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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CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN'S WORK 789 the masters found it worth while to keep the machinery A.D. 1778 going for fifteen hours, and managed to evade the law by >> means of relay systems’. An amending Act of 1850 in- ould, sisted that the hours of work for protected persons must fall working within the twelve hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with an hour Tay and a half for meals, and thus established a normal day for women®. Curiously enough, its provisions did not apply to children, and they could be employed on the relay system in helping the men, after the women had left off working. In 1858, the risk of evasion in this manner was brought to of tenkours an end, the normal working day of ten and a half hours was sh a half established by law for all factory workers? other than adult length ed males, and it soon became customary for them as well. It thus came about that the programme of factory reform which Owen had advocated in 1815 was at length to be generally accepted. Each step was gained in the face of strong opposition, for the economic experts of the day—of in spite whom Mr Nassau Senior was the most effective spokesman — goto were clear that a reduction of hours would mean such a “7% serious loss to the employers that the trade of the country must inevitably suffer, and the mischievous effects react on she workmen themselves. It was argued that if the last hour of work were cut down, the profit on the capital invested in plant would vanish altogether’, Strong in the support of such academic authorities, the employers felt no scruple in evading the law, when they could; but the excuse was a mistaken one. Robert Owen’s experience had established the fact that the product in textile trades did not vary directly according to the hours of labour. He found that the influence ! Mr Howells thus describes it: * The system which they seek to introduce ander the guise of relays is one of the many for shuffling the hands about in endless variety, and shifting the hours of work and of rest for different individuals throughout the day, so that you never have one complete set of hands working together in the same room at the same time.” Reports, 1849, xxi. 225. The intervals when the hands were not actually working were so short, and so arranged that they might be of very little use either for purposes of rest or recreation. Hutchins and Harrison, op. cst. 80, 101. t 13 and 14 Viet. c. 54. . 8 Women, young persons and children might not be employed before 6 a.m. or after 6 p.m. (16 and 17 Vict. e. 104), and they were to be allowed an hour and a half for meals (3 and 4 Will. IV. ¢. 103 § 6). ¢ N. Senior, Letter on the Factory Act, 12.

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