the less the manufacturing poor have of it, certainly the better for themselves and for the State. The labouring people should never think themselves independent of their superiors. . . . It is extremely dangerous to encourage mobs in a commercial state like ours, where, perhaps, seven parts out of eight of the whole, are people with little or no property. The cure will not be perfect, till our manufacturing poor are contented to labour six days for the same sum which they now earn in four days. ? 93
To this end, and for --extirpating idleness debauchery and excess,? promoting a spirit of industry, --lowering the price of labour in our manufactories, and easing the lands of the heavy burden of poor's rates,? our --faithful Eckart? of capital proposes this approved device: to shut up such labourers as become dependent on public support, in a word, paupers, in --an ideal workhouse. ? Such ideal workhouse must be made a --House of Terror,? and not an asylum for the poor, --where they are to be plentifully fed, warmly and decently clothed, and where they do but little work. ? 94 In this --House of Terror,? this --ideal workhouse, the poor shall work 14 hours in a day, allowing proper time for meals, in such manner that there shall remain 12 hours of neat-labour. ? 95
Twelve working-hours daily in the Ideal Workhouse, in the --House of Terror? of 1770! 63 years later, in 1833, when the English Parliament reduced the working day for children of 13 to 18, in four branches of industry to 12 full hours, the judgment day of English Industry had dawned! In 1852, when Louis Bonaparte sought to secure his position with the bourgeoisie by tampering with the legal working day, the French working people cried out with one voice --the law that limits the working day to 12 hours is the one good that has remained to us of the legislation of the Republic! ? 96 At Zu? rich the work of children over 10, is limited to 12 hours; in Aargau in 1862, the work of children between 13 and 16, was reduced from 121/2 to 12 hours; in Austria in 1860, for children between 14 and 16, the same reduction was made. 97 --What a progress,? since 1770! Macaulay would shout with exultation!
The --House of Terror? for paupers of which the capitalistic soul of 1770 only dreamed, was realised a few years later in the shape of a gigantic --Workhouse? for the industrial worker himself. It is called the Factory. And the ideal this time fades before the reality.
Section 6: The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation by Law of the Working-Time.
English Factory Acts, 1833
After capital had taken centuries in extending the working day to its normal maximum limit, and then beyond this to the limit of the natural day of 12 hours,98 there followed on the birth of machinism and modern industry in the last third of the 18th century, a violent encroachment like that of an avalanche in its intensity and extent. All bounds of morals and nature, age and sex, day and night, were broken down. Even the ideas of day and night, of rustic simplicity in the old
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statutes, became so confused that an English judge, as late as 1860, needed a quite Talmudic sagacity to explain --judicially? what was day and what was night. 99 Capital celebrated its orgies.
As soon as the working-class, stunned at first by the noise and turmoil of the new system of production, recovered, in some measure, its senses, its resistance began, and first in the native land of machinism, in England. For 30 years, however, the concessions conquered by the workpeople were purely nominal. Parliament passed 5 labour Laws between 1802 and 1833, but was shrewd enough not to vote a penny for their carrying out, for the requisite officials, &c. 100
They remained a dead letter. --The fact is, that prior to the Act of 1833, young persons and children were worked all night, all day, or both ad libitum. ? 101
A normal working day for modern industry only dates from the Factory Act of 1833, which included cotton, wool, flax, and silk factories. Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of capital than the history of the English Factory Acts from 1833 to 1864.
The Act of 1833 declares the ordinary factory working day to be from half-past five in the morning to half-past eight in the evening and within these limits, a period of 15 hours, it is lawful to employ young persons (i. e. , persons between 13 and 18 years of age), at any time of the day, provided no one individual young person should work more than 12 hours in any one day, except in certain cases especially provided for. The 6th section of the Act provided. --That there shall be allowed in the course of every day not less than one and a half hours for meals to every such person restricted as hereinbefore provided. ? The employment of children under 9, with exceptions mentioned later was forbidden; the work of children between 9 and 13 was limited to 8 hours a day, night-work, i. e. , according to this Act, work between 8:30 p. m. and 5:30 a. m. , was forbidden for all persons between 9 and 18.
