October 25, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
TI 
The Choice for our Children 
By Jason 
THERE is perhaps no better test of the spirit in which 
our imagination reconstructs our society than the 
test afforded by an Education Bill. At this moment 
the discussion of Mr. Fisher's Bill is overshadowed 
by the immense issues hanging on our military operations. 
The wat leaves us little time to think of anything but the 
means of victor}'. But the main lines of debate are becoming 
clearer to those who have noted what was hapjjening as Mr. 
Fisher made his tour of the Industrial North. The countiy 
has to choose between its duty to the children of the race, 
which means much more than some millions of boys and girls 
alive at this moment, and the demands of certain economic 
interests which suppose, wisely or foolishly, that they will 
suffer if the existing supply of child or adolescent labour is 
reduced. 
That is the plain issue. Not, of course, that these interests 
are a solid group of employers. They do not include all em- 
ployers by any means, nor do they include only employers. 
The Cotton Factory Times represents workpeople, and it has 
already struck a note of warning, powerfully reminiscent of 
the language and arguments of the opponents of factory laws 
a century ago. The delicate health of the cotton industry' 
is to many a reason to-day as it was then for refusing to let 
children liave a decent share of the daylight for their own 
minds and bodies. 
It is worth while to glance at the history of the controversy 
which is now passing to a new stage, for it is significant and 
instructive. A Member of Parliament who proposes to speak 
in the debates on the Minister of Education's Bill, might do 
worse than spend a few hours over Hansard, recalling to his 
memory and imagination the scenes in which the Peels, Sadler, 
Ashley and Fielden took part. He will see that the arguments 
by which each reforrn is resisted repeat the arguments that 
were used against the reforms bl the past. There is a good 
story told about a set of people whose produce had been 
commandeered by the Government during the war on terms 
that seemed to them at the time quite ruinous but proved 
in point of fact exceedingly profitable. These same people 
produced other goods, which the State some time later found 
it necessary to commandeer, and at the first mention of a 
price they hastened to London to protest that they would be 
ruined. In the meantime, there had occurred a reshuffling 
of Government departments, a not uncommon experience 
dpring war administration, and it happened that when the 
gentlemen arrived with bankruptcy on their faces, but very 
comfortable profits from the last transaction in their pockets, 
they were shown into a room in which they saw on the other 
side of the table the ver>' officials to whom they had com- 
municated the depressing forebodiijgs about their fortunes 
a few months earlier. Somehow the protest was not quite as 
convincing as they had hoped to make it. 
If the ghosts of the House of Commons a century ago 
could listen to our debates to-day. they would have the same 
argument that the industry would be ruined which had done 
such energetic service against the Factory Acts in their turn. 
And they would note that in spite of the ruin which was to 
follow on the Factor}- Acts these industries were still pros- 
perous and powerful, though still inclined to be unduly anxious 
about their health. 
This argument was used from the first when reformers 
ventured to remove some of the most revolting scandals of 
the Factory system. It reappeared with every slight exten- 
sion of those reforms. An interesting survey occurs in a 
speech by Mr. Brotherton, the Member for Salford in 1836 : 
We have it in evidence that previous to the passing of Sir 
Kobert Peel's Act, the usual number of hours for which per- 
sons employed in factories was .seventy-seven in the course of 
the week ; and from returns on the tables of the house, it 
appears that it was not unusual for children of .seven and eight 
yjars old to be kept at work as many as ninety-three hours in 
the week. Sir Kobert I'eel's Act reduced the number to seventy- 
two in the week : and when this was done, the legislature was 
told by those who professed to understand everything con- 
dected with the subject that the possibility of "our manu- 
facturers continuintj to compete with the manufacturers of 
foreign cnimtries was completely taken away. But how was 
this assertion borne out bv the fact ? At the time of the passing 
of the late Sir Robert Peel's Act in i8ig, the exportation of 
cotton twist from this country amounted to i«,ooo,ooo lbs. 
andinsixyearsafterwardsthequantily annually exported was 
45,000,000 Ib^. The period of labour was again reduced in the 
year 1.S25 and the same argument was u.sed that nothing but 
positive and immediate ruin could fall on the heads of the 
devoted maniiiacturers of this countrj-. VVfiat was the fact ? 
In the year iK^.j, the exportation of cotton twist amounted 
to 76,000,000 lbs. 
