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A HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
A HISTORY 
 OF LABOUR 
 
 BY 
 
 GILBERT STONE 
 
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 SOMETIME SECRETARY TO THE COAL INDUSTRY COMMISSION AND 
 
 DEPUTY HEAD OF PRODUCTION COAL MINES DEPARTMENT B.A. LL.B. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the BRITISH COAL INDUSTRY" "ENGLAND: TO THE 
 
 GREAT charter" " WALES " ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1922 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
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 i9?^'^^ 
 
 Printed in Great [iritain at The Ballantynk Prbss by 
 
 Sfottiswoode. Baliantvne & Co. Ltd. 
 
 Colchester. Landon £■ Htini 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THERE may be no doubt that the present age is 
 of the great ages of the world. We who now live 
 have experienced disasters more serious than 
 those of preceding generations. We have also had offered 
 to us as compensation opportunities that do not frequently 
 recur. It is for us to move the world forward or backward, 
 Belonging to such an age, I make no apology for endeavour- 
 ing to see, by a consideration of the past, what are our 
 tendencies and whither they are leading. 
 
 As Carlyle once said, " Not on Ilion's or Latium's 
 plains ; on far other plains and places henceforth can 
 noble deeds be now done. Not on Ilion's plains ; how 
 much less in Mayfair's drawing rooms ! Not in victory 
 over poor brother French or Phrygians ; but in victory 
 over Frost-jotuns, Marsh-giants, over demons of Discord, 
 Idleness, Injustice, Unreason, and Chaos come again. 
 None of the old Epics is longer possible." We have 
 arrived at a time when the masses definitely and un- 
 doubtedly matter ; when it is no longer a question of the 
 Have-nots reaching out their hands for the possessions of 
 the Haves. The conscience of mankind has at length 
 realized the truth of what the Encyclopaedists declared,; 
 that mankind was composed not of some men, but of all' 
 men. With that realization the story of all men — the 
 masses — becomes not merely invested with interest, but of 
 importance. 
 
 When Eden wrote his history toward the end of the 
 eighteenth century, he wrote with his eye mainly on the 
 Poor Law. The people and pauperism were linked 
 together then so closely that a consideration of the one 
 
 40S38G ^ 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 suggested a treatise on the other. The time when such 
 an association of ideas was not only possible but natural 
 has passed. Circumstances have changed; but though 
 the change is manifest to the most obtuse, though the fact 
 is apparent all around us, yet many, and indeed most, 
 appear to have little idea or knowledge of the causes which 
 in less than a hundred years have brought about a funda- 
 mental alteration in the conditions of the people. 
 
 The spirit of the past still lived when the Duke of 
 Wellington told the unreformed Parliament that it was 
 of all human institutions the most perfect, yet the years, 
 few in number, which stretch between that pronounce- 
 ment of dying Toryism and this day have brought about a 
 shifting of the political centre of gravity, have raised the 
 leaders of working-class thought and opinion to a position of 
 authority in the State, have changed the environment of the 
 home and the factory life led by the masses, and have 
 increased both the prosperity and, to a lesser degree, the 
 intelligence of the people, not only in this country, but in 
 civilized states generally. 
 
 But though these latter days are pregnant with interest 
 and change we should derive a false impression of the 
 stately movements of the Inevitable if we solely regarded 
 the history of the masses in that period which I have in this 
 book called the Present. That era was led up to. It was 
 prepared for. Man did not spring fully equipped into 
 the arena of life. He slowly learnt his way through 
 struggles innumerable and strife and misery and his own 
 unconquerable spirit. Those long ages we must not forget. 
 They are the ages of the Past. 
 
 Convinced as I am that the future is with the masses, 
 convinced also as I am of the inevitableness of one of two 
 alternatives: either that the masses will use their power 
 more generously and more justly than the classes have used 
 their authority in any age within historic times, or that our 
 or the next generation will add to experienced disasters an 
 as yet unexperienced chaos that will cause the losses of 
 the War to recede into insignificance, I have devoted my 
 
PREFACE 
 
 leisure to a humble attempt to depict in the broadest 
 manner possible the history of the masses, not only in 
 England, but in other countries also, from the days when 
 they were slaves to these days when they are free — and 
 free not merely in the view of lawyers, but in truth. I 
 have done this in order to search for the root cause of the 
 change which has occurred in the circumstances of life 
 of the masses, and in order to show how great that change 
 has been. It has been no light task. Many details will, 
 without doubt, be found wanting and others will be blurred, 
 but I shall be content if it be found that the general picture 
 is in perspective. 
 
 I am no believer in a suddenly achieved Utopia; I see 
 little in history that suggests that short cuts are the best 
 roads to travel by; I see little gain in sharp upheavals. In 
 the future, as in the past, it will be the character and worth 
 of our race which will secure us sound advantages. This 
 work is, indeed, based upon the belief, not held lightly or 
 in ignorance, that natural tendencies favour evolution and 
 oppose most sharply revolution. 
 
 As I view the matter, the evolutionary forces which 
 can be seen at work moulding the history of the masses 
 slowly acted throughout the ages until at length the 
 people were fitted to rule. When once the people had 
 come into possession of political power (and that such a 
 gain was secured is due primarily to the genius of three 
 great countries, Great Britain, France, and the United 
 States) the upward movement was rapid. 
 
 To-day the masses can do, if they will, what they will. 
 It therefore, in my opinion, behoves everyone who is 
 interested in matters political and in the advancement of the 
 human species to encourage the masses to like what is worth 
 liking. It would also be no small gain if they could fully 
 realize their power, their rights, and also their duties. 
 The strong man does not exert his strength unduly, nor 
 does the owner of the orchard rob it. But even now we 
 see on all sides a people playing fitfully with the dangerous 
 weapons of industrial force to achieve what knowledge, 
 
 7 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 linked to the power which they already possess, would 
 immediately secure for them without a struggle. We live 
 enmeshed in paralysing prejudices, and though in so saying 
 I may be overbold, I will still say with Montesquieu : 
 " I should think myself the most happy of mortals could I 
 contribute to make mankind recover from their prejudices. 
 By prejudices I here mean not that which renders men 
 ignorant of some particular thing, but whatever renders 
 them ignorant of themselves." 
 
 GILBERT STONE 
 London 
 
 June 192 1 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I : THE PAST 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Prologue to Part I 17 
 
 I. The Unfree 23 
 
 Slavery : Origins — Greek, Hebrew, Roman : The 
 Roman Slave : The Slave a Thing : The Power 
 of the Master : Collegia : The Slave's Disabilities : 
 The Slave a Power : The Slave in Commerce : The 
 Decline of the Roman Empire : The Serf : The 
 Feudal System : The Manor : The Status of the 
 Serf : The Condition of the Serfs : Decline of Serf- 
 dom : Serfdom by Birth : Labour of Serfs : The 
 Rights of the Lord. 
 
 II. Emancipation 44 
 
 Trade and Industry in the Early Medieval Period : The 
 New Era : The Manorial Lords : Enfranchisements : 
 The Rise of the Towns : Localization of Trade : 
 Town Charters : Displacement of Population : The 
 Black Death : Statute of Labourers : Peasants' 
 Rebellion : Strength of the Free Towns : Extinc- 
 tion of Serfdom : Reaction : Colonial Slavery : 
 American Slavery. 
 
 III. The Gilds 66 
 
 Origins : England, France, and Italy : Gild and Trade 
 Union : The Beverley Gild : The Craft Gild : 
 Gild Regulation : Early Combinations : Friendly 
 Societies : The Gild Control of Labour : Importance 
 of the Gilds : Confiscation. 
 
 IV. The Master Worker 82 
 
 The Apprentice : Deeds of Apprenticeship : State In- 
 terference : The Journeyman : The Hiring : Hours 
 and Wages : Combinations : State Regulation of 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Wages : The Justices : Maximum Wages : Regu- 
 lation of Hours of Labour : Migration : The 
 Master : Trade Localities : Tudor Legislation : Act 
 against Combinations : Quarterly Contracts : Be- 
 ginnings of a Factory System ; The Statute of 
 Artificers or Apprentices : Hours of Labour : Wages : 
 Apprentices. 
 
 V. Poverty hi 
 
 The Pauper : Early Agrarian Changes : The Manor : 
 Enclosure : Kett's Rebellion : Depreciation of the 
 Currency : Minor Causes of Poverty : The Unem- 
 ployed : The Vagabond and Sturdy Beggar : The 
 Destitute : The Poor Law : The Elizabethan 
 Poor Law : Settlements : Administrative Abuses : 
 Pauperization : The Allowance System : The 
 Workhouse. 
 
 VI. A Medieval Period 134 
 
 Material Resources : Population : The State of Agri- 
 culture : The Poor : The Worker and the Land : 
 Food : Clothing : Houses : Wages : Learning : 
 The Spirit of the Poor : Development of Resources : 
 Games : France : Colbertism : The Workshop. 
 
 VII. Education 153 
 
 Brito-Roman Schools : The Medieval System : The 
 Gild Schools : Church Control : The Lollards : The 
 Reformation : Elizabethan Reforms : Poor Law 
 Schools : The Commonwealth : Early American 
 Efforts : France : Sixteenth-century Demands : 
 Persecution of Heretics and the Ordinance of 
 Louis XIV : The Voluntary Effort in France : 
 Institut des Freres des ficoles Chretiennes : The 
 Restoration in England : The Charity Schools : The 
 Voluntary Effort in England : Early Efforts : The 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge : The 
 Opening Years of the Nineteenth Century : State 
 of Education in Europe : Brougham and the Volun- 
 tary System. 
 
 VIII. The Agrarian Revolution 175 
 
 The Earlier Enclosure Movement : Nature of Later 
 Enclosure Movement : Motives : Advantages 
 Gained : Evils Suffered : Parliament : Private 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Bill Legislation : Opposition Ineffective : The 
 Commissioners : Compensation : Injustices : Result- 
 ing Evils : A Household Budget : Remedial Pro- 
 posals : Proposals not Accepted : Distress : General 
 Results. 
 
 IX. The Industrial Revolution 195 
 
 England's Century : Meaning of the Industrial Revolu- 
 tion : The Standard of Life : Change of Status : 
 Growth of Population : The Slum : Displacement of 
 Population : Industrial Areas : Change : Machine 
 Competition : The Landless Worker : Material 
 Gains : Spiritual Losses : The Workhouse Child : 
 Child Labour : Hours of Labour : Distress : The 
 Factory : Attitude of the Unreformed Parliament : 
 The Feudal Spirit : The Lords and the Chimney- 
 sweeps. 
 
 X. The Rise of Trade Unionism 217 
 
 Difference between the Trade Union and the Gild : 
 The Standard of Life : Individual Bargaining : The 
 Skilled and Unskilled Trades : Appeal by Petition : 
 Absence of Stable Combinations : Useless Pro- 
 posals : Laissez-faire : Attempts to enforce the Old 
 Laws : Early Unions : Combination Laws : Aims 
 of the Early Trade Unionists : France : America : 
 Francis Place : The Repeal of the Combination 
 Laws : The Law of Conspiracy : German Trade 
 Unions : The Need for Unity : The Twentieth 
 Century : Decentralization : Direct Action. 
 
 PART II : THE PRESENT 
 Prologue to Part II 247 
 
 XI. Reform 252 
 
 The Unreformed Parliament : Corruption : Ignorance : 
 Forms of Franchise : Property, not Persons, Repre- 
 sented : Early Reformers : The Economic Reformers : 
 Radical Reform — First Stage : Pitt's Reform Bill : 
 Radical Reform — Second Stage : Pitt's Repressive 
 Measures : Radical Reform — ^Third and Final Stage : 
 
 I I 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 The Need for Reform : Catholic Emancipation : 
 The Moulding of Public Opinion : The Events 
 of 1830 : Wellington's Speech : Lord Grey : Intro- 
 duction of the Bill : Dissolution of Parliament : 
 The New Reform Parliament : The Lords : The 
 Fall of Grey : Grey's Return to Power : The 
 Passing of the Bill : Results of Reform : Extension 
 of the Franchise : Subsequent History of the 
 Reform Movement. 
 
 XII. The Factory 285 
 
 State Regulation : Child Labour : The First Factory 
 Act : Wrongs and the Public Conscience : The 
 Industrial Reformers : The Act of 18 19 : The Act 
 of 1833 : The Ten-hour Agitation : Conditions of 
 Work : Factories and Mines : Cheap Labour : 
 Ashley's Act : Apprentices and the Butty System : 
 Regulation of the Mining Industry : Female Labour : 
 Meaning of ' Factory ' : Later Factory Acts : State 
 Interference : The Relay System : The Act of 1 850 : 
 The Act of 1874 : French Legislation : The French 
 Factory Act of 1874 : Switzerland and Belgium : 
 United States : The Provisions of the Peace Treaty. 
 
 XIII. The Home 325 
 
 General Conditions : The Slums of London : Sanitary 
 Conditions : The Earl of Shaftesbury : The State 
 of the Metropolis : The Water Supply : Transport : 
 Pigs or Sties : Distress and Laissez-faire : The 
 First Reformers : Early Measures : The Torrens 
 and Cross Acts : Working of the Earlier Acts : 
 Private Activity : The Proposals of 1885 : The 
 Act of 1890 : Town-planning : Continental 
 Schemes : The Act of 1909 : The Garden City 
 Movement : Present Conditions. 
 
 XIV. The Mental Horizon 348 
 
 General Condition of Europe : Prussia : France : 
 England : Roebuck's Speech : The State grants 
 Aid : Voluntary Activity : Brougham's Proposals : 
 The Voluntary Effort — Results : Condition of 
 Factory Schools : Newcastle Commission Reports : 
 The Act of 1870 : The Modern Phase. 
 12 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV. The Attack upon Poverty 367 
 
 The Old Order : Poor Law Reform : The New System : 
 The German Accident Law : The English System : 
 Workmen's Compensation : Social Gains : Health 
 Insurance : The Minimum Wage : Old Age Pensions. 
 
 XVI. Tendencies 385 
 
 The Trend of Opinion : Definitions of Nationalization : 
 Efficiency the Test : Efficiency of State Control : 
 Experiences in other Countries : Collateral Ad- 
 vantages : Workers' Control : The Need for 
 Efficiency : The End and the Means : Revolution 
 or Evolution : Modern Democracy : Class An- 
 tagonism : The Hope for the Future. 
 
 A List of Selected Books 403 
 
 Index 409 
 
 13 
 
PART I 
 
 THE PAST 
 
A HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 PROLOGUE TO PART I 
 
 THERE are occasions when it is well to leave the 
 examination of matters of detail and to stand 
 apart and survey the broad aspects of life. Neither 
 the size nor the beauty of a wood is apparent when one 
 is engaged in cataloguing the trees. We will therefore 
 for a moment take a wide survey of the past and trace 
 in outline the development of that great class of mankind 
 known as the masses. 
 
 When we view the natural history of the world we see 
 out of chaos great mountains arising suddenly. Long 
 centuries roll by, and the wind and the rain and the sun 
 wear down, little by little, those mountains into hills, and 
 sometimes obliterate them completely. It is so with man. 
 When, after millenniums of years of evolution, of slow 
 progress, of conquest of nature, of beasts, and of brutality, 
 man finally emerges from his primeval state and crystallizes 
 out into social forms, society might be represented as 
 composed of sharp peaks and broad valleys. 
 
 At first, however, the social world of man is a very 
 little thing. His social bonds are, in those early days, 
 bonds of kinship. The family and, later, the tribe are 
 the greatest associations that he knows. Within those 
 little worlds the highest peaks seem to us to be but mole- 
 hills. But relatively the pitch of the curve separating the 
 father of the family or the chieftain of the tribe from the 
 son or the tribesman is as steep as that which later 
 separates the emperor from his subject. The father of 
 the family, the chieftain of the tribe, led and ruled and 
 had to be obeyed. He possessed absolute power ; he 
 
 B 17 
 
.: HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 had the right to say who should Hve and who should 
 die. 
 
 As man grew in social stature his world broadened, it 
 grew bigger, more complex, less human. The valleys ii 
 became broad plains, rising to hills, and finally to moun- \\ 
 tains. The masses formed the plains. Man had secured 
 the conquest of animals; he had won victory over inani- 
 mate nature. The soil now did his bidding. It remained 
 for man to conquer man. 
 
 For nearly all the years known to history man has been 
 in that stage of political development which may be 
 termed the era of the kings. Civilizations formed in 
 this mould have arisen to greatness and have faded into 
 oblivion, from which only the most patient research is at 
 last slowly recovering them. But though there are many 
 twists and turns in the road, the road remained for thou- 
 sands of years the same. Throughout those millenniums 
 men in the mass were not controllers of their own destiny. 
 They surrendered their freedom to man in return for 
 security from the attacks of man. 
 
 It was while the world was still embroiled in successive 
 wars, by which first one kingship and then another sought 
 to impose its will upon mankind, that the great empire 
 arose which ushered in the era to which we belong. The 
 Empire of Rome won her supremacy in virtue of the 
 greatness of her people as fighters and as lawyers. The 
 Romans conquered the then known territories of Europe, 
 they held sway over no small part of Asia, and ruled the 
 northern part of Africa. For a season a state existed 
 which feared not other states. But the Romans, though 
 freed from the fear of foreign subjection, had, in winning that 
 liberty, gone far to create a proletariat of slaves. With the 
 downfall of that empire the levelling system commenced. 
 
 For a season during those tragic years of the fifth and 
 sixth centuries, when the barbarians were bearing down 
 from the North, from the West, and from the East upon 
 Rome, it seemed as though the whole fabric of civilization 
 was crumbling away. But it was not crumbling, it was 
 i8 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 weathering. The world was designed, we may imagine, 
 that men rather than emperors should live therein. The 
 tyrannies, the absolute monarchies, the oligarchies and 
 aristocracies had slowly to be reduced, little by little, until 
 the barren, snow-clad mountains, awe-inspiring, majestic, 
 but of little service to the tiller of the soil, had given place 
 to undulating hills and dales and downs which could 
 delight, refresh, and feed the generality of men. Our 
 problem to-day is not who shall be the mountain, but what 
 class shall form the hills. 
 
 The struggles which have occurred between that age 
 and this from some aspects wear an ugly look; the 
 masses have emerged so slowly from oppression. We see 
 pass before us thousands and millions and thousands of 
 millions of slaves and serfs. The men, the women, the 
 children lived their lives, not in happiness, but to serve 
 others. Wrongs heaped upon wrongs were imposed on 
 the masses. They fought, they died, they worked, and 
 suffered that the few might live gaudily. 
 
 But viewed from another angle the history of the masses 
 must stir in all of us feelings of veneration. We watch 
 mankind overcoming obstacles, achieving conquests, not of 
 the sword, but of the mind, slowly cutting a path through 
 the dark forests of medieval wrong. Little by little, owing 
 largely to the influence of the Church, the slave is a slave 
 no more. He changes his garb for that of the serf. 
 Slowly the serf wins his way to the foot of the social ladder. 
 A benevolent selfishness on the part of the feudal nobility, 
 lay and spiritual, at last recognizes that no labour is so 
 inefficient as unfree labour. With the dying down of 
 tribal wars trade arises, population increases, though but 
 slowly, productivity becomes more necessary as needs 
 become greater. Wealth in things other than land and 
 cattle casts its spell over mankind. Labour begins to 
 occupy, in the mass, a position of some importance. As 
 labour becomes more of a necessity those who labour 
 and who once were rightless begin to have rights. The 
 existence of the labourer as a man is recognized. 
 
 19 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 But with that recognition, though man slowly begins to 
 shake himself free of the domination of man, he falls for 
 a time into the position of the slave of circumstance. The 
 slave, the serf, the bondmen of the past have now their 
 liberty and with that liberty arises poverty. The unfree 
 had been secured in the necessities of life. They received 
 food and clothing and shelter. Now, though they had 
 gained freedom from human control, they had not won 
 control over their needs. 
 
 Coincident with this change in the status of the masses, 
 the weathering process was continuing among the moun- 
 tains. The English had invented Parliament. The way 
 was open for the change from absolute monarchy to 
 democracy ; but that stage was not quickly reached, even 
 to-day it has not been universally reached. But we have 
 at least experienced those lesser graduations, aristocracy 
 and plutocracy. 
 
 The mountains were being worn down, the valleys were 
 filling up, but still the masses were surrounded by mani- 
 fold miseries. Doubtless, to those generations their lives 
 seemed tolerable enough. Surrounded though they were 
 with uncertainties, sunk in ignorance, born to heavy toil, 
 they were often happy, for their imaginations were numbed, 
 their wants small, their ambitions few. They plodded. 
 It is only we who have a century of fair government to 
 look back upon, who live in an age in which men and 
 women can find scope for their abilities, and who have 
 seen the general aspect of the world more changed for 
 the better than in all the years that passed before, who 
 can realize how gravely progress has been retarded by 
 the evils and the folhes of past ages. 
 
 With the freeing of the serf, with the coming of poverty, 
 some of the problems with which we are to-day conversant 
 began to assume an acute form. The next, and even more 
 important, change occurred with what we hereafter term 
 the Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions. 
 
 It is only within comparatively recent years that the 
 masses have been either landless or organized in industry. 
 20 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 It is also a modern phenomenon to find the masses so 
 numerous that the land in which they live is unable to 
 supply them with sufficient food and in which the conditions 
 of life of the majority are so favourable that the consumption 
 of goods demands intense productivity. Until, at earliest, 
 the sixteenth century, if we regard Europe alone, agri- 
 culture was by far the greatest industry. Under the 
 feudal system, and for some centuries after it had begun 
 to decline, the land-worker was not simply an agricultural 
 labourer, he was also a peasant proprietor. Industry 
 was not organized. Trade and commerce were in their 
 infancy. The population was small. 
 
 Of the changes which came over society with the Agrarian 
 and Industrial Revolutions we shall speak at length hereafter. 
 It has sometimes been represented that the position of 
 the worker after those revolutions was worse than before. 
 There can be no doubt that the fundamental alterations that 
 were then made in the whole fabric of society bore very hardly 
 upon many industrious men and women. There can be little 
 doubt that the birth of the modern industrial system caused 
 much suffering to the generations in which it occurred. 
 He would, however, be adventurous who attempted to 
 sustain the view that the lot of the masses in the seventeenth 
 century was in any way the equal of that to which they have 
 attained in the twentieth century; we would go further and 
 say that it is plain that even as most of our problems have 
 arisen from the revolutions of the eighteenth century, so 
 also have most of the industrial advantages which the 
 working classes to-day possess. 
 
 The period of which we now write under the title * The 
 Past ' is intended to embrace historic times up to the 
 development of representative government on a popular 
 basis. We are not concerned with dates, as we view the 
 general trend of events not only in England, but in foreign 
 countries also. It is manifest, however, from a general 
 survey of political institutions that the dividing line was 
 laid down in the first half of the nineteenth century. By 
 that time the masses had become something more than 
 
 21 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 amorphous masses. They had been drawn together by 
 the fact of contiguity, by manifest wrongs, by the slow 
 spread of education, and by the existence, at first secret 
 and later open, of widespread organizations. Even before 
 they had attained the vote they were beginning to possess 
 political power. Once that stage was reached the way was 
 open. 
 
 To-day the masses are as powerful politically as they 
 care to be. Their very powerfulness induces other prob- 
 lems, some of which are grave. It will be the purpose of 
 the later parts of this book to consider the nature of those 
 problems. One thing, however, we say at the outset. 
 All history shows with signs clear enough for all to see, 
 will they but look, that most of the sorrows of mankind 
 have been caused by thrusting understanding on one side 
 and by relying on superstition and violence. Ignorance, 
 ambition, and violence, what evils have they not dragged 
 in their train ? The myriads that have suffered those 
 evils are dead. We are alive. It is for the living to see 
 that not the ignorance, not the ambition, not the violence 
 of a man, or a class, or a race shall again deflect the course of 
 progress, but that men shall at last be ruled by reason, 
 that propositions of vital importance to the generality of 
 men shall be accepted only when acceptable to the good 
 sense of the majority. If that be not so, then all sense is 
 dead and those are right who say man rises only to fall. 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ^ THE UNFREE 
 
 READ no history, nothing but biography, for 
 that is life without theory." With those words 
 .Contarini Fleming dismisses as worthless any 
 attempt to depict the history of the masses, for biography 
 concerns itself only with the most eminent of men. But 
 is ' life ' composed of the doings of the eminent ? Is 
 it desirable that, to paraphrase the words of Mr and Mrs 
 Hammond, a hundred should know everything about the 
 scenes of high politics and high play that formed the 
 exciting world of the upper classes in the eighteenth 
 century for every one who knows anything about the 
 Agrarian Revolution which so vitally affected the lives of 
 the people in that century ? We think not. 
 
 As Macaulay once observed, the historian too frequently 
 has been content to resign to others some of the most 
 important of his duties. 
 
 To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place 
 us in the society of a great man or on the eminence which over- 
 looks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of 
 human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined 
 to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our 
 ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, 
 manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us 
 at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to 
 explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, these parts of the 
 duty which properly belongs to the historian have been appro- 
 priated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract 
 the philosophy of history, to direct our judgment of events and 
 men, to trace the connexion of causes and eflFects, and to draw 
 
 23 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR , 
 
 from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral 
 and political wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class 
 of writers. 
 
 We know not, indeed, within what category our present 
 story falls, for though history may be defined as the story 
 expressive of the experiences and conditions of social units, 
 the story as usually told descends not to the servants' halls. 
 We are permitted to overhear the whispers of the court 
 and council chambers and follow the victorious general, 
 but our historians so often regard mankind from the 
 eminence of the throne, are so commonly dazzled by the 
 splendour of great names, and are led aside so frequently 
 by the glowing sentences of highly-placed orators or 
 courtly chroniclers, that we, reading the resulting story, 
 almost forget that the social units whose experiences and 
 conditions they are depicting were composed almost entirely 
 of homely men and women and children, who toiled and 
 struggled and at length died, having left nothing but their 
 deeds to speak for them to posterity. And yet we to-day 
 are the descendants of those men and women who through 
 the centuries have trod their humble path and passed by. 
 Our present rights and duties, our benefits and our diffi- 
 culties form the legacy which they have left to us. It is, 
 therefore, worth pausing awhile, even amid our present 
 anxieties, to look backward, not upon the hero or the 
 demigod, but upon the ordinary man. 
 
 The history of the working man, broadly viewed, shows, 
 despite relapses sometimes extending over centuries and 
 connected always with war or the breakdown of centralized 
 governments, a general upward tendency. The words 
 Thou shah and Thou shah not^ given at first by man (whether 
 prophet or priest or prince) to man tend to be given by 
 men to man, and with that change freedom arises. As 
 the trend of society is from status to contract, so the trend 
 of the political framework of society is from despotism to 
 democracy, and thus the sword is placed in the hands of 
 justice. 
 
 24 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 Slavery 
 
 A history of the ordinary man, however slight and 
 imperfect it may be, must therefore commence with a 
 consideration of the lowest status, and work upward. It 
 must visualize man as marching upward to the heights, 
 not as sliding downward to the abyss. Thus our story 
 commences with the slave, a status as old as human nature 
 and based in origin upon the simple desire "to use," in the 
 words of a Victorian, " the bodily powers of another person 
 as a means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure." 
 
 As Sir Henry Maine pointed out many years ago : 
 
 There seems to be something in the institution of Slavery which 
 has at all times either shocked or perplexed mankind, however 
 little habituated to reflection, and however slightly advanced in 
 the cultivation of its moral instincts. The compunction which 
 ancient communities almost unconsciously experienced appears to 
 have always resulted in the adoption of some imaginary principle 
 upon which a defence, or at least a rationale, of slavery could be 
 plausibly founded. Very early in their history the Greeks ex- 
 plained the institution as grounded on the intellectual inferiority 
 of certain races, and their consequent natural aptitude for the 
 servile condition. The Romans, in a spirit equally charac- 
 teristic, derived it from a supposed agreement between the victor 
 and the vanquished, in which the first stipulated for the perpetual 
 services of his foe, and the other gained in consideration the life 
 which he had legitimately forfeited. Such theories were not only 
 unsound, but plainly unequal to the case for which they affected 
 to account. Still they exercised powerful influence in many ways. 
 They satisfied the conscience of the Master. They perpetuated, 
 and probably increased, the debasement of the Slave. And they 
 naturally tended to put out of sight the relation in which servitude 
 had originally stood to the rest of the domestic system.^ 
 
 If we look at a civilization even more ancient than the 
 Greek, we see among the Hebrews signs of a form of slavery 
 which shows this relationship much more clearly. The 
 Hebrews, indeed, did not at first recognize what may be 
 termed compulsory and perpetual slavery. The stranger 
 
 ^ Ancient Law. 
 
 25 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 who would come within the family could be bound, but 
 the binding was only for seven years, and the bondman 
 had rights. Perpetual bondage could only be by the 
 consent and desire of the slave publicly expressed. Even 
 among the early Romans there is reason to believe that 
 the slave was hardly more a * thing ' than was the son. 
 The tendency of the Roman law — a tendency checked, it is 
 true, by the development of the Law of Nature — was to 
 assimilate the slave more and more to a chattel, and by so 
 doing to divest him more and more, not only of rights, but 
 also of duties. 
 
 The Roman Slave 
 
 The legal position of the slave and his lord, dominus, or 
 master was worked out by the lawyers of Rome more 
 completely than by other people, and it is, therefore, of the 
 slaves of Rome, of the time of the Empire, that we shall 
 particularly speak. As we have seen, in the view of the 
 Roman jurists the status of slave was based upon capture 
 in battle. According to the law of war developed by the 
 early philosophical lawyers, the right to kill the defeated 
 enemy was part of the law of nations common to all peoples. 
 It was consequently urged that to spare the defeated enemy 
 by saving his life and using it was both merciful and 
 expedient. The very word servus was derived from the 
 idea of saving life, and in no way denoted an inferiority 
 either of intelligence or of blood. 
 
 The Slave a Thing 
 
 Once a slave, a person remained a slave until freed. He 
 or she could be sold, exchanged, given away, left by will, 
 abandoned, or seized. The slave could be the subject 
 of both legal and equitable ownership. A person could 
 possess a usufruct in a slave. In a word, the slave was a 
 person without rights; he was also without legal duties, 
 that is to say, duties which could be enforced against him. 
 A man in Rome could avoid payment of all his debts by 
 becoming a slave, and if he were subsequently freed the 
 26 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 liability for his debts would not revive. No judgment 
 against a slave would be effective. His status was almost 
 that of a thing, but a thing capable of being turned into a 
 human being, a human persona^ by the act of freeing called 
 manumission or emancipation. 
 
 The Power of the Master 
 
 Under the Republic, as distinct from the Empire, the 
 master's powers were unlimited, but it was potestas rather 
 than dominium — that is to say, the master's control over the 
 slave approximated to the father's power over the son. 
 In both cases it amounted to the power of life and death. 
 In neither case is it probable that there was in the general 
 case serious cruelty. In the early days of Rome the supply 
 of slaves was restricted, the slave was a valuable and useful 
 thing, and the human intercourse between master and slave 
 was much closer than that which existed in the time of 
 the Empire. The result was that although the master's 
 powers were of the widest description the abuse of those 
 powers was rare. With the vast increase in the number 
 of slaves, the enormous growth of domestic establishments 
 and estates, and the decline in the standard of private life 
 which occurred under the Empire, the case was reversed ; 
 the master's powers at law were more limited, the oppression 
 of the slave increased. 
 
 At no time, however, were the master's powers suddenly 
 limited. The old power of life and death and of unlimited 
 cruelty and punishment was bitten into little by little. 
 Before the end of the first century a.d. masters had been 
 forbidden to send their slaves to fight with wild beasts as 
 a punishment unless a magistrate had approved, Claudius 
 granted automatic freedom to slaves who, being ill, were 
 exposed and abandoned by their masters in order to avoid 
 the trouble and expense of having them cured. Both 
 Domitian and Hadrian legislated against the emasculation 
 of slaves, and the latter abolished private prisons and 
 forbade the sale of slaves of either sex to gladiatorial pro- 
 moters, and severely punished a woman who was in the 
 
 27 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 habit of torturing her slaves. Antoninus Pius made it 
 homicide for a master to kill his slave, and established the 
 rule whereby if slaves suffering either cruelty or infamous 
 injury fled to the temples of the gods or the statue of the 
 Emperor they could obtain sanctuary and on inquiry 
 be sold to a kinder master. By the time of Justinian it 
 would, indeed, appear that the master's power over the body 
 of his slave was limited to reasonable chastisement. 
 
 Notwithstanding these progressive limitations of the 
 master's power, the legal situation of the slave was through- 
 out the Empire period sufficiently low. The slave had no 
 political status. A slave who enrolled himself in the legions, 
 or who aspired to enter the decurionate of any town, com- 
 mitted a criminal offence, and in the former case a capital 
 offence. Slaves were, however, largely used as c'vil servants 
 in clerical work. 
 
 Collegia 
 
 Not belonging to a Roman gens, the slaves were to a 
 considerable extent excluded from the worship of Roman 
 deities. They had, however, their own cult — that of 
 Diana — and with the introduction of Christianity came 
 within that Church. It had, of course, been realized ages 
 before that slaves were human beings, and as such might 
 hope for a life hereafter, and consequently were to be 
 regarded as entitled to a suitable burial. 
 
 One consequence of the burial customs which grew 
 up was, we have reason to believe, the development of 
 the ancient collegia, or friendly societies, which, with the 
 master's consent, the slave was permitted to join. Such 
 societies provided free burial for members, and were social 
 communities bearing some similarity to the later and distinct 
 social gilds. Normally it would appear, if the evidence of 
 the tombstones is to be accepted as expressing the normal, 
 that masters frequently interred in a suitable manner the 
 corpses of their slaves; but we gather from the ordinances 
 of the collegium of Lanuvium that the society found it 
 necessary to ordain that if the master refused to hand 
 28 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 over the slave's body for burial the proper rites were to be 
 gone through without the body. 
 
 The Slave's Disabilities 
 
 Death, indeed, removed the stain of slavery, but in life 
 it was always present to fetter and degrade the slave in 
 every form of activity. The slave could not accuse ; he 
 could only inform. If he informed against his master, 
 Constantine ordered that in all cases he should be 
 crucified unheard. If the slave's evidence was required 
 it was obtained by torture, the degree of the torture being 
 determined by the court. If in a criminal case the evi- 
 dence of the slave of one who was not a party to the pro- 
 ceedings was required, such {slave was tortured, but 
 security had to be given to the owner to make up for 
 the loss in value thus caused. Torture was not permitted 
 to kill. 
 
 If a master was slain, or even if he committed suicide, 
 the most ferocious punishments were meted out to all the 
 slaves who might perchance have been able to prevent the 
 death. By an old custom, confirmed by Nero, if a slave 
 had killed the master all the slaves in the house were put to 
 death. By a later law all the slaves might be tortured until 
 the criminal was discovered, whereupon he alone was put 
 to death. But if it appeared that the crime could or might 
 have been prevented by a slave, that slave also was put to 
 death, for, as Hadrian said, " slaves must prefer their 
 master's safety to their own." If a slave under torture 
 disclosed something against his master, such disclosure 
 was not received as evidence. 
 
 The slave could not marry, and could not have 
 descendants. He could, of course, cohabit with a woman 
 and have children, but in the eye of the law she was not 
 his wife, and they were not his children. Such children 
 followed the condition of the mother in the normal case. 
 Thus, where a business manager employed in a town was 
 left to a legatee, the Roman jurist Paul was of opinion 
 that the testator could not have intended the legacy to 
 
 29 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 include the thing's {i.e.., the business manager's) * wife ' and 
 'children.' 
 
 Out of these and similar rules great difficulties arose, 
 for although the slave was almost a rightless thing, the 
 circumstances of his life, if he were owned by a benignant 
 master, might be very pleasant. The line of cleavage 
 between free and unfree in no way coincided with that 
 between the learned and unlearned, or between the Latin 
 and non-Latin, or between the leisured and the labouring 
 classes. Slaves were not merely engaged in manual or 
 menial employments. They were the craftsmen, the 
 musicians, the commercial men of Rome. Their duties 
 were the most diverse. Banking, which flourished in 
 Rome, was carried on almost entirely under the super- 
 vision of slaves. Many of the duties which now fall to 
 the higher division of the Civil Service were carried out 
 by slaves. Doctors, philosophers, grammarians, school- 
 masters, land agents — these were some of the professions 
 in which slaves were engaged. Many were men of the 
 highest culture. To give but one example, Epictetus 
 was a slave. Nor was there anything in their outward 
 appearance to differentiate them from free men, though 
 in the later period certain sumptuary restrictions did exist. 
 Many slaves were Romans (or at least Latins) by birth 
 or by speech ; their clothes were often finer than those 
 worn by free men. They frequently lived delicately. As 
 a result it occasionally happened that free men and free 
 women married slaves by mistake, so that Claudius found it 
 necessary to declare that if a free man had a child by a slave 
 woman whom he had married, thinking her free, the child 
 should be free. In the medieval period similar difficulties 
 arose with regard to the status of the children of serfs, and 
 we shall see how the feudal lawyers dealt with the problem. 
 We have spoken of the slave as being a thing without 
 rights. In substance this is correct. Indeed, it is only 
 when we turn to the law relating to defamation that we 
 perceive any recognition of the right residing in the man 
 or woman as such to claim legal protection. An action 
 
 30 
 
 J 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 did lie, quite apart from the master, if the slave was 
 insulted. The slave also was, as we have indicated, given 
 a certain measure of protection, but this protection pro- 
 ceeded, as did the protection afforded to serfs, rather 
 from those principles of public propriety, such as to-day 
 forbid cruelty to animals, than from any right residing in 
 the thing itself. 
 
 Even a regard for public propriety would not appear 
 to have resulted in any protection being afforded to the 
 morals of the slaves, except that the ancilla could fly to 
 sanctuary in defence of her honour. It was not until the 
 fifth century that procurers were forbidden to buy women 
 for prostitution, and although an owner might have a 
 remedy if the morals of his woman slave were violated, 
 the woman herself had no remedy. The master could do 
 what he would, the woman could but flee to sanctuary, 
 and then would merely be transferred to another master. 
 So low was the state of morality in the Empire that this 
 was a protection of little value. 
 
 The Slave a Power 
 
 Despite these enormous disabilities and this complete 
 
 degradation of status, the slave was a power. As Professor 
 
 Buckland has said : 
 
 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, in the age of the 
 classical lawyers, Roman commerce was mainly in the hands of 
 slaves. The commercial importance of different slaves would, of 
 course, vary gready. The body-servant, the farm-labourer, the 
 coachman, have no importance in this connexion, and there were 
 many degrees between their position and that of a dtspensator or 
 steward, who seems often to have been allowed almost a free 
 hand. ... A slave might carry on a bank, with or without 
 orders, the master's rights varying according as it was or was 
 not with the pecultum.^ A slave might be a member of a firm, 
 and his master's notice to him, without notice to the other party, 
 
 ^ I.e., money and goods which the slave was permitted personally to 
 enjoy and keep for himself, unless and until the master claimed it — a right 
 which the master rarely exercised, for we frequently find slaves trading with 
 their peculium and purchasing their freedom with it, etc. 
 
 31 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 would not end the partnership. Even sale of the slave would not, 
 in fact, end the firm : the new master would acquire the rights 
 from the date of transfer, though as a slave's faculty is purely 
 derivative the firm would be technically a new one.^ 
 
 This position was achieved by the slave chiefly in 
 consequence of the recognition of two principles : (i) the 
 fact that the slave might be the agent of his master ; and 
 (2) the fact that a slave might de facto possess peculium. 
 
 The Slave in Commerce 
 
 One of the most interesting facts connected with the 
 Roman law of slavery is to be found in a development of 
 the Roman system of agency. Unlike modern societies, 
 the Roman Empire never invented the limited liability 
 company. The Romans did not distinguish, as we do, or 
 at least, not to the same extent, between the personality of 
 the individuals forming a body corporate and the body 
 corporate itself. The conception of the liability of the 
 shareholders being limited to the amount of their share- 
 holding therefore escaped them, but they achieved a very 
 similar result in an entirely different manner. The owner, 
 who had a legal personality in civil law, could entrust a 
 sum of money to his slave, who had no personality in 
 civil, but only in natural, law to carry on business. The 
 slave could then trade with that capital, and the liability 
 of the owner was limited to the sum of money thus laid 
 out ; for the slave, though he could act as the owner's 
 agent, did not so act in the modern sense. He could not 
 make the master liable ; he could, so to speak, only charge 
 the amount entrusted to him as agent. The owner could 
 at any time wind up the concern by withdrawing the capital 
 adventured, subject, of course, to the settlement of the 
 charges on such capital to the extent of the capital invested. 
 The owner's liability was thus limited to the sum risked, 
 even as to-day the shareholder's liability is limited by the 
 extent of his holding. The development of this principle 
 of limited liability, which was completed in the later period 
 
 ^ The Roman Law of Slavery. 
 32 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 of the Empire, saw an enormous increase in the number of 
 businesses financed by free capitaUsts and managed by slaves. 
 
 The Decline of the Roman Empire 
 
 The break-up of the Roman Empire, which occurred 
 at different times in the different parts of that Empire, 
 but which may be assigned with sufficient accuracy to the 
 fifth century, saw a fundamental change take place in the 
 whole structure of European society. The strong centrali- 
 zation of the Roman state, before which all subjects who 
 were legal -persons were equal, was shattered into a thousand 
 fragments. Society was now grouped into a number of 
 ascending hierarchies terminating, it may be, in either 
 king, emperor, pope, or even God Almighty, according 
 as we look at this or that fragment. Government is 
 largely decentralized, so that instead of society circling 
 round Caesar, it becomes a smaller, localized thing centring 
 round a chief or, later, a manorial lord. For a moment 
 there is almost a return to that family or tribal form of 
 society from which the empire of the Caesars had shaken 
 free long centuries before. Under the pressure of external 
 and internal forces, dimly perceivable, the common man 
 was compelled to exchange his tribal rights for the position 
 of the vassal of an overlord. The feudal system, based on 
 land ownership, grew up in France and in England, and 
 indeed in most of the European states, in a manner not 
 vitally different from the system of chief and man based 
 upon livestock ownership which we find existing in ancient 
 Ireland — a country which was hardly affected at all by 
 the Roman civilization. Both systems were in essence 
 due, on the one hand, to the imperious necessity of pro- 
 curing and preserving instruments for the cultivation of 
 land, and, on the other hand, to the need felt by the 
 ordinary man for protection. 
 
 Throughout the early part of that period which in 
 France is always spoken of as the era of the barbarian 
 invasions, but which we refer to rather more gently as the 
 Saxon period, there was a thriving slave-trade in existence 
 
 c 33 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 in all the countries of Western Europe. Capture in war, 
 capture by raids — these were then the means of obtaining 
 slaves, even as to-day they are the means pursued by the 
 Arab slave-dealers of North Africa. The traffic in slaves, 
 once captured, was perfectly open. The sale of wives was 
 one of the most important forms of trade carried on in 
 the ancient markets. Peoples used to the sight of the 
 cages in which women were exposed for sale in the slave 
 markets of Rome could have seen little that was revolting 
 or wrong in such a traffic. Many of the captured were 
 exported. Thus Irish slaves would find a ready market 
 in France, and British slaves in Ireland, and so on. As 
 in Rome, so in early England the distinction between 
 free and unfree in no way corresponded to the modern 
 division into the leisured and labouring classes. Many 
 slaves had very light duties, while many free men laboured 
 incessantly. In the main, however, the slave of the Saxon 
 period was engaged in the lowest forms of labour. 
 
 In the days of which we are now speaking, agriculture 
 was not merely the main, it was almost the sole, form of 
 industry. Trade was extremely small, and was limited to 
 comparatively few places. The ordinary bartering of the 
 countryside was done exclusively at fairs and markets or 
 by chapmen (pedlars). The class of shopkeepers did not 
 arise for many centuries, those who sold being also those 
 who made. The state of society was simple, and the vast 
 majority of what we should call the working classes were 
 labourers in husbandry. Society, as it became more stable, 
 was composed of two main divisions, the lord and the 
 tenant, the tenants being sometimes free, but usually 
 unfree. The unfree tended more and more to become 
 identified with the serf. Slavery, in the strict sense, early 
 died out. Serfdom lasted until comparatively recent times. 
 
 The Serf 
 
 Bracton, one of the fathers of English law, writing in 
 the first half of the thirteenth century, adopts the Roman 
 law phrase, " All men are either free or slaves," but Jus 
 34 
 
THE UNFREE , 
 
 servus is really our serf. By his time, and perhaps four 
 centuries before, the feudal system was complete in all 
 essential particulars. The serf and the slave differed 
 vitally, for although the serf had an owner, and although as 
 against that owner he was little more than a chattel, as 
 against the rest of the world the serf, unlike the slave, had 
 almost as extensive rights and duties as a free man. 
 
 The serf, villein, naif (or native), may be regarded as 
 interchangeable terms and were all the product of feudalism. 
 They must not be confused with the considerable number 
 of free men who held their lands in villeinage, i.e., a form 
 of tenure, protected not by the king's court, but by the 
 lord's court, whereby the tenant held at will, or sometimes 
 for a term of years, and undertook as a rule in return for his 
 holding certain lowly personal services. Tenure by villeinage 
 must, on the other hand, be kept distinct from free tenure, 
 which was not tenure at will or for a term of years, but 
 which was held in return for services of a higher nature 
 and was protected by the king's court and not merely 
 by the manorial court of the lord of whom the tenant 
 held. Villein tenure was the precursor of the copyhold 
 system of to-day. Free tenure was the origin of the free- 
 hold of modern times. Both forms of holding could be 
 obtained by free men. Neither amounted to ownership. 
 Both are a product of feudalism, without some knowledge 
 of which system it is almost impossible to comprehend the 
 relationship of man to man in the medieval period. 
 
 The Feudal System 
 
 We are here confronted with a very obvious difficulty. 
 The feudal system was at no time constant, and changed 
 substantially century by century, almost decade by decade. 
 It was a highly complex and technical congeries of law and 
 custom, and varied country by country. It has been the 
 subject of almost countless analyses. Around it has 
 sprung up a vast mass of specialized learning. It is 
 therefore apparent that any outline must be very imperfect. 
 Highly technical as the subject is, it is not possible to express 
 
 35 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 with accuracy the nature of feudaHsm without using terms 
 which are not easily comprehensible to those unacquainted 
 with the subject. We therefore can describe only in 
 broadest outline, and in a manner necessarily imperfect, 
 this system which occupied such an imposing place in 
 the social history of Europe. 
 ' As Sir Frederick Pollock and the late Professor Maitland 
 well said : 
 
 The impossible task that has been set before the word feudalism 
 is that of making a single idea represent a very large piece of the 
 world's history, represent the France, Italy, Germany, England 
 of every century from the eighth or ninth to the fourteenth or 
 fifteenth. Shall we say that French feudalism reached its zenith 
 under Louis d'Outre-Mer or under Saint Louis, that William 
 of Normandy introduced feudalism into England or saved England 
 from feudalism, that Bracton is the greatest of English feudists, 
 or that he never misses an opportunity of showing a strong anti- 
 feudal bias ? It would be possible to maintain all or any of these 
 opinions, so vague is our use of the term in question.^ 
 
 Everything shifts, everything changes. 
 
 The central idea, however, consists in the fact that all 
 the land of the realm is owned by the king. He has the 
 sole right of receiving tenants, and he grants out tenancies 
 to such as he thinks fit. In return for such grants the 
 tenants do homage to him and swear fealty. Homage was 
 done in the following manner : The tenant kneels on both 
 knees before his lord, ungirt, with his head uncovered, and 
 places his hands between the hands of his lord and says : 
 *' I become your man of the tenement that I hold of you, 
 and faith to you will bear of life and member, and faith to 
 you shall bear against all folk." He then stands up and with 
 his hand on the Gospels swears as follows: " Hear this, 
 my lord. I will bear faith to you of life and member, 
 goods, chattels, and earthly worship, so help me God and 
 these holy Gospels of God." Sometimes he added a 
 promise to perform the services due from him. 
 
 The tenant was now the ' man * of the king. He was 
 
 ^ History of English Lazo. 
 
 36 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 the freeholder of a tenancy which might amount to an honour 
 or to a lesser holding, a manor. Out of that holding he could 
 grant out smaller tenancies to lesser men, and in such cases 
 they would do homage and swear fealty in the same manner, 
 except that the words " saving the faith that I owe to our 
 lord the king " would be added. As time went on, however, 
 this practice of subinfeudation, as it was called, was made 
 a means of evading service and of committing fraud, with 
 the result that in the reign of Edward I subinfeudation 
 was forbidden. 
 
 The Manor 
 
 By that time, however, the manorial system was fully 
 developed. The lords of manors each had their tenants, 
 some of them free tenants whose tenures were obtained in 
 the manner above described, most of them villein tenants 
 who might be free men or might be serfs. The villein 
 tenant took a different form of oath. His tenancy was not 
 protected by the king, but was held according to the custom 
 of the manor. He held at will in the sense that his duties 
 were according to the will of the lord, though in this 
 matter he came to be protected by the custom of the manor. 
 He could not freely alienate his land, but only with the 
 lord's consent. 
 
 The manor was thus an imperium in hnperio. The lord 
 luled over all save his free tenants, who were able to seek 
 protection in the king's courts. The manor was composed 
 of the lord's demesne land — the home farm, so to say — 
 and the land of the freehold tenants and the tenants in 
 villeinage. The demesne lands were cultivated by the 
 labour of the tenants of the non-demesne lands either in 
 virtue of the services due from them in return for their 
 holdings or because they were unfree persons bound to do 
 their lord's bidding. A small part only of the labour was 
 contributed by the freehold tenants, practically all being 
 performed by the tenants in villeinage, bond and free. 
 
 In the earlier part of the feudal period the lord had no 
 need to hire labour. Toward the end of the period, in 
 
 37 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 consequence of changes which we shall have occasion to 
 examine, the hiring of labour became more and more 
 frequent, until at last the hired labourer took the place of 
 the tenant- or bond-labourer. 
 
 The whole of the manor was an entity divided up into 
 numerous holdings divisible into three parts : (i) the 
 demesne, (2) the tenants' holdings, (3) the rest. The rest 
 was usually, if not always, common or waste land in respect 
 of which the tenants had certain well-defined customary 
 rights. How these customary rights in vast numbers of 
 cases were lost we shall also have occasion to describe. 
 
 The feudal system was not, however, merely a system of 
 land-holding ; it was a social system whereby the people 
 were linked up to the king by means of the manorial lords. 
 The manor was still the nucleus, the king was the centre 
 of such nuclei. Around the castle or the manor-house 
 gathered the tenants, mostly peasants, but including persons 
 capable of craftsmanship. Apart from the citizens of the 
 few considerable towns which then existed, the entire 
 population was attached to the land. Even the citizens, 
 after they had emerged from their earliest condition of 
 serfdom, usually held land by burgage ^ or other similar 
 form of tenure. The vast majority of men were country- 
 men, and these looked for protection to the lord of the 
 manor within the confines of which they lived. 
 
 We thus see that in England under the feudal system 
 every man save one had a ' lord.' The tenants-in-chief 
 owned the king as lord. They did him homage and swore 
 fealty. They served him in exchange for their holdings. 
 Even the King of England, in the earlier years after the 
 Conquest, possessed a lord in virtue of his holding of> 
 ducal lands in France. The mere fact that the serf had 
 a lord to whose will he must bow must not therefore make 
 us too readily regard him as a slave. He was unprotected 
 in his holding against his lord, but so was the free man 
 
 ^ A form of tenure restricted to cities and boroughs whereby the 
 tenant, in return for his holding, either paid a money rent or rendered 
 service relating to trade or handicraft. 
 
 38 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 holding in villeinage, and so too was the earl against his 
 lord the king. 
 
 The Status of the Serf 
 
 There was, however, a vast difference between the status 
 of the villein and that of the free man holding in villeinage. 
 The villein was the chattel of his lord, who could give him 
 away, sell him, dispose of him by will. The lord could seize 
 the villein's personal property, except that in the later law 
 the villein was protected in the possession of the necessary 
 instruments of husbandry. The law, it is true, protected 
 the villein from being murdered or maimed, but by wide- 
 spread custom it did not protect as against the lord the 
 honour of nativas or female serfs. As in the Roman times 
 in the case of maiming, the matter was looked at as modern 
 law looks at the protection of animals from cruelty. Pro- 
 tection was obtained not by giving a right to the injured 
 thing, but by making it a crime according to law to be 
 guilty of the act complained of. 
 
 The position of the serf has been admirably expressed 
 by the authors of the History of English Law as follows : 
 
 Serfdom ... is hardly a status ; it is but the relation between 
 two persons, serf and lord. As regards his lord the serf has, at 
 least as a rule, no rights ; but as regards other persons he has 
 all, or nearly all, the rights of a free man ; it is nothing to them 
 that he is a serf. 
 
 Thus, though the serf could have no remedy against his 
 lord if struck by him, he would possess the same remedy 
 as a free man if a stranger struck him ; though he had no 
 means of recovering his chattels if they were seized by 
 his lord, he could proceed against anyone else who, not 
 acting under his lord's authority, took away or injured or 
 destroyed his goods. His power to contract was, however, 
 very circumscribed, owing to the curious duality of his 
 status. Britton, a thirteenth-century authority, commits 
 himself to the statement that a ' pure ' villein could not 
 contract; certainly a villein if sued on his contract could 
 
 39 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 avoid liability by pleading that he was a villein. It must 
 have followed that no one would readily make a contract, 
 to be performed in juturo^ with a villein. 
 
 The Condition of the Serfs 
 
 It frequently happened, however, that, as with the slaves 
 of Rome, so with the serfs of England, it was difficult to 
 tell in the case of a stranger whether such stranger was 
 free or bond. There are several cases in the old Year 
 Books of villeins pleading villeinage to defeat plaintiffs 
 who clearly had contracted with them believing them to 
 be free. This difficulty of differentiating between bond 
 and free was due to the fact that the essential difference 
 was one of legal status, or relative status, and not one of 
 circumstance. The division bond and free did not 
 coincide with the division manual and non-manual worker, 
 or with any other social division. The serf was by no 
 means frequently oppressed. He, like the slave, was at 
 the mercy very largely of his lord or owner, but he often 
 attained to comfort, and in some cases to affluence. The 
 law found it necessary to mention that a serf who attained 
 to knighthood became free. It is known that at least 
 one of the sheriffs of London (Simon of Paris) was a serf. 
 Occasionally serfs became eminent as scholars ; some 
 succeeded in entering the Church, though this could only 
 happen where those ordaining were unaware that the 
 candidate was a serf. Many serfs occupied positions of 
 responsibility as the faithful dependents of their lords. 
 The circumstances of the serf's life depended, in fact, very 
 largely upon the personal abilities of the serf and upon the 
 type of man who happened to be his lord. In the normal 
 case his life was uneventful and lowly, but in the main, 
 though as against his lord he possessed neither liberty nor 
 rights, as against the world he was protected from wrong 
 and secured in the necessities of life. Granted a complete 
 absence of education and all the ideals and aspirations 
 which education not uncommonly brings in its train, the 
 condition of the serf was by no means intolerable. 
 40 
 
THE UNFREE 
 
 Decline of Serfdom 
 
 From the twelfth century, at latest, onward this class, the I 
 serf, was of necessity a dying class. The rise of centralized 
 government, the increasing rarity of internecine warfare, 
 the increasing sense of racial similarity, all conduced to 
 the closing of those avenues along which the free man 
 passed to become bond. Capture in war, condemnation 
 for crime, and such causes, which in Roman times had con- 
 stantly operated to swell the numbers of the unfree, ceased 
 to operate, as did such typically Saxon causes as failure 
 to pay a wergild. A man, it is true, could become a serf 
 by confession in open court, and in the earlier period by 
 prescription, i.e.^ by being held as a serf and submitting 
 to be treated as such for successive generations, but such 
 causes did not substantially add to the number of bondmen, 
 while on the other hand the emancipations and enfran- 
 chisements which we shall have to consider in the next 
 chapter were constantly reducing the number of serfs. 
 In England it would seem that by the thirteenth century 
 a feeling was growing against serfdom. Prescriptive 
 serfdom early died, though it continued in Scotland for 
 some centuries after it had ceased to operate in England. 
 
 Serfdom by Birth 
 
 Normally, of course, serfdom was based on birth, for the 
 children of serfs were serfs. Where one of the parents 
 was free and the other unfree many difficulties arose. The 
 Church, usually the opponent of servitude, but tending to 
 become more and more complacent toward this form of 
 proprietary right as it became a greater and still greater 
 landowner, early adopted the rule that if either of the 
 parents was unfree the child was unfree. The lawyers, 
 however, were more elaborate and more humane. They, 
 looking at the status as a part of the feudal system and upon 
 the unfree child as so much livestock, considered as the 
 critical test the nature of the tenement in which the child 
 was born. If the child was born in a home held in free- 
 
 41 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 hold it was free, if in a home held in villeinage, unfree. 
 Later this refinement was abandoned, and the child born 
 in lawful wedlock followed the status of the father. The 
 position of what must have been a numerous class, viz., 
 the illegitimate children of serfs, varied with the period. 
 Commencing with the view that such child followed the 
 status of the mother (who was, it may be assumed, generally 
 the serf), it was later turned almost completely round 
 by the development of the theory that as a child follows 
 the father, and as an illegitimate child has no known father, 
 and as therefore it is not possible to prove that the father 
 was a serf, the child is free. As a consequence it must 
 often have happened that the status of the illegitimate 
 child was higher than that of the legitimate children of 
 the same parent. 
 
 Labour of Serfs 
 
 We have seen that the serf, though unfree as against his 
 lord, was in the normal case adequately protected and 
 secured in the necessities of life as against the rest of the 
 world. It must not, however, be imagined that like the 
 slave of Rome he was housed, fed, and clothed by his 
 lord. In cases where his duties were domestic he was 
 thus provided for, at least to some extent, but in the 
 generality of cases he was employed in agriculture, and 
 obtained his living by cultivating the land which he 
 received from his lord — his villein tenement — or it may 
 be by working for those who could afford to employ 
 him, or by both. Thus his labour might be regarded as 
 divisible into two parts : (i) his labour as bondman, for 
 which he received protection, a tenement with a certain 
 and varying amount of land, and customary rights over 
 the common and waste land, etc. ; (2) his labour for a 
 living either as a very small farmer, or smallholder, or as 
 workman for a wage. The relative extent of (i) and (2) 
 could always be varied by his lord at will. The serf could 
 be ejected from his tenement at will, but in fact the serf 
 was, as a rule, neither ground down to do an impossible 
 
 42 
 
i 
 
 THE UNFREE 
 
 amount of servile labour nor ejected from his holding. 
 Servile families not infrequently held the same lands under 
 the same family for centuries, and the sale of serfs in 
 gross appears to have been extremely rare. 
 
 In consequence it frequently happened that, as we have 
 above indicated, the serf became possessed of a certain 
 amount of wealth. Long-continued frugality and hard 
 work could have no other result under such a system. The 
 serf would in time possess many cows and pigs, etc., which 
 could pasture and feed on the common or waste land or 
 woods. Here again we must distinguish between the serf's 
 de facto position and his legal status. 
 
 The Rights of the Lord 
 
 At law the lord could seize the serf's goods, though it 
 would appear that certain things, such as the serf's instru- 
 ments of husbandry, could not be so seized. In fact such 
 seizures were of the rarest occurrence. In time the lord's 
 right in this regard became almost entirely destroyed by 
 the customary laws which grew up, in a different form, 
 it may be, for almost every manor, but always in a form 
 which protected the serf. In the manor courts the serf 
 began to be treated as one capable of ownership. His 
 right to possess and to sell began to be recognized. His 
 commonable rights began to be marked out with the 
 greatest minuteness, so that even while serfdom still con- 
 tinued its most salient characteristics were beginning to 
 be blurred, and it was becoming difficult to see very 
 much difference between the serf and the free man. But 
 there was a great difference. The serf was in every 
 sense dependent on the will of another. He could not do 
 what he would. If he fled he could be pursued, captured, 
 and brought back. He could not, except by covering 
 up his serfdom, occupy any public position except certain 
 offices such as that of reeve in his own manor. Against 
 the bars of this cage the wings of those who loved liberty 
 beat in vain. Yet not in vain, for in time the cage was 
 burst open and the prisoner escaped. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EMANCIPATION 
 
 THE break-up of the Roman state marks the begin- 
 ning of a struggle both in England and in France 
 between the landowner on the one hand and the 
 worker on the other ; the one contending for complete 
 mastery and the other for at first partial and later for com- 
 plete freedom. At first, it is true, mankind was not so 
 sharply divided into these two classes. The Teutonic 
 invaders of France and of England were in that state of 
 development known as tribal. Their enemies were the 
 dispossessed inhabitants who were reduced to a form of 
 slavery which turned into serfdom. But it would appear 
 that from early times territory rather than blood or kinship 
 became the basis of all social and political power. At an 
 early period we find in existence most of the essential prin- 
 ciples of what later became known as the feudal system. 
 I" At first, of course, there was no Christian Church, but 
 when that Church became established it did endeavour 
 to ameliorate the condition of the unfree classes. Little 
 by little, however, the Church itself became a great land- 
 owner, and almost insensibly we find it supporting the 
 land-owning classes in their oppression of the land-worker. 
 The Church, equally with the manorial lords, resisted the 
 rise of the free towns ; but despite this powerful opposition 
 forces were at work which enabled a class that at one time 
 was almost entirely destitute of rights to climb slowly up 
 the social ladder, until by the thirteenth century great 
 numbers of the industrial workers had shaken themselves 
 free from their owners and masters and had reached the 
 status of free citizens. The rise of the free towns marks 
 the beginning of the end of the relation of lord and man 
 
 44 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 and the commencement of the era of master and servant. 
 We must therefore attempt to describe shortly the history 
 of the enfranchisement of the towns. 
 
 Trade and Industry 
 
 We have already seen that throughout the Saxon 
 period trade was in its infancy. This was so not only in 
 England, but in France and other European countries 
 also. The home-worker was able to make such simple 
 articles as were required. The trading community was 
 dependent for its livelihood on such business as was trans- 
 acted in the fairs and markets, and the markets were 
 restricted to such places as were deemed to be secure. 
 
 Such secure places would almost always have sprung 
 into being in consequence of the presence of a stronghold 
 occupied by some lord whose power had originated in the 
 possession of such stronghold. The old Roman cities 
 had largely fallen into disuse, for the invading barbarian 
 had not known how to live in the buildings which he found. 
 New villages were founded. Owing to the constant 
 recurrence of petty wars these villages could never freely 
 develop or expand, or indeed escape destruction and ruin, 
 unless some leader was present to protect and fortify. 
 The protector tended to become the owner, the village 
 became the fortified burg, the fortified burg the nucleus 
 of the manor, the beginnings of a town, but not a free town, 
 for the lord had control over both the persons and the 
 activities of its inhabitants. j 
 
 M. Levasseur has described the condition of industry and 
 labour in those ages in France. His description applies 
 with equal truth to England. No period is poorer in the 
 remains of works of art and examples of craft-work 
 than those centuries which stretch between the Saxon 
 invasions and the Conquest. Industry and craftsmanship 
 were almost non-existent, if we distinguish between industry 
 and agriculture. This fact can almost be proved by a 
 consideration of the cost of articles of craftsmanship, for 
 we find that whereas the products of simple trades, such 
 
 45 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 as that of the baker, were cheap, the products of the highly 
 skilled trades were excessively expensive, even in an age 
 when fourteen days' work was priced at a sum equivalent 
 to rather less than two shillings sterling. 
 
 Thus in the tenth century a fine linen shirt cost about 
 as much as a man slave, while a cuirass in the eleventh 
 century cost rather more than the price often workmen-serfs 
 and nearly fifty times as much as an ox. On the other 
 hand, the bare necessities of life, bread and meat and milk, 
 were so cheap that the wages of free men, though accord- 
 ing to modern standards extraordinarily low, were sufficient 
 to enable the workman at least to maintain existence. 
 
 In the majority of cases, however, the manual workers 
 were, as we have said, not free men, but serfs or slaves. 
 Louis the Debonair mentions in his laws various forms 
 of labour which were deemed essentially servile, e.g., 
 labourer's work, wood-cutting, and shearing of sheep, etc. 
 Apart from such work the majority of manual workers 
 were undoubtedly, in the early part of the feudal period, 
 the * men ' of lords, and received, not wages, but land and 
 protection. 
 
 The New Era 
 
 With the twelfth century, however, commenced a new 
 era. In England, indeed, the movement had begun, 
 especially in the larger towns and particularly in London, 
 in the eleventh century. This movement continued for 
 nearly three centuries, and its main characteristics are the 
 rise of the middle classes, the revival of art and industry, 
 and the emancipation of the towns and trading communities. 
 The period throughout was feudal, but as a result of this 
 movement a new class arose, largely independent of the 
 landowner or the Church, possessing the support of the 
 kingship, and developing a special code of laws and rules 
 for the management and control of its members. 
 
 The causes of this fundamental change, which caused 
 the centre of industry to shift from the manor to the town, 
 were mainly two. On the one hand, the rise of a cen- 
 
 46 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 tralized system of government (a development which 
 took place later in France than in England) enabled society 
 to become more tranquil and lessened that need for per- 
 sonal protection which was at the root of the relationship 
 of lord and man. On the other hand, the Crusades, though 
 they failed in their direct purpose, had a result perhaps 
 more important for the world than the achievement of 
 that purpose, for they so broadened the minds of the men 
 who took part in them and loosed such a store of learning, 
 which until then had been lost to Western Europe, that 
 they were the direct cause of what is known as the First 
 Renaissance. Needs were experienced which had been 
 unknown before, and needs are at the basis of all industry. 
 Knowledge was acquired of things before unimagined, and 
 knowledge is the basis of all skill. A great impetus was 
 given to trade, and it now became apparent that whereas 
 craftsmanship and production were beyond all things 
 desirable in the workman, the serf, the semi-free, had 
 neither skill nor productivity to offer. 
 
 These two great forces — on the one hand a sense of 
 security in the state which removed the old feeling of 
 dependence on another, and on the other hand the feeling 
 that men who were free gave of their best while men who 
 were bond gave no more than they must — were the decisive 
 factors in the long struggle which now began, and which 
 had for its object, so far as the industrialists and the 
 land-workers were concerned, the obtaining of personal 
 independence. 
 
 It has been well said that individual and collective 
 enfranchisements, the increase of population and the 
 growth of towns, the granting of franchises to burgesses, 
 the obtaining of the rank of feuds} persoft^ by the communes, 
 the development of the organization of municipalities, the 
 extension of the royal protection and the royal justice 
 throughout the whole kingdom, and the fixing of customary 
 rights are the means, both in England and in France, by 
 which the common people, who formed the vast majority 
 of the townsfolk, the merchants, and the artisans, raised 
 
 47 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR ^ 
 
 themselves step by step in the space of some two and a 
 half or three centuries from the lowly condition of serfs to 
 the rank of free subjects. 
 
 The Manorial Lords 
 
 At the beginning of this movement we find the workman 
 almost identified with the land-worker. Non-agricultural 
 trades were few and of little importance. As regards the 
 land, the lords of manors controlled both the use of the land 
 and the men who lived thereon. They collected taxes as 
 lords, rents as proprietors, services as owners. The villein 
 was taxable at mercy ; all that he owned was owned at 
 mercy. No incentive, save the incentive of fear, to work 
 either hard or well existed. He existed, steeped in the 
 densest ignorance, and in duty did that which he must. 
 
 The peasant, whether free or serf, was, as a rule, too 
 poor to have in his cottage either wine-press or bakery. 
 His corn could be ground only at the manorial mill, his 
 bread must be baked in the manorial bakehouse, his cider 
 pressed at the manorial press. At first there is reason to 
 believe that the manorial lords, between whom and their 
 men there existed in early times a far greater degree of 
 human sympathy than in later times, had given to their 
 men these rights of grinding corn, etc., as privileges, but 
 they became oppressions under the exactions of the 
 manorial stewards. The free farmer, bringing in his corn 
 from the farm miles distant, might have to wait on 
 the pleasure of the manorial miller, who might prove im- 
 movable except by bribes. The unfree fared still worse. 
 They were at mercy. Beaumanoir vividly describes how 
 the serfs were subject to their lord, who, if he pleased, 
 " could fling them into prison with or without right and 
 there keep them so long as he liked, and for such deed was 
 answerable to no one save his God." ^ 
 
 In the eleventh century in France and Scotland the land 
 itself was cultivated for the most part by serfs working 
 
 1 Compare Pierre de Fontaine : " Between them and their villeins there 
 is no judge but God." 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 individually or in common, by coloni to a much lesser 
 degree,^ and by freed men and free men only to a very 
 small extent. By the thirteenth century, however, a new 
 spirit was becoming evident, a great principle was beginning 
 to be recognized, a principle which was expressed by St 
 Thomas Aquinas in the words, ** The right of property 
 is necessary to man." 
 
 Enfranchisements 
 
 As early as 967 in France the Abbot of St Arnould 
 had begun that long series of charters of enfranchisement 
 which, though rare in the tenth and early eleventh 
 centuries, became so common in France and England 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the Arch- 
 bishop of Besangon said when enfranchising his serfs at 
 Gy and Buccy, ** The serfs work not, for they say that if 
 they work they work for others only." It was found that 
 as enfranchisements increased the population increased 
 also. The increase is, indeed, astonishing. 
 
 As a result of these enfranchisements the land-workers 
 who fell within the enfranchisement ceased to be serfs. 
 They were conjfirmed in their holdings, which they culti- 
 vated for their own benefit, rendering to the landowner in 
 return definite payments in money or in kind. Their 
 rights were recognized and protected by the law of the 
 land. Their persons were no longer at the mercy of their 
 lords. They were no longer taxable without limit, but 
 such duties as they owed were regulated by law. 
 
 The Rise of the Towns 
 
 The enfranchisements in the rural districts were matched 
 by the growth of free towns. By free towns we mean, in 
 this connexion, urban societies, the members of which were 
 free men possessing the right to control the destinies of 
 the social unit of which they formed a part. The term 
 ' free town ' has, however, a narrower and more special 
 
 ^ In England the class of coloni — i.e., serfs of a tenement rather than of 
 a person — ^was a conception that early ceased to exist. 
 
 D 49 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 meaning when it is used in contradistinction to the com- 
 mune. In this narrower sense the free town differed from 
 the commune in this, that it remained subject to the control 
 of a lord who governed it and appointed its officers. Such 
 was the position of Paris and Orleans in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries. The commune, or free town in the 
 wider sense, in return for an annual payment, was free 
 from all service. If the corporate body was guilty of an 
 infraction of the terms of its charter a fine could be levied, 
 but the quantum of the fine did not depend on the will of 
 the lord, but was determined according to the principles of 
 law. In such a position was London from the eleventh 
 century onward. The management of the town was 
 controlled by the burgesses, in time largely by the gilds, 
 in some cases by the richer burgesses. The gilds, which 
 we shall later have occasion to refer to, took a great part in 
 the development of communal government, but the free 
 town was not developed out of gild privileges, it was the 
 creature of charters of enfranchisement similar to those 
 other charters which had placed the feet of the serf on the 
 first rung of the ladder of personal freedom. 
 
 Localization of Trade 
 
 We remind the reader that at the beginning of the 
 period all trade, or practically all trade, was carried on in 
 secure burgs in fairs or markets. Over all, at the com- 
 mencement of this era, the manorial lord had practically 
 complete control. The inhabitants of the manorial town- 
 ship held their tenure, in the very great majority of cases, 
 at will and subject to the rendering of such services as 
 the lord thought fit to exact. Such tenure could be deter- 
 minable by the lord at any time. The markets and the 
 fairs also were, in the majority of cases, held at will. 
 The lord, whether spiritual or lay, exacted such dues as 
 he considered to be reasonable in return for permission to 
 trade therein. From time to time, when, for example, 
 the lord desired to sell such of the produce of his land as 
 he did not require for the use of his household, it was 
 
 50 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 within his power to declare his ban upon all trade in such 
 articles for such time as he in his discretion determined. 
 Such ban prevented all other trade in such articles 
 within the lord's jurisdiction. In this era trade and industry 
 were intensely manorial. The foreign merchant rarely 
 came to vend his goods except at fair time. The foreign 
 artisan was almost unknown. By * foreign * we must be 
 understood to mean not the native of another country, but 
 the tenant of another manor. 
 
 This intense localization of trade and industry continued 
 long after the rise of the free town. The gilds pursued 
 the same policy of repressing foreign competition, and, 
 indeed, it was not until the rise of the industrial system 
 that internal trade became completely free. Even to-day, 
 as regards international trade, many people hold the same 
 views as once were held by the burgesses of the Low 
 Countries, of France, of Italy, and of England. It is simply 
 a question of outlook, for to-day, owing to the development 
 of means of transport, Brussels is less remote from London 
 than was Derby from Nottingham in the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
 Throughout the period we are now describing there was, 
 however, a certain amount of migratory labour, although 
 the tendency was for the worker to become attached to the 
 land. Thus, M. Fagniez reproduces for us the case, 
 which occurred at the end of the eleventh century, of the 
 painter Fulcon, who came to the monastery of Angers 
 and undertook in the presence of the abbot and the monks 
 to make for the monastery such windows and pictures as 
 might be required. In return for his labour it was agreed 
 that he should be treated as a brother, made a freeman of 
 the abbey, be granted for life some one and a quarter acres 
 of vineyard and a house, which holding was to return to 
 the abbey on his death unless he left a son capable of doing 
 the same work. 
 
 This case is an extremely instructive one in that it 
 shows us one of the reasons why crafts tended so strongly 
 to continue in the same family, but it is an exceptional case. 
 
 51 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 In the generality of instances at the commencement of 
 the period the artisan would commence life as the child of 
 a serf; he would possess the status of a serf; he would be 
 trained within the manor to work at such craft as might be 
 chosen for him and on such terms as the lord thought fit. 
 As he grew up to manhood and married he would receive 
 a holding in villeinage, if he received a holding at all. 
 He would thus be a man owning a lord, and the incentive 
 of personal gain would be entirely lacking, while the incen- 
 tive of doing beautiful work would be considerable, for he 
 would by so doing gratify every man's desire to do fine 
 work, while such gratification would be at the expense of 
 another. Unfortunately, however, the power to do fine 
 work was rarely present owing to the intense localization 
 of knowledge. Occasionally it must have happened that 
 great craftsmen and artists arose, but their influence could 
 only be local. At best they could but become the posses- 
 sions of lords holding wide estates, or of religious houses 
 which could utilize to the utmost their genius. It awaited 
 the rise of the gild and the gild school for such great 
 craftsmen to be able to infuse their spirit into and transmit 
 their knowledge widely to others. 
 
 Town Charters 
 
 From the middle of the eleventh century, however, both 
 in England and in France the townsmen began to obtain 
 those charters of emancipation which are the basis of the 
 free town in the broader sense. The communes of the 
 Low Countries and the North of France, like London in 
 the case of England and the towns of the Lombard League, 
 soon arrived at positions of considerable power, power 
 flowing both from wealth and from political influence. 
 
 That such charters could ever have been obtained in 
 that age from unwilling lords without collective action is 
 a matter of great doubt. There is, indeed, evidence that in 
 many urban communities there was in existence collective 
 action on the part of the inhabitants before the eleventh 
 century. In the pie-powder courts and the court of the 
 
 52 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 portgerefa there had been developed even in Saxon times 
 a special ,law for the trading community. The citizens 
 were already beginning to arrange for the protection, by 
 citizen guards, of the towns. But although some frag- 
 ment of corporate unity had already been created, the 
 lords were far too firmly entrenched to have submitted to 
 the loss of valuable privileges. It was becoming evident, 
 however, for reasons which we indicate elsewhere, that 
 the privileges were hardly valuable. Bond labour did 
 not give good results either in agriculture or in industry. 
 Townsmen could be troublesome and their control 
 expensive. Little by little these facts, which had been 
 recognized by some lords centuries before they were 
 realized by others, were generally acknowledged, or, if not 
 directly acknowledged, were impliedly accepted. 
 
 The townsmen, on the other hand, as protection became 
 less and less necessary, became more and more independent. 
 Concession after concession was wrung from the lords, 
 or in some cases was freely and willingly given by them. 
 Already in the eleventh century we find among others the 
 following towns which had become free : London, Orleans, 
 Etampes, Souvigny, Oloron, Morlaas. The lord, by the 
 charter which he granted, voluntarily substituted a contract 
 in place of his discretionary authority. As M. Levasseur 
 says : ** He was moved almost always by a motive of 
 interest rather than by a motive of that disinterested piety 
 which pervades the preambles of these charters." Some- 
 times the concessions made were very limited, sometimes 
 they were, as in the case of London, extremely wide. In 
 Paris, which owned the French king as lord, the privileges 
 were only obtained by very gradual stages. Throughout 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the franchise con- 
 cessions made to towns and the inhabitants thereof were 
 very frequent. In England, under the first three Edwards, 
 a consistent policy of giving encouragement to the artisan 
 and town-dweller appears to have been pursued. Edward I in 
 particular granted a vast number of privileges and charters, 
 with the result that by the middle of the fourteenth 
 
 53 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 century the national wealth and power had c^ed to be 
 centred in the manor and had shifted to the^M|B^n and 
 ' the city. By the reign of Richard II the great change 
 which had taken place had become fully apparent. 
 
 Displacement of Population 
 
 The change which had been wrought in the control of 
 the towns and of industry had, indeed, been the cause of a 
 great displacement of population. At the commencement 
 of the period the towns had been few and small, hardly 
 more than villages and fortified places; at its end the 
 countryside had been denuded to no inconsiderable extent 
 to feed the rising and flourishing towns which were every- 
 where springing into existence. Though we may treat 
 the opinion expressed in the Parliament of 1380 which 
 imposed the poll tax, that ** all the wealth of England had 
 gone into the hands of labourers and workmen," as being 
 no more justified than are similar opinions freely expressed 
 to-day, yet it is clear that both in England and on the 
 Continent the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and 
 particularly the latter century, saw an enormous growth 
 in industry and commerce. The dictum of Aquinas had 
 been fully justified; the opinion of those wise lords who 
 believed that the free gave of their best and the bond 
 of their worst had been proved to be sound. England 
 was prosperous, despite the ravages of the Black Death, as 
 perhaps she had never been. Corn was cheap and wages 
 were high. The simpler luxuries had spread to every 
 section of society. 
 
 The Black Death 
 
 The Black Death accelerated the social and economic 
 changes which had begun in earlier centuries. By 
 that time the rural population had in many instances 
 shaken itself free from absolute serfdom or villeinage in 
 gross. Labour was no longer, as a general rule, given in 
 return for protection and land, but rather in return for 
 wages. The Black Death caused the supply of labour to 
 
 54 
 
[ EMANCIPATION 
 
 dry up. This terrible scourge, which spread from the 
 Crimea throughout Europe, and which probably reached 
 Eur'ope from China, destroyed in fourteen months between 
 one-third and one-half of the entire population. All 
 classes suffered, but none to a greater extent than the clergy 
 and the peasants. In some villages everyone was struck 
 down; of one low-lying village in Herefordshire the cross 
 alone remains, a memorial to the villagers who all perished 
 in this visitation. Several results followed. On the one 
 hand, despite the Order of 1349, labour became so dear and 
 so difficult to obtain that advantage was taken of the high 
 profits to be gained from wool to turn a great part of the 
 countryside from arable to pasturage, thus reducing the 
 number of persons required on the land. On the other 
 hand, in consequence of the Order sent in 1349 to the 
 sheriffs, wages were limited, with the result that later in 
 the same year it was found necessary to put a stop to the 
 emigrations which, it was found, were taking place in such 
 numbers that, as it was said, '* the realm may soon be 
 destitute both of men and treasure." 
 
 Statute of Labourers 
 
 The Order of 1349, which was embodied two years 
 later in the Statute of Labourers, marks such a departure 
 in the State's attitude toward labour that it appears 
 desirable to quote it at some length. By it the King 
 ordained : 
 
 That every man and woman under sixty who does not live 
 by trade, or by exercising any craft, or having wherewith to live, 
 or their own land with whose culture they may occupy themselves 
 and not serving another, shall be bound to serve him who requires ^ 
 them, and shall receive the wages which were customary in the 
 twentieth year of the reign or in the five or six preceding years, 
 provided that the lords be preferred before others in their bond- 
 men or tenants, so that they retain no more than are necessary, 
 and if they will not serve when required, this being proved by 
 two lawful men before the sheriff, bailiflr, lord, or constable of 
 the town, they shall be put in gaol and kept there until they find 
 
 55 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 security to serve; and if any workman, being retained, depart 
 from the service before the end of the term agreed upon without 
 reasonable cause or license, he shall suffer imprisonment. ♦ 
 
 It was further provided that no master should promise 
 to pay, and no worker exact, higher wages than those above 
 stated; on the other hand, the prices of the necessary food- 
 stuffs were reduced to those which were " reasonable." 
 
 It is hardly conceivable that the Statute of Labourers 
 was at any time rigorously enforced. As Sir Frederick Eden 
 remarked, " If the wages fixed by the statute were adhered 
 to, the pay of a labourer or artificer must have been the 
 same from 1350 to 1370; yet in the course of that period 
 the price of wheat varied from 2s. to £1 6s. Sd." Such a 
 violent fluctuation in the standard of life, for bread was in 
 those days far more than it is to-day the staple food of the 
 people, must have caused such acute misery that it is almost 
 impossible to believe that it would have been tolerated even 
 by a peasantry but lately emerged from serfdom. However 
 this may be, it appears clearly that this regulation of wages 
 was a device framed by the nobility for their own purposes 
 and tending to cramp the exertions of agriculture and of 
 industry. 
 
 Peasants' Rebellion 
 
 This reactionary legislation was, however, designed to 
 meet a transient and exceptional difficulty. It is doubtful 
 to what extent it had a marked and permanent effect. It 
 occurred in a century notable for the encouragement of 
 trade and industry. The Peasants' Rebellion, which took 
 place in 138 1, checked rather than promoted the betterment 
 of the labouring classes. This revolt, which arose as a 
 consequence of the imposition of the poll tax in the previous 
 year, and which wrested from the youthful Richard a 
 grant of a general enfranchisement which was almost 
 immediately revoked, does not appear to have been inspired 
 by any great or worthy desire on the part of the masses to 
 improve the lot of their kind. Each class seems to have 
 been rather concerned about the redress of their class- 
 
 56 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 grievances. Thus in Kent, where the rebellion was most 
 active, we can say with Sir George Trevelyan that : ** every 
 man was practically free in the eye of the law ; he could sell 
 his land, he could plead in court, he was free from many 
 humiliating service dues that were customary in other 
 shires." But in Kent, as elsewhere, certain grievances 
 existed, and it was to remove these grievances, which varied 
 district by district, that John Ball, Wat Tyler, and Jebe 
 Lister led on their men to commit some of the worst acts of 
 vandalism that occurred in England throughout the Middle 
 Ages. In consequence of the burnings and destruction 
 which took place in the course of this revolt grave loss was 
 caused, but the gain to the people was either negative or 
 imperceptible. Like the peasants' war in Wales in the 
 early years of the fifteenth century, it caused much loss 
 and suffering without the compensation of improvement 
 in the condition of any section of the people. 
 
 Strength of the Free Towns 
 
 The labouring classes had, indeed, then as now nothing 
 to gain from armed violence. The rights which they had 
 already secured, and they were many, had been obtained 
 largely because of that strong centralization of government 
 which had brought peace to the country, peace in which 
 labour was able to carry on effectively its bloodless struggle 
 for freedom. The rise of the middle classes, the develop- 
 ment of craftsmanship, the increase of trade, the shifting 
 of population from rural to urban districts, these, among 
 other causes, had enabled the worker to attain to a degree 
 of personal freedom which two centuries before he could 
 hardly have imagined. Great cities had developed, such as 
 Ypres, which, from a small hamlet nestling beside the 
 castle built in the ninth century as a defence against the 
 piratical Northmen, had grown into a flourishing manu- 
 facturing town before the end of the thirteenth century. 
 This lovely old city, once the * paradise of architects,' was, 
 even before the beginning of the fourteenth century, a town 
 containing 200,000 people and 12,000 houses. In 1302 
 
 57 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 its red-coated contingent of citizen-soldiers was able to 
 turn the fortunes of the day at the battle of Courtrai. Two 
 years later its wonderful Cloth Hall, begun over a century 
 before, was completed, and formed, until destroyed in these 
 latter days, a fitting monument to the craftsmanship and 
 wealth of the burgesses of this free town. It was here 
 that the principles of sanitation were first given practical 
 effect in the endeavours constantly made to lessen the 
 ravages of the plague to which its low situation rendered it 
 peculiarly liable. So great an effect on international trade 
 could the burgesses exercise that Edward III found it 
 necessary to enact that no person in England, except only 
 the Royal family, should wear any cloth made outside 
 the realm. 
 
 At that time, of course, Ypres was the centre of the cloth 
 trade, but thanks to the activities of the English manufac- 
 turers, the excellence of the Cotswold wool, and the crafts- 
 manship of the English weavers, the trade was largely 
 wrested from the Flemings by the end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, so that more than half of the 40,000 looms of Bruges 
 were lying idle, the trade of Ghent had largely been diverted, 
 and the former supremacy of Ypres was destroyed. 
 