The law-makers were so far from wishing to trench on the freedom of capital to exploit adult labour-power, or, as they called it, --the freedom of labour,? that they created a special system in order to prevent the Factory Acts from having a consequence so outrageous.
--The great evil of the factory system as at present conducted,? says the first report of the Central Board of the Commission of June 28th 1833, --has appeared to us to be that it entails the necessity of continuing the labour of children to the utmost length of that of the adults. The only remedy for this evil, short of the limitation of the labour of adults which would, in our opinion, create an evil greater than that which is sought to be remedied, appears to be the plan of working double sets of children. ?
. . . Under the name of System of Relays, this --plan? was therefore carried out, so that, e. g. , from 5. 30 a. m. until 1. 30 in the afternoon, one set of children between 9 and 13, and from 1. 30 p. m. to 8. 30 in the evening another set were --put to,? &c.
In order to reward the manufacturers for having, in the most barefaced way, ignored all the Acts as to children's labour passed during the last twenty-two years, the pill was yet further gilded for them. Parliament decreed that after March 1st, 1834, no child under 11, after March 1st 1835, no child under 12, and after March 1st, 1836, no child under 13 was to work more than eight hours in a factory. This --liberalism,? so full of consideration for --capital,? was the more noteworthy as Dr. Farre, Sir A. Carlisle, Sir B. Brodie, Sir C. Bell, Mr. Guthrie, &c. , in a word, the most distinguished physicians and surgeons in London, had declared in their evidence before the House of Commons, that there was danger in delay. Dr. Farre expressed himself still more coarsely.
--Legislation is necessary for the prevention of death, in any form in which it can be prematurely inflicted, and certainly this (i. e. , the factory method) must be viewed as a most cruel mode of inflicting it. ?
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That same --reformed? Parliament, which in its delicate consideration for the manufacturers, condemned children under 13, for years to come, to 72 hours of work per week in the Factory Hell, on the other hand, in the Emancipation Act, which also administered freedom drop by drop, forbade the planters, from the outset, to work any negro slave more than 45 hours a week.
But in no wise conciliated, capital now began a noisy agitation that went on for several years. It turned chiefly on the age of those who, under the name of children, were limited to 8 hours' work, and were subject to a certain amount of compulsory education. According to capitalistic anthropology, the age of childhood ended at 10, or at the outside, at 11. The more nearly the time approached for the coming into full force of the Factory Act, the fatal year 1836, the more wildly raged the mob of manufacturers. They managed, in fact, to intimidate the government to such an extent that in 1835 it proposed to lower the limit of the age of childhood from 13 to 12. In the meantime the pressure from without grew more threatening. Courage failed the House of Commons. It refused to throw children of 13 under the Juggernaut Car of capital for more than 8 hours a day, and the Act of 1833 came into full operation. It remained unaltered until June, 1844.
In the ten years during which it regulated factory work, first in part, and then entirely, the official reports of the factory inspectors teem with complaints as to the impossibility of putting the Act into force. As the law of 1833 left it optional with the lords of capital during the 15 hours, from 5. 30 a. m. to 8. 30 p. m. , to make every --young person,? and every --child? begin, break off, resume, or end his 12 or 8 hours at any moment they liked, and also permitted them to assign to different persons, different times for meals, these gentlemen soon discovered a new --system of relays,? by which the labour-horses were not changed at fixed stations, but were constantly re- harnessed at changing stations. We do not pause longer on the beauty of this system, as we shall have to return to it later. But this much is clear at the first glance: that this system annulled the whole Factory Act, not only in the spirit, but in the letter. How could factory inspectors, with this complex bookkeeping in respect to each individual child or young person, enforce the legally determined work-time and the granting of the legal mealtimes? In a great many of the factories, the old brutalities soon blossomed out again unpunished. In an interview with the Home Secretary (1844), the factory inspectors demonstrated the impossibility of any control under the newly invented relay system. 102 In the meantime, however, circumstances had greatly changed. The factory hands, especially since 1838, had made the Ten Hours' Bill their economic, as they had made the Charter their political, election-cry. Some of the manufacturers, even, who had managed their factories in conformity with the Act of 1833, overwhelmed Parliament with memorials on the immoral competition of their false brethren whom greater impudence, or more fortunate local circumstances, enabled to break the law. Moreover, however much the individual manufacturer might give the rein to his old lust for gain, the spokesmen and political leaders of the manufacturing class ordered a change of front and of speech towards the workpeople. They had entered upon the contest for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and needed the workers to help them to victory. They promised therefore, not only a double-sized loaf of bread, but the enactment of the Ten Hours' Bill in the Free-trade millennium. 103 Thus they still less dared to oppose a measure intended only to make the law of 1833 a reality. Threatened in their holiest interest, the rent of land, the Tories thundered with philanthropic indignation against the --nefarious practices? 104 of their foes.
