Part 8 (2/2)
-- 5. The False Dilemma which impedes Progress.--There are those who seek to r.e.t.a.r.d all social progress by a false and mischievous dilemma which takes the following shape. No radical improvement in industrial organization, no work of social reconstruction, can be of any real avail unless it is preceded by such moral and intellectual improvement in the condition of the ma.s.s of workers as shall render the new machinery effective; unless the change in human nature comes first, a change in external conditions will be useless. On the other hand, it is evident that no moral or intellectual education can be brought effectively to bear upon the ma.s.s of human beings, whose whole energies are necessarily absorbed by the effort to secure the means of bare physical support.
Thus it is made to appear as if industrial and moral progress must each precede the other, a thing which is impossible. Those who urge that the two forms of improvement must proceed _pari pa.s.su, _do not precisely understand what they propose.
The falsehood of the above dilemma consists in the a.s.sumption that industrial reformers wish to proceed by a sudden leap from an old industrial order to a new one. Such sudden movements are not in accordance with the gradual growth which nature insists upon as the condition of wise change. But it is equally in accordance with nature that the material growth precedes the moral. Not that the work of moral reconstruction can lag far behind. Each step in this industrial advancement of the poor should, and must, if the gain is to be permanent, be followed closely and secured by a corresponding advance in moral and intellectual character and habits. But the moral and religious reformer should never forget that in order of time material reform comes first, and that unless proper precedence be yielded to it, the higher ends of humanity are unattainable.
Chapter X.
”Socialistic Legislation.”
-- 1. Legislation in restraint of ”Free” Contract.--The direct pressure of certain tangible and painful forms of industrial grievance and of poverty has forced upon us a large ma.s.s of legislation which is sometimes called by the name of Socialistic Legislation. It is necessary to enter on a brief examination of the character of the various enactments included under this vague term, in order to ascertain the real nature of the remedy they seek to apply.
Perhaps the most typical form of this socialistic legislation is contained in the Factory Acts, embodying as they do a series of direct interferences in the interests of the labouring cla.s.ses with freedom of contract between capital and labour.
The first of these Factory Acts, the Health and Morals Act, was pa.s.sed in 1802, and was designed for the protection of children apprenticed in the rising manufacturing towns of the north, engaged in the cotton and woollen trades. Large numbers of children apprenticed by poor-law overseers in the southern counties were sent as ”slaves” to the northern manufacturer, to be kept in overcrowded buildings adjoining the factory, and to be worked day and night, with an utter disregard to all considerations of physical or moral health. There is no page in the history of our nation so infamous as that which tells the details of the unbridled greed of these pioneers of modern commercialism, feeding on the misery and degradation of English children. This Act of 1802, enforcing some small sanitary reforms, prohibited night work, and limited the working-day of apprenticed children to twelve hours. In 1819, another Act was pa.s.sed for the benefit of unapprenticed child workers in cotton mills, prohibiting the employment of children under nine years, and limiting the working-day to twelve hours for children between nine and sixteen. Sir John Cam Hobhouse in 1825 pa.s.sed an Act further restricting the labour of children under sixteen years, requiring a register of children employed in mills, and shortening the work on Sat.u.r.days. Then came the agitation of Richard Oastler for a Ten Hours Bill. But Parliament was not ripe for this, and Hobhouse, attempting to redeem the hours in textile industries, was defeated by the northern manufacturers. Public feeling, however, formed chiefly by Tories like Oastler, Sadler, Ashley, and Fielden, drove the Whig leader, Lord Althorp, to pa.s.s the important Factory Act of 1833. This Act drew the distinction between children admitted to work below the age of thirteen, and ”young persons” of ages from thirteen to eighteen; enforced in the case of the former attendance at school, and a maximum working week of forty-eight hours; in the case of the latter prohibited night work, and limited the hours of work to sixty-nine a week. The next step of importance was Peel's consolidating Factory Act of 1844, reducing the working-day for children to six and a half hours, and increasing the compulsory school attendance from two hours to three, and strengthening in various ways the machinery of inspection. In 1845 Lord Ashley pa.s.sed a measure prohibiting the night work of women. In 1848, by the Act of Mr. Fielden, ten hours was a.s.signed as a working-day for women and young persons, and further restrictions in favour of women and children were made in 1850 and 1853.
It must, however, be remembered that all the Factory legislation previous to 1860 was confined to textile factories--cotton, woollen, silk, or linen. In 1860, bleaching and dyeing works were brought within the Factory Acts, and several other detailed extensions were made between 1861 and 1864, in the direction of lace manufacture, pottery, chimney-sweeping, and other employments. But not until 1867 were manufactories in general brought under Factory legislation. This was achieved by the Factory Acts Extension Act, and the Workshops Regulation Act. For several years, however, the beneficial effects of this legislation was grievously impaired by the fact that local authorities were left to enforce it. Not until 1871, when the regulation and enforcement was restored to State inspectors, was the legislation really effectual. The Factory and Workshop Act of 1878, modified by a few more recent restrictions, is still in force. It makes an advance on the earlier legislation in the following directions. It prohibits the employment in any factory or workshop of children under the age of eleven, and requires a certificate of fitness for factory labour under the age of sixteen. It imposes the half-time system on all children, admitting, however, two methods, either of pa.s.sing half the day in school, and half at work, or of giving alternate days to work and school. It recognizes a distinction between the severity of work in textile factories and in non-textile factories, a.s.signing a working week of about fifty-six and a half hours to the former, and sixty hours to the latter. The exceptions of domestic workshops, and of many other forms of female and child employment, the permission of over-time within certain limitations, and the inadequate provision of inspection, considerably diminish the beneficial effects of these restrictive measures.
