The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

LAISSEZ FAIRE A.D 27% it had become much worse in 1845, when Mr Muggeridge reported on the state of the trade’, All the old evils existed, The evils and new causes of complaint are mentioned as well. There was aggravated much loss of time to the workers, who did not receive yarn when they gave back the finished goods at the end of the week, but had to wait till mid-day on Monday®. As the weavers wrought at home they were able to requisition the assistance of their wives and children, and the whole family were occupied for very long hours and at starvation wages, from which the frame-rents had always to be deducted. The business was easily learned, and owing to the conditions in which it was carried on, the supply of labour, male and female, was practically unlimited. In periods of occasional depression, even benevolent masters had believed they were doing "the kindest thing in spreading the work among many families, so as to give all a little to do, on the principle that a little pay was better than none’. There was thus a stint on the employment of each hand, and the irregularity of their earnings was in itself a serious evil. Mr Muggeridge rightly regarded this practice of spreading work as the main cause of by the practice of spreading work. 1 According to his figures wages had fallen 35 0/; between 1811 and 1842. Reports, etc., 1845, xv. p. 51. In 1819 a special appeal to the charity of the nation was made on behalf of the framework knitters by Robert Hall, but the distress was constantly recurring, p. 107. 3 Reports, etc., 1845, xv. 117. The long-established custom of idling on Saturday to Monday to which the Factory Commissioners calied attention in 1833 was not so entirely without excuse as they believed, but seems to have been originally due to this unsatisfactory trade usage. Ib. 1833, xx. 534. Report, Factories Inquiry Commission. 3 Reports, ete., 1845, Xv. 65. 4 “The practice of ‘stinting’ being resorted to in most periods of depression in the trade with the twofold object of keeping the machinery going, and deriving the full amount of profits from its use in the shape of frame-rents, the workman instead of being driven to seek other employment, as he must necessarily do if left wholly unemployed, is kept, sometimes for months together, on the borders of starvation with just enough of work to prevent him seeking a more extended field of occupation, and too little to maintain either himself or his family in any state approaching to comfort or respectability. * * * Time after time the operatives in particular qualities of goods have been stinted to two or three or four days’ work in a week only, for weeks or months together; every obstacle thrown in the way to check their facilities of production, such as deferred or scanty supplies of the material for manufacture from the warehouse; complaints of the work when made and heavy abatements on one pretext or another deducted from the scanty pittance of wages earned * * * until at length the continued pressure on the market of goods so produced necessarily sold at any sacrifice by needy manu- tactnrers has forced down prices to 8 level which has often. for a eonsiderable

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation