3 In reference to this statute, J. Wade with truth remarks: *' From the statement above (i.e., with regard to the statute) it appears that in 1496 the diet was considered equivalent to one third of the income of an artificer and one-half the income of a labourer, which indicates a greater degree of independence among the working classes than prevails at present; for the board, both of labourers and artificers, would now R 258 Capitalist Production.
last from 5 in the morning until dark, with the same intervals. A statute of Elizabeth of 1562 leaves the length of the working day for all labourers " hired for daily or weekly wage " untouched, but aims at limiting the intervals to 21- hours in the summer, or to 2 in the winter. Dinner is only to last 1 hour, and the " afternoon-sleep of half an hour " is only allowed between the middle of May and the middle of August. For every hour of absence Id. is to be subtracted from the wage. In practice, however, the conditions were much more favourable to the labourers than in the statute-book. William Petty, the father of political economj^, and to some extent the founder of Statistics, says in a work that he published in the last third of the 17th century: "Labouring-men (then meaning field-labourers) work 10 hours per diem, and make 20 meals per week, viz., 3 a day for working days, and 2 on Sundays; whereby it is plain, that if they could fast on Fryday nights, and dine in one hour and an half, whereas they take two, from eleven to one; thereby this working h more, and spending ^V less, the above-mentioned (tax) might be raised."^ Was not Dr. Andrew Ure right in crying down the 12 hours' bill of 1833 as a retrogression to the times of the dark ages? It is true, these regulations contained in the statute mentioned by Petty, apply also to apprentices. But the condition of child-labour, even at the end of the' 17th century, is seen from the following complaint: " 'Tis not their practice (in Germany) as with us in this kingdom, to bind an apprentice for seven years; three or four is their common standard: and the reason is, because they are educated from their cradle to something of employment, which renders them the more apt and docile, and consequently the more capable of attaining to a ripeness and quicker proficiency in business. Whereas our youth, here in England, being bred to nothing before they come to be apprentices, make a very slow be reckoned at a much higher proportion of their wages," (J. Wade, " History of the Middle and Working Classes," p. 24, 25, and 577.) The opinion that this difference is due to the difference in the price-relations between food and clothing then and now is refuted by the most cursory glance at " Chronicon Pretiosum, &c." By Bishop Fleetwood. 1st Ed., London, 1707; 2d Ed., London, 1745.
iW. Petty, "Political Anatomy of Ireland, Verbum Sapienti," 1672, Ed. 1G91, The Working Day. 259" progress and require mucli longer time wherein to reach the perfection of accomplished artists."^ Still, during the greater part of the 18th century, up to the epoch of Modern Industry and machinism, capital in England had not succeeded in seizing for itself, by the payment of the weekly value of labour-power, the whole week of the labourer with the exception, however, of the agricultural labourers. The fact that they could live for a whole week on the wage of four days, did not appear to the labourers a sufficient reason that they should work the other two days for the capitalist. One party of English economists, in the interest of capita], denounces this obstinacy in the most violent manner, another party defends the labourers. Let us listen, e.g., to the contest between Postlethwayt whose Dictionary of Trade then had the same reputation as the kindred works of M'Culloch and M'Gregor to-day, and the author (already quoted) of th6 " Essay on Trade and Commerce."
1 "A Discourse on the necessity of encouraging Mechanick Industry," London^ 1689, p. 13. Macaulay, who has falsified English history in the interest of the Whigu and the bourgeoisie, declares as follows: " The practice of setting children prematurely to work...prevailed in the 17th century to an extent which, when compared with the extent of the manufacturing system, seems almost incredible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing trade, a little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour. Several writers of that time, and among them some who were considered as eminently benevolent, mention with exultation the fact that in that single city, boys and girls of very tender age create wealth exceeding what was necessary for their own subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a year. The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils That which is new is the intelligence and the humanity which remedies them." (" History of Eng land," vol. L, p. 419.) Macaulay might have reported further that "extremely well-disposed " amis c^w commerce in the 17th century, narrate with "exultation" how in a poorhouse in Holland a child of four was employed, and that this example of '■^vertu mise en pratique " passes muster in all the humanitarian works, cu la Macaulay, to the time of Adam Smith. It is true that with the substitution of manufacture for handicrafts, traces of the exploitation of children begin to appear. This exploitation existed always to a certain extent among peasants, and was the more developed, the heavier the yoke pressing on the husbandman. The tendency of capital is there unmistakably; but the facts themselves are still as isolated as the phenomena of twoheaded children. Hence they were noted "with exultation" as especially worthy of remark and as wonders by the far-seeing " amis <itt commerce, " and recommended as models for their own time and for posterity. This same Scotch sycophant and fine talker, Macaulay, says: " We hear to-day only of retrogression and see only progress." What eyes, and especially what ears!
