The Condition of the Working Class in England
As in life, so in death. The poor are dumped into the earth like infected cattle. The pauper burial-ground of St. Brides, London, is a bare morass, in use as a cemetery since the time of Charles II., and filled with heaps of bones; every Wednesday the paupers are thrown into a ditch fourteen feet deep; a curate rattles through the Litany at the top of his speed; the ditch is loosely covered in, to be re-opened the next Wednesday, and filled with corpses as long as one more can be forced in. The putrefaction thus engendered contaminates the whole neighbourhood. In Manchester, the pauper burial-ground lies opposite to the Old Town, along the Irk: this, too, is a rough, desolate place. About two years ago a railroad was carried through it. If it had been a respectable cemetery, how the bourgeoisie and the clergy would have shrieked over the desecration! But it was a pauper burial-ground, the resting-place of the outcast and superfluous, so no one concerned himself about the matter. It was not even thought worth while to convey the partially decayed bodies to the other side of the cemetery; they were heaped up just as it happened, and piles were driven into newly-made graves, so that the water oozed out of the swampy ground, pregnant with putrefying matter, and filled the neighbourhood with the most revolting and injurious gases. The disgusting brutality which accompanied this work I cannot describe in further detail.
Can any one wonder that the poor decline to accept public relief under these conditions? That they starve rather than enter these bastilles? I have the reports of five cases in which persons actually starving, when the guardians refused them outdoor relief, went back to their miserable homes and died of starvation rather than enter these hells. Thus far have the Poor Law Commissioners attained their object. At the same time, however, the workhouses have intensified, more than any other measure of the party in power, the hatred of the working-class against the property- holders, who very generally admire the New Poor Law.
From Newcastle to Dover, there is but one voice among the workers--the voice of hatred against the new law. The bourgeoisie has formulated so clearly in this law its conception of its duties towards the proletariat, that it has been appreciated even by the dullest. So frankly, so boldly had the conception never yet been formulated, that the non-possessing class exists solely for the purpose of being exploited, and of starving when the property-holders can no longer make use of it. Hence it is that this new Poor Law has contributed so greatly to accelerate the labour movement, and especially to spread Chartism; and, as it is carried out most extensively in the country, it facilitates the development of the proletarian movement which is arising in the agricultural districts. Let me add that a similar law in force in Ireland since 1838, affords a similar refuge for eighty thousand paupers. Here, too, it has made itself disliked, and would have been intensely hated if it had attained anything like the same importance as in England. But what difference does the ill-treatment of eighty thousand proletarians make in a country in which there are two and a half millions of them? In Scotland there are, with local exceptions, no Poor Laws.
I hope that after this picture of the New Poor Law and its results, no word which I have said of the English bourgeoisie will be thought too stern. In this public measure, in which it acts _in corpore_ as the ruling power, it formulates its real intentions, reveals the animus of those smaller transactions with the proletariat, of which the blame apparently attaches to individuals. And that this measure did not originate with any one section of the bourgeoisie, but enjoys the approval of the whole class, is proved by the Parliamentary debates of 1844. The Liberal party had enacted the New Poor Law; the Conservative party, with its Prime Minister Peel at the head, defends it, and only alters some petty-fogging trifles in the Poor Law Amendment Bill of 1844. A Liberal majority carried the bill, a Conservative majority approved it, and the "Noble Lords" gave their consent each time. Thus is the expulsion of the proletariat from State and society outspoken, thus is it publicly proclaimed that proletarians are not human beings, and do not deserve to be treated as such. Let us leave it to the proletarians of the British Empire to re-conquer their human rights. {293}
Such is the state of the British working-class as I have come to know it in the course of twenty-one months, through the medium of my own eyes, and through official and other trustworthy reports. And when I call this condition, as I have frequently enough done in the foregoing pages, an utterly unbearable one, I am not alone in so doing. As early as 1833, Gaskell declared that he despaired of a peaceful issue, and that a revolution can hardly fail to follow. In 1838, Carlyle explained Chartism and the revolutionary activity of the working-men as arising out of the misery in which they live, and only wondered that they have sat so quietly eight long years at the Barmecide feast, at which they have been regaled by the Liberal bourgeoisie with empty promises. And in 1844 he declared that the work of organising labour must be begun at once "if Europe or at least England, is long to remain inhabitable." And the _Times_, the "first journal of Europe," said in June, 1844: "War to palaces, peace unto cabins--that is a battle-cry of terror which may come to resound throughout our country. Let the wealthy beware!"
