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.

£ 0 Mo :} of 18 n 3 d Hf Y 1 g N- ‘n ie at 1d 18 of 3 nt n Jie LS CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN’S WORK 787 Messrs Marshall's flax-mills at Holbeck, near Leeds. This was, A.D. 1776 however, a difficuls arrangement to carry out, and in country i850. villages it was not easy to find a double shift of child labour. The manufacturers disliked a proposal that would hamper them, and the parents were on the whole glad to get an income from the children’s labour; still this suggestion went on the line of least resistance, and Government carried a Bill which practically gave effect to the recommendations of the Commission. The chief debate was upon the proposal to limit the work of those under eighteen to ten hours. Lord Ashley was defeated on this point, as the Government thought it necessary to go farther and limit those under fourteen to eight hours; and from the time of this defeat, the Bill became a Government measure to which Lord Ashley gave inde- pendent support. And in the main the recommendations of the Commissioners were accepted by Parliament. By the Limits Act of 1833 the employment of children under nine years of posed on age was forbidden. The time of work for children under fhe emgley thirteen years old was limited to nine hours, and for young children, persons, of from thirteen to eighteen years, to twelve hours; and night work was prohibited, ie., work between 8.30 p.m. and 5.30 am. But the real importance of the measure lay in the fact that new administrative machinery was now created. Previous Acts had failed partly, at least, because there had been no sufficient means of enforcing them. The establish- ment of local inspectors was originally suggested by the masters, apparently as a means of seeing that their neighbours did not indulge in unfair competition by evading the law, and the operatives viewed it with suspicion. In the form in and which the proposal was incorporated in the Act it created an casero independent body of men, acting under a central authority, ty who have proved to be not merely a means of enforcing but charged of amending the law. “The introduction of an external au- with en- . . 3 ud . Sorcing thority, free from local bias and partiality, greatly improved ‘tke Act. the administration of the law, lessened the friction between the manufacturers and operatives, and provided a medium of communication between the Government and the people at a time when knowledge of industrial matters was scanty in the extreme?” * 8 and 4 Will. IV, ¢. 103. 2 Hutchins and Harrison, op. cit. 40. 50—2

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