 Such international trade rivalries show, however, how 
 mightily industry had increased. Trade was no longer 
 entirely domestic or local. A great trading and manu- 
 facturing community had arisen largely separate from the 
 feudal system, protected by charter, self-governing to a 
 considerable extent, possessed of special laws relating to 
 trade and contract, wealthy and prosperous. We shall 
 have occasion in the next chapter to speak of the gilds which 
 to so large an extent were responsible for the government of 
 these communities and which so greatly aided the develop- 
 ment of craftsmanship. 
 
 Extinction of Serfdom 
 
 But though by the end of the fourteenth century labour 
 had to a great extent shaken off the shackles of serfdom, 
 and though trade and industry flourished exceedingly, it 
 
 58 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 is not possible to speak of the extinction of serfdom or 
 slavery, even among white races, until many more years 
 had rolled by. 
 
 It was not until 1618 that the case of Pigg v. Caley, the 
 last case in which villeinage was pleaded, was heard. As 
 late as 1 561, from the case of Lewis Lowth, we gather that 
 serfdom was a reality even in the reign of Elizabeth. In that 
 case Lowth had been bound apprentice to Robert Ring- 
 wood for seven years, but Mr John Holdiche appeared 
 before the mayor and justices and declared " that the 
 said Lewis is a bondman to my lord of Norfolk's grace," 
 whereupon his indentures were cancelled and he was 
 presumably handed over to my lord of Norfolk. 
 
 Reaction 
 
 The enfranchisement of the serf had, however, by the 
 sixteenth century become almost complete. But this 
 emancipation had brought with it the problem of poverty, 
 and throughout the later half of that century, for reasons 
 which we shall have cause to consider, the problem became 
 acute. In this place we refer to the matter in order to show 
 how for a season the Government appears deliberately to 
 have contemplated the return to the days of slavery, for 
 by an Act of Edward VI's reign (i Edw. VI, c. 3) it was 
 provided that if any man or woman, able to work, should 
 refuse to labour, and live idly for three days, he or 
 she should be branded with a red-hot iron on the breast 
 with the letter V and should be adjudged the slave, for two 
 years, of any person who should inform against such idler. 
 The master was directed to feed his slave with bread and 
 water, or small drink, and such refuse meat as he should 
 think proper, and to cause the slave to work by beating, 
 chaining, or otherwise, in such work and labour " how vile 
 soever it be " as he should put him to. If the slave ran 
 away for fourteen days he became his master's slave for life 
 and was branded with the letter S. If he ran away again 
 he was put to death. Masters were empowered to sell, 
 bequeath, let out for hire, or give the services of their slaves, 
 
 59 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 By the same Act all persons were empowered to take idle 
 children from vagabonds and to retain them as apprentices: 
 till the boys were twenty-four and the girls twenty years ofl 
 age. If they ran away they could be used as slaves untili 
 the termination of their apprenticeship. 
 
 As Sir Frederick Eden says: " An Act so disgraceful to 
 the Legislature did not remain long upon the Statute Roll : 
 by the 3 and 4 Edward VI, c. 16, it was completely! 
 repealed." ^ The mere passing of the Act shows us, how- 
 ever, how narrow was the chasm which separated the; 
 masses from serfdom or even slavery. ■ 
 
 We know from emancipations ejfiPected by Elizabeth and 
 affecting considerable numbers of coal-miners that serfdom 
 was not extinct as late as the closing years of the six- 
 teenth century. The following century saw, however, the 
 general trend of opinion turn definitely against serfdom and 
 slavery. 
 
 In 1674 Sir Leoline Jenkins expressed the opinion that 
 there was no such thing as a slave in England, and in this 
 opinion he must be regarded as using the term slave to 
 include serf. All doubts were finally set at rest by the 
 judgment of Lord Mansfield in Sommersett's case (1772) 
 when the Court of King's Bench decided that slavery in 
 England was illegal. 
 
 In Scotland, however, two classes of labourer, the coal- 
 miner and the Salter, remained in a condition of serfdom as 
 late as 1799. It is not certain whether this was the result 
 of the re-enslavement of these workers by virtue of a 
 Scots Act of 1606 or whether it was a survival of that 
 ancient villeinage which had certainly not died out at the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. It was, indeed, in 
 connexion with coal-miners that we have the last recorded 
 act of wholesale emancipations, for in 1574 Queen Elizabeth 
 manumitted her bond miners in the West of England. In 
 Northumberland and Durham it would appear that the 
 emancipation of the miners had taken place somewhere 
 about 1460, for in that year, for the first time, the accounts 
 
 1 The State of the Poor. 
 60 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 of the Finchale monks contain entries relative to the labour 
 charges for getting the coal. The tin-miners of Cornwall, 
 the lead-miners of Derbyshire, and the iron-miners of the 
 Forest of Dean were probably all emancipated before the 
 middle of the thirteenth century. 
 
 The Scots miners and salters were thus, in the words of 
 Dr Galloway, " the last section of the population of Great 
 Britain to taste the sweets of freedom." In 1775 an Act 
 had been passed providing that, except as regards persons 
 then employed in the industry, colliers should be treated 
 as free labourers. This was hardly actuated so much by 
 humanitarian sentiments as by a desire to attract labour to 
 the mines, which were greatly in need of men. But once 
 Hberty had been extended to a portion of the persons 
 employed in the industry it was found impossible to retain 
 serf labour, and, as we have seen, the bondman in Scotland 
 had become but a memory twenty-four years later. It is 
 of interest to note that the enfranchised serfs were by no 
 means delighted with the change which they in their 
 ignorance were unable to appreciate. They reviled their 
 late lords, complaining that it was but a trick to escape the 
 payment of the harigild money — a payment made to the 
 serf when the serf's wife bore him a child and so increased 
 the lord's property. 
 
 Colonial Slavery 
 
 While in the United Kingdom serfdom was dying out 
 and slavery was being declared illegal, three statutes 
 passed in the eighteenth century (10 William III, c. 26; 
 25 Geo. II, c. 7; 32 Geo. II, c. 31) made legal the owner- 
 ship of slaves in the colonies — including the then colony of 
 America. It was not until 1806 that the slave trade was 
 prohibited, while in 1834, largely due to the agitation set 
 on foot by the Quakers and ably pressed home by William 
 Wilberforce, colonial slavery was abolished. 
 
 Such abolition did not, of course, apply to colonies or 
 protectorates which have since come within the British 
 Empire. A considerable volume of slave-trading still 
 
 61 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 continued throughout the whole of Northern Africa and 
 was chiefly in the hands of the Arabs. 
 
 This abominable traffic had for long been the main, 
 almost the only, form of export trade developed in Africa, 
 In the words of Sir H. H. Johnston : 
 
 Great ' ghazzias,' great warlike expeditions for the collection 
 of hundreds and thousands of slaves, did not begin — so far as we 
 know — till Islam was ' going strong ' in Tropical Africa, in the 
 lands of the Negroes. The Portuguese and Spaniards were 
 inducted into this business by the Moors ; and the other mari- 
 time peoples of Europe, who were colonizing America, outdid the 
 Portuguese. And so the New World came, in course of time, 
 to have a Negro and Negroid population of twenty-five millions ; 
 and interior Africa, for at least three centuries, was in a state of 
 continual uproar and devastating tribal conflicts.^ 
 
 The question of the enslavement of coloured peoples, a 
 question now definitely settled in favour of liberty, is not 
 one which we propose to pursue in this book. It is instruc- 
 tive, however, to note that whereas the natives who worked 
 under the German regime on the cocoa plantations of the 
 Cameroons were in a semi-servile condition, the natives 
 who worked on the cocoa plantations of the British Gold 
 Coast were completely free; the circumstances of cultiva- 
 tion in the two countries were similar; the same oppor- 
 tunities were open to both. In 1912 the plantations of the 
 German Cameroons exported 3,500 tons of cacao beans, 
 those of the British Gold Coast exported 38,000 tons. The 
 area and population of the former exceed the latter. It 
 would therefore appear that in these later days, as in earlier 
 ages, the truth of the maxim that the bondman works no 
 more than he must has again been proved. 
 
 The English nation has, indeed, a right to be proud of 
 the manner in which it has opposed at first slavery within 
 the realm and later slavery without the realm. It was 
 mainly in order to suppress the slave trade that the British 
 embarked upon those expeditions which were to result 
 
 ^ The Sea Commonwealth, edited by Dr. A. P, Newton, chapter v. 
 62 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 in the colonization of a large part of the Bight of Benin, 
 and it was also the better to enable her to suppress slavery 
 that Britain received under her protection that wide territory 
 known as the East Africa Protectorate. 
 
 In the earlier days of our African colonization, it is true, 
 a different attitude existed. Again to quote Sir H. H. 
 Johnston, we may say that : 
 
 The principle of the external slave trade with Africa, which 
 haunted the European conception of a * colonial ' policy, was suc- 
 ceeded by the principle of internal slavery. The Americas were 
 closed or closing against the importation of servile labour from 
 Africa. But the European or Europeanised powers then govern- 
 ing Africa had conceived the idea of cultivating or exploiting 
 Africa itself by negro serfs. In Egypt, Abyssinia, Morocco, 
 Zanzibar, the outspoken ruling classes called a slave a slave and 
 treated him not at all badly. In all Moslem Africa, once the initial 
 harm was done of the slave raid or the provoked inter-tribal war 
 which produced the supply of slaves, once the weary journey to 
 the north or the east was accomplished, the lot of the exiled 
 Negro was an easy and often a happy and honourable one. But 
 in the European-governed Africa of the sixties, and even down 
 to the beginning of the twentieth century, the principle of helotry 
 for the indigenous populations under control came into being, 
 though it was disguised under many pleasant names and high- 
 sounding policies. The Negro was to have no rights, no terri- 
 torial claims in the land of his birth and industry; and the gains 
 or profits resulting from the control of his country were to be 
 spent, not on his land, but on the European state that had taken 
 possession. The 'native' was to be the serf of the glebe in 
 exchange for being allowed to live free from the terrors of native 
 rule.^ 
 
 The outcry occasioned by what has been termed the 
 Leopoldian regime in the Congo assisted a movement which 
 had already begun, as is evidenced by the result of the land 
 agitation in the Gold Coast from 1 895-1 900. Once again 
 Great Britain, by her example in West Africa, showed the 
 way. The rights of the Fantis to the land of their country 
 were fully recognized, and the Government assumed the role 
 1 Tie Sea Commonwealth^ chapter v. 
 
 63 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 not of serf-maker, but of adviser, protector, guide — even 
 schoolmaster, if you will. The same change of attitude 
 was noticeable in the opening years of the twentieth century 
 on the part of France, the United States, and Belgium, 
 though Germany still lagged behind, its stiff feudal 
 phalanx forming an obstacle to this army of progress. 
 
 Even to-day, of course, slavery exists in many parts of 
 Africa and even in some of those parts under British pro- 
 tection. For example, in East Africa slavery is still known, 
 though it is opposed to English policy and must die out 
 when the existing slaves no longer live. English reports 
 will be found, however, in which as late as 1898 in East 
 Africa the law of slavery has had to be considered,^ for 
 domestic slavery is recognized in the coast strip. Since 
 1890, however, new slaves cannot be acquired, and all 
 persons, though the children of slaves, are born free. 
 
 American Slavery 
 
 It may, therefore, be fairly said that England steadily 
 opposed slavery, even the enslavement of coloured races, 
 from the early part of the nineteenth century. In this, for 
 more than fifty years, she was at variance with the policy 
 pursued by America, her quondam colony. 
 
 As the American economist Dr Carlton has said : 
 
 The establishment and continuation of the slave system on 
 the American continent centuries after its disappearance in 
 Northern Europe must be attributed to two co-operating causes : 
 the presence of abundant land and the wide racial differences 
 between masters and slaves. In the North natural causes, chief 
 amongst which were the climate, the existence of small farms 
 instead of wide plantations, and the growth of industry rather 
 than the spread of agriculture, were responsible for the decline 
 of the slave system.^ 
 
 1 Thus, in the case of Salim B. Abdulla v. Fatima binte Hauris it was 
 decided in 1898 that a person laying claim to slaves in the possession of 
 another must produce evidence in support of the claim, though the defendant 
 alleges purchase. Even later cases could be cited. 
 
 2 History and Problems of Organised Labour. 
 
 64 
 
EMANCIPATION 
 
 The industrialist of North America in the nineteenth 
 century rediscovered the fact, known to the feudal eccle- 
 siastic, that the bondman will not produce more than he 
 must. But in the South, with free labour scarce and 
 Nature fruitful, the slave labourer was economically success- 
 ful, and it needed something more than the invective of a 
 Jefferson or the rhetoric of an Abraham Lincoln to persuade 
 the South to emancipate the slaves. The Civil War was 
 fought, as the great World War was fought, to win Liberty. 
 Liberty was won, and with that victory slavery disappeared 
 from the policy of all English-speaking peoples. 
 
 But slavery is a word of many meanings. The slavery 
 we have so far spoken of is legal slavery, a status which in 
 the eye of the law approximates a human being to a chattel, 
 subjects him to ownership, and leaves him rightless, it 
 may be absolutely, it may be relatively. But though the 
 status of the individual may not be that of the slave, the 
 circumstances of his existence can be equally deplorable. 
 
 Such, to no small extent, was the position of those 
 indentured servants, those kidnapped children, those time- 
 expired criminals, those adventurous yokels, seeking with 
 their maids their fortune in the wonderful lands of America 
 and Australia, who were taken, were sent, or went across 
 the oceans to those new worlds. Such, too, was the con- 
 dition of those pauper apprentices bound to labour hard 
 for hard masters that was a common feature in the indus- 
 trial life of the England of the forties and fifties of last 
 century; such, too, were the circumstances of those who in 
 our own times worked by day and by night for some poor 
 pittance at the 'sweated trades.' The serf is dead; the 
 slave is legally extinct these many years. The worker is 
 no longer oppressed, but he has arrived at his present 
 station only within very recent times. 
 
 65 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GILDS 
 
 THE gilds played such an important part in medieval 
 industry that no history of labour can ignore their 
 existence, but it should be fully understood that 
 there is no historical connexion between the medieval gild 
 and the modern trade union. It is true that some authori- 
 ties, and in particular Dr Brentano, have asserted the 
 contrary, but to us it appears clear that Mr Sidney Webb's 
 view that these two forms of association are historically dis- 
 tinct is the better. In essence the gild was an association 
 of masters rather than of men. 
 
 Equally unfounded is the view that the gilds are the de- 
 scendants of the Roman worker's collegia. As M. Levasseur 
 says, when speaking of the French cor-ps de metier^ eleven cen- 
 turies had rolled by since the Roman collegia had been in 
 operation in France before the corps de metier arose, and 
 during that period the barbarian invasions had either 
 violently destroyed or had dissolved little by little all the 
 Roman institutions; moreover the whole framework of 
 society had been entirely transformed by the feudal system. 
 Even in Italy, where Roman institutions had persisted to a 
 much greater extent than in France or in England, there is 
 no positive evidence of the descent of the medieval craft 
 associations from the Roman collegia. 
 
 On the other hand, as M. Fagniez has pointed out, 
 the gild had very little to do with the emancipation 
 of the serf or with the creation of the free town. It 
 had, however, in our opinion a considerable influence on 
 the development, expansion, and prosperity of the free 
 towns. 
 66 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 Origins 
 
 It has been suggested with some assurance by both 
 Toulmin Smith and Dr Brentano that the craft and 
 merchant gilds were descended from the earHer social 
 gilds. It is doubtful, however, to what extent this can 
 be accepted as correct. We prefer M. Levasseur's view 
 that the craft gild sprang from associations of serfs exer- 
 cising the same occupation under the direction of an 
 officer deputed for their management by the seigneurial 
 lord who owned them, and that this form of association 
 passed through various evolutionary forms with the 
 passing of time, slowly changing with the change of 
 social conditions, until at length the association of the 
 unfree controlled by a delegate of their lord became an 
 association of free men controlled by the representatives of 
 its members. 
 
 That is, we consider, the most probable way in which 
 the gilds evolved. But gilds did not always evolve ; some- 
 times, and as time passed frequently, they were created. 
 They sprang into being ready made, as it were, by the 
 grant of some charter. But it is obvious that even in 
 such a case there must have been in existence some 
 unified body capable of receiving and accepting the charter, 
 for a grant involves a grantee and an acceptance of the 
 grant. 
 
 There is one aspect of the creation of gilds of some 
 importance for our present purpose which we do not find 
 regarded by any of the numerous authorities who have 
 treated of gild origins. The point may, perhaps, be 
 expressed as follows : 
 
 Originally, as we have seen, labour was almost entirely 
 servile. Emancipation was brought about partly by 
 individual enfranchisements or manumissions, but mainly 
 by collective emancipations. Such a course of develop- 
 ment must obviously have resulted in a state of affairs in 
 which, apart from special protection, the free labourer 
 or worker would have been subjected to unfair com- 
 petition from unfree and excessively cheap labour. The 
 
 67 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 free man had to maintain himself and his dependents by 
 his own labour; the unfree man was often maintained, 
 and so were his dependents, by his lord, and if that lord 
 cared, it may be as an act of charity, to permit his villein 
 to devote a part of his time to the making of goods for 
 sale on the villein's account, such goods could obviously 
 be used to undersell the free man's product and thus in 
 effect be used for cutting prices and thence wages. 
 
 This form of unfair competition must of necessity have 
 arisen had not some such system as that of the gild existed 
 to prevent it. The gild, indeed, would seem, like the 
 trade union, to have been an association to improve 
 the condition of the worker ; both depend for their 
 existence upon the need for that collective action which 
 is the soul of social strength. With that similarity the 
 comparison ends. 
 
 As we see the matter, at first there would be a group 
 of serfs working in the same or allied crafts. Their 
 activities would be controlled by a seigneurial officer. 
 They would frequently meet in the course of their labours 
 and would in many cases be friends. Their social inter- 
 course and friendship would be increased and strengthened 
 by the fact of their membership in the same social gild— 
 for it is clear that the social gild existed in very early 
 times in England. Then it would happen that the lord 
 decided on the emancipation of the whole vill or town 
 in which these workers dwelt. The experience of others, 
 or, in the earlier times when the experience of others 
 was not available, the force of circumstances, would soon 
 show the need for this new body of free men to band 
 together to protect their livelihood, whether their earnings 
 were obtained by work or trade. The natural form 
 of association would be something which bore a strong 
 resemblance to the social gild, of which they had full 
 experience, and for which, doubtless, they had the warmest 
 regard. 
 
 But before they could exercise the necessary control it 
 would be necessary in many instances, certainly when it 
 68 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 was decided to hold land in mortmain, to obtain a charter, 
 and, as a consequence, we frequently find charters being 
 given granting various privileges to the members of what 
 had previously been a mere association. As Toulmin 
 Smith, however, pointed out, the " King's license was not 
 necessary ... to the foundation of a gild." Indeed, 
 the charter did not incorporate the association, it merely 
 recorded ; but it might also, and generally did, give special 
 privileges to a pre-existing association. Without the 
 grant of such special privileges it might well be that the 
 association would be held illegal at common law, for not 
 infrequently such associations did considerably interfere 
 with and curtail the lawful activities of persons outside 
 the association. 
 
 An admirable example of the abuse of the protective 
 powers of the gilds is to be seen in the Placita de quo 
 Warranto^ where we read that if anyone brought leather, 
 wool, or wool-fells into the town of Derby to sell, and one 
 of the gild placed his foot upon the thing brought, and set 
 a price for which he was prepared to buy it, no one but 
 a member of the gild would dare to buy it, nor would 
 he to whom it belonged dare to sell it to anyone save a 
 member of the gild, not even if he were offered a higher 
 price by somebody else. This practice was found by the 
 jury to be to the disadvantage of the borough, and as a con- 
 sequence ceased. It was, as we have said, an abuse, but 
 we see in it a practice that in its origin had as its purpose the 
 prevention of unfair competition from cheap outside labour. 
 
 Gild and Trade Union 
 
 We have already indicated that the gild and the trade 
 union are historically unconnected and are dissimilar. The 
 nature of the dissimilarity may perhaps be made clear by 
 a consideration of the general nature and purpose of 
 the gilds. 
 
 Gilds (apart from the social gilds) were of two main 
 classes, the merchant and the craft gilds. A merchant 
 gild, broadly speaking, was an association of traders, 
 
 69 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 merchants, bankers or money changers and lenders, or 
 the like ; a craft gild was composed of the master-workers 
 who employed journeymen in the manufacture of articles, 
 and sometimes, and indeed generally, also included the 
 journeymen and exercised control over apprentices and 
 apprenticing. The merchant gilds were controlled by 
 the wealthier members of the middle classes who were not 
 handicraftsmen ; the craft gilds were controlled by the 
 masters of crafts. It is probably an anachronism to use 
 modern terms, but it will give a correct impression of 
 what was in fact the case if we liken the merchant gild 
 to a capitalistic association or trust and the craft gild to an 
 employers' association. Of workmen's associations there 
 were, at first, none, but later certain ephemeral journey- 
 men's associations arose, though hardly before the middle 
 of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The merchant gilds were of the two kinds by far the 
 more powerful. They ruled the towns to no small extent, 
 controlling as they did the appointment of the mayors and 
 the city or borough councils. 
 
 The Beverley Gild 
 
 The charter granted to the great gild of St John of 
 Beverley,^ being one of the earliest of the charters left 
 to us, is perhaps worth quoting in extenso. It runs as 
 follows : 
 
 Thurstan, by the grace of God Archbishop of York, to all the 
 faithful in Christ, as well now as hereafter, Greeting ; and God's 
 blessing and his own. 
 
 Be it known to you that I have given and granted, and, with 
 the advice of the Chapter of York and Beverley and of my barons, 
 have by my charter confirmed, to the men of Beverley, all liberties, 
 with the same laws that the men of York have in their city. 
 Moreover, be it not unknown to you that the Lord Henry our 
 King [Henry IJ has, with a good will, granted to us the power 
 of making this [charter] ; and has, by his own charter, confirmed 
 
 ^ Printed at pp. 150-152 of Toulmin Smith's English Gilds, from which 
 we quote. 
 
 70 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 our statutes and our laws, after the manner of the laws of the 
 burgesses of York, saving what behoves to God and St John and 
 myself and the canons ; that so he might uphold and enlarge the 
 honour of the alms-deeds of his predecessors. With all these 
 free customs, I will that my burgesses of Beverley shall have their 
 Hanshouse which I give and grant to them in order that therein 
 their common business may be done, in honour of God and 
 St John and the canons, and for the amendment of the whole 
 town, with the same freedom that the men of York have in 
 their Hanshouse. I also grant to them toll for ever, for xviij 
 marks a year ; saving on the three feasts on which toll belongs 
 to us and the canons, namely, on the feast of St John the Con- 
 fessor in May, and the feast of the Translation of St John, and 
 the Nativity of St John Baptist. On these three feasts I have 
 made all the burgesses of Beverley free and quit of every toll. 
 This charter also bears witness, that I have granted to the same 
 burgesses free right of coming in and going out ; namely, within 
 the town and beyond the town, in plain and wood and marsh, 
 in ways and paths and other easements, save in meadows and 
 corn-fields, as good, free, and large as any one can grant and 
 confirm. And know ye, that they shall be free and quit of any 
 toll through the whole shire of York, like as the men of York 
 are. And I will that whosoever gainsays this shall be accursed, 
 as the manner of cursing is in the Church of St John, and as 
 shall be adjudged in the Church of St John. These are the 
 witnesses : 
 
 [Witnesses set out.] 
 
 The Craft Gild 
 
 This charter, extending privileges hitherto granted, 
 increased the power of this ancient merchant gild. The 
 worker, however, was more directly affected by the 
 operations of the craft gilds, whose ordinances were based 
 sometimes on Act of Parliament, sometimes on charter, 
 and sometimes on agreement between the members. 
 We find a good example of such ordinances in those of 
 the fullers of Lincoln, a craft gild founded in A.D.1297, 
 which provided, inter alia^ as follows ; 
 
 (i) No one of the craft shall full cloth by treading 
 it with the feet in the trough. 
 
 71 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 (2) No one shall work after dinner on Saturdays or 
 on a festival. 
 
 (3) No one shall teach the craft to anyone until 
 the pupil has made a small payment to the gild. 
 
 (4) No thief shall be allowed in the gild. 
 
 The ordinances further contain a large number of pro- 
 visions relating to mutual assistance, loans to those in need, 
 etc. 
 
 As Professor Gross has said : 
 
 The gild was the department of town administration whose 
 duty was to regulate the trade monopoly. This was the raison 
 d'etre of the gild merchant of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; 
 but the privilege was often construed to imply broader functions — 
 the general regulation of trade and industry.^ 
 
 It is rather with the regulation of industry as distinct 
 from trade that we are at present concerned, and this 
 branch of control, as we have said, fell rather to the craft 
 than to the merchant gild. It must be fully borne in 
 mind, however, that at the time of which we are now 
 speaking the business of trading and the business of 
 manufacturing were not, as a rule, divorced the one 
 from the other as they are to-day. The wares which the 
 haberdasher or hatter sold in his booth or shop were 
 truly manufactured, i.e., made by hand from the semi- 
 'raw material composing the finished product by the haber- 
 dasher or hatter and his journeymen, serving-men, and 
 apprentices. The tradesman was also a craftsman ; he 
 did not restrict himself to organizing the buying and 
 selling of goods made by others. It is this fact that 
 makes an inquiry into the operation of the craft gilds 
 in particular and of the merchant gilds to a limited 
 extent pertinent to our present purpose. 
 
 In connexion with the general regulation of * trade,' 
 as meaning handicraft, we frequently find reference in the 
 gild ordinances to rules regulating the relationship which 
 we should to-day designate that of employer and employed. 
 
 1 T/ie Gild Merchant. 
 72 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 On the one hand, the master is required to see that the 
 products of his shop are worthy of the craft, that his 
 employees are if learners properly taught and if journey- 
 men properly behaved. The obligation of governing his 
 little world was placed to a larger extent upon the master. 
 On the other hand, a controlling influence was exercised 
 by the gild over those who in all probability would be the 
 masters of to-morrow, i.e.y the journeymen and apprentices. 
 They were liable to be punished by the gild if they did 
 anything contrary to the ordinances of the gild. Such 
 ordinances sometimes strike at covins, i.e.^ collusive agree- 
 ments between two persons to the prejudice of a third, 
 such as arrangements to force up wages or reduce hours. 
 
 Gild Regulation 
 
 It is here that we find the gild conception most strongly 
 opposed to that of the trade union. The gild was by no 
 means concerned primarily with the interests of the 
 employee, it was interested rather in the regulation of the 
 craft. No clear distinction was made between master 
 and man ; between such there was no absolute distinction, 
 but only a relative one. The man might almost at any 
 moment turn into the master. The dividing wall between 
 the two was of the thinnest description. Though it 
 tended to become stronger as time passed, it did not 
 become an almost impassable barrier until after the rise 
 of a factory system based on the use of mechanical power — 
 a system which rendered it necessary, before manufacture 
 could be carried on adequately and at a profit, for much 
 capital to be invested in the purchase of machinery. 
 
 The following translations of the old Latin, French, and 
 Old English gild rules relating to the control exercised over 
 master and man show the attitude of the old craft councils : 
 
 Decided that John Rowlir received five yards of blue broad 
 cloth to make Mr Robert Rydon a gown, and that Mr Robert 
 Rydon complained that all the cloth supplied was not utilized, 
 and that the gown was examined by the craft and it was found 
 that no cloth had been wasted and it was duly proved that three- 
 
 73 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 quarters of broad cloth was returned in bits as appears from the 
 patterns of black paper in the common record chest and which 
 may at any time be seen. 
 
 In the above case the tailor was proved to be in the right. 
 In another similar case where Sir John Walkyngton com- 
 plained of John Kartor, it was found on examination of the 
 gown that, although there was no theft of cloth, a wastage 
 of a quarter had occurred through * lack of cunning,' i.e.^ 
 good workmanship, and Kartor was ordered to pay Sir John 
 eleven shillings for the cloth and keep the rejected gown. 
 
 Had the bad workmanship not been the fault of a craft 
 brother the complaining customer would have been 
 informed by the masters of the gild that he must proceed 
 at law. It is probable, however, that if the workman was 
 not a member of the mystery, but his master was, the gild 
 would hold the master liable. Such cases, however, could 
 but rarely arise. 
 
 The gild would also prevent any misbehaving either by 
 the master against his men, or by the men against their 
 master. Thus William Pecke unlawfully chastised John 
 Lynch his servant; he bruised his arm and hurt his head. 
 John complained to the master and wardens of the gild, 
 and they, after inquiry, directed William to pay ^s. to the 
 leech (or doctor), 3^. ^d. for maintenance money, and 25^. 
 as compensation, together with a fine of is. Sd. to the gild. 
 On the other hand, by the Ordinances of the Alien Weavers 
 of London {c. 1362) regulations were made striking at com- 
 binations on the part of the men to put up wages, *' by 
 reason whereof the masters of the said trade were in great 
 trouble, and the people left unserved." It was also 
 provided that special fines should be payable by any man 
 of the craft who was found ** doing mischief in the way of 
 larceny." Again, by the Ordinances of the White Lawyers 
 of London (c. 1346) it was provided that " if any serving- 
 man shall conduct himself in any other manner than properly 
 toward his master, and act rebelliously toward him, no one 
 of the said trade shall set him to work until he shall have 
 made amends before the Mayor and Aldermen." 
 
 74 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 Early Combinations 
 
 An interesting account of a dispute which arose between 
 the master saddlers of London and their journeymen in 
 1396 may be found in the English Economic History, The 
 masters complained that the serving-men 
 
 had influenced the journey-men among them and had formed 
 covins thereon, with the object of raising their wages greatly in 
 excess ; to such an extent, namely, that whereas a master in the 
 said trade could before have had a serving-man or journey-man 
 for forty shillings or five marks yearly, and his board, now such 
 a man would not agree with his master for less than ten or twelve 
 marks or even ten pounds yearly ; to the great deterioration of 
 the trade. 
 
 It was decided that in future the serving-men of the 
 trade should be under the rule of the masters of the trade, 
 ** the same as the serving-men in other trades in the same 
 city are wont, and of right are bound to be," and that no 
 further meetings or covins should be had under penalty. 
 
 Such awards as the above would normally be made by 
 the masters of the gild, who, in turn, would be elected for a 
 limited period by the gild brethren, or, it may be, by the 
 brothers and sisters of the gild — for women were usually 
 members. The penalty incurred by failure to abide by 
 the decision of the gild council varied, in some cases 
 amounting to loss of gild freemanship. Thus by the 
 Ordinances of the Gild of Garlekhith, London, it was pro- 
 vided that : ** If anyone rebels against the Wardens' award 
 and order he shall be put out of the brotherhood and the 
 one in whose favour the award was shall be helped to 
 proceed against the ' rebel * at law." ^ It was a common 
 
 1 Compare the Ordinances of the Gild of the Tailors of Lincoln, which 
 provide as follows : 
 
 " If any quarrel or strife arises between any brethren or sisteren of the 
 gild (which God forbid), the brethren and sisteren shall, with the advice 
 of the Gracemen and Wardens, do their best to make peace between the 
 parties, provided that the case is such as can be thus settled without a 
 breach of the law. And whoever will not obey the judgment of the brethren, 
 
 IS 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 rule, however, to give to the masters of the gild the right to 
 consider disputes in the first instance and on failure to 
 settle to leave the parties to their remedies at law. Some- 
 times, as in the case of the Gild of Holy Cross, Bishop's 
 Lynn, before any action at law could be commenced 
 against a gild brother the leave of the gild had to be 
 obtained. 
 
 Friendly Societies 
 
 Frequently it was provided in the rules of the gilds that 
 where a brother had suffered misfortune due to fortuitous 
 circumstances over which he had no control, such help and 
 assistance should be granted as would enable him to avoid 
 destitution. This aid had to do something more than 
 maintain him and his dependents during unemployment, 
 or assist him to meet such expenses as burial expenses, for 
 it often happened, as we have seen, that the workman was 
 also a tradesman whose capital would consist not only in 
 his skill, but also in a stock-in-trade. 
 
 In the Middle Ages widespread fires were frequent, and 
 loss due to civil commotion or robbery was not unknown. 
 It must, therefore, have been by no means rare for a brother 
 to find himself faced with ruin owing to the destruction 
 of his premises or the theft of his goods, for the insurance 
 politiza of the Italians had not yet been invented. In such 
 circumstances the gild would come to the assistance of the 
 unfortunate brother. Thus in the case of the Gild of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, Hull, we find provision made for the 
 loan of a small sum to enable a member who has " through 
 mishap, become so poor that help is much needed " to 
 
 shall lose his gildship, unless he thinks better of it within three days, and 
 then he shall pay a stone of wax, unless he have grace." 
 
 This principle of compulsory arbitration is one of great importance, for 
 it must be remembered that, as a rule, the gild of any particular craft in 
 any particular town would embrace practically the whole of the masters 
 and men and apprentices engaged in that craft. It would appear to 
 follow that disputes over conditions of work would be disputes between 
 gild brothers and would accordingly have to be settled by the gild under 
 pain of very heavy penalties. 
 
 76 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 follow ** his proper business or work in such manner as 
 seems to him best." ^ Provisions allowing the making of 
 loans to members are to be found in very many of the gild 
 ordinances, but it was always the policy of the gild masters 
 to encourage self-help and self-respect, and accordingly the 
 help given was only enough to enable the member by dint 
 of hard work to overcome his temporary difficulties. In 
 the Liber Albus there is an ordinance in which it is stated 
 that no help will be given to a brother who is lazy, who will 
 not work a due number of hours, and who "lies too long 
 a-bed." A good example of the attitude adopted toward the 
 member who meets with misfortune due to no fault of his 
 own and toward the member who is responsible by his folly 
 for his evil situation is to be found in the Ordinances of the 
 
 ^ Compare the following, from English Gilds, by Mr and Miss Toulmin 
 Smith : 
 
 (i) Gild of Kyllyngholm, Lincolnshire : 
 
 " If a brother or a sister is unlucky enough to lose a beast worth 
 half a mark, every brother and every sister shall give a halfpenny 
 towards getting another beast. 
 
 " If the house of any brother or sister is burnt by mishap, every 
 brother and every sister shall give a halfpenny towards a new house. 
 
 " Moreover, if the house of any brother or sister is broken into by 
 robbers, and goods carried off worth half a mark, every brother and 
 every sister shall give a halfpenny to help him." 
 
 (2) Gild of Palmers, Ludlow : 
 
 " When it happens that any brethren or sisteren of the gild shall 
 have been brought to such want, through theft, fire, shipwreck, fall 
 of a house, or any other mishap, that they have not enough to live on : 
 then once, twice, and thrice, but not a fourth time, as much help shall 
 be given to them, out of the goods of the gild, as the Rector and 
 Stewards, having regard to the deserts of each, and to the means of 
 the gild, shall order ; so that whoever bears the name of this gild shall 
 be upraised again, through the ordinances, goods, and help of his 
 brethren." 
 
 (3) Gild of the Holy Cross, Stratford-upon-Avon: 
 
 " Also, if it happens that any brother or sister has been robbed or 
 has fallen into poverty, then, so long as he bears himself well and 
 rightly towards the brethren and sisteren of the gild, they shall find 
 him in food and clothing and what else he needs." 
 
 n 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Gild of the Blessed Mary, Chesterfield, which provides 
 that : 
 
 If, in the haps of life, heavy loss befalls any brother, whether 
 by fire, by murrain, by robbery, or by any other mishap — so 
 that such loss come not through his own lust, or gluttony, or 
 dice-play, or other folly — each brother shall give him, in relief 
 of his loss, at the first, twopence ; and again, if he needs it, two- 
 pence more ; and yet a third time, if necessary, twopence. 
 
 But though the gild in its capacity of friendly society 
 and social club rendered the greatest assistance to the poor 
 brother or sister who had fallen on evil days, there is much 
 evidence that they were associations of masters rather than 
 of men. We have already indicated, however, that this dis- 
 tinction of classes is hardly apposite for the period of which 
 we are now speaking. At the same time, it is fundamentally 
 wrong to regard the gilds as associations for the protection 
 of the worker. To use the expression found in the return 
 made by the Gild of St Michael on the Hill, Lincoln, the 
 gilds comprised " folk of common and middling rank," and 
 there is much evidence to show that control was exercised 
 by the middle, rather than by the common, classes. 
 
 The Gild Control of Labour 
 
 The journeymen and apprentices were denied the right 
 of combination, as we have seen. They were required to 
 work such hours and at such a wage as the gild thought 
 right and proper. They were placed under the * govern- 
 ance * of their masters. They were not allowed to leave 
 their employment in breach of agreement, and by the ordin- 
 ances of some gilds, such as that of the tailors of Lincoln, 
 no master of the craft was permitted to employ *' a lad or 
 server of another master for one day after he has well known 
 that the lad wrongly left his master, and that they had not 
 parted in a friendly and reasonable manner." In some 
 cases all workmen in a given craft were compelled to enter 
 the gild of the town in which they worked. Thus the 
 Gild of the Tylers of Lincoln provided that : ** No tyler 
 or pointer shall stay in the city unless he enters the gild." 
 
 78 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 Importance of the Gilds 
 
 There can be, however, no doubt that the gilds, as 
 societies for mutual self-help, for the control of trade and 
 of persons engaged in crafts, were throughout the Middle 
 Ages, and even after that era may be regarded as having 
 ended, social necessities. The gilds in the fourteenth 
 century represent one of the most remarkable social 
 developments of the time. Hazlitt calculated that by the 
 reign of Richard II there were upward of forty thousand 
 merchant and livery (craft or social) gilds in England. 
 Their development was extraordinarily rapid, for though 
 some of the social gilds went back to early times, and though 
 the charters of the merchant and livery gilds which have 
 been preserved are sometimes expressed as confirming 
 earlier grants, it is not probable that such grants frequently 
 date before the Conquest. The first distinct reference to 
 a merchant gild is, as Gross pointed out, contained in a 
 charter granted by Robert Fitz-Hamon to the burgesses 
 of Burford, c. 1 08 7-1 107. We scarcely find any other 
 references to the gilds in the Pipe Rolls, except only to the 
 weavers' gild, until the closing years of Henry II. From 
 that time onward, however, the gilds were becoming more 
 and more important and numerous, and frequent references 
 to gilda adulterina are to be found — such gilds being heavily 
 fined for exercising privileges without a charter, which had 
 now become necessary. 
 
 As time went on many of the gilds became wealthy and 
 possessed valuable properties, both real and personal. We 
 find them, as in the case of the Gild of St Nicholas, Wor- 
 cester, founding almshouses and schools, appointing 
 schoolmasters of adequate learning,^ who taught the children 
 
 1 In the case of the gild cited the schoolmaster at the time when Henry 
 VIII's commissioners were inquiring into the affairs of the gild was John 
 Oliver, B.A., who had about a hundred pupils and who received a stipend 
 of ten pounds a year, the equivalent of the wage which the serving-men of 
 the saddlers in London were claiming in the fourteenth century. The 
 commissioners have left it on record that John Oliver was " thirty years of 
 age, well learned, and of honest conversation." 
 
 79 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 of the gildsmen free. A far more famous example of such a 
 gild school has lived on until to-day — the Merchant Taylors*. 
 
 Confiscation 
 
 The wealth of the gilds proved their undoing, for in the 
 reign of Henry VIII, under the Act for the Dissolution 
 of Colleges, many of their foundations were vested in the 
 Crown, this act of confiscation being completed and much 
 extended by an Act of Edward VI, which, in conjunction 
 with the former Act, vested all the manors, lands, tenements, 
 and other hereditaments belonging to the gilds, except such 
 as were trading gilds, in the Crown, who in turn handed 
 such properties to those courtiers who at the moment were 
 most in favour. 
 
 This great blow struck at the private ownership of those 
 of " common and middling rank " terminated the scholastic 
 and benevolent activities of many of the most flourishing 
 of the medieval associations. The London gilds, being 
 trading gilds to a large extent, remained unaffected, and 
 remain to-day examples of institutions that have long 
 outgrown their original purposes. Certain towns, notably 
 Lynn and Coventry, had the confiscated estates returned 
 to them, but in the main the benevolent, religious, and 
 educational work done by the gilds was of necessity at an 
 end. Well might Lever, a contemporary, say in effect to 
 the King, Edward VI, with great boldness and truth : " Now 
 many grammar schools, and much charitable provision for 
 the poor be taken, sold, and made away, to the great slander 
 of you and your laws, to the utter discomfort of the poor, 
 to the grievous offence of the people, to the most miserable 
 drowning of youth in ignorance, and for decay of the 
 Universities." 
 
 In a truncated form, however, the gilds still lived on 
 and continued many of the practices relative to the control 
 and management of craftsmen, which had been for centuries 
 one of their distinguishing features. But as the learned 
 authors of the English Economic History ^ say : 
 
 ^ Edited by Messrs Bland, Brown, and Tawney. 
 80 
 
THE GILDS 
 
 Inside the gilds ... a momentous change was going on. 
 The fifteenth century had seen the rise within gilds of ' yeo- 
 manry ' organizations consisting of journeymen, ... In the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the gilds, at least in the 
 larger towns, represented a wide range of interests, from the 
 mercantile capitalist to the industrial small master, and it was 
 often of such small masters, whose numbers appear to have 
 increased in the sixteenth century, that the ' yeomanry ' then 
 consisted. They tended, however, to be at the mercy of the 
 large capitalists, and occasionally, under the first two Stuarts, 
 who favoured them, they endeavoured to protect themselves by 
 joint-stock enterprise. In the middle of the seventeenth century 
 a reverse movement was taking place. Small masters were becom- 
 ing journeymen, and in London journeymen were engaged under 
 the Commonwealth in active agitation. Their organization was 
 that of an embryo trade union. 
 
 The gild was beginning to be, indeed, something 
 different in kind from what it once had been. Almost 
 from the beginning this form of association, which had 
 commenced as an association of equals, tended to become 
 plutocratic in government. Little by little the tendency 
 became more marked. Protective rules, designed at first 
 to prevent unfair competition, degenerated into monopo- 
 listic regulations. One example we have already glanced 
 at.^ It was not, however, until the sixteenth century that 
 the evil became marked and it began to be apparent that 
 the gilds might, by a misuse of their power, and in some 
 cases did, cause real hardship to the community or to 
 persons not within their membership. When such abuses 
 became general the decline of the gilds was foredoomed. 
 
 ^ See p. 69. 
 
 81 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 A T the commencement of what we may term the 
 / \ gild era, industry, as we have seen, was local 
 X ^and handicraft was entirely domestic. The gild 
 organization was largely responsible for the extension and 
 development of trade, so that by the end of the fourteenth 
 century trade had become international and many industries 
 were highly developed. Knowledge had ceased to be 
 localized. But throughout the medieval period and to 
 a great extent until well into the eighteenth century, 
 industrial work remained domestic. This was so both 
 in England and throughout Europe. Indeed, the structure 
 of industrial society was singularly alike in France, in Italy, 
 the Low Countries, and in England. Those who read 
 Etienne Boileau's Livre des mestiers, a work of the mid- 
 thirteenth century, will get a picture of industrial life 
 which is in almost every particular the same as that which 
 rises before our eyes as we peruse the ordinances and 
 returns of the English gilds. What we have to say, 
 therefore, in the present chapter may be regarded as 
 descriptive of the hierarchy of industry both in England 
 and on the Continent. 
 
 The world of work was divided into three main 
 divisions : the master workers (old French maistres, or 
 mestreSy modern French mattres) ; the journeyman (old 
 French varlets^ vallez^ valles^ or valets) ; the apprentices 
 (old and modern French apprentis). Modern French has 
 no word exactly reproducing the meaning of valets^ for 
 neither ouvrier nor artisan indicates the distinction between 
 the journeyman and his master, for the master was also 
 a workman and an artisan, and was frequently referred to 
 as such. 
 82 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 The Apprentice 
 
 The apprenticeship system was a fundamental part of 
 the gild policy. The gild was a protective organization 
 designed to prevent, above all things, the oppression of its 
 members either by the king or a lord, or by unfair com- 
 petition, or by excessive competition. It gained pro- 
 tection against the first form of oppression by charter, 
 against the second by creating monopoly, and against the 
 third by restricting the number of the persons who might 
 become members. 
 
 It consequently followed that the number of apprentices 
 that might be taken was limited, and that the apprentice- 
 ship agreements were subject to the supervision and con- 
 trol of the gild. In limiting the number of apprentices 
 the gilds had, indeed, another object in view. They 
 earnestly desired, in order to avoid the degradation of 
 their craft, with the financial loss which they were wise 
 enough to see would surely follow from the lessening of 
 its professional status, to prevent bad workmanship, and 
 they believed that the only way to secure good workman- 
 ship was for the beginners to receive proper and adequate 
 tuition from one competent in the * mystery ' of his craft. 
 It was consequently a common practice for the master to 
 be limited in the number of pupils he might receive for 
 training, so that he would not, through the multitude of 
 his apprentices, be unable to supervise the work of each. 
 Out of the loi crafts mentioned in the Livre de mestiers 
 only about 40 permitted the master to take as many 
 apprentices as he pleased. 
 
 It was also felt that a certain number of years should 
 be devoted to the learning of the craft, and this view was 
 taken for two reasons, the first of which was that adequate 
 knowledge required some time to acquire, and the second 
 that it was not desirable for excessive youth to be in 
 competition with older and more responsible wage- 
 earners. 
 
 The period of apprenticeship did not, however, follow 
 
 83 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 according to the difficulty of the art. Further, an 
 apprentice could, so to speak, buy a short apprenticeship, 
 for though as a rule apprenticeship lasted for eight, ten, 
 or even twelve years, it was a common practice to take a 
 pupil who paid a heavy premium for a much shorter 
 period, sometimes for not more than three years. 
 
 In almost every case the son of a freeman of the gild 
 was given the preference over one whose father was not 
 of the craft or not of the gild. The freeman's child could 
 always become an apprentice, frequently without premium ; 
 the stranger's child was charged a premium, usually 
 required to serve for a longer period, and only admitted 
 if the craft was not overcrowded. 
 
 Deeds of Apprenticeship 
 
 The apprenticeship agreement, normally in the form of 
 a deed, was in the common case considered and approved 
 by the gild council before the pupil could be taken. It 
 was often deposited in the common chest of the gild and 
 there remained as conclusive witness of the terms of the 
 bargain. That bargain bound both sides irrevocably. 
 The indentures of apprenticeship printed in English Economic 
 History^ are typical of the kind of obligation imposed on 
 either party. The apprentice enters the household of his 
 master and submits himself to the orders of his master and 
 his master's wife, he contracts to be loyal to that household, 
 to be careful of his master's goods, and to be bound for a 
 given number of years. His master, on the other hand, 
 contracts to find him in food, clothing, shoes, and shelter, 
 to teach him his craft to the best of his ability, to chastise 
 him ' duly ' and to pay him at the end of the term a given 
 sum. 
 
 As we have seen, the deed had frequently to be perused 
 by the gild. Thus the Ordinances of the Gild of the Tailors, 
 Exeter, provides that " every person of the said craft that 
 takes an apprentice shall bring him before the Master and 
 
 ^ Indentures of apprenticeship will be found in the work quoted at 
 pp. 113, 147, 295. 
 
 84 
 
f THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 Wardens, and there have his indenture enrolled, and the 
 Master to pay i2d. for the enrolment; and this to be done 
 within a twelvemonth and a day, or else to lose his freedom 
 of the craft for evermore." Sometimes the apprentice was 
 also required to make some payment to the gild, and perhaps 
 give some entertainment to the gild members to celebrate 
 his entry into the craft. 
 
 State Interference 
 
 Instances of State interference with the rights of persons 
 to become apprentices or to take apprentices are compara- 
 tively rare, but in England, as a consequence of the dearth 
 of labourers in husbandry caused by the Black Death and 
 the subsequent labour legislation, it was found necessary in 
 1388 to provide (12 Ric. II, c. 5) that " he or she, which 
 use to labour at the Plough and Cart, or other Labour or 
 Service of Husbandry till they be of the age of twelve 
 years,^ that from henceforth they shall abide at the same 
 Labour, without being put to any Mystery or Handicraft." 
 It was further provided by the same Act that apprenticeship 
 deeds already entered into in such case were to be deemed 
 void and of no effect. Fourteen years later, by the 
 4 Henry IV, the apprenticing of young labourers to crafts 
 was struck at by the provision that : 
 
 No Man nor Woman, of what Estate or Condition they be, 
 shall put their Son or Daughter of whatsoever age he or she be, 
 to serve as apprentice, to no craft, nor other Labour within any 
 City or Borough in the Realm, except he have Land or Rent to 
 the value of Twenty Shillings by the Year at least. 
 
 Any parent apprenticing his or her child contrary to 
 this statute was liable to be imprisoned for one year and to 
 be fined at mercy ; the person taking the apprentice became 
 liable to a fine of looj. 
 
 The apprentice, having served his term of apprenticeship, 
 
 ^ This ambiguous sentence means that the following restrictions apply 
 to all who had engaged in the before-mentioned labours and had reached 
 the age of twelve. 
 
 85 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 became in due course a journeyman. Until such time, 
 though a member of the gild, he had no voice in the direction 
 of such association. He could not, of course, leave the 
 service of his master, and if he ran away the master could 
 obtain a writ for the delivery to him of his apprentice. 
 
 The Journeyman 
 
 On becoming a journeyman the apprentice became free 
 to work for whom he pleased, except that by statute he 
 might not be able to follow any craft other than his own. 
 If he left his own town he would also suffer many dis- 
 abilities, unless he were received into the craft gild of 
 the place to which he went. As a rule, the gilds accepted 
 such * foreign * members if it appeared that the candidate 
 was well spoken of by his own gild and had left his former 
 master in a friendly way. 
 
 The term of the hiring varied. The Statute of Labourers 
 expressly provided that in the case of labourers in hus- 
 bandry (persons who would not be in any craft) the hiring 
 was to be for a year and that men were not to be employed 
 on day-to-day contracts. Thus arose a custom which 
 continued until comparatively recent years not only in the 
 case of domestic servants and farm labourers, but also in 
 such employments as that of coal-miner and Salter, The 
 journeyman craftsman, on the other hand, was engaged for 
 a day, as the name signiiies,^ though in some cases it would 
 appear that a custom for hiring and payment to be weekly 
 arose, for in the case of carpenters and masons it was enacted 
 by 34 Edw. Ill, c. 9, that in future such artisans should 
 take wages by the day and not by the week. Before a 
 master could hire a journeyman it was often necessary, and 
 always desirable, for him to inquire whether the man had 
 served an apprenticeship to the craft. Such apprenticeship 
 might be served either in that town or in another, but in the 
 latter case the workman might be required to show that the 
 terms of his apprenticeship were such that it would be 
 deemed a worthy apprenticeship in the town in which he 
 1 Journeyman = a day's-work man. 
 
 86 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 sought work. Thus, if by the gild ordinances of town A 
 a girdler had to serve five years and in town B eight years, 
 an apprentice from town A whose time had expired would 
 not be employed in town B. This is another example of the 
 gild's protective rules. If, however, the apprentice re- 
 mained as a journeyman in town A for another three years 
 it is probable that he would be accepted as a competent 
 craftsman in town B. 
 
 The Hiring 
 
 In France, as in England, it was customary for the 
 journeymen to assemble at some given place at a given hour 
 day by day there to be hired by a master for that day. All 
 the members of the craft would be known each to the other, 
 and a principal reason for this public hiring was to prevent 
 the engaging of unskilled men at ' cut ' prices, thus enabling 
 a master to undersell the more loyal members of the gild — 
 for, of course, then as now, the main item in the cost of an 
 article would be the wages paid for its production. It 
 would also follow from public hiring that any attempt either 
 to hire too many or to hire at an improper wage would be 
 defeated ; it would also render covins or rings impossible. 
 
 Normally, however, a master could employ as many 
 journeymen as he chose, for the number of craftsmen was 
 not thereby increased, the distribution of existing craftsmen 
 alone being affected. In some cases, however — e.g., the 
 case of tailors in Exeter — the right to employ was limited 
 unless the master obtained from his gild a licence to employ 
 more than the maximum number (which in the case given 
 was three). 
 
 Sometimes the engagement was not limited to a day, 
 though this was the invariable rule for journeymen properly 
 so called. It might well be, however, that the work 
 required continuity of individual craftsmanship as in the 
 case, e.g.^ of designing, or weaving, or cabinet-making, and 
 a day-to-day contract with public hiring would obviously 
 have exposed the master to the danger of having to engage 
 on such a task a man different from him who had commenced 
 
 87 
 
1 
 
 HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 it. It is consequently found that craftsmen were hired 
 sometimes by the week and occasionally by the year. 
 Frequently these serving-men lived, as did the apprentices, 
 with their master, their wages being reduced by the value 
 of their board and lodgings. In the majority of cases, 
 however, they had their own establishments. 
 
 Hours and Wages 
 
 The ' day ' was a true day — that is to say, it lasted from 
 the rising to the setting of the sun, and consequently varied 
 with the seasons. In those cases where a definite hiring 
 place and time was fixed such time replaced day-break as 
 the hour at which the service commenced, but the hiring 
 times were so fixed that the daily work was not thereby 
 substantially curtailed. 
 
 The wage paid naturally varied considerably with the 
 craft and with the period. Nothing can be more difficult 
 to compare than wages, for although the wages fixed by 
 the 25 Edw. Ill appear to us so low as to be almost 
 incapable of being compared with modern standards, they 
 were in fact not substantially different in value. In those 
 days a master carpenter only received threepence a day 
 and an ordinary carpenter twopence, but we must remember 
 that in 1363 the price of a goose was fixed at fourpence, 
 while a pullet cost but a penny. By that year (1363) the 
 wages of carpenters had been somewhat increased, a master 
 carpenter getting fourpence a day and ordinary carpenters 
 threepence or twopence, " according as they be worth." 
 
 Combinations 
 
 Where the serving-man resided with his master the 
 annual payment made to him was frequently very small. 
 M. Levasseur quotes one case where it was no more than 
 sixty sous,^ a sum having the intrinsic value to-day of 
 thirty-four francs. In the case of the dispute which arose 
 in 1396 between the master saddlers of London and the 
 
 1 The man in question was barman to a wine-merchant. 
 
 88 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 journeymen and serving-men we find the masters alleging 
 that beforetimes they could have hired a serving-man for 
 forty shillings, or five marks, yearly and his board, but that 
 such a man could not then be obtained for less than ten or 
 twelve marks, or even ten pounds yearly. Ten fourteenth- 
 century pounds would equal a very considerable sum to- 
 day, and the masters do not appear to have been entirely 
 unjustified in complaining that such charges were *' to the 
 great deterioration of the trade." 
 
 The case last cited is one of the few in which we have 
 evidence of definite covins on the part of employees to put 
 up wages. In the main it would seem that the masters 
 did not find legislation necessary to protect them against 
 combinations. Such legislation there was, even in 
 this period, but it would appear that it was to the gild 
 ordinances and to the spirit of friendliness or equality 
 which gild fellowship did so much to promote that the 
 masters looked rather than to Parliament. When a 
 grievance was felt it was to the mayor rather than to the 
 king or his council that those aggrieved appealed. 
 
 There was a further reason for this attitude. The 
 journeymen and serving-men, being gild brothers, had a 
 voice in the making of the gild ordinances in many cases, 
 and in the election of the gild officers in all cases. Also 
 they knew that when, by dint of hard work and frugal living, 
 they had saved up enough money, it may be to set up 
 shop, it may be to pay also the charge to king or gild which 
 was sometimes required, they in turn could become em- 
 ployers, enter the gild council, if chosen by their brethren, 
 and look forward to the time when, having amassed 
 wealth, they could occupy the important position of gild 
 warden, or even, indeed, that of mayor or alderman in 
 their borough. Such advancements in position from man 
 to master were frequent and normal. Every master had 
 been a man and an apprentice. Sympathy and the know- 
 ledge that no high dividing wall existed appear to have 
 had their efi^ect in preventing serious and sustained disputes. 
 The civil commotions, such as the Peasants' Rebellion, 
 
 89 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 which occurred were not due to any feeling of antagonism 
 between employer and employed, but were the result of 
 causes entirely extrinsic. 
 
 State Regulation of Wages 
 
 A perusal of the laws passed during the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries — that is, up to the end of Henry VII's 
 reign — shows that the legislature mainly concerned itself 
 with the regulation of the wages of two wide classes of 
 workpeople: (i) labourers in husbandry, and (2) workmen 
 employed in building operations. The control of other, 
 craftsmen was left very largely to the gilds of which they 
 would be members. From time to time, as we shall see, 
 the ' Handicraft People ' are referred to in the statutes, 
 but it is rare to find Parliament attempting to fix their 
 wages ; that was rather left to the justices or to the mayor 
 or bailifFs of the cities and boroughs, or to the gilds. The 
 Statute of Labourers (23 Edw. Ill, c. 5), however, provided 
 that: 
 
 Saddlers, skinners, white-tawers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, 
 carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters, and all other 
 artificers and workmen} shall not take for their labour and 
 workmanship above the sum that was wont to be paid to such 
 persons in the . . . twentieth year [of the reign of Edward III] 
 and other common years next before ... in the place where 
 they shall happen to work ; and if any man take more he shall 
 be committed to the next gaol. 
 
 Two years later, by the Statute of Artificers and Labourers 
 (25 Edw. Ill, St. 2, 1 351), definite maximum wages were 
 established for " labourers in husbandry " and ** workmen 
 of houses." As to other workmen, they were required 
 to be " sworn before the justices to do and use their 
 crafts and offices in the manner they were wont to do." 
 Failure to abide by the ordinance was punishable by fine 
 and imprisonment at the discretion of the justices. Ten 
 years later, however, by 34 Edw. Ill, c. 9, the punishment 
 was reduced to imprisonment without the fine. 
 
 ^ Our italics. 
 90 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 The Justices 
 
 This jurisdiction of the justices was extended by 43 
 Edw. Ill, c. 7, and in 1389 by 13 Ric. II, c. 8, it was 
 enacted that : 
 
 Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other 
 victuals in certain, it is accorded and assented that the Justices 
 of Peace in every county, in two of their Sessions to be holden 
 betwixt the Feast of Easter and St Michael, shall make pro- 
 clamation by their discretion according to the dearth of victuals, 
 how much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen, 
 workmen, and other labourers by the day, as well in harvest as 
 in other times of the year, after their degree, shall take by the day 
 with meat and drink, or without meat and drink, between the 
 two Sessions beforesaid, notwithstanding the statutes thereof 
 heretofore made, and that every man obey such proclamations 
 from time to time as a thing done by statute. And in the right 
 of victuallers it is accorded, that they shall have reasonable gains, 
 according to the discretion and limitation of the said Justices 
 and no more. 
 
 This wide power of fixing maximum wages and maximum 
 prices was exercised by the justices, and later, in virtue of 
 6 Hen. VI, c. 3 (continued by 8 Hen. VI, c. 8), by mayors 
 and bailiffs, for centuries. The practice was continued 
 and extended by the Ehzabethan labour legislation and 
 survived to some extent even into the nineteenth century, 
 though by the middle of the eighteenth century it had 
 become practically obsolete. 
 
 It will, of course, be observed that the justices and others 
 fixed maximum, and not minimum, wages. Thorold 
 Rogers appears, indeed, to have regarded the fixing of 
 wages as a mere device on the part of the legislature and 
 the wealthier classes to grind down labour, and even Sir 
 Frederick Eden considered the attitude of Parliament in 
 this matter disastrous to industry. At the same time, the 
 regulation of wages did create a certain standard of life 
 which could not be degraded by the action of individual 
 employers. There can be little doubt that after the 
 breakdown of the system which occurred in the eighteenth 
 
 91 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 century and at the commencement of the industrial system 
 the workers, rightly or wrongly, came to look upon the 
 ancient system whereby wages were fixed by the justices 
 as a measure of protection against their employers, and 
 one of the things pressed for by the early trade combinations 
 was a return to these old practices. In the early seven- 
 teenth century there was, indeed, a tendency on the part of 
 the justices to make the maxima equivalent to the minima. 
 
 Maximum Wages 
 
 Notwithstanding the discretionary power given to the 
 justices, it appears to have been considered necessary from 
 time to time to standardize as far as possible the wages of 
 the two special classes we have already referred to. This, 
 no doubt, was in order to prevent that migration of labour, 
 struck at by 2 Hen. V, St. i, c. 4, which would naturally 
 take place when it was learnt by the workpeople of county 
 A that the justices of county B or C were more liberal than 
 their own justices. 
 
 These maximum wages naturally varied according to 
 the season of the year, the employment, and the period. 
 The comparative tables on pp. 93 and 94 enable one, 
 however, to judge the comparative values set upon em- 
 ployment and the comparative worth of wages at the 
 periods mentioned. 
 
 In all cases the wages in Table I were, of course, with 
 meat and drink. They were maximum wages, and where, 
 by the custom of the locality, it was the practice to pay 
 less, less was due. 
 
 In 1495 t)y II Hen. VII, c. 22, the wages of the work- 
 men employed in shipbuilding were fixed according to 
 the following scale : 
 
 Master ship carpenter 
 
 . 5(^. with meat and drink or jd. with 
 
 Ship carpenter (or hewer) 
 
 . /^. „ „ 6d. , 
 
 Clincher . 
 
 . Zd. „ „ Sd- , 
 
 Holder . 
 
 . 2d. „ „ ^d. , 
 
 Master caulker . 
 
 . \d. „ „ (>d. , 
 
 ' Mean ' caulker 
 
 . 3d- », » Sd- , 
 
 92 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 The above were summer prices and were reduced by 
 the usual amount in the case of winter work. In the case 
 of a caulker labouring by the tide instead of by the day, it 
 was provided that he should labour " for as long time 
 
 Table I. — Labourers in Husbandry 
 
 
 
 
 Yearly Wage 
 
 
 Type of 
 Workman 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1388 
 
 
 1444 
 
 1495 
 
 Bailiff for hus- 
 
 13/. 4(/.-f clothes 
 
 2 3 x.-|- clothing 
 
 26s. 8^.-1- clothing 
 
 bandry- 
 
 
 
 (5^0 . 
 
 (5^0 
 
 Master hind 
 
 I ox. 
 
 >> 
 
 20J.-]-clothing 
 
 20J.-|-clothing 
 
 Carter 
 
 10/. 
 
 »» 
 
 >» 
 
 
 Shepherd . 
 
 10/, 
 
 >> 
 
 „ 
 
 
 Oxherd 
 
 6s. %d. 
 
 »> 
 
 
 
 Cowherd 
 
 6s. U. 
 
 >> 
 
 
 
 Swineherd, 
 
 6s. 
 
 >> 
 
 
 
 Common servant . 
 
 
 
 I 5x.-)-clothing 
 
 i6s. 8/4- clothing 
 
 of husbandry 
 
 
 
 (3^- 4^0 
 
 (4^0 
 
 Woman labourer . 
 
 6s. 
 
 ?» 
 
 
 
 Dairy woman 
 
 6s. 
 
 »> 
 
 
 
 Woman servant . 
 
 
 
 lox.-fclothing 
 
 iox.-|-clothing 
 (4^0 
 
 Ploughman . 
 
 JS. 
 
 j> 
 
 
 
 Infant under 14 
 
 
 
 6j.-f clothing 
 (3^0 
 
 6s. 8^.-)-clothing 
 {y. or 4J.) 
 
 as he may labour above the water and beneath the water " 
 and that for such period his maximum wage should be 
 fourpence with meat and drink. 
 
 The above wages were fixed not to protect the workers, 
 but to protect the consumers. It should be observed, 
 however, that the legislature was equally careful to fix the 
 price of commodities, so that the small wages paid had a 
 high purchasing power, as may be gathered from the fact 
 that a day's meat and drink was calculated as worth three- 
 
 93 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 halfpence or twopence, while a year's supply of clothing was 
 deemed to be worth anything from three to five shillings. 
 In this connexion it is pertinent to remark that under the 
 sumptuary legislation of Edward Ill's reign the amount 
 
 Table 
 
 II.- 
 
 -Workmen for Houses 
 
 
 Type of 
 
 Daily Wages 
 
 
 
 
 
 Workman 
 
 1351 
 
 1361 
 
 1444 
 
 1495 
 
 Summer 
 
 Winter 
 
 Summerl Winter 
 
 
 
 
 Wagei 
 
 Wage^ 
 
 Wage 1 
 
 Wage » 
 
 
 d. 
 
 d. 
 
 d. 
 
 d. 
 
 d. 
 
 </. 
 
 Master carpenter . 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 4 or 5| 
 
 3 or \\ 
 
 d or \ 
 
 5 ^''3 
 
 Ordinary carpenter 
 
 2 
 
 3 or 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 Master jfreemason . 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 » 
 
 » 
 
 Ordinary mason 
 
 3 
 
 3 or 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mason's servants . 
 
 I* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tilers . 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tiler's knaves 
 
 ^\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Labourers 
 
 
 
 2 or 3I 
 
 i| or 3 
 
 
 
 Rough mason 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 or 4 5 or 3 
 
 Bricklayer 
 
 
 
 
 
 j> » 
 
 Master tiler 
 
 
 
 
 
 » >» 
 
 Plumber 
 
 
 
 
 
 » 1 >» 
 
 Glazier 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Carver 
 
 
 
 
 
 >> 
 
 » 
 
 Joiner 
 
 
 
 
 
 » 
 
 »» 
 
 which the various classes might spend on their clothes 
 was strictly limited. Thus by 37 Edw. Ill, c. 9, it was 
 provided that " people of handicraft and yeomen " were not 
 to wear cloth of a higher price than forty shillings and their 
 wives and daughters were only permitted to wear, so far as 
 furs were concerned, some of the cheapest kinds, viz., lamb, 
 coney, cat, or fox. If, however, the artificers or people 
 of handicraft possessed goods and chattels to the value of 
 
 ^ The lower figure is the wage payable if meat and drink are provided ; 
 the higher figure if meat and drink are not provided. 
 
 94 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 ;^500 they could dress more richly, and if they were worth 
 ;^iooo their apparel might vie with that of an esquire or 
 gentleman ; they might be arrayed in silk and cloth of 
 silver, and their wives wear miniver fur, a fur esteemed 
 only less than ermine or letuse. 
 
 Regulation of Hours of Labour 
 
 The hours of labour were rarely the subject of legislation. 
 By 2 Hen. IV, c. 14 (1402), it was provided that: 
 
 No Labourers, Carpenters, Masons, Tilers, Plaisterers, Daubers, 
 Coverers of Houses, nor none other Labourers, shall take any Hire 
 for the Holy days [holidays], nor for the Evens of Feasts, where 
 they do not labour but till the hour of Noon, but only for the half- 
 day. 
 
 And, as we have seen, the period of work of a caulker 
 labouring by the tide was laid down by an Act of Henry 
 VII's reign. The most elaborate rules relative to hours 
 are to be found, however, in another section of the 
 1 1 Hen. VII, c. 22, which enacts as follows : 
 
 Whereas divers artificers and labourers retained to work and 
 serve waste much part of the day and deserve not their wages, 
 sometime in late coming unto their work, early departing there- 
 from, long sitting at their breakfast, at their dinner and nonemete, 
 and long time of sleeping at afternoon ... it is therefore 
 established, enacted, and ordained . . . that every artificer and 
 labourer be at his work between the middle of the month of 
 March and the middle of the month of September by five of the 
 clock in the morning, and that he have but half an hour for 
 his breakfast, and an hour and a half for his dinner at such time 
 as he hath season for sleep to him appointed by this statute, and 
 at such time as is herein appointed that he shall not sleep then 
 he to have but an hour for his dinner and half an hour for his 
 nonemete ; and that he depart not from his work between the 
 middle of the said months of March and September till between 
 seven and eight of the clock in the evening. 
 
 The statute proceeds to say that in winter-time the day's 
 work shall be from the " springing of the day " till nightfall. 
 
 95 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 These provisions, so far as they enacted that a day's work 
 should be substantially from dawn to dusk, were in accord- 
 ance, as we have seen, with long-established practice. 
 The statute, however, appears to have been unpopular and 
 was repealed in 1496 by 12 Hen. VII, c. 3. 
 
 Migration 
 
 We have already indicated that one of the reasons for 
 the standardization of wages was probably to be found in 
 the fact that wide divergencies of wages in various localities, 
 due to the greater harshness of some justices in some 
 districts, would be liable to cause wholesale migrations of 
 labour, and this it was manifestly the policy of the State to 
 prevent if possible. Other means to this end, besides the 
 standardization of wages, were from time to time adopted. 
 Thus, by the Statute of Labourers, a workman, " not being 
 in merchandize nor exercising any craft," might be 
 required to serve such master as needed him, and masters 
 were not permitted to * need * an excessive number. By 
 34 Edw. Ill, c. 9, fugitive labourers or artificers were 
 liable to be outlawed, and, when caught, burned in the fore- 
 head with the letter ' F ' (Fauxine == falsity), while by 
 2 Hen. V, St. I, c. 4, the moving of labourers from county to 
 county was made a matter of extreme difficulty. Thirteen 
 years later (1427) the justices, mayors, and bailiffs were 
 given power to grant writs of capias for the capture of 
 fugitive servants, labourers, and workmen. By 23 Hen. VI, 
 servants in husbandry purposing to leave their masters were 
 required to engage with a new one and to give proper 
 warning to their employer. The purpose of this enact- 
 ment appears to have been to require the servant to give 
 adequate notice, but at the same time to get a new master 
 before so giving notice, in order not to run the risk of being 
 out of employment. 
 
 The Master 
 
 These restrictions on movement affected, however, only 
 the labourers in husbandry and workers in houses. The 
 
 96 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 craftsman could move about freely, subject to such restric- 
 tions as the gilds might impose. 
 
 The change from workman to master, though it freed 
 the individual from many of the above checks upon his 
 liberty and left him free to earn such sums as might befall, 
 marked no great change in his status. As Levasseur 
 expressed it, ** Le mot ouvrier s'appliquait d'ordinaire k 
 quiconque ouvrait, faisait ouvrage, maitre ou valet." ^ 
 The master still continued at bench or loom, but he was 
 now the employer and not the employed. 
 
 It depended to some extent on the period, on the country, 
 on the district, and on local ordinances or rules, as to the 
 steps which had to be taken before a workman, a varlet, 
 could become a master. Usually the privilege had to be 
 purchased either from the king or royal officer, or from the 
 lord of the manor, or from a gild, but in the later period it 
 became common for the man merely to pay a small sum to 
 his gild and then to open shop, thus declaring to the world 
 that he was trading on his own account. 
 
 As a rule, the master workman had but few employees. 
 As we have seen, the number of his apprentices was usually 
 limited, and though in the normal case he could employ as 
 many workmen as he chose, in fact the nature of industry 
 itself in that age imposed a strict limit to the number of 
 persons who could be profitably employed. Many masters, 
 indeed, worked alone or with but one apprentice, for the 
 word * master ' by no means of necessity connoted the 
 existence of an employee. Manufacture was still in a 
 domestic state. We have the tiny shop where the finished 
 goods were exposed for sale, the back room where the work 
 was done. The atelier was rarely larger than a modern 
 kitchen. The mechanism of manufacture was of the 
 simplest sort. The grand trade, the export market, inter- 
 national business, the work in gross — this was all in the 
 hands of the merchants, members of merchant gilds, who, 
 with the money-changers and bankers, so largely controlled 
 the administration not only of medieval trade, but also of the 
 1 Histoire des classes ouvriires avant 1 789. 
 
 G 97 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 medieval city and borough. The merchant gilds and the 
 craft gilds were sharply divided the one from the other in 
 the generality of cases. The division was almost the same 
 as that which exists to-day between the wholesale and retail 
 trader. In those times there were no wholesale manu- 
 facturers. 
 
 Trade Localities 
 
 But though there was nothing that could be called 
 wholesale manufacture, it is clear that in England, in France, 
 and in the Low Countries industries tended to segregate. 
 That is to say, persons following the same kind of work, 
 or the same kind of trade, would follow their occupation in 
 the same locality. Sometimes, it might be, a particular 
 street or a particular part of the town was devoted to a 
 special branch of industry; sometimes a whole community 
 or city or borough would, for the most part, be con- 
 cerned with a particular manufacture. Thus Ypres early 
 specialized in weaving, Dinant in brass-work. In London 
 such places as Poultry, Cornhill, and Lombard Street are 
 relics of the days when the poulterers, the corn-merchants, 
 and the Lombard money-changers carried on their trade in 
 these localities.^ Apart altogether from the natural con- 
 gregation of persons engaged in a particular trade, due to 
 the establishment at a given point of a market for such trade, 
 it is well known that trades commonly grouped themselves. 
 In 1292, in the Rue Saint-Denis, Paris, there were no less 
 than twenty-six saddlers, and in the Rue des Petits-Champs 
 there were seventeen curriers. 
 
 ^ The Liber Albus mentions among other markets the following : 
 " Poultry : Strange poulterers to sell at Leadenhall save those who enter 
 by Newgate or Aldersgate, these to sell upon the pavement before the Friars 
 Minors at the fountain there. Com : Those bringing corn from Cambridge, 
 Huntingdon, Bedford, and those who come by way of Ware to sell at the 
 pavement market at Gracechurch. Those coming from the West, as from 
 Barnet, to sell at the pavement market before the Friars Minors in Newgate. 
 Small ware : These to be regrated only in the streets of Chepe [Cheapside] 
 and Cornhill between the kennels, and no markets to be held on fair days 
 for pots, pans, and other utensils except at Cornhill." 
 
 98 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 Such congregation of trades by districts would probably 
 arise out of convenience, for the masters would all have to 
 repair to the same place to hire their workmen and to 
 purchase their material.^ In days of few and bad com- 
 munications it would manifestly be for the benefit of all 
 concerned — the merchant, the master workman, and the 
 journeyman — for the employers in a given trade to be near 
 together. 
 
 The elevation to mastership gave the individual a 
 larger voice in the direction of gild policy, but it subjected 
 him also to the many obligations imposed by both royal 
 and gild ordinances. He had to keep up the standard 
 of workmanship, see that his measures and weights were 
 true, that his mark was on his goods, and that such goods 
 were of proper quality and size. The Liber Albus provides 
 the following punishments for the dishonest craftsmen : 
 (i) the pillory (or collistrigium)\ (2) forfeiture of goods 
 condemned; (3) fine or imprisonment; (4) excommuning. 
 We have cases where a furrier who mixed new with old 
 furs and sold the resulting garment as new was sentenced 
 to the pillory ; where a girdler who put ' false ' girdles on 
 the market had them condemned and burnt; where a 
 baker for baking bread not according to the assize was 
 " drawn upon a hurdle from the gildhall to his own house, 
 through the great streets where there may be most people 
 assembled, and through the midst of the great streets 
 that are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his 
 neck." Fines were commonly imposed by the gild 
 ordinances and were frequently collected, but though the 
 punishment of excommuning, or driving from the brother- 
 hood, was also commonly threatened, it would not seem 
 often to have been resorted to ; it was, indeed, the most 
 severe of all the social punishments. 
 
 ^ Thus in England in 1548 it was enacted that : " It shall be lawful for 
 all manner of shoemakers, coblers, sadlers, girdlers, badgemakers, and all 
 other artificers using leathers in their art, to buy all kind of tanned leather, 
 ... at Leaden Hall in London, upon every Monday in the year, though 
 neither the buyer nor seller be free of the City of London." 
 
 99 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Tudor Legislation 
 
 In England under the Tudors, as in France during the 
 seventeenth century, a new movement became apparent, 
 or, rather, perhaps we should say that the occasional acts 
 of earlier centuries became consolidated into a system. 
 As we shall see, the latter half of the sixteenth century 
 was, in England, a hard time for the poor. Many tens 
 of thousands of peasants were driven from the land. The 
 wages of the craftsmen remained almost stationary; the 
 price of commodities greatly increased. The textile 
 workers spread into the rural districts, while the agri- 
 cultural labourer was compelled to find work in the towns, 
 or, more frequently, was driven to beg his way to the 
 gallows. The development of the textile industries 
 b taught in to some small extent a capitalistic system, and 
 with that system arose the problem of the living wage in 
 its modern form. Poverty became a general evil. Vaga- 
 bondage presented the Government with some of its most 
 serious cares. How the Tudors approached the question of 
 the poor we shall consider in the following chapter; how 
 they tackled the problems of employment we will now 
 shortly describe. 
 
 The reign of Henry VIII is not notable for any wide 
 departure from earlier practice. We have an elaborate 
 Act, cast in the customary form, fixing wages for labourers 
 in husbandry, builders of houses and of ships,^ and there 
 is evidence that the State was preparing to replace the gild 
 control with some form of State regulation. There is 
 
 ^ The 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (i 514-15), fixed the following maxima 
 among others : bailiffs of husbandry, 26/. %d. and clothing or i^s. ; chief 
 hind as a carter or shepherd, 2 2 J. and clothing or 5/. ; common servant of 
 husbandry, 26/. %d. and clothing or \s. ; woman servant, 10/. and clothing 
 or \s. ; child under fourteen, 6;. %d. and clothing or 4/. per year. Free- 
 mason, master carpenter, rough mason, bricklayer, master tiler, plumber, 
 glazier, carver or joiner, per day, 6d.-\d. summer, ^d.-^d. winter, or if 
 in charge of six men, jd.-^^d., the higher wage being without meat and 
 drink, the lower with meat and drink. 
 
 100 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 but little evidence of any desire on the part of the Govern- 
 ment either to assist or to repress the people. 
 
 The general trend of legislation in the reign of Edward VI 
 would appear, on the other hand, to have been repressive. 
 Several trades were regulated in a manner not dissimilar 
 to that earUer adopted by the gilds, and such Acts as those 
 dealing with coryers and shoemakers, tanners, steel- 
 forgers, weavers, and maltsters follow an ancient model. 
 In matters relating to labour the Acts are harsh. One 
 that enslaved the out-of-work we have adverted to, another 
 (2 and 3 Edw. VI, c. 15) which dealt with " conspiracies 
 by artificers " calls for comment. 
 
 For a season there was indeed a time in which reaction 
 struggled for the mastery. As we have seen, the 
 I Edw. VI, c. 3, actually enslaved idle persons who were 
 unable to find suitable work, and although that Act was 
 soon repealed, William Cecil in 1559 submitted proposals 
 to Parliament advising its re-enactment with additions. In 
 the same proposals it was advised that earlier repressive 
 Acts should be passed so that, " by the hands of the 
 masters, servants may be reduced to obedience." 
 
 Act against Combinations 
 
 This Act, having recited that 
 
 Forasmuch as of late days divers sellers of victuals, not contented 
 with moderate and reasonable gain, be minding to have and to 
 take for their victuals so much as list them, have conspired and 
 covenanted together to sell their victuals at unreasonable prices ; 
 and likewise artificers, handicraft men, and labourers have made 
 confederacies and promises and have sworn mutual oaths not 
 only that they should not meddle one with another's work, and 
 perform and finish that which another hath begun, but also to 
 constitute and appoint how much work they should do in a day 
 and what hours and times they should work, contrary to the 
 Laws and Statutes of this Realm, to the great hurt and impoverish- 
 ment of the King's Majesty's subjects, 
 
 proceeded to enact that covenants and conspiracies not 
 to sell either commodities or labour save at agreed figures 
 
 lOI 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 were an offence, for which the offender was liable to a fine, 
 and, on the third conviction, to the pillory, loss of an ear, 
 and infamy. It is an admirable example of the medieval 
 practice of legislating solely in the interest of the consumer. 
 The Act permitted the various kinds of workmen 
 employed in housebuilding to work freely in corporate 
 towns though not freemen of such towns. 
 
 Quarterly Contracts Compulsory 
 
 By the 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 22, the State, once more 
 endeavouring to suppress the out-of-work and to cope 
 with the vagabonds that were spreading in increasing 
 numbers throughout the land, endeavoured to prevent 
 idleness by making the contract of service of the journey- 
 men in numerous crafts of a minimum length of three 
 months. It had been complained that : 
 
 Many young folk and servants of sundry occupations being 
 once out of their apprenticeship or their yearly retained service 
 will not commonly be retained in service by the year, nor labour 
 in their service, occupation, or craft, . . . but at their liberty by 
 the day, week, or otherwise work by grete, to the intent they will 
 live idly and at their pleasure flee and resort from place to place, 
 whereof ensueth more inconveniences than can be at this present 
 expressed and declared. 
 
 It was consequently provided that certain types of 
 journeymen, i.e., clothmakers, fullers, shearmen, weavers, 
 tailors, and shoemakers, should serve by the quarter, and 
 that certain other classes of workpeople, i.e., unmarried 
 servants in husbandry and bargemen, should serve by the 
 year at least. It was further provided that every master 
 in the skilled crafts above mentioned having three 
 apprentices should employ one journeyman at least and 
 a further journeyman for every additional apprentice 
 received. 
 
 It was probably with a view to reducing the number 
 of tramps then infesting the roads of England that the 
 Act of 1552, ** for tinkers and pedlars," required to be 
 licensed all pedlars, tinkers, and petty chapmen who 
 102 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 shall wander or go from one town to another or from place to 
 place, out of the town, parish, or village where such persons shall 
 dwell, and sell pins, points, laces, gloves, knives, glasses, tapes, 
 or any such kinds of wares whatsoever, or gather rabbit-skins or 
 such like things, or use or exercise the trade or occupation of a 
 tinker. 
 
 First Signs of a Factory System 
 
 It is in the following reign that an Act appears upon 
 the Statute Book drafted in a form which suggests that 
 already some of the problems connected with the grouping 
 of labour under one master, the aggregation of large 
 numbers of looms by one employer, and the use of unskilled 
 labour to displace the trained hands, were beginning to 
 appear. By the " Act touching weavers " (2 and 3 
 P. and M., c. 11) we are informed that the wealthier 
 clothiers " do many ways oppress [their workpeople], 
 some by setting up and keeping in their houses divers 
 looms, and keeping and maintaining journeymen and 
 persons unskilful, to the decay of a great number of 
 artificers which were brought up in the said science of 
 weaving, their families, and households." The Act, in 
 order to protect the small man and the skilled weaver, 
 limited the number of looms and apprentices which any 
 man might have and declared that no one should " set 
 up the art or mistery of weaving " unless he was a skilled 
 person and had served an apprenticeship of at least seven 
 years. 
 
 In Elizabeth the people had a monarch not unmindful 
 of their welfare, and in her reign serious efforts were made 
 to establish a reasonable standard of life for the working 
 classes. The mode followed was the State regulation of 
 industry. 
 
 At this period there can be no doubt that the masses 
 were in need of protection. We see from the case of the 
 spinsters of Sudbury that by 1630 the employers of labour 
 throughout the country were combining to force down 
 the wages of their operatives, and as early as 1555 the 
 
 103 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 '* Act touching weavers " above referred to shows that 
 in the textile industry masters were beginning to be a 
 class apart from their employees, were owning many looms, 
 and were employing many hands. Between those years 
 the value of money vastly fluctuated and the workpeople 
 were threatened with a deplorable reduction in their 
 standard of living. Even in 1623, after the most violent 
 of these fluctuations had abated, we find the textile workers 
 of Wiltshire complaining that most of those who worked 
 at the making of woollen cloth were not able by their 
 diligent labours to get their livings, by reason that their 
 employers made them work extremely hard and reduced 
 their wages to what they pleased. The workers found 
 refuge in a petition to the justices. 
 
 The justices had by that date been given the widest 
 powers of investigating and controlling wages in all 
 industries. This duty had, of course, been imposed upon 
 the justices in certain cases many years before, but by the 
 Statute of Artificers, Labourers, Servants in Husbandry, 
 and Apprentices, passed in 1563, all the early laws were 
 amended and consolidated and the justices* powers con- 
 siderably augmented. 
 
 The Statute of Artificers or Apprentices 
 
 This famous statute, sometimes referred to as the 
 Statute of Artificers, and sometimes as the Statute of 
 Apprentices, was a serious and worthy attempt to put the 
 industrial house in order. Its ruling purpose is declared 
 in the preamble, and is expressed in the hope " that it 
 will come to pass that the same law, being duly executed, 
 should banish idleness, advance husbandry, and yield unto 
 the hired person both in the time of scarcity and in the time 
 of plenty a convenient proportion of wages." 
 
 The statute provided generally, and subject in many 
 instances to important provisos which we cannot stay to 
 consider, as follows : 
 
 Married persons under thirty, not being worth ten pounds, 
 nor holding land of the yearly value of forty shillings, and 
 104 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 unmarried women between the ages of twelve and forty, 
 could be required to serve, the former class at any trade 
 in which they had been trained, the latter in such work 
 as the justices considered meet. Employers, in the case 
 of numerous trades enumerated, were required in future 
 to engage their workpeople for a year, though in other 
 trades the old daily or weekly contracts still continued. 
 Persons who were not trained in any of the crafts nor 
 engaged in defined work (which included " haunting the 
 seas " and mining) and who were neither gentlemen born 
 nor scholars of a university or school were required to 
 serve in husbandry. 
 
