Karl Marx

The Condition in the British Factory Industry

From the English.

[“New-York Daily Tribune,” No. 5592, March 24, 1859]

London, March 4, 1859

I intend today to give a survey of the two factory reports referred to in an earlier article. The first report is by Mr. A. Redgrave, whose factory district comprises Middlesex (London and its environs), Surrey, Essex, parts of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Lancashire, and the East Riding (Yorkshire). In that district, during the half-year ending 31 October 1858, 331 accidents were caused by machinery, 12 of which were fatal. Mr. Redgrave’s report deals almost exclusively with one point, namely, the education clauses for children employed in factories and printworks. Before a manufacturer can employ a child or a young person for permanent work in a factory or printworks, he is obliged to demand a certificate from the certifying surgeon, who, under 7 Vict. c. 15. sch. A, is obliged to refuse the certificate if the person presented

“has not the ordinary bodily strength and the appearance of a child of at least eight years or of a young person of at least thirteen years, or if, owing to sickness or bodily infirmity, he is incapable of working daily in the factory during the time allowed by law”.

Children from eight to thirteen years of age are by law excluded from full-time employment and are required to devote part of their time to school attendance; the surgeon is therefore only empowered to issue half-time certificates to them. Now, according to Mr. Redgrave’s report, it appears that on the one hand the parents, when they can obtain full-time wages for their children, are anxious to keep them from school attendance and half-pay, while on the other hand the factory owners expect nothing from the juvenile workers except that they are strong enough to perform their respective work. While the parents want full-time wages, the manufacturer seeks the full-time worker. The following advertisement, which appeared in the local paper of an important manufacturing town in Mr. Redgrave’s district and which has a strange aftertaste of slave labour, shows how the factory owners keep to the letter of the provisions of the law.

“Wanted  12 to 20 Boys, not younger than
    as may pass for 13 years  …
    Wages 4 shillings a week.”

In fact, the factory occupier is not legally obliged to procure a certificate of the child’s age from an authentic source, but only requires a medical opinion based on the child’s appearance. The half-time system, which is based on the principle that child labour should not be permitted unless the child, in addition to this employment, attends school daily, is protested against by the manufacturers on two grounds: they object to having to bear the responsibility for the school attendance of the half-time children (children under 13 years of age), and they find it cheaper and less troublesome to employ one set of children instead of two sets, working alternately 6 hours each. The first result of the introduction of the half-time system was, therefore, the nominal reduction by nearly one half of the number of children under 13 employed in the factories; from 56,455 in 1835 it had fallen to 29,283 in 1838. This reduction was, however, to a large extent purely nominal, because the complaisance of the certifying surgeons brought about a sudden change in the respective ages of the juvenile workers of the United Kingdom. As the certifying surgeons were more strictly supervised by the factory inspectors and sub-inspectors, and the real age of the children became easier to ascertain from the registrars, an opposite movement set in after 1838. The number of children under 13 employed in factories rose from 29,283, to which it had fallen in 1833, again to 35,122 in 1850, and to 46,071 in 1856, this last official figure being far from showing the true extent of such employment. On the one hand, many certifying surgeons still succeed in evading the vigilance of the inspectors, and, on the other hand, many thousand children of eleven years were withdrawn from school and from the half-time system through the alteration of the law in regard to silk factories,

“a sacrifice which,” as one of the factory inspectors says, “may have been convenient to the factory owners, but has proved detrimental to the social well-being of the silk districts”.

Although we may conclude from this that the number of children between eight and thirteen years old now employed in the factories and printworks of the United Kingdom exceeds the number of those employed in 1835 of the same age, there can be no doubt that the half-time system greatly helped to stimulate inventions for the purpose of abolishing child labour. Thus Mr. Redgrave states:

“A class of manufacturers, the spinners of woollen yarn, now rarely employ children under thirteen years of age, i.e. half-timers. They have introduced improved and new machinery of various kinds, by which the employment of children has become entirely superfluous; as an illustration of this diminution in the number of children, I may mention a process of work in which, by the addition to the existing machinery of an apparatus called the piecing machine, the work of six or four half-timers, according to the construction of each machine, can be performed by one young person.”

