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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LAISSEZ FAIRE AD Ym So far as the parents are concerned, it is probably true and parents that many of the baser sort were very reckless in regard to po the treatment of their children, and were not unwilling to of blame sacrifice them in order to profit by their earnings; but there were many who felt the evils most bitterly, and who petitioned for an alteration’. At the same time, it is difficult to ex- onerate them altogether, if, as seems to have been the case, their wages were as good or better than those of other labourers. Mr Power, the Assistant Commissioner, seems to have felt this, when he wrote that “children ought to have legislative protection from the conspiracy insensibly formed between the masters and parents to tax them with a degree of toil beyond their strength” It is probable that the opportunity of obtaining the children’s earnings was a tempta- tion which few parents could resist, even though they might afterwards deeply regret it, when the employment resulted in the deformity of their children. There is no difficulty in reconciling the two statements, that on the one hand the parents frequently succumbed to this temptation, and that on the other they were anxious to have the temptation removed. So far as the landlords, and the corn laws, are concerned, little need be said. This was a cause which affected the textile industries, like other industries, as it rendered food dear to all labourers; but it will not serve to account for the special mischiefs of the factory system. With regard to the masters, it may be stated at once that it is impossible to exonerate them from all blame, as many of them had been exceedingly careless about a matter which lay entirely within their control, and to which no allusion has yet been made. The frequency of accidents in the mills, with injury of life and limb, was a feature which specially shocked the public, and it seems to have been clear that many of the accidents were preventable, and need not have occurred, if certain machines had been properly fenced. So long as any part of the evils were due to arrangements directly under the master’s control and with which no one 784 1 8 Hansard, xv1. 642. % Reports, 1833, xx. 604. 3 Ib. 76.

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