 Neither the man nor the master was permitted to break 
 the contract of service. The moving about from district 
 to district, or from town to town, without testimonials was 
 rendered difficult, though it is evident from the proposals 
 of 1572 that the sections relating to testimonials were in 
 practice often evaded. Hours were fixed, and elaborate 
 machinery was devised for the fixing of wages in all trades. 
 
 Hours of Labour 
 
 By this statute it was provided that : 
 
 All artificers and labourers being hired for wages by the day 
 or week shall between the middle of the months of March and 
 September be at their work at or before five of the clock in the 
 morning, and continue at work until between seven and eight 
 of the clock at night, except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner, 
 or drinking, the w^hich times at the most shall not exceed above 
 two and a half hours in the day. 
 
 The old true day from sunrise to sunset was re- 
 established for the winter-time, and a clause was added 
 which penalized the worker who absented himself to the 
 extent of a penny for every hour's absence. 
 
 Wages 
 
 The justices of the peace of the shires, the sheriffs of 
 the counties, the mayors, bailiffs, or other head officers 
 of the towns, were required at the Easter sessions to call 
 
 105 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 together ** such discreet and grave persons of the said 
 county or city as they shall think meet," with a view to 
 conferring together " respecting the plenty or scarcity of 
 the time and other circumstances necessary to be con- 
 sidered," and should thereupon rate the wages of all 
 labourers, servants, workmen, or artificers as they thought 
 
 Table I. — Labourers in Husbandry 
 
 Type of Workman 
 
 Yearly Wage 
 
 BaiHff for husbandry 
 
 Chief hind \ 
 Chief carter i 
 Chief shepherd (lOOO 
 
 sheep or over) 
 Shepherd (600 sheep) . 
 
 Common shepherd (over 
 
 21 years) 
 Shepherds (16-21 years) 
 Common servant of hus- 
 bandry over 21 or 
 between 1 6-2 1 years 
 Chief woman servant , 
 Women servants over 16 
 years of age 
 
 5 3 J. 4(/, and clothes or 63/. 4^. without 
 free clothes, 
 
 40J. and clothes or 48/. without free clothes. 
 
 40J. and clothes or 48/. without free clothes, 
 
 and pasture for feeding 20 sheep. 
 2 3 J. 3^. and clothes or 39J. 3^. without free 
 
 clothes, and pasture for feeding 10 
 
 sheep. 
 33J. 4<2'. and clothes or 39/. 11^. without 
 
 free clothes. 
 20s. and clothes or 25/. without free clothes. 
 As in the case of a common shepherd. 
 
 3 ox. and clothes or 36^. without free clothes. 
 20s. and clothes or 25s. without free clothes. 
 
 should be rated. Such rates were to be fixed with meat 
 and drink and without meat and drink. Special pro- 
 visions were made for harvest-time, and full publicity had 
 to be made of the rates thus fixed. 
 
 Rates were fixed sometimes by the piece, sometimes 
 by the day, the week, the month, or the year. Price lists 
 were usually drawn up by the employers for the considera- 
 tion of the justices. The wages of workers in husbandry 
 were fixed by the year with special clauses to meet the case 
 of the harvest workers and the piece-workers. The wages 
 106 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 in the case of artificers appear to have been generally paid 
 in two scales, one with meat and drink, the other without. 
 
 It may be of interest if we reproduce the wages (Tables 
 I and II) fixed in 1604 in Wiltshire for the various employ- 
 ments mentioned in the tables given on pages 93 and 94. 
 
 It will be observed from Table I how important the 
 
 Table II. — Workmen or Artificers 
 
 Type of Workman 
 
 Daily Wage 
 
 Summer Wage '■ 
 
 Winter Wage ^ 
 
 Master carpenter . 
 
 Ordinary carpenter 
 
 Master freemason . 
 
 Ordinary mason . 
 
 Mason's servants (labourers) . 
 
 Tilers .... 
 
 Tiler's knaves 
 
 Labourers .... 
 
 Rough mason (master) . 
 
 Rough mason (ordinary) 
 
 Bricklayer (master) 
 
 Bricklayer (ordinary) 
 
 Master tiler .... 
 
 Plumber • 
 
 Glazier 
 
 Carver [ ' 
 
 Joiner ) 
 
 d. 
 6-1 1 
 
 4-7 
 6-1 1 
 
 4-7 
 
 3-7 
 
 4-8 
 
 Not mentioned 
 
 3-7 
 6-1 1 
 
 4-7 
 6-1 1 
 
 4-7, 
 Not mentioned 
 
 As in the case of a 
 carpenter 
 
 d. 
 
 5-10 
 
 -7 
 5-10 
 
 3-7 
 2-5 
 3-7 
 
 2-5 
 5-10 
 
 3-7 
 5-10 
 
 3-7 
 
 shepherd had become, while the justices no longer found 
 it necessary to assess the wages of the oxherd, cowherd, 
 or swineherd who fell into the general rank of common 
 servants in husbandry. 
 
 We now get, however, a vast increase in the number of 
 trades for which the wages were fixed. In the assessment 
 from which the details of Tables I and II are extracted we 
 
 ^ The lower price is with meat and drink, the higher without meat and 
 drink. 
 
 107 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 find, in addition to particulars relating to the wages paid to 
 the various kinds of labourers employed in the building trade, 
 a wage varying from forty shillings a year in the case of the 
 * chiefest ' workmen to twenty-six and eightpence in the 
 case of * common workmen * being fixed as the wage to be 
 paid to the following : shoemaker, currier, woollen weaver, 
 tinker, fuller, shearman, clothworker, hosier, tailor, baker, 
 glover, girdler, spinner, capper, hatter, felt-maker, bowyer, 
 fletcher, arrowhead-maker, butcher, fishmonger, pewterer, 
 cutler, smith, saddler, furrier or skinner, parchment-maker, 
 cooper, earthen-potmaker, turner. 
 
 These were maximum rates as heretofore. But a ten- 
 dency now became apparent in some districts for the 
 justices to insist upon the rate fixed being paid. The 
 compilers of the English Economic History^ from which we 
 have frequently quoted, have laid proper stress upon the 
 I Jac. I, c. 6, which empowered justices to fix minimum rates. 
 That Act, after reciting that the Statute of Apprentices 
 
 hath not, according to the true meaning thereof, been duly 
 put in execution, whereby the rates of wages for poor artificers, 
 labourers, and other persons whose wages were meant to be rated 
 by the said Act, have not been rated and proportioned according 
 to the plenty, scarcity, necessity, and respect of the time, which 
 was politically intended by the said Act, 
 
 proceeded to enact, inter alia^ that : 
 
 If any clothier or other shall refuse to obey the said order, rate, 
 or assessment of wages as aforesaid, and shall not pay so much or 
 so great wages to their weavers, spinsters, workmen, or work- 
 women as shall be so set down, rated, and appointed, 
 
 then such person was guilty of an offence and became 
 liable to pay to the person aggrieved ten shillings for each 
 such offence. 
 
 Apprentices 
 
 The Statute of Apprentices, with certain provisions in 
 favour of the liberties of London and Norwich, made it 
 necessary for every craftsman in future to have been an 
 apprentice for seven years at least; the non-apprenticed 
 io8 
 
THE MASTER WORKER 
 
 journeyman, except those already employed, might not In 
 future be engaged by anyone unless he had served the due 
 term as apprentice. Apprenticeship was therefore made 
 essential. 
 
 But certain classes were excluded from apprenticeship 
 to certain trades. Thus no one could become apprentice 
 to " a merchant trafficking into any parts beyond the seas, 
 mercer, draper, goldsmith, ironmonger, embroiderer, or 
 clothier that doth put cloth to making and sale " unless he 
 was the son of the master or of a person holding an estate 
 of inheritance worth at least forty shillings, or, in certain 
 cases, £2 ^ year. In the following trades, however, no 
 property qualification was required : smiths, wheelwrights, 
 ploughwrights, millwrights, carpenters, rough masons, 
 plasterers, sawyers, lime-burners, brick-makers, bricklayers, 
 tilers, slaters, healyers,^ tile-makers, linen-weavers, turners, 
 coopers, millers, earthen potters, woollen weavers weaving 
 housewives' or household cloth only and none other, cloth 
 fullers, sometimes called tuckers or walkers, burners of ore 
 and wood ashes, thatchers or shinglers. 
 
 It was rendered difficult, and in some cases impossible, 
 for the labourer in husbandry or his child to become 
 apprentice to a craftsman, and in the cities and corporate 
 towns it would appear that only the sons of freemen could 
 be apprenticed, for by Section xix it is provided that : 
 
 Every person being an householder and twenty-four years old 
 at the least, dwelling in any city or town corporate and exercising 
 any art, mystery, or manual occupation there, may . . , retain 
 the son of any freeman not occupying husbandry nor being a 
 labourer and inhabiting in the same or in any other city or town 
 incorporate, to be bound as an apprentice after the custom and 
 order of the City of London for seven years at the least, so as 
 the term of such apprentice do not expire afore such apprentice 
 shall be of the age of twenty-four years at the least. 
 
 Craftsmen in market towns which were neither cities 
 nor towns incorporate could apprentice anyone except the 
 
 ^ The work of the healyer, called healing, was similar to tiling and 
 slating. 
 
 109 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 children of persons occupying husbandry or labourers and 
 subject to the property qualifications mentioned above. 
 
 It will be apparent that though the purposes of the Act 
 were good the clauses excluding the non-apprenticed man 
 from industry, and at the same time excluding certain 
 classes from apprenticeship to the crafts, must have operated 
 with extreme harshness. They, indeed, compelled the 
 growth of that very class, the vagabond, that Tudor legis- 
 lation so constantly considered. It must not be forgotten 
 that throughout the sixteenth century a revolution in the 
 science and practice of agriculture was taking place. 
 Tillage was giving ground before the assaults of the sheep- 
 farmers ; the smaller copyhold tenants were in many dis- 
 tricts being driven from the land. We naturally ask 
 ourselves to what trade or employment could these people 
 turn ? To this question there appears to be no answer, 
 unless it be that they were driven back on to the parish 
 or to tillage, there to work as labourers. As regards these 
 people, there can be no doubt that the Statute of Artificers 
 was designed to encourage tillage; there can also be no 
 doubt that it increased the number of the destitute, the 
 hopeless, and the vagabond. At the same time, it protected 
 and benefited the craftsman and the whole class of skilled 
 workmen. It is, indeed, an excellent example of State 
 interference aiding one group of men at the expense of 
 another, and, as always, it was upon the class least able to 
 bear burdens that the burden fell. 
 
 IIO 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 POVERTY 
 
 THE Tudor period was for England a period of 
 serious industrial unrest, due, as such unrest 
 generally is, to deep causes inducing grievances 
 of wrong. The sixteenth century saw, indeed, a change, 
 not as impressive or as fundamental as that which followed 
 upon the invention of mechanical power, but of great 
 importance and far-reaching effect. It was a change 
 concerned rather with the land and with the land-worker 
 than with the craftsmen of the towns, but it had its 
 repercussion upon the urban worker also. 
 
 The change of which we now speak resulted in the 
 enclosing of thousands of acres of land, in the throwing 
 out of employment of many labourers in husbandry, in 
 the diverting of labour from countryside to town. It 
 caused the competition between craftsmen to become more 
 acute. These agrarian changes were at the same time 
 accompanied by an economic revolution due mainly to the 
 discovery of the New World and its valuable silver mines, 
 with the resulting depreciation of the currency, or, to express 
 the same fact in other terms, increase in the cost of living. 
 This economic revolution, it is true, took place rather at 
 the end of the period, while the agrarian changes were 
 being effected throughout the century, but the two causes 
 together created the new problem which it was the purpose 
 of the Poor Law of Elizabeth's reign to solve, a problem 
 which was not, and perhaps cannot be, solved by mere 
 legislation, and which has remained with us to the pre- 
 sent day — the problem of how to prevent working people 
 falling into unmerited indigence. 
 
 in 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The Pauper 
 
 Poverty has existed, we have no doubt, from the earliest 
 years of the world's history. The Able have always been 
 capable of repressing the Unable, but the problem of 
 unmerited and excessive poverty is a comparatively modern 
 one. The serf, poor though he was, had his land and 
 continuity of employment. If he worked well he was 
 secure from actual starvation. So long as he obeyed he 
 was protected. But with the divorce of the worker from 
 the land the struggle for a tolerable existence changed 
 both in intensity and in direction. The worker was, as it 
 were, driven into the world with no fortress behind him 
 into which to retreat should the battle go unfavourably. 
 It is not to be wondered at that not infrequently he fell 
 wounded by the wayside, and then for him and his children 
 nothing remained but vagrancy or death, until at last a 
 benignant State opened the doors of the workhouse — 
 perhaps the most dreaded and hated institution this country 
 has ever produced. 
 
 We now speak, it is to be understood, rather of the 
 peasant than of the craftsman, though to a limited extent 
 our remarks also apply to the urban worker. The crafts- 
 man had, however, his gilds and, later, his fraternities or 
 corporations, which were able, to some extent, to succour 
 him should he fall on evil days. He was to a con- 
 siderable degree protected by the State. He had skill. 
 The industrialism which he served, and of which he was 
 the life-blood, was a living and growing organism. As a 
 consequence his condition, until the whole future of that 
 organism was destroyed by the introduction of mechanical 
 power, was tolerable and in many ways superior to that 
 of the peasant. 
 
 Agrarian Changes 
 
 For convenience we may perhaps date the agrarian 
 changes of which we are now speaking from the Black 
 Death, though we have little doubt it would have occurred 
 112 
 
POVERTY 
 
 had there been no such widespread pestilence. The Statute 
 of Merton, a statute passed more than a hundred years before 
 that visitation, bears witness that even then the first steps 
 in the change were being taken and the lords were com- 
 mencing to enclose the wastes. The Black Death, how- 
 ever, hastened matters. The dearth of labour which for 
 many years after was felt in all departments of industry 
 bore with special hardness upon the industry of agri- 
 culture. The landowner looked with longing upon the 
 old days of servile services. Those days were past, but 
 by statute it was sought to place labour once more and to 
 some extent at the command of the employer. Even so, 
 however, there was not enough labour available. The 
 landowner cut the Gordian knot by taking advantage of 
 the prosperous condition of the English wool industry 
 and turned his land from arable to pasture. The peasant 
 looked also with eagerness toward the comparatively new 
 class of the artisans and aimed at making his children 
 craftsmen rather than agriculturists. Again statute re- 
 pressed the desires of the peasant, but statute has never 
 been able to oppose successfully or for long popular 
 aspirations. The trek of the land-worker cityward grew in 
 volume; the dearth of agricultural labour did not abate; 
 the acreage under pasture steadily increased. 
 
 Meanwhile another cause contributing to the final re- 
 sult was beginning to assume importance. Trade was 
 flourishing and many fortunes were being made. Civil 
 war had gravely reduced the numbers, the power, and the 
 wealth of the old aristocracy of birth based on land-holding. 
 A new aristocracy of wealth was arising and was becoming 
 implanted in all our shires and counties. Some of the 
 new landowners of substance were men of the merchant 
 class who had made a fortune and had then turned, as so 
 many men did and do, to the land whereon to enjoy ** the 
 earth and the fulness thereof"; others had arrived at 
 their status of large landowners in a different manner. 
 
 In order to understand the rise of this second class — 
 the large working farmer, generally a stock-breeder 
 
 H 113 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 or farmer, or person working in convertible husbandry 
 — we must consider once again the feudal system of land- 
 holding. 
 
 The Manor 
 
 As we have already remarked, the unit of land-holding 
 was commonly the manor, and within the manor there were 
 always to be found the demesne lands, the home farm of 
 
 the lord ; the holdings of the sub-tenants, some of which 
 were in villeinage and some in freehold; the common 
 fields ; the waste. 
 
 The way in which a manor was divided up is shown 
 in the simplest possible manner in the above plan. 
 There we see the demesne lands in the centre of a manor 
 which we have made for simplicity's sake rectangular in 
 shape. The various strips E — M represent the strips of 
 land worked by the tenants in villeinage, whose cottages 
 would be in the hamlet and would probably border the 
 1 14 
 
POVERTY 
 
 road. Each, it will be observed, has several strips (only 
 three for each are shown, but usually the number would be 
 thirty or sixty) and the strips held, for example, by E, arc 
 not contiguous. Each tenant held several strips in order 
 that he might cultivate his land in rotation, and yet culti- 
 vate each year the kind of crop most useful and necessary 
 for him. The strips were not fenced from neighbouring 
 strips, but were all on common arable fields, and were 
 usually divided by furrows or banks of grass. The areas 
 marked A, B, C, D, are closes which have been enclosed 
 as a rule from the waste, and in the period of which we 
 are now speaking are commonly held by their tenants in 
 lease, but may also be held in freehold by earlier grant. 
 The * strip ' portion is entirely arable, and the tenants 
 are what we might now describe as the tenants of small 
 holdings. They have, as a rule, the right to grind their 
 corn at the manorial mill, bake their bread at the manorial 
 bakehouse, brew their beer or press their cider at the 
 manorial brewery or cider-press. They have also the right 
 to pasture their sheep, etc., on the common pasture land, 
 which is regarded as belonging to all the tenants and the 
 lord of the manor in common. They have in addition 
 various customary rights over the waste, e.g.^ the common 
 of turbary, or the right to cut turf for peat for their own 
 hearth fires. If there is a river running through the 
 manor lands the common of piscary, or the right to fish 
 therein, is frequently owned; if there are woodlands, the 
 right to feed their pigs therein and the right to gather 
 wood is usually possessed. 
 
 In addition to the classes above named, there may be 
 cottars having but a cottage and a small garden, or there 
 may be squatters — persons who have built cottages or 
 hovels on the waste and have not been dispossessed. 
 
 Two things at once strike one when considering the 
 manor; (i) the great importance to the tenants in 
 villeinage of the waste and the common lands; (2) the 
 hopelessly unscientific, though fair, system of dividing up 
 the copyhold tenants' arable land into a large number of 
 
 115 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 strips whereby the same tenant was the holder of scattered 
 fragments widely separated the one from the others. At 
 the same time the copyholders had a real and substantial 
 position in a unit of great social and political power — the 
 manor — and while they still held that share we hear but 
 little of vagrancy and Poor Laws. 
 
 The copyholders were, however, not in the same strong 
 position so far as their holding was concerned as the free- 
 holders. They were protected only by the custom of the 
 manor, and over that custom the lord could, in the medieval 
 period, exercise considerable control. Indeed, as yet we 
 can hardly speak of copyholding; many of the tenants 
 were but recently emerged from serfdom, and their holding, 
 which had been at will in return for services, was now at 
 will in return for rent. Such tenants — and they formed 
 the vast majority of the peasant population — could be 
 dispossessed at will. 
 
 Enclosure 
 
 It was while our land laws were at this stage of develop- 
 ment that the movement in favour of sheep-breeding and 
 pasturage commenced. The labourers were reduced in 
 number, their tenancies were in some cases terminated, 
 and their strips granted to someone else in lease. Little 
 by little, as England became more and more a meat-eating 
 and less and less a cereal-consuming country, the breeding 
 of cattle developed, and the need for large farms was felt. 
 Again, the need for a particular user of land, and one 
 different from that which had been customary, pressed 
 most heavily on those whose powers of resistance were the 
 least. The humble tenants of strips found their strips 
 rearranged or their tenancies terminated. The farmer by 
 lease obtained wider and wider lands. The lords* 
 encroachments on the waste lands — an encroachment 
 permitted by the Statute of Merton subject to the tenants 
 being left ' sufficient ' waste land — became greater and 
 greater, and the sorry story of the first of the two great 
 * enclosure * episodes had begun. 
 ii6 
 
POVERTY 
 
 To quote Archdeacon Cunningham : 
 
 There can be no doubt that in some cases there was deh'berate 
 depopulating on the part of landlords who desired to get the 
 whole of the area into their own hands and to use it in the way 
 that gave them most profit or pleasure. The practice of granting 
 land on leases of lives had become common, so that on an estate 
 where the new system of land management was adopted, the 
 tenantry could be gradually dispossessed without any straining of 
 legal rights on the part of the landlords. ... In very many 
 instances, however, it would appear that the landlords were not 
 the prime movers in the matter, but they were only to be blamed 
 for giving permission to enterprising tenants to enclose. There 
 is ample evidence that the process of differentiation was going 
 on among the English peasantry and yeomen, and that while 
 some felt the pressure of the new conditions severely, others were 
 prospering greatly.^ 
 
 It would appear that in agriculture, as in industry, the 
 level plain of workers was beginning to form within the 
 pyramid of society in general a fresh pyramid. As the 
 master and the journeyman were growing farther and 
 farther apart, so the peasant was turning on the one hand 
 into a landless agricultural labourer, and on the other into 
 a prosperous farmer. 
 
 The tendency thus to split up into two branches was 
 increased when the wealthy burgesses looked to the 
 counties wherein to spend a portion of their gains. The 
 old family ties of squire or lord and man were now utterly 
 dissolved; the personal equation counted but little, and in 
 the great name of Mammon the labourer was conjured to 
 depart ; or, if he were permitted to remain, he remained as 
 a labourer and not as a tenant of the land. 
 
 It must not, however, be thought that the peasant- 
 proprietor ceased to exist. On the contrary, in the 
 majority of cases he continued as in earlier ages to work 
 his strips and to work on his landlord's demesne in return 
 for rent on the one hand and wages on the other. The 
 commons and the wastes were still available, though in 
 
 1 Growth of English Industry and Commerce. 
 
 117 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 many cases to a diminished extent. It was not in the 
 majority, but in the minority, of cases that the peasants 
 were becoming landless ; the minority, however, was an 
 important one, and the labourers affected tended to become 
 the flotsam and jetsam which the Poor Law system was 
 designed to save. 
 
 Kett's Rebellion 
 
 There is much evidence that those at the helm of the State 
 fully realized the dangerous nature of the trend of events. 
 They had the example of Germany before them. They 
 were, moreover, wise, far-sighted men of a higher level 
 of ability than England had known for generations. But 
 though they passed laws restricting sheep-breeding, though 
 they issued decrees against all enclosures made since 1485, 
 it was of no avail. The whole weight of society in Tudor 
 days was to be found in the men of wealth and standing. 
 Wolsey, More, Somerset, Cranmer, Latimer — all protested 
 against what Professor Pollard has well called the 
 individualist exploitation of the community, and -^3J:u:itested 
 in vain. The laws which had been placed on the Statute 
 Book remained to a great extent dead letters ; other laws 
 which were drafted and pressed upon the Commons time 
 after time by the member for Preston ■"• were defeated 
 either in the House of Commons or in the Lords. The 
 ill work continued, and by 1548 it was estimated in the 
 Supplication to the Commons that 300,000 persons had 
 been thrown out of work. The peasants began to see 
 little but starvation or slavery before them and theirs. The 
 time was ripe for rebellion, and in 1549, under the leader- 
 ship of Robert Kett, a dangerous revolt broke out in 
 Norfolk, but ended, as had those other risings under Owain 
 Glyndwr and under Wat Tyler, in defeat. The English 
 labourer, unlike the peasant of France or of Germany, 
 was beginning to be a person divorced from the land 
 he tilled. The old customary holding of a virgate (thirty 
 acres) or half-virgate was shrinking to a mere allotment, 
 
 1 John Hales the younger. 
 118 
 
POVERTY 
 
 if it did not actually disappear. The profits and common 
 rights were being reduced. Merrie England was passing 
 out and the workhouse and the Poor Law system were 
 coming in. 
 
 Depreciation of the Currency 
 
 But the sorrows of the land-worker were not the only 
 ills that befell the working classes in this age of comparative 
 prosperity. The increase in the cost of living due to the 
 depreciation of the currency caused wages nominally to 
 rise slightly, but in fact to fall sharply. Both ills were 
 caused at bottom neither by exceptional greed on the part 
 of those who had, nor by exceptional folly on the part of 
 those who had not, but by factors beyond human control. 
 
 The enclosing of the labourers' lands pressed heavily 
 upon the generation that experienced it, even as did the 
 enclosing of the commons two centuries later, but it must 
 be recognized that had no alteration taken place in the 
 ancient distribution of land the England of to-day would 
 probably have been much less prosperous than she is. 
 The old system could not have maintained itself against 
 modern competition and must sooner or later have given 
 way to scientific farming on the large scale. To-day in 
 France one sees the result of vast numbers of small holdings 
 in a land fully cultivated and in a peasantry overborne by 
 what to an Englishman seems excessive toil. There the 
 "merry larks are ploughmen's clocks," and the land-worker, 
 often in the hands of usurers, works from dawn till sunset 
 to produce a modern living out of a medieval holding. 
 From that the Englishman has been saved, but in the 
 saving he has been driven almost completely off the land. 
 As Archdeacon Cunningham says. 
 
 The form of enclosure which was being pushed on by enter- 
 prising tenants, who desired to have holdings in severalty, was 
 a real improvement in agriculture, and provided an increased 
 food supply ; and no government could have seriously set about 
 trying to stop it.^ 
 
 ^ Growth of English Industry and Commerce. 
 
 119 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The discovery of America, on the other hand, had 
 results which no one could foresee, results which caused 
 the increase in the production of the food supply to have 
 little effect on the cost of food. In 1495 ^^^ price of 
 wheat was but a fraction of a penny above four shillings 
 a quarter, while a hundred years later it had risen to 
 I Ss. ^\d. Wages in the meantime had nominally increased 
 by from 25 per cent, to 2,2\ per cent. As Thorold Rogers 
 observes in Six Centuries of Work and Wages, " The work 
 of a whole year would not supply the labourer with the 
 quantity which in 1495 ^^^ labourer earned with fifteen 
 weeks' labour." The work which Columbus had com- 
 menced in 1492 was destined to have the greatest and 
 most magnificent of results, but the consequences for the 
 moment were little less than disastrous to many of the 
 workers. The new era of adventure and exploration 
 brought to England sea-power, and in time a splendid 
 colonial empire in which her population could expand to 
 form powerful and wealthy states and dominions. But 
 all that was as yet far in the future. The immediate 
 result was more individual wealth and more widespread 
 poverty. 
 
 Minor Causes of Poverty 
 
 It is to these two main causes that we look for the need 
 for the State regulation of poverty. There were, of course, 
 many minor factors, of which, perhaps, the most important 
 were the dissolution of the monasteries and the debasement 
 of the coinage under the second of the Tudors. On the 
 other hand, the abominable persecutions then being 
 perpetrated in the Low Countries under the Duke of 
 Alva and the Spanish Inquisition, so graphically described 
 in Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, and the later ill- 
 treatment of the Huguenots in France, caused a flood of 
 immigrants to find shelter in England, an immigration 
 which on the whole was greatly to the advantage of English 
 trade. New industries were introduced, old industries 
 improved, but it can hardly be that the new influx did 
 120 
 
POVERTY 
 
 not cause, temporarily, considerable unemployment among 
 
 the native workers. The age was an age of change 
 
 change in thought, in religion, in outlook, in methods 
 both of agriculture and of industry. Change is always 
 apt to bear hardly on those trembling on the brink of 
 destitution. The expropriation of a large part of the 
 gild property had an effect, as Mr G. T. Warner has 
 remarked,^ not very dissimilar to that which would result 
 were the Government to-day to confiscate all the funds of 
 the benefit societies and sick-pay clubs. 
 
 Of these various causes one only could be dealt with 
 in a completely satisfactory manner. The debasement of 
 the coinage, which had compelled the Government to pay 
 25 per cent, on its loans, was tackled under Elizabeth. 
 A new coinage was issued and the old called in. But 
 the effect, so far as prices were concerned, was largely 
 countered, as the improvement had been made possible, 
 by that influx of American silver of which we have already 
 spoken. Prices continued to soar and wages failed to 
 keep pace with them. Poverty, destitution, and beggary 
 became a more and more serious problem. 
 
 The remedies proposed were various and in many cases 
 savage. The * sturdy beggar,' that is to say, the unem- 
 ployed worker, was regarded more as a criminal than as 
 an unfortunate whose succour it should be the first duty 
 of the State to secure. We doubt whether Thorold Rogers 
 was justified in saying that during the whole period from 
 1563 to 1824 
 
 The English law, and those who administered the law, were 
 engaged in grinding the English workman down to the lowest 
 pittance, in stamping out every expression or act which indicated 
 any organized discontent, and in multiplying penalties upon him 
 when he thought of his natural rights.^ 
 
 We have seen that both under Elizabeth and under James I 
 efforts were made to preserve to the workers a competent 
 
 ^ Tillage, Trade, and Invention. 
 2 Six Centuries of Work and Wages. 
 
 121 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 measure of wages. Throughout the seventeenth and the 
 first half of the eighteenth century the administrative part 
 of the Government received, considered, and in many cases 
 supported, petitions presented by working people which 
 aimed at the establishment of a reasonable standard of life. 
 At the same time, the State was slow to regard the out-of- 
 work as anything other than at worst a criminal and at 
 best a nuisance. Work was regarded as a duty, but it 
 was not seen that that duty involved the right to work. 
 This right was one always sturdily contended for. 
 
 But unemployment was common, the cost of living high, 
 and the old charity of the monasteries and the old support of 
 the gild chest were no longer available. The close personal 
 relationship between squire and peasant was beginning 
 to become attenuated. An age when everyone knew of 
 everybody's business and when the rich could not be 
 unconscious of the existence of the dismal hovels in which 
 the man who was down was, with those dependent upon 
 him, dying by inches was becoming uncomfortably aware 
 that though a Cecil could recommend that those who 
 were physically able to work and did not should be en- 
 slaved, wrong was rather suffered than committed by the 
 indigent. 
 
 The Unemployed 
 
 But the age was rough and coarse. Parliament at first 
 seemed to see no better way of dealing with the problem 
 than by authorizing the infliction of savage punishments 
 upon those who were idle without much considering the 
 cause of the idleness. It was complained that idleness was 
 the root of all vices, and in 1531 it was enacted that sturdy 
 beggars should be thrashed " till the body be bloody." 
 
 Such repressive measures did not meet the case, and 
 under Elizabeth we find the State pursuing two connected 
 courses. On the one hand, the out-of-work is driven 
 back to his or her parish, there to be set at work either by 
 work being found or in a house of correction, or by labour 
 in gaol; on the other hand, private charity is at first 
 122 
 
POVERTY 
 
 organized for the benefit of the destitute, and finally, 
 private charity proving insufficient, a system of State aid 
 is developed. 
 
 The 39 EHz., c. 4 (1597-8), "An Act for punish- 
 ment of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars," some- 
 what extended by the i Jac. I, c. 7 (1603-4), may be 
 regarded as a consolidating and amending Act dealing 
 with the out-of-work — for it may be observed that the 
 person punished need not be a rogue or a vagabond, or 
 sturdy, or a beggar in the ordinary sense, but only as so 
 defined by the Act. A person might be punished as a rogue, 
 etc., because he or she departed from the parish in which 
 he or she had lived in order to obtain work elsewhere. 
 
 All wandering persons and common labourers being persons 
 able in body using loitering and refusing to work for such reason- 
 able wages as is taxed or commonly given in such parts where 
 such persons do or shall happen to dwell or abide, not having 
 living otherwise to maintain themselves, . . . shall be taken, 
 adjudged, and deemed Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars and 
 shall sustain such pain and punishment as by this Act is in that 
 behalf appointed. 
 
 The aforesaid "pain and punishment" is provided by 
 the following section of the Act, which also expresses the 
 general purpose of the legislature. 
 
 And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that every 
 person which is by this present Act declared to be a Rogue, 
 Vagabond, or Sturdy Beggar, which shall be . . . taken begging, 
 vagrant, wandering, or misordering in any part of this realm . . . 
 shall ... be stripped naked from the middle upward and shall 
 be openly whipped until his or her body be bloody, and shall be 
 forthwith sent from Parish to Parish by the officers of every the 
 same, the next straightway to the Parish where he was born, if 
 the same may be known by the party's confession or otherwise ; 
 and if the same be not known, then to the Parish where he or she 
 last dwelt before the same punishment by the space of one whole 
 year, there to put him or her self to labour as a true subject ought 
 to do. . . . And the party so whipped and not known where he 
 or she was born or last dwelt by the space of a year, shall by the 
 
 123 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 officers of the said village where he or she so last past through 
 without punishment, be conveyed to the House of Correction 
 of the limit wherein the said village standeth, or to the common 
 gaol of that County or Place, there to remain and be employed 
 in work until he or she shall be placed in some service, and so 
 continue by the space of one year, or not being able of body 
 until he or she shall be placed, to remain in some almshouse in 
 the same County or Place. 
 
 The migrating labourer who was not in employment 
 was thus dealt with. He, and it may be his wife and his 
 children — for the Act punished also children of the age 
 of seven years or upward in the same manner — were 
 driven back either to their parish of origin or to the parish 
 in which they had lived for a year, or to the parish through 
 which they had last passed without being punished, there 
 to be set at work for a year, or if too ill (despite their sturdi- 
 ness !) to work until a place in an almshouse was found for 
 them. 
 
 Even the sick were not, in certain circumstances, per- 
 mitted to travel, for by Section 7 it was provided that: 
 
 No diseased or impotent poor person shall at any time resort 
 or repair from their dwelling place to the City of Bath or town 
 of Buxton ... to the baths there for the ease of their grief 
 unless such persons forbear to beg, and be licensed to pass thither 
 by two Justices of the Peace of the county where such person 
 doth or shall then dwell or remain and provided for to travel with 
 such relief for and towards his or her maintenance as shall be 
 necessary for the same person . . . upon pain to be reported, 
 punished, and used as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. 
 
 The Destitute 
 
 Idleness having thus been struck at, the State proceeded 
 to develop machinery to support in some degree the desti- 
 tute. The private charity which had been the centre of 
 the system designed in former reigns had broken down. 
 The need for charity was great. The State decided, 
 therefore, at first to organize private charity and later to 
 elaborate a system of public charity. At the same time, 
 under the Poor Law system as finally established in the 
 124 
 
POVERTY 
 
 reign of Elizabeth, some machinery was devised to prevent 
 the evil for which charity was but a partial palliative. 
 
 The Poor Law 
 
 At the end of the reign of Edward VI two collectors 
 had been appointed in every parish for the purpose of 
 visiting the persons of substance in the parish with a view 
 to ascertaining what contribution might be expected from 
 each of such persons for the relief of the poor of the parish. 
 The collectors were empowered to find employment for 
 the poor at the charge of the fund thus collected. In 
 Mary's reign the Act was renewed, and soon after Eliza- 
 beth ascended the throne an Act was passed providing that 
 if the private person appealed to failed to subscribe the 
 justices might demand from him a weekly contribution 
 under threat of imprisonment. Almost simultaneously the 
 question of apprenticeship and the fixing of wages was the 
 subject of legislation. 
 
 As Thorold Rogers has said: 
 
 There was only a step from the process under which a 
 reluctant subscriber to the Poor Law was assessed by the justices 
 and imprisoned on refusal, to the assessment of all property under 
 the celebrated Act of 43 and 44 Elizabeth, c. 2. The law had 
 provided for the regular appointment of assessors for the levy of 
 rates, for supplying work to the able-bodied, for giving relief to 
 ' the infirm and old, and for binding apprentices. It now con- 
 solidates the experience of the whole reign, defines the kind of 
 property on which the rate is to be levied, prescribes the manner 
 in which the assessors shall be appointed, and inflicts penalties 
 on parties who infringe its provisions. It is singular that the 
 Act was only temporary. It was, by the last clause, only to 
 continue to the end of the next session of Parliament. It was, 
 however, renewed, and finally made perpetual by 16 Car. I, c. 4.^ 
 
 The Elizabethan Poor Law 
 
 The celebrated Act is short and its important clauses 
 may usefully be reproduced in extenso. They run as 
 follows : 
 
 1 Six Centuries of Work and Wages. 
 
 125 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Be it enacted by the authority of this present parliament that 
 the churchwardens of every parish and four, three, or two sub- 
 stantial householders there as shall be thought meet, having 
 respect to the apportion and greatness of the same parish or 
 parishes, to be nominated yearly in Easter week or within one 
 month after Easter, under the hand and seal of two or more 
 justices of peace in the same county, whereof one to be of the 
 quorum, dwelling in or near the same parish or division where 
 the same parish doth lie, shall be called overseers of the poor of 
 the same parish ; and they or the greater part of them shall take 
 order from time to time, by and with the consent of two or more 
 such justices of peace as is aforesaid, for setting to work of 
 children of all such whose parents shall not by the said church- 
 wardens and overseers or the greater part of them be thought 
 able to maintain or keep their children ; and also for setting to 
 work all such persons married or unmarried having no means 
 to maintain them, use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get 
 their living by ; and also to raise weekly or otherwise, by taxation 
 of every inhabitant parson, vicar or other, and of every occupier 
 of lands, houses, tythes impropriate or propriation of tythes, 
 coal-mines or saleable underwoods, in the said parish, in such 
 competent sum or sums of money as they shall think fit, a con- 
 venient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron and other necessary 
 ware and stuff to set the poor on work and also competent sums 
 of money for and toward the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, 
 old, blind, and such other among them being poor and not able 
 to work, and also for the putting out of such children to be 
 apprentices, to be gathered out of the same parish according to 
 the ability of the same parish ; and to do and execute all other 
 things as well for the disposing of the said stock as otherwise 
 concerning the premises as to them shall seem convenient : which 
 said churchwardens and overseers so to be nominated, or such 
 of them as shall not be let by sickness or other just excuse to be 
 allowed by two such justices of peace or more as aforesaid, shall 
 meet together at the least once every month in the church of 
 the said parish, upon the Sunday in the afternoon after Divine 
 Service, there to consider of some good course to be taken and of 
 some meet order to be set down in the premises, and shall within 
 four days after the end of their year and after other overseers 
 nominated as aforesaid, make and yield up to such two justices 
 of peace as is aforesaid a true and perfect account of all sums of 
 money by them received or rated and assessed and not received, 
 126 
 
POVERTY 
 
 and also of such stock as shall be in their hands or in the hands 
 of any of the poor to work, and of all other things concerning 
 their said office ; and such sum or sums of money as shall be 
 in their hands shall pay and deliver over to the said churchwardens 
 and overseers newly nominated and appointed as aforesaid ; 
 
 And be it further enacted that it shall be lawful for the said 
 churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, by 
 the assent of any two justices of the peace aforesaid, to bind any 
 such children as aforesaid to be apprentices, where they shall 
 see convenient, till such man-child shall come to the age of 
 four and twenty years, and such woman-child to the age of 
 one and twenty years or the time of her marriage ; the same 
 to be as effectual to all purposes as if such child were of full age, 
 and by indenture of covenant bound him or herself. And the 
 said justices of peace or any of them to send to the house of correc- 
 tion or common gaol such as shall not employ themselves to work, 
 being appointed thereunto as aforesaid. 
 
 Settlements 
 
 Thus was inaugurated a system of poor relief which 
 continued without substantial modification until the reign 
 of William IV and has had a direct effect on Poor Law 
 administration even to our own day. The purpose of the 
 framers of the Act was undoubtedly humane and was 
 certainly in advance of anything hitherto enacted. Relief 
 was made local and the district in which the person had 
 declined into a state of destitution was made primarily 
 responsible for his relief. The Act, however, was in- 
 efficiently administered. Some parishes treated their poor 
 in a far better manfier than others. Means were found 
 by the industrious poor of migrating into those parishes, 
 which thus had imposed upon them an unfair burden. 
 As a consequence, parishes seem to have vied with one 
 another how best to frighten away these unwanted in- 
 habitants; as a further consequence the 14 Car. II, 
 c. 12, was passed in 1662 empowering the removal of any 
 person whom the churchwardens or overseers complained 
 might become chargeable on the parish, if such complaint 
 
 127 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 was made within forty days of the person coming to live 
 in the parish. The removal was effected under the 
 authority of a warrant issued by two justices and was to 
 the parish where the person was born or had last resided 
 for forty days. The law of settlements thus begun still 
 occupies an important place in Poor Law administration. 
 
 Administrative Abuses 
 
 The original purpose of the Act was destined to be 
 hopelessly destroyed by the mismanagement of the over- 
 seers. As Lord Farnborough said : 
 
 Since the reign of Elizabeth, the law had provided for the relief 
 of the destitute poor of England. This wise and simple provi- 
 sion, however, had been so perverted by ignorant adminis- 
 tration that, in relieving the poor, the industrial population of 
 the whole country was being rapidly reduced to pauperism, while 
 property was threatened with no distant ruin. The system which 
 was working this mischief assumed to be founded upon bene- 
 volence ; but no evil genius could have designed a scheme of 
 greater malignity for the corruption of the human race. The 
 fund intended for the relief of want and sickness — of age and 
 impotence — was recklessly distributed to all who begged a share. 
 Everyone was taught to look to the parish, and not to his own 
 honest industry, for support. The idle clown, without work, 
 fared as well as the industrious labourer who toiled from morn 
 till night. The shameless slut, with half a dozen children — 
 the progeny of many fathers — was provided for as liberally as 
 the destitute widow and her orphans. But worse than this — 
 independent labourers were tempted and seduced into the degraded 
 ranks of pauperism, by payments freely made in aid of wages. 
 . . . The manly farm labourer who scorned to ask for alms 
 found his own wages artificially lowered, while improvidence was 
 cherished and rewarded by the parish. ^ 
 
 Attempts were made from time to time to improve the 
 administration of the law. In 1723 the churchwardens 
 and overseers, in conjunction with the vestry, were given 
 powers enabling them to establish workhouses; in 1782, 
 
 * Constitutional History of England (T. Erskine May). 
 128 
 
POVERTY 
 
 by Gilbert's Act, districts were permitted to appoint Poor 
 Law guardians in place of the overseers, and in 1 8 1 9, by 
 which time the number of persons in receipt of Poor Law 
 relief was becoming a national danger, the overseers were 
 placed, in such parishes as cared to adopt the scheme, 
 under the direction and control of a body of substantial 
 householders termed the select vestry. 
 
 Both the Act of 1782 and the Act of 18 19 were, how- 
 ever, permissive Acts, and the schemes contained in them 
 had only been put into force in a comparatively few 
 districts; the evils of the whole system were becoming 
 more and more evident and pronounced under the distress 
 consequent upon the Napoleonic wars and the Agrarian 
 and Industrial Revolutions of the eighteenth century, and 
 in 1833 a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the 
 whole subject. 
 
 Pauperization 
 
 The report of this Commission was a masterly ex- 
 posure of the evils of a system caused by an initial wrong, 
 benevolently conceived, and monstrously maladministered. 
 We cannot refrain from certain quotations which indicate 
 some of the many abuses that had grown up, though it 
 should be understood that we are now speaking of things 
 as they were, not in the time of the Tudors, but in the 
 opening years of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Thus Mr Hickson, a manufacturer of Northampton 
 and landholder in Kent, gave evidence as follows : 
 
 The case of a man who worked for me will show the effect 
 of the parish system in preventing frugal habits. This is a hard- 
 working, industrious man, named William Williams. He is 
 married, and had saved some money, to the amount of about 
 £']0y and had two cows ; he had also a sow and ten pigs. He 
 had got a cottage well furnished ; he was a member of a benefit 
 club at Meopham, from which he received eight shillings a week 
 when he was ill. He was beginning to learn to read and write, 
 and sent his children to the Sunday School. He had a legacy 
 of about £i\.6, but he got his other money together by saving from 
 
 I 129 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 his fair wages as a waggoner. Some circumstances occurred 
 which obHged me to part with him. The consequence of this 
 labouring man having been frugal and saved money, and got the 
 cows, was that no one would employ him, although his superior 
 character as a workman was well known in the parish. He told 
 me at the time I was obliged to part with him, "Whilst I have 
 these things, I shall get no work ; I must part with them all ; 
 I must be reduced to a state of beggary before anyone will employ 
 me." I was compelled to part with him at Michaelmas ; he 
 has not yet got work, and he has no chance of getting any until 
 he has become a pauper ; for until then, the paupers will be 
 preferred to him. He cannot get work in his own parish, and 
 he will not be allowed to get any in other parishes. 
 
 Again, Mr Nash of Royston stated that he had been 
 forced by the overseer to dismiss two excellent labourers 
 for the purpose of introducing two paupers into their 
 place. Mr Nash added : 
 
 John Walford, a parishioner of Burley, was a steady, industrious, 
 trustworthy, single man, who, by long and rigid economy, had 
 saved about ;^ioo. On being dismissed, Walford applied in vain 
 to the farmers of Burley for employment. It was well known 
 that he had saved money and could not come on the parish, 
 although any of them would willingly have taken him had it 
 been otherwise. . . . The young men point at Walford [who had 
 been driven to spend his earnings on a horse and cart and was 
 endeavouring to earn a precarious living as a carter of corn to 
 London] and call him a fool for not spending his money at the 
 public house as they do, adding that then he would get work. 
 
 The reason for this extraordinary state of affairs is 
 brought out in the evidence of Sir Harry Verney, who says : 
 
 In the hundred of Buckingham, in which I act as a magistrate, 
 many instances occur in which labourers are unable to obtain 
 employment, because they have property of their own. For 
 instance, in the parish of Steeple Claydon, John Lines, formerly 
 a soldier, a very good workman, is refused employment because 
 he receives a pension. The farmers say that they cannot afford 
 ■■ to employ those for whom they are not bound by law to provide?- 
 
 ^ Our italics. 
 130 
 
POVERTY 
 
 Such cases of ratepayers conspiring (to use the word 
 employed by the Commissioners) to deny the man who 
 in defiance of the examples of all around him, dares 
 to save, and attempts to keep his savings, the permission 
 to work for his bread were not universal, but were wide- 
 spread and common to those parishes which by the opening 
 years of the nineteenth century had become pauperized. 
 
 The Allowance System 
 
 In consequence of the system which had grown up under 
 the Poor Law administration of paying different rates of 
 wages to married and single men equally skilled, early and 
 improvident marriages were rendered almost compulsory. 
 A clergyman of Culworth stated that one of his parishioners 
 had told him that he only married because under the 
 labour rate he could not get work without. The parish 
 relief, which was scattered broadcast — in Cholesbury, to 
 give but one example of many, out of 139 individuals, 
 only 35 persons, of all ages, including the clergyman and 
 his family, were supported by their own exertions — was 
 necessitated mainly by the maladministration of the 
 whole system. Such relief, being in the majority of cases 
 unneeded, corrupted those who received it, each one of 
 whom tended to become " converted into an insolent, 
 discontented, surly, thoughtless pauper, who talks of rights 
 and income. . . ." Of such a one it was said : 
 
 Some rude efforts he may at first make to shake off his state of 
 servitude ; but he finally yields to the temptation of the allow- 
 ance payable and the scale, feels his bondage, puts off his generous 
 feelings of industry and gratitude and independence, and 
 
 ... to suit 
 His maimer with his fate, puts on the brute. 
 
 Under the allowance system wages were fixed according 
 to whether a man was married and to the number of his 
 children. It mattered not in the least what he was 
 worth. The original economic evils of serfdom were thus 
 
 131 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 recreated and even extended. As the Commissioners 
 inquire : 
 
 What motive has the man who is to receive ten shilHngs every 
 Saturday, not because ten shillings is the value of his week's 
 labour, but because his family consists of five persons, who 
 knows that his income will be increased by nothing but by an 
 increase of his family, and diminished by nothing but by a 
 diminution of his family, that it has no reference to his skill, his 
 honesty, or his diligence — what motive has he to acquire or to 
 preserve any of these merits ? 
 
 The Workhouse 
 
 The evils of outdoor relief were matched, or more than 
 matched, by the maladministration of the workhouses. 
 The * poor-house ' had become, indeed, a sort of alms- 
 house packed with three distinct classes of people: (i) 
 the respectable old and infirm poor; (2) children, mainly 
 orphans; (3) criminals, prostitutes, and such other able- 
 bodied folk as, having lost self-respect, preferred a life of 
 laziness to a life of industry. The result was that 
 respectable people deemed it the most dreadful of mis- 
 fortunes, as meaning the loss of character and self-respect, 
 to have to seek refuge in the workhouse, even though, to 
 quote Mr Lee, " It is a common remark among our 
 paupers that they live better in the house than they ever 
 lived before." One can easily imagine the horrid thoughts 
 that must have assailed the dying on the contemplation 
 of the future of their children — orphans brought up in 
 the workhouse, farmed out to contractors, apprenticed, or, 
 rather, we would say, let on lease, to a master; the com- 
 panions of the lowest, the encumbrance of their parish, 
 the drudge of their employer. 
 
 The Commissioners made twenty-two recommendations, 
 to none of which can we refer in detail, but all of which 
 formed the basis of the new Poor Law, the purpose of which 
 was, as in the case of the Act of Elizabeth, to grant relief 
 to the destitute and to differentiate between the man who 
 had become indigent through no fault of his own and the 
 132 
 
POVERTY 
 
 man whose poverty was merely a mask put on to avoid 
 work. The administration was placed under Boards of 
 Guardians, subject to the control of a central board. Out- 
 door relief for the able-bodied ceased ; large * union ' 
 workhouses were established and regulated in a much 
 more rigorous manner. The new system was not without 
 its defects, but it did at least slay that *' plague of 
 pauperism " which was threatening to sap the self- 
 respect of large sections of the working people. 
 
 Certain changes were found necessary as time passed. 
 The Poor Law Commissioners became in turn the Poor 
 Law Board and the nucleus of the Local Government 
 Board, which was established in 1871, and in turn became 
 the Ministry of Health in 191 9. In 1905 another Royal 
 Commission sat to inquire into two matters: (i) the 
 administration of the Poor Law and (2) the relief of 
 distress due to poverty and unemployment. The results 
 of its labours were the passing of the Unemployed Work- 
 men Act, 1906, and the Labour Exchanges Act, 1909 ; 
 while the movement toward the adequate care and pro- 
 tection of those who may fall by the wayside through old 
 age, sickness, or accident, and which has made such giant 
 strides during the last three decades, has placed upon the 
 Statute Book, among others, the following Acts : the Work- 
 men's Compensation Acts, 1897, 1906, 1917, 1919; the 
 Old Age Pensions Acts, 1908, 191 1; and the various 
 National Insurance Acts. All these we shall have occasion 
 hereafter to refer to. 
 
 133 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 THE word medieval has many connotations. As 
 applied to political history it sometimes means pre- 
 Norman times, sometimes the era of the First 
 Renaissance, and sometimes the period which stretches from 
 Plantagenet to Tudor times. In the case of a history of 
 labour it can be used conveniently to describe the period 
 which stretches between that early age in which the 
 generality of men were personally unfree and the later 
 age which saw the divorce of the people from the land 
 and the rise of the factory system. 
 
 We shall thus in this chapter be concerned chiefly 
 with husbandmen and artificers; peasants who besides 
 tilHng and sowing and reaping turned an occasional 
 hand to the loom; craftsmen who were continuing in 
 the spirit of the gildsmen; rogues and vagabonds that 
 represent the submerged tenth of the newly-freed labour- 
 ing classes. 
 
 The decrease of villeinage, which by the end of the 
 Tudor period was almost extinct, was the era of the origin 
 of the poor. Serfdom at least supplied the serf with 
 food and shelter; the greater freedom which emancipation 
 brought might easily, and did in fact often, result in the 
 absence both of shelter and of food, pointing the truth of 
 that old aphorism: " Freedom and servitude, the one has 
 many pains, the other no pleasures." 
 
 Throughout the whole of this medieval period, an era 
 stretching, as it does, almost to the end of the eighteenth 
 century, the most notable facts about the lives of the 
 working classes were the complete simplicity and unevent- 
 fulness which, in the happiest circumstances, marked 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 them, and the terrible condition which might befall the 
 most worthy should misfortune chance to throw them off 
 the narrow path their kind commonly trod. It is, indeed, 
 a matter of some difficulty fully to comprehend the fru- 
 gality, the rusticity, the simplicity of those times, or the 
 severity with which those, to-day deemed the unfortunate, 
 were treated who fell into indigence through illness or 
 lack of employment. 
 
 Material Resources 
 
 A few comparisons will enable us to realize the im- 
 mense difference which exists between the material re- 
 sources of the people of the fourteenth and the twentieth 
 centuries. 
 
 In the early Middle Ages Colchester was a considerable 
 town of 3000 inhabitants, and was the tenth city of England. 
 Roughly speaking, its inhabitants amounted to a one- 
 thousandth part of the entire population. In 1296 a 
 valuation for taxation purposes was made, and in 13 17 
 another valuation was made. These valuation rolls were 
 examined in some detail by Sir Frederick Eden, who gives 
 the following as the average contents of a house : 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 A mazer-cup 
 
 valued 
 
 at from 
 
 
 6 to 2 
 
 Abed 
 
 j> 
 
 >> 
 
 I 
 
 6 „ 6 8 
 
 A tripod 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 „ 9 
 
 A brass pot 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 „ 2 6 
 
 A brass cup 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 „ I 
 
 An andiron 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3h » 8 
 
 A brass dish 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 „ I 
 
 A gridiron . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 „ I 6 
 
 A rug or coverlet 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 „ I 6 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 5 
 
 ^ „ 17 7 
 
 The above represented the furniture not of a rustic boor, 
 but of a citizen, and evidences a complete absence of 
 luxury. The same simplicity is shown by the valuations 
 of two draper's shops, one of which was large and the other 
 
 135 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 small. The contents of the latter were valued at 6s. Sd. 
 The larger shop contained the following articles : 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 A piece of woollen cloth . . value 7 o 
 
 Silk and fine linen . . • „ 100 
 
 Flannel, and silk purses . • ,1 140 
 
 Gloves, girdles, leather purses, 
 
 and needle-work . . • ,, 6 8 
 
 Other small things . . . „ 30 
 
 Total . .£308 
 
 A carpenter's stock of tools was valued at is., and com- 
 prised two broad axes, an adze, a square, an auger (navegor 
 or nawger). The entire movable wealth of the city, in- 
 cluding household furniture and utensils, clothes, money, 
 provisions, the stock-in-trade of all the tradesmen, the live- 
 stock kept by the citizens, and frequently including a pig or 
 two and sometimes a horse, was valued at ;/^5i8 i6s. o^d. 
 
 Of course, in those days the value of money was ver)' 
 different from what it is to-day. Even allowing £1 then 
 to be worth ;^ioo now (and economists set a much lower 
 modern equivalent), the value of the movables of Colchester 
 was about ;/^52,ooo of modern money, which gives as the 
 total wealth of England in movable property at the be- 
 ginning of the fourteenth century the sum of ^{52, 000,000 
 of modern money. 
 
 Population 
 
 With these figures it is useful to bear in mind the number 
 of people in England. It will also be instructive to give 
 Gregory King's forecast of the population of England 
 which he made in 1693, and compare his forecast with 
 the actual figures. The question of population is one 
 of great importance, for it is manifest that many schemes 
 or aims which would be workable and desirable in a 
 comparatively thinly populated country are absolutely out 
 of the question in a country so densely peopled as Great 
 Britain now is. 
 136 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 Gregory King's figures stating and forecasting the 
 population, and the actual figures, are as follows : 
 
 Date 
 
 King's 
 
 Figures Actual Figures 
 
 " 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 
 1300 
 
 
 2,860,000 
 
 
 1400 
 
 
 3,300,000 
 
 
 1500 
 
 
 3,840,000 
 
 
 1600 
 
 
 4,620,000 
 
 
 1700 
 
 5,550,000 
 
 
 5,475,000 
 
 1800 
 
 6,420,000 
 
 
 9,168,000 
 
 1900 
 
 7,350,000 
 
 
 32,527,000 
 
 2000 
 
 8,280,000 
 
 
 
 The State of Agriculture 
 
 The reigns of the first three Edwards, and particularly 
 that of Edward I, saw a considerable increase in prosperity 
 and distributed wealth. But as yet the only important 
 source of national wealth was the land, and the science of 
 agriculture was so little understood that a crop of from 
 six to twelve bushels of cereals per acre was normal. While 
 such a low productivity continued in the industry which 
 supported nine-tenths of the people, it could not but be 
 that the lives of the people were frugal in the extreme. 
 To apply words spoken of the mid-eighteenth century to 
 the workers of the whole of this medieval period we may 
 say that : 
 
 The domestic manufacturers were scattered over the entire 
 surface of the country. Themselves cultivators and of simple 
 habits and few wants, they rarely left their own homesteads. 
 ... If the comfort of the poor man is to be estimated by variety 
 of wants, by his living in an artificial state of society, surrounded 
 by all the inventions resulting from a high degree of civilisation, 
 by having these brought to his door, and every facility afforded 
 him for procuring them, the aboriginal and home manufacturer 
 sinks very low when compared with the present race. If, on 
 the contrary, comfort and domestic happiness are to be judged 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 by the fewness of a man's wants, with the capability of securing 
 the means for their supply, the tables are turned in favour of 
 the domestic manufacturer. ^ 
 
 It would appear that during the fourteenth century 
 wealth so grew that luxury sensibly increased, but the 
 troublous times which almost extinguished the aristocracy 
 and eventually placed a Welsh prince upon the throne of 
 England ushered in that period of mixed sunlight and 
 shadow which William Harrison has so minutely and 
 amusingly described in his Description of England} 
 
 The Poor 
 
 Throughout the period the law permitted, as we have 
 seen, the fixing of maximum wages, a device which Sir 
 Frederick Eden regarded as " confessedly framed by the 
 nobility, and, if not intended, certainly tending, to cramp 
 the exertions of industry." Toward the end of this middle 
 age it is true that the wage-regulation laws were falling 
 into desuetude, but throughout the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries it would appear that a great pro- 
 portion of the community earned less than they spent. 
 Before the development of the Poor Law the result is seen 
 in the number of rogues and vagabonds who, declining 
 into theft, were hurried to the gallows. As Harrison says, 
 throughout Elizabeth's reign the rogues " were trussed up 
 apace," and he calculated that during Henry VIII's reign 
 no fewer than 72,000 great and petty thieves were put to 
 death. After the institution of a Poor Law system the 
 effect is shown in the dimensions of the poor rate, which 
 in 1685 was equal to one-third of the entire revenue. 
 Throughout both rogue and worker are pinned down to 
 subsist on the barest fare and in the simplest manner, so 
 that Chamberlayne, even as late as 1702, could repeat and 
 confirm the truth of the old saying that, ** England was 
 
 1 P. Gaskell, The Manufacturing Population of England. 
 
 2 Most easily available in the form as edited by Lothrop Withrlngton 
 and published in the Camelot scries under the title Elizabethan England. 
 
 138 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 called the Purgatory of servants, as it was and is still the 
 Paradise of wives, and the Hell for horses." 
 
 The Worker and the Land 
 
 The average worker throughout this middle age made 
 his own clothes, his own shoes, grew his own food, kept 
 his own stock. He was both husbandman and artisan, or, 
 in the cities, artisan and allotment-holder. It was but rarely, 
 and only in the case of some workers in London, that the 
 craftsman or manual worker was entirely divorced from 
 the land. 
 
 The first of the movements which were to result rather 
 more than three centuries later in the almost complete 
 separation of the workers from the land had begun. 
 Whereas at first the serf cultivator of an earlier period had 
 turned for a time into the peasant proprietor, so common 
 even to-day in France and Germany, it was not long before 
 attacks, at first isolated and later concerted, began to 
 be made on his land-holding. Of this movement we 
 speak elsewhere. It is material here, however, to observe 
 that the earlier enclosures linked to more scientific farming 
 resulted in greater productivity per acre, greater wealth 
 to the larger farmers due to the export trade, hardly any 
 reduction in the price of food, widespread unemployment, 
 increased national wealth, increased national misery linked 
 with an absolute monarchy, a decayed aristocracy, at first a 
 feeble but later an increasingly powerful plutocracy, and 
 general contentment due to the fact that though many were 
 drowning the majority were sailing along a placid stream 
 in much comfort. 
 
 Food 
 
 Throughout the period bread was the staple food and 
 beer or " small drink " the normal drink of the working 
 classes. In the North oatmeal was largely eaten, and, 
 before the later enclosures began to take from the com- 
 moners the means of pasturing their cattle and to concen- 
 trate the stock in the hands of the larger landowners, milk 
 
 139 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 was a very important article of diet. It was only toward 
 the end of this period that tea, coffee, or cocoa came 
 into use. Tea had come to us in the Tudor period as a 
 curiosity, but was becoming sufficiently common in 1658 
 for it to be advertised in the Mercurius Politicus. The first 
 coffee-house was opened in London in 1652, and we find 
 chocolate being advertised as a drink in 1657. None of 
 these beverages was, however, within the means of the 
 poor until more than a century later. 
 
 Speaking of the bread eaten by the workers in his time 
 (1577-87), Harrison says that the husbandmen 
 
 in some shires are forced to content themselves with rye, or 
 barley, yea, and in times of dearth, many with bread made either 
 of beans, peas, or oats, or of all together and some acorns among, 
 of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are 
 least able to provide themselves of better. I will not say that 
 this extremity is oft so well to be seen in times of plenty as of 
 dearth, but, if I should, I could easily bring my trial. For 
 albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in 
 every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn 
 continueth in each town and market without any just cause 
 (except it be that landlords do get licences to carry corn out of 
 the land only to keep up the prices for their own private gains 
 and ruin of the commonwealth), that the artificer and poor 
 labouring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven to content 
 himself with horse corn — I mean beans, peas, oats, tares, and 
 lentils : and therefore it is a true proverb and never so well 
 verified as now, that " Hunger setteth his first foot into the 
 horse-manger." 
 
 According to Davenant, even a century later, and with 
 a poor rate up to a third of the revenue, many died yearly 
 of starvation. Harrison, when considering the times at 
 which folks eat, dismisses the case of the poor by saying : 
 " As for the poorest sort they generally dine and sup when 
 they may, so that to talk of their order of repast it were 
 but a needless matter." 
 
 When we turn to other pages of Harrison's Description 
 we obtain a somewhat different picture, a picture of a 
 140 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 countryside flowing with milk, and stocked with butter 
 and pork. What can we say of an age which regarded 
 ** white meats, milk, butter, and cheese ... as food aper- 
 tinent only to the inferior sorts," and of a writer who, 
 having lamented the fact that the bread of the poor was not 
 wheaten, proceeds to tell us that : 
 
 The artificer and husbandman make greatest account of such 
 meat as they may soonest come by, and have it quickliest ready, 
 except it be in London when the companies of every trade do 
 meet on their quarter days, at which time they be nothing inferior 
 to the nobility. Their food also consisteth principally in beef, 
 and such meat as the butcher selleth — that is to say, mutton, 
 veal, lamb, pork, etc., whereof he findeth great store in the 
 markets adjoining, besides sows, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of 
 fruit, eggs, etc. ... In feasting also this lesser sort, I mean 
 the husbandmen, do exceed often their manner, especially at 
 bridals, purification of women, and such odd meetings, where it 
 is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, each one 
 bringing such a dish, or so many with him, as his wife and he 
 do consult upon, but always with this consideration, that the 
 lesser friend shall have the better provision. This also is commonly 
 seen at these banquets, that the good man of the house is not 
 charged with anything saving bread, drink, sauce, house-room, 
 and fire. But the artificers in cities and good towns do deal 
 far otherwise ; for albeit that some of them do suffer their 
 jaws to go oft before their claws, and divers of them by 
 making good cheer do hinder themselves and other men, 
 yet the wiser sort can handle the matter well enough in these 
 junkettings. 
 
 The truth, however, seems to be that in the normal case, 
 and throughout the whole middle period, the average 
 working man lived very plainly, tasted meat but rarely, 
 unless it were pork which he had himself reared, and 
 relieved a diet of cereals, potatoes, milk, eggs, and vege- 
 tables (of which then as now he was a somewhat sparing 
 eater, regarding many of the daintiest as fit only for swine) 
 chiefly with fish, usually herrings. 
 
 That the conception of the Tudor workman as a 
 mixture of Sir John Falstaff and one of Ostade's boors 
 
 141 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 is false may be seen from yet another quotation from 
 Harrison : 
 
 It may be that divers of them living at home, with hard and 
 pinching diet, small drink, and some of them having scarce 
 enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come into such 
 banquets ; howbeit they take it generally as no small disgrace 
 if they happen to be cupshotten, so that it is a grief to them, 
 though now sans remedy, sith the thing is done and past. 
 
 Clothing 
 
 The clothes of the people were not merely home-made, 
 but were made from material that was spun and woven 
 at home, often from flax which was grown at home or 
 from wool from the sheep of the farm. By 24 Hen. VIII, 
 c. 4, every person occupying sixty acres was required to 
 sow one rood with flax or hemp seed, and by 5 Eliz., c. 5, 
 one acre in every sixty had to be so sown, the primary 
 purpose being to produce the raw material on which the 
 people might be employed in spinning and weaving in 
 their homes. Moryson has told us that " husbandmen 
 weare garments of course cloth made at home, and their 
 wives wear gownes of the same cloth, kirtles [petticoats] 
 of some light stuffe with linen aprons, and cover their 
 heads with a linnen coyfe and a high felt hat, and, in 
 generall, their linnen is course and made at home." This 
 description, Eden says, was substantially accurate for the 
 North Country of his own day — that is, the end of the 
 eighteenth century. In Gaskell's words: 
 
 The distaff, the spinning wheel, producing a single thread, 
 and subsequently the jenny and mule, were to be found forming 
 a part of the complement of household furniture in the majority 
 of the cottage-homes of Great Britain, whilst every hamlet and 
 village resounded with the clack of the hand-loom, ^ 
 
 Houses 
 
 The Tudor period saw a real advance in the direction of 
 what may be termed home comforts. As Green remarked : 
 
 1 The Manufacturing Population of England. 
 142 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 It is from this period indeed that we can first date the rise 
 of a conception which seems to us now a peculiarly English one, 
 the conception of domestic comfort. The chimney-corner, so 
 closely associated with family life, came into existence with the 
 general introduction of chimneys, a feature rare in ordinary houses 
 at the beginning of [Elizabeth's] reign. Pillows, which had 
 before been despised by the farmer and the trader as fit only " for 
 women in child-bed," were now in general use. Carpets super- 
 seded the filthy flooring of rushes.^ 
 
 It is difficult to determine to what extent the new 
 comfort descended to the lower ranks of society, but 
 it can be said that domestic architecture, even in the 
 humblest cases, greatly improved. The fireplace became 
 a commonplace. Floor-boarding was usual. Table fur- 
 niture became more elegant, pewter or even silver ware 
 taking the place of wooden trenchers. The working 
 classes did not yet use spoons and forks, but throughout 
 the seventeenth century these articles became more and 
 more common. The rough earthenware was soon to 
 give way before the newly invented glaze. Glass, despite 
 the window taxes, was turning the hut or hovel into some- 
 thing akin to the cottage of to-day. Furniture, though 
 still more noticeable for its strength than for its beauty, 
 was beginning to assume more elegant forms. 
 
 In the towns some attention was at last being given to 
 sanitation. But though we may say with Mr and Mrs 
 Hammond that 
 
 To the people of Norwich or York in the fifteenth century 
 their town was not a mere roof from the wind and the rain : it 
 was a living personality, expressing and cherishing the instincts, 
 tastes, beliefs, and corporate pride of the citizens widely and richly 
 pictured,^ 
 
 though we may deplore the loss of that old beauty, 
 gathering in loveliness with age, which the destruction of 
 our ancient towns and cities caused, yet we must recog- 
 nize that the ancient town would be impossible to-day. 
 1 Short History of tie English People. ^ The Town Labourer. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Throughout this middle age, though as time passed more 
 and more attention was given to sanitation, that subject 
 was hardly understood, and the health of the people, rich 
 and poor alike, was in this regard grossly neglected. 
 
 It was not, indeed, until well into the nineteenth century 
 that any properly organized system was introduced into 
 town-planning, and then for a season the standard of art 
 and taste was so low that the horror of the resulting barracks 
 was almost more terrible than the fevers or the plagues 
 which the more beautiful and interesting medieval towns 
 had engendered. 
 
 We obtain a view of the shocking conditions which 
 sometimes existed from Dr V. A. Riecke's observations 
 on the interments and disinterments of the churchyard of 
 St Innocens, where at a time of plague from 1500 to 
 1600 bodies had been buried in a common grave creating 
 a state of disease in the surrounding houses which developed 
 into a pestilence in 1 554. Other disorders were also caused 
 by the same cemetery in 1737 and 1746, and in 1780 it 
 was found that the cellars in all the houses in one of the 
 streets bordering on this cemetery were full of noxious 
 gases which would not support light. 
 
 The numerous plagues which broke out from time to 
 time in the various medieval towns are indeed a sufficient 
 proof that those old towns, lovely though they were to 
 look upon, were often evil places in which to live. 
 
 Wages 
 
 Throughout the period, and even after the great decrease 
 in the value of money which occurred in Tudor times, wages 
 were very low, though a substantial rise occurred after 
 the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. The average 
 earnings of an artisan in 1662 were but fifteen shillings a 
 week. In 1641 the wage of a thatcher was sixpence a 
 day with meals, but by 1684 the wage of an agricultural 
 labourer had risen to a shilling a day, though the justices 
 of Warwickshire endeavoured unsuccessfully to fix the 
 maximum at eightpence a day. 
 144 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 Learning 
 
 Throughout the period of which we now speak the 
 generahty of men were entirely ignorant of that form of 
 knowledge which is derived from books. Their religion 
 was a religion that they were taught wholly by word of 
 mouth. For a large part of the period the Bible was 
 not to be obtained by the vulgar, and if obtainable was not 
 written or printed in the vulgar tongue. Until half of 
 this middle age had passed the Sunday school had not 
 yet been thought of. The old gild schools and the monastic 
 centres of learning had suffered severely under the Tudors. 
 An age which gave to us a More, a Shakespeare, a Bacon, 
 and a Newton left the people as illiterate as the Russians 
 over whom Peter the Great ruled. But though from 
 books they gained nothing, and from priests and ushers 
 but little, they had still as their natural tutor the country- 
 side with all its half-unfolded wisdom. The true rustic, 
 dull and boorish though he may appear to those whose 
 eyes are blinded by the glitter of a showy civilization, 
 always had and still has a clear vision for the fundamental 
 facts of life. The picture that we gather of these workers 
 from their contemporaries is that of an unlettered, rough, 
 hard-working, simple-living. God-fearing, clean and decent 
 people, who clung to their little homes and when misfortune 
 befell to their freedom and liberty of action, risking the 
 whip, the house of correction, and even the gallows rather 
 than become the prey of a grey-faced charity, which was 
 all the Tudor and Stuart administrators could find to offer 
 to the indigent and unfortunate. 
 
 The Spirit of the Poor 
 
 Few more noble struggles have been made than those 
 which were carried through to the death by thousands of 
 humble folk who, unable to find employment in their 
 native villages, were compelled to choose between charity 
 and the search for work in a land that loathed and feared 
 vagrants. Few more sorry stories can be told than that 
 of the way these poor folk were treated, not by some 
 
 K 145 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 ruthless conqueror, but by their own more fortunate 
 fellow-countrymen. We have occasion elsewhere to advert 
 to this matter, but in this present place we cannot forbear 
 from a quotation from the Elizabethan canon. 
 
 With us the poor is commonly divided up into three sorts, so 
 that some are poor by impotence, as the fatherless child, the 
 aged, the blind, and lame, and the diseased person that is judged 
 to be incurable ; the second are poor by casualty, as the wounded 
 soldier, the decayed householder, and the sick person visited 
 with grievous and painful diseases ; the third consisteth of thrift- 
 less poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all, the vagabond 
 that will abide nowhere, but runneth up and down from place 
 to place [as it were seeking work and finding none ^), and finally the 
 rogues and the strumpets. 
 
 For the first two sorts . . . there is order taken throughout 
 every parish in the realm that weekly collection shall be made 
 for their help and sustentation — to the end they shall not scatter 
 abroad, and, by begging here and there, annoy both town and 
 country. Authority is also given unto the justices in every 
 county (and great penalties appointed for such as make default) 
 to see that the intent of the statute in this behalf be truly executed 
 according to the purpose and meaning of the same, so that these 
 two sorts are sufficiently provided for ; and such as can live 
 within the limits of their allowance (as each one will do that is 
 godly and well disposed) may well forbear to roam and range 
 about. But if they refuse to he supported by this benefit of the law, 
 and will rather endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their 
 idle trades,^ then are they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort, 
 and so instead of courteous refreshing at home, are often cor- 
 rected with sharp execution and whip of justice abroad. Many 
 there are which, notwithstanding the rigour of the laws provided 
 in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty (as they call it) to 
 be daily under the fear and terror of the lash by abiding where 
 they were born and bred, to be provided for by the devotion of 
 the parishes. 2 
 
 Our authority then proceeds to define " idle beggars " 
 as such as are idle ** either through other men's occasion 
 
 ^ Our italics. 
 
 ^ Harrison, op. cit. His division of the poor is obviously based on the 
 findings of Bishop Ridley's committee. 
 
 146 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 or through their own default." By "other men's occasion," 
 he means, " where some covetous man doth find such 
 means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings 
 and turn the same unto his private gains." We have seen 
 in what manner many worthy and hard-working folk 
 became, together with their wives and children, " idle 
 beggars" through "other men's occasion." In an age 
 which possessed 10,000 sturdy beggars at a time, which 
 saw 300 to 400 thieves sent to the gallows annually, in 
 which every roadway was infested by this sorry crowd of 
 despairing searchers after work, and which produced some 
 of the most luminous intellects of all time, it is matter 
 for surprise that a better solution than the Poor Law of 
 Elizabeth was not discovered. The solution is perhaps to 
 be found in the words of Harrison, who, having with some 
 sympathy described the case, concludes with the words, 
 " Certes, in some men's judgment these things are but 
 trifles and not worthy the regarding." 
 
 It is a notable fact that the two periods of our history 
 when wealth most quickly grew — we speak of the ages 
 when the Americas were discovered and when machinery 
 and steam came into use — were both marked by the 
 gravest misfortunes inflicted on large masses of innocent 
 people. The fact would appear to be that these great 
 economic changes, complicated in both cases by move- 
 ments in favour of the consolidation of farms and live- 
 stock, upset the accustomed balance and poise of society, 
 and as is always the case when changes thus occur, bore 
 with all their weight upon that portion of the community 
 that had the least resources in either money or intelligence 
 to support them. 
 
 Development of Resources 
 
 If we looked solely at the working of the Poor Law, 
 however, we should bear away a false impression of the 
 English working population as a whole. Though without 
 doubt very many thoroughly industrious and worthy folk 
 were positively driven to the gallows by force of hunger, 
 
 147 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 the fate of the majority was far more happy. The gene- 
 rahty of men tended to become better off than they had been. 
 Throughout the seventeenth century material possessions 
 substantially increased. The resources of the world were 
 beginning to be opened up to an expectant Europe. The 
 Navigation Acts were stimulating the growth of a mercan- 
 tile marine, the activities of the various Merchant Adven- 
 turers were discovering new sources of wealth, new objects 
 of desire. During that century wages more than kept 
 pace with the price of corn. Enclosures, though still 
 continuing, were opposed both by the first two Stuarts and 
 by Cromwell, and had not yet succeeded in turning the 
 peasant into the agricultural labourer and divorcing the 
 handicraftsman from the land. Great advances were 
 made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in domestic 
 architecture and furniture. By the time Chamberlayne 
 issued the first edition (1669) of his famous Anglice Notitia 
 the export, import, and re-export trade of England was 
 already considerable. He could recount (in the 1708 
 edition) with some pride that : *' We transport from our 
 plantations in America besides what we consume ourselves 
 of sugar, indico, tobacco, cacao-nuts, etc., besides the 
 fish, pipe-staves, masts, bever, etc., from New England and 
 the northern parts of America to ^400,000 per annum." 
 By the end of the seventeenth century " the meanest 
 mechanics and husbandmen wanted not silver spoons and 
 some silver cups in their houses." 
 
 Games 
 
 From the games played by the common people we 
 gather that they were by no means without either leisure 
 or amusements. The list of those available for the citizen 
 and peasant as given by Chamberlayne is lengthy and has 
 a curiously modern appearance. Football and cricket were 
 even then, in conjunction with hand-ball, the favourite 
 games. Golf (or goffe) appears high up in the list, and 
 above cudgels, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, cock-fighting, 
 bowling, or quoits. Skittles and shovel-board were also 
 148 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 very popular pastimes, while leaping, wrestling, and pitch- 
 ing of the bar are given a secondary place. Chambcrlayne 
 notes as a unique form of * sport ' peculiar to England 
 the * ringing of bells,* which, however, was common also in 
 Brabant and Flanders. 
 
 France 
 
 In France, industry expanded considerably during the 
 seventeenth century. Indeed, even as M. Renard describes 
 the century which stretched between 1689 and 1789 as 
 an English century, so we may regard the period of Louis 
 the Great as a French period. The great reforms which 
 such men as Laffemas, Montchretien, and, above all, 
 Colbert, attempted to effect in relation to the French indus- 
 trial organization did not entirely succeed, largely in 
 consequence of the deliberate policy of military aggran- 
 dizement pursued by the King and his advisers. Colbert, 
 one of the most active, though not one of the greatest, 
 of French statesmen, and one raised in the school of the 
 great Cardinal Mazarin, early determined on the cleansing 
 of the system of taxation, the development of trade and 
 industry, and the organization of an effective navy. His 
 and Riquet's improvement of the canal system did for 
 France what the later activities of the Duke of Bridgewater 
 achieved for England. He fostered manufactures in 
 every way possible, establishing new industries, importing 
 from abroad eminent craftsmen, forbidding emigration, 
 and protecting inventors. 
 
 Colbert, however, was essentially a bureaucrat. He 
 looked rather to the good of the State, and of a State in 
 which the kingship occupied a pre-eminent place, than to the 
 well-being of the worker. He desired to make France 
 prosperous and independent as far as possible of foreign 
 countries in matters of trade and manufacture. He set 
 out in an orderly way to form an organization to obtain 
 information, and with the information thus obtained to 
 draft and enforce regulations to control and regulate 
 French industry. It was in vain that the merchants of 
 
 149 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 France said to Colbert, when it was proposed to take , 
 measures to protect their interest, " Laissez-nous faire " — 
 he refused to leave anyone alone. He regulated every- 
 thing, and consequently Colbertism has become almost a 
 synonym for State regulation of the severest, most bureau- 
 cratic kind. 
 
 Colbert's main steps were taken in 1664, 1665, and 1669. 
 In the year first mentioned the Conseil du Commerce was 
 established to consider the regulations of trade and in- 
 dustry. In the year following commissioners were sent 
 into the provinces to gather from the masters and workmen 
 all the details relating to their several trades. Colbert had 
 expressed the belief that the French artisans, masters and 
 men, would receive the commissioners with open arms. 
 In this he was disappointed. Guy Poquelin and Fran9ois 
 de la Croix not infrequently met with serious opposition 
 and on occasion were subject to deUberate boycott. In 
 the result, however, by 1669 the regulations controlling 
 industry had been substantially completed by the pro- 
 mulgation of four important ordinances. 
 
 Four years later, still pursuing his aim of obtaining fine 
 workmanship, which he believed to be the essence of 
 prosperous industry, Colbert obtained the issue of the 
 ordinance concerning the gilds or corps de metiers^ the 
 purpose of which was to strengthen these associations in 
 a manner which would enable them once again to exercise 
 a useful and practical control over both masters and men. 
 
 That the system of regulation thus established by Colbert 
 was cordially detested by the people is certain, that it 
 achieved some important results is also certain, that it 
 was gravely hampered by the circumstances of the reign 
 in which it was devised is probable. Whether or not 
 it was economically an essentially bad system is a matter 
 of doubt. It would seem that, like all other systems of 
 bureaucratic control, it tended to level all down to a mono- 
 tonous mediocrity without great villains or great heroes in 
 its piece ; that it resisted alterations or improvements ; and 
 that it gave over the people to the privileged and shut and 
 150 
 
A MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 barred the door to individual advance, and consequently 
 eliminated a great part of individual incentive. It did, 
 however, tend to very splendid and beautiful craftsmanship 
 and for a century made France the dictator in all matters 
 of applied art. 
 
 The Workshop 
 
 Meanwhile important changes had been taking place 
 in the fabric of society. Industry was no longer entirely 
 domestic. Wholesale manufacture was springing into 
 being. In the factory of van Robais as many as 1692 
 workpeople were employed before the end of the seventeenth 
 century. Many workers no longer lived or worked with 
 their masters, and these were beginning to form a class 
 apart. Their interests were becoming not merely different 
 from, but opposed to, those of their employers. They were 
 beginning to organize to defend those interests. 
 
 As yet, however, the divorce of man from master was 
 the exception rather than the rule. Though, even in the 
 time of Adam Smith, by far the greater number of the 
 manufacturers, artisans, or handicraftsmen worked for a 
 master, the usual workshop was but a small affair employ- 
 ing anything from two to a dozen hands. In such places 
 master and man worked together. The apprenticeship 
 system lived on throughout this period and underwent but 
 slight change from the form it had taken in the fourteenth 
 century. The period of apprenticeship tended at first to 
 become shorter than it had formerly been and varied from 
 four to eight years, but under the Statute of Apprentices 
 seven years became the normal period in England. Often 
 the number of apprentices that could be taken was strictly 
 limited, sometimes to as few as one at a time. This matter, 
 again, was regulated in England by the Elizabethan statute. 
 The apprentice still lived with his master and was kept by 
 him in food, clothing, and shelter, and was forbidden to 
 leave his master's service or seek other employment. 
 
 Chamberlayne, writing in England in 1669, having 
 observed that slavery was no longer part of the social order 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR ' 
 
 in England, and that but few villeins were left, observes | 
 that " the nearest to this condition are apprentices." 
 
 The apprentice, indeed, during the term of his articles was, ' 
 
 in both England and France, placed very completely under | 
 
 the control and tutelage of his master. ' 
 
 At the end of his articles the apprentice in France no ! 
 
 longer becomes the valet^ but is now referred to as the i 
 
 compagnon. He still remained subject, however, to quote \ 
 M. Levasseur, " to the laws of the corporations which the 
 
 masters alone had caused to be made, and of which the \ 
 
 principal provisions had always for their object the estab- ' 
 lishment of their authority and their privileges." The 
 
 workman was required to look up to his master, obey him, i 
 
 and be faithful to him. If he failed in these duties fine | 
 
 and imprisonment were the punishments. Neither in France \ 
 
 nor in England might he leave his employ without just , 
 
 cause; other masters might not employ him unless he had i 
 
 been discharged and could prove that he had completed ^ 
 
 his last job. The workman was frequently forbidden to ] 
 
 work on his own account — and covins and combinations ] 
 
 between workmen with a view to organized opposition \ 
 
 to the master were interdicted. ! 
 
 It would appear that the tendency was for wages to I 
 
 increase in the second half of the seventeenth century | 
 
 and for such increase to be effective, that is to say, the | 
 
 purchasing power increased. ■*• The hours of labour were j 
 
 not sensibly decreased. The day was still a true day. 1 
 
 ^ For a full analysis of the wages in France in the seventeenth century see ; 
 M. Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrieres el de l' Industrie en France avani \ 
 1789, t. ii, pp. 394 et seq, \ 
 
 152 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 WE now approach in point of time the revolution- 
 ary epoch formed by the agrarian and industrial 
 changes which occurred in the last half of the 
 eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. The 
 present is, therefore, a convenient place in which to pause 
 awhile and look backward upon the trend of education 
 throughout those centuries about which we have been 
 speaking. 
 
 We have seen that in the medieval period, and to an 
 intensified degree in the era of serfdom, the life of the 
 working classes was simple and narrow. Their needs were 
 small, their opportunities few. It could hardly have been 
 otherwise, for throughout these years both the peasantry 
 and the proletariat of Europe were composed almost 
 exclusively of unlettered men and women. 
 
 Generalizations on this matter must not, however, be 
 pushed too far. Throughout the ages known to history 
 there have been some systems of education devised by all 
 communities that have achieved civilization. Civilization 
 depends, indeed, upon the trained mind, and rises or falls 
 according to the level of intelligence of the ruling classes. 
 It is, of course, only within recent years that the masses 
 have in any way been identified with the ruling classes 
 or that their education has become a matter of political 
 importance. 
 
 Brito-Roman Schools 
 
 Professor Haverfield was wont to say that the general 
 level of education in this country was higher at the time 
 of the Roman occupation than at any time up to the second 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 half of the nineteenth century. In those early days Britain, 
 and in an increased degree Gaul, possessed numerous 
 and excellent schools at which it is evident the working 
 classes were taught at least the rudiments of grammar. 
 The story of these early schools is only slowly being pieced 
 together and it is not yet, and probably never will be, known 
 what system of education was pursued. It can, however, 
 be stated that in these Brito-Roman schools masters of 
 eminence taught, that the school language used was Latin ; 
 that working people learnt to read and write at least, and 
 that it was not uncommon for the upper classes to finish 
 their education abroad. 
 
 With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire learn- 
 ing disappeared from the land. With the coming of 
 Christianity the ancient fabric of knowledge began little 
 by little to be re-woven. For one century Northumbria 
 was in the van of European culture. In the ninth 
 century that eminent West Saxon, Alfred the Great, made 
 it one of the aims of his life to provide education for all 
 free-born men of property. In the next century, Dunstan, 
 the wise counsellor of Edgar the Peaceful and one of the 
 earliest of our reformers, obtained the passing of a canon 
 directing the priests " diligently to instruct the youth and 
 dispose them to trades." But as yet it is not probable 
 that the serf had any part in or gained any advantage from 
 these reforms, and the whole machinery for educating the 
 middle and upoer classes was violently upset by the Norman 
 Conquest. 
 
