188 



FARMERS' REGISTER—LABORERS IN ENGLISH FACTORIES. 



From Frascr's Magazine. 

 NATIONAL ECONOMY. - 



We have said, that the manufacturers have entered 

 upon a desperate career of competition — a career which 

 impels them to ever-increasing exertions, without i-e- 

 gard to the misery thereby occasioned. Let the follow- 

 ing extracts from the Evidence taken by the Committee of 

 the House of Commons on the Factonj-bill, corroborate 

 and explain this statement : — 



Benjamin Bradshaw is asked : 



" Do you conceive that this labor has been increas- 

 ing since you were first acquainted with mills and fac- 

 tories?" " Yes, it has increased a good deal these few 

 years past. I can remember when it was considered 

 vitterly improper to work them longer than from six to 

 seven ; but now it is not so." 



Daniel Frasir is asked : 



" Is it complained of in those places, as it has been 

 made a matter of complaint in many others, that the la- 

 bor of the silk-mills has become more fatiguing than it 

 formerly was ?" " Yes ; and they remark that it is 

 not the same remunerative employment that it used to 

 be ; that there is not the same sustenance afforded to 

 the children ; in short, that they have to work longer 

 hours and get less meat." — "The question has particu- 

 lar reference to the labor imposed upon the children and 

 young persons ; is that more severe than it was — have 

 they more to do — more si^indles to mind !" " Yes, and 

 they are urged more to their work than they used to be, 

 which imports that the system has become worse." 



William Rastrick is asked : 



" Is there a tendency in this system to become rather 

 better, cfr is the work required more, and the labor alto- 

 gether severer than it formerly was ?" *' It is decided- 

 ly worse within the last four or five years than it used 

 lo be ?" — " Is there more work required of the children 

 than there used to be v/hen you first knew the busi- 

 ness?" " Yes ; on account of the competition which ex- 

 ists between masters ; one undersells the other ; conse- 

 quently the master endeavors to get an equal quantity 

 of work done for less money." 



John Allett is asked : 



" Will you state, upon your own knowledge, whether 

 the hours of labor have not been considerably increased 

 (that is, in brisk times) since you were acquainted with 

 factories ?" "When I went at first to factories, I was 

 at work about eleven hours a-day ; but the time has in- 

 creased to fifteen, to sixteen, and sometimes to eighteen 

 hours," — "Is the labor of the children and young per- 

 sons in those mills more severe, as well as longer, than 

 it was when you first commenced that business ?" 

 " Yes, doubly so ; I do not hes'tate to say doubly so." 



Charles Aberdeen is asked : 



" Do you think that there is double the quantity of 

 labor required from the children that there used to be'?" 

 "lam confident of it ; since I have been working at 

 the firm of Lambert, Hoole, and Jackson, I have done 

 twice the quantity of work that I used to do, and for 

 less wages." 



And another passage or two from the same Evidence, 

 gives us a little light into the manner in which the screw 

 is perpetually applied, in order to get out of the human 

 machines the utmost possible quantity of work : 



Stephen Binns is asked : 



" Does the machinery go more easily now than it used 

 to do ?" "If I have a machinery-room to overlook, I 

 have thirty hands in the room to manage this machine- 

 ry. When I deliver in my note of the time and the 

 work, the master sees what quantity of work has been 

 produced from those hands, and he sees the quantity of 

 money that has been paid, and he goes round the room, 

 and thinks 'I can do with one hand less ;' and he says, 

 ' There are five in that row generally — you can do with 

 one less ; offer each of them 3d. a week more if they 

 will do with one less ;' and then by the encouragement, 

 the giving 3d. a week for a less quantity of hands, they 

 perform the same work upon that machinery." — "Is the 

 work done equally well?" "Yea; but it is more fa- 



tiguing." "But still the children are willing to do so 

 for an advance of wages ?" " Yes ; I have Mr. James 

 and Mr. John Marshall go roimd the frames, and I have 

 heard say afterwards, that they have asked the girls if 

 they could not mind another spindle or two spindles 

 more, and if they could, they would give them 3rf. 

 more ; that is, if they would mind ten spindles instead 

 of eight." 



Joshua Drake is asked : 



"What I mean to ask is, whether those who have 

 been employed have not had more to do in a given 

 time ?" " Lately they have put three children upon 

 four children's work ; it took place three months ago 

 at Mr. Sheepshank's mill ; and last Monday morning 

 but one it took place at Bruce, Dorrington, and Wal- 

 ker's, without any notice to the children ; and, in con- 

 sequence of this arrangement, one child in every billy 

 was thrown out of work." 



This, then, is the course things are now taking ; and 

 from these fi\cts many persons will learn how it come 

 to pass that an outcry has lately been raised, heretofore 

 unknown, for some regulation of the hours of labor. 

 The truth is, that a system of gradual increase of toil 

 has been long going on, and the extreme point of endur- 

 ance has lately been passed. Hence the present cry 

 for relief— a cry which we trust will never cease, until 

 full and complete relief is afforded. 



Mr. Sadler's bill, however, is only directed to one 

 point; but that is by far the most important point of 

 the case. Its object is merely to rescue the little chil- 

 dren of the manufacturing districts from that most cruel 

 and all but exterminating state of slavery in which they 

 are now held. We call it slavery, with deliberation, be- 

 cause, the toil being excessive, destructive of the child's 

 health and morals, and such as no parent ought to sub- 

 ject his child unto, — the parents are yet compelled, by 

 the threat of absolute starvation, to force their children 

 to undertake it. The proof of this coercion is given in 

 the Evidence, as follows : 



William Osburn, Esq. is asked : 



" Supposing that the parents applying for relief for 

 their children, refused to allow them to labor in mills or 

 factories, in consequence of their believing and know- 

 ing that such labor would be prejudicial to their health, 

 and probably destructive of their lives, would they, in 

 the mean time, have had any relief from the workhouse 

 board, or from you, as overseer, merely on the ground 

 that the children could not bear that labor?" "Cer- 

 tainly not." — "Would it be accepted as an excuse for 

 not working, that they could not conform to those long 

 hours of labor?" " Certainly not." — " So that the chil- 

 dren of the poor, and their parents, have no alternative 

 in such cases, but submitting their children to this ex- 

 travagant length of labor, or exposing them to absolute 

 want and starvation, as the consequence of refusing so 

 to be employed ?" " None what ever." 



Thomas Bennett is asked: 



" When you were working in the mill, were you 

 bound, when required, to work those long hours?" 

 "Yes; if I had not done it, my master would have got 

 somebody else that would." — " And the parish officers 

 would not have relieved you if you had left?" "No, 

 they would have said, ' You refused to work.' " — "You 

 would then have been left to starve ?" "Yes." 



Samuel Colson is asked ; 



"If you had refused to allow your children to be so 

 worl^ed, you could not get any relief from the parish ?" 

 " None whatever." — " So that you had no alternative 

 but that excessive slavery or starvation?" "Yes, we 

 must either .submit to their laws, or starve to death, for 

 at no other place could we get them employed." — "Are 

 you not able to support your children without sending 

 them to a mill?" "No ; I have not had 2s. a week of 

 labor for many weeks together." 



Joseph Hebergan is asked : 



" Were there other children at the mill that were al- 

 so made ill by this labor, and who became deformed in 

 like manner?" " Yes, there were some very often sick, 