The men witli whom Brotherton was trying to reason in thiS 
speech, honestly believed that our manufacturing prosperity 
depended on child labour and low wages. They were well 
represented by George Philips, a Lancashire Member of 
Parliament, who declared in 1818 that 
The low rate at which we had been able to sell our manu- 
factures on the Continent, in consequence of the low rate of 
labour here, had depressed the Continental manufacturers, 
and raised the English much more than any interference could 
do; if the legislature interfere now, they would depress the 
Knglish and raise the Continental manufactures. 
It is easy to see how men who believed this came to believe 
that industrial progress involved human degradation. 
Shorter Working Hours 
These men were wrong, even in the application of their own 
principles, as we know. They might have suspected that 
they were wrong at the time from the experiena> of Robert 
Owen, who had introduced a shorter working day ^t New 
Lanark. One of the opponents of factory legislation. Lord 
Lascelles, made a curious reference to Owen in a debhte in 
1818. The Bill, he said, " really had its origin in a gentleman 
who had for the last twelve months made much noise in the 
public prints. He meant Mr. Owen. ... It formed a 
part of that system of moral education which was projected 
by that individual in the management of this branch of trade 
who said that from his own experience at Lanark, the reduc- 
tion in the hours of labour, so far from diminishing the general 
produce of the factories, rather tended to increase it." 
Lord Lascelles was himself quite bewildered by this pro- 
position but, of course, it seems less of a paradox to us than it 
did to him. 
All this reasoning started from the needs of industry and 
put human destinies in a strictly subordinate place. But 
there were men, even in the demoralising atmosphere of the 
economy of the times, who refused to accept this order and 
insisted on thinking first of the needs of humanity. It has 
always been a characteristic to our history that abuses have 
found fearless judges, a fact recognised by so bitter a critic 
as'Karl Marx.'who explained in the introduction to his work 
on Capital, that if England supplied the classical example 
of the exploitation of the working classes in the Industrial 
Revolution, the reason was partly that there had always been 
Englishmen ready to denounce abuses and demand inquiry, 
and that if there had been the same spirit in Germany, Ger- 
many would also have had Parliamentary Comrnittees re- 
porting on the scandals of the factories : 
Who is the real hero of the revolt against the factory 
system ? There are many whose names ought to be in- 
scribed, as Thackeray put it. on the dome of St. Peter's for 
all the world to read. Shaftesbury, Sadler, Oastler have won 
immortal fame, and there are many others, parsons, manu- 
facturers, public men, and workpeople whose names have 
been forgotten. But among all there is perhaps no nobler 
figure than that of J<^hn Fielden, the author of The Curse 
oj the Factory System, and Cobbett's colleague in the repre- 
sentation of Oldham. For Fielden was himself a manu- 
facturer, one of the largest cotton spinners in the world. In 
1836 when opposing a Government motion to repeal a clause 
in the Factory Act of 1833 and so to enable children between 
twelve and thirteen to work full time, he gave an indignant 
answer to the appeal to the manufacturers : 
Again the House is told that the manufacturers would suffe' 
by yielding to the noble Lord's amendment. This is the worst 
appeal that could be made to the House : for I am sure that 
if there is a spark of humanity in it, the House will never 
set private interests against the life and happiness of these 
poor little overworked children. At any rate I, as a manu- 
facturer, and a large one too, will say that I would throw 
manufacturers to the winds rather than hesitate upon such a 
|X)int for a moment. 
The Government Bill passed its second reading by 178 votes 
to lyf), but the division was a moraJ victory for the opponents 
and tlie Bill was withdrawn. Carlyle put iMekhni's \'ie\\ in 
Past and Present : 
"What is tobecomeof our cotton trade ?" cried certain spinners 
when the [•"actory Bill was propo.sed : "What is to become of 
our invaluable cotton trade ? ' Tlw humanity of ICngland 
answered steadily : " I-)eliver me these ricketty perishing. souls 
of infants and let your cotton trade take its chance." Ciod 
Himself commands the one thing : not God esjiecially the 
other thing. Wecannothave prpsperous cotton traders at the 
exix?nse of keeping the Devil a partner in them. 
We can see to-day that the supporters of cliild slavery were 
frightening themselves with a boerev. At Todmorden there 