* * * * *
Meanwhile, let us review once more the chances of the English bourgeoisie. In the worst case, foreign manufacture, especially that of America, may succeed in withstanding English competition, even after the repeal of the Corn Laws, inevitable in the course of a few years. German manufacture is now making great efforts, and that of America has developed with giant strides. America, with its inexhaustible resources, with its unmeasured coal and iron fields, with its unexampled wealth of water-power and its navigable rivers, but especially with its energetic, active population, in comparison with which the English are phlegmatic dawdlers,--America has in less than ten years created a manufacture which already competes with England in the coarser cotton goods, has excluded the English from the markets of North and South America, and holds its own in China, side by side with England. If any country is adapted to holding a monopoly of manufacture, it is America. Should English manufacture be thus vanquished--and in the course of the next twenty years, if the present conditions remain unchanged, this is inevitable--the majority of the proletariat must become forever superfluous, and has no other choice than to starve or to rebel. Does the English bourgeoisie reflect upon this contingency? On the contrary; its favourite economist, M'Culloch, teaches from his student's desk, that a country so young as America, which is not even properly populated, cannot carry on manufacture successfully or dream of competing with an old manufacturing country like England. It were madness in the Americans to make the attempt, for they could only lose by it; better far for them to stick to their agriculture, and when they have brought their whole territory under the plough, a time may perhaps come for carrying on manufacture with a profit. So says the wise economist, and the whole bourgeoisie worships him, while the Americans take possession of one market after another, while a daring American speculator recently even sent a shipment of American cotton goods to England, where they were sold for re-exportation!
But assuming that England retained the monopoly of manufactures, that its factories perpetually multiply, what must be the result? The commercial crises would continue, and grow more violent, more terrible, with the extension of industry and the multiplication of the proletariat. The proletariat would increase in geometrical proportion, in consequence of the progressive ruin of the lower middle-class and the giant strides with which capital is concentrating itself in the hands of the few; and the proletariat would soon embrace the whole nation, with the exception of a few millionaires. But in this development there comes a stage at which the proletariat perceives how easily the existing power may be overthrown, and then follows a revolution.
Neither of these supposed conditions may, however, be expected to arise. The commercial crises, the mightiest levers for all independent development of the proletariat, will probably shorten the process, acting in concert with foreign competition and the deepening ruin of the lower middle-class. I think the people will not endure more than one more crisis. The next one, in 1846 or 1847, will probably bring with it the repeal of the Corn Laws {296} and the enactment of the Charter. What revolutionary movements the Charter may give rise to remains to be seen. But, by the time of the next following crisis, which, according to the analogy of its predecessors, must break out in 1852 or 1853, unless delayed perhaps by the repeal of the Corn Laws or hastened by other influences, such as foreign competition--by the time this crisis arrives, the English people will have had enough of being plundered by the capitalists and left to starve when the capitalists no longer require their services. If, up to that time, the English bourgeoisie does not pause to reflect--and to all appearance it certainly will not do so--a revolution will follow with which none hitherto known can be compared. The proletarians, driven to despair, will seize the torch which Stephens has preached to them; the vengeance of the people will come down with a wrath of which the rage of 1793 gives no true idea. The war of the poor against the rich will be the bloodiest ever waged. Even the union of a part of the bourgeoisie with the proletariat, even a general reform of the bourgeoisie, would not help matters. Besides, the change of heart of the bourgeoisie could only go as far as a lukewarm _juste-milieu_; the more determined, uniting with the workers, would only form a new Gironde, and succumb in the course of the mighty development. The prejudices of a whole class cannot be laid aside like an old coat: least of all, those of the stable, narrow, selfish English bourgeoisie. These are all inferences which may be drawn with the greatest certainty: conclusions, the premises for which are undeniable facts, partly of historical development, partly facts inherent in human nature. Prophecy is nowhere so easy as in England, where all the component elements of society are clearly defined and sharply separated. The revolution must come; it is already too late to bring about a peaceful solution; but it can be made more gentle than that prophesied in the foregoing pages. This depends, however, more upon the development of the proletariat than upon that of the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the proletariat absorbs socialistic and communistic elements, will the revolution diminish in bloodshed, revenge, and savagery. Communism stands, in principle, above the breach between bourgeoisie and proletariat, recognises only its historic significance for the present, but not its justification for the future: wishes, indeed, to bridge over this chasm, to do away with all class antagonisms. Hence it recognises as justified, so long as the struggle exists, the exasperation of the proletariat towards its oppressors as a necessity, as the most important lever for a labour movement just beginning; but it goes beyond this exasperation, because Communism is a question of humanity and not of the workers alone. Besides, it does not occur to any Communist to wish to revenge himself upon individuals, or to believe that, in general, the single bourgeois can act otherwise, under existing circumstances, than he does act. English Socialism, _i.e_. Communism, rests directly upon the irresponsibility of the individual. Thus the more the English workers absorb communistic ideas, the more superfluous becomes their present bitterness, which, should it continue so violent as at present, could accomplish nothing; and the more their action against the bourgeoisie will lose its savage cruelty. If, indeed, it were possible to make the whole proletariat communistic before the war breaks out, the end would be very peaceful; but that is no longer possible, the time has gone by. Meanwhile, I think that before the outbreak of open, declared war of the poor against the rich, there will be enough intelligent comprehension of the social question among the proletariat, to enable the communistic party, with the help of events, to conquer the brutal element of the revolution and prevent a "Ninth Thermidor." In any case, the experience of the French will not have been undergone in vain, and most of the Chartist leaders are, moreover, already Communists. And as Communism stands above the strife between bourgeoisie and proletariat, it will be easier for the better elements of the bourgeoisie (which are, however, deplorably few, and can look for recruits only among the rising generation) to unite with it than with purely proletarian Chartism.