This was the origin of the additional Factory Act of June 7th, 1844. It came into effect on September 10th, 1844. It places under protection a new category of workers, viz. , the women over 18. They were placed in every respect on the same footing as the young persons, their work time limited to twelve hours, their night-labour forbidden, &c. For the first time, legislation saw itself
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compelled to control directly and officially the labour of adults. In the Factory Report of 1844- 1845, it is said with irony:
--No instances have come to my knowledge of adult women having expressed any regret at their rights being thus far interfered with. ? 105 The working-time of children under 13 was reduced to 61, and in certain circumstances to 7 hours a- day. 106
To get rid of the abuses of the --spurious relay system,? the law established besides others the following important regulations: -
--That the hours of work of children and young persons shall be reckoned from the time when any child or young person shall begin to work in the morning. ?
So that if A, e. g. , begins work at 8 in the morning, and B at 10, B's work-day must nevertheless end at the same hour as A's. --The time shall be regulated by a public clock,? for example, the nearest railway clock, by which the factory clock is to be set. The occupier is to hang up a --legible? printed notice stating the hours for the beginning and ending of work and the times allowed for the several meals. Children beginning work before 12 noon may not be again employed after 1 p. m. The afternoon shift must therefore consist of other children than those employed in the morning. Of the hour and a half for meal-times,
--one hour thereof at the least shall be given before three of the clock in the afternoon . . . and at the same period of the day. No child or young person shall be employed more than five hours before 1 p. m. without an interval for meal-time of at least 30 minutes. No child or young person [or female] shall be employed or allowed to remain in any room in which any manufacturing process is then [i. e. , at mealtimes] carried on,? &c.
It has been seen that these minutiae, which, with military uniformity, regulate by stroke of the clock the times, limits, pauses of the work were not at all the products of Parliamentary fancy.
They developed gradually out of circumstances as natural laws of the modern mode of production. Their formulation, official recognition, and proclamation by the State, were the result of a long struggle of classes. One of their first consequences was that in practice the working day of the adult males in factories became subject to the same limitations, since in most processes of production the co-operation of the children. young persons, and women is indispensable. On the whole, therefore, during the period from 1844 to 1847, the 12 hours' working day became general and uniform in all branches of industry under the Factory Act.
The manufacturers, however, did not allow this --progress? without a compensating --retrogression. ? At their instigation the House of Commons reduced the minimum age for exploitable children from 9 to 8, in order to assure that additional supply of factory children which is due to capitalists, according to divine and human law. 107
The years 1846-47 are epoch-making in the economic history of England. The Repeal of the Corn Laws, and of the duties on cotton and other raw material; Free-trade proclaimed as the guiding star of legislation; in a word, the arrival of the millennium. On the other hand, in the same years, the Chartist movement and the 10 hours' agitation reached their highest point. They found allies in the Tories panting for revenge. Despite the fanatical opposition of the army of perjured Free- traders, with Bright and Cobden at their head, the Ten Hours' Bill, struggled for so long, went through Parliament.