How modern industry, at least in the countries of the Old World, strives to drive children into wage labour has again been illustrated by recent examples in Prussia. The Prussian Factory Law of 1853 ordered that after 1 July 1855 no child should be employed in a factory before completing its twelfth year, and that children between 12 and 14 should not be employed for more than 6 hours a day and should attend school at least 3 hours a day. This law met with such opposition from the manufacturers that the government had to give way and introduced it not throughout Prussia but only on trial in Elberfeld and Barmen, two adjoining factory towns with a large factory-worker population engaged in spinning, calico printing, etc. In the “Jahres-Bericht der Handels-Kammer” of Elberfeld and Barmen for 1856, the following representations are made to the Prussian government:

“Especially detrimental to the business here is the rise in wages caused by the general industrial activity, as well as the increased prices of coal and all the materials required for the works, such as leather, oil, metals and other accessories. Alongside these drawbacks, the strict enforcement of the law of 16 May 1853 on the employment of juvenile workers in the factories is continually exerting the most disadvantageous influence. Not only is the requisite number of children thus withdrawn from the spinning mills, but the earlier training of the same into skilled factory operatives is made impossible. Owing to the lack of such juvenile workers, machinery was even brought to a standstill in various establishments, because its attendance could not be performed by adults. A modification of that law, by which the compulsory school attendance of children would be abridged in proportion to the knowledge they have acquired, and then their entry into the factories permitted, appears therefore equally desirable for the better subsistence of the numerous working-class families as for the factory owners.”

The last of the factory reports, drawn up by Mr. Baker, Inspector for Ireland, is distinguished by an analysis of the causes that have led to accidents, and by a survey of the state of trade. On the first point, Mr. Baker states that one accident occurred for every 340 persons, which is an increase of 21 per cent over the preceding half-year ending in April, and that of the accidents occurring on machinery — only 10 per cent of all accidents are not connected with machinery — about 40 per cent might have been avoided and prevented by trifling expenditure, which, however, “in consequence of the recent alteration of the law, will now be very difficult to bring about, since admonitions alone have no effect”.

The state of trade, Mr. Baker assures us, has improved, but in his opinion “in some cases the maximum has already been reached, beyond which manufacture becomes less and less profitable, until at last it ceases to yield profit at all”.

The changes in the relation between the price of the raw material and that of the finished goods, together with the increase of machinery, he rightly cites as one of the main causes for the shortening of the cycle of good and bad times. Mr. Baker cites as an example the changes in the worsted business:

“During the profitable years of the worsted business, 1849 and 1850, the price of English combing wool stood at 13 pence and that of Australian 14 to 17 pence per pound, and on the average of the ten years 1841 to 1850, the average price of English wool never rose above 14 pence and of Australian above 17 pence per pound. At the beginning of the disastrous year 1857 Australian wool stood at 23 pence; it fell in December, at the worst time of the panic, to 18 pence, but has risen again in the course of 1858 to 21 pence. English wool started at 20 pence, rose in April and September 1857 to 21 pence, fell in January 1858 to 14 pence, and has since risen to 17 pence, so that it stands 3 pence per pound higher than the average of the ten years cited. This shows either that the failures of 1857, which were due to similar prices, are forgotten; or that just barely enough wool is produced to be spun by the existing spindles.”

On the whole, Mr. Baker seems to be of the opinion that spindles and looms are increasing both in number and speed in a proportion which the production of wool does not justify. In England there exist no reliable statistics on this subject, but the agricultural statistics of Ireland, which the constabulary authority, and those of Scotland, which Mr. Hall Maxwell compiles, are sufficient for all practical purposes. They show that, while in 1857 in both countries some species of grain and animal produce in general considerably increased, sheep formed an exception; their number in Ireland was in 1858 lower by 114,557 than in 1855; and although in 1858 there was an increase of 35,533 compared with 1857, the total number was 95,177 lower than even the average of the three preceding years, chiefly in ewes. In Scotland the case is not different:

              Breeding Sheep                         Slaughter Sheep
              of All Ages                            of All Ages          Lambs
1856          2,714,301                              1,146,427            1,953,832
1857          2,632,283                              1,181,782            1,869,103
              Decrease 82,018 Increase 35,355 Decrease 86,729

It shows not only a general decrease in the number of sheep amounting to 133,392, but also that more sheep were raised for feeding purposes than before. From this it can be seen, if we estimate the weight of a fleece at 7 pounds, that Ireland, while it was able in 1855 to supply 16,810,934 pounds of wool, not counting the lambs, was able in 1858 to supply only 16,276,330 pounds, and that in 1857 the decrease in wool production in Scotland, likewise not counting the lambs, amounted to 326,641 pounds. The total deficiency of wool in both countries was 861,245 pounds, or very nearly the ninety-fifth part of the whole domestic wool that is estimated to be required annually for consumption in the combing-wool trade.