 The Medieval System 
 
 From the Norman Conquest to the Black Death it is 
 almost impossible to believe that the ordinary working 
 man could have received any education, for although it is 
 evident from contemporary sources that on occasion even 
 the serfs were seeking opportunity to send their children 
 to school, and although in rare instances it is obvious that 
 the children of the lowest orders became most highly 
 educated, it is still true that a form of education which 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 ignored the vernacular tongue, which taught all it had to 
 teach in either Norman-French or Latin, was useless to the 
 child whose life was to be spent in a workaday world that 
 spoke English. 
 
 The schools of all the centuries from the eleventh to 
 the end of the fourteenth were, indeed, places wherein 
 were trained the future monks and gentlemen.^ Broadly 
 speaking, and ignoring for the moment the gild schools, 
 the aim of all the schools controlled by the Church was to 
 train the man who would, when grown to maturity, be 
 either a gentleman or a priest, using the term gentleman to 
 mean one whose duties would be mainly concerned with 
 government, either local or central, and war. Some other 
 types, it is true, emerged. The lawyer, the administrator, 
 the manorial factors and stewards, obtained their groundings 
 in these early schools, but even these types were in the 
 eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries almost identified 
 with priests; none of them belonged to the same order of 
 society as the masses. 
 
 The Gild Schools 
 
 The gild schools of later growth were founded to meet 
 the needs of another class. To some extent free of 
 ecclesiastical control, and working under the agis of the 
 newly-risen corporations, they taught the child of the gilds- 
 man. These schools acted as elementary schools for the 
 children of merchants and craftsmen. In the earlier 
 years they were neither numerous nor wealthy, though as 
 time passed they grew greatly in strength. 
 
 Church Control 
 
 Apart from these gild schools the Church claimed 
 absolute control over education. By the twelfth century 
 the position had been reached that, apart from special 
 franchise or charter, no man might keep school unless 
 licensed by the Church, though in the opening years of the 
 
 ^ Girls' schools were, of course, early in existence, but they too trained 
 the ecclesiastical and upper classes. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 thirteenth century this licence could be obtained free. It 
 was in that and in the preceding century that the First 
 Renaissance began. The activities of the great Nominalist 
 Roscellinus and his disciple Abelard had caused a break 
 in the monastic traditions represented by Lanfranc and 
 Anselm. The university of Paris arose distinct from the 
 old cathedral schools. Already in the eleventh century, 
 in Italy, the great university of Bologna had acquired a 
 European reputation under Pepo and his successor Irnerius. 
 A dispute between Becket and Henry II was destined to 
 result in the founding of the university of Oxford by the 
 scholars who had been compelled to leave Paris. 
 
 But it is not of the universities that we would speak. 
 The studium generate was the Mecca of the studious classes, 
 it had little concern with the children of the poor except 
 that occasionally some bright child was assisted on his way 
 to fame and fortune by the scholarships or fellowships 
 which even in those early ages could be obtained. 
 
 It is indeed true that in origin the universities were 
 designed as higher schools for the child of the poor man 
 and for the rich, but it was rather for the man who intended 
 to devote his life to learning that they catered. Such a 
 class was recruited in insignificant numbers from the 
 working population. 
 
 We must therefore turn aside from the consideration 
 of those movements, such as that inaugurated by the 
 Brethren of the Common Life in the fourteenth century, 
 and the rise of the academies and universities in all parts 
 of Europe during the centuries which stretched from the 
 eleventh to the fifteenth, for they are movements connected 
 but slightly with the life of the common people. 
 
 The Lollards 
 
 According to Mr de Montmorency we have to look to 
 the struggle led by Wycklif in the fourteenth century for 
 the turning-point in the history of education in England. 
 Hitherto the control exercised by the Church had been 
 almost absolute. The Lollards fought hard for liberty, 
 
 156 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 both in matters of conscience and in matters of education, 
 and although their movement was in time suppressed it 
 flourished exceedingly for many years. During the latter 
 half of the fourteenth century two, and perhaps three, 
 generations of school-children were being taught by men 
 sympathetic to the Lollard teachings. The result is to 
 be seen in part in the legislation of the opening years of the 
 succeeding century. 
 
 The movement in favour of freedom in matters of educa- 
 tion was given greater momentum by the improvement in 
 the status of the labouring classes due to the Black Death. 
 The serf was dying out and those who still remained were 
 no longer the chattels they once had been. The State, the 
 law courts, the corporations, were all leaning in favour of 
 opening the schools to all who could pay, and of mitigating 
 the iron rules concerning the licensing of schoolmasters. 
 We find the City of London aiding schools unconnected 
 with the Church. We find the State expressly stating 
 that the unfree child might aspire to learning, despite 
 the fact that in 1391 the Commons had petitioned the 
 King *' that it be ordained and commanded that neither 
 native nor villein put his children henceforward to school 
 in order that they may become clerks, and this in order 
 to maintain and save the honour of the free men of the 
 realm." 
 
 In the great case of the Gloucester Grammar School 
 (1400) the judges laid down the momentous principle 
 that " to teach youth is a virtuous and charitable thing to 
 do, helpful to the people, for which the teacher cannot 
 be punished by our law." The competition created by 
 the unlicensed schoolmaster caused a sharp drop in the 
 school fees charged. In the reign of Henry II, when 
 Walter Map was sneering at the villeins for wishing to 
 educate their " base and degenerate children," the fees 
 at Gloucester Grammar School were forty pence or two 
 shillings per child; in the reign of Henry IV they had 
 dropped to twelve pence, but even so the sum demanded 
 equalled a twentieth of the yearly wage of a master hind. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 In another direction, however, the Lollard movement 
 struck a heavy blow at education. When at length the 
 strong arm of the State fell with full weight upon that sect, 
 the unlicensed schoolmaster and the unorthodox school- 
 master were attacked. Very many schools were closed, 
 with the result that in the fifteenth century there were 
 fewer schools than there had been three centuries before. 
 The suppression by Henry V of alien monastic foundations 
 had a similar effect. 
 
 The Reformation 
 
 Little by little the scholastic organism recovered, but in 
 its convalescence it became once more firmly grafted on 
 to the Church. Then occurred the crushing blows which 
 the Reformation rained on the Church and upon all things 
 controlled by the Church. While Luther in Germany 
 was bringing education to the doors of the cottage, 
 Henry VIII in England was destroying church and 
 monastery and school. As Mr William Page says : 
 
 Up to the time of the Reformation nearly all education was 
 maintained by the Church, and when the chantries were dissolved 
 practically the whole of the secondary education of the country 
 would have been swept away had not some provision for the 
 instruction of the middle and lower classes been made by con- 
 tinuing, under new ordinances, some of the educational endow- 
 ments which pious founders had previously founded. ^ 
 
 Prior to the Reformation it would seem, indeed, that, in 
 the words of Mr Leach, ** national education was in a far 
 more flourishing state than it was at the opening of the 
 nineteenth century." ^ This, in truth, is not high praise, 
 but it serves to guard us from the common error of 
 believing that the Tudors were the founders of grammar 
 school tuition. Indeed, it has been remarked that " very 
 few, if any, of the so-called Edward VI Grammar Schools 
 had their origin in the reign of that monarch." A 
 
 * The Yorkshire Chantry Surveys. 
 2 Schools at the Reformation. 
 
 158 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 consideration of the number of grammar schools in 
 existence prior to the Reformation shows that there were 
 more schools per head of the population then than in the 
 middle of the nineteenth century. Thus, Essex possessed 
 sixteen grammar schools for 11,000 people, and Here- 
 fordshire was almost as well supplied with its seventeen 
 schools for 30,000 people. 
 
 Elizabethan Reforms 
 
 Under Elizabeth, however, an attempt was made to 
 remedy a deplorable state of affairs. It is indeed mar- 
 vellous that an age which saw the second great Renaissance, 
 which was alive to all the wonders of the New Learning, 
 which possessed on the Continent such great educational 
 leaders and reformers as Luther, Melanchthon, Erasmus, 
 John Sturm of Strassburg, Wolfgang Ratke, and, toward 
 the end of this period, John Amos Comenius, an age 
 which saw the spread of this learning, under the leadership 
 of More and Colet, to Oxford and Cambridge, and thence 
 outward to the schools of England, should have been the 
 one which experienced the blight of ignorance spreading 
 over the land. But it was so, and with this evil Elizabeth 
 and her ministers struggled almost in vain. 
 
 In the words of Mr de Montmorency, " It was not the 
 fault of the Elizabethan policy that it had to deal with 
 machinery deliberately wrecked by the predecessors of 
 the great Queen. All that could be done under such 
 circumstances seems to have been done." ^ The uni- 
 versities were incorporated ; administrative abuses were 
 corrected; the student was given special privileges under 
 the labour legislation ; elementary education was rendered 
 more free, the secondary system purified. The com- 
 plaints levelled by Harrison that fellowships went by 
 favour to the rich rather than by merit to poor and rich 
 alike were dealt with. But, as in the case of her Poor 
 Law reforms, the Queen's educational reforms were to no 
 small extent vitiated by maladministration. 
 
 1 State Intervention in English Education. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR | 
 
 As yet no system of State education existed. Learning \ 
 
 was still reserved to those who could pay, except where j 
 
 pious founders had established free, or partially free, ! 
 
 schools, and many of these had been dispossessed. Under i 
 
 Elizabeth, however, we begin to find serious efforts being \ 
 
 made by local action to form funds with which to pay the j 
 
 educational charges of able, though poor, children. The ! 
 
 schoolmaster was shown favour and was relieved of certain ; 
 
 burdens borne by others in the matter of taxation. But 1 
 
 as yet the whole educational machinery was but ill ! 
 
 developed. Bacon could protest, and with good reason, : 
 
 at the absence of adequate funds with which to pay the i 
 
 salaries of masters or the cost of experiments. Science, i 
 
 which was now beginning to be something more than the ' 
 
 toy of the alchemist, was still neglected. The poor man's ; 
 
 child was still unlettered. It was not until 1649 that the \ 
 first small State grant was made. 
 
 Poor Law Schools i 
 
 It is, of course, in this reign, as we have seen, that the ! 
 
 Poor Law system was so extensively developed. Under ; 
 
 that system many poor children were settled by the parish, • 
 
 and there is some evidence that, as the result of local ' 
 
 activities, efforts were early made to provide, free of charge, ' 
 
 some rudiments of learning to the parish poor. Some- '• 
 
 times we find a parish schoolmaster appointed, his small ; 
 salary being paid from the rates. Sometimes the school 
 
 fees of the pauper child are provided. The extent of : 
 
 these activities, depending as they did upon the enlighten- ■ 
 
 ment of the local authorities, it is not easy at present to ' 
 
 ascertain ; it would seem, however, that for a season a : 
 definite effort was made in some districts to provide the 
 
 elements of education for the poor of the parish, but j 
 that these occasional and sporadic attempts to give free 
 
 teaching died away and that the parish schools either ceased ; 
 
 or degenerated into places at which the poor children were j 
 
 ' minded ' by illiterates for an inadequate pittance per 1 
 
 week. I 
 
 160 ! 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 The Commonwealth 
 
 Under the Commonwealth Government it seemed, 
 indeed, that national education might be achieved. Un- 
 happily, the reform of our grammar-school system by 
 Comenius had been rendered impossible by the outbreak 
 of the Civil War, but in 1649 an Act of some moment was 
 passed establishing for Wales commissioners empowered to 
 appoint schoolmasters, to levy rates for their maintenance, 
 to pay salaries not exceeding ^^40 a year, and to arrange 
 for the pensioning of the dependents of deceased masters. 
 First-fruits and tenths, to the maximum extent of ;/^2o,ooo 
 a year, were devoted to the cause of education in England, 
 and ;^2ooo a year was voted to Oxford and Cambridge. 
 
 With the Restoration, however, education in England 
 and Wales once more most seriously declined. It was its 
 connexion with the Church that again proved its undoing. 
 In order that the King and the Church might be preserved 
 the schoolmaster was pursued with tests and oaths. The 
 result was that for a century the education of the people 
 languished, and that by the end of the eighteenth century 
 England was peopled by illiterates. 
 
 We will revert to this matter again somewhat at length 
 later, but for the moment it will be well to journey over 
 the seas the Pilgrim Fathers had crossed in search of free- 
 dom of conscience to see whether any crop had sprung from 
 their sowing. 
 
 Early American Efforts 
 
 In point of date, the first step appears to have been 
 taken in New England in 1636, when the small sum of 
 ^^400 was voted with which to build and found the little 
 school which was destined to become th( famous Harvard 
 University, so named in honour of its early benefactor 
 John Harvard, who on his death at an early age in 1638 
 endowed the school. 
 
 Two years later a free school was established in the 
 colony of New Haven, and in 1650, in Connecticut, one of 
 
 L 161 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 the most momentous advances was made in the direction 
 of popular education by the passing of a local law which 
 imposed upon parents and upon the masters of appren- 
 tices the duty of seeing that their children and charges 
 were properly taught to read, to know the elements of their 
 duty to the State, and to learn a short orthodox catechism. 
 Failure to perform this duty resulted in the children being 
 removed from their care and placed under masters by them 
 to be taught until the age of twenty-one in the case of boys, 
 or eighteen in the case of girls, was reached. 
 
 In addition to these provisions making education com- 
 pulsory, steps were taken to establish an elementary school 
 in every hamlet of fifty (later reduced to thirty) house- 
 holders, and a grammar school for every unit of one hundred 
 householders, thus anticipating by nearly a hundred and 
 fifty years Condorcet's rejected plan for an elementary 
 school for every four hundred households and secondary 
 educational facilities in each of the one hundred and ten 
 divisions into which France was to be divided. In 1690 
 two free schools were established. 
 
 In Massachusetts these provisions were followed and 
 to some extent expanded by the local Act passed in 1692 
 entitled ** An Act for the Settlement and Support of 
 Ministers and Schoolmasters." By this law it was pro- 
 vided that : 
 
 Every town within this province, having the number of fifty 
 householders, or upwards, shall be constantly provided of a school- 
 master, to teach children and youth to read and write. And 
 where any town or towns have the number of one hundred 
 families or householders, there shall also be a gram.mar school 
 set up in every such town, and some discreet person, of good 
 conversation, well instructed in the tongues, procured to keep 
 such a school ; every such schoolmaster to be suitably encouraged 
 and paid by the inhabitants. 
 
 As Mr de Montmorency, upon whose valuable work 
 we have so often relied in what we have stated above, says : 
 
 It is [more than two centuries] since the Legislature of New 
 England determined to reproduce the grammar-school system of 
 162 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 Old England supported by a compulsory rate, and to supplement 
 it with a compulsory primary system such as England was not 
 destined to see even in theory until 1876.^ 
 
 There was, however, a great and important difference 
 between the new and the old. In New England the 
 Dissenter was not a being to be feared and suppressed; 
 learning was not chained hand and foot to the Church; 
 the seeds of decay were not introduced into the grammar- 
 school system. In Old England the Church was recom- 
 mencing her assault upon free education, using that term 
 in the sense of freedom to teach and to learn» 
 
 France 
 
 In France the course of events in early times was 
 similar to that in England. In the words of Matthew 
 Arnold : 
 
 From the fifth to the fifteenth century the institutions founded 
 for popular instruction bore little or no fruit, because instruction 
 in Europe was up to that time nearly confined to one class of 
 society, the clergy. From the very earliest times, indeed, a 
 simple shepherd boy, like Saint Proclus of Berry, might enter 
 a monastery school and become one of the learned men of his 
 epoch ; but it was on condition of embracing the ecclesiastical 
 profession.^ 
 
 In the fifteenth century there became manifest in France, 
 as under the Lollards in England, a growing demand for 
 instruction independent of the Church. In 141 2, almost 
 at the time the Gloucester Grammar School case was being 
 decided in England, we find the inhabitants of Saint- 
 Martin de Villers, in the diocese of Evreux, founding a 
 school for their own parish. The bishop opposed the 
 foundation, complaining that his privileges were en- 
 croached upon and that his own school at Touque was 
 injuriously affected. The dispute was settled by the lay 
 
 ^ State Intervention in English Education. 
 
 2 Cited from his report prepared for the Newcastle Commission. 
 
 163 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 founders consenting to vest the appointment of the new 
 teacher in the hands of the bishop. On a later occasion 
 the dispute again broke out and the courts upheld the 
 ecclesiastical privileges. The school was closed. 
 
 Sixteenth-Century Demands 
 
 By the middle of the sixteenth century, however, the 
 need for schools was so apparent that the States-General 
 at its sessions held at Orleans and at Blois in 1560, 1576, 
 and 1588 drew the French king's attention to the want 
 of elementary schools. The Third Estate demanded that 
 the clergy should be compelled to " instruct or cause to 
 be instructed the children of the poor in all good learning, 
 according to their capacity, even from their earliest years." 
 This obligation, it was insisted, should not be evaded "on 
 pretext of the negligence of parents and sponsors." Little 
 was done, and though by an ordinance of 1560 it was 
 decreed that " in every cathedral or collegiate church one 
 prebend, or the revenues of the same, shall be permanently 
 devoted to maintain a preceptor, and to give free schooling 
 to the children of the place," the king, Charles IX, found 
 the opposition of the Church too strong and was unable 
 to enforce the ordinance. 
 
 Persecution of Heretics 
 
 A very different attitude, however, was adopted by the 
 clerics in their zeal for the elimination of heretics after 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. What piety and 
 the desire for the well-being of the people had been un- 
 able to secure, bigotry and the love of persecution in form 
 achieved. 
 
 To quote once more from Matthew Arnold : 
 
 The persecuting government of Louis XIV bethought itself 
 of the village schoolmaster as a useful agent in the work of 
 forcible conversion. A royal edict of December 13, 1698, gave 
 orders to take the children of heretics from their families at five 
 years old, in order to bring them up, by compulsion, in Catholic 
 schools. 
 164 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 But these Catholic schools did not yet exist. The edict 
 therefore proceeded to provide that : 
 
 There shall be established, so far as it is possible, schoolmasters 
 and schoolmistresses in every parish that is without them, in 
 order to instruct the children of both sexes in the principal 
 mysteries of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Religion ... in 
 order, likewise, to teach reading and even writing, to all who 
 might need them. To this end it is our pleasure [the edict 
 continues] that in places where there are no other funds, there 
 shall be a power of taxing all the inhabitants to raise stipends 
 for the said schoolmaster and schoolmistress up to a sum of one 
 hundred and fifty livres a year for a master, and of one hundred 
 for a mistress. 
 
 Such a law even under a despotism was too repulsive 
 to the national sentiments of humanity to be capable of 
 being enforced. The village children of France were 
 initiated neither in the mysteries of the CathoHc, Apostolic, 
 and Roman rehgion nor in the rudiments of letters. 
 
 The Voluntary Effort 
 
 In France, indeed, until the time of the Revolution, such 
 education as was given to the poor of France was supplied 
 neither by the State nor by the Church, but by religious 
 or charitable associations. In this England and France 
 again pursued the same path. In France by 1789 twenty 
 such associations were engaged in teaching the children 
 of the masses. Of these the Institut des Freres des 
 Ecoles Chretiennes, founded in 1679 by Jean Baptiste 
 La Salle, was by far the most important, though the 
 Ursulines played a prominent part in the education of 
 girls. 
 
 By 1785 the number of children taught by the Institut 
 des Freres was about 30,000. At the time of the Revolu- 
 tion, their activities were suspended and they themselves 
 dispersed. They were re-established by Napoleon, and 
 in 1825 during the Restoration they possessed 210 houses. 
 By 1848 they had in France 19,414 schools, and taught 
 1,354,056 children. 
 
 165 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The Restoration in England 
 
 The so-called * Cavalier ' Parliament, which lasted from 
 1 66 1 to 1679, has been described as being *' more zealous 
 for royalty than the King, more zealous for episcopacy 
 than the Bishops." With this Parliament commenced that 
 series of odious Acts against the Dissenters which struck 
 so grave a blow at religious and intellectual freedom. 
 
 In 1 66 1 all officers of corporations were compelled to 
 conform to the rites of the Church of England. In the 
 following year the Act of Uniformity required all school- 
 masters and persons instructing youth to conform. 
 Licences from the Church were rendered compulsory 
 under pain of three months' imprisonment, a clause which 
 was not repealed until 1846, though in the opening years 
 of the nineteenth century, but not before, it had become 
 practically obsolete. 
 
 Three years later yet another blow was struck. The 
 Five Mile Act forbade any Nonconformist minister to 
 come within five miles of any town wherein he had formerly 
 preached or lectured, and all Dissenters, whether lay or 
 clerical, were prohibited from teaching in any public or 
 private school under penalty of a fine of ^^o and imprison- 
 ment for six months. 
 
 The above Acts are only part of a long series, continued 
 with intermission for many years, designed to destroy one 
 form of freedom of opinion. The result was to usher in 
 an era of intellectual sleep. The English peasant child 
 of the eighteenth century had hardly the same facilities 
 for acquiring the rudiments of knowledge as were given to 
 the slave children of the Cape by the Dutch East India 
 Company. 
 
 The attitude of the governing classes for the next hundred 
 and fifty years may indeed be seen in the words of Lord 
 Hardwicke when he said, ** Though at the Reformation 
 greater invitations were made to bring the poor to schools, 
 that is not so proper now, for at present the poor had 
 better be trained up to agriculture." 
 166 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 The Charity Schools 
 
 The barrenness of the period would have been almost 
 entirely unrelieved had it not been for the notable 
 increase in the number of scholastic foundations estab- 
 lished by private munificence in the closing years of 
 the seventeenth and the opening years of the eighteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 It is not impossible that this development was due, 
 to some extent, to the attitude of the law-courts, which 
 were beginning to regard somewhat closely the wide claims 
 of the Church and the ecclesiastical courts to decide or 
 control all matters relating to education. By Bates's 
 case (1670) the master appointed by the trustees of a 
 foundation was protected from expulsion by the bishop, 
 and by Cox's case, decided thirty years later, a doubt was 
 raised as to whether the Church had control over schools 
 other than grammar schools. 
 
 Operating in the same direction was the treaty of peace, 
 the so-called Healing Act, which Richard Baxter and Dean 
 Tillotson drew up in 1674. This agreement was designed 
 to bring about a rapprochement between the orthodox and 
 dissenting Churches, and although the bishops refused to 
 confirm the Act it evidenced a desire on the part of a 
 respectable body of opinion within the Church to grant 
 toleration to the Nonconformists. This party was subse- 
 quently strengthened by the elevation of Tillotson to the 
 Archbishopric of Canterbury, and it is evident that in 
 material parts the most rigorous of the laws against 
 Dissenters were not commonly put into practice; otherwise 
 it is hardly possible to conceive that any Dissenters could 
 at this period have taught in any school. 
 
 The Voluntary Schools 
 
 The opening years of the eighteenth century were 
 particularly notable for the number of charities which had 
 for their object the foundation and endowment of schools. 
 These endowed schools, however, though available for 
 
 167 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 the education of poor children, met the needs rather of the 
 middle than of the lower classes, and it is to the so-called 
 voluntary schools, i.e., unendowed schools, the expenses 
 of which were borne partly or wholly by public subscrip- 
 tions and in some cases partly by small fees paid by the 
 parents, that we have to look for the gradual spread of 
 education among the masses of the people. 
 
 Early Efforts 
 
 Brougham, in his speech made in the House of Commons 
 in 1 820 on the occasion of the introduction of his Education 
 Bill, stated that : 
 
 Shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in [1679], 
 the most intolerant period of French history, was founded the 
 first society in the world, and for a long time the only one, for 
 the advancement of education; its founder was the celebrated 
 Pere La Salle, and the order was denominated " Les Freres des 
 Ignorants," ^ and their vow was to found schools. 
 
 That this was ** the first society in the world for 
 the advancement of education " is manifestly incorrect. 
 Europe had seen three centuries before the splendid 
 schools which had been founded by the Brethren of the 
 Common Life. The Congregation of Christian Teaching 
 had been established in 1592. Indeed, it is not necessary 
 to journey to either other countries or other centuries to 
 find earlier examples of private associations being estab- 
 lished for the advancement of education. It is probable, 
 from the general trend of his speech, that Brougham in- 
 tended to restrict the application of his generalization to 
 the education of the poor in elementary schools. Even 
 so, however, Pere La Salle had been anticipated in this 
 country by Thomas Gouge, a Dissenter expelled under the 
 Act of Uniformity, who devoted the remainder of his life 
 to establishing schools in Wales at which poor children 
 could learn to read English, write, and cast accounts. 
 
 ^ This is another name for the Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes already 
 referred to. 
 
 168 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 Gouge's activities appear to have commenced somewhere 
 between 1670 and 1672 and three years later no fewer 
 than 2225 children had been put to school. 
 
 The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 
 
 An even more imposing, and possibly connected, 
 organization was developed in the closing year of 
 the seventeenth century. The Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, whose purpose was to teach poor 
 children reading, writing, and the principles of the Christian 
 religion, was indeed the most important educational force 
 at work among the poor in England until the foundation, 
 or rather the consolidation, of the Sunday schools by Robert 
 Raikes in 1780. 
 
 The growth of the Society was surprisingly rapid. As 
 early as 1713 Addison could speak of the institution as 
 one '* which of late years has so universally prevailed 
 throughout the whole Natidn." By 171 5 there were 120 
 schools in London and Westminster alone, and in 1729 
 there had been established 1658 schools, at which 34,000 
 children attended. 
 
 As the eighteenth century progressed it would seem 
 that the schools created by the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge seriously declined in efficiency, and 
 the chief part of the burden of educating the poor fell upon 
 the Sunday schools. We are now, of course, entering into 
 the era of the Industrial Revolution, when child labour 
 was being utilized to its utmost and when for many children 
 Sunday was the only full day available. We must not, 
 however, compare the Sunday schools of those days with 
 the modern Sunday school. In the eighteenth century 
 the pupil could receive instruction in secular subjects on 
 two evenings in the week as well as for five and a half 
 hours on Sundays. The ' pupils ' were often adults. 
 Then as now the parents were not called upon to pay 
 anything. By 1834 it was estimated that there were in 
 England and Wales 1,500,000 persons attending Sunday 
 schools. 
 
 169 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The Nineteenth Century 
 
 The opening years of the nineteenth century are marked 
 by a notable awakening of the pubUc conscience in many 
 departments of sociology. The violent upheavals of the 
 French Revolution, the industrial and agrarian changes, 
 and the Napoleonic wars were beginning to subside and 
 the question of popular education became for a time acute. 
 The attitude of Parliament toward Whitbread's Parochial 
 School Bill of 1807 showed, however, that the governing 
 classes were opposed in principle to the spread of education, 
 for their opposition was based not upon the opinion, later 
 held by Lord Brougham, that the voluntary effort had met 
 the situation and rendered compulsory education un- 
 necessary, but upon the view that it was dangerous to teach 
 the "laborious classes" anything save, perhaps, enough of 
 reading to enable them to piece out bit by bit the Bible. 
 
 The general desire among the people for more and 
 better education expressed itself, however, in a great 
 increase in the number of voluntary schools and in the 
 number of children attending these schools. The activities 
 of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster had resulted in the 
 development of two great organizations, the National 
 Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the 
 Principles of the Established Church throughout England 
 and Wales, and the Royal Lancasterian Institution, which 
 later became the British and Foreign School Society. 
 
 State of Education in Europe 
 
 The state of education in Europe in the first two decades 
 of last century may be gathered from the speech of 
 Brougham already referred to. This speech, based as it 
 was upon laborious investigations, shows with admirable 
 clearness the illiteracy of our people before 1803 and the 
 gradual spread of education. Before 1803, /.^., before 
 the development of the new school system under Dr Bell 
 and Mr Lancaster, only one in twenty-one of the popu- 
 lation was placed in the way of education in day-schools. 
 170 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 By 1820 the proportion had only increased to the extent 
 of one in sixteen. In France only one in twenty-eight 
 was educated, and even that proportion had been reached 
 only by recent improvements. In 18 17 870,000 children 
 received education in France, while in 18 19 the number 
 had increased to 1,070,000. In 18 17 only one in thirty- 
 five of the population of France was educated. Despite 
 the decrees of 1795 establishing primary schools through- 
 out France, in Brougham's words : ** France was at that 
 period [18 17] in almost as bad a state in that respect 
 as Middlesex, which was, beyond all dispute, the worst- 
 educated part of Christendom." 
 
 In the smaller countries of Scotland, Holland, and 
 Switzerland the position was better. Even at the end of 
 the eighteenth century one in ten of the population of 
 Scotland appears to have received some degree of educa- 
 tion, a proportion which equals that attained by Holland 
 in 1 8 1 2. Switzerland was in still better case, for, according 
 to the data supplied by Mr Dumont, there was in 1820 
 twelve times as much education given as in England. 
 Not more than one in sixty of the populace was illiterate ; 
 in England one in five was illiterate. 
 
 The next few years, however, were fruitful in educational 
 development. The first of the Factory Acts, passed in 
 1802, had been followed by numerous other Acts which 
 we shall have occasion hereafter to refer to, all of which 
 required that the child-worker should receive a certain 
 measure of, or facilities for acquiring, education. At 
 first the tuition supplied was so bad and unworthy as not 
 to merit attention, but in time the compulsory clauses 
 had their effect, and more and more children took ad- 
 vantage of those voluntary foundations which expanded as 
 the need grew. 
 
 In 1828 a further impetus was given to education by 
 the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. That 
 cordial co-operation between Churchmen and sectarians 
 which those laws had hitherto prevented was no longer 
 impossible, and the result was such that when, in 1835, 
 
 171 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Brougham addressed the House of Lords upon the 
 Education Bill then before Parliament, it was to oppose 
 compulsory education on the ground that the voluntary 
 system had proved itself sufficient to meet the needs of 
 the case. The returns upon which that speech was in 
 part based showed that in the unendowed day-schools the 
 number of children attending had increased from 478,000 
 in 18 1 8 to 1,144,000 in 1835, and the number of schools 
 from 14,000 to 31,000. 
 y^ On the other hand, the endowed schools had for some 
 time past been declining. As Lord Kenyon had occasion 
 to remark in 1795: "Whoever will examine the state 
 of the grammar schools in different parts of the kingdom 
 will see to what a lamentable condition most of them are 
 reduced. In some instances that have lately come within 
 my own knowledge, there was not a single scholar in the 
 schools, though there were very large endowments." 
 Even after numerous efforts had been made to improve the 
 administration and teaching in these schools. Brougham 
 could note that in an age of great educational advance- 
 ment the number of those attending the grammar schools 
 had declined from 166,000 to 150,000. 
 
 Brougham and the Voluntary System 
 
 But we go beyond our present limits. The new 
 educational movement which was becoming fully apparent 
 in the first half of last century belongs rather to that great 
 series of social improvements which we shall have to 
 consider in the second part of this book. We cannot, 
 however, terminate this brief account of the efforts volun- 
 tarily made to bring education to the masses without 
 quoting those words of one who had done so much for the 
 advancement of the cause of learning. 
 
 Where we have such a number of schools and such means of 
 
 education furnished by the parents themselves from their ow^n 
 
 earnings, and by the contributions of well-disposed individuals in 
 
 aid of those whose earnings are insufficient, it behoves us to take 
 
 172 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 the greatest care how we interfere with a system which prospers 
 so well of itself ; to think well and long and anxiously, and with 
 all circumspection and all foresight, before we thrust our hands 
 into a machinery which is now in such a steady, constant, and 
 rapid movement, for if we do so in the least degree incautiously, 
 we may occasion ourselves no little mischief, and may stop that 
 movement which it is our wish to accelerate. I know well the 
 difficulties of maintaining the continuance of subscriptions first 
 begun on occasions of public spirit excited, and beneficent zeal 
 aroused, I know well — as do all men who have bestirred them- 
 selves, how little soever, with the purpose of benefiting their 
 fellow-citizens — that nothing can be more perilous than to give 
 contributors an opportunity of saying, what some will feel and 
 others will be ready to urge — "we need not subscribe any more, 
 for the Government, or the county, or the parish has stept in to 
 educate the people, and will now maintain our institution." Let 
 the tax-gatherer, or the county-assessor, or the parish collector, 
 but once go his rounds for a school rate, and I will answer for it, 
 that the voluntary assistance of men in themselves benevolent, 
 and, indeed, munificent, instead of increasing, will soon vanish 
 away ; that the 1,144,000 now educated at unendowed schools 
 will speedily fall down to almost nothing ; and that the adoption 
 of such a fatal and heedless course will sweep away those 
 establishments which, at present, reflect so much honour on the 
 community, which do so much good, and are calculated, with 
 judicious management, to do so much more. Add to this, that 
 in many parts of the country — ^and those the very districts where 
 the people need instruction most — they are by no means anxious 
 for it, nor very eager to send their children to school. Those 
 persons who found and support schools are of infinite use in 
 encouraging the poor to benefit by their exertions ; and all this 
 useful engine of improvement would be destroyed if the affair 
 of education once were made a parish concern. 
 
 Lord Brougham's eloquent plea for the continuance of 
 the voluntary effort and the exclusion of the compulsory 
 principle was successful in its immediate object, and it 
 was not until forty-one years later that the compulsory 
 system was established by Act of Parliament. It is 
 notable as showing the darkness from which the people 
 had but recently emerged that so broad-minded an 
 
 173 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 educational reformer had been fully content to leave 
 untouched a system which gave but a smattering of 
 knowledge to less than one half of the population, and 
 a system which was based rather upon the charity of 
 the classes than upon the rights residing in the children 
 of the masses to be taught, howsoever poor their parents 
 might be. 
 
 174 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 AT the time of the Whig Revolution England 
 LJL was in the main a country of commons and 
 X jL common fields; at the time of the Reform Bill 
 England was in the main a country of individualist agri- 
 culture and of large enclosed farms." In these words the 
 authors of T/ie Pillage Labourer contrast England as it 
 existed before and after one of the most important events 
 which have occurred in all her history — the disappearance of 
 the old English village society, with its common fields and 
 waste lands, its domestic workers, its crofters and cottagers. 
 A movement which reached its highest point in the 
 opening years of the nineteenth century had begun, as 
 we have seen, centuries before. Harrison, indeed, writing 
 of the decade 1 577-1 587, has told us of 
 
 the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek to 
 bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, 
 daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut 
 them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then 
 seven times increasing their fines, driving them also for every 
 trifle to lose and forfeit their tenures (by whom the greatest part 
 of the realm doth stand and is maintained), to the end they may 
 fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hearing. 
 
 A little later Edward Laurence was advising *' noble- 
 men and gentlemen " to endeavour to convert copyhold for 
 lives into leaseholds for lives. 
 
 The steward should endeavour to let all the small farms, let 
 to the poor, indigent people, to the great ones. But it is unwise 
 to unite farms all at once on account of the odium and the increase 
 of the poor rates. It is more reasonable to stay until the farms 
 fall in by death. 
 
 ^7S 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 By these two methods of compelling forfeitures, by 
 oppressive fines and by transmuting customary tenancies 
 into leaseholds for lives which fell in on the death of the 
 tenant, together with the rearrangements of holdings 
 which were arrived at by friendly agreement between 
 tenants and the lord, substantial areas had been enclosed 
 throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As 
 Dr Usher, however, observes,^ the earlier enclosures were j 
 partial ; they included portions of improved waste lands ; 
 belonging to the demesne farm, and parts of the open fields, j 
 They of necessity effected something of a transformation \ 
 in the old agricultural technique and bore hardly upon ' 
 the individuals who chanced to be dispossessed of their j 
 holdings and who fell almost inevitably either into a ' 
 condition of dependence upon the parish or into vagrancy ; ' 
 but, unlike the enclosures which took place under the ^ 
 Enclosure Acts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ; 
 they left the village as a social unit almost untouched. , 
 
 Nature of the Enclosure Movement 
 
 This was so not because the areas enclosed were com- , 
 paratively small before 1750 — indeed, Dr Usher is of 
 
 opinion that the case of Oxfordshire was not exceptional, : 
 
 and that throughout the country as much land was enclosed ; 
 
 between 1600 and 1758 as was enclosed after 1758 — but ! 
 
 because the earlier enclosures, effected, as they were, not j 
 
 by Act of Parliament, but by private pressure or arrange- \ 
 
 ment, merely transferred some villagers' holdings into the | 
 hands of the larger landowners, leaving the commons and 
 
 wastes, though reduced in area, still existing and still able ' 
 
 to play their accustomed part in an ancient polity. The i 
 
 enclosures under the private Bills which were rushed i 
 
 through Parliament in such numbers between 1750 and | 
 
 1845 ^°^ '-"^^y resulted in the enclosure of nearly all the ; 
 
 open fields then remaining in England, but by taking | 
 
 manor by manor or village by village and completely 1 
 
 ^ Introduction to the Industrial History of England. \ 
 
 176 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 rearranging the holdings, dispossessing the squatters and 
 many of the cottagers of their holdings and their quasi- 
 customary rights, changing the common-field system of 
 husbandry into the method of farming to which we are 
 to-day accustomed, effected an entire change in the social 
 fabric of the countryside. These enclosure Acts, indeed, 
 brought to an end the era of peasant proprietorship, up- 
 set the ancient balance between supply and demand in 
 such vital matters as milk and meat and fuel, and hastened 
 that redistribution of population which the invention of 
 machinery and the development of the fire-engine or 
 steam-engine was already, before the end of the eighteenth 
 century, bringing about. 
 
 As a result of the Agrarian and the Industrial Revolutions, 
 England was changed from a country of rustic domestic 
 workers into a land of urban factory hands, and this mighty 
 change, with all its miseries and resulting gains and prob- 
 lems, took place in little less than a century. In this 
 present chapter we will endeavour to describe the Agrarian 
 Revolution ; in the next we will consider the Industrial 
 Revolution. 
 
 The movement of which we now speak is that which 
 took place by virtue of the various enclosure Acts. Of 
 these Acts the first appears to have been passed in 1606, 
 two were passed in the reign of Anne, sixteen in the 
 reign of George I, and 226 in the reign of George II. 
 By the opening year of the nineteenth century, 1700 Acts 
 had come into operation, while not less than 2000 were 
 placed on the Statute Book between 1800 and 1844. 
 Mr Levy has calculated that between 1702 and 1760 
 only 400,000 acres were affected, while in the next fifty 
 years 5,000,000 acres were enclosed. Judge Bowen has 
 reckoned that as regards Wales, by 1795, of the 5,100,000 
 acres in Monmouthshire and the Principality, 1,693,628 
 acres only of unenclosed waste or common lands existed, 
 and of these 160,868 acres alone were capable of culti- 
 vation. 
 
 M . 177 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Motives 
 
 The motives which inspired the legislature when passing 
 these Acts have been very variously described. That 
 class ignorance and selfishness inspired many of the 
 petitions is susceptible of proof, but the view that Parlia- 
 ment, venal and representative as it was only of the class 
 which gained from these enclosures, should have steadily 
 pursued for one hundred years, and, indeed, for longer, a 
 policy of mere robbery is not lightly to be accepted. 
 
 In endeavouring to form a judgment on the attitude 
 and motives of the men who brought about the Agrarian 
 Revolution it is well to consider what their views were and 
 to what extent history has shown those views to be justified. 
 It is also worth pondering what would have happened had 
 there been no Agrarian Revolution. If, at the end of our 
 inquiries, we find the present state of England to be 
 better than it would otherwise have been, it is but just and 
 wise to stay the flinging of missiles at the memory of those 
 who brought about the change, though from the misery 
 that change immediately created we may learn how to avoid 
 the pitfalls our ancestors fell into. If, on the other hand, 
 we come, as some writers would seem to have done, to the 
 conclusion that the landowners of the enclosure period 
 were merely selfish parasites, the question arises, and has 
 been raised, as to whether the wrong then done should not 
 be rectified. 
 
 A reference to page 137 will show that whereas in 1693 
 the population of England was expected to amount to 
 6,420,000 in 1800, and to 7,350,000 in 1900, it in fact 
 amounted to 9,168,000 and to 32,527,000 in those years 
 respectively. This question of population should be 
 kept firmly in mind when considering the whole of the 
 enclosure episode, for it must be accepted that the main 
 objection to enclosure is that it drove the people off the 
 land, a grievance which presupposes that apart from it 
 the people could have remained on the land. It is ap- 
 parent, however, that a system which was only capable 
 
 178 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 of supporting in the barest manner some 7,000,000 people 
 could not have kept and fed more than four times that 
 number. 
 
 Advantages 
 
 If we turn to contemporary writers ^ we find men of 
 the highest mind and most sympathetic natures strongly 
 pressing for enclosure, not because they gained thereby, 
 but because they considered it to be for the good of the 
 country. Thus, Bentham believed that by enclosures 
 the country was making the most splendid strides toward 
 prosperity and happiness. Sir Frederick Eden, who was 
 very far from being a reactionary, has put the case for 
 enclosure with much force. He says : 
 
 The sum is, that the advantages which cottagers and poor 
 people derive from commons and wastes are rather apparent 
 than real : instead of sticking regularly to such labour as might 
 enable them to purchase good fuel, they waste their time, either 
 like the old woman in Otway's Orphan^ in picking up a few dry 
 sticks, or in grubbing up, on some bleak moor, a little furze, or 
 heath. Their starved pig or two, together w^ith a few wandering 
 goslings, besides involving them in perpetual altercations with 
 their neighbours, and almost driving and compelling them to 
 become trespassers, are dearly paid for, by the care and time, 
 and bought food, which are necessary to rear them. . . . There 
 are thousands and thousands of acres in the kingdom, now the 
 sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses, half-grown horses, and half- 
 starved cattle, which want but to be enclosed and taken care of, 
 to be as rich, and as valuable, as any lands now in tillage. 
 
 That there is great truth in what he says can hardly be 
 denied. It was not mere folly or greed which prompted 
 the words : 
 
 If the enclosure of waste-lands is facilitated ... we shall 
 have the merit of beginning a work of never ending and still 
 increasing utility, as far as these epithets can be applicable to 
 anything that is merely sublunary ; of setting our children an 
 
 ^ For an analysis of contemporary opinion the reader is referred to 
 Dr Hasbach's History of the English Agricultural Labourer. 
 
 179 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR | 
 
 example worthy their imitation; and leaving them, at least, ; 
 one instance of our providence, for which they may bless our i 
 memory. | 
 
 It must be remembered that in 1685 not more than a 1 
 half part of England was cultivated, and of this three-fifths 
 were still farmed on the very inefficient common-field 
 system. Although the science of agriculture advanced 
 somewhat under the Tudors, the yield obtained was but 
 a fraction of what it is to-day or of what it immediately 
 became after the enclosures. Had the old system lived 
 on, it must have befallen, if we assume that the population 
 would in such circumstances have increased as quickly as 
 it in fact did from 1800 to 1900, that the home supply 
 of foodstuffs would have been even smaller than is to- 
 day the case, while millions of peasants would have 
 endeavoured to eke out a bare existence by working extra- 
 ordinary hours as they do to-day on the Continent. 
 
 But the merely agricultural side of the problem, though 
 it is the most considered by those who have written on the 
 matter, is by no means the most important. As Eden 
 quite rightly said when speaking of wastes and commons, 
 ** They ... lie in the way of many improvements of 
 the first importance." One of the most serious of their 
 drawbacks from an economic point of view, though one 
 not noticed by Eden, is found when we consider the mineral 
 wealth of this country. 
 
 The great increase in prosperity which marked the later 
 half of the nineteenth century was largely due to the in- 
 telhgent use of inanimate power, and particularly the power 
 derived from coal. England grew great and powerful 
 on coal. It is impossible to say in what measure the 
 exploitation of the coal and other mineral resources of this 
 country would have been checked had the old common- 
 field system continued, but it is worthy of remark that 
 it is extremely difficult adequately and cheaply to exploit 
 mineral resources under land the surface of which is owned 
 by a great number of persons, and that owing to the form 
 of our law, copyhold tenure, giving as it does the property 
 180 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 in the minerals to the lord and the possession of the minerals 
 to the copyholder, is not favourable to mineral development. 
 
 To those acquainted with mining practice or mining 
 law the proposition that enclosure facilitated mineral de- 
 velopment does not require argument. Had there been 
 no enclosures a great number of our coal mines would 
 never have been sunk and we to-day should have been by 
 so much the poorer. 
 
 That enclosures resulted in individual distress was at 
 the time admitted, but Eden advances arguments which 
 are at least respectable when he says : 
 
 The distresses thus produced can be but temporary, whilst 
 the advantages to be expected from a contrary system are such 
 as promise to be permanent, as well as daily increasing. The 
 argument seems to stand exactly on the same footing that the 
 mills and machines for spinning cotton do, or any other machine 
 or contrivance calculated to lessen labour. One of the immediate 
 effects of all such improvements, no doubt, is to throw many 
 industrious individuals out of work ; and thus to create distresses, 
 which are sometimes exceedingly calamitous. Still, however, as 
 the only point of view in which a nation can regard such schemes 
 of reform is to consider how far they actually do or do not 
 promote the general weal, by raising the largest quantity of 
 provisions, or materials for manufacture, at the least cost, their 
 inconvenience to individuals will be softened and mitigated, 
 indeed, as far as it is practicable, but by no means be suffered to 
 counteract any new plans of improvement of great and real 
 national utility. If this were not the proper line to pursue, it 
 must be confessed, the Turks alone are right, in not suffering 
 a printing press to be introduced into their dominions, merely 
 because one of its immediate effects would be the depriving many 
 thousands of unoffending, industrious hackney writers of the 
 usual means of earning a livelihood ; and all civilized Europe is 
 in error. 
 
 Parliament 
 
 But although it is at least permissible to take the view 
 that some of the supporters of the enclosure movement 
 were actuated by the best motives and even that their 
 
 i8i 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 attitude of mind has been justified by events — for he knows 
 little of history who looks back to the pre-enclosure period 
 as to an Arcadian age — the mode in which the enclosures 
 were secured calls for the severest censure and would have 
 been impossible had Parliamentary government in this 
 country reached maturity. It has, indeed, been stated 
 that it was only the early development of Parliamentary 
 institutions in England, which by a processs of evolution 
 
 gave the legislative control of the country for a season into j 
 
 the hands of the landowners, that rendered it possible , 
 
 to break down peasant proprietorship in one country while I 
 
 leaving it almost intact in the more conservative countries 1 
 
 of the Continent. ji 
 
 We are, indeed, at present concerned with an era in ! 
 
 which the government of the country, both central and ] 
 
 local, was almost entirely in the hands of the landholding ! 
 classes. Although in theory elective, the House of 
 
 Commons was in truth representative only of those who ; 
 
 controlled the county and borough voters, few in number, ' 
 
 who were open, if not to bribery, then to intimidation. ; 
 
 Party divisions existed then as they do now, but such ; 
 
 divisions were merely cleavages in the solidarity of a single i 
 
 class. The House of Lords was hardly more aristocratic , 
 
 in sympathy or more independent of the goodwill of the ; 
 
 mass of the people than was the eighteenth-century House \ 
 
 of Commons. The kingship, divested of much of its power \ 
 
 and authority through the excesses of the Stuarts and the i 
 
 ascendancy of the aristocracy, was no longer able to play i 
 
 off the people against the landowners and the landowners ' 
 against the people as it had done not infrequently in the 
 
 past. For a season the masses were politically impotent, i 
 Measures could be, and were, passed to which nine out 
 
 of ten of the people of the country were most bitterly i 
 
 opposed. Proposals which were received with acclama- i 
 
 tion by the working people as a whole could be rejected : 
 
 by overwhelming majorities, and on appeal to the hustings j 
 
 the party which had so outraged public desires could be ' 
 returned to power. 
 182 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 Private Bill Legislation 
 
 But in dealing with the enclosure movement we arc 
 concerned not with public but with private Bill legislation. 
 We are not dealing with the effect of a general Act which 
 lays down a definite policy, but with a movement, originated 
 by the landowning classes, supported by the economists 
 and scientific agriculturists, which is given practical efi-'ect 
 by the passing of thousands of private Acts of Parliament, 
 each dealing with a concrete case and all together effecting 
 the immense social change of which we have been speaking. 
 The course pursued by the promoters of these private 
 Bills in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century has 
 been described with much accuracy and completeness 
 by the authors of The Village Labourer^ but it is desirable 
 shortly to indicate the general course of events. Up to 
 1774 an enclosure Act could be promoted and could 
 become law, thereby affecting the property rights and 
 the whole lives of a considerable number of people, without 
 any of the persons concerned, except the promoters or their 
 friends, being aware that any proceedings were being 
 taken. In that year, however, the House of Commons 
 made a Standing Order requiring that notice of an enclosure 
 petition should be affixed to the church door in each of the 
 parishes affected. 
 
 The petition thus referred to was the document which 
 the promoters of the enclosure Bill submitted for the 
 consideration of Parliament. The petition thus received 
 was in due course referred to a Committee of the House. 
 In such Committee it was considered in detail and upon the 
 report of the Committee the life of the Bill depended. If 
 the Committee reported in favour, the Bill became law, 
 either in its original or in an amended form, almost as a 
 matter of course, for it rarely occurred that it was lost in 
 the Lords and it never was refused the Royal signature. 
 
 Around the proceedings in Committee, therefore, the 
 fight between the promoters and the opposers centred. 
 The art of packing the Committee with friends was an art 
 
 183 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 which was carried to some extremes, and was assisted by 
 the usual custom of constituting the Committee by choosing 
 those, being members of ParHament, who had a special 
 knowledge of the district in question and of agriculture 
 in general. It consequently befell that, all members of 
 Parliament being then either of the landowning or wealthy 
 classes, the personnel of the Committee was biased in 
 favour of enclosure, which, whatever it did or did not do, 
 certainly benefited the landowning classes. Worse than 
 that, however, the members were hardly able from either 
 experience or sympathy to understand the grievous blow 
 which the enclosure Act would deal to many small pro- 
 prietors, many of whom they regarded as little better than 
 trespassers. As a result, in very numerous instances the 
 interests of such persons were almost entirely ignored. 
 
 Opposition Ineffective 
 
 In consequence of the mode of forming the Committee 
 the promoters were, as the authors of The Village Labourer 
 put it, " masters of the situation unless some large pro- 
 prietor stood out against the scheme." If there was 
 some such opposition the opponent could generally be 
 placated by the offering of favourable terms, not infre- 
 quently at the expense of those who could more safely be 
 disregarded. 
 
 As for the commoners, their antagonism was of little 
 avail. As we have seen, before 1774 the whole procedure 
 could be completed without their being aware of the change 
 impending, and the Bill, once passed, left them without 
 remedy. Even after 1774 it was difficult for them to 
 take effective action. The notice which would be attached 
 to the church doors would be couched in legal language 
 almost incomprehensible to the rustic mind. Even after 
 many heated debates in the inns of the village nothing 
 of service but only rancour would result. Occasionally 
 an enterprising lawyer would organize village opposition, 
 but it was no light task to tilt against the squire. The 
 expense of private Bill legislation then as now was very 
 184 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 heavy. The gathering in of subscriptions of sufficient 
 magnitude would be difficult. The collection of the 
 facts necessary effectively to fight the promoters would 
 be a task requiring both care and time. But the time 
 available was short. Cases are known in which no more 
 than six weeks elapsed between the presentation of the 
 petition and the passing of the Bill. 
 
 The promoters on their side were of course fully pre- 
 pared. Their case could be worked up and developed at 
 leisure, and the petition presented only when the case 
 appeared to be complete. The opposers, on the other 
 hand, had in a few weeks to organize, to collect money, 
 to collect facts, to take all the cumbrous steps necessary 
 to fight what was little less than an elaborate and difficult 
 lawsuit. 
 
 The result of so unequal a struggle was in the vast 
 majority of cases a foregone conclusion. That such was 
 in truth the case is to be seen from the Statute Book and 
 from the fact that by 1845 practically no waste or common 
 lands were left unenclosed in England. 
 
 The Commissioners 
 
 The enclosure Act having been passed the next step 
 was to appoint commissioners or arbitrators whose duty 
 it was to give effect to the Act by allotting to all persons 
 having proprietary rights in the land in question allot- 
 ments in lieu of their old holdings. The aim was to be 
 just without being generous, and justice was regarded 
 as a legal rather than as a moral entity. In other 
 words, compensation was given only for the deprivation of 
 legal rights. Customary rights, moral rights, these were 
 ignored. 
 
 Compensation 
 
 It should, however, be carefully borne in mind that 
 within this limit the enclosure awards were fair. As 
 Dr Usher has said : " The actual enclosure award was 
 designed to give each owner precisely the same amount 
 
 185 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 of land, or at least land of equivalent value ; in so far as 
 enclosure led to concentration of landholding the small 
 proprietors must needs be bought out before or after the 
 award." ^ 
 
 But though this was the aim, in practice the awards 
 bore hardly upon the smaller proprietors in consequence of 
 
 three main causes : i 
 
 (i) After the enclosure it frequently befell that a 
 
 commoner, who hitherto had had a small holding of i 
 
 common lands with commonable rights over the wastes, was \ 
 
 given in lieu thereof land which, owing to the details of : 
 
 the award, he was not in a position to utilize effectively. I 
 
 Instead of being a peasant-proprietor member of a ■ 
 
 community he became the holder of an allotment on j 
 
 which, for example, he was unable to feed his pigs because ; 
 
 no beech trees grew on his allotment, though many grew | 
 
 on the waste on which they formerly fed. The allotment ] 
 
 would be in size but little larger than the total of his i 
 
 former strips, very little land being allotted in compen- ^ 
 
 sation of commonable rights which were regarded by the \ 
 
 landowning class as rights of small value. As a result ; 
 
 the allottee found himself in possession of a holding which i 
 
 was too small to earn a living out of as a cultivator, and \ 
 
 the tendency was for him to sell, often under pressure, to i 
 
 the larger landowners and join the new army of landless ' 
 farm-labourers. 
 
 (2) The allotments — ^that is to say, the land distributed - 
 
 by way of compensation for land and rights lost — were i 
 
 made in compensation only for rights which could be | 
 
 legally proved. The cottager was required to show, as i 
 
 the jargon is, a " good root of title." He had to trace < 
 back to some clear grant. The difficulty of proving title 
 is the cause of the failure of the various Land Registration 
 
 Acts which have aimed at simplifying conveyancing in j 
 
 this country, and it is no matter for surprise that in very j 
 
 many instances the small proprietors, who had no family ■ 
 
 lawyers, no muniment chest, and no knowledge of how i 
 
 1 Introduction to the Industrial History of England. ' 
 
 186 i 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 they came by their land, except that their fathers and 
 grandfathers had held it before them, were unable to show 
 a " good root of title," despite the manorial roll by which 
 their tenure would in most cases be evidenced. 
 
 Again, in many cases, though the landholding could be 
 proved, the customary rights appurtenant thereto either 
 could not be proved or had been for a long time exceeded 
 by the tenants. Thus, for example, it might be that a 
 careful perusal of the title-deeds and the manorial incidents 
 showed that Richard Roe was entitled by custom of the 
 manor and in respect of his holding therein to pasture 
 one cow, feed two pigs, and collect peat and wood as 
 estovers, that is, as necessities for his own personal use, 
 whereas in fact it might be found that Richard Roe and 
 his father before him had pastured four cows and fed ten 
 pigs, and had kept poultry and geese all on the commons 
 and wastes, and had collected more wood and peat than 
 he himself used. In such a case Richard Roe had without 
 question exceeded his rights, but it is obvious that a strict 
 insistence upon the letter of the law, breaking down, as it 
 did, customary encroachments long regarded as rights, 
 bore very heavily upon the generation of peasants which 
 had to plead their case before the Commissioners. 
 
 Once, however, it was established that Richard Roe's 
 legal rights were so and so, it was for that that he received 
 compensation. The rights he had in fact exercised, 
 possibly married upon, and based his whole mode of 
 living upon in complete ignorance that he was doing 
 anything wrong, were brushed on one side. 
 
 (3) In very many cases, and particularly in the case of 
 the poorest members of the community, the peasants had 
 title neither to land nor to commonable rights. This class, 
 the squatters, were in law mere trespassers. The old 
 kindly rule that a man who could put up a hut so that 
 smoke issued from the hut fire the next morning might 
 claim to stay on that part of the waste occupied by him was 
 of no validity in law. Such a man received no allotment 
 at all, and the stock he had collected had of necessity 
 
 187 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 immediately to be sold. The man himself became a land- 
 less labourer. 
 
 Resulting Evils 
 
 Many of the evil results which flowed from enclosure 
 were unforeseen. Thus, for example, the staple diet of 
 the peasantry had in the past been cereals, milk, cheese, 
 and butter. The possession of cows by a vast number of 
 small proprietors had rendered the supply of milk and 
 dairy products easy to obtain, and as a consequence there 
 was no need in the rural districts for any organization for 
 the retail supply of such goods. The dairyman's business, 
 as we to-day understand that form of retailing, hardly 
 existed even in the large towns. After enclosures had 
 practically compelled the small man to give up the keeping 
 of cows a very great number of persons who hitherto had 
 kept the beasts that produced the milk, butter, and cheese 
 they used became dependent on others; that is to say, 
 instead of being producers they became consumers. But 
 the organization of trade as it then existed was not designed 
 to meet the needs of a large consuming class or to dis- 
 tribute the products of a very small number of large 
 producers. The large farmers took the line of least 
 resistance and refused to turn retailers. They sent their 
 dairy products away to the larger centres of population in 
 wholesale quantities. The immediate result was that even 
 those of the agricultural poor who could afford these 
 necessities were in many instances unable to obtain them. 
 We consequently find that, instead of milk, cheap tea 
 brewed over and over again becomes the staple drink of 
 the people. The effect on the health of the children in 
 particular was for a time disastrous. 
 
 Again, that other necessity of the poor — fuel — was now 
 increasingly difficult to obtain. The use of coal for house- 
 hold purposes had only commenced in Tudor times, and 
 the poorer classes even at the end of the eighteenth century 
 looked rather to peat and wood for their fires. These 
 supplies they had been able with some trouble to collect 
 i88 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 from the wastes, and they had in most manors been entitled 
 to them as matters of right. 
 
 After the enclosures the position was entirely different. 
 The small tenant's rights were limited to his own small 
 plot of ground in the majority of cases. If he gathered 
 wood, or peat, or even heather, gorse, or fern-stalks for 
 firing he ran the risk of being proceeded against as a tres- 
 passer. He was driven more and more to purchase the 
 expensive coal, the retailing of which was also, as yet, not 
 adequately organized, or to give up the use of fuel. In 
 practice he generally found it necessary to restrict his 
 needs to the barest possible limits, and it too often 
 happened that instead of the housewife baking her own 
 bread as in the past, the labourer was compelled to resort 
 to the baker, who supplied neither such wholesome nor 
 such cheap bread. 
 
 A Household Budget 
 
 This, however, was by no means universally the case. 
 Indeed, it is to be doubted whether it was common even 
 in the less thrifty southern counties. There is preserved 
 in the report of the Poor Law Commissioners who 
 inquired in 1843 ^^^^ ^^^ employment of women and 
 children in agriculture the housekeeping expenses of an 
 agricultural family living in Yorkshire. It gives the 
 household budget of Joseph and Jane Allen, who had five 
 children, one of whom was old enough to work. It was 
 kept with great fidelity at the request of a friendly squire, 
 who offered a present to the family if they would keep 
 for a year a faithful record. It is consequently of greater 
 value than the various budgets collected by Eden. The 
 whole of the accounts are too lengthy to set out in full, 
 but for the typical period extending from November 22, 
 1840, to December 13 of the same year the outgoings 
 and incomings were as shown in Tables I and II. 
 
 The total housekeeping expenses for the year amounted 
 to ;^49 1 1 J. 10^(2'. and the total earnings of the man, his 
 wife, and son to ^^50 12s. 6^., so that the family saved 
 
 189 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 Table I. — Outgoings 
 
 Period 
 
 Purchases 
 
 Price 
 
 
 / 3 stone of flour at 2S. ?,d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 8 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 Meat .... 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Sugar 
 Yeast 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 3 
 
 Week ending 
 
 Candles 
 Butter 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3i 
 
 November 29th 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 Soap 
 Milk 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 3i 
 
 
 Shoes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 \ Cheese 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 3 stone of flour 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 Meat . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Week ending 
 December 6th 
 
 Sugar 
 Soap 
 Candles 
 / Milk 
 Butter 
 Yeast 
 Tea and 
 
 coffee 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 7 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 3J 
 8 
 
 3l 
 6 
 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7i 
 
 
 Salt . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3i 
 
 
 / 3 stone of flour 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 Meat . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Sugar . 
 Candles . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 3i 
 
 Week ending 
 December 13 th 
 
 I Soap 
 \ Pattens . 
 
 Worsted 
 
 Pots 
 
 Yeast . 
 \ Tea and coffee 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 
 7 
 7 
 3 
 9 
 
 
 Total for three weeks . 
 
 £^ 
 
 10 
 
 oi 
 
 190 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 £i OS. 7|^. In the yearly account appear various items 
 of an exceptional nature, e.g.^ £2 for house rent, £1 ^s. to a 
 tailor for clothes making, and again los. for tailor, 7J. for a 
 hat for the man, 45. ^\d. for 7^ yards of blue print, is. id. 
 for cotton for shirts, is. for the making of a pair of gloves, 
 lOJ., 5J., and 4J. for shoes or shoemaking, numerous small 
 items for worsted, cotton, and leather for boot-repairing, 
 lid. for a prayer-book, and is. for the schooling of the 
 boy. Coal was purchased on two occasions and amounted 
 
 Table II. — Incomings 
 
 Period 
 
 Person working 
 
 Work done 
 
 Wages 
 
 November 22nd to 
 December 5th 
 
 December 6th to 
 
 December 13th 
 
 ( Man 
 \ Wife 
 t Boy 
 
 Man 
 • Wife 
 Boy 
 
 12 days 
 10 days 
 12 days 
 
 6 days 
 
 5 days 
 
 6 days 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 I 8 
 6 8 
 6 
 
 14 
 
 3 4 
 3 
 
 Total for three weeks . . ^^3 i 
 
 to a considerable sum. Fourpence a week was paid into a 
 clothing club. 
 
 The above account gives the impression of being well 
 kept, correct, and exhaustive. It belongs to an age when 
 the more transient of the evil effects of the enclosure 
 system were passing away. Bread and cheese, together 
 with a small allowance of meat, with occasionally some 
 bacon, form the staple diet. Tea and even coffee have 
 come into common use. The Industrial Revolution had 
 already swept away the domestic manufactures, and the 
 items of purchase of textiles and even stockings are some- 
 what numerous, though small in amount. 
 
 191 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR , 
 
 I 
 
 Remedial Proposals i 
 
 It is not too much to say that had Eden's advice been j 
 followed many even of the transient evils would not have 
 been seriously felt. He had urged that : 
 
 Whatever system of enclosure takes place, it might, perhaps, ! 
 be advisable that some specific quantity of land should be laid j 
 off from every common that is to be enclosed and improved, 
 not for the avowed paupers of the districts, but for its cottagers | 
 and labourers. If, in every township, thus gaining a fresh and j 
 large accession of cultivated lands, a competent portion of it ; 
 were conveniently and judiciously laid out for a garden and a ! 
 little croft, enough to maintain a cow or two, together with pigs, ' 
 poultry, etc., and enough also to raise potatoes for the annual 
 consumption of the family, together with decent and durable ' 
 cottages ; — I cannot figure to myself a more pleasing or more ; 
 advantageous state of society. ] 
 
 This was, in truth, a development of the allotment ' 
 system (using the term not in the enclosure Act meaning) \ 
 which was so strongly recommended by the Commissioners [ 
 of 1843. ^^ M^ Denison's report made in that year we ; 
 
 read that : 
 
 i 
 Some years back the labouring classes in Suffolk and Norfolk 1 
 were much better off than they are now, owing to the very j 
 general employment of women and children in hand-spinning. ; 
 That employment has been put an end to by miachinery, and ^ 
 no other domestic manufacture has been found to supply its 
 place. . . . The only thing I could find which at all supplied ; 
 the place of the spinning was the allotment system. . . . All the 
 persons to whom I applied for information on this subject spoke ' 
 as favourably as possible in favour of the system. 
 
 Mr Clarke, in his evidence, expressed the opinion that 
 if forty to sixty rods of land could be allotted to each ' 
 cottager in agricultural parishes, it would go far to dis- \ 
 pauperize them, while Mr Buchanan, another witness, j 
 stated that in Bulmer in Essex, which hitherto had been a I 
 parish almost wholly pauperized, allotments were made j 
 among seventy-three families, each of which received forty 
 192 
 
THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 rods of land for an annual rental of ten shillings. The 
 result was that in a short space of time the situation was 
 entirely changed. Bulmer became, instead of the worst 
 the best parish, and inhabitants noted for their thriftlessness 
 competed one with another as to who should have the best 
 allotment. 
 
 Proposals not Accepted 
 
 The aristocratic Parliaments of the eighteenth century 
 did not, however, condescend to consider remedial measures. 
 Their main aims — the concentration of holdings, the im- 
 provement of cultivation, the development of the food- 
 producing resources of the land — were sound. The mode 
 in which these aims were attained was unnecessarily cruel. 
 Had they been the representatives of a watchful electorate 
 it is probable that the enclosure Acts would still have 
 been passed, but it is almost impossible to believe that they 
 would have been passed in a form which so ignored the 
 rights of those whose rights were fewest. 
 
 Distress 
 
 In the absence of any such remedial measures the 
 acutest distress was felt in many districts. The effects of 
 the enclosures were, indeed, complicated by the problems 
 arising from the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic 
 wars. These concurrent factors reacted one on another 
 to cause the semi-pauperization of the peasantry and to 
 usher in what has been described as " a period in the 
 history of the Poor Laws which it is difficult to characterise 
 in measured language — a period which reaches its climax 
 during the Napoleonic wars, and which only ended with 
 the great reform of 1834, the new Poor Law." ^ Of this 
 period we have spoken elsewhere. 
 
 General Results 
 
 The Agrarian Revolution had as its most fundamental 
 social effect the entire disruption of a system of society. 
 1 Traill and Mann, Social England, vol. iv, p. 655. 
 
 N 193 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The manor as a social unit practically disappeared. The 
 
 rural worker became an agricultural labourer rather than : 
 
 a peasant-proprietor. On the other hand, the land was i 
 
 more scientifically farmed and produced more food. Im- \ 
 
 provements hitherto impossible were pressed on with. | 
 
 The wars, however, counteracted the increase in the : 
 
 supply of food. The cost of living rose rather than fell, i 
 The labourer, bereft of many of his rights, became poor, 
 and the Poor Law system tended to make him a pauper. 
 
 The workhouses for a time were full of peasant orphans, j 
 
 A proletariat had, indeed, been formed available for ex- j 
 
 ploitation by the new industrial masters whom the invention ' 
 of forms of machinery and power was now bringing into 
 
 prominence. How these unhappy people were exploited \ 
 we will next consider. 
 
 194 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 IN the opening years of the eighteenth century, at 
 the time when Chamberlayne's son was producing 
 the 1708 edition of the Notitia, the principal exports 
 of Britain were butter, corn, cattle, cloth (woollen), iron, 
 lead, tin, copper, leather, copperas, pit-coal, alum, and 
 saffron. Chamberlayne felt it a matter for congratulation 
 that the kingdom produced 5,000,000 chaldrons of sea- 
 coal, 1,200,000 pounds of tin, 800 fodders of lead, and 800 
 furnaces of iron. A little more than a century later the 
 exports of England amounted to ;^6o,ooo,ooo. Cotton 
 exports alone amounted to ;^i 8,000,000, and as the 
 authors of The Town Labourer have said, 
 
 A nation that had been poor and even backward in her roads 
 now possessed three thousand miles of navigable canals besides 
 her infant railways ; the new Stock Exchange had been founded, 
 and in two years alone no less a sum than a hundred and seventy 
 millions had been subscribed for joint-stock companies. 
 
 MM. Renard and Dulac have well expressed the 
 situation from an international point of view. Speaking 
 of the characteristics which marked out those years, the 
 capacity to organize industry and exploit all sources of 
 wealth, they observe that : 
 
 In the second half of the eighteenth century it was Europe, 
 and amongst the European Powers, it was the United Kingdom 
 of Great Britain in the first place and France in the second place, 
 that possessed these characteristics in the most eminent degree. 
 England was the mistress of the seas ; one might almost say that, 
 politically, the century which stretched between 1689 and 1789 
 was an English century. She had conquered the Indies ; she 
 reigned over the whole of North America; she had begun to 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 put her hand upon Canada ; she had commenced to colonize 
 Australia, Her ports, such as Liverpool and Bristol, had grown 
 with an extreme rapidity ; and it was no rare thing to find her 
 wealthy merchants or financiers exercising a considerable influ- 
 ence in the House of Commons. France, though less prosperous, 
 had seen Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseilles enrich themselves 
 with what was called le commerce des lies. The praise of commerce 
 became a literary commonplace. Voltaire expressed this normal 
 view when he wrote, " the business man enriches his country, 
 gives from his counting-house orders to Surat and Cairo, and con- 
 tributes to the happiness of the world." Sedaine, in Le philo- 
 sophe sans le savoir, expresses the same thought when he says, 
 " there is not a people, there is not a single nation, that the man 
 of business does not benefit ; he serves all and is served by all ; 
 he is the man of the world [I'homme de Punivers'\.^' ^ 
 
 As in the case of the Agrarian Revolution, we must admit 
 that if man's happiness is to be judged by the multitude 
 of his possessions and the number of his desires the course 
 of civilization was throughout the century sharply upward, 
 but the changes which occurred, the displacements which 
 followed, pressed with great hardness on many humble 
 folk. Those who can only hobble are ill-used if they are 
 compelled to race, and the coming of machinery brought 
 with it new problems for the solution of which neither the 
 classes nor the masses could advance any practicable plan. 
 
 Meaning of the Industrial Revolution 
 
 It is desirable, in the first place, to consider what is 
 meant by the Industrial Revolution. It did not consist in 
 the fact that from 1750 to 1840 and onward industry 
 tended to become more and more an organism in which 
 many men served masters. As we have seen, as early 
 as the seventeenth century factories employing over a 
 thousand hands existed on the Continent, and although the 
 generality of employers had but few employees it is still 
 correct to say that before the middle of the eighteenth 
 
 1 We translate from MM. Renard and Dulac's volume entitled V Evolu- 
 tion tndusirielle et agricole depuis cent cinquante ans. 
 
 196 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 century 80 per cent, of all the workers in industry were 
 employed by others. As M. Mantoux has informed us, 
 organized industry on a large scale created neither the 
 proletariat nor capitalism, but it helped to complete their 
 evolution. As the authors of The Town Labourer put it : 
 
 The normal worker before the Industrial Revolution was not 
 an independent producer in the full meaning of the term. There 
 were persons working in factories before this period ; there were 
 many more working for capitalist merchants, on whom they 
 were entirely dependent for the supply of raw materials and the 
 marketing of the product. 
 
 Nor is the labour of women and children a peculiar 
 feature of industry after the Industrial Revolution. From 
 the earliest times women and children have worked. 
 Indeed, in the early ages of mankind it was upon them that 
 the work of the world chiefly fell, and both in agriculture 
 and in industry it is entirely a modern phenomenon to find 
 female and child labour being restricted and subjected to 
 regulation. In the old days, to take one important branch 
 of industry — the making of textiles — the spinning was 
 done almost entirely by women and children, the weaving 
 of the yarn by men. 
 
 Nor is it peculiar to the new industrial system to find 
 the workers operating in cramped, unhealthy, and un- 
 suitable buildings. It was a natural development of 
 pre-existing conditions. When a visitor called to see 
 Bamford's father and ask him to leave his domestic loom 
 and undertake the management of the manufactory for 
 cotton goods at the Manchester workhouse the son tells 
 us in his Early Days that *' my father was called up from 
 his loom in the cellar where he was at work." Many, if 
 not all, of the evils of environment which in later years we 
 associate with the out-worker were present in the case of 
 the domestic worker, with the important exception that 
 normally the domestic worker was a countryman, and 
 however small or ill-adapted his workshop might be, he and 
 his wife and children could escape from it and while away 
 their leisure amid the green fields and hills and dales. 
 
 197 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 / The chief differences to be found in conditions of life 
 C before and after the change are due to the following causes : 
 '^.(^l) displacement of labour; (2) the massing together of 
 f population ; (3) the development of discipline ; (4) the 
 I speeding-up of work ; (5) the destruction of leisure ; (6) 
 I increased competition resulting in cutting of rates of pay. 
 
 The Standard of Life 
 
 As Gaskellj writing in 1836, said: 
 
 At the present time may be seen a daily spread of knowledge, 
 joined to a gradual depression in the scale of social enjoyments, 
 vast and incessant improvements in mechanical contrivances, all 
 tending to overmatch and supersede human labour, a system of I 
 toil continued unbroken by rest or relaxation for twelve or four- ' 
 teen hours, in a heated mill, and an utter destruction of all social ■ 
 and domestic relations.^ ^ 
 
 On the other hand, those who continued to ply their ! 
 
 ancient trade in competition with machinery and the 1 
 
 new unskilled labour found that the cost of production ' 
 had been so reduced that their labour no longer supplied 
 
 them with the barest necessities. We find it stated in i 
 1836 that " families, comprising nearly one million human 
 
 beings dependent on hand-loom weaving, have been living ' 
 
 in the lowest depths of poverty for years." When we \ 
 
 consider the change in the prices paid for the weaving of [ 
 
 a particular piece of cloth between the years 1795 ^^'^ 1830 i 
 the reason for this destitution becomes obvious. These 
 
 prices are as follows : ! 
 
 j 
 Price for Weaving Cloth I 
 
 198 
 
 Date 
 
 Price 
 
 
 is. d. ^ 
 
 1795 • 
 
 I 19 9 
 
 1800 
 
 I 5 
 
 1810 
 
 15 
 
 1820 
 
 8 
 
 1830 
 
 5 
 
 ^ Tie Manufaciurin^ 
 
 g- Population of England. 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 In each case the weaver had to spend a certain amount 
 on disbursements. In 1 830 these disbursements amounted 
 to 15. id.^ so that the worker received 35. <^d. for doing what 
 thirty-five years before he would have received about '^^^s. 
 for, and even in 1795 ^^^ ^^^ of the hand-loom weaver 
 was not roseate. 
 
 Change of Status 
 
 These facts are mentioned at the outset in order to show 
 that whatever the evils of the system might be, however 
 much the domestic worker might object to the rough and 
 abrupt change that he was compelled to make, he had but 
 little option in the matter. He had either to fall in with 
 the new order of things, or go on the parish, or starve. 
 
 In truth, the old skilled hands, so far as spinning and 
 weaving were concerned, were the last to be absorbed. 
 The new processes required comparatively little skill and 
 that of a kind different from the old. The spinner became 
 to a considerable extent merely a machine-minder. The 
 same sort of change took place in later years in such 
 skilled trades as that of carpenter. It consequently befell 
 that the new recruits were not spinners or weavers at all, 
 but were frequently, . in the case of adults, agricultural 
 labourers, and, in the case of children, workhouse children, 
 these forming the cheapest available sources of labour. 
 
 Growth of Population 
 
 The consequence was that we find the most astonishing 
 displacement of population ; and not only was there a 
 displacement, there was also an enormous growth in the 
 population. The reasons for this growth, which was 
 sudden, are obscure. The authors of The Town Labourer^ 
 with a cynicism which is, perhaps, as cynicism usually is, 
 unfair both to the poor and to the rich, consider that it was 
 due to three causes: (i) under the existing Poor Law 
 system pay greatly depended, as we have seen, on the 
 number of children possessed by the person employed; 
 (2) child labour being in demand, parents had children 
 
/ 
 
 HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 in order to exploit them; (3) population increases with a 
 decline in the standard of life, or, in other words, the 
 poorer the person the more the children on an average. 
 
 It may of course be that the generality of men were so 
 lost to all sense of natural fondness for their offspring 
 that the above essentially sordid and debased motives 
 actuated them, but it is at least permissible to conjecture 
 that there were other and more worthy causes at work. 
 The improvement in medical science had obviously in- 
 creased the general standard of health so that of those born 
 more lived to reach maturity and fewer died in early and 
 middle life. Plagues became at first infrequent, then rare, 
 and then non-existent. Sanitary conditions, though bad, 
 were better than they had been in the medieval period. 
 Human knowledge had for at least two centuries been 
 making considerable progress in the conquest of disease 
 and pain. These facts should not be suppressed even for 
 the pleasure of painting a picture exclusively dark. 
 
 Again, the anti-conceptional practices which must be 
 presumed to exist in all cases where the birth-rate is 
 deliberately kept down by a whole people (apart, of course, 
 from late marriages or celibacy, neither of which at any 
 time was common among the masses) have always been 
 opposed by the followers of John Wesley, whose teachings 
 dominated, it might almost be said, the religious life of 
 the working classes in the last quarter of the eighteenth 
 century and the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The Slum 
 
 Whatever may have been the cause, the fact is certain 
 that the population rapidly increased. This, in con- 
 junction with the displacement of population, caused towns 
 to become cities and villages to become towns in the space 
 of a few years. Houses, ill-designed and ill-built, were 
 hurriedly constructed. Streets, badly laid out, incon- 
 venient, dark, and unhealthy, were rapidly formed. The 
 home environment of the worker had become debased. 
 The slum had begun to exercise its vicious influence, not 
 200 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 occasionally in this or that large centre, but in the majority 
 of the towns and cities of England. The evils flowing 
 from the slums are still with us, and during the last cen- 
 tury have worked incalculable harm, have debased to no 
 small degree the moral of a section of our people, have 
 destroyed character and health, and have proved festering 
 sores from which every agitator can still draw his phial 
 of infection. 
 
 Displacement of Population 
 
 At the end of the seventeenth century the whole of 
 the urban population did not exceed 1,400,000. London 
 embraced 500,000, Bristol 30,000, Norwich 30,000, 
 York 10,000, Exeter 10,000, Manchester 6000, Sheflield 
 4000, and Birmingham 4000. By 1840 the majority 
 of the population lived in towns and cities. The 
 rural population had been reduced in numbers by the 
 Agrarian Revolution, while the vast increase in the 
 number of people had gone exclusively to swell the towns. 
 The successive development of the textile, the iron, and 
 the coal trades caused large masses of people to migrate 
 to Lancashire and the West Riding, to the Black Country 
 and the coalfields. Whereas in 1 700, apart from Middlesex, 
 the most populous counties were Somerset, Gloucestershire, 
 Wiltshire, and Nottinghamshire, in 1800 the most populous 
 were Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Stafford- 
 shire, and Warwickshire. 
 
 There was even a revolution within the revolution, for 
 whereas at first the earlier machinery was driven by water- 
 power, causing factories to spring up by the side of 
 running streams, the application of the steam engine, 
 which had just been developed under the name of fire 
 engine for the purpose of pumping water from collieries, 
 to the driving of the cotton mills, a change which occurred 
 in the decade 1 785-1 795, caused the streams in turn to 
 be abandoned, and tended to cause factories to be built 
 near the large centres of population in order that labour 
 might the more easily be obtained. 
 
 201 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Industrial Areas 
 
 With industry largely dependent on coal and iron, we 
 find industrial areas developing. Whole districts are 
 devoted to the same trade ; cotton absorbs the energies 
 of the larger part of Lancashire, as iron does those of 
 Staffordshire. With coal now so much in demand the 
 coal-mining industry rapidly grows, while the application 
 of coke for smelting purposes and improvements in the 
 methods of casting iron and steel give an enormous impetus 
 to the metal trades. 
 
 The result of these changes upon the lives of ordinary 
 men, women, and children can clearly be seen. W^e will 
 take as an example the case of a commoner having his share 
 in the common fields and his rights over the wastes in 
 some manor in Somerset. At first he would be living 
 frugally as a small peasant-proprietor. An enclosure takes 
 from him his land and his rights over the waste and gives 
 him in exchange a new and separate holding. He struggles 
 on, combining with his own work, as in the past, the work 
 of weaving the yarn his wife and children spin. At this 
 stage his situation, if he and his wife are industrious, 
 thrifty folk, may be described in the words used by 
 Bamford of his own parents' home : 
 
 At our little cottage home, everything was conducted in that 
 plain, thrifty way by means of which a good housewife renders 
 her cottage so comfortable, and her family so well provided, 
 out of comparatively very small incomings. Our fare was of i 
 the simplest kind, and far from profuse, whilst our clothing, 
 though cleanly and well mended, was such as would raise a smile 
 amongst the mothers of these days [1848J; big boys, as well as 
 big girls, very frequently wearing their infantile skirts until they 
 became kilts, and these, too, not of the longest.^ 
 
 The whole family above infancy would still work on 
 their little patch of land and at the spinning and weaving, i 
 neither branch of their industry being capable alone of | 
 supporting them. Then occur the changes brought about ; 
 
 ^ Early Dap. 
 202 \ 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 by the development of machinery. The man finds that 
 the price he formerly obtained for his work is reduced to 
 a half, a quarter, an eighth. The time comes when he 
 has to decide to abandon all his old mode of life, leave the 
 old cottage, sell his land, and migrate to the great towns 
 where the invisible force is at work which has reached out 
 its hand to him in Somerset and has snatched from him 
 and his their livelihood. 
 
 Or, again, we can imagine the squatter turned agri- 
 cultural labourer with the enclosing of the wastes on which 
 he had formerly lived. His wages, despite the high price 
 of corn, are desperately small. He hears of the new 
 means of earning wages, which, judged by his standard, 
 seem wealth indeed. He and his wife, with rustic phlegm, 
 talk over the subject for weeks. At last the time comes 
 when their mind is made up and they too say good-bye to 
 the countryside and join the new hive. 
 
 In the cases we have given there is change, there is 
 hope, there are prospects. Sometimes the new recruits 
 become wealthy and prosperous manufacturers — not in 
 the old sense of workers by hand, but in the new sense 
 of employers of labour devoted to making goods ; there 
 is even some semblance of choice; but in the third kind 
 of case we can picture there is no choice, no hope, no 
 prospects discernible. The pauper children, the miserable 
 workhouse orphans, the unhappy mites on whose labour 
 the new order of industry at first was founded, were dis- 
 posed of. They went where they were told, they worked as 
 they were bid. 
 
 Change 
 
 As Archdeacon Cunningham in his Growth of English 
 Industry and Commerce says : 
 
 The whole face of the country was changed by the Industrial 
 Revolution. In 1770 there was no Black Country, blighted by 
 the conjunction of coal and iron trades ; there were no canals, 
 or railways, and no factory towns with their masses of popula- 
 tion. The differentiation of town and country had not been 
 
 203 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 carried nearly so far as it is to-day. All the familiar features of 
 our modern life, and all its most pressing problems, have come 
 to the point within the last century and a quarter. 
 
 The introduction of machinery, rendered possible not 
 simply by a suddenly developed inventiveness, but by 
 social and economic movements which had been gathering 
 momentum for centuries, caused not merely a replace- 
 ment of skilled by unskilled labour and a displacement 
 of population from country to town, with the resulting 
 separation of the industrial population from the soil and 
 the herding together of masses of human beings, it also 
 induced an instability in commerce and in life not hitherto 
 experienced. 
 
 The Landless Worker 
 
 The whole of industrial society was in the melting pot. 
 Sometimes a body of workers found their means of liveli- 
 hood destroyed in consequence of machine competition. 
 Such were, for instance, the calico-printers, who were 
 thrown out of employment by the invention of the calico- 
 printing machine. Other bodies of skilled craftsmen 
 found themselves working in competition, partly with 
 machinery and partly with unskilled labour. Such, for 
 example, were the hand-loom weavers. Machinery had 
 so increased the supply of yarn that many new weavers 
 originally unskilled were given an opportunity of employ- 
 ment. Owing to trade fluctuations prices dropped, an , 
 excess of labour resulted, wages were cut, and grave 
 suffering was caused. To what extent rates were cut in 
 the weaving of cloth we have already seen. 
 
 Of course in past times there had been sudden fluctua- 
 tions, there had been times of plenty and of dearth, but 
 now an entirely new feature was apparent. The worker 
 was dependent exclusively upon his employment and upon 
 his earnings. The land no longer knew him. He could 
 no longer eke out his slender resources with the products 
 of his own agricultural labour. In bad times he fell 
 204 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 almost of necessity into the unfriendly arms of the Poor 
 Law system. The old gild brotherhood had gone or, if 
 still living, had no place for the new race of machine- 
 tenders. The newly arising Friendly and Benefit Societies 
 had not yet grown to considerable proportions, though 
 already, before the end of the eighteenth century, their 
 good effect was being felt. The new master, usually a 
 man of humble origin, prepared to work himself and others 
 like slaves, had neither the desire nor the power to act the 
 part of the friendly squire and see to the needs of his 
 dependents in times of dearth. Charity tended to be 
 restricted to the Poor Law. Great bodies of men, perhaps 
 for the first time in human history, though worthy, hard- 
 working, and sober, could fall into hopeless indigence, 
 could see their families starve, could inhabit cellars, could 
 be pressed by all the miseries of^ want and be assailed by all 
 the horrors of despair, withoutjt^heir plight being known 
 to, cared for, or relieved by those others who in the same 
 town and as a result of the same causes were rising into 
 affluence. 
 