The new Factory Act of June 8th, 1847, enacted that on July 1st, 1847, there should be a preliminary shortening of the working day for --young persons? (from 13 to 18), and all females
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to 11 hours, but that on May 1st, 1848, there should be a definite limitation of the working day to 10 hours. In other respects, the Act only amended and completed the Acts of 1833 and 1844.
Capital now entered upon a preliminary campaign in order to hinder the Act from coming into full force on May 1st, 1848. And the workers themselves, under the presence that they had been taught by experience, were to help in the destruction of their own work. The moment was cleverly chosen.
--It must be remembered, too, that there has been more than two years of great suffering (in consequence of the terrible crisis of 1846-47) among the factory operatives, from many mills having worked short time, and many being altogether closed. A considerable number of the operatives must therefore be in very narrow circumstances many, it is to be feared, in debt; so that it might fairly have been presumed that at the present time they would prefer working the longer time, in order to make up for past losses, perhaps to pay off debts, or get their furniture out of pawn, or replace that sold, or to get a new supply of clothes for themselves and their families. ? 108
The manufacturers tried to aggravate the natural effect of these circumstances by a general reduction of wages by 10%. This was done so to say, to celebrate the inauguration of the new Free-trade era. Then followed a further reduction of 8 1/3% as soon as the working day was shortened to 11, and a reduction of double that amount as soon as it was finally shortened to 10 hours. Wherever, therefore, circumstances allowed it, a reduction of wages of at least 25% took place. 109 Under such favourably prepared conditions the agitation among the factory workers for the repeal of the Act of 1847 was begun. Neither lies, bribery, nor threats were spared in this attempt. But all was in vain. Concerning the half-dozen petitions in which workpeople were made to complain of --their oppression by the Act,? the petitioners themselves declared under oral examination, that their signatures had been extorted from them. --They felt themselves oppressed, but not exactly by the Factory Act. ? 110 But if the manufacturers did not succeed in making the workpeople speak as they wished, they themselves shrieked all the louder in press and Parliament in the name of the workpeople. They denounced the Factory Inspectors as a kind of revolutionary commissioners like those of the French National Convention ruthlessly sacrificing the unhappy factory workers to their humanitarian crotchet. This manoeuvre also failed. Factory Inspector Leonard Horner conducted in his own person, and through his sub-inspectors, many examinations of witnesses in the factories of Lancashire. About 70% of the workpeople examined declared in favour of 10 hours, a much smaller percentage in favour of 11, and an altogether insignificant minority for the old 12 hours. 111
Another --friendly? dodge was to make the adult males work 12 to 15 hours, and then to blazon abroad this fact as the best proof of what the proletariat desired in its heart of hearts. But the --ruthless? Factory Inspector Leonard Horner was again to the fore. The majority of the --over- times? declared:
--They would much prefer working ten hours for less wages, but that they had no choice; that so many were out of employment (so many spinners getting very low wages by having to work as piecers, being unable to do better), that if they refused to work the longer time, others would immediately get their places, so that it was a question with them of agreeing to work the longer time, or of being thrown out of employment altogether. ? 112
The preliminary campaign of capital thus came to grief, and the Ten Hours' Act came into force May 1st, 1848. But meanwhile the fiasco of the Chartist party whose leaders were imprisoned, and whose organisation was dismembered, had shaken the confidence of the English working-
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class in its own strength. Soon after this the June insurrection in Paris and its bloody suppression united, in England as on the Continent, all fractions of the ruling classes, landlords and capitalists, stock-exchange wolves and shop-keepers, Protectionists and Freetraders, government and opposition, priests and freethinkers, young whores and old nuns, under the common cry for the salvation of Property, Religion, the Family and Society. The working-class was everywhere proclaimed, placed under a ban, under a virtual law of suspects. The manufacturers had no need any longer to restrain themselves. They broke out in open revolt not only against the Ten Hours' Act, but against the whole of the legislation that since 1833 had aimed at restricting in some measure the --free? exploitation of labour-power. It was a pro-slavery rebellion in miniature, carried on for over two years with a cynical recklessness, a terrorist energy all the cheaper because the rebel capitalist risked nothing except the skin of his --hands. ?