If these conclusions have not been sufficiently established in the course of the present work, there may be other opportunities for demonstrating that they are necessary consequences of the historical development of England. But this I maintain, the war of the poor against the rich now carried on in detail and indirectly will become direct and universal. It is too late for a peaceful solution. The classes are divided more and more sharply, the spirit of resistance penetrates the workers, the bitterness intensifies, the guerilla skirmishes become concentrated in more important battles, and soon a slight impulse will suffice to set the avalanche in motion. Then, indeed, will the war-cry resound through the land: "War to the palaces, peace to the cottages!"--but then it will be too late for the rich to beware.
TRANSLATORS NOTE.
Being unable at this late day to obtain the original English, the translator has been compelled to re-translate from the German the passages quoted in the text from the following sources:--G. Alston, preacher of St. Philip's, Bethnal Green.--D. W. P. Alison, F.R.S.E., "Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland," 1840.--The _Artisan_, 1842, October number.--J. C. Symonds, "Arts and Artisans at Home and Abroad," Edin., 1839.--Report of the Town Council of Leeds, published in _Statistical Journal_, vol. ii., p. 404.--Nassau W. Senior, "Letters on the Factory Act to the Rt. Hon. the President of the Board of Trade" (Chas. Poulett Thomson, Esq.), London, 1837.--Report of the Children's Employment Commission.--Mr. Parkinson, Canon of Manchester, "On the Present Condition of the Labouring Poor in Manchester," 3rd Ed., 1841.--Factories' Inquiries Commission's Report.--E. G. Wakefield, M. P., "Swing Unmasked; or, The Cause of Rural Incendiarism," London, 1831.--A Correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_.--Anonymous pamphlet on "The State of Ireland," London, 1807; 2nd Ed., 1821.--Report of the Poor Law Commissioners: Extracts from Information received by the Poor Law Commissioners. Published by Authority, London, 1833.
INDEX
Accidents, 109, 143, 150, 164, 165, 294.
Adulteration, 67, _et seq_.
Apprentices, 169, 191, 197, _et seq_. 209.
Charter, 225, _et seq_. 280, 296.
Chartism, xiv., xix., 65, 123, 228, _et seq_. 275, 292.
Chartists, 135, 176, 199, 231, _et seq_. 253, 258.
Corn Laws, 113, 261, 268, 279, 280, 294. League, 122, 231, 268, 280. Repeal of, vi., 17, 231, 232, 275.
Cottage System, v., 182, 183, 251, 252, 256.
Crime--Form of Rebellion, 266, _et seq_. 274. Increase of, 130, _et seq_. Juvenile, 200, 204. Result of Overcrowding, 65, 120, 121.
Diseases, Engendered by Dwellings, 201, 202. Filth, 35, 40, 41, 64, 96, 97. Occupation, 162-3, 177-8, 191-2, 206. Overwork, 153, 155, _et seq_. 171, 245-6. Want, 30, 73, 88, 108, 199, 210-11.
Education--Means of, 108, _et seq_. 195, 200, 201, 202, 238, 254. Want of, 90, 91, 126, 129, 148, 149.
Employment of Children, In Agriculture, 262, 263. In Factories, 141, _et seq_. 167, 171, _et seq_. 193. In House Industry, 191, _et seq_. In Mines, 241, 244, _et seq_. In the Night, 191, 207.
Employment of Women, In Agriculture, 263. In Factories, 141, _et seq_. 160, _et seq_. 175, 192. In Mines, 241, 242, 248, 249. In Sewing, 209, _et seq_.
Epidemics, vi., 37, 41, 61, 64, 98, 100, 110, 158.
Factory Acts, x., xi., 17, 134, 151, 168, 116, 176, 188.
Food--Adulteration of, 98. Insufficiency of, 32, 74, 101, 102, 193, 208. Quality of, 68, 71, 91, 140, 201.
Free Trade, vii., viii., _et seq_. 183, 234, 268.
Intemperance, 102, 127, 128.
