Ure Extracts
EXAMPLE FROM URE 1
Under what pretext, or with what face of
pretension, operatives, whose labour is assisted by steam or water power, can
lay claim to a peculiar privilege of exemption from more than ten hours' daily
labour it is hard to conjecture. They compare their toil with that of the small
class, comparatively speaking, of artisans, such as carpenters, bricklayers,
stone-masons, &c., who, they say, work only from six to six, with two
one-hour intervals for meals: a class, however, in this material respect
distinguished from most factory operatives, that their work is done entirely by
muscular effort, and after serving a long apprenticeship with no little outlay.
But what do the factory people think of the numerous class of domestic
operatives, the stocking or frame-work knitters, the hand-loom weavers, the
wool-combers, the lace-manufacturers, and a variety of others, who work, and
very hardly too, from twelve to sixteen hours a-day, to earn a bare
subsistence; and this frequently from a very early age, and in a state of
confinement irksome to the mind and injurious to the body? The consideration is
also overlooked by these interested reasoners, that by reducing the hours of
labour, and thereby the amount of subsistence derivable from the less
objectionable occupations, they would cause a corresponding increase of
competition for employment in the more objectionable ones, and thus inflict an
injury on the whole labouring community, by wantonly renouncing the fair
advantages of their own. On the principles expounded above, the woollen
manufacturers in the large mills pay much better wages to their workmen than
the domestic manufacturers do to theirs. The factory system, then, instead of
being detrimental to the comfort of the labouring population, is its grand
palladium; for the more complicated and extensive the machinery required for
any manufacture, the less risk is there of its agents being injured by the
competition of foreign manufactures, and the great inducement and ability has
the mill-owner to keep up the wages of his work-people. The main reasons why
they are is, that they form a small part of the value of the manufactured
article, so that if reduced too low by a sordid master, they would render his
operatives less careful, and thereby injure the quality of their work more than
could be compensated by his saving in wages. The less proportion wages bear to
the value of the goods, the higher, generally speaking, is the recompense of
labour. The prudent master of a fine spinning-mill is most reluctant to tamper
with the earnings of his spinners, and never consents to reduce them till
absolutely forced.
EXAMPLE FROM URE 2
In cotton-spinning it would now be possible
to reduce the wages of labour, because, since the mules have been enlarged,
there is always a sufficiency of hands; but it has never been the policy of the
masters to do so, unless when absolutely compelled by the want of profits,
knowing that the lower the work people are reduced in circumstances, the less
dependence can be placed upon their attention. The operative spinners, aware
that a great excess of hands would have the effect of reducing their wages,
combine to pay the expenses of sending their unemployed comrades away to
America. Mr. H. Houldsworth, of Glasgow, states that he know this fact from the
individuals themselves, and from their wives, and has occasionally been
solicited to aid the families in their emigration, and to forward to them sums
contributed by the union for their temporary support. "Within the last three
years there have been not less than eighty or one hundred spinners shipped from
Glasgow, which is perhaps one-eighth of the whole*". The trade-unions are, in
fact, bound by their articles to pay certain sums to their idle members, in
order to support them, and to prevent them volunteering to work at under-wages
from necessity. The weekly allowance of the union, joined to the fear of
incurring its displeasure, takes away this temptation. The cost of transporting
a spinner across the Atlantic varies from £15 to £20.
EXAMPLE FROM URE 3
Agriculturists give children and youths no
more than half the wages paid them by factory proprietors; while they fill
their workhouses with unemployed persons. Under the operation of the poor laws,
the peasantry are penned up in close parishes, where they increase beyond the
demand for their labour, and allow their children to grow up in sloth and
ignorance, which unfit them from ever becoming industrious men. This obstacle
to the circulation and reward of labour will is so great as to render a large
family not a burden, but a source of comfort and independence to poor people.
Were the parents, therefore, sober and provident, they might always train up
their young ones into valuable members of society. In very many rural
districts, the mal-administration of the poor laws has banished every right
feeling from the female heart; has quenched all the domestic affections; and
has generated a race of harpies familiar with extortion, perjury, and violence.
What can be expected of the children trained up under such mothers, but
reckless idleness and profligacy? With such a monstrous brood, incendiarism
becomes a sport, often wantonly perpetrated upon the barns of the industrious
farmers who feed them.
Back to Gaskellure
Back to History PGCE
|