 Material Gains 
 
 We must not, however, be led astray into painting a 
 picture that is wholly dark. It is a fatal mistake to regard 
 the very real evils which sprang from the Industrial 
 Revolution as material evils. It was not that the poor 
 became poorer and the rich richer, for in truth it was not 
 so. The whole tendency from the dawn of the Industrial 
 Revolution to the present day has been for the average 
 standard of life to improve so far as material resources are 
 concerned. 
 
 It is true that, owing partly to war conditions, partly 
 to the growth of a spirit of commercial adventurousness, 
 partly to the business world being but slightly acquainted 
 with the new forces which it was controlling, and partly 
 to the general instability of society, financial crises were 
 of somewhat constant occurrence. The black years of 
 the early nineties of the eighteenth century are reproduced 
 
 205 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 for us in Bamford's Early Days. The common rhyme 
 which runs : I 
 
 Our masters play us roguish pranks; i 
 
 Our bankrupt bankers close their banks; 
 
 Which makes our wives and children cry, 
 
 But times shall alter by-and-bye, 
 
 expresses at once that fear and that hope which were ever j 
 present with the working man of the period. { 
 
 But though such financial crises, in conjunction with 
 the replacement and displacement of labour, caused great 
 suffering, the general tendency, on the material side, was \ 
 upward. One of the great lessons that may be learnt : 
 from the Industrial Revolution is indeed this, that man's '• 
 happiness does not depend upon material resources. It ' 
 is a phenomenon worthy of notice that as man's control \ 
 of matter improved, his dependence on material things I 
 increased. While being master he insensibly became the \ 
 slave. i 
 
 Spiritual Losses ' 
 
 Indeed, in calculating the gains and losses resulting i 
 from the factory system as a universal system affecting i 
 practically the whole of the working population, it is i 
 necessary to regard the lives rather than the incomes of i 
 men. On the whole, and even while the Industrial I 
 Revolution was still incomplete, the wages, the real wages, j 
 were higher than they had been in olden days, but, on the ; 
 other hand, the lives of the workers were more bleak, due i 
 partly to the massing together of population in at best : 
 inartistic, and at worst horrible, environments, and partly ; 
 to the speeding-up of work, the development of discipline, | 
 and the destruction of leisure. 
 
 The life of the working man, his wife, and family became i 
 for a season a life of work. Fate appeared to have nothing | 
 else to offer them. Uneducated, for as late as 1830 but a \ 
 small percentage of the people could read or write, they 1 
 were shut out from many of the higher enjoyments of life ; I 
 206 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 with long hours of work at high pressure they had but Httle 
 energy for those innocent exercises which are a relief to 
 both the body and the mind. The domestic relations were 
 strained by the early age at which work commenced. The 
 new kinds of employment, simple in nature and not calling 
 for much physical strength, were, indeed, possible for 
 children, and child labour was eagerly sought after. 
 
 The Workhouse Child 
 
 At first the workhouse was the main source of supply, 
 both for the factories and for the mines. In the debate 
 on the Parochial Schools Bill introduced by Whitbread 
 in 1807, Sir Samuel Romilly incidentally remarked that 
 it was then the practice to send parish apprentices as 
 great a distance as possible, to some place where they 
 had no friends who could attend to their situation. In 
 some parishes in London it was the custom to send the 
 parish children to the distance of some hundreds of miles 
 and to contract with the proprietors of the cotton mills 
 of Lancashire and other factory areas for so many of 
 them, who were then sent off "in carts like so many 
 negro slaves." 
 
 Even as late as the forties of last century it is manifest 
 from the reports of the Commissioners who sat to inquire 
 into the working of the mines that parish child labour was 
 still being exploited in the most inhumane manner. 
 
 Child Labour 
 
 As the pressure of competition increased by the con- 
 tinuous trek of the rustic workers to the towns and by the 
 growth of population, the tendency became more and more 
 marked for parents to permit or to force their children 
 to work from very early ages, both in the mills and in the 
 mines. 
 
 Examples are known of children commencing work in 
 the mines at four years of age. This matter will be 
 considered in a later chapter, but it may be interesting to 
 reproduce the account given before Hume's Committee 
 
 207 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 by a child of twelve of his average day. The quotation 
 reproduces the boy's own words : 
 
 Am twelve years old. Have been in the mill twelve months. 
 Begin at six o'clock and stop at half-past seven. Generally 
 have about twelve hours and a half of it. Have worked over- 
 hours for two or three weeks together. Worked breakfast-time 
 and tea-time, and did not go away till eight. 
 
 Q. — Do you work over-hours or not, just as you like ? 
 
 J. — No ; them as works must work. I would rather stay 
 and do it than that anybody else should come in my place. I 
 should lose the money. 
 
 Q. — If over-hours are put on next week, shall you be glad or 
 sorry ? 
 
 y/. — It won't signify. I shall be neither glad nor sorry. 
 
 Q. — Don't you play sometimes after work is over ? 
 
 ^. — Yes, sometimes. 
 
 Q. — Well, are you not sorry to lose that ? 
 
 j4. — No, I don't mind about it. I had rather work as I do j 
 than lose any of my wages. I go to a Sunday school sometimes, i 
 I went first about a month ago. I have been every Sunday since, i 
 I can only read in the alphabet yet. I mean to go regular, i 
 There is no reason why I should not. I wants to be a scholar, i 
 
 Hours of Labour 
 
 From the Report of the Factories Inquiry Commission, ! 
 which sat in 1833, it appears that in Scotland in general ; 
 the hours of labour for children were twelve to twelve ! 
 and a half hours, though in some districts they were not i 
 less than thirteen hours a day for six days in the week, j 
 Saturday's short time being made up on other days. In i 
 the North-east of England the average was eleven hours, in \ 
 Leicester, Nottingham, and Manchester twelve, in Leeds I 
 eleven, and in Birmingham and Coventry ten, or some- ] 
 times nine, but as the Commissioners found in Coventry \ 
 and Birmingham, " there is no factory labour, properly so i 
 called, for the operatives, with few exceptions, work at j 
 their own houses." 
 
 As regards the adults, the hours of labour were some- ! 
 times more and sometimes less on the average than the • 
 
 208 ! 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 hours for children. Thus, in some of the coalfields the 
 children laboured from one to two hours longer than their 
 parents. 
 
 Distress 
 
 In times of depression, such as followed the termina- 
 tion of the Napoleonic wars, the long hours, combined 
 with low wages and bad conditions, induced a condition 
 of affairs that was truly lamentable. Thus in Hansard 
 for 1 8 1 9 we have preserved for us the statement signed 
 by 1 200 of the cotton weavers of Carlisle, which, in the 
 words of the member who brought it to the attention of 
 the House, 
 
 discloses a state of suffering which cannot fail of commanding 
 the pity and commiseration of all within and without these walls. 
 They represent that, on working from fourteen to seventeen 
 hours a day, and that for six days in the week, their earnings do 
 not amount to more than from five to seven shillings, and that 
 many of them can obtain no work whatever. They state their 
 families to be destitute of food and clothing, and a prey to misery 
 and disease. . . . They blame not their employers ; the depre- 
 ciated state of the cotton industry is the true cause of their 
 sufferings. In despair of obtaining bread at home they ask you 
 to expatriate them, to convey them to your colonies. 
 
 That is a picture of life when times were bad. It is 
 a picture which, though evil, was not as dark as could be 
 drawn of the state of affairs in rural England in the time 
 of the Tudors, when, in a period of similar depression, 
 thousands of industrious folk had been driven into beggary 
 and from beggary to the gallows. It is also a picture 
 of a transition stage, for it is manifest that as the factory 
 system became more and more fully organized, as great 
 and wealthy industrial concerns grew into a condition 
 of financial security, so the lot of the workers improved, 
 though it long continued to be a fact that the conditions 
 of labour were fixed by a standard set, not by the best, but 
 by the worst, employers. 
 
 o 209 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR l 
 
 The Factory 
 
 It is obvious from a perusal of the evidence of Hume's 
 Committee that already the more enlightened employers 
 were beginning to consider the welfare of their employees. 
 It was found that 
 
 the greatest number of bad cases occur in the small, obscure 
 mills belonging to the smallest proprietors, and that the bad 
 treatment of children is inflicted by violent and dissipated work- 
 men, often the very men who raise the loudest cry about the 
 cruelties to which children are subject in factories. 
 
 Speaking of one of these factories a witness said, ** It 
 seemed more to resemble a receptacle of demons than a 
 workhouse of industrious human beings." 
 
 On the other hand, the pioneers of proper factory 
 
 management were beginning to cut out a better path. 
 
 While the reports of the old and small mills disclosed a 
 
 uniform condition of dirt and danger, without ventilation 
 
 or drainage or conveniences for washing or dressing, with J 
 
 low roofs and narrow passages and unguarded machinery'', •' 
 
 the later factories were superior in every respect. In j 
 
 certain examples, such as the Deanston Cotton Mill j 
 
 Factory in Perthshire, not only the factory, but the houses j 
 
 in which the workers lived, had been designed with an eye j 
 
 to the well-being of the operatives. In the words of the \ 
 
 inspector : 
 
 I 
 I can hardly say whether the construction of those houses, or i 
 
 the ingenious contrivances with a view to the conveniences of I 
 
 the people which Mr Smith has put into execution, or the clean- i 
 
 ness and neatness with which the interiors of those nice cottages I 
 
 are kept by the workers, are the most to be admired. There are ! 
 
 bits of garden ground attached to each of the houses. . . . The i 
 
 whole arrangements about this extensive factory, at which cotton- | 
 
 spinning, power- weaving, iron-founding, and machine-making are i 
 
 carried on, are obviously made with a view, as far as possible, to j 
 the substantial comfort of the people ; and a more cheerful, happy- 
 looking set of industrious men and women, and of young people, 
 is seldom, if I am not mistaken, to be found. 
 2IO 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 But as yet, for we are speaking of the period up to 
 1840, such examples were unhappily rare. Even such 
 employers as John Fielden and Craig, who believed that 
 hours should be reduced and who employed over a 
 thousand hands, felt that individual effort toward the 
 betterment of working conditions was impossible without 
 Parliamentary assistance. As we shall see, in time the 
 legislature was persuaded to move, but not until after a 
 long and bitter struggle, during which time much useless 
 misery was suffered by the working population. 
 
 Attitude of the Unreformed Parliament 
 
 The attitude of Parliament at this period is, indeed, 
 only explicable on the ground that the governing classes 
 regarded the masses as a distinct species planted around 
 them by a Fate which had destined them to work and ask 
 no questions. The small boy's philosophy, which was 
 summed up in the words, " them as works must work," 
 was applauded by the elders of the State, for it was also 
 their philosophy of life for others. We get a good picture 
 of the attitude of Parliament in the speech of Mr Davies 
 Giddy on the Parochial Schools Bill, when he said : 
 
 However specious in theory the project might be, of giving 
 education to the labouring classes of the poor, it would, in effect, 
 be found to be prejudicial to their morals and happiness ; it would 
 teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them 
 good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to 
 which their rank in society has destined them ; instead of teaching 
 them subordination, it would render them factious and refractory, 
 as was evident in the manufacturing counties, it would enable 
 them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books, and publications 
 against Christianity. 
 
 It might, indeed, have been thought that even the 
 ability to read would not enable " the labouring classes 
 of the poor " to understand a Christianity which in its 
 age-long course had strayed so far from the path cut for 
 it by its Founder. It seemed that Condorcet's prophecies 
 
 21 I 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 for the future, made but a little while before when hiding 
 from the guillotine/ were not likely soon to be fulfilled. 
 He had thought that the future would bring: (i) des- 
 truction of inequality between nations as regards freedom 
 and rights ; (2) destruction of inequality between classes 
 also as regards freedom and rights ; (3) the improvement 
 of individuals intellectually, morally, and physically. 
 
 The attitude of Parliament toward the poor which is 
 apparent in the debates of the later eighteenth and earlier 
 nineteenth century was no new thing. The publication 
 of debates made it more apparent. In truth, however, it 
 was no worse, perhaps it was better, than it hitherto had 
 been. Thorold Rogers is probably justified in saying that 
 "from 1563 to 1824 a conspiracy, concocted by the law 
 and carried out by parties interested in its success, was 
 entered into, to cheat the English workman of his wages, 
 to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade 
 him into irremediable poverty," except that the whole 
 tendency of the Enclosure Act legislation was to drive thej 
 peasant from the land and into agricultural or other labour. 
 
 The Feudal Spirit 
 
 The governing classes were hardly influenced by the 
 Industrial Revolution. The arrogance, the disdain, the 
 absence of sympathy, the lack of understanding shown 
 by the Houses of Parliament when considering measures 
 which affected the working classes during this period do i 
 not spring from any development of the capitalistic spirit. | 
 Rather they are emanations of the feudal spirit. As yet, ^ 
 though financiers, merchants, and manufacturers were ' 
 beginning to stand for Parliament, the vast majority ofj 
 the seats in the Commons, and practically all the seats in i 
 the Lords, were in the hands of the old nobility who were 
 untouched by the Industrial Revolution, for though some 
 few peers took an active interest in the exploitation of the j 
 mineral wealth of their land and devoted some attention ' 
 
 ^ He was shortly afterward flung into prison by the supporters of freedom 1 
 and equality in France, and died possibly of the effects of starvation. i 
 
 212 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 to the new industrial methods, they formed but a small 
 minority. 
 
 It consequently befell that even as the standard of 
 factory life was set by the worst instead of by the best 
 employers, those who desired Parliament to improve the 
 lot of the working population had of necessity to rely 
 upon a feudal body saturated not with the new, but with 
 the old ideas as to the relationship of man to master. 
 Such a body had no experience of the new conditions, 
 no sympathy with the new industrialist or his master. 
 Members looked down upon the generality of men from 
 the height of their Olympian wisdom — and did nothing. 
 Occasionally they moved. Sometimes sedition required 
 suppressing, sometimes crime had to be looked to, some- 
 times the policing of the country gave rise to disquiet, 
 occasionally outrageous cases of misery called for a 
 momentary remark, at times the masters were supported — 
 but the Houses of Parliament did not concern themselves 
 to any considerable extent with the needs of the people. 
 
 The Lords and the Chimney-sweeps 
 
 The attitude of Parliament may be well seen in the case 
 of the chimney-sweeps' boys. The wrongs which the 
 chimney-sweeps' boys suffered had nothing to do with 
 the Industrial Revolution. They had doubtless been 
 wrongs that had been suffered ever since chimneys had 
 been built in this country — that is to say, from the Tudor 
 times. But the activities of certain humanitarians had 
 resulted in the appointment of a Committee of Enquiry 
 in 1 8 17, when, for the first time, the wrongs suffered by 
 these children became generally known. It was found that 
 a terrible state of affairs existed ; that the 28 Geo. Ill, 
 a regulating Act, was practically a dead letter, that 
 the eight-year age limit was ignored, and that infants 
 of four, five, and six years were being employed in the 
 dangerous and difficult work of cleaning chimneys by 
 climbing up them and sweeping them with a brush. 
 
 It was given in evidence, and found proved by the 
 
 213 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Committee, that many of these children were obtained by 
 kidnapping or were inveigled out of workhouses ; that in 
 order to conquer the natural repugnance of the infants to 
 ascend the narrow and dangerous chimneys, they were 
 usually beaten, or pins were forced into their feet, or 
 lighted straw used to compel them either to climb or 
 succumb. It was found that children were used to sweep 
 flues seven inches square, and that consequently the 
 children had to be very thin, and, of course, had to work 
 naked ; that they were subject to sores and bruises and j 
 wounds and burns on their thighs, knees, and elbows. ) 
 
 It was also found that twelve years before Smart had ; 
 invented a sweeping brush that rendered this particular \ 
 form of labour unnecessary except in very rare cases of 
 complicated flues which could be mechanically swept if 
 registers were adopted. ; 
 
 Here, then, it would seem, was a case where Parliament j 
 could safely act. The Commons passed the Chimney- 1 
 sweepers Regulation Bill. The House of Lords debated i 
 it. The Earl of Lauderdale, who obviously knew nothing ] 
 about chimneys, sweeps, or boys, observed that ; ' 
 
 If machinery were to be employed, boys would still be exposed i 
 to as much danger as they were hitherto. He objected to this i 
 Bill because it was not fit for the Legislature to lay down rules 
 of humanity to individuals ; because, by doing so, the very j 
 principles of humanity w^ould be rooted up : far greater cruelties ] 
 would then be practised than any which the Bill meant to provide \ 
 against. It was impossible, without great injustice and public ' 
 inconvenience, for their lordships to legislate on subjects of this ; 
 kind. It was somewhat of the same nature with the Bill for i 
 regulating the labour of children in cotton factories ; and with I 
 the poor laws. These latter originated in a mistaken spirit of 
 humanity, the attempt to enforce which by law had produced j 
 effects the very opposite of those which were intended. i 
 
 Even Lord King, who supported, did so on the ground 
 that the Bill met with the concurrence of the master 
 chimney-sweeps. The Lords were, however, unable to j 
 agree with either the masters, or the Committee, or the I 
 214 j 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 Commons. The Bill was rejected by 32 to 12. England 
 was made safe for ' humanity.' The children were for- 
 gotten. 
 
 It was not until 1834 that the 4 and 5 Will. IV, c. 2Sy was 
 passed, limiting the age of sweeping boys and providing 
 certain safeguards in the case of apprentices — safeguards 
 which did not appeal to Charles Dickens as being very 
 efficient. Sixteen years later the 3 and 4 Vic, c. 85, which 
 was amended in 1864, practically brought the use of child 
 labour for sweeping chimneys to an end. 
 
 These later Acts were passed, like so many other factory 
 and social Acts, after the Reform Act had sensibly modified 
 the structure of Parliament. In the pre-Reform Parlia- 
 ments it is no exaggeration to say that, apart from occasional 
 philanthropists and humanitarians (usually business men 
 or lawyers), nobody cared what became of the people as 
 long as the people behaved themselves. It followed that 
 the Industrial Revolution worked itself out in an un- 
 fortunate atmosphere in which the good master had far 
 less chance of making his voice heard than the bad master. 
 Such improvements as were from time to time effected 
 were brought about solely by agitation by advanced men 
 of all parties or by organized action on the part of the 
 workers — a form of activity which, as we shall see, was 
 gravely restricted and almost entirely destroyed for many 
 years by the Combination Laws. 
 
 It consequently befell that organized industry became, 
 as it were, pock-marked with various evils which men came 
 to look upon as natural attributes instead of what in truth 
 they were, the consequences of non-natural and diseased 
 conditions. An attitude of mind grew up in which the 
 man was regarded as a subject for exploitation and in which 
 the master was regarded as an exploiter. The best masters 
 saw otherwise ; they fought hard for their main aims ; 
 little by little they obtained the recognition of the principles 
 for which they fought — the right to a living wage, proper 
 environment, education, good sanitary conditions, decent 
 houses, and protection against unmerited poverty. For the 
 
 215 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR j 
 
 last seventy years the number of those who have supported 
 these views has grown. Throughout the greater part of 
 that period the government of the country has been mainly 
 in the hands of the middle and capitalistic classes. Within 
 that seventy years more has been done to improve the lot ] 
 of the working man than was done throughout the rest of | 
 our history, though that history be taken back to the ■ 
 Neolithic period. T/ie opposition is not between the worker j 
 and the capitalist ; it is between the man who works^ who suffers^ 
 who experiences, who knows, and the man who never worksy J 
 never suffers, never experiences, and never knows. 
 
 2l6 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 A S Professor Marshall observes in his Economics of 
 /\ Industry, " a combination of a thousand workers 
 X ^has a very weak and uncertain force in comparison 
 with that of a single resolute employer of a thousand men." 
 But if the combination of a thousand be weak the authority 
 and force of units are completely negligible. The social 
 reorganization brought about by the Industrial Revolu- 
 tion, the break-up of the gilds, the distress experienced 
 by the working classes, and the oppression exercised by 
 a new type of master, ruthless in his pursuit of wealth, 
 made it apparent even to the workers of the eighteenth 
 century that for effective action to be taken organization 
 was necessary. In the words of Sir Sydney Chapman : 
 
 Trade unionism, broadly conceived, emerged from the general 
 economic restlessness which inaugurated the Industrial Revolu- 
 tion. Whether in all cases or not a gulf lay between the com- 
 binations of the old order and those of the new, trade unions 
 marked a distinct break with tradition. 
 
 The aims were different, the modes of pressing those 
 aims were different, even the needs for combination were 
 different from the aims, modes, and needs present to the 
 gild brethren. 
 
 The Standard of Life 
 
 From very early times it had been recognized that on 
 the one hand the worker was entitled to a reasonable 
 standard of life, a standard varying with the period and, 
 in general tending upward with the passing of the years, 
 and that on the other some means were necessary in order 
 to protect the worker against that free play of competition 
 
 217 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 which, if left completely unfettered, could but result in the 
 
 standard of life being at best a fluctuating and at worst a ; 
 
 degraded standard. i 
 
 During the earlier ages of organized and free industry i 
 
 there was, as we have seen, no clear-cut line severing master i 
 
 and servant, employer and employed, and the interests ; 
 
 of the two classes tending thus as they did to merge were \ 
 
 adequately protected by organizations which to-day would i 
 
 be regarded as employers' associations — the gilds. With i 
 
 the increase of poverty and pauperism due to the economic i 
 
 changes of the sixteenth century, and with the gradual i 
 
 widening of the breach which separates the employing i 
 
 from the employed classes, a new movement becomes ; 
 
 apparent in the legislation of the Tudors in England and, i 
 
 in a lesser degree, in the administrative activities of Colbert '; 
 
 in France. From the end of the sixteenth to the end of .■ 
 
 the eighteenth century the State deliberately interfered I 
 
 with the free play of the rival forces in industry, with a view \ 
 
 to attaining primarily for the workers (i) a reasonable ] 
 
 standard of living ; (2) proper training in the skilled trades ; ; 
 
 (3) employment. [ 
 
 It is true that the numerous statutes, commencing with i 
 
 the Statute of Labourers, which fixed, or created machinery > 
 
 to fix, the wages which must be paid arrived rather at a i 
 
 maximum than at a minimum wage. At the same time, j 
 
 such statutory regulation did in fact prevent wages being : 
 
 driven down below a reasonable level. It is also true that i 
 
 in 1 512 an Act was passed which removed the obligation i 
 
 hitherto imposed upon the master to pay the statutory I 
 
 wage. On the whole, however, even before the Statute j 
 
 of Apprentices, the State did look with favour upon the , 
 
 regulation of wages, and although such regulation was of ! 
 
 a kind that would not be regarded as satisfactory to-day, -, 
 
 although the employing and wealthy classes occupied the \ 
 controlling position in all disputes relating to wages, still 
 
 the recognition of the principle of corporate or State or ; 
 
 local regulation did prevent the standard of life being j 
 
 debased by the action of individual employers able and \ 
 
 218 ' 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 willing to compete with others by virtue of the fact that 
 by all available means they had obtained their labour in 
 the cheapest possible manner. Under the earlier regime 
 the standard was that of the employers as a class, under 
 the practices which grew up after the Industrial Revolution 
 the standard tended to become that which the worst 
 masters were prepared to allow, or rather that which the 
 worst, the youngest, and the most unskilled operatives were 
 prepared to accept. 
 
 Individual Bargaining 
 
 As Judge Ruegg says in his Law of Employer and 
 Workman^ " We may safely assert that at the close of the 
 eighteenth century State control had in general become 
 superseded by individual bargaining, and the relationship 
 of master and servant had become contractual." It is 
 desirable to see how this position had been arrived at, 
 the results it led to, and the steps taken to supersede in 
 turn individual by collective bargaining. 
 
 It is necessary, in the first place, somewhat sharply to 
 distinguish the old skilled workmen, such as hatters, tailors, 
 carpenters, and goldsmiths, from the new factory hands 
 and the miners who throughout the eighteenth century 
 and the first four decades of the nineteenth century were 
 regarded as forming a different and much lower class, 
 whose status was indeed more widely separated from that 
 of the skilled men than is the status of the labourer from 
 that of the skilled tradesman of to-day. The old crafts- 
 men retained throughout the Industrial Revolution some- 
 thing of the corporate organization which had been 
 developed long years before. They retained something 
 of the old corporate privileges. Except in the case of 
 those craftsmen who were now in competition with the 
 new machinery their standard of life was not substantially 
 affected. They proved a powerful link with the past, and 
 their strength was not entirely destroyed even during the 
 repressive years which followed upon the passing of the 
 Combination Laws of 1799 and 1800. 
 
 219 
 
1 
 
 HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The new industrialists, on the other hand, had no 
 prerogatives, no precedents, no traditions on which to rely 
 or fall back. A new class, a poor class, an unskilled class, 
 opposed on the one side to the masters and on the other 
 side to the tradesmen whose place they were slowly taking, 
 their sole strength lay in their mass, in their numbers, 
 and in their manifest miseries, and without either State 
 regulation or the power to combine such strength appeared 
 only as weakness. 
 
 Appeal by Petition 
 
 Before the Industrial Revolution there had been but 
 few stable combinations of workers. The craftsmen had 
 been protected to some extent by their gild organization. 
 Some sporadic journeymen's associations had arisen to 
 deal with occasional grievances, but the more normal course 
 was for the trade as a whole to appeal, in case of disagree- 
 ment between the various ranks, for State interference. 
 From time to time Acts were passed dealing with par- 
 ticular grievances in particular trades. More frequently 
 petitions were received and considered. The attitude of 
 the Government was that of benevolent interest, which 
 occasionally took the form of economically disastrous 
 State interference. Above all, the Statute of Apprentices 
 had established machinery for the fixing of wages and had 
 limited the number of apprentices. There is evidence, 
 however, to show that the sections relating to the fixing 
 of wages by justices had by 1766 at latest fallen entirely 
 into disuse. 
 
 Absence of Stable Combinations 
 
 Before the Industrial Revolution few stable combinations 
 of workmen are to be found. This is almost certainly 
 due to the fact, pointed out by Mr and Mrs Webb, that 
 the skilled handicraftsman possessed the prospect of 
 economic advancement. The journeyman of to-day might 
 be the master of to-morrow, and it was consequently not 
 220 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 to the interest of the able and ambitious workman, soon 
 likely to be an employer himself, to support too strongly 
 the demands of the employed. It has, indeed, been truly 
 observed that : 
 
 So long as industry was carried on mainly by small masters, 
 each employing one or two journeymen, the period of any energetic 
 man's service as a hired wage-earner cannot normally have ex- 
 ceeded a few years. . . . An incipient organisation would always 
 be losing its oldest and most capable members.^ 
 
 There was perhaps another though minor cause for the 
 absence of combination. The craftsman had been used 
 to regarding the Government as a body to which appeals 
 could usefully be made if oppression or hardship were 
 experienced. "With the Industrial Revolution, however, 
 everything was changed. A new class arose; the man could 
 no longer look with reasonable certainty to becoming 
 a master; ParHament no longer showed any disposition to 
 interfere in the warfare which soon began to wage between 
 the employer and the employed. It should be realized, 
 however, that we now speak rather of the new unskilled 
 trades, and in particular of the miners and the factory 
 operatives. The attitude of Parliament did not so much 
 change as did the circumstances to which Parliament had 
 to address itself. The old forms of interference with the 
 old trades could still continue, but in the case of the new 
 trades it was shown time after time to be impossible and 
 disastrous. The limitation of the number of apprentices, 
 of the number to be employed, of the number of looms 
 to be used, could no longer be insisted upon with the 
 coming of a factory organization based on a new and 
 powerful motive power costing great sums of money, 
 working large numbers of looms, and inevitably resulting 
 in the employing of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of 
 workers, and in the production of commodities at a far 
 lower price. In truth, the new circumstances found the 
 governing, the employing, and the working classes without 
 
 ^ Mr and Mrs Webb, History of Trade Unionism. 
 
 221 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 any clear conception of the problems to be solved or the 
 right way to solve them. The industrial wrongs of the 
 second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the 
 nineteenth century, and the subsequent struggle between 
 capital and labour, with all the political upheavals resulting 
 therefrom, are all due primarily to the fact that an epoch- 
 making discovery came into a world utterly bewildered 
 and absolutely unorganized to receive it. 
 
 Useless Proposals 
 
 To the solution of the more obvious of these problems 
 the workers at first contributed nothing. If the governors 
 were at a loss, so also were those who were governed. 
 For a time the people looked to the old order; they sought 
 the enforcement of the Statute of Apprentices; they urged 
 the restriction of the number of persons to be employed 
 by any one master ; they in some cases opposed the 
 introduction of machinery. Parliament was for a time 
 not unsympathetic. Committees were appointed to con- 
 sider whether the old forms of regulation could not usefully 
 be applied. Each of such committees was, however, 
 overwhelmed by the mass of adverse evidence. The 
 workers had taken up an impossible position. The em- 
 ployers won all along the line. They were shown to have 
 every argument on their side. To-day, looking back with 
 all the calm dispassionateness of the historian, unaffected 
 by the real miseries which were being suffered by the 
 people who found themselves involved in the birth of a 
 new order of industry, Mr and Mrs Webb — than whom 
 no one is more sympathetic toward the aspirations of 
 labour — have said : 
 
 In fact, these proposals [of the workers] were impossible. The 
 artisans had a grievance — perhaps the worst that any class can 
 have — the degradation of their standard of livelihood by circum- 
 stances which enormously increased the productivity of their 
 labour. But they mistook the remedy.^ 
 
 ^ History of Trade Unionism. 
 222 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Laissez-faire 
 
 The working classes had indeed taken up a false position, 
 and the result was that Parliament began to be suspicious 
 of nostrums which on examination proved to be .fallacious. 
 When Adam Smith produced his Wealth of Nations in 
 1776 and expounded the theory of the freedom of contract 
 he but voiced opinions which experience had convinced 
 the squirearchy of England and which theory had per- 
 suaded the revolutionaries of France were sound. He 
 immediately became a force because he expressed what 
 the majority of men had been thinking. From that time 
 forward England became the champion of the theory of 
 laissez-faire. The employer and the employed were left 
 alone to fight their own battles. 
 
 The operatives, despite such victories as that which 
 obtained the passing of the Spitalfields Acts of 1765 and 
 1773, soon saw that Parliament could no longer usefully 
 be looked to, and thereupon arose three lines of activity : 
 (i) the reform of Parliament; (2) the development of 
 trade combination ; (3) the enforcement of existing, though 
 obsolete, laws. 
 
 The first and second of these forms of activity had, as 
 we shall see, results of the first magnitude. The third 
 failed in the law courts as the attempt to hark back to the 
 old order of things had failed before Parliament. 
 
 Attempts to enforce the Old Laws 
 
 The Combination Laws of 1799 and 1800 prevented 
 combinations for the purpose of raising wages and varying 
 the conditions of labour, but they did not prevent combina- 
 tions to enforce the law, and we consequently find numerous 
 actions being started by various trade associations with a 
 view to the enforcement of the Statute of Apprentices 
 and other trade-regulating Acts which the researches of 
 lawyers had but lately rediscovered. In 1 8 1 1 it was held, 
 however, that the Statute of Apprentices did not apply 
 to industries which had come into existence since the Act 
 
 223 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 was passed and that the powers given to the justices were 
 discretionary only. The new factory operatives were 
 excluded as being outside the classes the Act was designed 
 to protect, and the justices, who were without exception 
 opposed to the fixing of wages in the textile trades at 
 Sessions, were told that they might lawfully refuse to 
 act in this capacity. The Statute was, in truth, virtually 
 repealed, and in 1 8 1 3 that part of the Statute dealing with 
 wages was formally repealed by Act of Parliament. 
 
 Four years before (1809) a number of old laws ^ pre- 
 scribing regulations for the manufacturing, sale, and ex- 
 portation of woollen cloths, and the use of gig-mills, and 
 the number of looms to be worked by any one master in 
 the woollen trade, were all repealed after having been sus- 
 pended from year to year. 
 
 It was, indeed, obvious that actions brought to enforce 
 obsolete Acts were both expensive and futile. If any j 
 victory was scored the law was promptly altered. In truth, ; 
 few cases were won. Sometimes, as in the case of the i 
 cotton weavers in 1804, legal action was supplemented 
 by the weapon of the strike. But the strike was not ! 
 as yet legalized, and inevitably involved the arrest and i 
 imprisonment of the leaders. j 
 
 The old apprenticeship law was still, however, a part ! 
 of the law of the land. There was a considerable mass of 
 pubHc opinion in favour of its retention, and a Select \ 
 Committee appointed to consider the matter reported ' 
 favourably. Parliament, however, was wedded to the ' 
 theory of freedom of action between master and man. The 
 Select Committee of 1 8 1 1 had reported that : 1 
 
 No interference of the legislature with the freedom of trade or 
 with the perfect liberty of every individual to dispose of his time i 
 and of his labour in the way and on the terms which he may judge ' 
 most conducive to his own interest can take place without violating | 
 
 general principles of the first importance to the prosperity and ' 
 ■ . _ — _ i 
 
 1 1 3 Ric. II, St. I, c. 1 1 ; 5 and 6 Edw. VI, c. 6 ; 2 and 3 P. and M., c. 1 1 : 
 and c. 12 ; 4 and 5 P. and M., c. 5 ; 43 Eliz., c. 10 ; 4 Jac. I, c. 2 ; 21 Jac. I, i 
 c. 18 ; 10 An., c. 16 ; I Geo. I, c. 15 ; 13 Geo. I, c. 23. \ 
 
 224 I 
 
THE 'RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 happiness of the community, without establishing the most 
 pernicious precedent, and even without aggravating, after a very 
 short time, the pressure of the general distress, and imposing 
 obstacles against that distress being ever removed. 
 
 In 1 8 14 the Act 54 Geo. Ill, c. 96, repealed the remain- 
 ing sections of the Statute of Apprentices, and with them, 
 to use the words of Mr and Mrs Webb, " the last remnant 
 of that legislative protection of the Standard of Life which 
 survived from the Middle Ages." 
 
 Early Unions 
 
 Ever since the opening years of the Industrial Revolu- 
 tion there had been a notable amount of trade organization. 
 The West of England woollen workers and the Midland 
 framework knitters were the first to combine in associa- 
 tions having as their primary purpose the prevention of 
 the reduction of wages. At first, however, the activities 
 of these newly arisen bodies had but few practical results, 
 except that they called into being a resistance which 
 steadily gathered momentum, and which, having ex- 
 hausted the resources of the common law and the law of 
 conspiracy, eventually succeeded in placing on the Statute 
 Book the Combination Laws of 1799 and 1800. 
 
 Combination Laws 
 
 These two laws, the second amending and expanding 
 the first, rendered it criminal to combine for the purpose 
 of securing a rise in wages, or the alteration of the hours 
 or conditions of work. To prevent any employer em- 
 ploying or any employee from being employed, to strike 
 or attempt to induce others to strike, to attend a meeting 
 to attain these objects, or to spend money in furtherance of 
 such purposes, was made punishable with imprisonment. 
 The history of trade unionism for the next twenty-four 
 years is mainly composed of the repressive steps taken 
 under the Combination Laws and of the exertions of a 
 comparatively small body of men to secure the repeal of the 
 
 P 225 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Act of 1 800. The mass of trade unionists, if we may now 
 use that term, were concerned and occupied in the agitation 
 for the reform of the Parliament which had passed the law. 
 
 Even before the passing of these general Acts a con- 
 siderable number of repressive measures had been enacted 
 for the purpose of forbidding combinations in particular 
 trades. That branch of the law of contract which renders 
 agreements void, as being against public policy, which 
 are in restraint of trade was also used to eke out the some- 
 what slender law of conspiracy, which in earlier years had 
 been concerned only with criminals and wrongdoers, but 
 which was now utilized as a means of suppressing combina- 
 tions. It must be remembered, however, that the age was 
 one of great difficulty. The terrible excesses of the French 
 Revolution had been witnessed. The ideals of the theorists 
 had been seen, as they have since been seen in Russia, to end in 
 a welter of blood. In France cruelties had been committed 
 in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity beyond 
 anything experienced since the Thirty Years War. What 
 was to have been an ideal state of society had crashed in ruins ^ 
 to the ground, and from those ruins a military dictatorship ■ 
 had arisen which plunged Europe into a devastating war and '-■ 
 taxed the resources of Britain to the utmost to destroy it. j 
 
 \ 
 Aims of the Early Trade Unionists ' 
 
 In the early days of the new unionism the workers had I 
 
 aims which were directed against the whole industrial ' 
 
 system. They were not pressing for collective bargaining i 
 
 with their employers on the other side of the table; they 1 
 
 were pressing for a radical change in the whole structure , 
 
 of industry. In so far their aims were revolutionary, and 
 
 the Government had some justification for taking the \ 
 
 strongest measures in order to stamp out every form of ; 
 
 sedition. The • rulers of those days acted, it may be, in j 
 
 ignorance of the tenets of Confucius, but in accordance with | 
 
 his most cardinal principle, viz., that words should be given ; 
 
 their proper meaning — that of the governors and governed 
 
 it is the governor who should rule and not the governed. ! 
 
 226 1 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Of the large number of Acts, legislative and adminis- 
 trative, and the dramatic prosecutions directed against the 
 seditious, we do not propose to speak. It has become a 
 commonplace to regard those upon whom the law of sedi- 
 tion fell most harshly as broad-minded and healthy patriots. 
 It has perhaps been too little considered what would to-day 
 be the state of England, of Europe, and of the world, had 
 they had their way and had they succeeded in tearing in 
 pieces the fabric of society in England. Such complex 
 structures as civilizations — based as they are on the ex- 
 periences, the sufferings, the ideals, and the thoughts 
 of generations of men — are easily destroyed. Like the 
 giant oak they grow slowly, but can soon be cut down. 
 History has shown that, without any exception, progress 
 is best attained when based on work, on reason, and on 
 calm dispassionate judgment, and that reaction and decline 
 flourish most happily in the fruitful soils of violence and 
 bloodshed. 
 
 The fear of revolution, and of that collapse which was 
 taking place on the other side of the Channel, had un- 
 doubtedly a repressive effect on the free institutions of 
 Britain. Liberty of speech, of the Press, and of meeting 
 was struck at time after time. The country at times wore 
 almost the appearance of a conquered land in military 
 occupation. Democratic institutions for a season withered 
 and the combinations of workpeople were suppressed. 
 
 The Act of 1800 was not, however, universally enforced. 
 It was rather a weapon in reserve than a weapon always 
 in action. The masters were left to set the law in motion 
 and frequently the masters were tolerant of the unions. 
 It was, perhaps, only in the new factories, and especially 
 in the textile factories, that the Combination Law was used 
 as a means of oppression and repression. It was not often 
 that the case was put as high as in the argument of counsel 
 at the trial of the cotton-spinners in 1 8 1 8 when he said : 
 " All societies, whether benefit societies or otherwise, are 
 only cloaks for the people of England to conspire against 
 the State." In truth, the clauses against collecting and 
 
 227 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 benefit societies were early little better than dead letters, 
 but the laws against combinations and strikes were often 
 very rigorously enforced. As Francis Place says: 
 
 The suflrerings of persons employed in the cotton manufactures 
 were beyond credibility: they were drawn into combinations, 
 betrayed, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and monstrously 
 severe punishments inflicted on them: they were reduced to and 
 kept in the most wretched state of existence.^ 
 
 The Combination Law was, of course, directed against 
 combinations whether of men or masters, but, as Place 
 pointed out when giving evidence before Hume's Com- 
 mittee : " It would be nearly impossible to prosecute a 
 master to conviction. To prosecute at all, money must 
 be raised; to raise money there must be a combination 
 amongst the men, and then they may be prosecuted by 
 the masters." If, as the law then stood, the men were to 
 prosecute the masters, there would be a cross prosecution. 
 The Combination Law compelled the men to give evidence 
 against one another, and thus the prosecution was often 
 effective ; no law compelled the masters to give evidence 
 against one another, and so a conviction was rarely obtained. 
 
 France 
 
 Of the steps taken by Place and his associates to abolish 
 the Combination Laws we shall have to speak hereafter. 
 It will be convenient at this point to retrace our steps 
 somewhat and consider what had been happening in France 
 and the now independent Republic of the United States 
 of America. 
 
 The French, as we have seen, had from very early 
 times possessed trade associations similar to the English 
 gilds, and these associations were fostered and strengthened 
 by the changes introduced by Colbert. The system of gild 
 and State regulation introduced in the seventeenth century 
 had been strongly opposed from the first by the masters and 
 
 ^ See his evidence before Hume's Committee. 
 228 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 by many of the men, who chafed at the restrictions and 
 limitations placed upon them. In the eighteenth century 
 Turgot arose to sweep away most of what Colbert had 
 established, and in 1776 appeared Turgot's edict sup- 
 pressing the gilds and declaring that 
 
 God by giving to men needs and desires has rendered them 
 dependent upon the products of their labour and has given as the 
 right and possession of all men the right to work ; and this right 
 is the first, the most sacred, and the most indestructible of all. 
 
 The revolutionaries completed what Turgot had com- 
 menced — the complete abolition of gild restrictions. The 
 most sacred principle for which thousands of French aristo- 
 crats were sent to the guillotine was that the individual 
 was free. Individual liberty, freedom from all the 
 shackles of the past, from manorial, gild, and State regu- 
 lations, this was the aim and ideal of the revolutionaries, 
 and in their eagerness to secure individual liberty they 
 completely destroyed collective liberty. In 1791 not only 
 were the gilds suppressed; every combination, or assembly, 
 or association, or organization connected with the advance- 
 ment of the common interests of labour was also declared 
 unlawful. Nineteen years later the Penal Code forbade 
 any organization of more than twenty persons unless the 
 consent of the Government had been obtained. 
 
 As Sir Sydney Chapman so well expresses it: 
 
 The general object of revolutionary legislation, apart from its 
 lighter treatment of employees, . . . had been to secure the 
 individual in his rights as a man. It was natural that the reaction 
 against the system of the and en regime should be thorough. It 
 was for succeeding generations to discover that the individual in 
 having freedom thrust upon him by the famous law of March 17, 
 1 79 1, had been in many cases deprived of the power of bargaining 
 with the employer upon equal terms, if he were not, according to 
 the extreme saying of Brentano, delivered over bound hand and 
 foot to the caprices of the capitalists.^ 
 
 ^ JVork and Wages. 
 
 229 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 America 
 
 Before the Declaration of Independence (ijyS) there 
 was nothing which can be described as a trade union, or 
 even as a stable association of journeymen, in the Americas. 
 
 The French Canadians were not industrially organized j 
 
 at all; the inhabitants of the States which subsequently \ 
 
 became the United States were mainly agriculturists, and ! 
 
 in so far as they were industrials they were organized in I 
 
 a manner not dissimilar to the old gild system. Wages l 
 were regulated. As early as 1630 the Court of Assistants 
 
 of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had fixed the wages of , 
 
 artisans. Social, gild, or friendly clubs were formed to i 
 lend money to and help members. Life was simple, and 
 industrial development was deliberately retarded in favour 
 of agricultural expansion. The factory system had not 
 
 commenced. The first factory was not built until 1787, \ 
 
 and it was not until 18 14 that the American Francis j 
 
 Lowell succeeded in inventing a power-loom. England | 
 
 had not unnaturally taken every precaution to prevent her i 
 inventions being copied abroad, and important restrictions 
 
 existed which prevented the export of machinery. Such i 
 
 obstacles could, however, be overcome, as Place pointed 1 
 
 out before Hume's Committee, and in 1794 Englishmen < 
 
 succeeded in smuggling the machinery necessary for the • 
 
 woollen industry into America. In 1797 the first factory i 
 was built for spinning and weaving flax. As in England, 
 
 the earliest recruits to the new factories were young and [ 
 
 unskilled workers; as in England, it was the coming I 
 
 of the factory system that induced the forming of trade 1 
 
 unions. \ 
 
 But in America each of the stages in the development ^ 
 
 of trade unionism was somewhat later in time than in • 
 
 England. Although the Typographical Society of New 1 
 York City and the Federal Society of Journeymen Cord- 
 wainers were in existence by 1795, and although certain 
 
 organizations of a temporary nature are found even earlier, | 
 
 it was not until after the war of 1 8 1 2 that the history of j 
 
 American trade unionism can be said to have commenced. ' 
 230 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 As Professor Carlton says, " Modern trade unionism 
 was practically non-existent previous to 1824. Certain 
 rudimentary organizations are found, but these were 
 purely local, ephemeral, and confined to members of one 
 trade." ^ In one direction, however, America appears to have 
 anticipated England. The first union of unions, formed at 
 Philadelphia in 1827, used the style of " The Mechanics' 
 Union of Trade Associations," and although there is 
 abundant evidence of the close relationship existing between 
 unions in England, it is believed that the first union of 
 unions did not come into being in this country until 1829. 
 - As we should expect, though the need for trade unions 
 became apparent with the rise of the factory system in 
 America, the earliest associations were associations of 
 craftsmen. Precisely the same course of events occurred 
 in England. We see there as here the new order causing 
 an upheaval among the old trades. Young unskilled 
 workers begin to take the place of the skilled workers. 
 The skilled workers, for their own defence, stir up the fire 
 of their ancient gild organizations. New societies come 
 into being based on the old, but their aims are impossible. 
 They try in vain to bridge the abyss by bringing the sides 
 together. The new associations accomplish but little 
 because they belong, as their ideals belong, to an age that 
 is rapidly passing away. Such organizations disappear, 
 but not before they have assisted to bring into existence 
 other societies and associations formed to remedy the 
 grievances of quite a different class of man, the man who 
 belonged not to the past, but to the present and the future — 
 the factory hand. 
 
 These societies or trade unions arose in America some 
 little time after Francis Place in England had secured for 
 a time the complete repeal of the Combination Laws. 
 The early years of the thirties of last century are perhaps 
 the most important in the history of the birth of American 
 trade unionism. 
 
 Owing to the late development of the country, it befell 
 ^ History and Problems of Organised Labour. 
 
 231 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 that the American unionist has not the same traditions of 
 repression, secret meetings, and imprisonment as have those 
 older unions which in England were assembling in wild 
 and deserted places, on hill-tops and in woods, throughout 
 the closing years of the eighteenth and the opening years 
 of the nineteenth century. In America trade unionism 
 hardly existed prior to 1824, and when it did arise it 
 tended, as in France, and, at that period, in England, to be 
 political in kind. The earlier working men's parties 
 achieved nothing and rapidly disappeared. Again to quote 
 Professor Carlton: 
 
 The first working men's party appeared in Philadelphia in 1827 
 or 1828; but the most important political movement occurred 
 in New York City. The New York party was organized in 
 the spring of 1829, elected a State assemblyman in the fall, was 
 split into three fragments within a few months, put three tickets 
 in the field in the fall of 1830, and disappeared from view the 
 following spring. . . . The first American labour movement 
 was disrupted by entering the political arena. 
 
 The experiences of the earlier unionists were not lost 
 upon their successors. The later trade unions kept aloof 
 from politics, but used all their powers of persuasion and 
 intimidation to obtain the support of politicians for their 
 programme, which naturally has varied from time to time, 
 but has from the very earliest days attached special im- 
 portance to education. 
 
 Francis Place 
 
 Francis Place, the protagonist in the struggle for the 
 abolition of the Combination Laws, had himself been a 
 skilled tradesman — a leather-breeches-maker — and had 
 subsequently become a master and a man of some wealth. 
 He devoted himself with extraordinary assiduity and 
 acuteness for years to the preparation of the case and to the 
 selection of the court for the hearing of the cause of Free- 
 dom V. Repression which he finally succeeded in bringing 
 to trial in 1824. The court was well chosen. Joseph 
 232 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Hume, chairman of the Select Committee on Artisans 
 and Machinery, was known to be one of Place's supporters. 
 The personnel of the committee was well disposed toward 
 the reformer. Years of ' lobbying * had not been spent in 
 vain. An overwhelming mass of evidence was produced, 
 and Place himself took the acceptable but, as events have 
 proved, hopelessly fallacious line that the only thing that 
 binds men together is repression. 
 
 But although Place himself was doubtless misguided 
 in some essentials, he was primed with facts on matters 
 of detail. That he was wrong in some matters of the first 
 importance is obvious from the opinions expressed by 
 him in his evidence. It is abundantly clear that Place 
 looked to the abolition of the Combination Laws to bring 
 peace to industry. " If the men could legally combine, 
 disputes would seldom occur, but when they did they 
 would be settled by compromise between the parties. 
 Workmen dread a strike." He as equally clearly took 
 the very just view that the great thing to aim at is industrial 
 peace and goodwill between master and man, but his 
 belief that the abolition of the Combination Laws would 
 bring about this result has been shown to be wrong. It is 
 not too much to say, and the statement is not made lightly, 
 that each advance made by trade unions along the road 
 to complete liberty of action has been marked by an increase 
 in industrial unrest. Had Francis Place foreseen what 
 has happened within these later years it is impossible to 
 believe that he would have lifted a finger to secure the 
 repeal of the Combination Laws. There was little popular 
 support for the movement. The leaders of working- 
 class opinion were more concerned with the movement for 
 the Reform of Parliament, and Place himself declared that 
 he was primarily actuated by a desire to bring about peace 
 between employers and employed, to do away with strikes, 
 and to create a spirit of compromise. 
 
 That he achieved a momentous, far-reaching, and 
 desirable reform will doubtless be agreed by the vast mass 
 of modern opinion, which, though it has seen the abuse of 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 trade union power, has also seen its use, has observed the 
 improvements effected in social conditions, the advance- 
 ment of the masses along the roads of civilization, education, , 
 prosperity, and happiness, which advancement has been i 
 brought about to no small extent by the activities of such i 
 unions. But that early nineteenth-century opinion would 
 have tolerated the upheavals that have resulted ; that 
 Hume's Committee would have reported as they did could I 
 they have foreseen that less than one hundred years later 
 the country would have been rent by strike after strike ,! 
 to secure results which to them would have appeared in j 
 some cases Utopian and in others cases childish, cannot be 1 
 believed. 1 
 
 In the result, however. Place won all his points. The | 
 Committee reported, inter alia^ as follows : | 
 
 i 
 (i) That prosecutions have frequently been carried on under the j 
 statute and the common law against the workmen, and many of f 
 them have suffered different periods of imprisonment for combining 
 and conspiring to raise their wages, or to resist their reduction, 
 and to regulate their hours of working. 
 
 (2) That several instances have been stated to the Committee 
 of prosecutions against masters for combining to lower wages and 
 to regulate the hours of working; but no instance has been adduced 
 of any master having been punished for that offence. 
 
 (3) That the laws have not only not been efficient to prevent 
 combinations, either of masters or workmen, but, on the contrary, 
 have, in the opinion of many of both parties, had a tendency to 
 produce mutual irritation and distrust, and to give a violent 
 character to the combinations, and to make them highly dangerous 
 to the peace of the community. 
 
 (4) That it is the opinion of this Committee that masters and 
 workmen should be freed from such restrictions, as regards the rate 
 of wages and the hours of working, and be left at perfect liberty 
 to make such agreements as they may mutually think proper. 
 
 (5) That the practice of settling disputes by arbitration- between 
 masters and workmen has been attended with good effects ; and 
 it is desirable that the laws which direct and regulate arbitration 
 should be consolidated, amended, and made applicable to all 
 trades. 
 
 234 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 (6) That it is absolutely necessary, when repealing the Com- 
 bination Laws, to enact such a law as may efficiently and by summary 
 process punish either workmen or masters who, by threats, in- 
 timidation, or acts of violence, should interfere with that perfect 
 freedom which ought to be allowed to each party, of employing 
 his labour or capital in the manner he may deem most advantageous. 
 
 The Repeal of the Combination Laws 
 
 The Government early took action. The Act 5 Geo. 
 IV, c. 95, was placed on the Statute Book, and the Combina- 
 tion Laws of 1 799 and 1 800 were repealed. Almost at once 
 strikes occurred all over the kingdom. A people that had 
 been kept down for more than twenty years while wages 
 had steadily declined and prices had risen took immediate 
 advantage of their new-found liberty to press for a better 
 standard of life and better conditions. Many emigrated 
 as a consequence of the repeal of the emigration laws. 
 
 The employers, who had been taken by surprise by 
 Place, were alarmed and, taking a leaf out of Place's book, 
 obtained the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire 
 into the effects of the 5 Geo. IV, c. 95. 
 
 The Committee recommended, after hearing much 
 evidence which proved the widespread nature of the 
 strikes which had occurred, the total repeal of the Act 
 and the restoration of the common law. The report 
 continues : 
 
 Your Committee, however, in recommending that the common 
 law should be restored, are of opinion that an exception should be 
 made to its operation in favour of meetings and consultations 
 amongst either masters or workmen, the object of which is peace- 
 ably to consult upon the rate of wages ... or to settle the hours of 
 labour, an exception which . . . will not afford any support to . . . 
 that assumption of control on the part of the workmen in the 
 conduct of any business or manufacture which is utterly incom- 
 patible with the necessary authority of the master, at whose risk 
 and by whose capital it is to be carried on. 
 
 The recommendations of the employers' Committee 
 were favourably considered, but were not all given effect to. 
 
 235 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 In 1825, however, the Combination Laws Repeal Act 
 was amended and quahfied by a new Act which created 
 the offences of molestation and obstruction. The 1825 
 Act removed the immunity given by the Act of 1824 to 
 combinations of workmen. Workmen might still be 
 prosecuted for conspiracy in combination. Convictions 
 for conspiracy to raise wages became, though not matters 
 of frequency, matters of occasional occurrence. 
 
 It was at this stage that the law relating to trade unions 
 remained for the next thirty-four years, until, in 1859, the 
 Molestation of Workmen Act was passed in order to render 
 it lawful to persuade workmen by peaceful means to abstain 
 from working in order to raise their wages. 
 
 The Law of Conspiracy 
 
 In the sixties a notable change occurred; the franchise 
 was now extended, and there was offered to the working 
 classes some share in the political power which had been 
 given more than thirty years before to the middle classes. 
 At once the labour movement renewed political activity. 
 In 1868 several working men came forward as candidates 
 for Parliament, but all were unsuccessful. In the general 
 election of 1874, however, of the thirteen trade union 
 candidates put forward, two, Alexander Macdonald and 
 Thomas Burt, were elected. 
 
 It was during this period, viz., in 1 87 1, that trade unions 
 had secured a definite though somewhat peculiar status. 
 As a result, they were no longer illegal bodies and their 
 funds were protected. But in many respects they were 
 still weakened by the development of the common law rules 
 relating to conspiracy, which were still available as a means 
 of repressing trade combinations. The Courts had held 
 that although the Act of 1871 had declared that trade 
 unions should not be deemed unlawful associations merely 
 because they were in restraint of trade and that their 
 members as such should not be liable to criminal prosecu- 
 tion for conspiracy or otherwise, yet the Trade Union Act 
 had not affected the common law, which still remained 
 236 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 available as a weapon of offence against trade union 
 members. 
 
 It was, however, rapidly becoming apparent that trade 
 unions and working-class combinations could no longer be 
 repressed. For not only had their membership doubled 
 between the years 1871 and 1875, ^^^ ^^^*^ conditions 
 were altering in such a manner as to make trade unions 
 really necessary in the interests of the people at large. 
 Further, the leaders of working-class opinion were now 
 uniting to the political agitation which pursued its course 
 through trade unions an activity which sought to establish 
 on a firm foundation these trade associations. There 
 were, of course, as yet but two great parties in the State, 
 Liberal and Tory, and the creation of a party identified 
 with any particular class was as yet impracticable. We 
 now find labour, at this period, identifying itself with 
 Gladstonian Liberalism, though Gladstone had attacked 
 the trade unions in 1871, when an Anti-Trade Union law 
 was passed. 
 
 German Trade Unions 
 
 The course of events in Germany was not dissimilar; 
 there the trade union movement originally arose in the 
 sixties, and was the child of one of the wings of the Social 
 Democratic party. After a struggling childhood it seemed 
 doomed to final extinction when, in 1879, the Anti-Socialist 
 law was passed which resulted in the dissolution of 108 
 trade unions within the next decade, and the changing of 
 the activities of the remaining unions into those common 
 to friendly societies. In 1889, however, the Anti-Socialist 
 law lapsed and conditions were then such as existed in 
 England after Place's successful agitation. Henceforward 
 it was seen that the trade union movement was one which 
 under modern conditions could not be destroyed. 
 
 The Need for Unity 
 
 What were these conditions ? Their origin is to be 
 found in the increased competition which now began to 
 
 237 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 be experienced between Great Britain, the United States, 
 Germany, and France. Until about the middle of the 
 nineteenth century the only great industrial country was 
 Great Britain. She had profited enormously by the 
 initial advantage which had been secured in consequence 
 of her many engineering inventions, which had ushered 
 in the factory system and which had brought unexampled 
 wealth to great numbers of her people. At first, as we 
 have seen, the change had resulted in much misery, which 
 had in turn caused the creation of new trade combinations. 
 The rise of these had synchronized with the revolution in 
 France and the Napoleonic wars. The result had been 
 repression grudgingly submitted to during a period of i 
 national danger. Within a few years of the removal of 
 that danger active repression had been abandoned, but > 
 passive repression was resorted to for many more years ; 
 and was submitted to by the people largely because the ; 
 country as a whole was prosperous. It is true that in \ 
 certain periods, particularly in the early forties of the nine- ] 
 teenth century, there were periods of trade depression and \ 
 much misery, but regarding the years 1825 to 1865 as a "j 
 whole, it was a period of trade expansion which saw a real j 
 increase in the value of wages and a real improvement \ 
 in the conditions of work. These changes were, as we ! 
 shall see, brought about by the activities of humanitarians < 
 effecting their aims through a Parliament whose power i 
 was based upon the middle-class vote. The middle or ' 
 employing class were, in common parlance, doing very 
 well. Business was good, profits were high, and out of i 
 their plenty they could be generous. j 
 
 With the rise of America and Germany into the ranks ' 
 of first-class manufacturing powers the position was i 
 changed. There was now keen competition, followed by : 
 a tendency to cut wages, and the working class began to 1 
 see that combination was necessary unless their standard 
 of life was to be degraded once more. 
 
 The movement would have been even more active were \ 
 it not for the fact that, as a result of the vastly increased ! 
 
 238 
 
 i 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 production which was now taking place in consequence 
 of this increase in competition, there was a notable fall 
 in the cost of living which left the working classes in as 
 good if not a better position than they had hitherto 
 occupied. 
 
 The danger, however, was sufficiently apparent to cause 
 increased trade union activity, and their first line of offence 
 was political and was directed toward securing the legality 
 of their activities. This was to a large extent achieved 
 in 1875, when clauses were inserted in the Conspiracy 
 and Protection of Property Act which provided that no 
 combination among members of trade unions to do any 
 act in furtherance of a trade dispute should be indictable 
 as a conspiracy unless such act if committed by an 
 individual would be punishable as a crime. 
 
 The Twentieth Century 
 
 From now onward for the next twenty-five years the 
 trade union movement is not marked by any substantial 
 change. The Labour Party as a political party had hardly 
 become a notable force until after the beginning of the 
 twentieth century. The trade unionist in the mass was 
 a supporter of LiberaHsm. Industrial activity pursued 
 the pohcy of compromise, and the standard of Hfe of 
 the employed was secured without resort to any notable 
 strikes. 
 
 With the opening of the twentieth century, however, 
 a change takes place. In Great Britain especially com- 
 petition becomes more and more acute. The cost of 
 living tends to become higher and higher. The imperative 
 need to secure a proportion of the markets of the world 
 checks or prevents a simultaneous increase in wages. The 
 education of the masses creates a fruitful soil in which 
 seeds of discontent, unrest, and impossible desires may be 
 sown. The Labour Party begins to come forward as one 
 of the distinct parties in political life ; the strike becomes 
 one of the commonplaces of industrial life. As Mr Craik 
 has said : 
 
 239 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR j 
 
 These strikes, which from 1910 to 1914 particularly were i 
 unsurpassed both in number and magnitude of operations, were ■ 
 conducted against all kinds of grievances imaginable — strikes for | 
 more wages, strikes for shorter hours, strikes because of the i 
 victimisation of one man, strikes because of the intolerable conduct j 
 of some petty official, strikes against the employment of non-trade- 
 unionists, sympathetic strikes, strikes without trade union official j 
 sanction and in the teeth of the leaders' expressed opposition — of 
 grievances and strikes there appeared to be no end.^ 
 
 The trade unions had indeed been put in an extra- 
 ordinarily favourable position by the passing of the Trade I 
 Disputes Act in 1906, which did in effect practically put 
 them above the law. Henceforward no act done in 
 pursuance of a trade dispute, whether such act were a 
 breach of contract or a civil wrong, was actionable. As . 
 a result of their immensely strong legal position and of ' 
 the great numbers of their members, which in England in i 
 191 3 amounted to four millions, being one million more i 
 than the number of trade unionists in America and one ' 
 million two hundred and jfifty thousand more than the i 
 number of trade unionists in Germany, the trade union and \ 
 its leaders became organizations and persons exercising ) 
 almost autocratic power. J 
 
 Decentralization ] 
 
 With the coming of the War in 19 14 a truce was j 
 declared for a season, but as time went on it became ; 
 apparent that the members of trade unions desired a \ 
 certain decentralization of authority, partly because they i 
 had not assented too readily to the statesmanlike decisions \ 
 which their leaders had come to. The result was the : 
 development of a new * shop stewards ' movement, which j 
 secured not only more power to the local unionist, but 
 also more control over the working conditions of the shop 1 
 or factory in which the workers were employed. The ! 
 movement thus inaugurated may probably be regarded as 
 the first step in that democratic control of industry which I 
 ^ Shri History of the Modern British Working-class Movement. \ 
 
 240 j 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 is considered at some length in the concluding chapter of 
 this book. It is intimately connected with the Whitley 
 Councils which have recently been devised as a nieans 
 of avoiding industrial warfare by creating machinery 
 by which employer and employed can frankly discuss 
 matters of grievance without the need to resort to the 
 barbarous and archaic method of a trial of strength, which 
 involves a serious loss to the combatants and much injury 
 to the community. Neither Whitley Councils nor their 
 relatives, the Pit Committees of our mines, nor the elaborate 
 laws relating to the submission of disputes to arbitra- 
 tion under the Ministry of Labour have, however, as 
 yet succeeded in eliminating that disastrous mode of 
 compelling agreement by means of a strike or lock-out. 
 
 Direct Action 
 
 Within very recent years, indeed, the strike has become 
 a weapon that is used not merely in industrial but also in 
 political matters, and it is here that it behoves those who 
 arc concerned in the future development of the trade 
 union movement closely to consider the trend of events. 
 The political strike endeavours to secure the reversal of 
 a decision made by Parliament or by the Executive 
 which is responsible to Parliament. It would appear to 
 be capable of justification only on the assumption that 
 such decision of Parliament or the Executive is contrary 
 to the wishes of the people and that the decision of 
 the body striking is in accordance with the wishes of the 
 majority of the people. Otherwise it is apparent that a 
 minority of the community is dictating to the majority. 
 
 We have seen in the past that until the beginning of 
 that epoch which we here describe as the Present man 
 has been ruled by a minority, a minority representative 
 of the noblest born, the best educated, and frequently the 
 most cultured of men. We have seen that the exercise of 
 such power by the minority has resulted in the repression 
 of the masses and the continuance of long-endured wrongs. 
 Little by little the minority has become larger and larger, 
 
 Q 241 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 and as it has become larger the wrongs have become less and 
 less. In the next part of this book, which is concerned 
 with the Present, we shall see that slowly the minority has 
 yielded power to the majority, which has won that power 
 after constant struggles. That power is founded on the 
 right residing in the majority of the people, irrespective 
 of class or wealth, to decide how the country shall be ruled, 
 what laws shall be made, and how obedience to those laws 
 shall be secured. That is a priceless heritage. It con- 
 stitutes at present what we call our liberty. If it is 
 surrendered to a minority, to such extent as it is 
 surrendered our liberty will be impaired. It was truly 
 said by Burke, when speaking at the time of the proposed 
 reformation of Parliament toward the end of the eighteenth 
 century, that the Englishman was free as no other man 
 was free, if you restricted the term Englishman to the 
 privileged minority that ruled England. To-day we can 
 more proudly say that Englishmen are free whether they 
 belong to the minority or the majority. But that freedom 
 will be lost if the political power now residing in the , 
 majority is surrendered to a section. 
 
 And here we should consider what section ; we should 
 consider whether it is more probable that a minority of ; 
 the people composed of working men, led by working men 
 with peculiar views — men some of whom appear to see in 
 Russia to-day nothing but good, who are prepared to 
 sweep Christianity on one side as an effete and mischievous 
 creed, and are ready to subvert those institutions which 
 have slowly grown up among us — is more likely to be 
 benevolent or wise or just than were the squirearchy of 
 the eighteenth century, the kings and bishops of the twelfth 
 century, or the Caesars and senators of the first century. 
 
 It is a matter for each man himself to decide. If he 
 decide that he desires to have a voice in the government 
 of his country, then he must regard as mischievous such 
 movements as are involved in the formation of the Council 
 of Action or in the declaration of strikes for political objects, 
 which would remove from him the right to say indirectly 
 242 
 
THE RISE OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 what should be done and so transfer to a trade union, of 
 which he may or may not be a member, the right either to 
 decide political matters or the power to involve him and 
 his fellow-countrymen in loss and damage arising out of a 
 political strike. 
 
 The whole question, indeed, seems to be concluded if 
 once it appear that in fact our present Parliamentary 
 system as a system does offer to the people of this country 
 the power to rule according to the will of the majority. 
 We hold the strong opinion that it does, but such matters 
 are not to be settled by any man's opinion ; they will be 
 settled by the facts of the case. We will endeavour in 
 the next part to state what are these facts. We will see 
 what Parliament was and what it now is. We will see 
 what its attitude was and what its attitude has been in 
 these latter years. We will review a multitude of measures 
 gathering in number as the years pass by, and, as the century 
 proceeds, becoming more and more sympathetic toward 
 the masses until at length no person is too poor or too 
 oppressed to be the subject of attentive legislation. When 
 we have concluded our review we will ask the reader to 
 turn back and answer for himself this question : " Is the 
 Parliament that now exists and has done these things 
 mindful of the good of the people or is it not ? " and 
 having answered that question, we will ask him to consider 
 this other one also : *' Is it to-day elected by the people 
 or is it not ? " 
 
 If these questions are answered in the affirmative, he may 
 desire to consider what is this impertinence that seeks to 
 take from the people their right to rule themselves. 
 
 243 
 
PART II 
 
 THE PRESENT 
 
There is no greatness or dominion on earth so 
 sacred but it must fall before the liberties of 
 the people. Extract from an Oxford 
 
 sermon delivered 1781 
 
PROLOGUE TO PART II 
 
 IT is the view of the supporters of gild socialism 
 that *' the crowning discovery of the nineteenth 
 century was that democratic government made no 
 difference to the life of the ordinary man ; nominally self- 
 governing, he remained in bondage." It is because we 
 differ absolutely and altogether from this reading of the 
 industrial and political history of the century that we regard 
 the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 as the starting-point 
 of a new order of things destined very vitally to affect the 
 well-being of the people at large and to bring about a far 
 better condition of life than had been known before in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 True it is that already before 1832 some measures of 
 reform had been inaugurated by the same party and even 
 by the same government that was responsible for the 
 notorious Six Acts; true it also is that the Whigs accom- 
 plished very little in the direction of social legislation in 
 the decade following the passing of the Reform Bill. A new 
 Poor Law, a State grant for education, a valuable Factory 
 Act, the introduction of cheap newspapers, penny postage, 
 and railways were their most valuable constructive efforts. 
 But in judging of the progress immediately attained two 
 factors must be remembered. In the first place, the first 
 Reform Bill was essentially a middle-class measure; it 
 accepted the principle neither of the ballot nor of the 
 working-class vote. It was not until many years later that 
 the masses were enfranchised. The great and immense 
 value of the Act of 1832 lay not so much in what it im- 
 mediately accomplished, as in what it rendered possible. 
 It did not complete the structure of democracy, but it laid 
 the foundations and it laid them well. 
 
 247 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 In the second place, the Reform movement had so 
 wholly engrossed the activities of the progressives both 
 among the ministerial ranks and among the people at large 
 that the passing of the Bill exhausted their programme. 
 It consequently happened that some years elapsed before 
 the necessary spade work had been done which rendered 
 it possible to reform entirely and radically our industries, 
 our home life, and our educational system. 
 
 When, however, one views the condition of the people 
 at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign and at the end 
 one is confronted with a change so remarkable that one 
 is compelled to inquire : " What was the cause of this 
 immense improvement ? " To different minds different 
 reasons may suggest themselves. One of the purposes of 
 this Part is to enable the reader to see the extent of the 
 change and to decide the cause for himself. The writer 
 may be permitted to express his view that it is due entirely 
 to the original establishment and subsequent extension 
 of democratic government, bringing in its train, as it did, 
 the increase and spread of education, improvements in 
 environment of work and of life, and the more scientific 
 examination of the problems of government. 
 
 In place of rule by dynasties or cliques we now have 
 more and more, both in theory and practice, the rule of 
 able men, the elected of the people, dependent for their 
 power on the people. At first the masses are excluded, 
 they are ignorant, they are downtrodden. But as they 
 rise both to power and to some knowledge — still, alas ! 
 too small — which enables the gift of power to be something 
 that is a true donation and not merely a loan, they influence 
 more and more the trend of legislation. Their peculiar 
 difficulties and misfortunes begin to be more and more 
 considered. With the disappearance of the last effective 
 check on the popular aspirations with the Parliament Act 
 of 191 1 and the passing of the Act giving universal adult 
 suffrage the way would seem to be open for the full ex- 
 pression of the will of the people through the medium of 
 legislative activity. 
 248 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 Dean Farrar once summarized the change which came 
 over the face of industrial England during the reign of 
 Queen Victoria. His words, marked by that eloquence 
 for which he was famous, arc worthy of remembrance. 
 
 When the reign began, apprentices were often treated with 
 brutal injustice. Greedy sweaters, uncontrolled by any legal 
 enactment, ground down the faces of the poor ; women, half- 
 naked, yoked to trucks like horses, and boys, half-naked, crawling 
 on all fours like dogs, beginning their labours often at seven 
 years old, grew double, with hideous deformity and depraved 
 morals, in the black galleries of mines. Can we wonder that 
 the intensity of misery was accentuated by a fierce hatred of 
 employers ? Consider the alleviation produced by Lord 
 Shaftesbury's Ten Hours movement alone, and by the Factory 
 Acts. Only think of the triumphs that have been won in this 
 generation for the children of England. . . . When the reign 
 began, little paupers were beaten and starved ; naval apprentices 
 in coalboats and merchant vessels were subject to horrible 
 barbarities ; the poor little climbing boys, grimed with soot and 
 skin disease, were maimed and suffocated in choked and crooked 
 chimneys ; children were worked in cotton mills for unbroken 
 hours which would have been crushing to grown men. They 
 were brutally treated in brick fields, in canal boats, in agricultural 
 gangs, in pantomimes, in dangerous performances, in the hands 
 of beggars and hawkers and acrobats. Waifs and strays, criminal 
 and semi-criminal — unwashed, untaught, unfed — weltered in 
 an atmosphere of blasphemy and gin, in lairs and dens of human 
 wild beasts, such as are now swept away by the merciful hand of 
 law. Like a vernal breeze, the spirit of mercy has swept through 
 these lurid mists of contagion, which on every side were stagnating 
 into pestilence. 
 
 Not only have children found protectors, not only have 
 conditions of labour for child and adult been rendered 
 tolerable, and even easy, since the passing of the Reform 
 Bill, but the State has considered with increasing care and 
 knowledge the condition of life of the people. The old 
 dens and filthy courts and cellars have in no small measure 
 been pulled down, and decent houses have replaced them ; 
 to the child growing up in a fairer environment than its 
 
 249 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 parents knew the way has been opened to knowledge 
 and to learning. The tendency has been on the one hand 
 from the slum to the garden city and on the other from the 
 ill-natured * minding ' in the dirty factory shed to the well- 
 regulated and controlled tuition of the modern school ; from 
 the secret reading of forbidden tracts to the free perusal of 
 all kinds of books now rendered easy of access even to the 
 humblest through the medium of the public libraries. 
 
 Poverty is still with us, but it almost seems as though ';. 
 its incidence has changed. The Poor Law has been \\ 
 cleansed of many of its most degrading features, and the ti 
 State has begun to search for new weapons with which to | 
 combat the demon of want. The aged, who once were | 
 permitted to sink into unmerited indigence and to suffer 
 an indignity that through the whole of their lives they 
 had toiled to escape, are no longer left to the workhouse, ! 
 but are treated as workers who have earned their pen- l 
 sion. The unfortunates who have suffered injury through 
 accident are no longer permitted to sink into the gutter; j 
 they are compensated on a scale which the employers of ; 
 the early years of last century would have regarded as i 
 wildly generous. The worker who falls sick and who has [ 
 not kept up his club subscriptions is no longer compelled i 
 to add to the miseries of illness the fevers of anxiety while ' 
 he watches his sticks of furniture being removed to pay ' 
 for the necessities of life; he has now secured to him a i 
 small income during illness and has the right to call for ; 
 medical aid. Whether the aid given is of the best depends '\ 
 upon the public conscience of a great profession. The : 
 worker who is confronted with unemployment is no longer i 
 the victim of inevitable disaster; he also has secured to ; 
 him a small income while the hard times last. \ 
 
 The improvements that have been effected in the cir- 
 cumstances of life of the workers during the last century | 
 must, indeed, appear to anyone who will fairly judge the ; 
 conditions then and the conditions now to be immense. ! 
 What are the causes of these improvements ? Have ! 
 they been secured by combines and strikes ? Have j 
 
 250 i 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 they been won at the point of the sword ? Are they 
 the creatures of fear or of justice ? Each must hold 
 his own opinion on these matters, but it is clear that 
 the Factory Acts, the Education Acts, the Workmen's 
 Compensation Acts, The Old Age Pensions Acts, the 
 National Insurance Acts, the PubUc Health Acts, and 
 the Housing Acts were measures secured solely by political 
 means. The mainspring in almost all the above cases is 
 to be found, not in strikes and combines, but in agitations 
 conducted by humanitarians, who used every available 
 means to bring the evils to be combated before the attention 
 of the legislature. The legislature in turn gave effect 
 partially to the wishes of the humanitarians in order to 
 obtain political credit in the country. It is therefore 
 apparent that the activities of men like Shaftesbury took 
 the course and secured the effects they did because there 
 was now on the one hand a Parliament that listened and 
 on the other hand a people that controlled. It is only in 
 these later years, after most of the grosser abuses have 
 been removed, that organizations of labouring men have 
 attempted to exercise notable political pressure, and even 
 in these later years their activities have mainly been 
 concerned with the very proper but narrow subjects of 
 wages and hours. 
 
 Throughout this notable century, though great reforms 
 have been most fiercely fought for, the fighting has been 
 by speech and reason ; no appeal has been made to arms. 
 The people are now firmly in the saddle, omnipotent in 
 the State. They have achieved the end which the whole 
 course of history pointed to as inevitable. It remains now 
 to be seen whether they will use their power to oppress or 
 to elevate; to pull down or to raise up. We have no 
 doubt that an educated democracy will use its powers 
 gently and that, despite present troubles, we are nearing 
 despised Utopia. The way does not lead past the precipice 
 of class warfare — we have seen enough of that — it leads 
 through the groves of education, of sympathy, and of 
 understanding. 
 
 251 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 REFORM 
 
 THE era which saw the social fabric of industrial 
 England unravelled and rewoven into a different 
 pattern was one in which, despite the boasted 
 antiquity and freedom of our Constitution, the people were 
 politically powerless. The same forces which suppressed 
 the earlier unions, which dispersed the corresponding 
 societies, and which passed the enclosure Acts, were 
 unassailable behind the stockades of property. 
 
 Parliament, that splendid invention of the thirteenth 
 century, the quondam opponent of monarchical absolutism, 
 had at length, after its many battles, fallen captive to an 
 aristocratic clique which viewed almost with equal dislike 
 and disdain the pretensions of those nabobs, those despoilers 
 of the East, who sought in their retirement to purchase 
 their way to power, and the proletariat who, being alike 
 ill-educated, docile, and poor, were passed by as beings at 
 best to be patronized and at worst to be oppressed. It 
 was not until more than sixty years of organization, agita- 
 tion, and effort had brought the aims of Wilkes and Wyvill 
 into the realms of practical politics that Grey accomplished, 
 almost by accident, what the genius of Pitt had failed to 
 secure and what neither the energy of W^'vill, Place, Cobbett, 
 and Attwood, the persistence of Cartwright, the wisdom of 
 Bentham, nor the influence of Bedford or Holland had been 
 capable of effecting. The great Reform Bill of 1832 
 became law after passing a House of Lords notable for the 
 absence of every Tory peer. With that passing the old 
 system died out in England as surely as it passed from 
 France with the falling of the Bastille, an event heralded 
 252 
 
REFORM 
 
 . by Fox as the greatest and most glorious fact in all history. 
 i The past was dead, the present had arrived, and with it 
 I that sovereignty of the people which but less than a century 
 1 before had been the daring hope only of the visionary. 
 
 I The Unreformed Parliament 
 
 Before that change in the representation of the people 
 jwas effected Parliament was a body of 513 gentlemen 
 'elected by about 200,000 persons, mostly bought. The 
 I franchise, based as it was on an antique order and upon 
 populations long since changed, was notable only for its 
 absurdities. Cornwall which had already declined to 
 something of its present rank could claim rather more 
 than three times as many members as Lancashire, now 
 risen to the position of the second county of England, 
 and but one member less than the whole of Scotland. Sir 
 Philip Francis could make the jest that he had been 
 unanimously elected by the vote of the sole elector of 
 Appleby, while at Bossigny one family alone could decide 
 who should be returned as member. In some of these 
 ancient boroughs the '* sole manufacture," to use the words 
 of Burke, was " in members of ParUament," and their 
 streets could be traced only by the colour of the corn. 
 
 Corruption 
 
 Not only were many members representative of little 
 more than an imaginary electorate, not only were such 
 electors as there were openly and shamelessly bribed or 
 intimidated or overwhelmed by imported voters, but the 
 members were in turn bought by pensions, places, or 
 contracts. The bribery of the electors was, of course, 
 a well-known and recognized fact. The right to nominate 
 to a seat in Pariiament, like to-day the presentation to 
 livings, that monstrous and evil system, was occasionally 
 advertised for sale; it was included in the assets of 
 bankrupts; it was apprised sometimes at as low a figure 
 as ;^2ooo, sometimes, as in the case of Camelford, at as 
 much as ^{^ 16,000 or ;£3 2,000 for two seats. So well 
 
 253 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 known and recognized was the pecuniary value of the 
 right, so near was it judged to the ordinary rights of 
 property, that Pitt, when in 1785 he sought leave to intro- 
 duce a Reform Bill, expressed the idea of forming a fund 
 out of which to buy out the thirty-six rotten boroughs that 
 he desired to be disfranchised. 
 
 The bribery of members was equally recognized and 
 was considered not only honourable but necessary to the 
 proper conduct of government. Holland, when told that 
 Wyvill was agitating for the abolition of placemen and 
 pensioners, expressed his surprise that one who had been 
 represented to him as a sensible man could favour such a 
 movement when Wyvill himself held by inheritance a 
 sinecure at the Customs worth ;/^iooo a year. The 
 result of both causes was to place all political power in 
 the hands of very small cliques who could at once control 
 the electors and the elected. The aim of the reformers 
 was at first to purify the elected and then enlarge the 
 electorate. These aims, as we shall see, were achieved at 
 widely separated times. 
 
 Ignorance 
 
 Before the condition of political affairs thus induced can 
 be fully comprehended it must be borne in mind that 
 in the eighteenth century the people were of necessity 
 completely ignorant of poHtics. The newspapers were 
 few and, thanks to the sixpenny stamp duty, too dear for 
 the people to purchase; debates in Parliament might not 
 be published, and although newsmen sought by devious 
 ways to acquaint the country with the salient facts, it was 
 rather the county than the country which had either the 
 learning, the leisure, or the means to read the proceedings 
 thus disclosed by the language of suggestion and innuendo. 
 Public meetings were at first almost unknown phenomena, 
 and later were suppressed. Communications whether by 
 road or post were so poor, tardy, and rare that unified action 
 was difficult and national sensibility non-existent. As in 
 the Middle Ages, one Englishman might look upon another. 
 
REFORM 
 
 as all but a few years ago he looked upon the foreigner, 
 as some one very different from himself and consequently 
 as some one to be feared, disliked, or despised according to 
 the mettle of his mind. 
 
 Forms of Franchise 
 
 Of the various forms of franchise which were in existence 
 during this period the county franchise based on a freehold- 
 ing assessed to land tax and worth forty shilUngs by the 
 year was the widest, including as it did everyone with 
 certain exceptions who had a freeholding. Even so, 
 however, that numerous class the copyholders, descendants 
 of the old villeins and now tending to disappear under the 
 pressure of the enclosure movement, was excluded. In 
 other words, the class that suffered most severely from the 
 Agrarian Revolution was, as a class, disfranchised. 
 
 When we turn to consider the conditions of the boroughs 
 the position is worse. Of the two hundred and three 
 boroughs fifty-nine were scot-and-lot or potwalloper 
 boroughs, sixty-two were freemen boroughs, thirty-nine 
 burgage boroughs, and forty-three close corporations. 
 The nature of these electoral units we must shortly con- 
 sider. 
 
 The first form of borough franchise was broad. It 
 might, indeed, be said that every male adult resident who 
 was not a pauper had a vote. The potwalloper vote was 
 possessed by everyone who controlled a doorway, supplied 
 himself with food, and possessed a fireplace at which to 
 cook his meals; scot-and-lot franchise depended on the 
 payment of church and poor rate and upon residence 
 within the borough for six months. 
 
 In the freemen boroughs a somewhat narrower franchise 
 had developed. There the voters were the successors of 
 those old gildsmen upon whose activities the original 
 prosperity of the borough had in past times probably 
 depended. But now, with a gild system long since decayed, 
 the freemen bore little or no resemblance to those of past 
 times. They no longer represented the industrial or trade 
 
 ^5S 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR | 
 
 population. Their status could be achieved by birth, 
 
 marriage, apprenticeship, or election. ,i 
 
 The burgage boroughs and close corporations elected | 
 
 their members on an even smaller franchise. The latter, ' 
 
 a self-elected corporation, chose the member without any j 
 
 regard for the wishes of the townsfolk whose representatives j 
 
 they were only by a fiction ; the franchise of the former ^ 
 
 was exercised only by those who were possessed of burgage l 
 
 tenements, tenements which frequently were unconnected j 
 
 with habitations and sometimes were notional merely. ; 
 
 Thus in the case of Old Sarum there were no houses in \ 
 
 the constituency and the member was returned by seven i 
 burgage holders. 
 
 Property, not Persons, Represented j 
 
 As Mr Veitch remarks in his valuable Genesis of Parlia- j 
 
 mentary Reform^ it was estimated in 1793 that seventy-one I 
 
 peers, together with the Lords of the Treasury, could ' 
 
 absolutely nominate ninety members of the House of j 
 
 Commons ; and that ninety-one commoners could nominate \ 
 
 eighty-two members and procure the return of fifty-seven. \ 
 
 Rather fewer than two hundred persons were thus in \ 
 
 a position, if they cared to act in concert, to secure a j 
 
 majority in the House. Under such a system the country : 
 
 gentleman was naturally regarded as the corner-stone of \ 
 
 responsible politics; the labouring man and the poor man \ 
 
 were regarded as persons who, having no stake in the \ 
 
 country, were not entitled to have an opinion upon its i 
 
 government. As Chatham frankly observed in 1776, ,' 
 
 " people are apt to mistake the nature of representation, ; 
 
 which is not of persons, but of property, and in this light ; 
 
 there is scarcely a blade of grass that is not represented." ; 
 
 It was this attitude of mind which rendered the con- 
 tinuance of a system, admittedly venal and corrupt, accept- ; 
 able to a large body of respectable opinion not unmindful > 
 of the aims, ideals, and philosophy of the French reformers, i 
 It was considered that in matters of government power : 
 should directly increase with property and with intellect. [ 
 
 256 ! 
 
REFORM 
 
 The people were regarded as too irresponsible, as a result 
 of their poverty and of their ignorance, to be permitted 
 to take any share in the business of government. Public 
 opinion rarely existed in anything but a latent form, and 
 when it did attempt sullenly to assert itself it was ignored 
 as a thing possessing neither value nor power. 
 
 Early Reformers 
 
 The first steps which were taken to secure the reform 
 of Parliament are connected with the names of John Wilkes 
 and Home, later known as Home Tooke, when, as a 
 means of securing the payment of the debts of the famous 
 editor of the North Briton^ the Society of the Supporters 
 of the Bill of Rights was founded in 1769, to be followed, 
 after the quarrel between Wilkes and Home, by the 
 organization by the latter of the Constitutional Society. 
 
 The intervening year (1770) had been notable for 
 Chatham's tentative efforts toward reform. Animated, 
 perhaps, as much by dislike of the nabobs as by love 
 for purity of administration, he had deplored the 
 ** notorious decay of the internal vigour of the Constitu- 
 tion," had confessed himself a convert to the principle of 
 triennial Parliaments, and had without effect proposed an 
 increase in the number of county representatives. In the 
 same year Dowdeswell failed to secure even a hearing for 
 his Bill to disfranchise the revenue officers, and in the year 
 following John Sawbridge's Bill to shorten the duration 
 of Parliaments was lost. 
 