Inventions. 1, 4, _et seq_. 42, 134, _et seq_. 223, 224.
Law--A Bourgeois Institution, 113, 130, 173, 176, 227, 281, 282, 288. New Poor, 174, 175, 230, 235, 262, _et seq_. 269, 284, _et seq_. Old Poor, 176, 284, 285. Of Wages, xi., 77, _et seq_. 219.
Mortality, 100, 101, 104, _et seq_. 143, 150, 243.
Parliament, 17, 96, 111, 214, 228, 251, 283, 287.
Philanthropy, 27, 28, 88, 173, 212, 278.
Police, 132, 221, 225, 226, 281, 282.
Reform Bill, ix., 17, 214, 229, 285.
Reserve Army, 85, 90.
Schools--Day, 110, _et seq_. 173, 200, 207, 250. Night, 110, 250. Sunday, 111, 202, 250.
Socialism, vi., vii., xii., 122, 236, _et seq_. 275, 297.
Starvation, 25, 29, 73, 76, 88, 117, 167, 189, 285.
Strikes, ix., xiv., xv., 168, 215, 218, 223, 224, 231, 254, 256, 257.
Suicide, 115, 116.
Surplus Population, 81, _et seq_. 139, 263, 266, 280, 287.
Ten Hours' Bill, vii., 142, 172, 174, _et seq_. 230, 235, 284.
Truck System, vii., viii., 182-3, 185, 252, 253.
Ventilation of Dwellings, 36. Mines, 249. Towns, 27, 28, 36, 53, _et seq_. 63, 64, 96, _et seq_. Workrooms, 155, 156, 158.
Workhouses, 287, _et seq_.
Footnotes.
{7} According to Porter's _Progress of the Nation_, London, 1836, vol. i., 1838, vol. ii., 1843, vol. iii. (official data), and other sources chiefly official.
{20} Compare on this point my "Outlines for a Critique of Political Economy" in the _Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher_.
{23} This applies to the time of sailing vessels. The Thames now is a dreary collection of ugly steamers.--F. E.
{32} _Times_, Oct. 12th, 1843.
{33} Quoted by Dr. W. P. Alison, F.R.S.E, Fellow and late President of the Royal College of Physicians, etc. etc. "Observations on the Management of the Poor in Scotland and its Effects on the Health of Great Towns." Edinburgh, 1840. The author is a religious Tory, brother of the historian, Archibald Alison.
{35a} "Report to the Home Secretary from the Poor-Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes in Great Britain with Appendix." Presented to both Houses of Parliament in July 1842, 3 vols. Folio.
{35b} _The Artisan_, October, 1842.
{38} "Arts and Artisan at Home and Abroad," by J. C. Symonds, Edinburgh, 1839. The author, as it seems, himself a Scotchman, is a Liberal, and consequently fanatically opposed to every independent movement of working- men. The passages here cited are to be found p. 116 _et seq_.
{40a} It must be borne in mind that these cellars are not mere storing- rooms for rubbish, but dwellings of human beings.
{40b} Compare Report of the Town Council in the Statistical Journal, vol. 2, p. 404.
{49} "The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working-Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester." By James Ph. Kay, M.D. 2nd Ed. 1832.
Dr. Kay confuses the working-class in general with the factory workers, otherwise an excellent pamphlet.
{55} And yet an English Liberal wiseacre asserts, in the Report of the Children's Employment Commission, that these courts are the masterpiece of municipal architecture, because, like a multitude of little parks, they improve ventilation, the circulation of air! Certainly, if each court had two or four broad open entrances facing each other, through which the air could pour; but they never have two, rarely one, and usually only a narrow covered passage.
{63} Nassau W. Senior. "Letters on the Factory Act to the Rt. Hon. the President of the Board of Trade" (Chas. Poulett Thompson, Esq.), London, 1837, p. 24.
{64} Kay, loc. cit., p. 32.
{65} P. Gaskell. "The Manufacturing Population of England: its Moral, Social and Physical Condition, and the Changes which have arisen from the Use of Steam Machinery; with an Examination of Infant Labour." "Fiat Justitia," 1833.--Depicting chiefly the state of the working-class in Lancashire. The author is a Liberal, but wrote at a time when it was not a feature of Liberalism to chant the happiness of the workers. He is therefore unprejudiced, and can afford to have eyes for the evils of the present state of things, and especially for the factory system. On the other hand, he wrote before the Factories Enquiry Commission, and adopts from untrustworthy sources many assertions afterwards refuted by the Report of the Commission. This work, although on the whole a valuable one, can therefore only be used with discretion, especially as the author, like Kay, confuses the whole working-class with the mill hands. The history of the development of the proletariat contained in the introduction to the present work, is chiefly taken from this work of Gaskell's.
{67} Thomas Carlyle. "Chartism," London, 1840, p. 28.