To understand that which follows we must remember that the Factory Acts of 1833, 1844, and 1847 were all three in force so far as the one did not amend the other: that not one of these limited the working day of the male worker over 18, and that since 1833 the 15 hours from 5. 30 a. m. to 8. 30 p. m. had remained the legal --day,? within the limits of which at first the 12, and later the 10 hours' labour of young persons and women had to be performed under the prescribed conditions.
The manufacturers began by here and there discharging a part of, in many cases half of the young persons and women employed by them, and then, for the adult males, restoring the almost obsolete night-work. The Ten Hours' Act, they cried, leaves no other alternative. 113
Their second step dealt with the legal pauses for meals. Let us hear the Factory Inspectors.
--Since the restriction of the hours of work to ten, the factory occupiers maintain, although they have not yet practically gone the whole length, that supposing the hours of work to be from 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. they fulfil the provisions of the statutes by allowing an hour before 9 a. m. and half an hour after 7 p. m. [for meals]. In some cases they now allow an hour, or half an hour for dinner, insisting at the same time, that they are not bound to allow any part of the hour and a half in the course of the factory working day. ? 114 The manufacturers maintained therefore that the scrupulously strict provisions of the Act of 1844 with regard to meal- times only gave the operatives permission to eat and drink before coming into, and after leaving the factory - i. e. , at home. And why should not the workpeople eat their dinner before 9 in the morning? The crown lawyers, however, decided that the prescribed meal-times
--must be in the interval during the working-hours, and that it will not be lawful to work for 10 hours continuously, from 9 a. m. to 7 p. m. , without any interval. ? 115
After these pleasant demonstrations, Capital preluded its revolt by a step which agreed with the letter of the law of 1844, and was therefore legal.
The Act of 1844 certainly prohibited the employment after 1 p. m. of such children, from 8 to 13, as had been employed before noon. But it did not regulate in any way the 61/2 hours' work of the children whose work-time began at 12 midday or later. Children of 8 might, if they began work at noon, be employed from 12 to 1, 1 hour; from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, 2 hours; from 5 to 8. 30 in the evening, 31/2 hours; in all, the legal 61/2 hours. Or better still. In order to make their work coincide with that of the adult male labourers up to 8. 30 p. m. , the manufacturers only had to give them no work till 2 in the afternoon, they could then keep them in the factory without intermission till 8. 30 in the evening.
--And it is now expressly admitted that the practice exists in England from the desire of mill-owners to have their machinery at work for more than 10 hours a-
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day, to keep the children at work with male adults after all the young persons and women have left, and until 8. 30 p. m. if the factory-owners choose. ? 116
Workmen and factory inspectors protested on hygienic and moral grounds, but Capital answered:
--My deeds upon my head! I crave the law, The penalty and forfeit of my bond. ?
In fact, according to statistics laid before the House of Commons on July 26th, 1850, in spite of all protests, on July 15th, 1850, 3,742 children were subjected to this --practice? in 257 factories. 117 Still, this was not enough. The Lynx eye of Capital discovered that the Act of 1844 did not allow 5 hours' work before mid-day without a pause of at least 30 minutes for refreshment, but prescribed nothing of the kind for work after mid-day. Therefore, it claimed and obtained the enjoyment not only of making children of 8 drudge without intermission from 2 to 8. 30 p. m. , but also of making them hunger during that time.
--Ay, his breast. So says the bond. ?
This Shylock-clinging118 to the letter of the law of 1844, so far as it regulated children's labour, was but to lead up to an open revolt against the same law, so far as it regulated the labour of --young persons and women. ? It will be remembered that the abolition of the --false relay system? was the chief aim and object of that law. The masters began their revolt with the simple declaration that the sections of the Act of 1844 which prohibited the ad libitum use of young persons and women in such short fractions of the day of 15 hours as the employer chose, were --comparatively harmless? so long as the work-time was fixed at 12 hours. But under the Ten Hours' Act they were a --grievous hardship. ? 119 They informed the inspectors in the coolest manner that they should place themselves above the letter of the law, and re-introduce the old system on their own account. 120 They were acting in the interests of the ill-advised operatives themselves, --in order to be able to pay them higher wages. ?