2 Among the accusers of the workpeople, the most angry is the anonymous author quoted in the text of " An Essay on trade and commerce, containing observations on 26o Capitalist Productton.
Postlethwayt sa3^s among other things: " We cannot put an end to those few observations, without noticing that trite remark in the mouth of too many; that if the industrious poor can obtain enough to maintain themselves in five days, they •will not work the whole six. Whence they infer the necessity of even the necessaries of life being made dear by taxes, or any other means, to compel the working artizan and manufacturer to labour the whole six da3^s in the week, without ceasing. I must beg leave to differ in sentiment from those great politicians, who contend for the perpetual slavery of the working people of this kingdom; they forget the vulgar adage, all work and no play. Have not the English boasted of the ingenuity and dexterity of her working artists and manufacturers wdiich have heretofore given credit and reputation to British wares in general? What has this been owing to? To nothing more probably than the relaxation of the working people in their own way. Were the}" obliged to toil the year round, the whole six days in the week, in a repetition of the same work, might it not blunt their ingenuity, and render them stupid instead of alert and dexterous; and might not our workmen lose their reputation instead of maintaining it by such eternal slavery?...And what sort of workmanship could we expect from such hard-driven animals?...Many of them will execute as much work in four days as a Frenchman will in five or six. But if Englishmen are to be eternal drudges, 'tis to be feared they wull degenerate below the Frenchmen. As our people are famed for bravery in war, do we not say that it is owing to good English roast beef and pudding in their bellies, as well as their constitutional spirit of liberty? And why may not the superior ingenuity and dexterity of our artists and Taxation, &c., London, 1770." He had already dealt with this subject in his earlier work: " Considerations on Taxes." London, 1765. On the same side follows Polonius Arthur Young, the unutterable statistical prattler. Among the defenders of the working classes the foremost are: Jacob Vanderlint, in: " Money answers all things." London, 1734; the Rev. Nathaniel Forster, D.D., in "An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present Price of Provisions," London, 1766; Dr Price, and especially Postlethwayt, as well in the supplement to his "Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce," as in his "Great Britain's Commercial Interest explained and improved." 2nd Edition, 1755. Tlie facts themselves are confirmed by many other writers of the time, among others by Josiah Tucker.
The Working Day, 261 manufactures, be owing to that freedom and liberty to direct themselves in their own way, and I hope we shall never have them deprived of such privileges and that good living from whence their ingenuity no less than their courage may proceed." ^ Thereupon the author of the " Essay on Trade and Commerce " replies: " If the making of every seventh day an holiday is supposed to be of divine institution, as it implies the appropriating the other six days to labour" (he means capital as we shall soon see) " surely it will not be thought cruel to enforce it...That mankind in general, are naturally inclined to ease and indolence, we fatally experience to be true, from the conduct of our manufacturing populace, who do not labour, upon an average, above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear Put all the necessaries of the poor under one denomination; for instance, call them all wheat, or suppose that...the bushel of wheat shall cost five shillings and that he (a manufacturer) earns a shilling by his labour, he then would be obliged to work five days only in a week. If the bushel of wheat should cost but four shillings, he would be obliged to work but four days * but as wages in this kingdom are much higher in proportion to the price of necessaries...the manufacturer, who labours four days, has a surplus of money to live idle with the rest of the week...I hope I have said enough to make it appear that the moderate labour of six days in a week is no slavery. Our labouring people do this, and to all appearance are the happiest of all our labouring poor,^ but the Dutch do this in manufactures, and appear to be a very happy people. The French do so, when holidays do not intervene.^ But our populace have adopted a notion, that as Englishmen they enjoy a birthright privilege of being more free and independent than in any country in Europe. Now this idea, as far as it may affect the bravery of our troops, may be of some use; but tho 2 " An Essay," &c. He himself relates on p. 96 A^herein the ** happiness " of the English agricultural labourer already in 1770 consisted. " Their powers are always upon the stretch, they cannot live cheaper than they do, nor work harder."