{80} Adam Smith. "Wealth of Nations" I., McCulloch's edition in one volume, sect. 8, p. 36: "The wear and tear of a slave, it has been said, is at the expense of his master, but that of a free servant is at his own expense. The wear and tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense of his master as that of the former. The wages paid to journeymen and servants of every kind, must be such as may enable them, one with another, to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the increasing, diminishing, or stationary demand of the society may happen to require. But though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave. The fund for replacing or repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed by a negligent master or careless overseer."
{87} And it came in 1847.
{90a} Archibald Alison. "Principles of Population and their Connection with Human Happiness," two vols., 1840. This Alison is the historian of the French Revolution, and, like his brother, Dr. W. P. Alison, a religious Tory.
{90b} "Chartism," pp. 28, 31, etc.
{95} When as here and elsewhere I speak of society as a responsible whole, having rights and duties, I mean, of course, the ruling power of society, the class which at present holds social and political control, and bears, therefore, the responsibility for the condition of those to whom it grants no share in such control. This ruling class in England, as in all other civilised countries, is the bourgeoisie. But that this society, and especially the bourgeoisie, is charged with the duty of protecting every member of society, at least, in his life, to see to it, for example, that no one starves, I need not now prove to my _German_ readers. If I were writing for the English bourgeoisie, the case would be different. (And so it is now in Germany. Our German capitalists are fully up to the English level, in this respect at least, in the year of grace, 1886.)
{100a} Dr. Alison. "Management of the Poor in Scotland."
{100b} Alison. "Principles of Population," vol. ii.
{100c} Dr. Alison in an article read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science. October, 1844, in York.
{104} "Manufacturing Population," ch 8.
{105a} Report of Commission of Inquiry into the Employment of Children and Young Persons in Mines and Collieries and in the Trades and Manufactures in which numbers of them work together, not being included under the terms of the Factories' Regulation Act. First and Second Reports, Grainger's Report. Second Report usually cited as "Children's Employment Commission's Report." First Report, 1841; Second Report, 1843.
{105b} Fifth Annual Report of the Reg. Gen. of Births, Deaths, and Marriages.
{106} Dr. Cowen. "Vital Statistics of Glasgow."
{107} Report of Commission of Inquiry into the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts. First Report, 1844. Appendix.
{108a} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Reports, 3rd vol. Report of Dr. Hawkins on Lancashire, in which Dr. Robertson is cited--the "Chief Authority for Statistics in Manchester."
{108b} Quoted by Dr. Wade from the Report of the Parliamentary Factories' Commission of 1832, in his "History of the Middle and Working- Classes." London, 1835, 3rd ed.
{112a} Children's Employment Commission's Report. App. Part II. Q. 18, No. 216, 217, 226, 233, etc. Horne.
{112b} _Ibid_. evidence, p. 9, 39; 133.
{113a} _Ibid_. p. 9, 36; 146.
{113b} _Ibid_. p. 34; 158.
{113c} Symonds' Rep. App. Part I., pp. E, 22, _et seq_.
{115a} "Arts and Artisans."
{115b} "Principles of Population," vol. ii. pp. 136, 197.
{116} We shall see later how the rebellion of the working-class against the bourgeoisie in England is legalised by the right of coalition.
{117a} "Chartism," p. 34, _et seq_.
{117b} _Ibid_., p. 40.
{119} Shall I call bourgeois witnesses to bear testimony from me here, too? I select one only, whom every one may read, namely, Adam Smith. "Wealth of Nations" (McCulloch's four volume edition), vol. iii., book 5, chap. 8, p. 297.
{120} "Principles of Population," vol. ii., p. 76, _et seq_. p. 82, p. 135.
{122} "Philosophy of Manufactures," London, 1835, p. 406, _et seq_. We shall have occasion to refer further to this reputable work.
{125} "On the Present Condition of the Labouring Poor in Manchester," etc. By the Rev. Rd. Parkinson, Canon of Manchester, 3d Ed., London and Manchester, 1841, Pamphlet.
{131a} "Manufacturing Population of England," chap. 10.
{131b} The total of population, about fifteen millions, divided by the number of convicted criminals (22,733).
{134a} "The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain," by Dr. A. Ure, 1836.
{134b} "History of the Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain," by E. Baines, Esq.
{135} "Stubborn Facts from the Factories by a Manchester Operative." Published and dedicated to the working-classes, by Wm. Rashleigh, M.P., London, Ollivier, 1844, p. 28, _et seq_.
{136} Compare Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report.
{138} L. Symonds, in "Arts and Artisans."
{140} See Dr. Ure in the "Philosophy of Manufacture."
