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

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776 LAISSEZ FAIRE terrible suffering that was wantonly inflicted, continues: “ After all we must own that it was quite right to throw out the Bill for prohibiting the sweeping of chimneys by boys— because humanity is a modern invention; and there are many chimneys in old houses that cannot possibly be swept in any other manner.” The agitation on the subject con- tinued, however, and much more stringent rules were success- fully introduced in 1834?" In the meantime, public attention was being steadily directed to the factory children, and to the prejudicial effects of the long hours during which many of them were accustomed to work. The Act of 1802 was easily evaded, as children who were not regularly apprenticed did not obtain protection From the under it. The impulse for a fresh agitation on the subject Fert” was given by Robert Owen?, who aimed at reconstituting the Owen conditions of factory life, so that a better type of factory operative might be developed. He did not aim merely at protecting individuals, but at introducing a better system. In 1815 he published his Observations on the effect of the manufacturing system, with hints for the improvement of those parts of it which are most injurious to health and morals, and endeavoured to interest Sir Robert Peel in the passing of a fresh Act, which should render some of the changes he had made at New Lanark, compulsory on other employers; he was particularly anxious that no child of less than ten years of age should be set to work in a mill, that until they were twelve they should only work six hours, and that the hours of labour should be reduced to ten and a half for all4. A Select Committee was appointed to consider the matter, and much interesting evidence was put on record®, but no immediate action was taken; the Act which was passed in 1819° greatly A.D. 1776 —1850. 1 Edinburgh Review, 1819, xxxm. 320. The radical paper, the Gorgon, was also inclined to sneer at the House of Commons for “its ostentatious display of humanity ” in dealing with “ trivialities ” like the Slave Trade, the climbing boys, and the condition of children in factories, p. 341 (13 March, 1819). 3 4and 5 Wm. IV. c. 35. 8 See Sir R. Peel's evidence in the Report of the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the State of the Children employed in the Cotton Manufactures of the United Kingdom (1816), mr. 370. ¢ Robert Owen, Observations, p. 9. 5 Reports (1816), 1m. 235. $ 59 Geo. IIL. c. 66. It prohibited the labour of children under nine years of

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