3 Protestantism, by changing almost all the traditional holidays into workdays, plays an important part in the genesis of capital.
262 Capitalist Production.
less the manufacturing poor have of it, certainly the better for themselves and for the State. The labouring people should never think themselves independent of their superiors...It is extremely dangerous to encourage mobs in a commercial state like ours, where, perhaps, seven parts out of eight of the whole, are people with little or no property. The cure will not be perfect, till our manufacturing poor are contented to labour six days for the same sum which they now earn in four days." To tliis end, and for " extirpating idleness, debauchery and excess," promoting a spirit of industry, " lowering the price of labour in our manufactories, and easing the lands of the heavy burden of poor's rates," our " faithful Eckart " of capital proposes this approved device: to shut up such labourers as become dependent on public support, in a word, paupers, in " an ideal workhouse.^^ Such ideal workhouse must be made a " House of Terror," and not an asylum for the poor, " where they are to be plentifully fed, warmly and decently clothed, and where they do but little work."^ In this " House of Terror," this " ideal workhouse, the poor shall work 14 hours in a day, allowing proper time for meals, in such manner that there shall remain 12 hours of neat-labour."^ Twelve working hours daily in the Ideal Workhouse, in the " House of Terror " of 1770! 63 years later, in 1833, when the English Parliament reduced the working day for children of 13 to 18, in four branches of industry to 12 full hours, the judgment day of English Industry had dawned! In 1852, when Louis Bonaparte sought to secure his position with the bourgeoisie by tampering with the legal working day, the French people cried out with one voice " the law that limits the working day to 12 hours is the one good that has remained to us of the legislation of the Republic! "^ At Ziirich the work 1 " An Essay," &c., p. 15, 41, 96, 97, 55, 57, 69.— Jacob Vanderlint, as early as 17S4, declared that the secret of the out-cry of the capitalists as to the laziness of the v/orking people was simjDly that they claimed for the same wages 6 days' labour instead of 4.
3 1. c. " The French," he says, *' laugh at our enthusiastic ideas of liberty." 1. c.p. 78.
4 *' They especially objected to work beyond the 12 hours per day, because the law which fixed those hours, is the only good which remains to them of the legislation of the Eepublic." ("Kep. of Insp. of Fact.," 31st October, 1856, p. 80.) The French Twelve hours' Bill of September 5th, 1850, a bourgeois edition of the decree of the The Working Day. 26;^ of children over 10, is limited to 12 hours; in Aargau in 186'2, the work of children between 13 and 16, was reduced from 12J to 12 hours; in Austria in 1860, for children between 14 and 16, the same reduction was made.^ " What a progress," since 1770! Macaulay would shout with exultation!
The " House of Terror " for paupers of which the capitalistic soul of 1770 only dreamed, was realized a few years later in the shape of a gigantic " Workhouse " for the industrial worker himself. It is called the Factory. And the ideal this time fades before the reality.
SECTION 6. — THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NORMAL WORKING DAY. COMPULSORY LIMITATION BY LAW OF THE WORKING TIME. THE ENGLISH FACTORY After capital had taken centuries in extending the workingday to its normal maximum limit, and then beyond this to the limit of the natural day of 12 hours, ^ there followed on the birth of machinism and modern industry in the last third of Provisional Government of March 2nd, 1848, holds in all workshops without exceptions. Before this law the working day in France was without definite limit. It lasted in the factories 14, 15, or more hours. See " Des classes ouvrieres en France, pendant I'annee 1848. Par M. Blanqui." M. Blanqui the economist, not the Eevolutionist, had been entrusted by the Government with an inquiry into the condition of the working class.
1 Belgium is the model bourgeois state in regard to the regulation of the working day. Lord Howard of Welden, English Plenipotentiary at Brussels, reports to the Foreign Office, May 12th, 18ti2: "M. Rogier, the minister, informed me that children's labour is limited neither by a general law nor by any local regulations; that the Government, during the last three years, intended in every session to propose a bill on the subject, but always found an insuperable obstacle in the jealous opposition to any legislation in contradiction with the principle of perfect freedom of labour."