{141} Report of Factory Inspector, L. Homer, October, 1844: "The state of things in the matter of wages is greatly perverted in certain branches of cotton manufacture in Lancashire; there are hundreds of young men, between twenty and thirty, employed as piecers and otherwise, who do not get more than 8 or 9 shillings a week, while children under thirteen years, working under the same roof, earn 5 shillings, and young girls, from sixteen to twenty years, 10-12 shillings per week."
{143a} Report of Factories' Inquiry Commission. Testimony of Dr. Hawkins, p. 3.
{143b} In 1843, among the accidents brought to the Infirmary in Manchester, one hundred and eighty-nine were from burning.
{144} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report, Power's Report on Leeds: passim Tufnell Report on Manchester, p. 17. etc.
{145} This letter is re-translated from the German, no attempt being made to re-produce either the spelling or the original Yorkshire dialect.
{147a} How numerous married women are in the factories is seen from information furnished by a manufacturer: In 412 factories in Lancashire, 10,721 of them were employed; of the husbands of these women, but 5,314 were also employed in the factories, 3,927 were otherwise employed, 821 were unemployed, and information was wanting as to 659; or two, if not three men for each factory, are supported by the work of their wives.
{147b} House of Commons, March 15th, 1844.
{147c} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report, p. 4.
{148a} For further examples and information compare Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report. Cowell Evidence, pp. 37, 38, 39, 72, 77, 59; Tufnell Evidence, pp. 9, 15, 45, 54, etc.
{148b} Cowell Evidence, pp. 35, 37, and elsewhere.
{148c} Power Evidence, p. 8.
{149a} Cowell Evidence, p. 57
{149b} Cowell Evidence, p. 82.
{149c} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report, p. 4, Hawkins.
{151} Stuart Evidence, p. 35.
{152a} Tufnell Evidence, p. 91.
{152b} Dr. Loudon Evidence, pp. 12, 13.
{153a} Dr. Loudon Evidence, p. 16.
{153b} Drinkwater Evidence, pp. 72, 80, 146, 148, 150 (two brothers); 69 (two brothers); 155, and many others.
Power Evidence, pp. 63, 66, 67 (two cases); 68 (three cases); 69 (two cases); in Leeds, pp. 29, 31, 40, 43, 53, _et seq_.
Loudon Evidence, pp. 4, 7 (four cases); 8 (several cases), etc.
Sir D. Barry Evidence, pp. 6, 8, 13, 21, 22, 44, 55 (three cases), etc.
Tufnell Evidence, pp. 5, 6, 16, etc.
{154a} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report, 1836, Sir D. Barry Evidence, p. 21 (two cases).
{154b} Factories' Inquiry Commission's Report, 1836, Loudon Evidence, pp. 13, 16, etc.
{155} In the spinning-room of a mill at Leeds, too, chairs had been introduced. Drinkwater Evidence, p. 80.
{156} General report by Sir D. Barry.
{157a} Power Report, p. 74.
{157b} The surgeons in England are scientifically educated as well as the physicians, and have, in general, medical as well as surgical practice. They are in general, for various reasons, preferred to the physicians.
{159a} This statement is not taken from the report.
{159b} Tufnell, p. 59.
{160a} Stuart Evidence, p. 101.
{160b} Tufnell Evidence, pp. 3, 9, 15.
{161} Hawkins Report, p. 4; Evidence, p. 14, etc. etc. Hawkins Evidence, pp. 11, 13.
{162a} Cowell Evidence, p. 77.
{162b} Sir D. Barry Evidence, p. 44.
{162c} Cowell, p. 35.
{163a} Dr. Hawkins Evidence, p. 11; Dr. Loudon, p. 14, etc.; Sir D. Barry, p. 5, etc.
{163b} Compare Stuart, pp. 13, 70, 101; Mackintosh, p. 24, etc.; Power Report on Nottingham, on Leeds; Cowell, p. 33, etc.; Barry, p. 12; (five cases in one factory), pp. 17, 44, 52, 60, etc.; Loudon, p. 13.
{167a} Stuart, p. 39.
{167b} "Philosophy of Manufactures," by Dr. Andrew Ure, p. 277, _et seq_.
{168a} _Ibid_., 277.
{168b} _Ibid_., p. 298.
{168c} _Ibid_., p. 301.
{169} Dr. Andrew Ure. "Philosophy of Manufactures," pp. 405, 406, _et seq_.
{174} Afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, died 1885.
{176} It is notorious that the House of Commons made itself ridiculous a second time in the same session in the same way on the Sugar Question, when it first voted against the ministry and then for it, after an application of the ministerial whip.
{178} Let us hear another competent judge: "If we consider the example of the Irish in connection with the ceaseless toil of the cotton operative class, we shall wonder less at their terrible demoralisation. Continuous exhausting toil, day after day, year after year, is not calculated to develop the intellectual and moral capabilities of the human being. The wearisome routine of endless drudgery, in which the same mechanical process is ever repeated, is like the torture of Sisyphus; the burden of toil, like the rock, is ever falling back upon the worn-out drudge. The mind attains neither knowledge nor the power of thought from the eternal employment of the same muscles. The intellect dozes off in dull indolence, but the coarser part of our nature reaches a luxuriant development. To condemn a human being to such work is to cultivate the animal quality in him. He grows indifferent, he scorns the impulses and customs which distinguish his kind. He neglects the conveniences and finer pleasures of life, lives in filthy poverty with scanty nourishment, and squanders the rest of his earnings in debauchery."--Dr. J. Kay.
{179a} _Manchester Guardian_, October 30th.
{179b} "Stubborn Facts," p. 9 _et seq_.
{181a} Drinkwater Evidence; p. 80.
{181b} "Stubborn Facts," pp. 13-17.
{184} _Sun_, a London daily; end of November, 1844.
{186} I have neither time nor space to deal in detail with the replies of the manufacturers to the charges made against them for twelve years past. These men will not learn because their supposed interest blinds them. As, moreover, many of their objections have been met in the foregoing, the following is all that it is necessary for me to add:
You come to Manchester, you wish to make yourself acquainted with the state of affairs in England. You naturally have good introductions to respectable people. You drop a remark or two as to the condition of the workers. You are made acquainted with a couple of the first Liberal manufacturers, Robert Hyde Greg, perhaps, Edmund Ashworth, Thomas Ashton, or others. They are told of your wishes. The manufacturer understands you, knows what he has to do. He accompanies you to his factory in the country; Mr. Greg to Quarrybank in Cheshire, Mr. Ashworth to Turton near Bolton, Mr. Ashton to Hyde. He leads you through a superb, admirably arranged building, perhaps supplied with ventilators, he calls your attention to the lofty, airy rooms, the fine machinery, here and there a healthy-looking operative. He gives you an excellent lunch, and proposes to you to visit the operatives' homes; he conducts you to the cottages, which look new, clean and neat, and goes with you into this one and that one, naturally only to overlookers, mechanics, etc., so that you may see "families who live wholly from the factory." Among other families you might find that only wife and children work, and the husband darns stockings. The presence of the employer keeps you from asking indiscreet questions; you find every one well-paid, comfortable, comparatively healthy by reason of the country air; you begin to be converted from your exaggerated ideas of misery and starvation. But, that the cottage system makes slaves of the operatives, that there may be a truck shop in the neighbourhood, that the people hate the manufacturer, this they do not point out to you, because he is present. He has built a school, church, reading-room, etc. That he uses the school to train children to subordination, that he tolerates in the reading-room such prints only as represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, that he dismisses his employees if they read Chartist or Socialist papers or books, this is all concealed from you. You see an easy, patriarchal relation, you see the life of the overlookers, you see what the bourgeoisie _promises_ the workers if they become its slaves, mentally and morally. This "country manufacture" has always been what the employers like to show, because in it the disadvantages of the factory system, especially from the point of view of health, are, in part, done away with by the free air and surroundings, and because the patriarchal servitude of the workers can here be longest maintained. Dr. Ure sings a dithyramb upon the theme. But woe to the operatives to whom it occurs to think for themselves and become Chartists! For them the paternal affection of the manufacturer comes to a sudden end. Further, if you should wish to be accompanied through the working-people's quarters of Manchester, if you should desire to see the development of the factory system in a factory town, you may wait long before these rich bourgeoisie will help you! These gentlemen do not know in what condition their employees are nor what they want, and they dare not know things which would make them uneasy or even oblige them to act in opposition to their own interests. But, fortunately, that is of no consequence: what the working-men have to carry out, they carry out for themselves.
{189} Grainger Report. Appendix, Part I., pp. 7, 15, _et seq_., 132- 142.
{192a} Grainger's whole Report.
{192b} Grainger Children's Employment Commission's Report.
{193} Burns, Children's Employment Commission's Report.
{194} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 47.
{196} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 33.
{197} Leach. "Stubborn Facts from the Factories," p. 37-40.
{199} Children's Employment Commission's Report.
{200a} See p. 112.
{200b} Grainger Report and Evidence.
{202} Horne Report and Evidence.
{203} Dr. Knight, Sheffield.
{205} Symonds Report and Evidence.
{207} Scriven Report and Evidence.
{208} Leifchild Report Append., Part II., p. L 2, ss. 11,12; Franks Report Append., Part II., p. K 7, s. 48, Tancred Evid. Append., Part II., p. I 76, etc.--Children's Employment Commission's Rep't.
{210} See _Weekly Dispatch_, March 16th, 1844.