 It was, indeed, hardly to be hoped that while the Whigs 
 — the only friends of reform — were sharply divided into 
 opposing camps anything useful could be achieved. The 
 proposal to disfranchise the revenue officers was diametric- 
 ally opposed to Chatham's aims. He desired to dish the 
 wealthy merchants by increasing the strength of the county; 
 the revenue officers, public servants under the control of 
 an aristocratic administration, had proved their loyalty to 
 their masters time after time in the past. The passing of 
 Dowdeswell's Bill would have meant a noticeable advance 
 
 R 257 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 in the direction of purity of government, and though it was 
 lost it continued to form a part of the Rockingham poHcy. 
 
 As yet, despite the eloquence of Rousseau and the 
 heart-searchings which the quarrel with America had 
 caused in the more progressive statesmen, any question 
 of radical reform was outside the bounds of practical 
 politics. When in 1776 John Wilkes moved for leave to 
 bring in his Bill to give the people just and equal represen- 
 tation, he was treated with amused contempt, and although 
 in the same year the notable John Cartwright, the ' Father 
 of Reform,' commenced his long campaign, it was economic 
 rather than franchise reform which became a subject for 
 serious consideration. 
 
 The Economic Reformers 
 
 With war without, with the threatened loss of the 1 
 
 American colonies, with dissatisfaction within, due to the ' 
 
 exclusion from office of the most eminent statesman of the | 
 time, the views of those who urged that the prime need 
 
 of the State was an administration based upon neither ,1 
 
 royal favour nor bribery, but upon merit, were acceptable to 1 
 a strong and respectable body of opinion. At first matters 
 moved slowly. In 1778 and 1779 Sir Philip Jennings 
 Gierke was unable to secure a hearing for his Bill to destroy 
 
 one form of corruption by excluding from Parliament the a 
 
 Government contractor, but in the latter year a political | 
 
 organizer of the first order, in the person of Christopher i 
 
 Wyvill, at first a parson and later a Yorkshire squire, { 
 
 enters upon the stage. He obtained the support of a j 
 
 large part of the county in Yorkshire and secured the I 
 
 presentation of a petition signed by nearly 9000 free- | 
 
 holders urging upon Parliament the need for the abolition | 
 
 of another form of corruption, the place and the pension. ] 
 
 A similar petition was presented through Burke by Bristol, \ 
 
 and in Yorkshire a definite plan of campaign was organized, < 
 
 a committee was formed, and a corresponding association ,; 
 
 was created in the year following. ' 
 
 In the same year (1780) an innovation was made by | 
 
 258 ,1 
 
REFORM 
 
 Wyvill, who called a national convention at which various 
 counties were represented by delegates. At that meeting 
 it was agreed to press upon Parliament the need for more 
 county members, shorter Parliaments, and the abolition of 
 corruption, and steps were taken to develop an organiza- 
 tion in the country. The pattern of the Yorkshire associa- 
 tion was copied in other counties, and some success was 
 achieved in Parliament, where Dunning secured the 
 passing of his famous resolution : " That the influence of 
 the Crown hagAacreased, is increasing, and ought to be 
 diminished." 'mM' 
 
 The result q^ motion moved by Thomas Pitt almost 
 suggested that economic reform would be achieved, but no 
 action was taken, and, despite the eloquence of Burke, his 
 Bill to reform the departments of State was rejected. In the 
 Lords the Duke of Richmond's more ambitious measure in 
 favour of radical reform was negatived without a division. 
 
 The failure of Burke, despite the delivery of a speech 
 of the utmost grandeur, to cure the State of a disorder 
 "which," to quote the orator, " loads us more than millions 
 of debt ; which takes away vigour from our arms, wisdom 
 from our councils, and every shadow of authority and 
 credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution," ^ 
 was due to motives the strength of which he perfectly 
 appreciated. 
 
 Very few men of great families and extensive connections 
 but will feel the smart of a cutting reform in some close relation, 
 some bosom friend, some pleasant acquaintance, some dear 
 protected dependant. Emolument is taken from some ; patron- 
 age from others ; objects of pursuit from all. Men, forced 
 into an involuntary independence, will abhor the authors of a 
 blessing which in their eyes has so very near a resemblance to a 
 curse. When officers are removed, and the offices remain, you 
 may set the gratitude of some against the anger of others : you 
 may oppose the friends you oblige against the enemies you 
 provoke. But services of the present sort create no attachments, 
 
 ^ See his Speech on the CEconomical Reform, Collected Works (1808 
 edition), vol. iii, p, 231. 
 
 259 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The individual good felt in a public benefit is comparatively 
 so small, comes round through such an involved labyrinth of 
 intricate and tedious revolutions ; vv^hilst a present personal 
 detriment is so heavy, where it falls, and so instant in its operation, 
 that the cold commendation of a public advantage never was, and 
 never will be, a match for the quick sensibility of a private loss. 
 
 Against the bias of interest Burke in vain pleaded the 
 wish of the people, the need of the State, the example of 
 France. It was in vain that he reminded the House that 
 ** there is a time when men will no^^fcer bad things 
 because their ancestors have suffered ^^B. There is a 
 time when the hoary head of inveterate^^wse will neither 
 draw reverence nor obtain protection." It was useless 
 for him to threaten that " early reformations are amicable | 
 arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations 
 are terms imposed upon a conquered enemy : early reforma- 
 tions are made in cold blood ; late reformations are made . 
 under a state of inflammation." The House would have \ 
 none of his reform. 
 
 With failure apparent in Parliament the reformers 
 redoubled their activities. The Society for Constitu- 
 tional Information was formed of responsible men whose 
 aim was to create a powerful body of opinion by the 
 dissemination of knowledge, and although Burke took 
 occasion to laugh at them as the friends of those publishers 
 who found their more worthless stock lying heavy on their 
 hands, there can be little doubt that the flood of pamphlets 
 and booklets which this society let loose had its effect. 
 
 With the dissolution of Parliament in 1780 the efforts 
 of the reformers received a sharp check. The new House 
 was antipathetic. Three Bills were presented and were 
 rejected, but when, after the American disasters, North 
 was at last driven from power in 1782 and Rockingham 
 and Burke held office, the day of the economical reformer 
 had arrived. Burke's Bill to reform the departments of 
 State and reduce pensions and places, Crewe's Bill to 
 disfranchise revenue officers, and Clerke's Bill to disable 
 contractors from sitting in ParHament, were all passed. 
 260 
 
REFORM 
 
 Radical Reform — First Stage 
 
 With the success of the economical reform movement 
 a cleavage in the Whig ranks is visible. The followers of 
 Lord Rockingham were satisfied that all the aims that 
 should be pursued had already been secured. The 
 friends of Chatham, already strengthened for a season 
 by the entrance of William Pitt into Parliament in 
 1 78 1, were prenared to support those ardent souls who 
 were now pi'^^^kl fo^" ^ radical change in the basis of 
 representation J^HIr 
 
 At first, thOTgh Wyvill and Cartwright were most 
 active behind the scenes, William Pitt became the prot- 
 agonist in the House of Commons, and although he failed 
 in 1782 to secure the appointment of a committee of 
 inquiry the result of the division on the motion was not 
 such as to cause the reformers to despair of early success. 
 
 It was now decided once more to engage in vigorous 
 propaganda work throughout the country. The Society 
 for Constitutional Information, strengthened by the 
 meeting at the Thatched House Tavern in 1782, which 
 Pitt attended, was once more active ; the county associa- 
 tions were resuscitated. The towns were circularized ; 
 constitutional societies were founded in the provinces. 
 But as yet it was to the upper classes that the reformers 
 looked almost exclusively. The era of Place or Cobbett, 
 of the thronged meeting and the cheap press, had not yet 
 arrived, and although the mechanic was kindly patted on 
 the back his hand was not sought — for it was powerless. 
 As Mr Veitch observes, " Reform, now and for some time to 
 come, was demanded, not by the tradesman and the artisan, 
 but by the country squire and the professional man." 
 
 As the result of this activity. Parliament was in 1783 
 assailed by numerous petitions, and for a time after the 
 death of Rockingham and the accession to power of 
 Shelburne, later Marquess of Lansdowne and a friend of 
 reform and of Pitt, success appeared possible ; but Fox 
 held aloof and early in the year combined with North to 
 
 261 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 form a coalition ministry fatal to reform. Before the end 
 of the year, however, the coalition had collapsed, and Pitt 
 succeeded only to find a party divided and the unity of 
 the reformers lost in their disagreements on matters of 
 general politics. 
 
 Pitt's Reform Bill 
 
 In the April of 1785 Pitt found himself strong enough 
 to attempt reform and asked leave to introduce a measure 
 which had as its underlying purpose tWb formation of a 
 fund of _^i, 000,000 out of which to acciijaaulate the means 
 wherewith to buy out the thirty-six rotten boroughs repre- 
 senting seventy-two seats which it was proposed to dis- 
 tribute among the counties and London and Westminster. 
 The result was a bitter disappointment. The House re- 
 fused leave by a majority of 74 and Pitt never afterward 
 attempted to secure any measure of Parliamentary reform. 
 
 A new factor was indeed approaching destined very 
 sensibly to affect the outlook of both the progressives and 
 the reactionaries. The sullen waters which had long been 
 gathering were to burst forth in the torrent of the French 
 Revolution, which swept away old landmarks not only 
 in the country where that torrent raged, but in England 
 and Europe also. 
 
 Radical Reform — Second Stage 
 
 At first — from the fall of the Bastille to the flight of 
 Louis XVI — a very considerable body of progressive 
 opinion, even among the aristocratic classes of England, 
 looked with hope and admiration upon a movement in 
 which they thought they saw the prospect of immeasurable 
 blessings for the sons of men. Freedom and liberty 
 became talismans which caught the imagination of many 
 ardent and noble minds. The attitude of England was 
 not unlike that which we in our day witnessed when the 
 Tsarist autocracy was overthrown and constitutional govern- 
 ment under the leadership of the young and eloquent 
 visionary Karensky for a moment became an established 
 262 
 
REFORM 
 
 fact. But In the eighteenth century the feeling was more 
 intense ; the events were nearer at home and were not 
 confused in the turmoil of an anxious and wasting war. 
 Their like had never before been seen, and men were 
 entitled then to hold hopes which more than a century's 
 experience shows now to be ill-founded. As Mrs Penninck 
 wrote: ** I have seen the reception of the news of the 
 victory of Waterloo and of the carrying of the Reform 
 Bill, but I never saw joy comparable in its vivid intensity 
 to that occasioned by the early promise of the French 
 Revolution." •'■ 
 
 At the same time there were many that feared, and that 
 fear was replaced by hatred and disgust when from consti- 
 tutional activity the revolutionaries passed in 1792 to the 
 most violent deeds of bloodshed. Freedom and liberty 
 were strangled in the horrors of the Terror. The result, 
 so far as reform in England was concerned, was at first 
 to stiffen resistance and finally to create a movement of 
 repression and suppression before which the forces of 
 reform melted away. 
 
 To the large body of interested politicians who naturally 
 opposed Parliamentary reform, the French Revolution, 
 even in its earlier and more constitutional phase, provided 
 a ready excuse with which to avoid the advances of the 
 reformers. When in 1790 Henry Flood sought to intro- 
 duce a reform Bill, to which he had secured the conditional 
 support of Fox, the revolution in France was made an 
 excuse for ignoring a measure which in any case would 
 have been defeated. Even in the country the fear of 
 moving too fast and of sliding into anarchy rendered it 
 impossible to revive the county associations, and although 
 the excitement caused by the Westminster election and 
 the subsequent trial stirred the public interest anew, this 
 was more than matched by the flight of the French King 
 on June 20, 1791 — a flight which ushered in the new 
 regime in France, broke up the Jacobins into two parties, 
 led the way to that republicanism which resulted in the 
 ^ Quoted from Mr Veitch's Genesis of Parliamentary Reform. 
 
 263 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 proclamation of a republic on September 22, 1792, and 
 filled the English supporters of the Revolution with dismay. 
 
 Pitt's Repressive Measures 
 
 It was now that the Government of Pitt determined on 
 
 the suppression of those reform societies which had been j 
 
 corresponding with the Jacobins of Paris and had been j 
 
 exchanging platitudinous generalities and international | 
 
 courtesies with the constitutional revolutionaries. It is true \ 
 
 that these correspondences largely ceased before the repub- , 
 
 lican movement had begun to show itself. Talleyrand j 
 
 had, in fact, arrived at a just estimate of the situation : 
 when he wrote: 
 
 The truth is, the mass of the nation is generally indifferent ■ 
 to all these political discussions which cause so much stir amongst j 
 us ; attached to its constitution by ancient prejudices, by habit, j 
 by continual comparison of its lot with that of the people of other ' 
 states, and finally by prosperity, it does not imagine that anything j 
 could be gained from a revolution of which the history of England | 
 makes it fear the dangers. ] 
 
 But despite the imaginary nature of the threat to ordered i 
 government, the outbreak of war between England and ] 
 France on February i, 1793, determined Pitt to secure ^ 
 what in recent years has so often been referred to as the i 
 soHdarity of the home front. All forms of agitation and \ 
 propaganda, even of a kind and for a purpose which in 
 his earlier years he had most warmly espoused, the chief \ 
 minister now determined to destroy. His policy of re- i 
 pression, it has been well said, was so readily supported \ 
 by the majority of the people, despite the failure of many ! 
 of the State prosecutions, as to render repression almost i 
 unnecessary. 
 
 In Scotland the prosecutions for sedition were strongly 
 pressed by Dundas. Pamphleteers and publishers were . 
 singled out for attack, and some of the sentences were ; 
 of a most savage nature. The young advocate, Thomas i 
 Muir, a man of promise whose only ofience was activity | 
 264 i 
 
REFORM 
 
 in the pursuit of Parliamentary reform, was sentenced to 
 transportation for fourteen years, and T. F. Palmer was 
 transported for seven years after a trial at which the judge 
 directed the jury that they should consider whether agita- 
 tion to secure universal suffrage was not in itself sedition, 
 universal suffrage tending to subvert the constitution. 
 
 The convention which had been called in 1793 was 
 forcibly dissolved, and in the year following the secretaries 
 of the London Corresponding Society and the Society 
 for Constitutional Information were arrested. The 
 societies were broken up, and with the passing of the two 
 Treason Acts in 1795 ^^^ movements for reform were 
 rendered both hopeless and dangerous. In 1797 Home 
 Tooke wrote to Cartwright that the cause of reform was 
 dead and buried, and although Cartwright expressed his 
 belief in its resurrection, few possessed his optimism. 
 Indeed, despite the activities of Place, Cartwright, Bentham, 
 and Cobbett — ill-assorted names — in the first decade of 
 the nineteenth century, it was not until after Waterloo 
 that the reform movement showed any signs of active 
 revival. Even, as in 1792, Pitt gained popular acclaim 
 for resisting Grey's motion in favour of the reform which 
 but a few years before he had himself proposed. By 18 12 
 so Httle interest had the people in internal politics and so 
 anxiously were all eyes turned to the struggle on the 
 Continent, that in the election of that year only two counties 
 were contested. 
 
 Radical Reform — Third and Final Stage 
 
 After Waterloo the destruction of the external threat 
 created once more a vivid interest in internal politics. 
 As Mr J. R. M. Butler has observed : " In the course 
 of the next few years [reform] was vehemently canvassed 
 from many points of view with a zeal, a bitterness, and a 
 passionate sense of reality, such as it had never aroused 
 before." ^ 
 
 At the one end of the scale Bentham, appealing to reason 
 ^ The Passing of the Great Reform Bill. 
 
 265 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 and demanding secret, universal, equal, and annual suffrage, 
 was leading a small and select band of intellectuals; at the 
 other end Francis Place and Cobbett were seeking after 
 the support of the masses from which both had sprung. 
 Cobbett, to realize his aims and to justify the saying of 
 Francis Jeffrey that ** the people have far more wealth 
 and far more intelligence now than they had in former 
 times ; and, therefore, they ought to have, and they must 
 have, more political power," had issued his paper, the 
 Political Register^ with the news cut out so as to avoid the 
 stamp duty, at id., and could remark as a result that " the 
 labouring classes seemed as if they had never heard a word 
 on politics before." The great towns of the North, Leeds, ] 
 Manchester, Sheffield, and Birmingham, which, in the ' 
 movement of 1783, had stood by apathetically, now began 
 to show a desire so keen that before the end of 18 19 the j 
 so-called Peterloo * massacre ' had occurred as the result \ 
 of the successful attempt made by the authorities to arrest j 
 Henry Hunt while addressing a mass reform meeting at ; 
 Manchester. ^i 
 
 Of course, as yet no trade combinations were possible '. 
 as a means to a political end, though many of the leaders \ 
 of working-class opinion were bending all their energies • 
 to secure reform, were indeed casting more weight into ' 
 that struggle than into the fight for the repeal of the Com- \ 
 bination Laws or the improvement of the factory system, \ 
 but the newspapers were beginning to exercise a moulding I 
 effect upon popular opinion and, in conjunction with the : 
 development of the political meeting, were rendering it j 
 possible slowly to enlighten the people. 
 
 j 
 The Need for Reform ] 
 
 The alteration in the distribution of the population, ■ 
 the grouping of masses together, making, as these changes 
 did, the old franchise a palpable anachronism and arousing 
 some rude form of mass-will, were creating an atmosphere 
 in which it was difficult to argue against reform of the 
 boroughs. 
 266 
 
REFORM 
 
 In the counties, as Mr Veitch has well said : 
 
 The agrarian revolutions, which had in part preceded the 
 industrial revolution and which continued alongside of it, struck 
 [a] crushing blow at the comfortable doctrine of virtual repre- 
 sentation. It could no longer be urged with even a show of 
 reason that the interests of the great landowners who enjoyed 
 direct representation were identical with the interests of the 
 villagers, who no longer shared in the cultivation of common 
 fields or worked their separate holdings in the intervals of manu- 
 facture, and who were now, therefore, not even ' virtually ' 
 represented. 1 
 
 The need for reform could hardly have been better 
 shown than by the events of 1 8 19. At the general election 
 of that year the Tories, whose late activities had aroused 
 a popular anger rare in our political annals, had been 
 opposed by the Whigs, whom the vast majority of the 
 ^people desired to see in power. The people, powerless 
 to affect the issue, had to stand by and see their enemies 
 returned once more to power, a power they exercised to 
 tpass the notorious Six Acts. 
 
 i So strong was the feeling of the country at this juncture 
 
 'that Lambton, later to become the first Earl of Durham, 
 
 ; could say when urging Grey to take a strong line: " In 
 
 the present state of the public mind we should sink ten 
 
 thousand fathoms deep if we were to hold a meeting and 
 
 not make reform a principal and leading topic." 
 
 Grey, however, was sensible of the impossibility on the 
 one hand of securing the passage of a Reform Bill while 
 the Tories remained in power, and on the other hand of 
 establishing a Whig administration while the King re- 
 mained alive if reform were made a fundamental part 
 of their programme. Assured though he was of the 
 popular demand, he was not satisfied that it would be 
 possible to win over that class whose influence alone 
 counted, and expressed a doubt whether he or even Lambton 
 would live to see reform accomplished. 
 
 ^ The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform. 
 
 267 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR ' 
 
 But so powerful was the current of popular opinion i 
 that even the Tories began to doubt whether more liberal i 
 institutions would not soon become inevitable. Then , 
 suddenly the picture changes. Two factors, the one of 
 the most sordid kind, resulted in the populace forsaking 
 all active interest in the cause. The improvement of trade, 
 the disappearance for a season of the cause of economic 
 discontent and the popular enthusiasm for the cause of 
 Queen Caroline, brought about what has been described 
 as the " truce between Parliament and people." 
 
 But gradually the democratic movement gathered a 
 fresh and increasing momentum. Lord John Russell 
 and Lambton both proposed measures of reform, one of 
 which was lost only by 31 votes, though in 1822, thanks • 
 largely to the eloquence of Canning, a similar proposal i 
 was rejected by a majority of 105. i 
 
 Any hopes that could have been held in the years from j 
 i8i5to 1825 were lost once more in the financial crisis i 
 which, combined with widespread strikes consequent i 
 upon the repeal of the Combination Laws, caused a dis- \ 
 tress which, by creating unrest, once again stiffened the i 
 backs of the reactionaries. The Tories, strongly led by 1 
 Lord Liverpool, had both the power and the wish to impose \ 
 their will upon the people. With the death of Liverpool j 
 in 1827 this strong position was impaired, for the great i 
 question of Catholic emancipation became a matter of j 
 critical importance and one upon which the continued i 
 existence of the administration was seen more and more 
 to depend. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation 
 
 With Peel and WelHngton both opposed to Catholic 
 emancipation and Canning in favour of some of the aspira- 
 tions of O'Connell, the Tories were seriously weakened, and > 
 it was only the Danaian assistance of the Whigs which ] 
 enabled Canning to form a ministry, destined in turn to ] 
 be destroyed by the death of Canning in the August of i 
 that year. For a short period the Goderich ministry was 1 
 268 
 
 i 
 
REFORM 
 
 in office, but early in 1828 the Duke of Wellington, who 
 but a short while before had declared that he would be 
 insane to exchange the role of leader of armies for that of 
 the leader of a party, accepted the duty of forming a new 
 and exclusively Tory Government. 
 
 Once more the question of Catholic emancipation 
 became the dominant topic. Already weakened by the 
 defection of the Canningite section of his forces, owing 
 to a dispute with Huskisson, the unsoundness of the Tory 
 position had been proclaimed by the success of Lord 
 John Russell and the Whigs in securing the repeal of the 
 {Test Act when Daniel O'Connell, a Catholic and therefore 
 i unable to sit in the House of Commons, was elected member 
 
 I ... 
 
 I for County Clare as the result of the activities of the 
 I Catholic Association. To test the feeling of the country, if 
 I the feeling of the country could indeed then be tested, Peel 
 [resigned his seat at Oxford. He was defeated in his old 
 (Constituency by a candidate standing for the * Protestant ' 
 interest. But so strong was the feeling for Catholic 
 emancipation in Ireland, and so critical the situation, that 
 the Government, with the aid of the Whigs, passed the 
 Catholic Emancipation Bill, at the same time disfranchising 
 the forty-shilUng freeholders. 
 
 The passing of the measure raised the worst passions 
 in the High Tory ranks and split the party at a time when, 
 as Mr Butler observes, " the stoutest union was needed to 
 stem the rising tide of democratic feeling." 
 
 The Moulding of Public Opinion 
 
 As yet, however, the feeling in the country in favour of 
 reform was too amorphous to persuade such a cautious 
 leader as Lord Grey to stake all upon a bold declaration 
 of policy. The Whigs, though united on the question of 
 Catholic emancipation, were divided upon the far more 
 vital issue of Parliamentary reform. The King was 
 antagonistic, and the activities of the Radicals and the indis- 
 cretions of such Radical leaders as Cobbett, now avowedly 
 preaching a class war, were antipathetic not only to the 
 
 269 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 King and the Tories, but to many of the Whigs also. With • 
 Grey, indeed, it has been well said that " political liberty i 
 did not mean political equality." | 
 
 The first definite movements in the direction of reform i 
 did not therefore occur in Government circles, but among \ 
 the masses of the people. Once again we are in an atmo- 
 sphere of political organization with such men as Place, 
 Cobbett, and above all, Attwood, to the fore as the moulders 
 of public opinion and as the engineers of the machinery 
 by means of which expression was given to that opinion. 
 By means of the press and by meetings held in all parts i 
 of the country, the question of reform had already been '; 
 brought prominently before the masses when a great •; 
 impetus was given to the popular movement by the forma- ■• 
 tion, on January 25, 1830, of the Birmingham Political j 
 Union by Thomas Attwood, a wealthy banker and a man j 
 to whose activities the final success of the movement was | 
 in no small measure due. ! 
 
 The avowed object of the B.P.U. was " to obtain by ■ 
 every just and legal means such a reform in the Commons' 
 House of Parliament as may ensure a real and effectual 
 representation of the lower and middle classes of the people 
 in that House." It, in fact, secured in some degree that > 
 union between the aims of the middle and of the lower l 
 classes which hitherto had not existed, and by showing the ; 
 way to other towns and districts of the country greatly | 
 strengthened the hands of the reformers. i 
 
 Unlike the associations founded by Wyvill, which had 1 
 as their backbone the county, the political unions which i 
 now sprang up all over the country were essentially expressive ' 
 of the desires of the masses, and as was usual in such cases, 1 
 their strength was greatest when trade was at its worst ^ 
 and distress was most pronounced. To many of the ; 
 leaders of the Whigs, indeed, it seemed that the whole of ' 
 the solidarity of the unions depended less upon political j 
 than upon economic grievance, and it was not unnaturally ] 
 thought that with a revival of trade the popular movement ' 
 in favour of reform would collapse. 
 270 
 
REFORM 
 
 The Events of 1830 
 
 In any case, with a king upon the throne who was 
 unalterably opposed to progressive democracy and with a 
 party in power united in its desire to resist reform, any 
 attempt to pass a measure even of moderate reform was 
 impossible, and neither Blandford's nor Russell's Bill, 
 introduced in February 1830, achieved any success, though 
 Russell's very moderate proposals were only lost by 
 48 votes in the Commons. The true temper of the 
 House was, however, shown by the rejection of O'Connell's 
 Bill in favour of universal suffrage, which was introduced 
 on May 28, and was lost by 306 votes. 
 
 In the following month George IV died, and with the 
 accession of the sailor-king William IV one great obstacle 
 [to reform was removed. The election which followed 
 in the July of 1830 was seen to be a critical one. The 
 price of seats rose enormously. Sometimes as much as 
 ;^2o,ooo or ;/^3o,ooo was paid for a single seat. But 
 though money fought hard for the retention of the old order, 
 the spade-work of Place, of Cobbett, and of Attwood was 
 beginning to tell. They were shortly to receive unex- 
 pected assistance from an extraordinary and unprecedented 
 event. 
 
 Europe has in the past been not unacquainted with 
 revolutions, and such revolutions, resulting as they almost 
 invariably did in many excesses and much bloodshed, 
 have proved over and over again the greatest enemies to 
 progress. We have seen how the Terror had extinguished 
 the hopes of the early reformers. But now the tyrannies 
 of Charles X had resulted in a spontaneous rising which 
 in three days had overthrown the monarchy and placed 
 the middle and lower classes of France in the position of 
 power. The Edinburgh Review showed a clear fore- 
 sighted vision when it declared : '* The battle of English 
 liberty has been fought and won at Paris." Brougham 
 could point the moral in a sentence so typical of the man : 
 " The French glorious revolution is most advantageous 
 
 271 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 to our cause, because it denounces wrath and destruction 
 on those who would by force withstand the popular opinion." 
 Its very moderation underlined the lesson and disarmed 
 the moderate men who throughout our history have exer- 
 cised so commanding a place in the councils of the 
 nation. 
 
 With the reassembling of Parliament it was generally 
 agreed that affairs had taken on a different aspect. Many 
 Tories, unmindful of the attitude of their chief, were 
 for moderate reform. The temper of the people was 
 sufficiently obvious, although in those days a general 
 election did not declare from the housetops which party 
 had won and which had lost. On November 2 Wellington 
 declared himself. 
 
 Wellington's Speech 
 
 During the debate on the Address in answer to the King's 
 Speech, the Duke, answering in detail the speech just 
 delivered by Grey, found occasion to remark as follows : 
 
 The noble Earl had alluded to the propriety of effecting ! 
 Parliamentary Reform. The noble Earl had, however, been 
 candid enough to acknowledge that he was not prepared with 
 any measure of reform, and he could have no scruple in saying 
 that his Majesty's Government was as totally unprepared with 
 any plan as the noble Lord. Nay, he, on his own part, would 
 go further, and say that he had never read or heard of any measure 
 up to the present moment which could in any degree satisfy his 
 mind that the state of the representation could be improved or 
 be rendered more satisfactory to the country at large than at the ^ 
 present moment. He would not, however, at such an unseason- | 
 able time enter upon the subject or excite discussion, but he | 
 should not hesitate to declare unequivocally what were his senti- 
 ments upon it. He was fully convinced that the country possessed 
 at the present moment a Legislature which answered all the \ 
 good purposes of legislation, and this to a greater degree than any I 
 Legislature ever had answered in any country whatever. He j 
 would go further and say that the Legislature and the system 1 
 of representation possessed the full and entire confidence of the | 
 country — deservedly possessed that confidence — ^and the dis- i 
 
 272 i 
 
REFORM 
 
 cussions in the Legislature had a very great influence over the 
 opinions of the country. He would go still further and say 
 that if at the present moment he had imposed upon him the 
 duty of forming a Legislature for any country, and particularly 
 for a country like this, in possession of great property of various 
 descriptions, he did not mean to assert that he could form such a 
 
 1 Legislature as they possessed now, for the nature of man was 
 incapable of reaching such excellence at once ; but his great 
 
 ' endeavour would be to form some description of Legislature which 
 would produce the same results. The representation of the 
 people at present contained a large body of the property of the 
 country, and in which the landed interests had a preponderating 
 influence. Under these circumstances, he was not prepared to 
 
 I bring forward any measure of the description alluded to by the 
 
 I noble Lord. He was not only not prepared to bring forward any 
 measure of this nature, but he would at once declare that as far 
 
 1 as he was concerned, as long as he held any station in the govern- 
 
 I ment of the country, he should always feel it his duty to resist 
 
 ' such measures when proposed by others. 
 
 This absolute denial of all reform resulted, to use the 
 
 vvords of Lord John Russell, in a " dangerous excitement " 
 
 imong the people. The words are apt, for although 
 
 :here were riots in various parts of the country, it was 
 
 'rather to hunger and distress than to political feeling that 
 
 lets of rebellion and insurrection could be traced. The 
 
 refusal of the Duke of Wellington to have any hand in 
 
 ^;he reform of Parliament, though it weakened his adminis- 
 
 ^.ration and eventually resulted in its downfall, did not at 
 
 :he moment cause any overt acts of rebellion. But the 
 
 ,iir was electrical. The slightest incident might at any 
 
 [moment have precipitated a revolution. The state of the 
 
 country, so belauded for the perfection of its constitution, 
 
 was indeed deplorable. The Russian ambassadress could 
 
 report of this period that " The aristocracy rolls in 
 
 wealth and luxury while the streets of London and the 
 
 highways of the country swarm with miserable creatures 
 
 covered with rags, barefooted, having neither food nor 
 
 shelter." Starvation was a matter of daily occurrence. 
 
 Distress, both rural and urban, was a commonplace. The 
 
 S 273 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Government, placed in power by a narrow clique, was 
 opposed to the wishes of the vast majority of the people, 
 and was so contemptuous of that opinion as to flout it 
 deliberately. 
 
 There is abundant evidence to show that the Duke's 
 speech on reform was to some extent unpremeditated and 
 had not been discussed with his colleagues. Its delivery 
 caused consternation to many of them, and it was realized 
 that the Duke had gone too far. Subsequent events 
 showed that the administration could not survive the 
 popular clamour that arose. By November i6 the King 
 had been forced to send for Lord Grey. 
 
 Lord Grey 
 
 From now onward the history of the passing of the 
 first Reform Bill centres around this cold and cautious 
 aristocrat, who in his own age was regarded as the man 
 who had sold his class and who lives to-day as a far-sighted 
 statesman who safely guided the frail craft of reform past 
 the shoals of interest and the rocks of party strife. As Sir 
 George Trevelyan has observed, it is almost impossible 
 for people now living to realize the difficulties of the task 
 Grey accomplished in 1830-2, the immensity of the chasm 
 which he bridged, or his need for stressing the conservative 
 elements of his Government in order to persuade the King 
 and the aristocracy to surrender to the people. 
 
 On the one hand stood as enemies the Tories, on the 
 other hand the Radicals. To approach the Radicals was 
 to render it impossible to obtain royal support, for even 
 William, though more liberal than his predecessor, both 
 feared and hated the Radicals. To put forward a moderate 
 measure meant a split within the reform ranks ; to hazard 
 a measure of a radical nature appeared hopeless. ^But 
 despite all difficulties, Grey succeeded in forming a coalition 
 ministry strong in texture and sufficiently progressive to 
 fight for, or at least to tolerate, a Reform Bill which almost 
 equalled the desires of the Radicals. It would, however, 
 have been fatal to let it appear that the Bill was dependent 
 274 
 
REFORM I 
 
 upon Radical opinion or support. No Radicals were in- 
 cluded in the Cabinet, which was almost exclusively aristo- 
 cratic in personnel. The illusion was skilfully created that 
 a ' safe ' Government had arrived with a * safe ' measure 
 which would not go uncomfortably far. It was generally 
 believed by the Tories that Grey would play for safety 
 and that his very caution would destroy his party before 
 the year was out. 
 
 By February 1831 the Bill had been drafted, agreed, and 
 submitted to the King for his provisional approval. Grey 
 had indeed played for safety, but in his view only a measure 
 of the most extensive description, a bill which would gather 
 to its support an immense volume of opinion throughout 
 the kingdom, could possibly succeed in forcing its way 
 through the mass of opposition that would be placed in its 
 path. The draft prepared by Lord John Russell and 
 agreed to by the Cabinet was indeed far-reaching. The 
 nomination boroughs were swept away without compensa- 
 tion ; boroughs of which the population was below a 
 certain minimum were disfranchised ; the county members 
 were increased; a ^/^lo property qualification was created 
 for all boroughs. Borough-mongers and rotten boroughs 
 were simply swept aside. It should be noted, however, 
 that the vote was given not to the working classes, 
 but to the middle classes. The working classes had to 
 wait another thirty-six years before they in turn were 
 enfranchised. 
 
 By January 30, 1831, the King and the Cabinet had 
 both been committed and on the 20th of the next month 
 the Tory leaders met at Peel's house and decided not to 
 offer any resistance on the introduction of the Bill, the 
 contents of which were not known to them, but were 
 believed to be of a mild kind. 
 
 Introduction of the Bill 
 
 On March 2, 1831, Lord John Russell introduced the 
 Bill into the House of Commons. The occasion was 
 one of the most dramatic in Parliamentary history. To 
 
 275 
 
# 
 
 HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 all it was apparent that a turning-point had been reached 
 in the constitutional history of the country, perhaps in 
 the history of the democratic institutions of mankind. 
 Around there sat men who owed their seats and their power 
 to influence, money, and corruption, and who were aware 
 that the passing of the measure meant their political death ; 
 there were other men who for long years had struggled 
 with all the strength of their will and mind for those very 
 principles which but yesterday had seemed as far off as ever, 
 but now had sprung as from some magic box complete 
 in every part. Derisive laughter and amazed delight, 
 both were called forth by Lord John's simple reading of 
 the clauses. When at length the schedules containing 
 the names of the destroyed boroughs were reached the 
 anger of the borough-mongers and their satellites reached 
 its height. But the anger thus created was a thing small 
 and altogether contemptible beside the vast, widespread, 
 and overwhelming joy which was apparent among the 
 people when the terms of the Bill were at length known. 
 The leaders of the working classes, men such as Francis 
 Place and Cobbett, were enthusiastic in the support of a 
 measure which, though not radical in name, was radical 
 in nature. The Tories regarded themselves as betrayed. 
 The clergy of the Church of England determined to fight 
 to the last the battle of their patrons. 
 
 Grey was not unmindful of the forces arrayed against 
 him. In the Commons he had but little support, and in 
 the Lords the Reform Bill appeared to have no chance 
 of being passed without serious and fatal amendment. It 
 seems to have been the deliberate opinion of the chief 
 minister that before the Bill could be placed upon the 
 Statute Book a further appeal to the country would have 
 to be made. In such an event it was of the utmost im- 
 portance that he should go to the country as a minister 
 in power, for in that event the ministerial influence so 
 important in the rotten boroughs would be cast on his 
 side. The subsequent events of 1831 up to the time of 
 the dissolution of Parliament are mainly concerned with 
 276 
 
REFORM 
 
 * 
 
 the manoeuvres of Grey on the one hand and of the Tories 
 on the other to obtain or prevent a dissolution before resig- 
 nation. 
 
 Dissolution of Parliament 
 
 That the Bill could not be passed without further moral 
 support obtained from the country was apparent when, on 
 March 22, 1831, the second reading was carried by one 
 vote. On April 19 the ministry was at length defeated 
 on an amendment and Parliament was suddenly and 
 dramatically dissolved. 
 
 Both the form and mode of this dissolution are notable. 
 It has for centuries been a recognized part of the constitu- 
 tion that the king has the right both to summon and dismiss 
 Parliament, and although the exercise of that right has 
 become a matter more and more controlled by the advice 
 of his ministers, it is a prerogative which had never been 
 directly encroached upon by Parliament itself. At this 
 juncture, however, the Tories had reached a state of 
 rancour in which constitutional observances were lightly 
 regarded, and a motion was under consideration in the 
 House of Lords directed against dissolution. 
 
 Grey realized at once that a valuable weapon had been 
 placed in his hands. He was not slow in pointing out 
 to his Majesty how gross an attack had been made upon 
 the Prerogative. The King was visibly affected, and 
 hearing that the royal coach was not immediately available, 
 declared that he would resort to a hackney cab rather than 
 delay by a moment a personal visit to the House of Lords. 
 •^ The King's sudden appearance at a critical juncture 
 was itself a notable event, but the text of the message he 
 came to deliver is one that should not lightly be forgotten 
 by those who live in a free democracy. '* My lords and 
 gentlemen, I have come to meet you for the purpose of 
 proroguing this Parliament, with a view to its immediate 
 dissolution. / have been induced to resort to this measure 
 for the -purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people." 
 
 These words were prophetic of a future age. They 
 
 277 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 mark the transition from the past to the present. The 
 people were at length coming into their own. Hitherto 
 the masses had had to stand by and see Governments they 
 detested returned to power; they had had to see measures 
 affecting their happiness, their well-being, their very lives, i 
 flung out or treated with amused contempt. Even now, 
 when, as many thought, the fate of the country and the 
 prosperity of all depended upon the passing of the measure 
 introduced by Grey's Government, the vast majority of the 
 people had to stand on one side and observe their enemies 
 buy up votes under their very noses. In Scotland rebellion 
 was narrowly averted. In England every effort was made 
 by argument and social pressure by the people to obtain the 
 return of reform candidates. The efforts of the reformers 
 were not in vain. The Government was returned with a 
 majority of 136 pledged to support the Bill. 
 
 The New Reform Parliament 
 
 Even now, however, the way was not clear. Many 
 things had been said and done in the course of the elections 
 which had opened the eyes of those who hitherto had not 
 seen whither they were tending. The King was alarmed ; 
 the less progressive elements in the Cabinet were with 
 difficulty restrained from declining to go either so far or 
 so fast. But Grey succeeded in standing firm and in per- 
 suading his followers that it was necessary for all to stand 
 together, for they were irrevocably committed. 
 
 The Lords 
 
 By July 6, 1831, the Bill had passed the House of 
 Commons by a majority of 136, and after deliberations in 
 Committee drawn out to the fullest extent by the opponents ; 
 of the measure, during which the temper of the populace; 
 grew more and more heated, the Bill was at length intro- 
 duced into the House of Lords early in October. For 
 five days it was debated and was eventually thrown out 
 by a majority of 41. 
 
 It was too late. The time had passed when resistance- 
 278 
 
REFORM 
 
 could more than delay for a short period a measure which 
 all sections of the community, apart from the narrow 
 privileged classes, demanded. As Sir George Trevelyan 
 remarks : " The one real chance for the Tories of success- 
 fully resisting the Bill was to provoke a class war, which 
 would end in rallying all the * haves ' to close their ranks 
 in self-defence against the 'have-nots.' " But in truth this 
 danger was mitigated by the fact that both * haves ' and 
 ' have-nots ' were joined in enmity against a privileged 
 class whose powers controlled the destinies of both. 
 
 For a time, however, matters assumed an ugly appearance. 
 The King refused to create peers in quantity ; the Govern- 
 ment refused to recede; the people showed their desires 
 and displeasure in riots and demonstrations. Apart from 
 politics the condition of the country was deplorable. 
 Strikes, want, illness, and disturbances marked this fateful 
 year. A new Bill, designed to enable the Lords to save 
 their face by passing it as a thing different, though in truth 
 the same as that already rejected, was introduced and passed 
 in the Commons in the December of 1831, and when the 
 House adjourned for the Christmas recess it was still 
 uncertain what the fate of the Bill would be. 
 
 The opening month of 1832 is marked by manoeuvres 
 on the part of Grey to obtain the King's provisional assent 
 to the creation of peers should the Lords prove immovable. 
 That consent was obtained on January 15, 1832. In 
 April the Bill was again debated in the Lords and the 
 second reading was carried by a majority of nine in the 
 early morning of April 14. At length the way appeared to 
 be open to the passing of the measure, but the opponents 
 of the Bill had not yet exhausted their resources. 
 
 The Fall of Grey 
 
 It was now generally agreed that the Bill must be passed 
 substantially in the form as drafted, but the Lords deter- 
 mined that it should not be passed by the Whigs. It 
 appeared that the Bill would be lost in Committee, and when 
 the King was pressed to create peers sufficient to overcome 
 
 279 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 all obstacles he, despite his approval in the preceding 
 January, declined to exercise his power. This involved 
 the resignation of Grey's ministry, but the King requested 
 it to remain in office until a new ministry could be 
 formed. 
 
 The news that Grey had fallen and that the Duke was 
 likely once more to be entrusted with the government 
 created an outburst of rage among the people which showed 
 its intensity in its very coldness. That revolution would 
 have broken out and swept all before it in a torrent of 
 seething discontent is apparent. But the masses could not 
 believe that the King and the aristocracy were so ignorant 
 of the true state of the people's will or so unmindful of 
 the weight and force of the people's anger as to be prepared 
 to refuse that which was demanded with a unanimity 
 almost complete. 
 
 Grey's Return to Power 
 
 Neither rioting nor disturbances broke out, but work 
 was suspended, and up and down the country all classes 
 were organizing so that rebellion might be universal and 
 complete immediately the reactionaries entered office. 
 So clear was the intention of the masses, so dangerous the 
 position of those who should attempt to withstand it, so use- 
 less further resistance, that Wellington found it impossible 
 to form a Cabinet, and on May 1 5 Grey was again sent for. 
 
 It was the King's hope that, now that the last Tory 
 effort to influence the course of reform had proved abortive, 
 Wellington would assist him by abandoning all further 
 opposition, but the Duke maintained his attitude. It con- 
 sequently became necessary for the King to compel the 
 further progress of the Bill, and he finally declared that : 
 " His Majesty authorizes Earl Grey, if any obstacles should 
 arise during the further progress of the Bill, to submit to 
 him a creation of peers to such extent as shall be necessary 
 to enable him to carry the Bill." The threat proved 
 sufficient, and on June 4, 1832, the Bill passed its third 
 reading and three days later received the royal assent. 
 280 
 
REFORM 
 
 Results of Reform 
 
 The effect of the Reform Bill of 1832 was to alter 
 entirely the centre of gravity of English politics. The cynic 
 may declare that in effect it was now necessary to bribe 
 millions instead of hundreds of thousands, but the truth 
 is rather seen when we observe why bribes are given. 
 In the days before the Reform Bill government was in 
 the hands of a clique which bribed a narrow electorate 
 to supply wiUing tools to carry out that clique's desires. 
 The clique was composed for the most part of men of the 
 highest character and respectable attainments, inspired 
 with a true love for the country they knew. They desired 
 to extend the power and prestige of that country. But they 
 were ignorant or careless of the wants and desires of the 
 majority of the inhabitants of the country. In a word, 
 their country was a land peopled with landed proprietors 
 possessing retainers, and the masses were regarded as an 
 inconvenient excrescence on the body politic. When the 
 clique bribed they bribed to secure the interests of their 
 order. 
 
 The House of Lords, the stronghold of this clique, 
 had ceased to be a body representative of the ancient 
 nobility of the realm. As J. R. Green so well remarks, 
 up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the House 
 of Lords 
 
 had been a small assembly of great nobles, bound together by 
 family or party ties into a distinct power in the State. From 
 this time it became the stronghold of property, the representative 
 of the great estates and great fortunes which the vast increase of 
 English wealth was building up.^ 
 
 It is manifest that such being the state of the case, with 
 a plutocracy in control, it could not have remained possible 
 for the masses which served that plutocracy, and whose 
 private interests were in some measure opposed to those 
 of their masters, to remain under the sole political control 
 
 1 Short History of the English People. 
 
 281 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 of their antagonists. The interests of the governing 
 class were not merely not identical with the interests of 
 the people, they were frequently definitely opposed thereto. 
 That fact made itself abundantly clear. The House of 
 Lords for the first time became definitely Conservative. 
 Measures were passed restraining combination ; abolishing 
 ancient measures designed to secure a standard of life 
 without substituting anything therefor; the wage-earner 
 was denied education, compelled to work for long hours 
 and at insufficient wages ; he was exploited and abused. 
 The governing clique was beginning to take the view that 
 the interest of the country was best advanced by regarding 
 the rights of property rather than the rights of the people. 
 The electorate was bribed to return to power those who 
 would protect not the people, but the people with property. 
 
 Under the new regime^ as modified from time to time, 
 it has without question been the desire of successive 
 Governments to attract votes. Measure after measure 
 has, without doubt, been put upon the Statute Book by 
 men firmly convinced that the measure was not calculated 
 to serve the best interests of the country. Such Acts 
 have been offered to the electorate as bribes. But this 
 form of corruption is very different in its effect from the 
 former kind. It secures the passing of measures 
 acceptable to the people, and it degrades the corrupters 
 rather than the corrupted. In it, however, one observes 
 the principal danger of democratic government. 
 
 It is the good fortune of England that she has been 
 consistently progressive, but has progressed slowly. Had 
 adult suffrage been granted in 1832, as many desired, it is 
 not improbable that the evils of the change would have 
 outweighed the good. The masses of the people were 
 then almost completely ignorant; they would have fallen 
 a ready prey to any demagogue prepared at all costs to 
 purchase power. Their voting power could have been 
 exploited to the uttermost in the interest of private gain 
 and national ruin. What absurdities and excesses might 
 have resulted is apparent to a generation which has seen 
 282 
 
REFORM 
 
 the effect of giving political power to the illiterate 
 peasantry of Russia. They fell a prey to those who 
 would most vilely corrupt. 
 
 Extension of the Franchise 
 
 In Great Britain, however, political sagacity, or, it may 
 be, the presiding genius of our race, saw fit to order other- 
 wise. Political power was at first placed in the hands 
 of the middle classes already sufficiently educated to be 
 able to choose their representatives with discretion. With 
 the spread of education the time came when the class of 
 persons competent to vote was greatly extended, and the 
 newcomers were in turn accepted into the ranks of the 
 politically free. It has been the good fortune of this 
 country that the power to vote has followed in the path 
 of the power to vote intelligently. Had it been otherwise, 
 England, instead of being in the van of democratic progress, 
 might have proved an awful example to which all the 
 supporters of autocracy could have pointed. 
 
 Subsequent History of the Reform Movement 
 
 The year 1832 saw the passing not only of the great 
 Reform Bill, but of Acts extending the representation of 
 the people of Scotland and Ireland. Thirty-five years 
 later the electoral franchise of England and Wales was 
 further extended by the Reform Act of 1867, the borough 
 franchise being given to all householders as well as to 
 lodgers occupying lodging of the annual value of ^/^lo, and 
 the county occupation franchise was reduced from ^^50 to 
 £12. The county representation was strengthened at the 
 expense of the boroughs. In the following years similar 
 provisions were passed for Scotland and Ireland. 
 
 As yet, of course, all voting had been open. The 
 need for a secret ballot had been one of the main 
 demands of the Radicals at the time of the great reform 
 movement, but it was a demand to which the King was 
 unalterable opposed. It soon became apparent, however, 
 that steps must be taken to avoid the evils of bribery and 
 
 283 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 intimidation, which were rather encouraged under a system 
 whereby a wide franchise was united with public voting. 
 It was not until 1872 that, after much agitation, the Ballot 
 Act was passed ; by this the hustings and the old system 
 of open voting were both abolished. 
 
 Not until many years later was any substantial 
 change effected either in the respective powers of the 
 two Houses or in the electoral basis. As a result of the 
 Budget struggle of 19 10, however, the gauntlet was 
 thrown down by Mr Asquith, the Prime Minister in a 
 Liberal administration, and as a result the power of the 
 House of Lords was greatly curtailed by the Parliament 
 Act of 1 9 1 1 . To such an extent, indeed, were the powers 
 of the House of Lords reduced that its reform as a part 
 of the legislative organism became but a question of time 
 if it were to be left in existence as an effective Second 
 Chamber. This question of reform was subsequently 
 inquired into by the Committee of Inquiry whose report 
 was issued in 191 8. 
 
 To-day, with the passing of the various franchise Acts 
 of 191 8 and 1920, political power is exercised by the 
 vast majority of the adult members of the comm.unity. 
 The battle which long raged over women's suffrage has 
 been fought and won ; the question of adult suffrage for 
 men has been settled. It can now be said that, so 
 far as Great Britain is concerned, she is a true democracy. 
 The same tendency toward a wider and wider franchise 
 is visible in other countries also. 
 
 1 
 
 284 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FACTORY 
 
 THE decline of the gilds and the old gild system, the 
 shifting of the centre of gravity from the countryside 
 to the town, the invention of the steam-engine and 
 the development of the factory system — these, among other 
 and less important causes, made it apparent in the early 
 years of the nineteenth century that the doctrine of laissez- 
 faire might result in evils so widespread, in a standard 
 of life so reduced, and in oppression so great that it 
 behoved the State on behalf of the community generally 
 to regulate or control in some degree the circumstances 
 under which the worker toiled. 
 
 The factory system had already brought in its wake a 
 system of society lacking in coherence, in which the unit 
 could be lost, and in which class distinctions tended to 
 become more and more clearly marked. The material 
 difficulties in the way of transition from worker to master 
 became steadily greater. A linking-up of humanity to 
 the machine, an increase in production tending to wealth 
 ill distributed, to cutting prices, and to unemployment, 
 caused both physical and material misery. To these 
 were added the spiritual losses due to vile environments 
 and untutored minds. The peasant had left the country- 
 side to work in fearful surroundings for long hours, often 
 for low wages, and was called upon to live in noisome 
 streets, in damp and bare cellars, and to his own self- 
 questioning " Why ? " he could give no answer. 
 
 At first the legislature, aristocratic in nature, listened 
 rather to the voice of the economist than to the despairing 
 cry of labour. It was fearful of undue interference lest 
 
 285 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 it should cripple industry on the one hand and starve the 
 operatives on the other, for in the early years of last 
 century it appeared to be the view of not a few economists 
 and of a great number of business men that life had nothing 
 to offer the ' lower orders ' — particularly the children of 
 the working classes — but a choice between overwork and 
 underfeeding; they would seem to have been born under 
 a star which doomed them always to work too hard or to 
 eat too little. 
 
 State Regulation 
 
 It is to the credit of England that in this matter of 
 State regulation of industry she was a pioneer, for, as Mr 
 Sidney Webb has said : 
 
 Of all the nineteenth-century inventions in social organiza- 
 tion, factory legislation is the most widely diffused. The 
 opening of the twentieth century finds it prevailing over a larger 
 area than the public library or the savings bank ; it is, perhaps, 
 more far-reaching, if not more ubiquitous, than even the public 
 elementary school or the policeman.^ 
 
 State regulation in its widest form goes beyond what 
 is commonly understood to be included within factory 
 legislation. Indeed, if by State regulation we mean the 
 regulation by the State of the circumstances in which the 
 worker as such shall be protected, it includes workmen's 
 compensation legislation, laws relating to national health 
 insurance, to unemployment, to conciliation and arbitra- 
 tion, and might indeed be made to embrace most of the 
 social legislation of the past century. We do not, however, 
 use the expression in this wide sense, nor in the too narrow 
 sense in which it becomes coterminous with factory and 
 workshop legislation, for we include that wide body of 
 law which is concerned with the regulation of mines and 
 quarries — a form of regulation which has become even 
 
 ^ See his preface to A History of Factory Legislation, by Miss B. L. 
 Hutchins and Dr Harrison. 
 
 286 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 more diffused than factory legislation proper, being found, 
 as it is to-day, in every district controlled directly or in- 
 directly by Europeans ^ in which mining is carried on, 
 even in such wild and savage countries as Nyassaland, 
 Uganda, Ashanti, and Nigeria. 
 
 The chief purposes of the gild regulations relative to 
 hours and conditions of labour, the training of apprentices, 
 
 ^ It may be of convenience to the reader to have before him a list, so 
 far as the United Kingdom is concerned, of the various Factory and Work- 
 shop Acts and the various Acts relating to mines and quarries. 
 
 Factory and Workshop Acts : 42 Geo. Ill, c. 73 (1802) ; 59 Geo. Ill, 
 c. 66 (1819); 60 Geo. Ill, c. 5 (1819); 6 Geo. IV, c. 63 (1825); 10 
 Geo. IV, c. 51 (1829) ; 10 Geo. IV, c. 63 (1829) ; I and 2 Will. IV, c. 39 
 (1831) ; 3 and 4 Will. IV, c. 103 (1833) ; 4 Will. IV, c. i (1834) ; 7 Vic, 
 c. I 5 (1844) ; 8 and 9 Vic, c 29 (1845) ; 9 Vic, c 18 (1846) ; 9 and 10 
 Vic, c 29 (1847) ; 10 and 11 Vic, c 70 (1847) ; 13 and 14 Vic, c 54 
 (1850); 16 and 17 Vic, c. 104 (1853); 19 and 20 Vic, c 38 (1856); 
 23 and 24 Vic, c 78 (i860); 24 and 25 Vic, c 117 (1861); 25 Vic, 
 c. 8 (1862) ; 26 and 27 Vic, c. 38 (1863) ; 26 and 27 Vic, c. 40 (1863) ; 
 27 and 28 Vic, c 48 (1864) ; 27 and 28 Vic, c 98 (1864) ; 30 and 31 
 Vic, c. 103 (1867); 30 and 31 Vic, c 146 (1867); 33 and 34 Vic, 
 c 62 (1870); 34 Vic, c 19 (1871); 34 and 35 Vic, c 104 (1871); 
 
 37 and 38 Vic, c 44 (1874); 41 Vic, c 16 (1878); 46 and 47 Vic, 
 c. 53 (1883) ; 51 and 52 Vic, c 22 (1888) ; 52 and 53 Vic, c 62 (1889) ; 
 54 and 55 Vic, c 75 (1891) ; 55 and 56 Vic, c 30 (1892) ; 58 and 59 
 Vic, c 37 (1895); 60 and 61 Vic, c 58 (1897); i Edv/. VII, c. 22 
 (1901) ; 3 Edw. VII, c 45 (1903) ; 7 Edw. VII, c 10 (1907) ; 7 Edvi^. VII, 
 c. 39 (1907) ; 9 Edw, VII, c 22 (1909) ; i and 2 Geo. V, c 21 (191 1) ; 
 5 and 6 Geo. V, c 54 (191 5) ; 8 and 9 Geo. V, c 32 (191 8) ; 8 and 9 
 Geo. V, c 61 (1918); 10 and li Geo. V, c 62 (1920); 10 and il 
 Geo. V, c 65 (1920). 
 
 Coal Mines Regulation Acts: 5 and 6 Vic, c 99 (1842); 13 and 14 
 Vic, c 100 (1850); 18 and 19 Vic, c 108 (1855); 23 and 24 Vic, 
 c 151 (i860) ; 25 and 26 Vic, c 79 (1862) ; 35 and 36 Vic, c.76 (1872); 
 49 and 50 Vic, c 40 (1886) ; 50 and 51 Vic, c 58 (1887) ; 57 and 58 
 Vic, c 52 (1894) ; 59 and 60 Vic, c 43 (1896) ; 3 Edw. VII, c 7(1903) ; 
 5 Edw. VII, c 9 (1905) ; 8 Edw. VII, c 57 (1908) ; i and 2 Geo. V, 
 c. 21 (1911). 
 
 Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts: 35 and 36 Vic, c 77 (1872); 
 
 38 and 39 Vic, c 39 (1875) ; 54 and 55 Vic, c 47 (1891). 
 
 There should also be noted the Boiler Explosions Acts of 1882 and 1890, 
 the Notice of Accidents Acts of 1894 and 1906, the Fatal Accidents Inquiry 
 (Scotland) Act of 1895, and the numerous Truck Acts. 
 
 287 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 and the observance of holidays, etc., were, as we have seen, 
 to prevent unfair competition and degradation of crafts- 
 manship; the purpose of the State legislation, commencing 
 with Henry VI and culminating in the Elizabethan labour 
 laws, was to discourage laziness, promote a general diffusion 
 of available labour, compel the doing of a given amount 
 of work for a limited wage, and devise means of dealing 
 with the problem of the poor and the destitute. Generally 
 speaking, the policy both of the gilds and of the Tudors 
 followed the line of fixing maximum wages and minimum 
 hours. The policy of the factory legislation, commencing 
 with a special kind of labour in a limited class of factory, 
 was to protect the worker by fixing maximum hours and, 
 in time, and by means of a distinct group of Acts, minimum 
 wages. State regulation, however, developed far beyond 
 these limits, so that to-day, in our factories, workshops, 
 bakeries, and mines, there have been created rules whereby 
 it is difficult for even the most reactionary employer to 
 degrade the standard of life of his employees. The last 
 citadel of the reactionary will fall when all the so-called 
 sweated industries have been brought within the Trade 
 Board Acts. 
 
 It should be observed that the conditions of work in the 
 sweated industries approximate much more closely to the 
 conditions obtaining in the old craft shops of the gild 
 period than to those existing in the modern factory. In 
 the chain-making, cheap furniture, and seamstress trades 
 we often find to-day the few workers employed by a working 
 master, all handicraft workers, following their employ- 
 ment in a small room or cellar, possibly attached to some 
 shop. The fact that we to-day speak of such employments 
 as the sweated industries should warn us against too 
 readily regarding the invention of the machine, the rise 
 of the factory, and the building of the dividing line between 
 master and man as being the causes of labour unrest or 
 as conducing to a degradation of labour. We should 
 not too readily look back upon the gild period as to a 
 Golden Age. 
 288 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Child Labour 
 
 But though the general tendency has throughout historic 
 ^times been upward, this tendency has from time to time 
 been subject to sharp checks. There can be Httle doubt 
 that, despite the fact that the eighteenth century was 
 largely an English century, when England was prosperous 
 and was speedily obtaining control of that great Empire 
 which to-day is hers, the condition of a considerable part 
 of the working classes, and particularly of the women^ and 
 children of those classes, tended to become progressively 
 worse as the century grew older. Some of the causes 
 of this decline in the standard of living we have already 
 examined. Of these causes there can be little doubt that 
 one, the apprenticing of pauper children, did much to de- 
 grade the lot of the working classes generally by setting up 
 a vicious kind of labour competition and a low standard 
 of employing moraUty. Already, by 1778, Adam Smith 
 could contrast the lot of the craftsman and the labourer in 
 husbandry in a manner which showed that the superior 
 condition of the craftsman no longer existed. Eleven 
 years before a Committee of the House of Commons 
 had thrown light on the terrible conditions prevailmg 
 among the parish apprentices. The work of Dr Percival 
 in the last decade of the eighteenth century and his 
 inquiries into the cause and spread of those infectious 
 disorders which so frequently arose in the manufacturing 
 districts brought home to the educated public the need 
 in its own interest of such State control as was necessary 
 to prevent the exploitation and ruination of infant life. 
 Philanthropists, learned societies, political thinkers, and 
 lawyers began to turn their attention to the child worker, 
 while still maintaining the theory of freedom of contract 
 and the policy of laissez-faire in all their completeness so 
 far as the adult worker was concerned.^ 
 
 1 We so entirely agree with the views of Miss Hutchins and Dr Harrison 
 expressed at p. 13 of their most valuable History of Factory Legislation 
 that we quote : " The evils and horrors of the Industrial Revolution are 
 
 T 289 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The First Factory Act 
 
 The views of the humanitarians of those days first 
 found legislative expression in the " Act for the Preserva- 
 tion of the Health and Morals of Apprentices and others . 
 employed in Cotton and other Mills and Cotton and other 
 Factories," which was passed without serious opposition 
 in 1802. 
 
 This Act applied only to cotton and woollen mills and 
 factories employing twenty or more persons, and as re- 
 gards the clauses relating to hours, clothes, lodging, and 
 education, it applied only to the apprentices employed in 
 such mills and factories. The sections of the Act may 
 therefore be conveniently divided into two parts; (i) those 
 relating to cotton and woollen factories and mills ; (2) 
 those relating to apprentices employed therein. 
 
 As to (i), the Act required that every room and apart- 
 ment belonging to such factories and mills should be 
 properly ventilated and should be limewashed at least 
 twice a year. The justices of the peace at their mid- 
 summer sessions were empowered to appoint two visitors 
 to visit such factories and mills to see that the Act was 
 being properly carried out and to see that the sections 
 relating to apprentices were being obeyed. The visitors 
 were empowered, should they find infectious diseases 
 prevailing, to require the employer to call in medical 
 assistance. Copies of the Act had to be exhibited in a con- 
 spicuous place in every one of such factories and mills, and 
 penalties were incurred by every employer who obstructed 
 the visitors or failed to carry out the provisions of the Act. 
 
 often vaguely ascribed to the ' transition stage ' brought about by the 
 development of machinery and the consequent ' upheaval.' But the more 
 vs^e look into the matter, the more convinced we become that the factory 
 system and machinery merely took what they found, and that the lines on 
 which the Industrial Revolution actually worked itself out cannot be explained 
 by the progress of material civilisation alone ; rather, the disregard of child 
 life, the greed of child labour, and the maladministration of the Poor Law 
 had, during the eighteenth century, and probably much further back still, 
 been preparing the human material that was to be so mercilessly exploited." 
 
 290 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 As to (2), the master was required to supply his appren- 
 tices with two complete suits of clothing, with suitable 
 linen, stockings, hats, and shoes, one complete new suit 
 being delivered to each apprentice once at least in every 
 year The apprentice was not to be employed or com- 
 pelled to work for more than twelve hours a day (reckoning 
 from 6 A.M. to 9 p.m.), exclusive of meal times, and after 
 certain dates no apprentice was to be employed at night 
 {i.e., between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.). Every apprentice was 
 to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic 
 
 in some part of every working day, for the first four years at 
 least of his or her apprenticeship ... by some discreet and 
 proper person, to be provided and paid by the master or mistress 
 of such apprentice, in some room or place in such mill or factory 
 to be set aside for the purpose. 
 
 On Sundays the apprentices were to be given religious 
 instruction for one hour at least. On weekdays their in- 
 struction had to be given in their working hours. Male 
 and female apprentices were to be provided with separate 
 bedrooms, and not more than two apprentices might sleep 
 
 in the same bed. ta t^ • 1 r .u 
 
 If the resolutions put forward by Dr Percival tor the 
 consideration of the Manchester Board of Health in 1796 
 be examined, it will be seen that the Act struck at most 
 of the evils therein described. It sought to increase 
 health and advance the education of apprentices by im- 
 proving ventilation, preventing overcrowding, night work, 
 and excessive day work, and offering some opportunities for 
 secular and religious education. It fell short, however, of 
 Dr Percival's proposals in that it was of very limited 
 application, affecting as it did a limited class of factory 
 and a limited class of labour. The poor labouring child 
 who was not apprenticed could still be employed at night 
 or for sixteen or seventeen hours a day, and could be left 
 in complete ignorance. The adult was still, to use an 
 older phrase, at mercy. These grave defects in the Act 
 were soon to become evident. 
 
 291 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Wrongs and the Public Conscience 
 
 During the next few years certain tendencies became i 
 apparent, some due to the Act, others due to distinct causes. 
 C3n the one hand, many employers showed a preference for 
 children who were not apprentices so that they would be 
 free of the restrictive sections in the Act dealing with 
 apprentices, while at the same time some of the more 
 enlightened justices showed a desire for an extension of 
 the restrictive clauses to such * free ' children. On the 
 other hand, whereas at the time of the passing of the Act 
 the power employed for the working of the machines was 
 almost exclusively water-power, with the result that the 
 mills and factories were in remote valleys, and the demand 
 for pauper apprentices, who could be sent anywhere, was 
 consequently high, by 1810 Watt's steam engine, intro- 
 duced some nineteen years before, was becoming widely 
 used, factories were beginning to spring up in the more 
 populous districts, and local labour was being drawn upon. 
 A result of the change was that the pauper apprentice 
 was now available for that other form of exploitation — 
 apprenticeship to the butty in the coal-mines of which 
 we shall hereafter have to speak. 
 
 Despite the fact, however, that this period was one of 
 industrial oppression, there can be little doubt that the 
 public conscience was slowly awakening. Mr Justice 
 Grose can be found in 1801 using words singularly similar 
 to those employed by an advanced labour leader in 191 9, 
 when laying down the principle that if a trade cannot be 
 carried on economically without overdriving and under- 
 paying those employed therein, it had better not be carried 
 on at all. They differed only in their views as to what 
 amounts to overdriving and underpaying.^ Mr Justice 
 
 ^ The miners' leader we refer to is Mr Vernon Hartshorn. Compare 
 also the dicta of Mr Justice Gordon in Adelaide and Mr Justice Burnside 
 in Western Australia : " If any particular industry cannot keep going and 
 pay its workpeople at least 'js. a day, it must shut up." " If the industry 
 cannot pay the price, it had better stop, and let some other industry absorb 
 the workers." These dicta belong to the twentieth century. 
 
 292 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Grose was considering the case of a girl of fifteen who had 
 been worked for such hours and supplied with such poor 
 food that she had become deformed and disabled for life ; 
 the twentieth-century labour leader was considering the 
 case of an adult male working eight hours a day and earning 
 /t a week. The principle was the same ; the application 
 different. 
 
 The Industrial Reformers 
 
 The cause of reform received an immense impetus with 
 the arrival of the first of the three great successive prot- 
 agonists in the battle for fair conditions for labour — 
 Robert Owen, Lord Ashley,^ and John Fielden. To 
 these three men and to the pubUcists Richard Oastler and 
 M. T. Sadler more than to any other man or group of 
 men must be assigned the credit for the improvement which 
 was effected in the working conditions of the masses during 
 the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Robert Owen, himself an employer of labour, was per- 
 suaded that there was an optimum working day— that is 
 to say, that output did not progressively increase with 
 increase in hours. He experimented and found that 
 practice supported theory. Alike, therefore, as a humani- 
 tarian and a practical man of business, he was firm in the 
 view that the extraordinarily long hours then being worked 
 by children and adults were good for neither the employer 
 nor the employee. 
 
 As a result of his enthusiasm and energy many, though 
 by no means all, of the obstacles always found in the path 
 of the reformer were overcome, and in 1819 the second 
 of the Factory Acts was passed, though in a form very 
 different from that which Owen had drafted. 
 
 The Act of 18 19 
 
 This Act, " to make further Provisions for the Regula- 
 tion of Cotton Mills, Factories, and for the better 
 Preservation of the Health of young Persons employed 
 1 Afterward Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 therein," limited the age at which children might be em- 
 ployed in cotton mills to nine, and no child under sixteen 
 years of age might be required to work for more than 
 twelve hours a day, exclusive of meal-times, such twelve 
 hours to be between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. The section for- 
 bidding night work in such cases was amended by an Act 
 passed in the next session, which permitted the employment 
 at night of young persons who had been thrown out of 
 work in consequence of the mill in which they worked 
 being destroyed by accident or fire — a provision which 
 gave expression to the view, so strongly opposed at all times 
 to that of the early reformers, that limitations on the hours 
 of work were really inhumane as they tended to unemploy- 
 ment and starvation. 
 
 The fixing of a minimum age below which children 
 could not be employed was a distinct advance. It appHed, 
 it is true, only to the textile industries, but it established 
 a principle of far-reaching importance. More than twenty 
 years were to pass before the child of four and five years 
 of age was to be excluded by Act of Parliament from work 
 in the mines, but throughout the intervening period the 
 current was set steadily in favour of the elimination of 
 infant labour and of the fixing of a maximum number of 
 hours during which a child could be employed. 
 
 The Ten-hour Agitation 
 
 We do not propose to consider the Acts of 1825, 1829 
 (two), or 1 83 1, for they include no new provisions of any 
 importance, being in the nature of amending Acts. It is 
 necessary to advert, however, to the Act of 1833, for this 
 piece of legislation marks a stage in the great battle for 
 a ten-hour day which convulsed industrial England for 
 twenty years. 
 
 As far back as 1784 the justices at the Manchester 
 Quarter Sessions had proposed a ten-hour day. They 
 were, however, far in advance of their time, and although 
 signs were not wanting in the opening years of the nine- 
 teenth century to show that the more progressive reformers 
 294 
 
I THE FACTORY 
 
 'were in favour of a reduction, it was not until 1 8 1 8 that 
 the operatives began actively to press for a ten and a half 
 and later, in 1830, for a ten-hour day. ^ _ 
 
 In an outline such as the present it is impossible to 
 consider, save in the briefest manner, the stages in this 
 memorable struggle. We cannot stay to describe the 
 local committees which everywhere sprang up, the invective 
 of Oastler, the agitation conducted in Parliament and 
 outside by Lord Ashley, John Fielden, and Michael Sadler. 
 Time after time the reformers returned to the charge, 
 time after time they were repulsed. The local organiza- 
 tions, despairing of success, sometimes almost melted away, 
 sometimes threatened violence. But always the organiza- 
 tion was revived and led on once more by the tenacity, 
 abihty, and self-sacrificing enthusiasm of those great men 
 who consecrated their lives to this reform. 
 
 Conditions of Work 
 
 As the authors of A History of Factory Legislation say : 
 
 While political economists were propounding their theories of 
 the advantages of lahse-z.-ja'ire and freedom of contract between 
 employers and employed, the men who were brought face to face 
 with industrial conditions recognised that there was no such thmg 
 as freedom of contract. 
 
 Even such an investigator as Dr Kay, who was himself 
 opposed to any State interference with the hours of labour, 
 thus describes the condition of the operative : 
 
 Whilst the engine runs the people must work — men, women, 
 and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The 
 animal machine— breakable in the best case, subject to a thousand 
 sources of suffering— is chained fast to the iron machine, which 
 feels no suffering and no weariness. 
 
 It was just this fact which so sharply distinguished the 
 condition of the worker in the factory from the condition 
 of the ancient handicraftsman. As we have seen, the 
 gilds fixed a day as from dawn to sunset, and no evidence 
 exists to show that such hours were regarded as oppressive 
 or injurious to health or happiness. But the hand-worker 
 
 295 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 could within wide limits set his own pace. The machine- 
 tender had the pace set for him, and a day's work which 
 under the old system had been tolerable became intolerable. 
 No longer did the master work side by side with the man, 
 encouraging him by his example. The limited liability 
 company, separating yet more widely the employer from 
 the employed, was beginning to be thought of. Life for the 
 worker was becoming a drab monotony of toil ; craftsman- 
 ship in which a man could delight was being replaced by 
 machine-minding, which could appeal to no professional 
 instinct and which at best could be looked upon only as an 
 occupation necessary for the earning of a livelihood. The 
 worker began to feel that life, in so far as it was made up 
 of distasteful work and sleep, had little to offer that was 
 worth the acceptance; a widespread feeling of grievance 
 existed and the way out was searched for. That way out 
 was found, as we see the matter, in the workman claiming 
 the right to some leisure. It was in time grudgingly con- 
 ceded. The battle then centred round the question as 
 to the amount of leisure, and that battle still continues. 
 
 The ten-hour agitation had been in existence for 
 some time before Michael Sadler found it possible 
 in 1 83 1 to introduce a Bill into Parliament which was 
 primarily designed to protect the adult and, indeed, the 
 male adult operatives, though much stress was placed by 
 its champions upon the iniquity of employing children 
 for an excessive number of hours. When, however, this 
 charge was met by the Act of 1833 (for Sadler's Bill 
 never became an Act, though its introduction was the 
 cause of the setting up of a Select Committee of the House, 
 a Committee which collected most valuable evidence 
 which proved the foundation upon which the later legis- 
 lation was based), which prohibited the employment of 
 persons under thirteen years of age ^ in any of the various 
 
 ^ Sec. 8 of the Act of 1833 made the age limit vary on a sliding scale 
 according to date. Six months after the passing of the Act it was eleven, 
 eighteen months after the passing of the Act it was twelve, thirty months 
 after the passing of the Act it was thirteen. 
 
 296 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 mills or factories indicated in the Act for more than eight 
 hours a day, the adult workers who had been most actively 
 in favour of a general ten-hour day were positively opposed 
 to the Act, believing that it meant the continuance of an 
 adult day of unlimited length. 
 
 Subsequent events show, however, that their fears were 
 unjustified. The fixing of a maximum eight-hour day 
 for children, of a twelve-hour day for persons under 
 eighteen, the abolition of night work in the case of young 
 persons, the appointment of inspectors to see that these 
 and the other factory provisions were duly carried out, 
 had many and widespread results. 
 
 In the first place, the restrictions imposed upon the use^ 
 of child labour caused the employers to search for other 
 forms of cheap labour, and they usually found a substitute 
 in women's labour, which steadily became more and more 
 common in the mills and factories to which the Factory 
 ; Acts applied. In the second place, a greater knowledge /^ 
 I of factory conditions, obtained by the Government through 
 i the inspectors, enabled more accurate data to be accumu- 
 ; lated as to the evils of the system, their symptoms, and 
 icure. In the third place, with a very cheap form of -^^ 
 i labour cut off to a certain extent, a greater burden was 
 placed upon management to organize their works in such 
 a manner that the cost of production should not be 
 adversely afi:ected by the higher wage bill. In other 
 words, inventiveness, organizing ability, and adminis- 
 trative exeiuinceliad to make~uprf<3i-what was lost on the 
 
 wage bill. 
 
 It was this last fact that was insufficiently taken into 
 account by the numerous economists and business men who 
 saw at first in the limitation of the hours of child labour, 
 and later in the limitation of the hours of adult labour, 
 national, local, or individual ruin. No more important 
 principle can be grasped by anyone interested in the 
 relationship between employer and employed than that 
 which may be expressed as follows : 
 
 Industry to-day, and under what may be called the 
 
 297 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 modern factory system, is composed of two main parts: 
 (i) management; (2) labour. The success of an under- 
 taking, or of a group of undertakings, depends upon the 
 cost of production of the articles produced and upon the 
 quality. The lower the cost of production and the higher 
 the quality the more successful the concern. But to 
 obtain low productive cost and high quality in compe- 
 tition with other equally good workers, it is necessary for 
 the two parts, management and labour, to work hand in 
 hand. If the men employed on the labour side decline 
 in efficiency, the men employed on the management side 
 must make up the leeway by greater inventiveness, greater 
 organizing ability, greater efficiency all round. If they 
 succeed in doing this, then the net result and the net 
 degree of prosperity of the undertaking or group of under- 
 I takings remain constant. Shortly put, as the worker 
 Ibecomes less efficient management must become more 
 \efficient. Clearly a point is reached when management 
 cannot make up the leeway. When that point is reached 
 the decline in the efficiency of the worker must stop or 
 the standard of life will be of necessity degraded. 
 
 Factories and Mines 
 
 At the time of the Factory Act of 1833, as at the time 
 of the passing of Lord Ashley's Act, 1842, the factories 
 and the mines were, in the generality of cases, not managed 
 at all as we to-day understand the term. An occasional 
 bright exception existed, but in the general case the 
 concerns were small, ill-equipped, indifferently organized 
 outgrowths from the old system under which man and 
 master worked together in a small way of business. To 
 obtain a satisfactory economic result under such an 
 inefficient system of management the persons employed 
 on the labour side had to be intensely ' efficient * — that 
 is to say, had to produce at very low cost. This 
 meant long hours at low pay. Industry lived on the 
 workers and managem^ent could blunder along in any 
 manner. 
 298 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 When, however, in the interests of the community, and 
 in especial in the interests of the women and children 
 whose lives were being rendered intolerable, ^ the legis- 
 ilature found it necessary to set a maximum limit to hours 
 and a minimum limit to wages, management awoke, 
 rubbed its eyes, and got to work. As a result, though 
 wages have mounted higher and higher, though conditions 
 of life have enormously improved, though a degree of 
 leisure had already been won before the War, England, 
 and not only England, but Europe and America generally, 
 were in 19 14 more prosperous than ever before. It is 
 necessary, however, to note that there is a limit beyond 
 which managerial efficiency cannot be expected to go, 
 and although this limit may not yet have been reached it 
 is not far distant. 
 
 Cheap Labour 
 
 Less than a hundred years ago it was quite clearly the 
 opinion of many eminent and humane men that the over- 
 working of children, of women, and of men was a 
 reg rettable n eceji^ty. Macaulay expressed the view that 
 " the overworking of children is not the cause but.^the- 
 effecT of distress." Poulett Thompson regarded, on 
 economic grounds, the Short Time Bill as an "evil." The 
 economists generally regarded as fatal any attempt to 
 interfere with the freedom of man to make such agreements — 
 with man as he was able. The working of the 1833 \ 
 Act proved the contrary. It did not destroy trade, it did \ 
 not result in starving children; the little children whose 
 freedom of contract had been interfered with grew up ^ 
 better educated, better in physique, more efficient, less of «^ 
 an encumbrance upon the community. 
 
 But, as we have seen, the employers, still not awake to the 
 need to increase the efficiency of management, cast around I 
 for other cheap labour and alighted upon that of women. 
 The use of woman labour had indeed been encouraged for 
 some years by the fact that in the textile industries labour 
 had been to a large extent family labour. The same 
 
 299 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 applied to a more limited extent to work in the mines, 
 at least as regards certain districts. As a result of these 
 two factors each pulling the same way, it became necessary 
 to consider the protection of woman labour. It was early 
 apparent to the Government, as a result of the inspectors* 
 reports, that women were often being overworked. A 
 ^ working day of from 5 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. was not 
 uncommon, and this, be it observed, in an evil, dust-laden 
 atmosphere at machine-minding. The most terrible 
 disclosures were, however, made before the committees 
 or commissions which sat from time to time in the 
 thirties and forties of last century to inquire into the 
 conditions of the coal industry. 
 
 . Ashley's Act 
 
 Lord Ashley's Bill, which became law in 1842, was, 
 as we have pointed out in The British Coal Industry^ 
 
 the outcome of the report of the Commissioners for Inquiring 
 into the Condition of Children Employed in Mines, a report 
 based on a lengthy and close inquiry into the condition of mine 
 labour, and one which expresses in a clear and graphic manner 
 the appalling conditions existing in the fourth year of the reign 
 of Queen Victoria. 
 
 The hours of labour for all classes employed in the 
 mines were long, but those worked by women and children 
 were excessive. In the Oldham district adult male coal- 
 getters worked nine, ten, and eleven hours a day, but the 
 children laboured for two hours more, sometimes for as 
 many as fourteen or fifteen hours a day. In Derbyshire 
 thirteen to sixteen hours were reckoned a day's work, 
 eight hours being half a day's work. Children were 
 found working in mines at four and five years of age. 
 Numbers were under seven ; the majority commenced work 
 between the age of eight and nine. They received a very 
 small wage — generally something between five shillings a 
 week and five shillings a month. 
 / The conditions of the work were bad. As one of the 
 
 300 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 ivitnesses expressed it, the work was " worse than the 
 
 slavery of the West Indies." The men frequently worked 
 
 naked, and had as companions in toil women and girls 
 
 wrho wore nothing but their shift or perhaps a pair of 
 
 ragged trousers. The women were employed in dragging 
 
 ihe colliery * tubs ' containing coal along the haulage 
 
 roads underground. Often, indeed usually, the ' roof ' 
 
 of these roads was so low that the women had to crawl 
 
 on all fours ; sometimes children instead of women were 
 
 thus employed. The labour was excessively hard, the 
 
 * tubs * frequently not even being provided with wheels, 
 
 jbut with skids, running not upon rails, but over slush and 
 
 imud. Some of these children were found by those who 
 
 I went to investigate working ankle-deep in water or 
 
 i crawling through pools. 
 
 No provision was made for education, and most of those 
 engaged in the industry were deplorably illiterate. Where 
 a desire existed on the part of a parent to have a child 
 taught the rudiments of knowledge, it could only be 
 gratified at the expense of the child's sleep, for as a rule 
 the children rose at 3 a.m., went down the pit at 4 a.m., 
 and did not return home until 4.30 or 5, or even 6 p.m. 
 Thus any attendance at the night school could only be at 
 the expense of the small allowance of sleep permitted. 
 Of play, for the majority of these unfortunates, there was 
 none. 
 
 But if the lot of the children driven into the mines, 
 sometimes by the laziness and selfishness, more frequently 
 because of the poverty and want of their parents, was bad, 
 that of those orphans who had been left to the tender 
 mercy of the Poor Law Guardians was even worse. They 
 were apprenticed. . 
 
 Apprentices and the Butty System 
 
 The apprenticeship evils were widespread and are well 
 described by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist. Many 
 of the most noisome trades were largely carried on by 
 recruits obtained via apprenticeship from the workhouses 
 
 301 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 of the country. In the words of the Midland Mining 
 Commissioner : 
 
 These apprentices are paupers or orphans, and are wholly in 
 the power of the butties ^ ; such is the demand for this class 
 of children by the butties that there are scarcely any boys in the 
 union workhouses of Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, and 
 Stourbridge ; these boys are sent on trial to the butties between 
 the ages of eight and nine, and at nine are bound as apprentices 
 for twelve years, that is, to the age of twenty-one years complete ; 
 notwithstanding this long apprenticeship, there is nothing what- 
 ever in the coal-mines to learn beyond a little dexterity, readily 
 acquired by short practice; the orphan whom necessity has driven 
 into a workhouse is made to labour in the mines until the age of 
 twenty-one, solely for the benefit of another. 
 
 These poor apprentices were frequently treated with the 
 greatest cruelty, compelled to work in the most dangerous 
 places, supplied with the commonest and worst of food 
 and clothing, and paid no wages at all. The life of the 
 butty's boy, toiling, to use Lord Bolingbroke's expres- 
 sion, " confined in the close vapours of these malignant 
 minerals," poor, oppressed, degraded, unlettered, heathen, 
 contrasted ill with that of the plantation indentured 
 servants, the criminals of Botany Bay, or the Negro 
 slaves of Virginia. 
 
 Under Lord Ashley's Act, as finally passed in 1842, it 
 was made illegal to employ, as from a date stated, any 
 women or female children in mines underground. The 
 apprenticeship of girls for work in the mines was for- 
 bidden, and the age limit for boy apprentices was fixed at 
 ten years, the length of the apprenticeship being limited 
 to eight years. Truck was rendered more difficult, and 
 by the very limited recognition of the principle of inspec- 
 tion (though at first only social inspection) the way was 
 opened for those Mines Inspection and Regulation Acts 
 
 ^ Working contractors or gangers who contracted with the mine-owner 
 to raise coal at so much a ton and were responsible for employing and 
 paying the persons employed by them to get the coal. 
 
 302 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 which did so much to raise the mining industry to its 
 .present high level of technical achievement. 
 
 Regulation of the Mining Industry 
 
 Of the various Acts (1850, 1855, i860, 1872, 1887, and 
 191 1, etc.) by which the coal-mining industry has been 
 regulated we do not propose to speak, nor shall we advert 
 to the various Metalliferous Mines and Quarries Regulation 
 Acts. Suffice it to say that at present the safety of the 
 miner has been the subject of constant thought and of 
 vast numbers of detailed regulations ; that the principle of 
 the exclusion of women from work underground has been 
 consistently maintained and proved to be sound ; that the 
 age limit for children has been raised and the hours of 
 labour fixed; and that in addition to the limitation of 
 hours for children the principle of a legal day, viz., at first 
 eight and now seven hours, has been recognized in the case 
 of mine workers generally •■■ in the coal-mines. By the 
 Minimum Wage Act of 191 2 the principle of a minimum 
 wage has been recognized in the case of underground 
 workers, and in recent years the mining industry has led 
 the way in industrial legislation. 
 
 The disclosures made before the committee which sat 
 to inquire into the employment of women and children in 
 mines sensibly affected British industrial policy all over 
 the world, for not only in the United Kingdom is 
 the employment of women underground forbidden, but 
 throughout the overseas dominions and possessions the 
 same attitude has been adopted, even where there is a 
 native working population, as in the case of Nigeria. 
 
 Nor did it affect British policy alone. All over the 
 world legislation has sprung into being designed to pro- 
 tect woman and child labour employed in the mining 
 industry. 
 
 ^ That special class, the firemen, examiners, and deputies (synonymous 
 terms), have of necessity to work rather longer hours than the rest. It 
 should also be noted that the seven hours is not from bank to bank. To 
 obtain the actual day's v^^ork half the vv'inding time should be added. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Female Labour 
 
 The case for the restriction of female labour was stronger 
 in respect of mines than of factories and mills. Indeed, 
 the question of the complete exclusion of women from 
 industry did not arise. The problem was different. The 
 progressive view was not that women should not work 
 at all, or that they should receive the same wages as men, 
 but that they should not have to work for such long hours, 
 or for such low wages, or under such dangerous conditions 
 as hitherto. Above all, it was desired to prevent women 
 from being exploited or used as a means whereby to 
 degrade the standard of life of workers generally. 
 