2 " It is certainly much to be regretted that any class of persons should toil 12 hours a day, which, including the time for their meals and for going to and returning from their work, amounts, in fact, to 14 of the 24 hours...Without entering into the question of health, no one one will hesitate, I think, to admit that, in a moral point of view, so entire an absorption of the time of the working classes, without intermission, from the early age of 13, and in trades not subject to restriction, much younger, must be extremely prejudicial, and is an evil greatly to be deplored...For the sake, therefore, of public morals, of bringing up an orderly population, and of giving the great body of the people a leasonable enjoyment of life, it is much to be desired that in all trades some portion of every working day should be reserved for rest and leisure." (Leonard Horner in Reports of Insp. of Fact., Dec, 1841.)
264 Capitalist Prodtidion, the 18th century, a violent encroachment like that of an avalanche in its intensity and extent. All bounds of morals and nature, age and sex, day and night, were broken down. Even the ideas of day and night, of rustic simplicity in the old statutes, became so confused that an English judge, as late as 1860, needed a quite Talmudic sagacity to explain "judicially" what was day and what was night/ Capital celebrated its orgies.
As soon as the working class, stunned at first by the noise and turmoil of the new S37stem of production, recovered, in some measure, its senses, its resistance began, and first in the native land of machinism, in England. For 30 years, however, the concessions conquered by the v/orkpeople were purely nominal. Parliment passed 5 Labour Laws between 1802 and 1883, but was shrewd enough not to vote a penny for their carrjdng out, for the requisite officials, &c.''
They remained a dead letter. " The fact is, that prior to the Act of 1833, young persons and children were worked all night, all day, or both ad libitum^ ^ A normal working day for modern industry only dates from the Factory Act of 1833, which included cotton, wool, flax, and silk factories. Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of capital than the history of the English Factory Acts from 1833 The Act of 1833 declares the ordinary factory working day to be from half-past five in the morning to half-past eight in the evening, and within these limits, a period of 15 hours, it is lawful to employ young persons (i.e., persons between 13 and 18 years 1 See "Judgment of Mr. J. H. Otwey, Belfast. Hilary Sessions, County Antrim, 2 It is very characteristic of the regime of Louis Philippe, the bourgeois king, that the one Factory Act passed during his reign, that of March 22nd, 1841, was never put in force. And this law only dealt with child-labour. It fixed 8 hours a day for children betwf en 8 and 12, 12 hours for children between 12 and 16, &c., with many exceptions which allow night-work even for children 8 years old. The supervision and enforcement of this law are, in a country where every mouse is under police administration, left to the good-will of the amis du commerce. Only since 1853, in one single department — the Departement du Nord — has a paid government inspector been appointed. Not less characteristic of the development of French society, generally, is the fact, that Louis Philippe's law stood solitary among the all-embracing mass of French laws, till the Revolution of 1848.
3 " Report of Insp. of Fact.," 30th April, 1860, p. 50.
The Working Day. 265 of age), at any time of the day, provided no one individual young person should work more than 12 hours in any one day, except in certain cases especially provided for. The 6th section of the Act provided: " That there shall be allowed in the course of every day not less than one and a half hours for meals to every such person restricted as hereinbefore provided." The employment of children under 9, with exceptions mentioned later, was forbidden; the work of children between 9 and 13 was limited to 8 hours a day, nis^ht work, i.e., according to this Act, work between 8.30 p.m. and 5.30 a.m., was forbidden for all persons between 9 and 18.
The law-makers were so far from wishing to trench on the freedom of capital to exploit adult labour-power, or, as they called" it, "the freedom of labour," that they created a special system in order to prevent the Factory Acts from having a consequence so outrageous.
" The great evil of the factory system as at present conducted," says the first report of the Central Board of the Commission of June 28th, 1833, " has appeared to us to be that it entails the necessity of continuing the labour of children to the utmost length of that of the adults. The only remedy for this evil, short of the limitation of the labour of adults, which would, in our opinion, create an evil greater than that which is sought to be remedied, appears to be the plan of working double sets of children."...Under the name of System of Relays, this " plan " was therefore carried out, so that, e.g., from 5.30 a.m. until 1.30 in the afternoon, one set of children between 9 and 13, and from 1.30 p.m. to 8.30 in the evening another set were " put to," &c.