In 1842 Lord Ashley secured a Mining Act, which prohibited the underground employment of women, and of boys under ten years. In 1850 mine inspectors were provided, and a number of precautions enforced to secure the safety of miners. In 1864 several minor industries, dangerous in their nature, such as the manufacture of lucifer-matches, cartridges, etc., were brought under special regulations. To these restrictive pieces of legislation should be added the Employers' Liability Act, enforcing the liability of employers for injuries sustained by workers through no fault of their own, and the ”Truck” legislation, compelling the payment of wages in cash, and at suitable places.
This slight sketch will suffice to mark the leading features of a large cla.s.s of laws which must be regarded as a growth of State socialism.
The following points deserve special attention--
1. These measures are all forced on Parliament by the recognition of actual grievances, and all are testimony to the failure of a system of complete _laissez faire_.
2. They all imply a direct interference of the State with individual freedom--i.e. the worker cannot sell his labour as he likes; the capitalist cannot make what contracts he likes.
3. Though the protection of children and women is the strongest motive force in this legislative action, many of these measures interfere directly or indirectly with adult male labour--e.g. the limit on the factory hours of women and children practically limits the factory day for men, where the latter work with women or children. The clauses of recent Factory Acts requiring the ”fencing of machinery” and other precautions, apply to men as well as to children and women. The Truck Act and Employers' Liability Act apply to male adult labour.
-- 2. Theory of this Legislation.--Under such legislation as the foregoing it is evident that the theory that a worker should be free to sell his labour as he likes has given way before the following considerations--
(1) That this supposed ”freedom to work as one likes” often means only a freedom to work as another person likes, whether that other person be a parent, as in the case of children, or an employer, as in the case of adult workers.
(2) That a worker in a modern industrial community is not a detached unit, whose contract to work only concerns himself and his employer. The fellow-workers in the same trade and society at large have a distinct and recognizable interest in the conditions of the work of one another.
A, by keeping his shop open on Sundays, or for long hours on week-days, is able to compel B, C, D, and all the rest of his trade compet.i.tors to do the same. A minority of workmen by accepting low wages, or working over-time, are often able to compel the majority to do the same. There is no labour-contract or other commercial act which merely regards the interest of the parties directly concerned. How far a society acting for the protection of itself, or of a number of its members, is justified in interfering between employer and workman, or between competing tradesmen, is a question of expediency. General considerations of the theoretic ”freedom of contract,” and the supposed ”self-regarding”
quality of the actions, are thus liable to be set aside by this socialistic legislation.
(3) These interferences with ”free contract” of labour are not traceable to the policy of any one political party. The most valuable portions of the factory measures were pa.s.sed by nominally Conservative governments, and though supported by a section of the Radical party, were strenuously opposed by the bulk of the Liberals, including another section of Radicals and political economists.
These measures signify a slow but steady growth of national sentiment in favour of securing for the poor a better life. The keynote of the whole movement is the protection of the weak. This appears especially in a recognition of the growing claims of children. Not only is this seen in the history of factory legislation, but in the long line of educational legislation, happily not ended yet. These taken together form a chain of measures for the protection of the young against the tyranny, greed, or carelessness of employers or parents. The strongest public sentiment is still working in this same direction. Recent agitation on the subject of prevention of cruelty to children, free dinners for school-children, adoption of children, child insurance, attest the growing strength of this feeling.
-- 3. General extension of Paternal Government.--The cla.s.s of measures with which we have dealt recognizes that children, women, and in some cases men, are unable to look after their own interests as industrial workers, and require the aid of paternal legislation. But it must not be forgotten that the century has seen the growth of another long series of legislative Acts based also on the industrial weakness of the individual, and designed to protect society in general, adult or young, educated or uneducated, rich or poor. Among these come Adulteration Acts, Vaccination Acts, Contagious Diseases Acts, and the network of sanitary legislation, Acts for the regulation of weights and measures, and for the inspection of various commodities, licenses for doctors, chemists, hawkers, &c. Many of these are based on ancient historic precedents; we have grown so accustomed to them, and so thoroughly recognize the value of most of them, that it seems almost unnecessary to speak of them as socialistic measures. Yet such they are, and all of them are objected to upon this very ground by men of the political school of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Auberon Herbert. For it should be noted--
1. Each of these Acts interferes with the freedom of the individual. It compels him to do certain things--e.g. vaccinate his children, admit inspectors on his premises--and it forbids him to do certain other things.
2. Most of these Acts limit the utility to the individual of his capital, by forbidding him to employ it in certain ways, and hampering him with various restrictions and expenses. The State, or munic.i.p.ality, in certain cases--e.g. railways and cabs--even goes so far as to fix prices.
-- 4. State and Munic.i.p.al Undertakings.--But the State does not confine itself to these restrictive or prohibitive measures, interfering with the free individual application of capital and labour, in the interests of other individuals, or of society at large. The State and the munic.i.p.ality is constantly engaged in undertaking new branches of productive work, thus limiting the industrial area left open to the application of private capitalist enterprise.
<script>