 Various measures were proposed between 1841 and 1844 
 for the protection of women. At one moment it seemed 
 that both youths and young women under twenty-one were 
 to be treated alike and that adult men and women were 
 also to be on a level so far as hours of labour were concerned, 
 but by the Factory Act of 1844 it was enacted: *' That 
 y no female above the Age of Eighteen Years shall be em- 
 ployed in any Factory save for the same Time and in the 
 same Manner as young Persons may be employed in 
 Factories." 
 
 The Act also contained valuable provisions designed 
 to check abuses which had crept into the administration 
 of the earlier Acts, especially as regards age certificates. 
 It made eight the minimum age at which a child could 
 commence work in a factory, and provided that no child 
 > might be employed in any factory more than six and a 
 half hours, except in certain exceptional cases. In silk 
 fapteries a seven-hour day for children was established. 
 
 Thus, by 1844 woman labour had been aboHshed so 
 far as underground mining was concerned; a minimum 
 age limit below which children might not be employed 
 either in mines or factories had been established ; maximum 
 hours beyond which {a) women and young persons, {b) 
 children, might not be employed had been fixed. 
 
 304 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Meaning of ' Factory ' 
 
 As yet, however, it should be fully understood, these 
 egislative checks on the unfair exploitation of defenceless 
 llabour were of limited application. Certain mines and 
 certain factories and mills alone were affected. The 
 [tendency, however, was to give a wider and wider rneaning 
 to the word ' factory.* At first it was restricted to include 
 only cotton and woollen mills and factories employing 
 three apprentices at least and twenty or more other persons. 
 By 1833 it included besides cotton and woollen mills and 
 [factories any " worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen, or silk mill 
 or factory wherein steam or water or any other mechanical 
 'power is or shall be used to propel or work the machinery 
 iin such mill or factory." Even, then, however, the 
 I provisions of the Factory Acts did not apply to any part 
 !of the processes of fulling, roughing, or boihng, or to the 
 ! packing of goods manufactured, or to lace factories, or to 
 any other kind of factory except those above mentioned. 
 The Act of 1844 hardly extended the meaning of the 
 word ' factory,' though it did include factories for hair 
 'and jute working. It expressly excluded factories or parts 
 I of factories used solely for the manufacture of lace, hats, 
 I or paper; or solely for bleaching, dyeing, printing, or 
 calendering, for packing, or for repair work in connexion 
 with either the machinery or fabric of a factory. 
 
 In the year following (1845) a special Act was found 
 necessary to regulate the labour of children, young persons, 
 and women in print works, while in 1846 rope works were 
 expressly excluded from the operation of the Factory Acts. 
 It was not until i860 that the Factory Act Regulations, 
 in so far as they affected the employment of women, young 
 persons, and children, were extended to bleaching and 
 dyeing works ; in the following year lace factories were 
 brought into the list of factories to which the Acts applied. 
 Two years later (1863) a special regulating Act dealt with 
 labour in bakehouses, while in 1864, by the Factory Acts 
 Extension Act, a definition was given to the word * factory ' 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 which was more consonant with what we to-day commonly 
 understand by a factory. Even by this Act, however, 
 only the following manufacturing processes were brought 
 within the Factory Acts' provisions : (i) the manufacture 
 of earthenware (except bricks and tiles other than 
 ornamental tiles) ; (2) of lucifer matches ; (3) of per- 
 cussion caps ; (4) of cartridges ; (5) the employment of 
 paper-staining, and (6) of fustian-cutting. Three years 
 later (1867) a * factory ' was defined as including: 
 
 (i) Any blast furnace or other furnace or premises in or on 
 which the process of smelting or otherwise obtaining any metal 
 from the ores is carried on : (2) any copper mill : (3) any mill, 
 forge, or other premises in or on which any process is carried on 
 for converting iron into malleable iron, steel, or tin plate, or for 
 otherwise making or converting steel : (4) iron foundries, copper 
 foundries, brass foundries, and other premises or places in which 
 the process of founding or casting any metal is carried on : 
 (5) any premises in which steam, water, or other mechanical 
 power is used for moving machinery employed (a) in the manu- 
 facture of machinery ; (b) in the manufacture of any article 
 of metal not being machinery ; (c) in the manufacture of india- 
 rubber or gutta-percha, or articles made wholly or partly in india- 
 rubber or gutta-percha : (6) any premises in which any of the 
 following manufactures or processes are carried on ; namely, 
 (a) paper manufacture, (b) glass manufacture, (c) tobacco manu- 
 facture, (d) letterpress printing, (e) book-binding : (7) any 
 premises, whether adjoining or separate, in the same occupation, 
 situate in the same city, town, parish, or place, and constituting 
 one trade establishment, in, on, or within the precincts of which 
 fifty or more persons are employed in any manufacturing process. 
 
 Later Factory Acts 
 
 Apart from certain amplifying and amending Acts, 
 such as the Factory and Workshop Act of 1870, which 
 defined the terms * print works ' and ' bleaching and 
 dyeing works ' in a wide manner, the definition of ' factory ' 
 may be said to be substantially complete with the passing 
 of the 1867 Act. In the same year, however, an Act 
 was passed for regulating the hours of labour for children, 
 306 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 young persons, and women employed in workshops as 
 distinct from factories, and a workshop was defined in the 
 widest possible terms as 
 
 any room or place whatever, whether in the open air or under 
 cover, in which any handicraft [i.e.^ any manual labour exercised 
 by way of trade or for purposes of gain in or incidental to the 
 making of any article or part of an article, or in or incidental 
 to the altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing, or otherwise 
 adapting for sale any article] is carried on by any child, young 
 person, or woman, and to which and over which the person by 
 whom such child, young person, or woman is employed has the 
 right of access and control. 
 
 In future the principal Acts dealing with the regulation 
 of industry were called not ' Factory ' Acts, but ' Factory 
 and Workshop' Acts; the most important of these were 
 the Acts of 1878, 1895, ^^^ 1 901. 
 
 State Interference 
 
 Though, as we thus see, there was a steady extension 
 of the provisions of the Factory Acts so as to embrace more 
 and more industries, the Government in one matter of the 
 first moment remained adamant. It refused consistently 
 to limit the hours of labour of adult males. The Short 
 Time Committees which were formed to agitate for a ten- 
 hour day pressed constantly not only for a ten-hour day 
 for children and women, but also for one for male adults. 
 Nay more, they were inclined to resent a restriction of 
 hours that applied to one only of these groups as tending 
 to render the realization of their main hope, the limitation 
 of the hours of adult labour, more difficult. 
 
 But though at no stage in the history of factory as distinct 
 from general labour legislation did Parliament deviate from 
 the broad view that State interference with industry should 
 be as sHght as possible, and so far as maximum hours was 
 concerned should be restricted to the hours of children, 
 young persons, and women, the whole tendency of the 
 factory legislation was to make the conditions of labour 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 generally better and still better. In view of the long- 
 continued and bitter struggle that was waged over the 
 ten-hour day there is a tendency to regard the Act of 1847 
 as a turning-point, but in our view the turning-point was 
 reached when the principle of limiting the hours of child- 
 ren was established. From that moment the extension of 
 that principle both in the direction of the classes to fall 
 within it and in the direction of a reduced maximum 
 hourage was merely a matter of time. It is therefore to 
 the Act of 1833 rather than to the Act of 1847 that we 
 look to find the pivot of the legislative control of our 
 industrial system. 
 
 The Relay System 
 
 The Act of 1833 Hmiting the hours of young children 
 to eight and the hours of young persons (as in the case of 
 the earlier Acts) to twelve had been received sullenly by 
 the operatives, who had been pressing for a general limita- 
 tion of hours to ten. The Act of 1847, limiting the hours 
 of women and young persons to ten hours a day, was 
 received with rapturous delight. The mere similarity 
 in the hours claimed and fixed appears almost to have 
 persuaded the rank and file of the movement that they 
 had achieved their object, whereas in fact the Act itself 
 accomplished little owing to the existence of two factors : 
 (i) the depression of trade; (2) the relay system. 
 
 The years 1846—7 marked a time of great depression 
 in trade in both England and America. So far as the 
 cotton and woollen mills were concerned hardly fifty per 
 cent, were working full time. The Act when it came into 
 operation declared a limit which the condition of trade 
 would in any event have prevented the generality of em- 
 ployers from exceeding. To such an extent was thjs the 
 case that had it not been for the jubilations and congratu- 
 latory meetings which took place throughout the country 
 the Act would have come into operation unnoticed. 
 
 The trade depression was, however, a temporary matter 
 only; the Act was permanent in its nature and applied 
 
 308 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 however flourishing trade might be. But with the revival 
 of trade the employers sought means of evading its pro- 
 visions, which many manufacturers truly believed could 
 not be put into practice if a profit was to be made. Already, 
 owing to the loose wording of the Act of 1844, the view 
 had been taken by many that a relay system was not illegal ; 
 that is to say, that although the individual worker's day 
 might not exceed ten hours, the end of such worker's 
 day could be more than ten hours from the beginning of 
 another worker's day. Thus, it was the practice in some 
 factories for persons working in the same room each to 
 come and leave at a different hour, with the result that it 
 became practically impossible for the inspectors to enforce 
 the law. Some of the inspectors strongly contested the 
 legality of the system, but the magistrates in many instances 
 took the view, subsequently endorsed by Baron Parke in 
 the case of Ryder v. Mills, that the relay system was 
 legal. As a result of this decision Mr Saunders reported 
 in 1849 that: 
 
 Nothing but one uniform set of hours for all persons employed 
 in the same mill in each of the protected classes can effectually 
 guard such operatives from overwork. I find the truth of this 
 proposition confirmed over and over again. 
 
 The Act of 1850 
 
 Once again agitation had to be resorted to, to give effect 
 to the plain intent of the legislature and to obtain obedience 
 to an Act of Parliament obviously designed to promote 
 the well-being of the people at large. Lord Ashley was 
 once more to the fore and was suppHed with much useful 
 ammunition by the inspectors, and as a result the com- 
 promise Act of 1850 became law. This Act, described ,0 
 in A History of Factory Legislation as "an important turning- ^ 
 point in the history of English factory legislation," provided 
 that in future 
 
 no young person, and no female above the age of eighteen 
 years, shall be employed in any factory before six of the clock — 
 in the morning or after six of the clock in the evening of any 
 
 309 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 day (save to recover lost time, as hereinafter provided), and no 
 young person, and no female above the age of eighteen years, 
 shall be employed in any factory, either to recover lost time or 
 for any other purpose, on any Saturday after two of the clock 
 in the afternoon. 
 
 It will be observed that in consequence of the above the 
 weekly hourage was sixty-eight, but such hours included 
 meal-times, which were to be taken between 7.30 a.m. and 
 6 P.M. But although the ten-hours limit had thus 
 been sacrificed, the much more valuable recognition of the 
 ,/) principle of a legal day had been obtained. But a legal 
 ' day, be it observed, only applied in the case of the employ- 
 ment of women and young persons. Three years later 
 it was extended to children. 
 
 The Act of 1874 
 
 The conditions of labour established by the Acts of 1 847, 
 1850, and 1853 remained almost unmodified for many- 
 years, although, as we have seen, numerous Acts were 
 passed extending the application of the Factory Acts so 
 as to include other industries. In 1872, however, the 
 Factory Acts Reform Association was organized, mainly 
 for the purpose of securing the passing of an Act to limit 
 the hours of labour to fifty-four a week. So successful 
 were the activities of this Association that early in the year 
 following Dr Bridges and Mr Holmes were appointed by 
 the Government to inquire into the conditions existing 
 in the textile districts, and, those Commissioners having 
 reported in favour of legislation reducing the hours to 
 fifty-four a week, a Bill was introduced into Parliament 
 in that year limiting the number of hours for which women 
 and young persons might work in any one week. The 
 Bill was not framed in any way to limit the hours during 
 which persons might work either at the commencement 
 or at the end of the day. The day might begin at six and 
 end at six, or at seven and end at seven, but two hours had 
 to be allowed for meals and rest. No one who was within 
 the protected classes might be worked for more than four 
 310 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 and a half hours without a meal, nor might such person be 
 employed at work for more than ten hours for the first five 
 days of the week, nor more than six hours on Saturday. 
 The total quantity of work which the employer got was thus 
 to be fifty-six hours a week. An extra half-hour was to be 
 employed in cleaning at the end of the week. Half-timers 
 could only be employed for the half of fifty-six hours, either 
 by being employed half the full time each day or the full 
 time on half the days. The age limit for children was 
 altered from thirteen to fourteen, unless the child could 
 produce a certificate showing that he had attained to a 
 certain degree of education, though no specific standard 
 was fixed. The operation of the Bill was strictly limited 
 to the textile trade, though Mr Assheton Cross,^ in moving 
 the second reading, indicated the possibility cf extension. 
 
 Despite, however, the fact that the Bill was based upon 
 the report of Commissioners specially appointed to inquire 
 into the facts of the case, and that it had the full support 
 of the Government, Mr Fawcett moved the following 
 amendment : " That in the opinion of this House it would 
 be inexpedient to pass those portions of the Bill which 
 impose new legislative restrictions on the number of hours 
 during which adults are to be permitted to work." The 
 main point made by the Member for Hackney was that, 
 although the Bill nominally applied to women only, its 
 real effect would be to place a Parliamentary limit on the 
 length of the day's work, and its general application would 
 be precisely the same, in the great majority of cases, as if 
 in every clause after the word * woman ' they had inserted 
 the word * man.' To say that women should leave a factory 
 at five o'clock, and that their labour should be dispensed 
 with for a certain time, while the men should continue at 
 work, was to proceed upon a supposition just as unreason- 
 able as that a steam-engine should go on working without 
 fuel, for the labour of the men and women in our factories 
 was inseparably intertwined. 
 
 Mr Fawcett in the course of his speech adopted the 
 1 The Home Secretary — later Viscount Cross. 
 
 3" 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 doctrine of a distinguished member of the Government 
 who but lately had thanked God that in England people 
 are not governed by logic. The opposition was certainly not 
 guilty of logic. The main argument adduced against the 
 Bill was one of principle, which, if sound, struck at the 
 limitation of hours generally. The principle of Hmitation 
 of hours, however, had long been conceded, and the only 
 point at issue was whether the detailed application of that 
 principle was to be altered. Further, as Mr Stanhope 
 pointed out and as the petitions in opposition bear witness, 
 if the limitation of the hours of women can be regarded as 
 involving in practice the limitation of the hours of men, 
 so also does the limitation of the hours of children. The 
 House was not happy at finding itself transported to " those 
 lofty regions of political economy " which have so frequently 
 been proved to be too rarefied to support life — at any rate 
 labouring Hfe. The Bill was passed into law and came 
 into operation on January i, 1875. 
 
 In introducing the above Bill the Home Secretary had 
 said: "Nothing would give him greater satisfaction than 
 to be able to place before the House a measure to con- 
 solidate the whole of the Factory Acts, which were in such 
 a state of confusion." Two years later the first step to 
 achieve this end was taken when a Commission was ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the question of the consolidation 
 of the Factory Acts. The Commissioners in due course 
 presented their report, which contained 113 majority 
 recommendations, together with a minority report by The 
 O'Conor Don. 
 
 The most important perhaps of these numerous recom- 
 mendations were to the effect that with certain amendments 
 th^ Factory Acts, 1833-74, the Rope Works Act, 1846, 
 the Lace Factory Act, 1861, and the Workshop Acts, 
 *i 867-71, should be consolidated, that the places of work 
 should, as in the Workshops Regulation Act, 1867, include 
 open-air places, that not only mining and agriculture, but 
 all domestic employments, " by the occupier of a rbom 
 used also for the purposes of a dwelling-house, if there 
 312 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 are no protected persons but adult women employed, and 
 they do not, in addition to inmates, exceed two in number," 
 should be excluded from the operation of the consolidating 
 Act, that the limits of hours for labour should be in all 
 factories and workshops 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., 6.30 a.m. to 
 6.30 p.m., 7 A.M. to 7 p.m., or, in some special trades, 8 a.m. 
 to 8 p.m. or even 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. all the year round, such 
 hours to include two hours for meals in factories and one 
 and a half hours in workshops (thus continuing the existing 
 law) ; that the regular school age of all children should 
 be from 5 to 13 years, and half-time attendance should 
 be conceded as a privilege to all children beneficially 
 and necessarily employed; that no child under ten years 
 of age should be allowed to be employed in labour regulated 
 by the consolidating Act, and certificates of birth endorsed 
 by the certifying surgeon with his certificate as to the 
 child's general fitness for employment should be required 
 in all cases of first employment of persons under sixteen ; 
 that sanitary and safety provisions should be extended in 
 scope and made more effective in the manner indicated; 
 and that numerous relaxations of the law in respect of 
 particular trades should be made. 
 
 The following important recommendations as to the 
 absolute prohibition of certain kinds of labour in certain 
 kinds of works were also made : 
 
 (i) The prohibition of the employment of children and 
 young persons in occupations tending to destroy health, 
 such as silvering of mirrors by the mercurial process, white 
 lead manufactures, etc. 
 
 (2) The prohibition of the employment of girls under 
 sixteen in all occupations unsuited to their age and sex, 
 such as brickmaking, work in salt works, etc. 
 
 (3) The prohibition of the employment of children in 
 all occupations unsuited to their age, such as fustian-* 
 cutting, metal-grinding trades, glass-melting and annealing, 
 dipping matches, etc. 
 
 In France, under the Factory Law of 1874, there was 
 a general prohibition of the employment of children in 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 dangerous and unhealthy work, and the recommendations 
 of the Commissioners on this point were largely based upon 
 the French code. 
 
 Several witnesses who appeared before the Commissioners 
 would have gone further and urged the desirability of 
 prohibiting women from working at various forms of 
 especially heavy or dirty work, such as nail-making, chain- 
 making, coke-picking, but the Commissioners did not 
 consider that it was necessary to prohibit the employment 
 of women in any trade except those from which they 
 were already excluded, e.g.^ employment in mines under- 
 ground, in glass-making, and in the processes of melting and 
 annealing glass. 
 
 The recommendations of the Commissioners were the 
 starting-point of a new type of consolidating factory and 
 workshop legislation (what we may term the consolidating 
 Acts) which cast into the form of a code the law relating 
 to employment in factories and workshops. For our 
 present purpose these consolidating Acts are unimportant, 
 for they merely applied or extended principles already 
 well established. 
 
 These principles were substantially the same as those 
 adopted in France. The legislature, as the guardian of the 
 nation's health and well-being, had interfered between 
 employer and employed along the following lines : 
 
 (i) Insanitary and dangerous conditions had been 
 prohibited. 
 
 (2) A certain degree of education had been made 
 
 compulsory. 
 
 (3) Government inspection had been instituted. 
 
 (4) In the case of women, young persons, and children 
 
 a legal day had been established. 
 
 (5) Women, young persons, and children had been pro- 
 
 hibited from engaging in certain kinds of work. 
 
 (6) Age limits had been fixed below which in the 
 
 various industries to which they applied children 
 were not permitted to work. 
 
 3H 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 It will be of interest, perhaps, to see to what extent other 
 countries had journeyed along the same road. 
 
 French Legislation 
 
 By a law passed on March 22, 1841, " relative to child 
 labour in factories, works, or workshops," it was forbidden 
 in France to employ children under the age of eight in 
 certain kinds of factories, etc., e.g., in all employing twenty 
 workpeople or using mechanical power. From the age 
 of eight to twelve, in such cases, children might not be 
 employed for more than eight hours out of the twenty-four. 
 From twelve to sixteen years their day's labour might not 
 exceed twelve hours, such hours to be worked between 
 5 A.M. and 9 P.M. No child under the age of thirteen 
 years might legally be employed at night in the above- 
 mentioned kinds of factories, works, or workshops except in 
 special emergencies such as breakdowns of the water power; 
 night-work of children {i.e., young persons) between thirteen 
 and sixteen years of age was only permitted in cases of 
 necessity. Provision was made for the certification of 
 age by civil officers. School attendance was made obli- 
 gatory until a magistrate (maire) had certified that the child 
 had received a certain measure of elementary education. 
 
 Power was given to the administration to extend the 
 classes of factories, etc., to which the law applied, to raise 
 the minimum age, reduce the hours of labour, determine 
 the classes of labour which on account of their danger 
 or unhealthiness were unsuited to child labour, together 
 with many powers of less importance. 
 
 Inspectors were appointed and provision made not unlike 
 those already in existence in England for the carrying-out 
 of the law. In consequence, however, of the wide powers 
 given to the administration the law was much more elastic 
 than in England, for substantial changes could be made 
 without recourse to a new Act. 
 
 By a decree made on September 9, 1848, the working 
 day for all workpeople employed in factories and work- 
 shops was limited to twelve hours of effective work, but 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 exceptions could be imposed upon this general law by 
 administrative action. This decree repealed one made 
 on March 2 in the same year reducing the duration of 
 the legal working day and suppressing piece-work. The 
 latter part of the decree was now abrogated and the former 
 part modified. Three years later, by a decree made on 
 May 17, 1 851, certain exceptions were imported into the 
 general rule laid down by the first section of the decree 
 of September 9, 1848,^ and in 1866 a special decree was 
 found necessary to deal with the question of the hours 
 of labour of those employed in silk-spinning mills. 
 
 In France throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties of 
 last century a considerable number of decrees were made 
 dealing with the question of dangerous, unhealthy, and 
 disagreeable trades, classifying trades in accordance with 
 the degree of danger, etc., attached thereto, and excluding 
 certain types of labour from certain of such trades. These 
 we do not propose to touch upon, as in 1874 a law was 
 passed dealing generally with the labour of children, girls, 
 and women in industry. This law, which we have referred 
 to as the French Factory Act of 1874, had originally been 
 presented by M. Ambroise Joubert in June 1871 and had 
 been considered and debated in 1872, 1873, ^^^ 1874, 
 on May 19 of which year it was finally passed. It was 
 founded on the fact that the law of 1841 had not been fully 
 carried out in practice and was an insufficient protection 
 for the classes it was desired in the interest of public health 
 and well-being to protect. M. Joubert's proposals were 
 in turn based upon the inquiries of a Commission which 
 had been appointed in 1867 and which reported in 1870 
 after most carefully surveying the existing factory legisla- 
 tion of foreign countries. 
 
 From the report of the Commissioners it is clear that 
 the place of honour in the list of the countries which had 
 considered the well-being of factory operatives was given 
 
 ^ In particular it was permitted to the employer to employ people for 
 more than the legal maximum number of hours in cases of breakdown in 
 the machinery, etc. 
 
 316 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 to England, the health and general level of intelligence 
 of whose people were favourably commented upon by the 
 inquirer, M. Tallon. 
 
 The German legislation, on the other hand, is, not 
 perhaps unnaturally, in view of the date on which the 
 report was presented (1870), regarded as being based on 
 the German desire to produce as much cannon fodder as 
 possible by protecting child life in order that the child 
 might develop into the soldier.^ 
 
 The French Factory Act of 1874 
 
 The French Factory Act of 1874 contained the following 
 among other provisions : 
 
 Children and girls (Jilles mineures) might not be 
 employed in industrial work in factories, buildings, works, 
 mines, shipyards, or workshops, except under the following 
 conditions : 
 
 {a) They must have reached the age of twelve, except 
 in special cases where ten was the limit. 
 
 {}?) Up to twelve the maximum number of hours was 
 fixed at six ; after twelve at twelve, both periods 
 to include a rest period. 
 
 (c) No child under sixteen might be employed on 
 night-work, and no girl or young woman under 
 twenty-one years of age might be employed in 
 any factory or workshop at night. Night-work 
 was defined as work from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.^ 
 
 {d) Children up to sixteen and young women up to 
 twenty-one were not to be employed on Sundays 
 and public holidays. 
 
 * Vide Dalloz, Recueil Feriodtque, 1874, pt. iv, p. 89: " L'Allemagne, 
 de son cote, depuis longtemps attentive a toutes les mesures qui pouvaient 
 ranger sous ses drapeauz de nombreux soldats, n'a pas hesite a reglementer 
 rigoureusement le travail des enfants." A very similar motive was assigned 
 by M. Cousins to the Prussian Government in encouraging popular education, 
 in his report at the time of the passing of the French Education Lavi^ of 1833. 
 
 2 Certain minor exceptions are made to this and to the other provisions 
 of the law. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 (e) Girls and women were not to be employed at work 
 in mines underground, nor were children under 
 twelve to be so employed. 
 
 (J) A certain degree of elementary education was 
 made necessary. 
 
 {£) Children below the age of sixteen might not be 
 employed in certain dangerous or unhealthy 
 trades, in particular the manufacture and mani- 
 pulation of explosives, corrosive and poisonous 
 substances, the sharpening or dry polishing of 
 metals, glass, etc., white lead, or certain work 
 in which mercury is used (silvering mirrors, 
 etc.). 
 
 (h) All machinery was required to be so protected as 
 to secure the safety of children employed. 
 
 Special provisions were, of course, made for the carrying- 
 out of the law, a certain amount of police surveillance being 
 allowed in addition to the power of inspection given to 
 the fifteen divisional inspectors who were now appointed. 
 
 The above law, together with the decrees issued there- 
 under in conjunction with the laws of November 2, 1892, 
 and March 13, 1900, as subsequently extended by the 
 Labour Code, established the principles upon which factory 
 legislation is based in France. The law of 1892, indeed, 
 although in its first and most important section it defined 
 with greater precision (i) the kind of labour, (2) the type 
 of workers, (3) the categories of the works to which the 
 law applied, did not materially alter any of the principles 
 already established. The age limit was raised to thirteen 
 years, and women as well as children were excluded from 
 certain dangerous and unhealthy work or were only per- 
 mitted to do such work under special regulations as to 
 safety, hygiene, etc. Generally speaking, therefore, we 
 may say that the French followed the English in the 
 matter of factory legislation, but they did not protect quite 
 to the same extent the special classes to which the EngHsh 
 Acts particularly looked. 
 
 3"8 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Switzerland and Belgium 
 
 In Switzerland the chief restriction on the employment 
 of child labour appears to have been in the direction of the 
 fixing of an age limit. Such limit varies with the industry 
 in question, and is sometimes twelve, sometimes thirteen, 
 and sometimes fourteen years of age. The Belgians 
 closely follow the French system, and have legislated in order 
 to secure the safety and healthiness of factories, the instruc- 
 tion of children, the imposition of an age limit, the fixing 
 of maximum hours in the case of children under fourteen 
 and of a higher maximum in the case of young persons of 
 from fourteen to eighteen years, and the interdicting of 
 night-work in the case of the protected classes. 
 
 United States 
 
 In the United States of America statutes have been 
 passed from time to time in most if not all the states, 
 having in view the same reformatory purpose, or kindred 
 ones, as the English Factory Act of 1833 and the others 
 of like character which followed it. The right of the 
 states to pass such Acts is sustained under the police 
 power. The subjects covered by this legislation are 
 summarized by Mr Stimson ^ as follows : 
 
 The preserv ation of the _health of employees in factories by 
 the removal ot excessive ^ust, or for securing pure air, or re- 
 quiring fans or other special devices to remove noxious dust or 
 vapours peculiar to the trade ; statutes requiring guards to be 
 placed about dangerous machinery, belting, elevators, wells, 
 air-shafts, etc. ; statutes providing for fi re-escape s, adequate 
 stjircases with rails, rubber treads, etc. ; doors opening outwardly, 
 etc. ; statutes pro viding^jigains^ injury to the operatives by the 
 machinery used, such as laws prohibiting the machinery to be 
 cjeaned while in motion, or from being cleaned by any woman 
 or minor ; laws requiring mechanical^ belt shifters, etc., or con- 
 nection by bells, tu^es, etc., between any room where machinery 
 is used and the engine room ; laws aimed at overcrowding in 
 
 1 Labour Legislation of the United States, Sec. 45. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 factories, and at the general comfort of the operatives ; and many 
 special laws [relating to] railways, mines, and other special '■ 
 occupations. 
 
 Such provisions follow rather upon the precedent set 
 by the later English Factory and Mines Regulation Acts, 
 but in addition there are in certain state statutes (as, for 
 example, the Massachusetts Acts, c. 508, 1894, and c. 494, 
 1898) provisions restricting the employment of women 
 and children and limiting the number of hours they may 
 work. Some question has been raised as to the con- 
 stitutionality of these state Acts. It has been urged that 
 they constitute class legislation. In particular, as regards 
 the protection extended to women, it has been strenuously 
 contended that as women are equal before the law as 
 regards their power to contract, no effort to restrain their 
 freedom of contracting can be tolerated. Such an argu- 
 ment is a return to the views expressed by some economists 
 in England more than a century ago. It is an argument 
 which tends to weaken as labour becomes stronger, for it is 
 manifest that under modern labour conditions the health 
 and well-being of the community demand that the future 
 generation shall not be crippled before birth nor in its 
 early youth. It is the protection and not the restraint of 
 the employee that is the object of the Factory Acts, as it is 
 the purpose of those Acts which have, for example, for- 
 bidden persons to buy poisons except under very stringent 
 regulations. The good of the community demands that 
 in some circumstances the private citizen's freedom should 
 be restricted; it demands that women and children should 
 not be allowed to do that which, if persisted in, will not 
 merely injure their individual health, but will degrade the 
 character and stamina of their generation. 
 
 The Provisions of the Peace Treaty 
 
 The modern tendency is nowhere better shown than in 
 the Treaty of Peace which concluded the Great War and 
 which contains so many clauses designed to advance the 
 well-being of the workers. Though the labour clauses of 
 320 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Part XIII of that treaty are by no means restricted to 
 what may be termed factory legislation, this appears to 
 be a convenient place in which to produce what is perhaps 
 the most important and authoritative pronouncement of 
 the fundamental principles which should guide modern 
 labour legislation that has yet been made. 
 
 The new spirit which to-day inspires Governments in 
 dealing with the problems of labour is, indeed, well reflected 
 by the preamble to Part XIII of the Treaty of Peace with 
 Germany, which is as follows : 
 
 Whereas the League of Nations has for its object the establish- 
 ment of universaLpeace, and suc h a peace can be established only 
 if it is basedupon, social j ustice : 
 
 And whereas conditions of kbour_ exist.. involYijQg--Sii£h in- 
 justice, hardship, and priyatioi to large numbers of people as to 
 produce "unrest so great that the peace., and harmony of the world 
 are imperilled ; and an improvement of those conditions is urgently 
 requIredT^s, for example, by the regulation of the hours of 
 wortcpincluding the establishment of a maximum working day 
 and week, the regulation of the labour supply, the prevention of 
 unemployment, the provision of an adequate living w^age, the 
 protection of the worker against sickness, disease, and injury 
 arising out of his employment, the protection of children, young 
 persons, and women, provision for old age and injury, protection 
 of the interests of workers when employed in countries other 
 than their own, recognition of the principle of freedom of associa- 
 tion, the organization of vocational and technical education and 
 other measures : 
 
 Whereas also the failure of any nation to adopt humane con- 
 ditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which 
 desire to improve the conditions in their own country ; 
 
 The High Contracting Parties, moved by sentiments of justice 
 and humanity, as well as by the desire to secure the permanent 
 peace of the world, agree to the following. 
 
 Then follow the chapters which detail the organization 
 to be permanentlyjestlbtislied for the promotion of the 
 objects set forth in the preamble. Such organization is 
 of two parts : {a) a gen eral Co nffrf^nrp, of Eeprefientativ^s 
 of m embers of the Lea gue^ jb) an International Labou r 
 
 X 321 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Offic e. That, later, is charged with the collection and 
 distribution of information on all subjects relating to the 
 international adjustment of conditions of industrial life 
 and labour together with such other powers and duties as 
 may be assigned to it by the Conference of Representatives. 
 The Treaty then continues : 
 
 The High Contracting Parties, recognizing that the well- 
 being, physical, moral, and intellectual, of industrial wage-earners 
 is of supreme international importance, have framed, in order to 
 further this great end, the permanent machinery provided for in 
 Section i and associated with that of the League of Nations. 
 
 They recognize that differences of climate, habits, and customs, 
 of economic opportunity and industrial tradition, make strict 
 uniformity in the conditions of labour difficult of immediate 
 attainment. But, holding as they do that labour should not 
 be regarded merely as an article of commerce, they think that 
 there are methods and principles for regulating labour conditions 
 which all industrial communities should endeavour to apply so far 
 as their special circumstances will permit. 
 
 Among these methods and principles, the following seem to the 
 High Contracting Parties to be of special and urgent importance : 
 
 First. — ^The guiding principle above enunciated that labour 
 should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of 
 commerce. 
 
 Second. — The right of association for all lawful purposes by 
 the employed as well as by the employers. 
 
 Third. — The payment to the employed of a wage adequate 
 to maintain a reasonable standard of life as this is understood in 
 their time and country. 
 
 Fourth. — The adoption of an eight-hours day or a forty-eight- 
 hours week as the standard to be aimed at where it has not already 
 been attained. 
 
 Fifth. — ^The adoption of a weekly rest of at least twenty- 
 four hours, which should include Sunday wherever practicable. 
 
 Sixth. — The abolition of child labour and the impositons of 
 such limitations on the labour of young persons as shall permit the 
 continuation of their education and assure their proper physical 
 development. 
 
 Seventh. — ^The principle that men and women should receive 
 equal remuneration for work of equal value. 
 
 322 
 
THE FACTORY 
 
 Eighth. — The standard set by law in each country with respect 
 to the conditions of labour should have due regard to the equit- 
 able economic treatment of all workers resident therein. 
 
 ]S[inth. — Each state should make provision for a system of 
 inspection in which women should take part, in order to ensure 
 the enforcement of the laws and regulations for the protection 
 of the employed. 
 
 Without claiming that these methods and principles are either 
 complete or final, the High Contracting Parties are of opinion 
 that they are well fitted to guide the policy of the League of 
 Nations : and that, if adopted by the industrial communities 
 who are members of the League, and safeguarded in practice 
 by an adequate system of such inspection, they will confer lasting 
 benefits upon the wage-earners of the world. 
 
 The Conference of Representatives has power to make 
 recommendations to the members of the League relative 
 to labour legislation, or to draft international conventions 
 for ratification by the members of the League. Conven- 
 tions which are ratified by members of the League must be 
 applied to such members' colonies and protectorates, with 
 certain exceptions based on special local conditions. 
 
 The first jiieetii ig...of_th^_Con f'eren ce was fixed to take 
 place in 1919 at Washington. TEe^genda agreed upon 
 was as follows : 
 
 (i) Application of the principle of the eight-hours 
 day or the forty-eight-hours week. 
 
 (2) Question of preventing or providing against 
 
 unemployment. 
 
 (3) Women's employment : 
 
 {a) Before and after child-birth, including 
 
 the question of maternity benefit ; 
 {b) During the night ; 
 If) In unhealthy processes. 
 
 (4) Employment of children : 
 
 (a) Minimum age of employment ; 
 
 (J?) During the night; 
 
 (J) In unhealthy processes. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 (5) Extension and application of the International 
 Conventions adopted at Berne in 1906 on the 
 prohibition of night-work for women employed 
 in industry and the prohibition of the use of 
 white phosphorus in the manufacture of 
 matches. 
 
 Already certain advances have been made in consequence 
 of the activities of the League, and those who have perused 
 the reports prepared by the organizing committee for the 
 various international labour conferences will have been 
 struck with the informed sympathy and understanding 
 which pervades the preparatory work of the League. In 
 no age, indeed, could the historian more truly say with 
 Macaulay : 
 
 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. The truth is that 
 the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is 
 new is the intelligence which discerns and the humanity which 
 remedies them.i 
 
 * History of England. 
 
 324 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE HOME 
 
 AT the passing of the Reform Bill some steps had 
 already been taken to ameliorate the conditions of 
 labour of certain sections of the working popula- 
 tion employed in certain kinds of work, for although the 
 important Acts of 1833 and 1847 lay still in the future 
 the ground had been broken by the Factory Acts of 1802 
 
 and 1 8 19. 
 
 When, however, we turn to consider the home environ- 
 ment of the people of Britain at the commencement of 
 Victoria's reign, we find a condition of affairs so evil as 
 to be almost incredible. The housing conditions confront 
 us with wrongs that match, and more than match, the 
 villainies that were being perpetrated under the butiy 
 systern.in the mines, and that had been effected through the 
 pauper apprentice system of earUer times. In this branch 
 of our subject we also find that as yet, though sporadic 
 I efforts had been made to lessen the evil, no effective action 
 ■had been taken to secure by legislation any improvement 
 in the lot of the people. 
 
 I For the greater part of one hundred years, indeed one 
 
 ! might even say for more than a hundred years, a general 
 
 ' shifting of population due to the Industrial and Agrarian 
 
 ' Revolutions had been linked to an increase of population 
 
 extraordinary in its magnitude, which had combined with 
 
 an indifference on the part of the employer, the employed, 
 
 and the municipal authorities to bring into being a state 
 
 of congestion, of squalor, and of hideous disorder in family 
 
 and town life that affected to no small extent the lives of 
 
 the working classes throughout the nineteenth century and 
 
 which has left us even to-day the evil legacy of the slums. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The problem which the early reformers who worked for 
 better and healthier houses and towns were confronted with 
 was not new in principle, but only in intensity. As we 
 have seen, throughout the Middle Ages the towns of this 
 and other countries were ill-planned and insanitary. While 
 populations remained constant both in numbers and in 
 position the evils resulting can be gauged simply by the 
 plagues and fevers thus engendered ; but when the popula- 
 tion was doubled, trebled, and quintupled in the space of a 
 generation, and when the congested areas rapidly shifted, 
 first to this place and then to that, to ignorance was added 
 the cupidity of the jerry-builder, with results so deplorable 
 as to shock the modern mind. 
 
 General Conditions 
 
 Liverpo ol has since the first half of the eighteenth 
 century been among the pioneers of sanitary reform, and 
 was prominent in the movement which finally secured the 
 passing of the various Acts designed to secure a better 
 home environment and a happier and healthier populace. 
 It is instructive, therefore, to turn to the evidence of 
 Dr Duncan given before the Health of Towns Commission. 
 There we find that out of 160,000 persons belonging to 
 the working classes and living in Liverpool in 1 841, no 
 fewer than 56,000 were housed in courts and 20,000 in 
 cellars. These cellars were ten to twelve feet square, 
 generally flagged — but frequently having only the bare 
 earth for a floor — and sometimes were less than six feet in 
 height. There were frequently no windows, so that light 
 and air could gain access to the cellar only by the door, 
 the top of which was often not higher than the level of 
 the street. Ventilation was out of the question. These 
 cellars were, of course, dark, and from the defective drainage 
 they were also very frequently damp. Sometimes there 
 was a back cellar, used as a sleeping apartment, having no 
 direct communication with the outside air, and dependent 
 for its light solely on the twilight of the front apartment. 
 From General Kyflin-Taylor's speech in the House on 
 326 
 
THE HOME 
 
 April 1 8, 1 91 3, it appears that even in 1864 there were 
 in Liverpool 22,000 insanitary houses, and out of a popu- 
 lation of 100,000 no fewer than 30,000 lived in cellars. ^ 
 1 In Manchester and Salford matters were little better. 
 A large proportion of the population lived in cellars, 10,000 
 of which contained no furniture of any kind. The con- 
 dition of the industrial towns of Lancashire has been 
 graphically described by Engels, as a warning to his country- 
 men of Germany, who were then beginning to tread the 
 path of industry, not to follow in England's footsteps. 
 Whole rows of houses were found built in half dried-up 
 watercourses, chosen to save cost of foundations, and in- 
 evitably crippling the inhabitants with rheumatic disorders. 
 No loveliness existed anywhere. Gardens were banished. 
 Barrack-like buildings were the best that were offered the 
 people. The back-to-back principle, being cheap, found 
 much favour. Hygiene and sanitation were alike ignored. 
 The environment in which nine-tenths of the. youths and 
 maidens~~orEirgT£nd grew up was deplorable. In Bury 
 it appeared that out of a population of 20,000, 773 families 
 slept three or four in a bed; that 209 slept four and^fiye 
 in a bed ; in' 67" cases more than five slept together, and in 
 a few cases more than six. ^ 
 
 In Bristol in some instances as many as eight people 
 were found living in one room. In Newcastle-upon- 
 Tyne 140 families lived in thirty-four houses in one street, 
 and 230 famines in fifty houses in another. Camborne, 
 in Cornwall, was at times so crowded that seven, eighj, 
 nine, and even ten and eleven persons slept andltookthexr 
 meatsTTrSne room. 
 
 The Slums of London 
 
 In the Metropolis itself conditions were even in 1884 
 still worse. In Clerkenwell, at 15 St Helena Place, a 
 house containing six .rooms was oc<:upied by six families, 
 and as many as ei^ht persons inhabited one room. At 
 I Wilmington" Place there were eleven families in eleven 
 rooms, seven persons occupying one room. At 30 Noble 
 
 327 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR j 
 
 Street four families of twenty-six persons in all were found 
 inhabiting six rooms. A small house in Allen Street 
 was occupied by thirty-eight persons, seven of whom lived 
 in one room. In Northampton Court there were twelve 
 persons in a two-roomed house, eight of whom inhabited 
 one room. In Northampton Street there was a case of 
 nine persons in one room. At 5 Bolton Court a family 
 often persons occupied two small rooms. At 36 Bowling 
 Green Lane there were six persons in an underground 
 kitchen. At 7 New Court there were eleven persons in 
 two rooms (fowls also were kept in these). In Tilney Court, 
 St Luke's, nine members of a family, five of them being 
 grown up, inhabited one room, 10 feet by 8. In Lion 
 Row there was a room 12 feet by 6, and only 7 feet high, 
 in which seven persons slept. In Summers Court, Holborn' 
 there were two families in a room 12 feet by 8. At 9 
 Portpool Lane there were six persons in one small back 
 room. At i Half Moon Court, in a three-roomed house, 
 w^^^ /ound 19 persons, eight adults and eleven children,' 
 and the witness, who had much experience of the neigh- 
 bourhood, said that he could hardly call that house over- 
 crowded, as he knew of a case of twelve persons in one 
 room in Robin Hood Yard, Holborn. The list can be 
 extended indefinitely. 
 
 The Earl of Shaftesbury, indeed, when giving evidence 
 
 before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the 
 
 Working Classes, which commenced to take evidence on 
 
 March 11, 1884, and which issued its first report in the 
 
 following year, said, when describing the condition of 
 
 / London at times within his memory, " I have seen once, 
 
 I but only once, four distinct families in one room, each 
 
 • ^occupying a corner." 
 
 Sanitary Conditions 
 
 The evils of overcrowding were sufficiently grave, so 
 grave that Lord Shaftesbury observed; "If I were to 
 go into the details of the [moral] consequences of over- 
 crowding, particularly in single rooms, very few people 
 328 ^ V V 
 
THE HOME 
 
 wrould believe what I said." The misej;^ inflicted on the 
 unhappy dwellers in these cellars, alleys, and courts was 
 sufficiently horrible. But it is when we turn to consider 
 the sanitary CQiiditioii3 of these dens that we reach the very 
 nadir "^Thuman degradation. I,orri ,Sh?lteburY, who 
 had spent the greater part of a long Ufe in inquiring jnto 
 the condition of the working people,, must be our witness 
 for many of 'the revolting particulars that we must mention, 
 and it is desirable, therefore, to indicate in some slight 
 measure the character of this witness. 
 
 The Earl of Shaftesbury 
 
 Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury, who had done so 
 
 much already to improve the conditions of work of the 
 
 people, turned his attention in, 1842J0 the question otthe 
 
 housing of the working classes, an_d as a result of his activities 
 
 secured the establishment, of the Labourers Frmnd 
 
 ■ Soaetv," which later developed into the Society for Imprgy- 
 
 iinff the Condition of the Labouring Classes. Ashley 
 
 strongly held the beUef, already given expression to by 
 
 Owen, that efficiency depended upon moral and.. physical 
 
 qualities, both of which in-turn depended upon enyirgn- 
 
 me^. He could have subscribed whole-heartedly to 
 
 O^n's simple philosophy, described by Mr Fay as con- 
 
 . sisting in the view that " environment is the cause ot 
 
 i differences in character, and environment is under human 
 
 I control. If the care of inanimate machines yields such 
 
 high profits, how much more will be yielded by the care ot 
 
 animate men and women ? " 
 
 But Lord Ashley, unlike Owen, was not a manufacturer, 
 and he was not concerned at all with profits. He was a 
 humanitarian who would have struggled to secure his 
 ideals had he been persuaded that there would result a 
 decHne in the profits accruing to the industries. He 
 approximated rather in outlook to Owen in his middle 
 period when the Manchester man was endeavouring to 
 settle his rural communities at Queenwood, but, unlike 
 Owen, he never permitted idealism to run away with him. 
 
 329 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR j 
 
 He never fell into the error of assuming that human nature 
 was perfect or that unpractical schemes could by insistence 
 be foisted on an unwilling world. He proceeded by modes 
 cal culated to convince the minds of responsible and sober 
 statesmen^ and Hs"methods secured more widespread and 
 lasting reform^ than were achieved by any other man of 
 his generation or, perhaps, of any generation in our history. 
 Even Bentham, from whose mind flowed many of the 
 purifying streams which have done so much to cleanse our 
 national life, secured perhaps less than the great and noble 
 Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 
 The State of the Metropolis 
 
 This, then, was the man on whose answers to the 
 questions put to him by the Commissioners of 1884 we 
 now rely. He it was who struggled to secure better 
 housing, largely by means of iridivrdiiah'eTTt^prise, coh- 
 ■^ced as he was that the conditions lie Bad seen not merely 
 conduced to individual moral and physical degradation, 
 but were a potent factor in the birth and growth of plagues 
 and pestilences. The condition of life in the single-room 
 tenement niaybe gathered from the following extract: 
 
 Q. — In cases where there are so many persons in a single room, 
 how do they practically live ? Do they take their meals in that 
 one room ? 
 
 y/. — Yes, they take their meals in that one room. They, 
 if there be more than one family, each use the fire in succession, 
 if they have a fire ; but they live there and they perform every 
 function of nature there without any exception. Many of the 
 worst places have been swept away. I do not believe you will 
 find in London many of them now, but formerly there were a 
 great many long alleys, and when I used to go into them if I 
 stretched out my arms I struck the walls on both sides. They 
 are very long, like a tobacco pipe. In those alleys lived 200 to 
 300 people, and there was but one accommodation for the whole 
 of that number, and that at the end ; and I do not hesitate to 
 say that it was so tremendously horrible that one could not even 
 approach that end. I went with Dr Southwood Smith, and, 
 accustomed as he was to that sort of thing, we could not possibly 
 
THE HOME 
 
 go into the rooms at the bottom of the alley, but we were obliged 
 to speak to the people through the windows above. 
 
 Q. — The air was so foul ? 
 
 J^ ^The air was dreadfully foul. The sun could not pene- 
 trate, and there never was any ventilation. Many of those 
 places are swept away by the operation of the existing laws. 
 
 g. I suppose the inhabitants were packed tighter somewhere 
 
 else ? 
 
 J^ A great many of them went into houses that were already 
 
 overcrowded. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury later describes '* the famous Frying-pan 
 Alley, near Holborn, now swept away." He says : 
 
 I inspected the whole of Frying-pan Alley, and I am happy to 
 say that such a thing does not exist now in London, and could 
 not exist, because the attention of the officer of health and others 
 would be called to it, and it would be abolished. Frying-pan 
 Alley was a very famous alley in Holborn, like one of those that 
 I have described to you ; it was very narrow, the only necessary 
 accommodation being at the end. In the first house I turned 
 into there was a single room ; the window was very small, and 
 the light came through the door. I saw a young woman there, 
 and I asked her if she had been there some little time. " Yes," 
 she said, " her husband went out to work, and was obliged to come 
 there to be near his work." She said, " I am miserable." "What 
 is it ? " I asked. " Look there," said she, " at that great hole ; the 
 landlord will not mend it. I have every night to sit up and watch, 
 or my husband sits up to watch, because that hole is over a common 
 sewer, and the rats come up, sometimes twenty at a time, and if 
 we did not watch for them they would eat the baby up." I am 
 giving you that as a typical instance of what went on in London 
 at that time. That could not exist now. 
 
 Again, speaking of his visit with Dr Southwood Smith 
 to a cellar dwelling in Tyndall's Buildings, the Earl says : 
 
 I went into a low cellar, and there I saw what your Lordship 
 [the Marquess of Salisbury] will hardly believe. There was 
 not so much wood in it as would make a faggot. There were 
 a woman and two children there, but the striking part of it is 
 this : from a hole in the ceiling there came a long open tube 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 supported by props, and from that flowed all the filth of the house 
 above, right through the place where this woman was living, 
 into the common sewer. Nobody paid the least attention to 
 it. There were no health officers, and no people looking after 
 the matter ; and I believe much of that sort of thing occurred 
 in London which could not occur now. Again, in another place 
 I had heard that there were people living over cesspools. I could 
 not believe it possible, but we went there, and in the room there 
 was boarding upon the floor ; upon that boarding were living 
 a woman and three children. We lifted up the boarding, and 
 there was the open cesspool immediately underneath, not one 
 foot below the surface of the room in which these people were 
 living ; and so mighty a cesspool was it that it took an hour to 
 clean by means of the machine. 
 
 The Water Supply 
 
 To us, accustomed as we are to a water supply so 
 excellent that it is a matter for harsh criticism if a house 
 is found without water properly laid on, it is almost im- 
 possible to imagine the state of affairs in the middle of last 
 century in Lx)ndon. Then the water was supplied to the 
 majority of the dwellers in the poorer districts only once, 
 or sometimes twice, a week. In particular courts there 
 was a stand-pipe put up, and the water came up at a certain 
 time and flowed for twenty or twenty-five minutes. All 
 the vessels were arranged in single file on either side to 
 catch the water, and some old woman was posted at an 
 upper window to shout and give notice when the supply 
 was coming on. The people then rushed to get as much 
 water as they could before the flow ceased ; and many of 
 them had to take it home and put it under their beds, 
 where it absorbed the noxious atmosphere. This was the 
 water they had to wash with, cook with, and drink. 
 
 Transport 
 
 In those days in London there was no adequate trans- 
 port. There were no motor-buses, no Underground. 
 A few old horse-buses plied for hire toward the end of 
 the period, but for the main part the poor man had of 
 
THE HOME 
 
 necessity to walk to his work.^ It inevitably followed 
 that the workman had to live near the scene of his labour, 
 and if it befell, as it generally did, that the district in which 
 he worked was a district of court and alley he had to inhabit 
 these places. He could not get out to the country. When 
 considering the mid-nineteenth-century slums we must not 
 visualize them as occupied exclusively by the submerged 
 tenth. 
 
 Pigs or Sties 
 
 These dwellings were often the ' homes ' of respectable 
 and hard-working men and women. Of course, the 
 opponents of radical reform then as now declared that it is 
 the pig that makes the sty and not the sty the pig. Lord 
 Shaftesbury dealt with this argument and expressed the 
 social consequences of a wretched home environment in 
 words which even now are worthy of remembrance. In 
 his evidence before the 1884 Commission he said: 
 
 I am sorry to say that I have both heard and read remarks 
 that are very injurious to the masses of the people, and likely to 
 prevent any reforms being made on their behalf, to the effect 
 that they are so sunken, so lost, so enamoured of their filth, that 
 nothing on earth can ever rescue them from it. Now, I am certam 
 that a great number of the people who are m that condition have 
 been made so by the condition of the houses in which they live. 
 I have no doubt that if we were to improve the condition of the 
 dw^ellings there would be a vast number of very bad cases who 
 would continue in the filth in which they began ; but I am sure 
 that no small number might be rescued from it by being placed 
 in better circumstances, might have greater enjoyment of health, 
 and might thus be much improved in their general condition 
 This is the operation of it : at the time that these alleys that I 
 speak of existed, we have known from observation and evidence, 
 a number of young people came up to London in search of work. 
 A young artisan in the prime of life, an intelligent, active young 
 
 1 Provisions for cheap workmen's trains were first made in the North 
 London (City Branch) Act and the Metropolitan Act, 1861, though it is 
 believed that certain railway companies voluntarily made certain reduc- 
 tions in favour of workmen some years before that date. 
 
 333 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 man, capable of making his 4.0s. or 50^. a week, comes up to 
 London ; he must have lodgings near his work ; he is obliged 
 to take, he and his wife, the first house that he can find, perhaps 
 even in an alley such as I have described. In a very short time, 
 of course, his health is broken down ; he himself succumbs,' 
 and he either dies or becomes perfectly useless. The wife falls 
 into despair ; in vain she tries to keep her house clean ; her 
 children increase upon her, and at last they become reckless, 
 and with recklessness comes drinking, immorality, and all the 
 consequences of utter despair. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon the evils of the 
 housing system which existed in this country in the middle 
 of last century because it appears desirable for the reader 
 to be impressed with the immense improvements that have 
 been effected — imp)rovements which the existence of bad 
 conditions in certain areas which remain to-day is apt to 
 cause to be overlooked. We well remember that one of 
 the reports issued by the Coal Industry Commission in 
 191 9 said of the miners' houses: "There are houses in 
 some districts which are a reproach to our civilization. 
 No judicial language is sufficiently strong or sufficiently 
 severe to apply to their condemnation." We are aware 
 that grave wrongs still exist, but if the evidence upon which 
 the above stricture was based, and justly based, is examined 
 and compared with the evidence given thirty-five years 
 before, it will be seen how great an improvement has taken 
 place. 
 
 Distress and Laissez-faire 
 
 In some times of especial distress — times which fre- 
 quently occurred before the repeal of the Corn Laws 
 prevented those enormous fluctuations in the price of wheat 
 which, as Cobden once observed, resulted in either the 
 farmer being ruined or the people starved — the miserable 
 inhabitants of these sordid dwellings had cold and hunger 
 added to their misfortunes. At one time we find a con- 
 siderable part of the entire population of Rochdale sleeping 
 on chaff" beds without covering and attempting to live on 
 
 334 
 
THE HOME 
 
 incomes ranging from sixpence to one shilling and tenpence 
 per week. In another town we find a poor rate of fifty-six 
 shillings in the pound. In another, people buying penny- 
 worths of mutton. 
 
 As Dr Gibbins has told us : 
 
 In Stockport and Manchester more than half the master- 
 spinners had failed before the close of the year 1842, and dwellings 
 to the number of three thousand were shut up. Five thousand 
 persons were out of work and walking about the streets in idle- 
 ness and want. In Burnley, another manufacturing town, the 
 guardians were obliged to write to the Secretary of State to say 
 that the local distress was quite beyond their management, and 
 a Government Commission with special funds had to be sent 
 down without delay. Provision dealers, we are told, were subject 
 to incursions from wolfish men prowling about for food for their 
 children, or from half-frantic women with a baby at the breast, or 
 even from parties often of a dozen poor wretches rendered desperate 
 by hunger, who levied contributions upon the various shops.^ 
 
 Such had become the condition of affairs and such had 
 remained the depravity of the common folks' environment 
 that we can but wonder at the apathy which was shown by 
 the Government and Parliament. We must remeniber, 
 however, that it was an age in which all the more consider- 
 able of the economists and political philosophers were 
 ranging themselves on the side of freedom of contract and 
 non-interference. As Mr J. J. Clarke well expresses it 
 in his work. The Housing Problem : 
 
 During the greater part of the period which elapsed between 
 1760 and the passing of the Public Health Act of 1875, those 
 responsible for the government and administration of our cities 
 seem to have been blind to the need for the exercise of fore- 
 thought and care, and as a nation we entered upon a period of 
 growth and change quite unparalleled in our history, without 
 any kind of governing principle of town development, and with 
 an almost complete absence of responsibility for good administra- 
 tion. . . . Political philosophers were committed to a policy 
 of individual liberty exaggerated until it meant social anarchy. 
 
 1 Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century. 
 
 335 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Landlords and manufacturers were eager to build up fortunes, 
 and, whilst tenacious of rights, were forgetful of duties. 
 Municipalities were so ineffective and corrupt that in 1835 a 
 Municipal Corporation Act had to be passed to lay anew the 
 foundations of good municipal government. The people were 
 so careless of their homes that we search almost in vain in the 
 records of the earlier labour unions for any word of protest against 
 the squalor of the streets and alleys in which the working classes 
 lived. 
 
 The First Reformers 
 
 The movement begun by Lord Ashley and later ex- 
 panded by Mr Chadwick, which had as its direct purpose 
 the sweeping away of these deplorable conditions, proceeded 
 in time along three main roads: (i) the replacing or 
 improvement of individual houses ; (2) the replanning of 
 entire areas ; (3) the improvement of sanitation. They 
 were supplemented at later times by schemes which, work- 
 ing along separate lines and dependent upon individual 
 endeavour, were designed entirely to recast the form town 
 life had hitherto taken, and which sought to add the health 
 and beauty associated with rural retreats to the social 
 amenities of the city. We shall therefore have to trace 
 in the broadest outline the improvements effected by the 
 Public Health Acts, the Torrens and Cross Acts, and the 
 later consolidating and amending Housing Acts, and the 
 much later activities of such reformers as Ebenezer Howard 
 and Cadbury and Lord Leverhulme, who invented, or 
 gave expression to, the idea of the garden city. We must 
 also touch upon the activities of those philanthropists, such 
 as Peabody, Guinness, Rowton, and Sutton, whose benefac- 
 tions have done so much to improve the housing of the 
 poorer classes in our great cities. 
 
 Early Measures 
 
 The Earl of Shaftesbury had begun his agitation for 
 better housing conditions, as we have seen, in 18 4.2. It 
 was not, however, until nine years later that^ Parliament 
 

 THE HOME 
 
 was induced to pass the CoinmonLodglng Houses Act 
 and jJi£.J .q hnn ring. Classes , Lodging; Houses "'Act' 0FT8 5 1 . ff^ 
 The former Act provided for supervision and inspection** j'^ 
 the machinery of the Act was under police control and^iKe ^ 
 measure achieved a considerable amount oFg^ood. The ^^ 
 latter Act permitted public authorities to build houses for 
 the peop le. Its terms were reasonably wide, but it proved 
 a d ead l etter. No one was interested. No one cared. -^ 
 Neither TRe municipal authorities nor the trade unions 
 concerned themselves in the matter. Strange as it may 
 appear, there was no public clamour for better conditions. 
 The Act achieved nothing owing entirely to absence of 
 motive or incentive. 
 
 From now onward, however, there is an almost con- 
 tinuous series of Acts dealing with either housing or 
 sanitation. Indeed, the earliest Nuisances Acts date from 
 the forties, but Sir Benjamin Hall's Metropolis Local 
 Management Act and the powerful Nuisances Removal 
 Act were passed in 1855. A whole. „ series of .iiousing 
 Act s was be g un in 1 866^ in which year was also passed the 
 valuable anaimportant Sanitacy^Act, subsequently amended 
 and finally replaced by the PublicJHealtliAGt of 18 74. 
 
 The Torrens and Cross Acts 
 
 The Torrens Act of 1868 and the Cross Act of 1875 
 
 mark the commencement of two series which, proceeding 
 
 along"liifferent lines, together dealt with the evils which 
 
 in later years Parts 1 1 and I of the Act of 1 8 90 were designed 
 
 to remove. By the Toxrens Act of 18.^8, which was 
 
 amended in 1879 ^^^ 1882, local authorities were given 
 
 the power to inspect and condemn individual houses. The 
 
 purpose oF "tills series is, indeed, adequately expressed in 
 
 Section 14 of the Act of 1879, which states that purpose 
 
 to be : 
 
 « 
 
 (i) The providing, by the construction of new biiildings, or \ 
 
 the repairing of existing buildings, the working classes with 1 
 
 suitable~""dweinhgs, ^situate within the jurisdiction of the local ' 
 
 authority. 
 
 y 337 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 (2) The openingout of closed or partially closed alleys or 
 courts inhabited bytHe~ labouring classes, and the widening orthe 
 same by pulling down any buildings^ or otherwise leaving ~such 
 open "spaces~^s-may^ be necessary to make such alleys or courts 
 healthful. 
 
 As a result of the passing of these Acts substantial minor 
 improvements were effected in some of the worst quarters 
 of our cities and towns. But the remedy was essentially 
 of a piecemeal nature, and in many places radical treatment 
 rather than pruning was called for. The great industrial 
 centres of the Midlands and the North had sprung up like 
 mushrooms, and the defects were not limited to this and 
 that house, but to whole quarters, whole towns, whole 
 districts. A population which in the Middle Ages would 
 have manned an important city was now festering in the 
 forgotten slums of some discarded area. The principle 
 that had been followed by the framers of the series known 
 as the Torrens Acts, after William Torrens McCullagh 
 Torrens, was continued, but was extended by the new and 
 valuable provisions contained in the so-called Cross Acts.-^ 
 
 The purposes of this latter series are indicated in t!ie 
 preamble to the'^AcFof 1875, which is as follows: 
 
 Whereas various portions of many cities and boroughs are 
 so built, and the buildings thereon are so densely inhabited, as 
 to be highly injurious to the moral and physical welfare of the 
 inhabitants: 
 
 And whereas there are in such portions of cities and boroughs 
 as aforesaid a great number of houses, courts, and alleys which, 
 by reason of the want of light, air, ventilation, or of proper con- 
 veniences, or from other causes, are unfit for human habitation, 
 and fevers and diseases are constantly generated there, causing death 
 and loss of health, not only in the courts and alleys, but also in other 
 parts of such cities and boroughs: 
 
 And whereas it often happens that owing to the above circum- 
 stances, and to the fact that such houses, courts, and alleys are the 
 property of several owners, it is not in the power of any one owner 
 to make such alterations as are necessary for the public health: 
 
 ^ Named after Sir Richard Assheton Cross. 
 
 338 
 
THE HOME 
 
 And whereas it is necessary for the public health that many of 
 such houses, courts, and alleys should be pulled down, and such 
 portions of the said cities and boroughs should be reconstructed: 
 
 And whereas in connexion with the reconstruction of those 
 portions of such cities and boroughs it is expedient that provision 
 be made for dwellings for the working class who may be displaced 
 in consequence thereof: 
 
 Be it enacted, etc. 
 
 Working of the Earlier Acts 
 
 For a time many and valuable_ improvements were 
 effected, particularly by the Act of 1875 as amended in 
 1878, but it was soon apparent that it was m danger of 
 becoming a dead letter for the same reasons that had 
 killed Shaftesbury's Act of 1851. There was still no 
 motive for action. Popular opinion was apathetic ; muni- 
 cipal bodies kept an eagle eye upon the rates and were 
 apTto'Torget, as people are apt to forget to-day, the evils of 
 the'slumT As in the Tudor period, the wrongs of the 
 submerged tenth caused no riots, no disturbances^ no 
 commotion, no trouble. They were submerged. They 
 were careless of everything. They had learnt from ex- 
 perience what imagination and insight had taught Mr 
 Justice Day, that *' Drink was the shortest way out of 
 Manchester " — or of any other slum area. By i33.^ 
 Cardinal Manning could state that " in the last four years 
 there have been two years during which no effort whatever 
 has been made to put them [the Cross Acts] in operation; 
 ... in two years there has been in each only a single 
 case." 
 
 Private Activity 
 
 The latter half of the century had, however, been 
 notable for 'llTe~~actlvities of numerous^ philanthropists 
 who had interested themselves in improving the liousing 
 conditions of the working classes, and who worked quite 
 independently of Acts of Parliament. Of these we can 
 mention only a few typical cases. In France, as early as 
 
 339 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 i860, M. Godin-Lema ire, a manufacturer, had established 
 his FamiUstere de Guise for the housing of his workpeople 
 and their families. Flats, three or four stories high, were 
 built and let out at th.'e^ery low rental of three and nine- 
 pence per month per room ; nurseries for the infants, and 
 schools for the children as they grew up, were provided 
 without additional charges. The financial result was that 
 M. Godin-Lemaire received six per cent, on his capital 
 outlay. The social effect was that throughout twenty-four 
 years the police had nothing to complain of in the 
 behaviour of the inmates. 
 
 Four years later (1864) the first block of the Peabody 
 Buildings was opened in Spitalfields, London, and~was 
 quickly followed by others that were constructed in Chelsea, 
 Bermondsey, Islington, and Shadwell. They were the 
 result of the benefactions, amounting to ;^5oo,ooo, which 
 George Peabody, the wealthy American who had in his 
 youth joined as a volunteer to oppose the English fleet 
 which had entered the Potomac and was threatening 
 Washington, began in 1862 to present to the city of 
 London for the benefit of the poor. 
 
 The next great benefaction was not made until 1889, 
 when Sir Edward Cecil Guiniigss, later Lord Iveagh, 
 formed a trust FLind^]rX^'56,ooo for the erection of working- 
 class dwellings. It was while examining the conditions 
 of life in the poor districts of London for the purposes of 
 this charity, of which he was a trustee, that M. W. L. 
 Coxi^, first Baron Rowton, determined to do something to 
 alleviate the~~squaTor ofthe common lodging-houses then 
 in existence, and in 1892 the first of the Rowton Houses 
 was opened at Vauxhall. 
 
 An even more splendid benefaction was made in 1896, 
 when, on the death of Wilham Richard Sutton, the sum of 
 ;^2, 500,000^ became availaBTe ~ifer" the buitding of model 
 dw^nings in the larger cities of EnglanH~'~and especially 
 in London. Long before this, however, much admirable 
 worinia.d been done by societies jwhich were not definitely 
 philanthropic in nature. But both the Building Societies 
 
THE HOME 
 
 (which began as early as 1809) and the Co-operative 
 Societies rather aimed at enabHng the individual to build 
 or improve his own house than at dealing with the problem 
 presented by overcrowded and insanitary dwellings. 
 
 The Proposals of 1885 
 
 ' TheTloyal Commission which inquired into the whole 
 subject in 18^ and 1885, after mature deliberation 
 eventually issued a report which contained the most , 
 complete recommendations. Administrative reforms ; 
 sanitary refems; housing^reforms ; the cleari^ of con- 
 gested districts ; transpoft difficulties; legal anoVhalies; 
 riting auctions; the special prol5!ems of the rural districts 
 —all wire considered as a concrete whole. The immediate 
 result of these labours was, however, insignificant. The 
 Act of 1885 achieved practically nothing, and five years 
 later it was found necessary to pass the Housing of the 
 Working Classes Act, 1890. In the words of Mr Clarke : 
 
 The Act contained litde that was new, and far less than the 
 Commissioners had recommended ; it was rather a consolidatmg 
 Act collecting and revising such measures as had been- adopted m 
 thrtofrens Acts and Cross Acts. . . . With the amendmg Acts 
 ofTgoo and 1903, It constituted until 1909 the chief legislative 
 measure for housing reform. 
 
 It gave power to clear large areas^ ". dangerous to health L' ; ^ 
 to "T^imm^e "buildings "unfit for human habitation"; to ^ 
 erect buTrdihgs in the areas thus cleared; and, in the 
 case of Towns, to erect workmen's dwellings on area^ not ^ 
 hitherto built upon. This later power contains the germ 
 of tomi-planning ; the two other chief powers were valuable 
 but were reduced to no small extent by the insertion of 
 the words " dangerous to health " and " so dangerous and 
 injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation, 
 for as the Select Committee in 1906 pointed out, it was 
 found difficult to get magistrates to convict, for many 
 defects, though serious in themselves, may not be directly 
 injurious to health. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The Committee of 1906 
 
 The Act of 1890 was also primarily intended to cope 
 with the evils of the towns and was only incidentally 
 applicable to rural districts. This, coupled with the 
 shrinking of the rural population and the absence of public 
 interest, caused the Housing Acts to become a dead letter 
 in many rural parishes. The powers were sufficient, but, 
 in the words of the Select Committee of 1906, "the 
 authorities who have been entrusted with the carrying 
 out of the Acts in rural districts have, generally speaking, 
 deplorably failed to fulfil their obligations." 
 
 The result of the recommendations of the Committee 
 of T^.6 w^"^ t^^ passi ng of the Housing and_Town.-pla n ning 
 Act,__i909, which, besidesstrengthening the machinery 
 for ruraTimprovement, made much more extensive provision 
 than had formerly been the case for the designing and 
 carrying into effect of town-planning schemes. 
 
 Town-planning 
 
 The Housing and Town-planning Act, 1909, went 
 considerably beyond any of its predecessors, and was perhaps 
 the firs i serious attemp jtmade in this country to secure not 
 merely the aboHti^n_ of^ositive!y_dangerous and unhealthy 
 conditions, but also the amenities which are to-day asso- 
 /i ciated with a well designed and constructed town or city. 
 In this connexion it will be convenient to consider the steps 
 that had already been taken to this end by other countries. 
 The need for legislation along the lines pursued by our 
 Public Health and Housing Acts had, of course, been felt 
 in other countries also, but, with the exception of France, 
 that need had never been so insistent as in England. The 
 United States of America did not have to grapple to any- 
 thing like the same extent either with the problems of 
 overcrowding or with the difficulties due to the construc- 
 tion in early times of insanitary cities, and although an Act of 
 Congress passed in 1879 dealt with sanitary conditions, 
 and was followed in the eighties of last century by numerous 
 
THE HOME 
 
 Acts passed by the various state legislatures, the question 
 of housing never reached there the same importance as in 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Germany, on the other hand, had risen to industrial 
 and commercial importance comparatively late in hfe and 
 was able to, and in fact did, profit from the mistakes com- 
 mitted in England. The same may be said of many of 
 the other European states. 
 
 But although Housing Acts as they were understood 
 in the seventies and eighties of last century by^ British 
 reformers do not occupy such an important position in 
 the lists of foreign enactments as in the Statute Book 
 of England, the still more advanced principle of town- 
 planning was first given expression to on the Continent. 
 
 Continental Schemes 
 
 The first measure to achieve the regulation of the 
 planning of building areas was an Act passed by the Italian 
 legislature as long ago as June 25, 1865. It anticipated 
 by nine years the similar legislation of any other country, 
 and up to the year 191 1 had never been modified or 
 amended. Next in order of date comes the Swedish 
 Building Law for Towns Act of 1874, but it is the Prussian 
 Town-planning Act of the following year which perhaps 
 occupies the most important place in the legislative history 
 of this subject. This Prussian Act, though originally 
 applying only to the Kingdom of Prussia, was subsequently 
 adopted with slight modifications by the other states of the 
 German Empire and is responsible for the admirable 
 building schemes which have resulted in German towns 
 and cities being models of construction. In Germany the 
 power to enforce the law was placed very much in the hands 
 of the police and the local authorities ; in Sweden Town 
 Commissioners work out the town plans which then only 
 require the Royal assent; in Italy the central State 
 authority alone can command the execution^ of a town- 
 planning scheme, by means of either a special Act or a 
 Royal decree or a decree of the Prefecture. 
 
 343 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 The Act of 1909 | 
 
 I" England^ under the Act of 1 902^_the Local_GoYern-' 
 ment Board (now the Ministry- orTMt]i}~Husri^p^^ 
 tjie^sdieme, and in case of objection the scheme must be 
 laid on the tabJe_pfJboth Houses and is suspended if either 
 House presents a petition in opposition. 
 
 Throughout the British Empire a vast number of Town- 
 ships and Town-planning Acts have been passed. Such 
 Acts, though pursuing the same aims, are of the most varied 
 kinds so far as details and machinery are concerned, and it 
 is impossible even to indicate them. It may, however, be 
 observed that in this matter the Orange Free State led'the 
 way by the passing of the Townships Act of 1874. 
 
 The powers of the authorities in the United Kingdom 
 have, of course, been widely extended by the very recent 
 amending Act of 191 9 in conjunction with the Acquisition 
 of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 191 9, but the 
 Acts of 1890 and 1909 still remain substantially intact. 
 The detail of all this legislative activity cannot be expressed 
 in a short compass, but, viewing the matter broadly, it may 
 be said that the following position has been reached. The 
 local authorities or the State have now full power to acquire 
 land for building and to build thereon; to destroy in- 
 dividual houses if unfit for habitation ; to clear slum areas ; 
 to raise funds and to subsidize building operations. They 
 have the power, and, what is more than the power, the 
 desire, so to plan the new buildings thus erected that the 
 home environment of the people shall not merely conform 
 to a minimum standard necessary for the pubHc health, but 
 shall also make for improvement in the moral or psychical 
 well-being of the inhabitants. Not only in England, but 
 throughout the civilized world, there is now a general 
 feeling which is in harmony with the view expressed by 
 Dr Robertson, the Medical Officer of Health of Birming- 
 ham, who said : 
 
 No single condition in the lives of the masses has such a damaging 
 effect on health, or does harm in so many other ways, as bad 
 344 
 
THE HOME 
 
 housing. It is for this reason that I feel strongly the need of 
 raising the standard of ' housing,' so that every human life may 
 enjoy the advantages of a healthy house in healthy surroundings. ^ 
 
 The Garden City Movement 
 
 If one examines the plans that are now put forward for 
 the housing of the working classes, if one considers our 
 modern suburbs and compares the conditions which now 
 exist with those which were inquired into by the reformers 
 of only seventy years ago, one must be struck by the 
 immense advance that has already been achieved. In 
 assigning the credit for that advance prominence must 
 certainly be given to the name of Ebenezer Howard. 
 
 It was in the closing years of the nineteenth century 
 that Mr Howard, a reporter at the Royal Courts of Justice, 
 conceited tKe' sclieme to which he subsequently gave 
 expression in his books To-morrow and Garden Cities of 
 To-morrow. In 1899 the Garden _Gty_Assqci.ation was 
 fou nded in J England and has" since conducted a pioneer 
 movement which Has been followed with interest in most 
 of the countries of the world. The first efforts of _this 
 association followed upon the admirable work carried out 
 by Mr George Cadbury and Lord Leverhulme at Bourn- 
 ville and_Pqrt_SunHght respectively, but IHey gave ex- 
 pression'to something more than the ideal housing of the 
 workpeople employed in a particular factory or business. 
 At Letchworth an attempt was successfully made to build 
 up in an entirely rural district a manufacturing city that 
 should at once meet all modern requirements in respect 
 of business convenience, while at the same time providing 
 the inhabitants, even the poorest, with a happy, a healthy, 
 and a beautiful environment. Letchworth, indeed, stands 
 by itself, for the other so-called ' garden cities ' are really 
 only examples of admirable town-planning schemes and 
 do not aim at containing within themselves all the complex 
 parts which go to form a modern industrial town. But 
 as yet the movement is young, and signs are not absent 
 
 ^ Housing and the Public Health. 
 
 345 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 to show that it is vigorous. Its one city stands already as 
 an example, and beyond that the idea which Mr Howard 
 gave to the world has already resulted in a complete 
 change in the ordinary methods of town extension and 
 estate development. 
 
 The Present 
 
 But although the tendency has been steadily upward, 
 and although the type of house being built even before the 
 War was immeasurably superior to the kind which had 
 found favour a few decades earlier, as may be seen from 
 Dr Savage's Rural Housings there still remain many gross 
 abuses to be removed. We speak not of the after- War 
 house shortage, which presents a temporary problem, 
 but rather of the conditions which still exist in our cities 
 and rural districts and which have come down to us as an 
 evil legacy from the past. Thus, for example, the author 
 of Amongst the Agricultural Labourers^ when speaking of the 
 conditions existing in a certain village typical of many 
 others, and writing in the twentieth century, could say: 
 
 The cottages in this village are in the most awful state of 
 dilapidation that it is possible to conceive. They are to be seen 
 in every stage of ruin, from the cottage that is barely tenantable 
 to the heap of rubbish that marks the spot where a cottage formerly 
 stood. One I inspected consisted of four rooms, two up and two 
 down, with what had been formerly a small brew-house and wash- 
 house. . . .The front room downstairs, which was the best, 
 measured 15 feet 8 inches by 8 feet 2| inches, the height being 
 5 feet 10 inches. ... A crazy staircase, that threatened to give way 
 at every step, led to the room above. . . . The roof was in holes, 
 and the ceiling, which was cracked and blistered to an almost incon- 
 ceivable extent, had been falling to bits for years. No repairs had 
 been done to this or any other room by the landlord for years. 
 Old skirts and rags are hung over great holes to keep out wir^d and 
 rain. But in spite of every precaution, the place in bad weather 
 and in winter is a swamp. . . , The ' room ' below is no better 
 than a yard, and is open to the weather on two sides. Of the brew- 
 house only the walls remain ; the door and the roof have rotted 
 away. 
 
THE HOME 
 
 But even such examples of bad housing in the rural 
 districts can still be more than matched by the deplorable 
 conditions which exist in the slum areas of our cities. No 
 inconsiderable part of our population is still being born 
 and reared amid surroundings which sap the health of" 
 mind and of body. Our people have still to bear the burden 
 created by the existence of vast masses of men and women 
 who have grown to maturity in an environment which 
 renders it impossible for them to be good citizens an(^ 
 difficult for them to be human beings. An overburdened^ 
 generation, loaded with debt by the greatest war in history, 
 is heroically endeavouring to cope with this insistent 
 problem. A future generation will reap the fruits of our 
 activities. 
 
 347 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 WHEN last we glanced at the progress, or rather 
 lack of progress, which had been achieved in the 
 educational development of the masses, we saw 
 that at the end of the eighteenth century the vast majority 
 of the people of Europe were illiterate and had available 
 to them practically no means of attaining to any high 
 degree of culture. We have seen that in the New World 
 new and more fruitful ground had been broken, but that 
 in England the efforts of Brougham had been relaxed 
 and the principle of State intervention had been aban- 
 doned for the time being in favour of a continuance of 
 voluntary effort. 
 
 Our present account will start from the time, shortly 
 after the Reform Bill had been passed, when Mr Roe- 
 buck presented to the House of Commons proposals 
 relating to State intervention. But in view of the fact 
 that we are concerned to describe, though in broadest 
 outline, the history of the masses rather than the history 
 of education, it will be necessary in the first place to con- 
 sider the general state of the mental environment of the 
 people at that time, and as in such matters we get no com- 
 plete picture of that state by regarding individual nations 
 solely, we must view the condition of affairs not only in 
 England. We will therefore retrace our steps somewhat, 
 in order to describe what had already been achieved in 
 Prussia and the states of Germany, and in France. 
 
 Prussia 
 
 There can be little doubt that in Europe the leading 
 place, historically, in all matters relating to popular educa- 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 tion was for many years occupied by Prussia. Luther 
 succeeded in effecting what in this country the Lollards 
 attempted too early — the release of the citizens from the 
 spiritual despotism of Rome. In England a similar 
 movement, which, however, never possessed the same 
 vitality, broke against the will of a king who, though willing 
 to overthrow the supremacy of the Pope, was not desirous 
 of altering substantially the tenets of the national Church. 
 
 The Reformation in England, though it gave to the 
 people a Bible in English which all were permitted to read, 
 did not confer upon the masses an education which enabled 
 them to take advantage of the gift. In Germany it was 
 otherwise. 
 
 From the time of the Lutheran Reformation the German 
 parent had imposed upon him as a religious duty an 
 obligation to see that his children attended at school for 
 the purpose of being trained in a knowledge of their duty 
 to God and man. In the words of Mark Pattison : 
 " From the time of Luther's address to the municipal 
 corporations of Germany, 1524, this has been so recognized 
 whether it was enforced by enactment or not." 
 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, 
 
 the education given was religious, and it was not until the 
 
 ; eighteenth century that the children were taught to write 
 
 and to calculate. For a time such compulsion as there 
 
 was came exclusively from the Church in the form 
 
 of consistorial edicts which began to be issued at least 
 
 as early as 1573. But when, in the beginning of the 
 
 : eighteenth century, Friedrich Wilhelm began to issue 
 
 royal ordinances for the regulation and improvement of 
 
 elementary schools, we find " these ordinances assuming, 
 
 not enacting de novo^ universal school attendance of all 
 
 I unconfirmed persons." In Wurtemberg, indeed, the duty 
 
 had been made a legal and binding obligation as early 
 
 ; as 1649. 
 
 I In 1763 a further step forward was taken when by the 
 Allgemeines Landschulregkment oithdX year the period during 
 which children were to attend school was definitely fixed 
 
 349 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 at from five to fourteen years of age ; but this, though 
 rendering the duty more precise, merely enacted what had 
 long been the recognized practice. Again to quote from 
 Mark Pattison's report: 
 
 Compulsory education in Protestant Germany never had to 
 contend with an adverse public opinion ; not because the spirit 
 
 !of personal liberty is wanting, but because, since Protestantism 
 began, there has never been a time when it was not thought part 
 of parental duty to have the children properly instructed. 
 
 ' There, as in America, the religious difficulty, which has 
 at all times in England proved such a stumbling-block to 
 universal compulsory education, did not exist. Sectarian 
 animosity had but little vitality. The Protestants, 
 Catholics, and Jews were capable of division into well- 
 defined groups, and the kind of trouble which arose from 
 the practical difficulty of establishing a system of religious 
 instruction which would be agreeable to such sects of one 
 religion as the Wesleyans, Baptists, CongregationaHsts, 
 and Presbyterians was in no sense present. 
 
 Under the Prussian system as eventually developed 
 toward the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, a system of education had gro.wn__up 
 which is notable forits universality and the length of jtime 
 for which the pupils remained under tuition. Here again 
 Germany was fortunate in that it developed into a great 
 industrial country very late in the day, so that it escaped 
 many of the evils which were present during the pioneer 
 period in England. The factory school in Germany 
 neither attained the importance, nor offisred the same 
 spectacle of abuses, as it did in this country. 
 
 The educational system of Germany is also notable for 
 the sharp division whi^hr -was made between the internal 
 affairs of the school and matters external. The iatter 
 group of activities relating to the management of school 
 property, the enforcement of attendance, statistical returns, 
 and investigations of charges against the teacher were 
 regulated by a board of management under civilian control 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 and subject in a very considerable degree to the will of a 
 civil officer termed a Landrath. At the head of all was the 
 Minister of the Interior in conjunction with the Minister 
 of Public Worship. 
 
 On the other hand, all internal affairs relating to teaching 
 and discipline were under ecclesiastical control. The 
 clergyman of the parish was ex officio in the position of an 
 inspector, and was in turn subject to supervision by that 
 higher ecclesiastical dignitary — the superintendent of the 
 circle. By the middle of the nineteenth century nearly 
 all the schools of Germany were denominational, and a 
 Catholic priest would have charge of a Catholic school and 
 would not interfere in any way with a Protestant or Jewish 
 school. In the few mixed schools which still existed in 
 the poorer districts, the pupils were divided into groups, 
 and each group had its appropriate ecclesiastical superior. 
 
 The laws which were passed in the various states of 
 Germany to control the education of children were through- 
 out the first sixty years of the nineteenth century exceedingly 
 numerous and cannot be treated of here. The result, 
 however, is well shown in the following table for 1856, 
 given in the reports issued by the Newcastle Commission. 
 
 Province 
 
 Number of 
 Children of 
 School Age 
 
 Number of 
 Children in the 
 Public Elemen- 
 tary Schools 
 
 Number 
 
 of 
 Schools 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Posen 
 
 Pomerania 
 
 Silesia 
 
 Brandenburg 
 
 Saxony 
 
 Westphalia 
 
 The Rhine 
 
 Hohenzollern 
 
 
 
 440,897 
 241,017 
 222,169 
 525.993 
 375.331 
 340,907 
 255,808 
 
 529.843 
 11,286 
 
 370,942 
 213.487 
 209,231 
 503,468 
 
 355.313 
 337.416 
 249,771 
 507,605 
 11,239 
 
 4.487 
 2,095 
 2,506 
 3,722 
 2,936 
 
 2,779 
 
 1,836 
 
 3.820 
 
 III 
 
 
 
 
 2,943,251 
 
 2,758,472 
 
 24,292 
 
 351 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 To the above numbers attending public elementan 
 schools must be added the number of children attending 
 private elementary schools, viz., 70,220, which gives { i 
 total of 2,828,692, and shows that out of the entire chile 
 population of the Kingdom of Prussia only 1 14,559 wen 
 not at school. In most of the other states of the Germar 
 Confederation the results were not quite so good, though 
 in Wiirtemberg they appear to have been even better. 
 
 It may therefore be said that by the mi ddle of the nin e- 
 teenth century the most essential parts oFth e educa tlona 
 problem had been solved in Germany, and that for man) 
 years before the proportion of illiterates must have been 
 extremely small. We know to what use for FotK good and 
 ttl the German State subsequently put the multitudes of in- 
 teUigent men and women that formed the masses of their 
 people. The Germans built up great industries; they 
 formed from small beginnings a powerful empire notable 
 for the birth, growth, and development of many admirable 
 social institutions ; they were on the high road to material 
 success in many of the most important departments of life 
 when they unloosed a war destined to pull them from the 
 high place they had attained. 
 
 France 
 
 In France, as in England, the education of the people 
 was for many centuriea almost exclusively in the h^ds 
 of the Church, though, unlik'e England, France"Toept'aii 
 firm grip on the right residing in the State to determine,' 
 in the ultimate case, what education should be given and 
 to whom. 
 