"This was the only possible plan by which to maintain, under the Ten Hours' Act, the industrial supremacy of Great Britain. ? --Perhaps it may be a little difficult to detect irregularities under the relay system; but what of that? Is the great manufacturing interest of this country to be treated as a secondary matter in order to save some little trouble to Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Factories? ? 121
All these shifts naturally were of no avail. The Factory Inspectors appealed to the Law Courts. But soon such a cloud of dust in the way of petitions from the masters overwhelmed the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, that in a circular of August 5th, 1848, he recommends the inspectors not
--to lay informations against mill-owners for a breach of the letter of the Act, or for employment of young persons by relays in cases in which there is no reason to believe that such young persons have been actually employed for a longer period than that sanctioned by law. ? Hereupon, Factory Inspector J. Stuart allowed the so-called relay system during the 15 hours of the factory day throughout Scotland, where it soon flourished again as of old. The English Factory Inspectors, on the other hand, declared that the Home Secretary had no power dictatorially to suspend the law, and continued their legal proceedings against the pro-slavery rebellion.
But what was the good of summoning the capitalists when the Courts in this case the country magistrates - Cobbett's --Great Unpaid? - acquitted them? In these tribunals, the masters sat in judgment on themselves An example. One Eskrigge, cotton-spinner, of the firm of Kershaw,
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Leese, & Co. , had laid before the Factory Inspector of his district the scheme of a relay system intended for his mill. Receiving a refusal, he at first kept quiet. A few months later, an individual named Robinson, also a cotton-spinner, and if not his Man Friday, at all events related to Eskrigge, appeared before the borough magistrates of Stockport on a charge of introducing the identical plan of relays invented by Eskrigge. Four Justices sat, among them three cottonspinners, at their head this same inevitable Eskrigge. Eskrigge acquitted Robinson, and now was of opinion that what was right for Robinson was fair for Eskrigge. Supported by his own legal decision, he introduced the system at once into his own factory. 122 Of course, the composition of this tribunal was in itself a violation of the law. 123
These judicial farces, exclaims Inspector Howell, --urgently call for a remedy - either that the law should be so altered as to be made to conform to these decisions, or that it should be administered by a less fallible tribunal, whose decisions would conform to the law . . . when these cases are brought forward. I long for a stipendiary magistrate. ? 124
The crown lawyers declared the masters' interpretation of the Act of 1848 absurd. But the Saviours of Society would not allow themselves to be turned from their purpose. Leonard Horner reports,
--Having endeavoured to enforce the Act . . . by ten prosecutions in seven magisterial divisions, and having been supported by the magistrates in one case only . . . I considered it useless to prosecute more for this evasion of the law. That part of the Act of 1848 which was framed for securing uniformity in the hours of work, . . . is thus no longer in force in my district (Lancashire). Neither have the sub-inspectors or myself any means of satisfying ourselves, when we inspect a mill working by shifts, that the young persons and women are not working more than 10 hours a-day. . . . In a return of the 30th April, . . . of millowners working by shifts, the number amounts to 114, and has been for some time rapidly increasing. In general, the time of working the mill is extended to 131/2 hours' from 6 a. m. to 71/2 p. m. , . . . . in some instances it amounts to 15 hours, from 51/2 a. m. to 81/2 p. m. ? 125
Already, in December, 1848, Leonard Horner had a list of 65 manufacturers and 29 overlookers who unanimously declared that no system of supervision could, under this relay system, prevent enormous over-work. 126 Now, the same children and young persons were shifted from the spinning-room to the weaving-room, now, during 15 hours, from one factory to another. 127 How was it possible to control a system which,
--under the guise of relays, is some one of the many plans for shuffling ?