In order to reward the manufacturers for having, in the most barefaced way, ignored all the Acts as to children's labour passed during the last twenty-two years, the pill was yet further gilded for them. Parliament decreed that after March 1st, 1834, no child under 11, after March 1st, 1835, no child under 12, and after March 1st, 1836, no child under 13, was to work more than eight hours in a factory. This "liberalism," so full of consideration for " capital," was the more noteworthy as, Dr. Farre, Sir A. Carlisle, Sir B. Brodie, Sir C. Bell, Mr.
266 Capitalist Production, Guthrie, &c., in a word, the most distinguished physicians and surgeons in London, had declared in their evidence before the House of Commons, that there was danger in delay. Dr. Farre expressed himself still more coarsely. " Legislation is necessary for the prevention of death, in any form in which it can be prematurely inflicted, and certainly this {i.e.y the factory method) must be viewed as a most cruel mode of inflicting it."
That same *' reformed " Parliament, which in its delicate consideration for the manufacturers, condemned children under 13, for years to come, to 72 hours of work per week in the Factory Hell, on the other hand, in the Emancipation Act, which also administered freedom drop by drop, forbade the planters, from the outset, to work any negro slave more than 45 hours a week.
But in no wise conciliated, capital now began a noisy agitation that went on for several years. It turned chiefly on the age of those who, under the name of children, were limited to 8 hours work, and were subject to a certain amount of compulsory education. According to capitalistic anthropology, the age of childhood ended at 10, or at the outside, at 11. The more nearly the time approached for the coming into full force of the Factory Act, the fatal year 1836, the more wildly raged the mob of manufacturers. They managed, in fact, to intimidate the government to such an extent that in 1885 it proposed to lower the limit of the age of childhood from 13 to 12. In the meantime the pressure from without grew more threatening. Courage failed the House of Commons. It refused to throw children of 13 under the Juggernaut Car of capital for more than 8 hours a day, and the Act of 1833 came into full operation. It remained unaltered until June, 1844.
In the ten years during which it regulated factory work, first in part, and then entirel}'-, the official reports of the factory inspectors teem with complaints as to the impossibility of putting the Act into force. As the law of 1833 left it optional with the lords of capital during the 15 hours, from 5.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., to make every " young person," and " every child " begin, break off, resume, or end his 12 or 8 hours at any moment they liked, and also permitted them to assign to The Working Day. 267 different persons, different times for meals, these gentlemen soon discovered a new " system of relays," by which the labourhorses were not changed at fixed stations, but were constantly re-harnessed at changing stations. We do not pause longer on the beauty of this system, as we shall have to return to it later. But this much is clear at the first glance: that this system annulled the whole Factory Act, not only in the spirit, but in the letter. How could factory inspectors, with this complex book-keeping in respect to each individual child or young person, enforce the legally determined work time and the granting of the legal meal- times? In a great many of the factories, the old brutalities soon blossomed out again unpunished. In an interview with the Home Secretary (1844), the factory inspectors demonstrated the impossibility of any control under the newly invented relay system.^ In the meantime, however, circumstances had greatly changed. The factory hands, especially since 1838, had made the Ten Hours' Bill their economical, as they had made the Charter their political, election-cry. Some of the manufacturers, even, who had managed their factories in conformity with the Act of 1833, overwhelmed Parliament with memorials on the immoral competition of their false brethren whom greater impudence, or more fortunate local circumstances, enabled to break the law.
Moreover, however much the individual manufacturer might give the rein to liis old lust for gain, the spokesmen and political leaders of the manufacturing class ordered a change of front and of speech towards the workpeople. The}^ had entered upon the contest for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and needed the workers to help them to victory. They promised, therefore, not only a double-sized loaf of bread, but the enactment of the Ten Hours' Bill in the Free Trade millenium.^ Thus they still less dared to oppose a measure intended onty to make the law of 1833 a reality. Threatened in their holiest interest, the rent of land, the Tories thundered with philanthropic indignation against the " nefarious practices " * of their foes.
1 •' Rept. of Insp. of Fact.," 31st October, 1849, p. 6.
2 " Rept. of Insp. of Fact.," 31st October, 1848, p. 98.
3 Leonard Horner \ises the expression "nefarious practices" in his official reports. (" Report of Insp. of Fact.," 31st October, 1850, p. 7.)