{211} Thomas Hood, the most talented of all the English humorists now living, and, like all humorists, full of human feeling, but wanting in mental energy, published at the beginning of 1844 a beautiful poem, "The Song of the Shirt," which drew sympathetic but unavailing tears from the eyes of the daughters of the bourgeoisie. Originally published in _Punch_, it made the round of all the papers. As discussions of the condition of the sewing-women filled all the papers at the time, special extracts are needless.
{214} "Arts and Artisans," p. 137, _et seq_.
{221a} So called from the East Indian tribe, whose only trade is the murder of all the strangers who fall into its hands.
{221b} "What kind of wild justice must it be in the hearts of these men that prompts them, with cold deliberation, in conclave assembled, to doom their brother workman, as the deserter of his order and his order's cause, to die a traitor's and a deserter's death, have him executed, in default of any public judge and hangman, then by a secret one; like your old Chivalry Fehmgericht and Secret Tribunal, suddenly revived in this strange guise; suddenly rising once more on the astonished eye, dressed not now in mail shirts, but in fustian jackets, meeting not in Westphalian forests, but in the paved Gallowgate of Glasgow! Such a temper must be widespread virulent among the many when, even in its worst acme, it can take such form in the few."--Carlyle. "Chartism," p. 40.
{222a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 282.
{222b} _Ibid_., p. 282.
{223a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 367.
{223b} _Ibid_., p. 366, _et seq_.
{232} Compare Report of Chambers of Commerce of Manchester and Leeds at the end of July and beginning of August.
{235} See Introduction.
{241} According to the census of 1841, the number of working-men employed in mines in Great Britain, without Ireland, was:
Men over Men under Women over Women under Together 20 years 20 years 20 years 20 Years Coal mines 83,408 32,475 1,185 1,165 118,233 Copper mines 9,866 3,428 913 1,200 15,407 Lead mines 9,427 1,932 40 20 11,419 Iron mines 7,733 2,679 424 73 10,949 Tin mines 4,602 1,349 68 82 6,101 Various, the mineral not specified 24,162 6,591 472 491 31,616 Total 137,398 48,454 3,102 3,031 193,725
As the coal and iron mines are usually worked by the same people, a part of the miners attributed to the coal mines, and a very considerable part of those mentioned under the last heading, are to be attributed to the iron mines.
{242} Also found in the Children's Employment Commission's Report: Commissioner Mitchell's Report.
{259} The coal miners have at this moment, 1886, six of their body sitting in the House of Commons.
{264} E. G. Wakefield, M.P. "Swing Unmasked; or, The Cause of Rural Incendiarism." London, 1831. Pamphlet. The foregoing extracts may be found pp. 9-13, the passages dealing in the original with the then still existing Old Poor Law being here omitted.
{268} This has been literally fulfilled. After a period of unexampled extension of trade, Free Trade has landed England in a crisis, which began in 1878, and is still increasing in energy in 1886.
{269} The agricultural labourers have now a Trade's Union; their most energetic representative, Joseph Arch, was elected M.P. in 1885.
{272a} Report of the Poor Law Commission upon Ireland.
{272b} "Principles of Population," vol. ii.
{273} "The State of Ireland." London, 1807; 2nd Ed., 1821. Pamphlet.
{276} Carlyle gives in his "Past and Present" (London, 1843) a splendid description of the English bourgeoisie and its disgusting money greed.
{286} Extracts from Information received from the Poor Law Commissioners. Published by authority. London, 1833.
{293} To prevent misconstructions and consequent objections, I would observe that I have spoken of the bourgeoisie as a _class_, and that all such facts as refer to individuals serve merely as evidence of the way of thinking and acting of a _class_. Hence I have not entered upon the distinctions between the divers sections, subdivisions and parties of the bourgeoisie, which have a mere historical and theoretical significance. And I can, for the same reason, mention but casually the few members of the bourgeoisie who have shown themselves honourable exceptions. These are, on the one hand, the pronounced Radicals, who are almost Chartists, such as a few members of the House of Commons, the manufacturers Hindly of Ashton, and Fielden of Todmordon (Lancashire), and, on the other hand, the philanthropic Tories, who have recently constituted themselves "Young England," among whom are the members of Parliament, D'Israeli, Borthwick, Ferrand, Lord John Manners, etc. Lord Ashley, too, is in sympathy with them. The hope of Young England is a restoration of the old "Merry England" with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object is of course unattainable and ridiculous, a satire upon all historic development; but the good intention, the courage to resist the existing state of things and prevalent prejudices, and to recognise the vileness of our present condition, is worth something anyhow. Wholly isolated is the half-German Englishman, Thomas Carlyle, who, originally a Tory, goes beyond all those hitherto mentioned. He has sounded the social disorder more deeply than any other English bourgeois, and demands the organisation of labour.
{296} And it did.