EXAMPLE FROM URE 1
Under what pretext, or with what face of pretension, operatives, whose labour is assisted by steam or water power, can lay claim to a peculiar privilege of exemption from more than ten hours’ daily labour it is hard to conjecture. They compare their toil with that of the small class, comparatively speaking, of artisans, such as carpenters, bricklayers, stone-masons, &c., who, they say, work only from six to six, with two one-hour intervals for meals: a class, however, in this material respect distinguished from most factory operatives, that their work is done entirely by muscular effort, and after serving a long apprenticeship with no little outlay. But what do the factory people think of the numerous class of domestic operatives, the stocking or frame-work knitters, the hand-loom weavers, the wool-combers, the lace-manufacturers, and a variety of others, who work, and very hardly too, from twelve to sixteen hours a-day, to earn a bare subsistence; and this frequently from a very early age, and in a state of confinement irksome to the mind and injurious to the body? The consideration is also overlooked by these interested reasoners, that by reducing the hours of labour, and thereby the amount of subsistence derivable from the less objectionable occupations, they would cause a corresponding increase of competition for employment in the more objectionable ones, and thus inflict an injury on the whole labouring community, by wantonly renouncing the fair advantages of their own. On the principles expounded above, the woollen manufacturers in the large mills pay much better wages to their workmen than the domestic manufacturers do to theirs. The factory system, then, instead of being detrimental to the comfort of the labouring population, is its grand palladium; for the more complicated and extensive the machinery required for any manufacture, the less risk is there of its agents being injured by the competition of foreign manufactures, and the great inducement and ability has the mill-owner to keep up the wages of his work-people. The main reasons why they are is, that they form a small part of the value of the manufactured article, so that if reduced too low by a sordid master, they would render his operatives less careful, and thereby injure the quality of their work more than could be compensated by his saving in wages. The less proportion wages bear to the value of the goods, the higher, generally speaking, is the recompense of labour. The prudent master of a fine spinning-mill is most reluctant to tamper with the earnings of his spinners, and never consents to reduce them till absolutely forced.
EXAMPLE FROM URE 2
In cotton-spinning it would now be possible to reduce the wages of labour, because, since the mules have been enlarged, there is always a sufficiency of hands; but it has never been the policy of the masters to do so, unless when absolutely compelled by the want of profits, knowing that the lower the work people are reduced in circumstances, the less dependence can be placed upon their attention. The operative spinners, aware that a great excess of hands would have the effect of reducing their wages, combine to pay the expenses of sending their unemployed comrades away to America. Mr. H. Houldsworth, of Glasgow, states that he know this fact from the individuals themselves, and from their wives, and has occasionally been solicited to aid the families in their emigration, and to forward to them sums contributed by the union for their temporary support. “Within the last three years there have been not less than eighty or one hundred spinners shipped from Glasgow, which is perhaps one-eighth of the whole*”. The trade-unions are, in fact, bound by their articles to pay certain sums to their idle members, in order to support them, and to prevent them volunteering to work at under-wages from necessity. The weekly allowance of the union, joined to the fear of incurring its displeasure, takes away this temptation. The cost of transporting a spinner across the Atlantic varies from £15 to £20.
EXAMPLE FROM URE 3
Agriculturists give children and youths no more than half the wages paid them by factory proprietors; while they fill their workhouses with unemployed persons. Under the operation of the poor laws, the peasantry are penned up in close parishes, where they increase beyond the demand for their labour, and allow their children to grow up in sloth and ignorance, which unfit them from ever becoming industrious men. This obstacle to the circulation and reward of labour will is so great as to render a large family not a burden, but a source of comfort and independence to poor people. Were the parents, therefore, sober and provident, they might always train up their young ones into valuable members of society. In very many rural districts, the mal-administration of the poor laws has banished every right feeling from the female heart; has quenched all the domestic affections; and has generated a race of harpies familiar with extortion, perjury, and violence. What can be expected of the children trained up under such mothers, but reckless idleness and profligacy? With such a monstrous brood, incendiarism becomes a sport, often wantonly perpetrated upon the barns of the industrious.