2 68 Capitalist Production, This was the origin of the additional Factory Act of June 7th, 1844. It came into effect oii September 10th, 1844. It places under protection a new category of workers, viz., the.women over 18. They were placed in every respect on the same footing as the young persons, their work time limited to twelve hours, their night-labour forbidden, &;c. For the first time, legislation saw itself compelled to control directly and officially the labour of adults. In the Factory Report of 1844-1845, it is said with irony: " No instances have come to my knowledge of adult women having expressed any regret at their rights being thus far interfered with." ^ The working time of children under 13 was reduced to 6 J, and in certain circum^ stances to 7 hours a-day.^ To get rid of the abuses of the " spurious relay-system," the law established besides others the following important regulations: — " That the hours of work of children and young persons shall be reckoned from the time when any child or young person shall begin to work in the morning." So that if A, e.g.y begins work at 8 in the morning, and B at 10, B's workday must nevertheless end at the same hour as A's. " The time shall be regulated by a public clock," for example, the nearest railway clock, by which the factory clock is to be set. The occupier is to hang up a " legible " printed notice stating the hours for the beginning and ending of work and the times allowed for the several meals. Children beginning work before 12 noon may not be again employed after 1 p.m. The afternoon shift must therefore consist of other children than those employed in the morning. Of the hour and a half for meal times, " one hour thereof at the least shall be given before three of the clock in the afternoon...and at the same period of the day. No child or young person shall be employed more than five hours before 1 p.m. without an interval for meal time of at least 80 minutes. No child or young person [or female] shall be employed or allowed to remain in any room in which any manufacturing process is then [^.e., at meal times] carried on," &c.
2 The Act allows children to be employed for 10 hours if they do not work day after day, but only on alternate days. In the main, this clause remained inoperative.
The Working Day. 269 It has been seen that these minutiae, which, with military uniformity, regulate by stroke of the clock the times, limits, pauses of the work, were not at all the products of Parliamentary fancy. They developed gradually out of circumstances as natural laws of the modern mode of production. Their formulation, official recognition, and proclamation by the State, were the result of a long struggle of classes. One of tlieir first consequences was that in practice the working day of the adult males in factories became subject to the same limitations, since in most processes of production the co-operation of the children, young persons, and women is indispensable. On the whole, therefore, during the period from 1844 to 1847, the 12 hours' working day became general and uniform in all branches of industry under the Factory Act.
The manufacturers, however, did not allow this " progress " without a compensating " retrogression." At their instigation the House of Commons reduced the minimum age for exploitable children from 9 to 8, in order to assure that additional supply of factory children which is due to capitalists, according to divine and human iaw.^ The years 1846-47 are epoch-making in the economic history of England. The Repeal of the Corn Laws, and of the duties on cotton and other raw material; free trade proclaimed as the guiding star of legislation; in a word, the arrival of the millenium. On the other hand, in the same years, the Chartist movement and the 10 hours' agitation reached their highest point. They found allies in the Tories panting for revenge. Despite the fanatical opposition of the army of perjured Freetraders, with Bright and Cobden at their head, the Ten Hours' Bill, struggled for so long, went through Parliament.
The new Factory Act of June 8th, 1847, enacted that on July 1st, 1847, there should be a preliminary shortening of the working day for "young persons" (from 18 to 18), and all females to 11 hours, but that on May 1st, 1848, there should be a definite limitation of the working day to 10 hours. In 1 '* As a reduction in their hours of work would cause a larger number (of children) to be employed, it was thouglit that the additional supply of children from 8 to 9 years of age would meet the increased demand " (I.e., p. 13).
other respects, the Act only amended and completed the Acts Capital now entered upon a preliminary campaign in order to hinder the Act from coming into full force on May 1st, 1 848. And the workers themselves, under the pretence that they had been taught by experience, were to help in the destruction of their own work. The moment was cleverly chosen. " It must be remembered, too, that there has been more than two years of great suffering (in consequence of the terrible crisis of 1846-47) among the factory operatives, from many mills having worked short time, and many being altogether closed. A considerable number of the operatives must therefore be in very narrow circumstances; many, it is to be feared, in debt; so that it might fairly have been pi'esumed that at the present time they would prefer working the longer time, in order to make up for past losses, perhaps to pay off debts, or get their furniture out of pawn, or replace that sold, or to get a n^^ supply of clothes for themselves and their families."^