 In the opening years of the French Revolution, good 
 promises were held out that the ignorant masses should 
 at last be enabled to attain to at least some measure 
 of the culture which comes from books. These fair 
 promises, like the proposals of Turgot and Condorcet, 
 were destined to achieve nothing. Indeed, at first the 
 Convention appeared to possess destructive capacities only. 
 It was easy to decree that the property of all endowed seats 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 pf education should be sold, and that the profits should go 
 to the State ; it was a simple matter to break up all the 
 religious associations devoted to teaching. These things 
 jwere effected, and in the name of liberty all colleges and 
 I faculties were dissolved. 
 
 U It must not be thought, however, that the Convention 
 was opposed to popular education; far otherwise. But for 
 a time in France, as in Russia under Soviet rule, theories 
 •of abstract liberty were permitted to destroy free institu- 
 itions. The ideal that a free state could not permit the 
 {existence within its organism of corporate bodies forming 
 ;an imperium in imperio was the peg on which was hung the 
 [destruction of everything that hitherto had opened its 
 doors to learning. The activities of the revolutionaries 
 were so fatal that Fourcroy could exclaim that France was 
 lapsing into barbarism. It was only when the tragedy 
 and horror of the Terror were lifting from the scene that 
 there is dimly perceptible the development of those con- 
 structive conceptions which were to give to the educational 
 world those two important organisms — the normal school 
 and the polytechnic. 
 
 On October 25, 1795, appeared the most memorable 
 
 of the revolutionary laws relating to public instruction, 
 
 the law of the 3rd of Brumaire, year IV. This law, founded 
 
 on a remarkable report by Daunou, organized everything 
 
 , connected with instruction. It was concerned not only 
 
 i with primary schools, central schools, special ^ schools ; it 
 
 I also regulated the public museums, the public libraries, 
 
 and the Institute. For primary schools it established a 
 
 state of things which endured, with little change, until 
 
 1833. 
 
 But when the terms of this law are examined it will be 
 seen how far the revolutionaries had receded from those 
 idealistic schemes which they had formerly announced. 
 The State was to have supported education with munifi- 
 cence ; schoolmasters were to have been among _ the 
 honoured of mankind; salaries were to have been high; 
 every child was to have had open to him the way not only 
 
 z 353 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 to the rudiments of knowledge, but to the learning of the 
 savants. In fact, the State now contributed nothing but 
 the schoolhouse, often merely a cellar; the schoolmaster 
 was paid what he could get from the local authorities ; 
 the child was to read, to write, to calculate, and to 
 understand the elements of the republican beliefs. In 
 the words of Guizot, the French Revolution contributed 
 to the cause of popular education " a deluge of words 
 and nothing more." It did, however, as Matthew Arnold 
 truly observed, render it impossible for any future Govern- 
 ment to estabHsh a system of education which was not 
 lay and which was not national, and so removed from the 
 future course of education many of the obstacles which 
 continually impeded progress in England. 
 
 It was not until the Ordinance^ of February 29, 18 16, 
 had been passed that any State contribution was given to 
 education. By that ordinance the small annual grant of 
 /^20oo was made a charge on the Public Treasury. In 
 1829 this grant was doubled; in 1831 it had increased to 
 ;^28,ooo, and by 1832 had reached the respectable total of , 
 240,000. ^ _ i] 
 
 In the following year (1833) a law was passed which 
 founded in France for the first time a system of national 1 
 elementary education, and which, in the words of I 
 Guizot, " repaid the debt which the country owes to all 
 its offspring so to train them that they may become human 
 beings." By the Ordonnance du Rot relative to elementary 
 education issued in the July of 1833, a general system of 
 national education under the control of local authorities, 
 subject to the control in certain points of the Minister of 
 Public Instruction, was established. The schools so 
 set up were either elementary or normal schools, though 
 the founding of higher schools was not excluded. All 
 private schools were thrown open to inspection * and 
 were required to be healthy. The local authorities were 
 ordered annually, in the August of each year, to consider 
 the state of those children who ought to be given free 
 education in a primary school. 
 
 354 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 The law was admirable, but its execution left much to 
 be desired. There was no local wish for schools. The 
 officers of the communes frequently opposed the officials 
 whose duty it was to inquire into the state of education. 
 They complained that the money the State offered could 
 be better used for the repair of the roads. In 1834, out 
 of the total of 36,826 commune only some 20,000 were 
 supplied with schools, and of these barely one-half possessed 
 school premises of their own ; in the other half the school 
 was held in any available building — a barn, a cellar, a stable, 
 or in the open air. Even when the communes did possess 
 its own schoolhouse it was often some dilapidated hovel 
 useless for other purposes — windowless, fireless, reek- 
 ing with damp. In one case it was found that eighty 
 children were being instructed in a room twelve feet 
 square. Epidemics not unnaturally reduced the child 
 population of France yearly. 
 
 But a start, which in its manifest defects was matched, 
 or more than matched, by the schools of England twenty 
 years later, had been made, and the subsequent history 
 of French popular education proceeded upon progressive 
 lines, so that to-day France is among the most highly 
 educated countries of the world. 
 
 England 
 
 Such was the state of affairs in the two chief countries of 
 Europe when, shortly after the passing of the Reform Bill, 
 Mr Roebuck made his apologetic speech in support of 
 national education before the House of Commons on 
 July 30, 1833. He was under no misapprehension as to 
 the temper of his audience : 
 
 It would be idle to hope that a subject like general education 
 could engage their [the politicians'] favour, or even occupy their 
 thoughts. Its results are distant — the benefits to be expected 
 from it can only be attained by the slow operation of time, patience, 
 and industry. There is nothing to raise the wonder and admiration 
 of the ignorant many. No party, no individual purposes can be 
 served by promoting it. Nought can be obtained by its assistance 
 
 355 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR | 
 
 but the pure, unalloyed benefit of the community at large. No 
 wonder, then, that it has been so long, so steadily, so pertinaciously 
 neglected. 
 
 Roebuck's Speech ' 
 
 But the times were changing, and it was on the ground 
 that with the passing of the Reform Bill the old order of 
 things had also passed that Roebuck based his case. 
 
 If, as heretofore, the majority of mankind were content to be 
 a slumbering mass, an inert and utterly inactive body, then the 
 policy [of non-interference], as a selfish policy, might possibly be 
 defended. But this is no longer the case. The business of govern- 
 ment is not, and can no longer be, the affair of a few. Within 
 these few years a new element has arisen, which now ought to 
 enter into all political calculations. The multitude, the hitherto 
 inert and submissive multitude, are filled with a new spirit. Their 
 attention is intently directed toward the affairs of State. They 
 take an active part in their own social concerns, and however 
 unwilling persons may be to contemplate the fact, anyone who 
 will calmly and carefully watch the signs of the times, will discover, 
 and if he be really honest and wise, will at once allow, that the 
 hitherto subject many are about to become paramount in the 
 State. I speak not now in the character of one desiring or fearing 
 this consummation, but merely as one observing the passing events 
 around me, and I mention the coming circumstance in the same 
 spirit as that in which an astronomer would predict an eclipse ; 
 to me the result appears inevitable ; and I therefore cast about 
 me to learn in what way this new force may be made efficient to 
 purposes of good, and how any of its probable mischievous results 
 may be prevented. 
 
 The State grants Aid J 
 
 The appeal thus made, supported by references to the ■' 
 recent French ordinance, achieved but little. The State 
 declined to make itself responsible for the education of 
 the masses, but a small concession was made to the 
 progressives by the grant of ;^2o,ooo to the two 
 great voluntary associations, the National Society for the 
 Education of the Children of the Poor in the Principles 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 lof the Established Church, and the British and Foreign 
 
 ■School Society. ^ i n .• 
 
 i The State grant was made dependent upon the collection 
 of private subscriptions. No Treasury grant was to be 
 Lade to any school unless at least half of the estimated 
 expenditure was met by private subscription. This principle 
 of basing State contributions on local contributions con- 
 tinued to be a prominent feature of State intervention in 
 England even after the passing of the Education Act, 
 1870, and did not disappear until 1876. 
 
 Voluntary Activity 
 
 From now onward voluntary effort, aided by small but 
 increasing Treasury grants, was for many years the basis ot 
 I such elementary education as was available for the children 
 i of the masses. In addition to the activities of the above- 
 mentioned associations the Wesleyans had numerous 
 I denominational schools, while in all the factory districts 
 ! a considerable proportion of the child-workers received 
 some shght tuition in the schools set up under the Factory 
 1 Acts In addition, there were a number of private schools 
 ' which, as we shall see, were rather of the nature of places 
 where children were ' minded ' than schools in the proper 
 
 sense of the term. . r ■, 1 
 
 Looking back upon the activities of the voluntary 
 associations, one sees a number of most worthy men and 
 women devoting their lives and their abilities to the service 
 of education. One observes the heads of the traimng 
 colleges spending their strength in grappling with the 
 desperate task of training teachers in three months; ot 
 teachers, ill-equipped and wretchedly paid, endeavouring to 
 instil some small measure of culture from their own limited 
 
 i stock into the minds of children who came to them from 
 bad environments and needy homes, who were crowded 
 
 i together in small and unsuitable schoolhouses in mixed 
 sexes and ages, and who devoted but a short space of their 
 lives— frequently not more than 150 days— to the pursuit 
 of 'knowledge.' It would ill become us, therefore, to cast 
 
 357 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 i 
 
 aspersions or slights upon the work of the faithful band 
 who did their best to reach the minds of the multitude of 
 children who attended the voluntary schools during last 
 century, but it must be stated that they failed, and failed 
 completely, to 'educate* the masses. The fault, we are 
 persuaded, was not theirs. They laboured, and they 
 laboured hard, to give of their best. They asked for none, 
 and received none, of the prizes of learning. But their 
 best was of necessity a poor best ; their task, stupendous as 
 it was, was beyond their powers. As a result, popular 
 education in this country has never, in our opinion, got on 
 to the right lines even to-day. As a revulsion from the 
 few poor facts that once were taught, we now have children 
 being instructed in the rudiments of all manner of subjects 
 for which they can have no use and of which they can only 
 acquire a smattering. The philosophy of education, though 
 fully understood by many engaged in elementary education, 
 has never been the dominant pursuit of the system as a 
 whole. The child of the masses even to-day is not educated. 
 He is not taught to think for himself along right and just 
 lines. He has no inkling, save in rare cases, of the majesty 
 of the world in which he lives or of the potential greatness 
 of his own nature. But compared with a hundred or even 
 fifty years ago the advances made have been considerable. 
 But we enter a caveat against the view that the spiritual 
 advances have been as great as the material improvements. 
 
 Brougham's Proposals 
 
 The grant established in 1833 continued without change 
 until 1839, when it was increased to ^^30,000 and a Com- 
 mittee of Council was appointed to superintend the ex- 
 penditure of the sums thus publicly contributed. In 
 the same year Brougham again introduced a Bill designed 
 to secure the aid of the rates in support of popularly con- 
 trolled elementary education. But although the religious 
 instruction aimed at in this measure was based upon the 
 Bible and not upon particular creeds, both the National 
 Society and the Established Church vigorously opposed it 
 
 3S8 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 on religious grounds and secured its rejection The same 
 5posilon wfs able to secure the defeat of the Government 
 p^Losals for founding a normal school f"?- '^e trammg 
 of school teachers. In one other direction, however, 
 an imoortant step forward was now taken. 
 
 Mtherto he v'^luntary and private schools had alike been 
 entirely free from Government inspection, or inspection 
 of any sort. In some cases, as a result, very serious abuses 
 had arisen Many years afterward, as we shall see, even 
 after^nsp;ction had been instituted, the schools were 
 nnsnitrble the rooms crowded, the books and niaterials 
 nc^^s'r^: instruction deficient^ and the teachers ,1 iterate 
 or uncultured. Before inspection was established the 
 position was still worse. Inspection by, or on behalf of, 
 the Government was first estabhshed in 1839- 
 
 Four years later Sir James Graham attempted, but failed 
 to secme the inclusion of compulsory education clauses 
 n his Factory Bill. Once again religion was the ground 
 on which the%roposals were'combated though now the 
 fear of high raters was added to the fear of low morals. The 
 clauses were lost, and Graham was convinced that a "a lonal 
 scheme of education was an impossibility and should be 
 finally abandoned as hopeless. 
 
 The Voluntary Effort — Results 
 
 The success which had attended the voluntary efFort 
 and the abuses which had grown up under the Jf m of 
 laissez-faire consistently pursued by successive G°vetnnien 
 are alike reflected in the voluminous and exhaustive reports 
 issued by the Newcastle Commission which eommenced 
 its inquiries in 1858 and issued its report '"1 861. By 
 that date the annual Treasury grant had reached he not 
 nconsiderable figure of ,£800,000. Many schools were 
 still uninspected and several of the poorer districts were 
 still without any educational facilities worthy of the name 
 Theltatistical results may perhaps be stated with sufficient 
 accuracy as follows : . . ^^ a^a 
 
 Of all the children in this country the majority attended 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 school for less than 150 days in a year, and 40*96 per cent, 
 attended for less than one year. Of those who attended 
 for more than one year the following table shows the 
 percentages : 
 
 Period of Attendance 
 
 Percentage of 
 
 Whole 
 
 Less than two years .... 
 
 „ three years .... 
 
 „ four years .... 
 
 „ five years .... 
 More than five years .... 
 
 24 -21 
 
 14-82 
 
 9-52 
 
 5-65 
 
 4-84 
 
 Total 59-04 
 
 With regard to the wealthier districts, the schools 
 established by the National and British Associations were 
 doing admirable work and were successfully teaching the 
 majority of the children the rudiments of learning. Taking 
 the country as a whole, however, it was shown that about 
 one-half of the child population went to school, and of this 
 one-half, a quarter, or an eighth of the whole, were being 
 successfully taught the ' three R's.* 
 
 The advance made between the years 1856 and i860 
 had not indeed been notable. In 1856 42 per cent, 
 attended less than one year, 22 per cent, one year and less 
 than two, 1 5 per cent, two years and less than three. The 
 establishment in that year of the office of Vice-President of 
 the Committee of Council to represent education in the 
 House of Commons had thus had no appreciable effect. 
 
 Condition of Factory Schools 
 
 Of the children who fall within these statistics and are 
 shown as receiving * education,' many were half-timers 
 attending factory schools, their school fees being contributed 
 in whole or in part by their parents. Of these schools 
 we obtain a picture in the evidence given by Mr Horner, 
 360 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 a factory inspector, who said : " I have been in many 
 such schools, where I have seen rows of children doing 
 absolutely nothing." In one school, where there were 
 sixty-two factory children, the master had been appointed 
 because he had met with an accident in the mill ; in another, 
 where the appointment had been due to the same cause, the 
 master could not read the Bible without making mistakes ; 
 in another, where the school was a cellar, the master had 
 been a soldier and was quite uneducated, and the children 
 did and learnt nothing; in another, eighty children were 
 crammed in a room 15 by 15 feet, used partly as a barber's 
 shop. Out of 426 schools in one factory district 76 could 
 be classed (on the standards of those days) as good; 26 
 as tolerably good; 146 as indifferent; 112 as less than 
 indifferent; and 66 as deplorably bad, or, in the words of 
 the Commissioners : " positively mischievous, as decep- 
 tions and a fraud on the poor, ignorant parents who pay the 
 school fees." 
 
 Even in many National and British schools, owing to 
 the inadequate state of their funds, the evil existed of 
 infants being admitted with children of more advanced age, 
 solely to make up the teacher's salary, rendering direct 
 and frequent communication between the teacher and the 
 child, that essential in education, wholly impossible. 
 
 Newcastle Commission Reports 
 
 The activities of the Newcastle Commission had as their 
 chief result the accumulation of a vast mass of interesting 
 information. An excellent precis of their recommendations 
 has been made by the Right Hon. T. J. Macnamara in the 
 following words: 
 
 I. That all assistance given to the annual maintenance of schools 
 should be simplified and reduced to grants of two kinds. The 
 first of these grants should be paid out of the general taxation of 
 the country, in consideration of the fulfilment of certain conditions 
 by the managers of the schools. Compliance with these con- 
 ditions was to be ascertained by the inspectors. The second was 
 to be paid out of the county rates, in consideration of the attainment 
 
 361 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 of a certain degree of knowledge by the children in the school 
 during the year preceding the payment. The existence of this 
 degree of knowledge would be ascertained by examiners appointed 
 by county and borough boards of education. . . . 
 
 2. That no school should be entitled to these grants which 
 did not fulfil the following general conditions : The school would 
 have to be registered at the office of the Privy Council, on the 
 report of the inspector, as an elementary school for the education 
 of the poor ; the school would have to be certified by the inspector 
 to be healthy and properly drained and ventilated and supplied 
 with offices ; and the principal schoolroom must contain at least 
 eight square feet of superficial area for each child in average daily 
 attendance.^ 
 
 Of these proposals those which related to local rate aid 
 were not given effect to; those which made State contri- 
 butions dependent on results were adopted and proved the 
 guiding principle of the so-called Revised Code, which was 
 described by its parent, Mr Lowe, as a code that would 
 secure either economy or efficiency. " If it is not efficient 
 it shall be cheap ; and if it is not cheap it shall be efficient." 
 Which end was secured appeared to be a matter of the 
 utmost indifference. 
 
 The Act of 1870 
 
 So far it will be seen that the passing of the Reform Bill 
 
 had done little for education. But in this and in other 
 
 matters of social reform it must be remembered, to employ 
 
 the expression used by Mr Binns, 
 
 that the House of Commons was still elected by a very small 
 proportion of the adult population ; even after the Reform 
 [Bill] of 1832 only one adult male in seven possessed the 
 suffrage. It was not until 1867 that any popular election 
 became possible, and the new national education policy dates 
 from this time.^ • 
 
 The Newcastle Commission had had an opportunity 
 of considering the truth of the oft-repeated view that not 
 
 ^ See his appendix to Mr Binns' A Century of Education. 
 2 H. B. Binns, A Century of Education. 
 
 362 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 only did the common people not press for education, but 
 they were positively antagonistic toward it. They established 
 the fact that tens of thousands of poor and illiterate parents 
 were only too anxious to give their children advantages 
 which they themselves had been denied. We have re- 
 corded for us cases where parents, frequently the mother, 
 had toiled and scrimped and saved to find the few pence 
 necessary to educate the children ; of sweated labour still 
 more sweated in order that the rising generation should 
 escape the miseries the parents had suffered. This attitude 
 was consonant with what we know of human nature, its 
 boundless capacity for sacrifice in a cause dear to it. It 
 was also according to human nature that parents, often 
 needy and usually hard-working, should not be anxious 
 to pay for instruction for their children that was education 
 only in name. Much of the opposition that was discovered 
 was found on inquiry to be opposition not to education 
 in general, but to the kind of education then being given: 
 the herding in small schoolrooms ; the control of illiterate 
 schoolmasters ; the withdrawing of children from employ- 
 ment in order that they might simply waste their time. 
 Time after time witnesses declared that such opposition as 
 existed was directed to the manner and not to the principle 
 of education. 
 
 With the passing of the Ballot Act and the prospective 
 increase of the franchise, it became more and more apparent 
 that the adequate instruction of the people was a national 
 necessity. Roebuck's vision in 1833 had been beyond 
 the range of most men, but now the nearest-sighted could 
 see that the masses were marching to power. The question 
 only remained whether the power was to be in the hands 
 of a semi-illiterate multitude who would fall victims to the 
 demagogue and the inspirer of class passion, or of an 
 educated people capable of exercising a balanced judgment. 
 The proposals which had been spurned in 1833 now became 
 obviously right. 
 
 By the Act of 1870 the voluntary system was in effect 
 abandoned, though it continued in operation for many 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 years thereafter. For the first time the cost of education 
 was placed to some extent on the shoulders of the rate- 
 payer, and as a result, as Brougham had foretold, the ability 
 of the voluntary associations to secure their subscriptions 
 gradually declined. The Education Act of Forster 
 supplemented the voluntary system by erecting local 
 school boards which were empowered, if they thought 
 fit, to build board schools which could secure an income 
 partly from the State and partly from the local rates. For 
 rate aid to be secured it was necessary that there should 
 be local control and no religious teaching which involved 
 the teaching of a religious catechism or religious formulary 
 distinctive of any particular denomination. 
 
 In the words of the Right Hon. T. J. Macnamara : 
 
 The two systems, the old and the new, grew apace together. 
 New denominational schools sprang up under the Act of 1870 — in 
 thirty-five years the Church school enrolment rose from 1,173,345 
 to 2,305,949 ; the Roman Catholic from 74,122 to 339,554 ; 
 and the new board schools began to cover the more neglected part 
 of the educational field.^ 
 
 The Modern Phase 
 
 From now onward education began to extend both in 
 scope and in direction. The University ceased to be an 
 institution which lay entirely beyond the reach of the 
 masses. The University Extension movement, which 
 may, perhaps, be traced back to the extra-mural lectures 
 which were delivered in 1847, was given the impetus which 
 firmly established it by the discussions which raged around 
 education at the time of the introduction and passing of 
 the Education Act, 1870. The new courses of lectures 
 intended for adults which were begun in Liverpool in 1870 
 and attained great popularity in the Midlands in the .year 
 following were at length given official recognition by the 
 University of Cambridge in 1873. From that date the 
 University Extension movement may be said to have been 
 
 1 Op. cit. 
 364 
 
THE MENTAL HORIZON 
 
 founded. It has since been supported by the other principal 
 universities, and now occupies a not inconsiderable place 
 in the formation of opinion and the development of culture 
 in this country. 
 
 The University Extension movement hardly belongs, 
 however, to the masses. It is primarily middle class. The 
 working man has been approached rather by means of 
 special institutions such as the Working Men's College, 
 founded in 1 854 by Frederick Denison Maurice. Further, 
 a great impulse was given to popular technical education, 
 using the term * technical ' in the widest sense, by the 
 passing of the Technical Instruction Act, 1889, which 
 gave effect to the recommendations of the Royal Com- 
 mission on Technical Instruction (1880-1884), Despite 
 these advances, however, both adult and secondary educa- 
 tion were shown to leave very much to be desired at the 
 time of the sitting of the Bryce Commission of 1 8 95. 
 
 As yet there was no coherent and comprehensive 
 organization in existence. The central authority was in 
 the hands of widely different and somewhat antagonistic 
 bodies. The child, however able, who commenced his 
 education in the elementary school had no clear road 
 before him. There were serious breaks in the chain. 
 The secondary system could not be regarded as a link 
 between the elementary school and the University ._ The 
 masses in general might, perhaps, be regarded as literate, 
 but could not be considered as educated. From 1891 
 it may be said that free education was universal except 
 among the upper classes, that the curricula of the free 
 schools tended to expand, and that some facilities were now 
 in existence for acquiring technical instruction, and that, 
 largely as a result of voluntary effort, many and valuable 
 lectures were being given up and down the country on 
 subjects suitable for the instruction of adults. ^ 
 
 By the end of the nineteenth century a central authority 
 had been formed. The Board of Education had replaced 
 the Education Department, the Science and Art Depart- 
 ment, and the Education branch of the Charity Commission. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Three years later, by the Act of 1 902, a national system was 
 developed capable of wide expansion. As a result the 
 voluntary system, which had struggled on after the passing 
 of the Act of 1870, became, contrary to the intention of 
 the framers of the Act, practically dead. An elaborate 
 universal free system had taken the field. The subsequent 
 years, up to the passing of the Act of 191 8, are not notice- 
 able for the passing of any measures of major importance. 
 Such Acts as the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1 906, 
 bear witness to a spirit very different from that which had 
 inspired the legislature one century before, when an Educa- 
 tion Bill had been thrown out of the Commons because it 
 was feared that to teach the ' lower orders * how to read 
 was to invite revolution. What will be the effect of Mr 
 Fisher's admirably conceived Education Act remains still 
 to be seen. At no time in our history did we require more 
 absolutely a well-informed and instructed people. At 
 present, however, one feels that Britain is but on the 
 threshold of popular education. Much spade-work has 
 been done, but the harvest has yet to be gathered. 
 In the words of Professor Adamson : 
 
 The years between 1870 and 1903 witnessed a development of 
 English public instruction which has no equal in our history ; it 
 affected education of all grades and was particularly, though not 
 exclusively, marked in the sphere of administration. When the 
 twentieth century opened, the country possessed apparatus of a 
 complete national system administered by local and central authori- 
 ties, with the Minister of State at the head, who in fact, though not 
 in name, held powers approximating to those of Minister of Public 
 Instruction in foreign governments. The legislation of 1902-3 
 which founded that system is, however, not a goal but a starting- 
 point. The machinery is there ; the country has yet to decide for 
 exactly what purposes and how best the machinery shall be em- 
 ployed ; as witness the Act of 19 18. The nation's failures and 
 successes in the field of education have been made manifest ift the 
 course of the Great War. With those lessons to instruct policy, 
 and machinery at hand to give it effect, the greatest chapter in the 
 history of British education lies in the future.^ 
 
 ^ A Short History of Education. 
 
 366 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 THE primitive condition of mankind is one of 
 poverty, ignorance, and helpless subjection to the 
 forces of nature. The history of civilisation 
 narrates the steps by which man, in part at any rate, has 
 emerged from this original state of disability. Man is not 
 naturally rich, nor wise, nor free. Wealth, knowledge, 
 and liberty are the gifts of civiHsation. Personal liberty, 
 the institution of property, the right of exchange, and the 
 enlargement of the intellectual horizon^ which security 
 creates, are the elements out of which, in the course of 
 history, civilisation has proceeded." 
 
 With these words Thomas Mackay commences the 
 final volume of the History of the English Poor Law 
 begun by Sir George Nicholls. The words are apt to 
 introduce a consideration of the attempts which modern 
 governments have made in their assault upon the citadel 
 of poverty, for they seem to explain why for so many years 
 poverty was looked upon as an inevitable concomitant of 
 our present mode of Hfe, and as constituting the natural 
 penalty which nature inflicts upon the failures, the ignorant, 
 and the helpless. 
 
 For centuries, as we have seen, after poverty became a 
 vital factor in the national life of Europe, the Poor Law 
 palliative was applied in a m.anner destined inevitably to 
 prostrate still more absolutely those who were driven to 
 receive this charity of the State. Even in the early nine- 
 teenth century both French observers and our own minister. 
 Canning, looked upon the Poor Law rather as a preventive 
 of revolution, as a kind of insurance scheme against 
 national upheaval, than as a method of saving human beings 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR . 
 
 from the consequences of failure inducing want and often ' 
 resulting from fortuitous circumstances beyond their own 
 control. 
 
 The Old Order 
 
 At the time of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834, 
 a vacillating system which oscillated between the extreme 
 repulsion of the poor and the extreme attraction of the i 
 destitute had created a Poor Law administration which, 
 as we have seen, threatened to destroy the moral fibre 
 of the people. It has been well said that the Georgian j 
 poor laws had succeeded in many districts in giving to 
 the labourer and his family the security of servitude. But 
 the age was long past in which a free people was prepared 
 readily to see the country relapse into that hierarchy of 
 varying status from which it had emerged three centuries 
 before. A law which confined the labourer to his parish, 
 dictated who should be his master, and awarded wages 
 not in accordance with services, but in accordance with 
 wants, was manifestly incapable of living in the freer air 
 introduced by the passing of the Reform Bill. 
 
 As Mr Senior has said: " Before the Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Act, nothing but the power of arbitrary punishment 
 was wanting in the pauperised parishes to a complete 
 system of praedial slavery." ^ This, perhaps, is an 
 exaggeration, for though in theory the labourer was tied 
 to the land almost as securely as in the days of serfdom, 
 in practice he did migrate in his thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands to other districts and to other employ- 
 ments. But in so far as the State could act it did act in 
 the sense described and in the direction of the deliberate 
 pauperization of the labouring classes of the country. 
 
 The truth of the matter appears to be clear. Up to 
 the Act of 1834 the Government of the country wa^ not 
 interested in the poor. It occasionally had cause to fear 
 the destitute, it sometimes found it necessary to placate 
 them. Its attitude was that of the timid man to the tramp 
 
 1 Historical and Philosophical Essays. 
 
 368 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 on a lonely country road. It flung a pittance to a threaten- 
 ing mob which it would cheerfully have eliminated had it 
 known how to effect so desirable a result. With the 
 coming of the franchise the sentiments of the Government 
 were changed, though at first not sharply. The earlier 
 electorate represented the middle rather than the working 
 classes. The pauper still remained a bogy; but the poor 
 rate had to be reduced. In course of time, and with 
 successive broadenings of the elective basis, the poor have 
 been regarded in a more and more favourable light, until 
 in the closing years of the nineteenth century the principle 
 I began to be accepted that one of the most important of 
 the duties of government consisted in the prevention of 
 [destitution. 
 
 Poor Law Reform 
 
 The aims of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834 were, 
 however, strictly limited to reforms of the Poor Law 
 system. Their main purpose appears to have been the 
 separation of the problem presented by the able-bodied 
 but destitute person from that created by the orphan, the 
 sick, the insane, and the aged, and the abolition of the 
 evils consequent upon the existence of mixed workhouses, 
 full of all manner of persons, some mad, some infantile, 
 some senile, some honest but unfortunate, others dishonest 
 and debauched. The Speenhamland system was definitely 
 departed from, and outdoor relief was based on a new 
 principle. 
 
 These aims have not been attained completely. The 
 mixed workhouse still exists. As the minority report of 
 the Poor Law Commission, 1905-9, points out: 
 
 Of the 50,000 children who are in Poor Law Institutions in 
 England and Wales, there are still 15,000 living actually inside 
 General Mixed Workhouses. We found that in Scotland, where 
 it is commonly assumed that the Poor Law children are either 
 boarded out or maintained upon Outdoor Relief, there were 1845 
 children in the General Mixed Workhouses, or not far short of 
 as many in proportion to population as in England itself. In 
 
 2 A 369 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Ireland, out of 9000 children maintained in Poor Law Institutions, 
 no fewer than 8000 are in the General Mixed Workhouses, where 
 their condition is worse in that they do not even go out to the 
 public elementary day school, but are taught in the workhouse 
 premises. Nor is it otherwise with the sick and the aged. Of the 
 uncounted host of inmates of Poor Law Institutions who are so 
 sick or infirm as to need nursing or medical attendance — estimated 
 [in 1909] to number in the United Kingdom at least 130,000 — 
 more than two-thirds are in General Mixed Workhouses. Of the 
 140,000 persons over sixty in Poor Law Institutions, only a 
 thousand or two in England and Scotland, and none at all in Ireland, 
 are in the separate establishments recommended by the Report of 
 1834, where "the old might enjoy their indulgences without 
 torment from the boisterous." 
 
 The responsibility for this result, a result deplorable 
 from many social aspects, was due primarily to the attitude 
 adopted by the majority of the local authorities, who ignored 
 the recommendations of the Commissioners of 1834, the 
 representations of successive Local Government Boards, 
 and the general trend of Poor Law legislation. They 
 had the power, and, in the interest of the ratepayers, they I 
 not unnaturally exercised that power with a close regard to 
 cost. As the minority report above quoted states : 
 
 To the Boards of Guardians of 1835, as to their successors 
 in many a subsequent decade, it seemed a wanton waste of 
 money to maintain a series of separate small institutions, all 
 having vacant places Within a few months we see the at- 
 tempts given up, and all the classes of poor huddled into a single 
 building. 
 
 As regards outdoor relief, the Report of 1834 most 
 sharply distinguished between the case of the able-bodied 
 and the non-able-bodied. In respect of the former class 
 it was recommended that outdoor relief should cease, and 
 although the cessation was not effected immediately, the 
 tendency has been steadily to restrict the amount of assist- 
 ance thus given to the able-bodied, until by the end of the 
 nineteenth century it might be said that such relief had 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 I 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 The non-able-bodied, however, called for different 
 treatment. 
 
 [The ancient] system of granting doles and allowances to the 
 non-able-bodied poor, accepted by the Royal Commission of 1834, 
 has never been prohibited by the Local Government Board, and 
 has accordingly continued with its authority down to the present 
 day [1909]. The sum thus distributed is now very large, approach- 
 ing in the United Kingdom no less than ;^4,ooo,ooo sterHng 
 annually. It has during the past fifteen years greatly increased, 
 and it is at present, taking the whole United Kingdom, probably 
 greater than at any time since 1 834. More than two-thirds of the 
 whole of the paupers are, in fact, in receipt of Outdoor Relief.^ 
 
 This system developed, however, not so much as the 
 result of a coherent centralized scheme as in conse- 
 quence of the activities of the local Boards of Guardians. 
 It was to the local authority that the poor had to look, 
 and various local authorities had varying standards. In 
 some districts outdoor relief ceased to be offered almost 
 as completely to the non-able-bodied as to the able-bodied 
 poor. In such districts the only relief was the workhouse — 
 usually a mixed workhouse. 
 
 Such was, in broadest outline, the condition of Poor Law 
 relief at the time when the Poor Law Commissioners 
 commenced, in 1905, their gigantic task of inquiring into 
 all aspects of the Poor Law question. 
 
 As a result of their four years' labour, a most valuable 
 series of reports was issued, some differing largely from 
 others, but all unanimously in favour of a radical change 
 in the whole system. The principles of 1834 were now 
 jettisoned en masse \ an effort was at last made to construct 
 a system which should be human and humane. 
 
 The New System 
 
 A new impulse was now given to various movements 
 which had already gathered considerable momentum, and 
 which were concerned with the elimination of fortuitous 
 destitution. Of these movements that concerned with 
 
 1 Minority Report, cited. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 the avoidance of poverty due to loss of wage-earning 
 capacity as a consequence of accident was at once the 
 earliest in date and the most universally adopted. In this 
 department of social science Germany first invented the 
 system of compulsory insurance which has since won 
 world-wide approval. 
 
 The German Accident Law 
 
 The German Accident Law, which commenced in 1884*. 
 was based on the fact that modern conditions of labour 
 involve of necessity a high accident rate, and such circum- 
 stances are not met by a law, built up to meet different 
 circumstances, which gives the injured worker a claim 
 to damages only in cases where the person injured can 
 estabhsh that the employer was himself at fault. 
 
 The German Imperial Liability Law of 1871 continued 
 to recognize the principle that an employer's liability must 
 depend on the presence of fault in him, but the Law of 1884 
 was inspired by the following quite different principles : ^ 
 
 1. Proceeding from the assumption that he who creates an 
 • enterprise,' that peculiar structure of human beings, things, and 
 forces, and induces human beings to labour among arms of steel 
 moving at uncanny speeds, establishes a source of danger and 
 becomes responsible for damage resulting from this source. Under 
 this theory employer's fault need not be proven. The fact that 
 injury has been caused establishes a right to compensation. 
 
 2. Convinced that in many cases the resources of the individual 
 employer w^ould not prove equal to the enormously increased 
 liability, and that, therefore, the existence of the employer as well 
 as the compensation of the injured worker would be jeopardized, 
 individual responsibility was eliminated, and in its stead was placed 
 the collective responsibility of the industry. 
 
 3. To carry out this idea large industries, as well as agriculture, 
 commerce, and crafts, or small industries, were organized into 
 employers' associations grouped according to callings. That is, 
 legally incorporated self-governing bodies were formed, which 
 
 1 We quote from a translation of an official memorandum which appears 
 in Messrs Schwedtman and Emery's Accident Prevention and Relief. 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 every employer was compelled by law to join. Upon these organi- 
 zations was placed the responsibility of carrying and administering 
 the accident compensation system, and to this end they were 
 invested with far-reaching legal powers. ^ 
 
 4. Accident prevention, being of greater importance and 
 larger social value than compensation, was also placed in the hands 
 of these employers' associations, with the necessary legal authority 
 for enforcement of rules. 
 
 The principle of compulsory insurance thus commenced 
 las tended somewhat to extend at the expense of the 
 apposing system of optional insurance which for many 
 years was the characteristic of the English compensation 
 jsystem. In 1908 Sig. Luzatti, on behalf of Italy, and 
 M Millerand, representing France, signified their acceptance 
 of the compulsory principle, which was also recommended 
 by the Committee on Workmen's Compensation which sat 
 
 'in London in 1920. 1 r 1 j • 00 
 
 But the grand principle that was established in 18 84, 
 and which has since been adopted by every civihzed 
 country, was that the worker should be compensated 
 almost automatically for the loss he had suffered through 
 being injured while at work. That principle is of immense 
 importance; the particular machinery for giving effect to 
 it is comparatively unimportant. 
 
 The English System 
 
 ] In England the question of workmen's protection and 
 compensation was under discussion long before the German 
 
 ' Accident Law was passed. Thanks largely however, to 
 trade union activity, the Enghsh, by pursuing the impossible 
 ideal of the prevention of accident, failed to solve the simpler 
 problem of the prevention of destitution due to accident. 
 It was not until 1897 that a measure was passed to com- 
 pensate those whom Joseph Chamberlain referred to as 
 ♦'the wounded soldiers of industry"; it was not until 
 1906 that the principle underlying the German Accident 
 Law was definitely appropriated by Mr Asquith, who said 
 when introducing the well-known measure of that year: 
 
 373 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 "Where a person, on his own responsibiUtyand for his own 
 profit, sets in motion agencies which create risk for others, 
 he should be civilly responsible for the consequences of 
 what he does." Unlike Germany, however, England has 
 hitherto consistently refused to require compulsory in- 
 surance as distinct from compulsory compensation. As 
 we have seen, recent recommendations tend toward the 
 German system. 
 
 The first proposals which were made in England to 
 protect the injured worker were conceived in the spirit 
 of the factory legislation — that is to say, it was sought to 
 protect the employee by penalizing the employer. Thus 
 in 1846 the Select Committee on Railway Labourers 
 supported the proposal to impose upon railway com- 
 panies the obligation to compensate their employees who 
 had been injured, by pointing out that by so doing the loss 
 would fall upon those who could best prevent the injury. 
 The same attitude was adopted at the Trade Union Con- 
 gress of 1877, when Thomas Halliday, the miners' leader, 
 opposed a proposal to press for compensation on the ground 
 that prevention and not compensation was wanted, and that 
 the best way to secure this was to make the employer 
 responsible. The idea that the making of the employer 
 responsible was the best way to prevent accidents was 
 in later years the basis of much of the opposition to 
 any form of accident insurance, which it was realized 
 would result in shifting the liability on to insurance 
 associations. 
 
 In truth, however, the responsibility of the employer 
 under the law as it stood in the first seven decades of the 
 nineteenth century was small enough. 
 
 Under the common law of England, as developed by the 
 Courts in the nineteenth century, a workman impliedly 
 ran the risks of his employment, and the negligence of a 
 fellow-servant, or even of a foreman or supervisor, was 
 deemed to be one of those risks. The master was liable 
 for personal negligence, but, apart from that, a workman who 
 suffered injury in the course of his work found himself in 
 
 374 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 the generality of cases without a remedy against anyone. 
 He was left with diminished earning powers to fight the 
 battle of life unaided. The harshness of the old common 
 law was somewhat mitigated by the passing of the 
 Employers' Liability Act of 1880, but under that Act the 
 workman could only recover damages and could recover 
 damages only in certain circumstances. 
 
 The fact that damages and not compensation was re- 
 coverable marks the main distinction in principle between 
 the Act of 1880 and the Act of 1897. Damages connote 
 the commission of an actionable wrong; compensation is 
 payable where an accident has befallen even though no one 
 is at fault. In the vast majority of cases the happening 
 which injures the workman is a mere mishap, is no wrong, 
 and consequently was not provided for in the earlier legisla- 
 tion. Further, under the Act of 1880 the workman and 
 his employer could ' contract out ' — that is to say, could 
 agree that the Act should not apply. For many years 
 the trade unions endeavoured to secure the repeal of the 
 section which permitted contracting out, and this and other 
 flaws were sought to be removed by Mr Asquith's Em- 
 ployers' Liability Bill of 1893, which was eventually lost 
 through the insertion of unacceptable amendments by the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 Workmen's Compensation 
 
 A bolder course was pursued four years later, for as Lord 
 Brampton said: 
 
 It was felt by the Legislature that it would be but just and right 
 to confer upon a large class of workmen, whose necessities com- 
 pelled them to seek employment in certain specified dangerous 
 occupations, in the course of which accidents, not always possible 
 to be guarded against, are of frequent occurrence, some purely 
 casual, others, no doubt, attributable to negligence or default of 
 fellow workmen whom it would be idle to sue, or others whose 
 ■ identity could not be established, a right to claim compensation to a 
 moderate or limited amount in respect of the loss of such wages as 
 they were incapacitated from earning in consequence of accidental 
 
 375 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 injury, upon mere proof of the accident and its resulting loss, 
 irrespective of its cause. 
 
 Another object was to impose the obligation of providing such 
 statutory compensation upon those to whom good sense would 
 naturally point as the fittest persons to bear it, and to define for the 
 convenience of injured workmen seeking compensation the persons 
 from whom they are entitled to claim it, and, further, to provide 
 a simple proceeding, entailing comparatively trifling expense, by 
 which such compensation might, if necessary, be enforced. To 
 carry out these very laudable objects the Act of 1897 was passed. 
 
 At first, however, the principle of compensation was 
 applied only to certain dangerous trades or to work in 
 buildings exceeding a certain height. Industrial disease 
 was not a subject for compensation. The scope of the 
 Act was widened in 1900 to include agricultural workers, 
 but in 1906 a Workmen's Compensation Act was passed 
 extending the protection hitherto afforded to special classes 
 of employed persons to practically every kind of manual 
 worker and to non-manual workers, whose income did not 
 exceed a certain maximum. 
 
 In the words of the Committee appointed in 19 19 to 
 inquire into the working of the system thus inaugurated : 
 
 The new Act abandoned the principle of excluding all work- 
 men not expressly included, in favour of the plan of extending the 
 Act to all employments with some few specified exceptions ; and 
 industrial diseases were brought within its scope. 
 
 Benefits were unaltered, but certain technical improve- 
 ments were effected in the machinery of the Act, and it is 
 the system thus established that has formed the pattern 
 which other countries have in many cases followed. 
 
 The Act of 1906 was not concerned with the prevention 
 of accidents. The prevention of accidents remained as 
 it had been for more than half a century the care of. the 
 Home Office, and the subject of numerous Factory and 
 Mines Regulation Acts. The Workmen's Compensation 
 Act concentrated upon securing to the injured man and 
 his family a limited weekly support depending on his 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 earnings and turning on the principle that in case of mishap 
 employed and employer should share equally the pecuniary 
 loss resulting; in the case of death the dependents were 
 to receive a certain sum of money calculated in certain 
 cases upon the earnings of the deceased and never exceeding 
 the maximum of ;/^300. 
 
 Henceforward all employed persons, with certain 
 insignificant exceptions, the most important of which were 
 share fishermen and non-manual workers receiving more 
 than £2^0 a year, who were injured by an accident arising 
 out of and in the course of their employment, or who con- 
 tracted certain specified diseases as a result of their employ- 
 ment, were, or in the case of death their dependents were, 
 entitled to compensation. Since the Act has been in 
 operation tens of thousands of persons who in the Middle 
 Ages would have become beggars or vagabonds, and who 
 in the era of the Poor Law would have sunk into permanent 
 pauperism, have been enabled to tide over misfortune and 
 to return once more to their former occupations without 
 having to suffer the destruction of their homes due to a 
 casualty. 
 
 Social Gains 
 
 Experience has shown that the good thus obtained did 
 not result in any heavy charge upon industry. Under the 
 proposals made by the Committee on Workmen's Com- 
 pensation in 1920 the benefits to be paid were very sensibly 
 increased, indeed were more than doubled, but it was 
 calculated that in the case of the coal trade such increase 
 would not cause the price of coal to rise by more than 
 twopence a ton. In fact, of course, the risk of loss by 
 accident has been shifted to insurance associations, the 
 employer's liability being measured by the premiums 
 that he pays — a liability which varies trade by trade and 
 according to the number of accidents suffered in any 
 particular mill or factory. There has been little or no 
 evidence to show, however, that the care for safety has 
 cither increased or decreased as a result. 
 
 377 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR j 
 
 When we consider the insurance figures we see at once 
 what a mighty weight has been removed from the working 
 population by the passing of these Acts. In the eieht 
 years 1911-1918 no less a sum than ^14,586,207 was paid 
 out by msurance offices alone under workmen's compensa- 
 tion policies. If to this formidable sum we add the amount 
 paid by mutual insurance societies and by uninsured 
 employers, we obtain the measure of the loss from which 
 the working classes have been saved in only eight years 
 in the United Kingdom alone. 
 
 The merit of this new movement is so obvious that 
 it is believed, it has been adopted in every civilized country 
 in the world in some form or other. The two patterns 
 have been the German system of compulsory compensation 
 and insurance on the one hand and the British system of 
 compulsory compensation and optional insurance on the 
 other hand. It may be said that the general trend is in 
 favour of the German plan. Year by year we find the 
 system becoming more and more developed, whether we 
 regard great states such as America, important industrial 
 dominions such as the Union of South Africa, or Crown 
 Colonies such as Nigeria. Under British rule in numerous 
 cases limited benefits of a like nature have been extended 
 to native races as well as to white employees. Throughout 
 our overseas dominions we find not only the principle 
 of compensation for accident established, but also com- 
 pensation being granted for incapacity due to industrial 
 disease, while simultaneously elaborate measures— such 
 for example, as the Miners' Phthisis Act, 19 19, of the 
 Union of South Africa— have been designed for the preven- 
 tion of,^ and compensation for, particular diseases special 
 to certain employments. 
 
 Health Insurance 
 
 The establishment of workmen's compensation did 
 much to eliminate one great cause of destitution, but it 
 hardly touched the problem of poverty due to sickness. 
 In such cases, apart from the very limited number of 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 illnesses due to industrial disease, the worker was left very 
 largely dependent upon his own resources. It is true 
 [hat ample facilities existed for insuring against such risks 
 [hrough the great Friendly Societies, sick-pay clubs, 
 and the like, but experience showed that in a very great 
 bumber of cases those nearest the border-line of poverty 
 Were the most likely to leave themselves unprotected in the 
 case of illness. With some this was due to thoughtlessness 
 ind thrifdessness, with others, such as casual dock-labourers, 
 it was due primarily to persistent poverty and recurring 
 periods of absolute want. In both cases it resulted in the 
 State being constantly confronted with masses of broken men 
 and women whose condition was such that when bad times 
 ,and bad health combined they fell into hopeless misery. 
 I In this department of social reform Germany again led 
 the way. The innovation was not made without resistance. 
 When in the eighties of last century the National Insurance 
 legislation was under discussion in Germany it was declared 
 by many that the burden upon industry would result in 
 economic chaos. The critics were, however, confounded 
 by the course of events, and in 1 9 1 o Dr Kaufmann declared : 
 I The course of events has justified the authors of the Industrial 
 
 ■ Insurance legislation. During the last two decades German 
 national economy has experienced an almost unexampled develop- 
 ment, and by the raising of its physical, intellectual, and material 
 condition the working class has participated in this development. 
 It was no accident that the period of this great expansion syn- 
 chronized with a radical improvement in the condition of the 
 workers, for the two are intimately connected. 
 
 Again, Dr E. Muensterberg, formerly director of the 
 Berlin Poor Law Administration, has left it upon record that : 
 There can be no doubt that the Insurance Legislation has raised 
 the standard of life of the industrial population and also that of 
 the poorer classes. The public poor funds [similar to our poor 
 rates] have unquestionably been relieved by the insurance laws. 
 Even where the expenditure on paupers shows no decrease it is 
 acknowledged that, without this social legislation, such expenditure 
 would have been far greater, since the major part of those insured 
 
 379 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 would have needed poor relief. It cannot be denied that the 
 General Insurance Legislation has exerted an enormous influence 
 on the public care of the poor in every direction. In consequence 
 of the Sickness Insurance Lav/ in particular all industrial work- 
 people, and, to a large extent, the members of their families as well, 
 have been lifted above the necessity of seeking poor relief in time 
 of sickness. To this extent the relief afforded to the poor funds 
 has been absolute. 
 
 Despite the success of the German Sickness Insurance 
 legislation, the principle was not adopted in England until 
 191 1, when, thanks mainly to the activities of Mr Lloyd 
 George, the National Insurance Act of that year was passed. 
 This Act, which has since been substantially amended and 
 extended, was designed to effect two great ends : 
 
 (i) Insurance of the working population against sickness, 
 breakdown, consumption, and unemployment. 
 
 (2) A reduction of the number of paupers, with conse- 
 quent reduction in the poor rate and in the 
 expenditure on Poor Law administration. 
 
 There can be little doubt that in the main these aims 
 have been achieved. There can also be little doubt that 
 the administration of the Act and the amending Acts has 
 been marked by notable abuses. We are concerned, 
 however, only with principles, and in principle the National 
 Insurance scheme represents a substantial step forward. 
 On its unemployment side it has since the passing of 
 the Act of 1 9 1 1 been greatly extended and now forms a 
 valuable protection against unmerited poverty. 
 
 The Minimum Wage 
 
 It is, however, of little service to elaborate machinery 
 to save a man from indigence due to lack of earning capacity 
 resulting from temporary causes if such man when -em- 
 ployed is in receipt of a wage so low as to be unable to 
 support him and his dependents in a reasonable standard 
 of Hfe. Accident, sickness, and unemployment insurance 
 law must thus be supplemented by provisions requiring the 
 380 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 payment of what has come to be known as a * living wage.* 
 As Mr PhiHp Snowden has observed in A Living l^Vage : 
 
 The trend of all industrial and social legislation for more than a 
 century has been in the direction of the establishment of a Living 
 Standard. Various motives have entered into the support of such 
 legislation. The moral appeal, the industrial and social economy 
 of healthier conditions and of a better educated working class, the 
 political and trade union pressure of labour, have all contributed. 
 
 In speaking of a ' living standard ' Mr Snowden here 
 means something far wider than a living wage. A wage 
 is only one part of the numerous particulars that conjointly 
 establish the standard of life. Conditions of work, home 
 environment, mental environment, are as important in 
 some respects as the quantum of the wage earned. How 
 such conditions and environments have been changed 
 for the better we have already seen. But in another sense 
 they are less important than the existence of a living wage, 
 for upon that must depend the others. Poverty carries 
 with it in its train all material miseries, and though it may 
 spur the genius to works of supreme grandeur its effect 
 on the mind of the common man is dulling and depressing. 
 
 But though this be so, though the full advantage flowing 
 from Factory, Housing, and Education Acts cannot be secured 
 to the man permanently on the edge of destitution, though 
 tens of thousands of men and women were employed in 
 industries known as * sweated,' it was not until quite recent 
 years that the Government passed legislation designed to 
 secure a living wage to all. 
 
 There were, in fact, powerful and unexpected opponents 
 to any such course of action. The trade unions, which 
 in the last few decades of the nineteenth century grew to 
 such power, were inclined to rely on their power of 
 bargaining; the employers raised the age-old cry that 
 wages higher than those then paid meant ruin for their 
 industry. The operatives themselves were among the 
 humblest, the poorest, and the feeblest of mankind. Once 
 again, as at the time of the regulation of mines, it was 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 through the activities of humanitarians working through 
 the power of ParHament and the benevolence of a democratic 
 Government that this principle of the minimum wage was 
 established by the passing of the Trade Boards Act, 1909. 
 
 Long before then, in 1891, and again in 1893, i^ is 
 true, Parliament had recognized the right of certain persons; 
 in Government employ, viz., persons employed in naval 
 establishments, to receive a living wage. But the Act of 
 1909 went much further than that. For the first time 
 since the repeal of the Tudor legislation the State definitely 
 interfered with the fixing of wages, and now it interfered 
 for the purpose of establishing not a maximum but a 
 minimum rate of wage. 
 
 The application of the Act was, of course, limited. 
 Only those trades specifically mentioned, viz., certain forms 
 of tailoring, box-making, machine-made lace or net finish- 
 ing, and chain-making, together with such other trades 
 as might be added by Order, were included. By the 
 amending Act of 191 8, however, the Minister of Labour 
 is empowered by special Order to apply the principal Act 
 to any specified trade to which it does not at the time apply 
 if he is of opinion that no adequate machinery exists for 
 the effective regulation of wages throughout that trade, 
 and that accordingly, having regard to the rates of wages 
 prevailing in the trade, it is expedient that the principal 
 Act should apply to that trade. 
 
 It thus appears that the policy of the State as regards 
 wages is to look primarily to free bargaining between 
 those representing the employers and the employed. This 
 system has within very recent times been strengthened 
 and elaborated by a vast number of converging factors, 
 by the organization of the opposing parties, the develop- 
 ment of conciliation machinery, the institution of arbitral 
 tribunals. Where, however, despite such machinery, free 
 bargaining cannot operate satisfactorily, either because of 
 the unorganized state of the trade or for other reasons, 
 then there is available as a last resort the Trade Board 
 legislation which establishes or permits the establishment 
 
 382 
 
THE ATTACK UPON POVERTY 
 
 "or such trade of a minimum wage sufficient to prevent 
 :he destitution of the workers. 
 
 The principle of the minimum wage has, of course, been 
 ntroduced into the jurisprudence of many other states. 
 [t is always impossible, within reasonable limits, to consider 
 such matters comparatively. The mass of legislation, 
 especially within recent times, on any one subject of social 
 improvement is so great as to defy analysis in a short space. 
 An occasional example can alone be given. 
 
 In all matters relating to a minimum wage Australia has 
 taken a leading part. Many years ago the Commonwealth 
 fixed ;^i lo per annum as the minimum wage for all Govern- 
 ment employees who were adults, women as well as men. 
 Later this principle was extended to various kinds of private 
 employments, though, of course, the rate has varied. 
 
 Thus, for example, legislation was passed in Victoria 
 as early as 1896 which established a minimum wage for 
 certain trades, viz., clothes-making, boot-making, furniture- 
 making, and baking. Its scope was subsequently ex- 
 tended, and in 1905 a consolidating Act was passed. The 
 English Act was modelled upon the experience of Victoria. 
 
 In England it is also necessary to refer to the ' panic ' 
 legislation which followed after the great coal strike of 
 1 9 12. The Coal Mines Minimum Wage Act of that 
 year was not desired by the miners and was opposed by the 
 owners. The Government were fearful of its probable 
 consequences, but in the words of Mr Asquith : 
 
 His Majesty's Government are satisfied, after careful considera- 
 tion, that there are cases in which underground employees cannot 
 earn a reasonable minimum wage, from causes over which they 
 have no control ; and they are further satisfied that the power to 
 earn such a wage should be secured by arrangements suitable to 
 the special circumstances of each district ; adequate safeguards 
 to be provided to protect the employers against abuse. 
 
 It will be realized that this Act proceeded from very 
 different motives from those which inspired the Trade 
 Boards Act. It conflicted with the principle of free and 
 fair bargaining, it regulated wages in an industry notable 
 
 383 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 for the exceptional strength of its trade-union organization, 
 it resulted directly from a strike, and it has, in our opinion', 
 been of disservice to the industry and to the community. ' 
 
 Old Age Pensions ' 
 
 The various measures that we have already considered 
 have gone far to remove the possibility of fortuitous in- 
 digence. Neither these nor any other Acts of Parliament, 
 however, _ are capable of saving more than the waifs and ; 
 strays of industry. National prosperity must to-day, as in 
 past ages, be the result of the ability and industry of the 
 generality of men. The strike, recognized even by Mr 
 Snowden as a thing which "never did bring much sub- 
 stantial gain to the workers," the policy of ca' canny, the 
 antagonism between the two parts of industry, capital and 
 labour, these may offer obstacles to progress and prosperity 
 more fatal than any that have yet been overcome. But the 
 solution of these problems is in the hands of the masses 
 themselves. A benevolent Government can do but little. 
 
 But_ in one further particular the State has succeeded in 
 removing the great fear which has hitherto overshadowed 
 the lives of the workers. The problem of an unprovided- 
 for old age is no modern one. Formerly those who were 
 unthrifty or unfortunate were abandoned to the care of 
 their children or to the shelter of the workhouse. The 
 course of their lives rendered it almost impossible to save 
 any considerable sum of money, and only too frequently 
 it befell that in the declining years the hard-working and 
 respectable old man or woman was condemned, for im- 
 prisonment could hardly have been worse, to associate 
 with the loose, the rowdy, and the degenerate inhabitants 
 of the workhouse. This last indignity has in no small 
 measure been removed by the various Acts which have 
 granted and extended the pensions now paid to all workers 
 who reach a certain age without being chargeable on the 
 rates. Such people have run a hard race, and the prize now 
 reserved to them, if small in amount, is one that is merited, 
 is earned, and is appreciated. 
 
 384 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TENDENCIES 
 
 WITHOUT aspiring to prophecy it may be useful, 
 now that we have surveyed in broad outHne the 
 history of Labour, to endeavour to determine the 
 probabilities of the future from the happenings of the 
 past. As Professor Carlton has observed : 
 
 The trend of events in the past and present may furnish aid in 
 discerning in a general way the direction in which we are moving. 
 A study of industrial and social evolution provides some reasonable 
 foundation for a tentative discussion of the present tendencies 
 affecting the relations existing between labour, capital, and the 
 general public. The evolution of political authority since the fall 
 of the Roman Empire has been carefully studied by historians and 
 publicists. Lagging behind in the shadow of this development 
 is a somewhat similar transformation in industrial affairs. The 
 latter movement is less spectacular, and up to recent times has 
 never attracted much attention. In their political evolution the 
 most progressive Western nations have passed from exploitation, 
 barbarian-warrior control to absolute centralized management, 
 on to the admission of the commercial and manufacturing interests 
 to participation in governmental functions, to the use of the 
 constitutional form of government, and finally to the modern 
 democracy with its broad suffrage provisions. A similar evolution 
 may be traced in the realm of religion and in the family life. The 
 industrial world is the last stronghold of the despotic principle.^ 
 
 We have taken the above passage from the writings of 
 an American economist of some note, because we believe 
 that the most important movement in the world of labour 
 to-day is that which desires to see the nationalization of 
 industries, and because on this issue it is desirable to 
 
 1 History and Problems of Organised Labour. 
 
 2B 385 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 distinguish between revolution and evolution, and to see 
 whether the aim desired should by now have been attained 
 in the course of evolution. If not, then we may assume 
 that to achieve that aim at once revolutionary means, 
 in either the social or the industrial world, must be resorted 
 to, and it therefore remains to be considered whether the 
 end justifies those means. 
 
 Definitions of Nationalization 
 
 When considering such a question as nationalization 
 of industries it is of the first importance to define terms. 
 Nationalization has, indeed, been given at least three 
 broadly different meanings, and these meanings have all 
 been confused. In Germany, in connexion with the 
 State coal mines which have been said to have been 
 nationalized, nationalization simply means State owner- 
 ship with bureaucratic control. In this sense also the 
 postal, telegraph, and telephone systems of this and many 
 other countries may be described as nationalized; in the 
 same way the railway systems of Belgium and of certain 
 parts of France have been the subjects of nationalization. 
 
 In all the above cases the persons employed in the 
 industry in question are not peculiarly interested or con- 
 sidered. They have no more control than in the case of 
 private concerns. These State concerns when resolved 
 into their parts turn out to be huge monopolistic trusts 
 differing only from capitalistic trusts in the fact that even 
 if profits are made they go not to the advantage of any 
 individual, but to the profit of the State in general. 
 
 A second kind of nationalization is that which was 
 pressed for by various industrialists in South Africa who 
 desired to see State mining introduced into the goldfields 
 of South Africa, particularly in the case of the East Rand 
 goldfield. Here, as in the case of the first kind of nationali- 
 zation above mentioned, the form of nationalization desired 
 was State ownership with bureaucratic control, but it 
 differed in this, that the aim of those who pressed for State 
 ownership was to carry on the business not so much for 
 
 386 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 the purpose of profit-making as for the benefit of the persons 
 employed in the industry, or, rather, for the benefit of the 
 white labour employed in the industry. This form of 
 nationalization was rejected by the State Mining Com- 
 mission for the Union of South Africa, which issued its 
 majority and minority reports in 191 7. 
 
 The third, or perhaps we should admit the possibility 
 of more than three variants by saying a third, form of 
 nationalization is that which emerged as a result of the 
 deliberations of the Coal Industry Commission which sat 
 in London in 1919 to consider the nationalization of the 
 coal-mining industry of Great Britain. This form of 
 nationalization may be described as the democratization of 
 industry, whereby the ownership is in the State as share- 
 holder, and the direction and control is partly in the State, 
 partly in the worker, and partly in the consumer, the interests 
 of those who supply the money and the labour and of those 
 who purchase the product of the industry being thus alike 
 safeguarded. By a small majority this form of nationaliza- 
 tion was recommended by the Coal Industry Commission 
 for the consideration of Parliament, but the recommenda- 
 tions were rejected by the Coalition Government then in 
 power, whose decision appeared to be subsequently ratified 
 by public opinion as expressed both in the public Press 
 and in the industrial world by the refusal of trade unionists 
 to allow the issue thus created between the miners and the 
 Government to be made the ground for a general strike. 
 
 It is of this form of nationalization that we at present 
 more particularly speak, though it should be understood 
 that, in considering it, it is necessary to postulate that if 
 sound it would of necessity involve the nationalization not 
 merely of the coal industry but of all industries, and 
 if unsound in respect of the one industry in relation to 
 which it has been most critically examined, it would be 
 also unsound for all other industries. In other words, 
 nationalization as a principle is either good for all industries 
 or good for none. 
 
 It is necessary to make one more preliminary remark. 
 
 387 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 One may hold strongly to the view that nationalization is 
 a thing of the future, and is a form of industrial organism 
 which offers great advantages to the State and the workers, 
 without admitting that it is either desirable or possible 
 at the present moment. In the same way a visionary in 
 the fourteenth or even in the early part of the eighteenth 
 century might have looked forward with fervent hopes to 
 a time when the control of states should be in the hands 
 of the subjects of those states. Such a reformer might 
 have struggled and fought for the immediate rise of a free 
 democracy. Had he done so, either he would have fought 
 in vain, or, had he won, he would not have advantaged the 
 people. For the rise of a free democracy capable of 
 exercising effective control over national destinies depends 
 not so much upon the machinery of government as upon 
 the mental and spiritual development of the citizens who 
 form the state. To give adult suffrage, or, in other words, 
 to hand over the control of the machinery of government 
 to a people that is unlettered and superstitious, that is 
 unacquainted with foreign affairs and ignorant of internal 
 conditions, that is incapable of forming an ordered judgment 
 either on the ends to be pursued or as to the means to 
 accomplish such ends, would be to create not democracy 
 but disorder. 
 
 It is therefore necessary not only to consider whether 
 a proposition for social betterment is theoretically sound, 
 granted a perfect state of society; it is also important to 
 see whether society is perfect or, if not perfect, sufficiently 
 developed to make the end pursued not only possible but 
 expedient. To attempt to foist on an unprepared people 
 political or social forms for which the fabric of their society 
 is not designed is to invoke a form of revolution and to 
 risk shattering the whole structure. It is as though, 
 desiring to improve a building, one should impose upon the 
 ancient foundations new stories which those foundations 
 were never intended to carry. The result would not be a 
 skyscraper, but a heap of ruins. No more perfect example 
 of the desolation resulting from attempting to achieve 
 
 388 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 Dolitical and social progress without taking count of the 
 pxisting structure of society is to be seen than in the 
 .Russian Revolution, where the granting of what appeared 
 theoretically to be a constitution giving absolute freedom 
 in politics, society, and industry resulted in a despotism 
 in which liberty of opinion and action was absolutely 
 .destroyed. There, indeed, we have seen what was intended 
 ;to be the splendid edifice that should replace the absolutism 
 lof Tzardom crash into a mere heap of disordered fragments 
 in which neither rich nor poor could find shelter. 
 
 In considering the question of nationalization we shall 
 consequently regard the matter first from the point of view 
 of a society that is sufficiently developed to receive it and 
 then we shall endeavour to determine whether our social 
 state as it exists to-day is so sufficiently developed. 
 
 Efficiency the Test 
 
 Industry, it may be assumed, should exist for the benefit 
 of the people at large. It should, therefore, at once produce 
 goods as cheaply as possible in as large a quantity as 
 possible. Those engaged in industry should receive wages 
 that are as high as possible in return for work carried out 
 through the minimum number of hours. These aims, 
 stated dogmatically, are all desirable; they are also 
 mutually destructive. It is therefore necessary for the 
 reformer to balance each one against the others until it is 
 found what are the best hourage and wage that will produce 
 the most suitable quantity of products at the most just cost. 
 
 It will be apparent that, without going into any detail, 
 the optimum in each of these various directions cannot be 
 reached unless there is present on the part of all concerned 
 the maximum efficiency. To take a simple case, if we 
 regard an absolutely efficient factory in which is working 
 an absolutely efficient workman, such workman will pro- 
 duce more articles at a less cost than would a poor workman 
 operating in an ill-equipped factory. Such articles could 
 consequently be sold at a less price; and if it were so 
 desired, the workman, instead of turning out so many 
 
 389 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 articles at such a small cost, could work fewer hours 
 at the same wage, or could work the same hours for a 
 higher wage. 
 
 Efficiency, therefore, becomes the test whether this or 
 that form of industrial organization makes for the public 
 good. For the maximum efficiency to be achieved it is 
 necessary to have maximum efficiency in management as 
 well as in labour, in distribution as well as in production, 
 in development as well as in the exploitation of that which 
 is already developed. 
 
 What, then, is likely to make for the maximum efficiency ? 
 It will be observed that in considering the advantages to 
 be arrived at we have looked almost entirely at material 
 advantages : many and cheap products ; high wages ; 
 reduced hours involving much leisure. We have chosen 
 these benefits as ones that are obvious and make a natural 
 appeal to those who live to-day in a material world. But 
 the acceptance of these advantages involves the further 
 acceptance of material gain as the main motive force of 
 human activity. It follows as a consequence that material 
 rewards form the best incentive to efficiency. 
 
 Let us, therefore, see how such propositions fit in with 
 the theory of nationalization. It is possible that in a 
 perfect state of society in which men were all possessed 
 of a high level of education, imbued with a desire to serve 
 their generation, in which duties were recognized with 
 the same force as rights, and in which it was considered 
 to be dishonourable not to give of one's best during 
 the hours one was labouring for the State, men would 
 achieve the maximum efficiency without supervision or 
 control. In such a Utopia the labour half of the machine 
 would run smoothly and safely without either oiling or 
 guards. It is possible, also, that the most able men would 
 come forward and place their brains and abilities at the 
 service of the State without thought of private fortune or 
 personal aggrandizement. It might then be that inventors 
 would produce their schemes and devote their leisure and 
 their ideas to the service of humanity for nothing; that 
 
 39° ^^ 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 lanagers would be content to become as efficient as 
 >ossible solely in order that the community might benefit 
 From their knowledge and experience; that capital would 
 be diverted into the channels where it was most needed 
 without regard to the profits that would accrue so only 
 that a reasonable return was secured. To state these possi- 
 bilities is to show, however, how far we are yet from a 
 state of society in which the material incentives now 
 offered by commercialism or capitalism could safely be 
 dispensed with. 
 
 When we get down to the hard bed-rock of actualities 
 a very different stratum of fact is discovered. 
 
 Efficiency of State Control 
 
 It has been strongly urged both in England and else- 
 where that the experiences of the War have proved that 
 the State direction of industry results in a vast increase in 
 the production of things necessary for the well-being of the 
 State. In the words of the Report of the South African 
 State Mining Commission of 191 7: 
 
 At the present hour political thought is dominated by the 
 facility with which States, in pursuit of divers State interests, 
 sacrifice the lives, the property, and the well-being of their subjects. 
 The manifestation during the War of the omnipotence of States 
 over their subjects was frequently referred to in evidence as pointing 
 to the necessity of States exercising similarly extensive activity in 
 the time of peace for the purposes of industrial development. . . , 
 It was frequently asserted in evidence that the exigencies of warfare 
 had settled once and for all the question as to the respective advan- 
 tages and disadvantages of public and private enterprise. The 
 measures adopted by Governments in industrial organization to 
 secure material for military purposes were accepted as marking 
 the close of the era of industrial organization under the control of 
 the private firm or the public company. 
 
 There can, of course, be no doubt that the State control 
 of industries for war purposes did achieve very notable 
 results in the production of war material and in the growth 
 and transport of the necessities of Hfe. How great that 
 
 391 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 achievement was in Britain may be gathered from Sir 
 Leo Chiozza Money's interesting book, The Triumph of 
 Nationalization. It is only possible, however, to compare 
 like with like. One cannot, for example, compare a hippo- 
 potamus with a pearl ; the hippopotamus may be much 
 larger without being more valuable. It is also apparent 
 that the whole circumstances of industry during war 
 and during peace are fundamentally unlike. The Govern- 
 ment War effort was carried on regardless of convenience 
 or cost ; practically the whole man-power of the country 
 was diverted into immediately necessary and ultimately 
 absolutely useless work; shells were produced in gigantic 
 quantities and at enormous cost; the public credit was 
 widely broken into to sustain for a few years an effort 
 which, if maintained even for a decade, would have plunged 
 the world into universal ruin. Is it in any way possible 
 to compare such activities with peace-time commerce } 
 Is it possible to ignore the fact that, as a result of the 
 necessary and valuable steps taken by Governments to 
 meet an overwhelming peril, the cost of living has in- 
 creased threefold, many people are without houses, half 
 the nations of Europe are trembling on the verge of 
 bankruptcy, and the British National Debt is counted in 
 terms of thousands of millions .? 
 
 In view of these considerations it appears necessary 
 for the purpose of clear thinking to brush on one side war- 
 time experiences altogether. The whole circumstances 
 were extraordinary, and both life and money were then 
 disregarded. Rather let us compare like with like and see 
 how in times of peace the State control of industries com- 
 pares with private control so far as efficiency of management 
 is concerned. 
 
 The most valuable comparison which can be made is 
 probably between the working of the State and the private 
 mines of Germany, but if such examples as the working 
 of the telephone system of America or Great Britain under 
 private management and under public control were resorted 
 to, it would be seen that even in simple businesses involving 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 little more than organizing and administrative ability the 
 I comparison does not favour State control. 
 I In Germany State coal-mines have been worked for 
 j more than a century, and at the time of the outbreak of war 
 in 1 9 14 a substantial part of the coal output of that country 
 was derived from State mines. Between the years 1881- 
 19 10, while the output from private mines increased from 
 44,865,000 to 125,916,000 tons per annum, that from the 
 State mines increased from 9,596,000 to 20,002,000 tons 
 per annum. The State mines thus produced roughly one- 
 sixth of the amount of coal obtained from private mines, 
 and formed therefore an important branch of the industry. 
 Now, it may be assumed that the test of efficiency in 
 management is to be found not in the gross output, for that 
 may depend upon the size of the concern, but in the output 
 per man employed, and when this test is applied over the 
 twenty-two years from 1889 to 1 9 1 1 it is found that 
 whereas under private ownership in Germany the output 
 went up from 247 to 253 tons per man per annum the 
 output in the State mines commenced at the comparatively 
 low figure of 239 tons per man per annum and dropped to 
 223. It will therefore be seen that whether in respect of 
 productivity in any one year or over a series of years. State 
 ownership and State control of the German type has proved 
 itself to be less efficient than private ownership; and such 
 comparative inefficiency has become greater with the passing 
 of the years. 
 
 Had this low productivity resulted in the workers 
 employed in the industry being better treated in the 
 matter of either wages or hours the loss to the consumer 
 would in some measure have been compensated by the 
 gain to the producer; but, in fact, the workers in the State 
 mines were paid less for the same number of hours of work, 
 with the result that the cost of production in the State 
 mines was before the War about the same as, though 
 slightly higher than, the cost in private mines. When we 
 turn from coal to metalHferous mining in Germany we find 
 that the State mines are uniformly carried on at a loss. 
 
 393 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 It is because of such considerations as these that the Chief 
 of the Bureau of Mines in America cabled at the time of 
 the sitting of the South African State Mining Commission 
 that ; 
 
 In the United States the Government policy towards mining 
 and other industries has tended, as evidenced in the mineral and 
 land laws and anti-trust legislation, towards the rewarding of 
 industrial effort and the encouragement of competition rather 
 than towards State operation or socialistic effort. 
 
 Experiences 
 
 When we consider the experiences of other countries 
 that have experimented with State ownership and control 
 of industries we find that the results obtained have not 
 been exceptionally good or in any way superior to those 
 attained under private ownership. Whether we consider 
 the State mines of Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, South 
 Australia, New South Wales, New Zealand, Holland, or 
 Austria-Hungary, or the efforts made by the Dutch Colonial 
 Government in Banka Islands and by the English Colonial 
 Government in Nigeria, we discover either a lack of success 
 or results not superior to those obtained by private owner- 
 ship working under similar conditions. It is true that 
 in the Netherlands the wages paid in State mines during 
 the years 1911 to 1914 were slightly higher than in the 
 case of privately owned mines, varying from 4*65 shillings 
 to 4*98 shillings per day for underground men as against 
 4*23 and 4*92 shillings respectively in the case of privately 
 owned concerns, but the output per man was substantially 
 lower, varying from 21 i*i tons to 257*9 tons per annum as 
 against 273*5 ^^^ 285*6 tons. Here again, as in the case 
 of Germany, the State proved less able to overcome excep- 
 tional difficulties, the output per month in 1916 having 
 dropped to 13*65 tons as against the 18*3 tons obtained 
 under private enterprise. 
 
 In certain isolated cases exceptional financial results 
 have been secured under State management, but only in 
 circumstances most favourable to profit-making. Thus, 
 
 394 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 during the Boer War the late South African Republic con- 
 fiscated and worked certain gold mines in the Witwaters- 
 rand under the direction of the then State Mining Engineer. 
 Naturally, the best and most paying mines were selected, 
 and these mines had already been developed and equipped 
 and were in perfect running order. The best stopes were 
 worked; no development was carried on; stores found 
 were used and not replaced, or charged out against working 
 costs. The inevitable results were that high profits were 
 secured, but the mines themselves were exhausted and 
 rendered far less valuable. The next attempt on the part 
 of the Transvaal Government to mine, this time for tin 
 in the Pietpotgietersrust district, under normal conditions 
 had a very different sequel, as did the activities of the 
 Nigerian Government in the exploitation of the oil deposits 
 of Southern Nigeria. 
 
 Collateral Advantages 
 
 Indeed, it may be said that experience hitherto has shown 
 that the State control of the industry of mining, an industry 
 which we take for the sake of example because it is the 
 most important and the most complex industry that has 
 hitherto been nationalized to any extent, can only be justified 
 on the ground that by that means only can certain collateral 
 advantages be secured ; it cannot be justified on the ground 
 that by its means the industry itself has been rendered 
 more efficient. 
 
 The collateral advantages aimed at have in the past 
 been numerous and diverse. In Germany the Silesian 
 State coal-mining industry was begun by Frederick the 
 Great in order to supply the State smelting works with 
 coke, and the metal-mining industry, which, as we have seen, 
 was originally carried on at a loss, was commenced in 
 order to supply employment to miners thrown out of work 
 by the refusal of private capitalists to continue working 
 mines which showed no profit and held out no hope of 
 profit in the future. These mines were also used to give 
 work to discharged soldiers. In later years the State coal- 
 
 395 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 mining industry of Germany was extended for the same 
 reason that the coal-mines at Port Elizabeth, Liverpool, 
 and Seddonville were sunk by the New Zealand Govern- 
 ment, viz., to ensure a regular and cheap supply of coal to 
 the State railways and to protect the State in particular 
 and the consumer in general from trade combines which 
 threatened to increase the cost of coal — a most worthy 
 object which, however, could be achieved, it would seem, 
 by legislation such as the anti-trust legislation of the 
 United States. The Victorian State mine, on the other 
 hand, was opened chiefly owing to a strike which occurred 
 in a neighbouring State from which the bulk of the coal- 
 supply had hitherto been obtained, while the Argent Flat 
 Mine in Tasmania was developed for experimental reasons, 
 for, all the mines in the Zeehan District having been worked 
 out and closed down, the Government was approached 
 to sink a deep shaft to ascertain if the deposits existed 
 at a depth below those attained by private enterprise. 
 
 But although the existence of collateral advantages 
 may offer a reasonable ground for nationalizing a particular 
 industry, it is no ground for nationalizing all industries. 
 To carry on one industry at a loss may in some circum- 
 stances be prudent; to carry on all at a loss inevitably 
 involves national bankruptcy. But, as we have seen, 
 nationalization as a theory of industrial organism must be 
 true for all or none. As a theory it must stand or fall on 
 the general and not on the particular case. 
 
 Workers' Control 
 
 The experiments in nationalization which we have above 
 glanced at have given results by which we can test the first 
 and second forms of nationalization. We have seen, 
 however, that under the third form of nationalization as 
 above defined the control would not be solely in the hands 
 of the State, but would be divided among the State nominees 
 and those appointed by the workers and the consumers. 
 It is therefore desirable to consider whether efficiency 
 would be increased by this composite control. 
 396 
 
I TENDENCIES 
 
 There has been little experience hitherto of complex 
 concerns being carried on either by workers or by their 
 nominees. The Co-operative movement, as it is under- 
 ! stood in this country, is hardly a case in point, for in that 
 : case the workers are in combination simply in the position 
 of an individual capitaUst; the shareholders exercise no 
 more control than do the shareholders of any ordinary 
 trading company; the managerial staff are chosen because 
 i of individual technical skill, not because they are the chosen 
 1 of the workers. The nature of the experiences of Russia, 
 ' where, it would appear, serious efforts have been made to 
 run industrial concerns by councils of workmen is as yet too 
 i little known to enable safe conclusions to be deduced there- 
 from but there is every sign that the attempt has resulted 
 in a complete economic and industrial catastrophe, which 
 I has doubtless been accentuated by the political misfortunes 
 of that unhappy country. The experiences in Italy, during 
 the 1 9 1 9-20 crisis, in so far as they go, point the same way. 
 t It IS however, probably unjust and certainly unwise to 
 ' argue from the experiences of countries that are either 
 on the brink of or plunged in the midst of revolution. We 
 • are consequently thrown back upon the probabihties of 
 the case in any endeavour to foresee the effect upon efficiency 
 of workers' control. It would certainly be a matter for 
 i surprise if a financier, or a commercial magnate, or a director 
 ■ or a company secretary could go into the factory and 
 undertake without training the work of the skilled mechanic 
 i and rival him in the production of articles of manufacture 
 the surprise at such an achievement would be due to the 
 fact that skill in one department of life is not usually 
 proof of skill in an entirely different branch of activity. 
 By what inversion of reason, therefore, is it to be sup- 
 posed that the skilled mechanic or the unskilled labourer 
 could bring new strength and wisdom to the delibera- 
 tions of a board of directors or could secure the more 
 efficient management of industries .? If he did not achieve 
 this miracle, how could his advent either improve the lot 
 of the workman or meet more surely the needs of the 
 
 397 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 consumers ? For the same reasons it is not obvious how 
 control by consumers could increase efficiency. 
 
 The Need for Efficiency 
 
 It may of course be urged that the well-being of the 
 community rather than the efficiency of industry should 
 be the goal to be aimed at, and that the triple control we 
 have been considering would secure this aim by giving 
 to the people the control of capital rather than to capital 
 the control of the people. It may, however, be demon- 
 strated that well-being and efficiency are mutually depen- 
 dent terms. It is of little purpose to assume the control 
 of capital in the name of the people if by so doing the 
 condition of the masses is degraded ; it matters little who 
 rules so that the people are advantaged. 
 
 That efficiency and well-being depend the one upon 
 the other is a maxim of economics which no one has yet 
 succeeded in disproving. That efficiency has hitherto 
 been most securely attained by the offer of material ad- 
 vantage is the experience of all mankind ; that in a better 
 and wiser condition of society other, purer, and more 
 powerful motives might be found is an attractive possi- 
 bility which has not yet reached the stage of probability. 
 Whether with the spread of education and the creation of 
 a true and universal corporate spirit it will ever be possible 
 to replace wealth by more worthy incentives the future 
 alone can show. The present, it would seem, can be best 
 employed by endeavouring with all the means available 
 to increase efficiency by improving the well-being of the 
 people. Already important steps have, as we have seen, 
 been taken to this end; other and valuable efforts are at 
 present being made by all the civilized nations of the earth. 
 The end is not yet, and the years that lie before will probably 
 see improvements in the conditions of Hfe which at the' time 
 of the Reform Bill would have been regarded as Utopian. 
 Such advances will not, however, be secured cheaply. 
 The spread of education, the increase of leisure, the per- 
 fecting of living and working environments, all draw either 
 
 398 
 
TENDENCIES 
 
 upon the pool of labour from which all wealth comes or 
 directly upon the wealth thus derived. All progress, 
 therefore, appears to depend in the last resort neither 
 upon forms of government nor upon the desire to govern 
 benignly, but upon the readiness of all to give of their best 
 in brains or toil in the directions in which their activities 
 arc devoted. 
 
 The End and the Means 
 
 But even assuming that the whole fabric of the industrial 
 organism does require to be entirely re-woven ; even 
 assuming that Mr Webb is justified in making his dogmatic 
 pronouncement that " The situation which has to be 
 faced is that, at the present moment, that system [the 
 Capitalist System], as a coherent whole, has demonstrably 
 broken down " ; ^ the question remains in what manner 
 the change is to be effected. 
 
 At the moment the civilized world is presented with 
 two alternatives. Either we must have revolution or we 
 must allow the slower but more sure processes of evolution 
 to carry us through to the destined end. 
 
 The dangers, the miseries, the losses involved in the 
 acceptance of the first alternative are certain. The world 
 has experienced them not once but many times. We have 
 seen, not once but many times, noble aims stirring passions 
 which, once aroused, passed beyond control, and which 
 resulted in excesses and atrocities and retrogressions 
 very different from the ends envisaged by the men who set 
 the evil thing in motion. But when we ask for what 
 certainties are these ascertained and known evils to be 
 suffered we find ourselves in the realm not of fact but of 
 opinion. It is merely this or that man's opinion that this 
 or that advantage will accrue. 
 
 Revolution is indeed the expression of active opinion 
 
 pressed home and violently enforced by the few. When 
 
 once an opinion has been adopted by the many so that 
 
 it may be said to be accepted, it no longer, in a democracy, 
 
 ^ A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. 
 
 399 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 becomes necessary to resort to violent means. The way 
 is clear, the tree falls of its own weight and age and needs 
 no ruthless hewing away. It falls because it is rotten, 
 not because somebody thinks that it is rotten and ought to 
 be cut down. 
 
 But evolution is acceptable as a policy for those who 
 believe real wrongs exist only on the supposition that the 
 opinion of the many is the dominant factor in our political 
 life. It is useless to look to evolution to remove such 
 wrongs if the people, though needing and desiring change, 
 are powerless to effect that change by the peaceful ex- 
 pression of their desires. Evolution as an acceptable 
 principle to modern man is thus dependent on the effective- 
 ness of our political system as a democratic system. It 
 has become the fashion with certain thinkers whose minds 
 are bent toward the Left to regard modern democracy 
 as a snare and a delusion. But we ask very seriously 
 the questions : Is our present political system a fraud ? 
 If it is, why is it .'' 
 
 Modern Democracy 
 
 Democracy, in the true sense, as a system of government, 
 is a thing of very recent growth. England, a country 
 that may be regarded as a political pioneer, has only within 
 the last few years arrived at the stage of adult suffrage. 
 Long after the Reform Bill had been passed political power 
 was exclusively in the hands of the upper and middle 
 classes. When at length the masses were admitted to a 
 share in the direction of the country's destinies it was only 
 on a narrow franchise, seriously impaired as regards effective- 
 ness by the very real powers remaining to that close 
 corporation the House of Lords. Even, however, with a very 
 imperfect form of democracy as yet established, with all the 
 forces of bribery and intimidation still unloosed, we have seen 
 that notable advances were made in our social life throughout 
 the middle period of the nineteenth century. Since the ex- 
 tension of the franchise and the strengthening of the power 
 of the House of Commons have been effected, political power 
 400 
 
I TENDENCIES 
 
 has been utilized more and more in order to improve the 
 conditions under which the masses Hve and work. That 
 such is the fact may be learnt by all who will peruse the 
 Statute Book, by all who will contrast the conditions of 
 to-day with the conditions of the last generation. This 
 fact opposes a strong argument to those who say that the 
 people can find no hope in the development of democracy, 
 but must go beyond and look for salvation in the rude 
 destruction of ordered institutions. 
 
 The Hope for the Future 
 
 Even as we see little gain flowing from movements 
 which would violently interfere with political development, 
 so also the tendency toward class antagonism so clearly 
 evident to-day is, we believe, a vicious tendency. There 
 are, it is true, many thousands to-day who are sympathetic 
 toward the opening words of the constitution of the 
 Industrial Workers of the World : " The working class and 
 the employing class have nothing in common." The 
 whole trend of history would appear, however, to show that 
 mankind in general, and the masses in particular, have 
 reached their present state, a state immeasurably superior to 
 that of primitive man, through those who have sought to raise 
 up the unfortunate rather than through those who have 
 endeavoured to pull down the fortunate. Evolution has 
 been based upon sympathy rather than upon hate. The 
 fundamental conceptions of those who would level by 
 puUing down are founded in hate, and, unless we are to 
 witness a reversal of the processes of evolution, cannot 
 finally prevail. They can, however, cause grave tem- 
 porary troubles and can place a clog on the wheels of 
 progress. 
 
 We look rather to the general spread of education, true 
 education that informs the mind and teaches it to reason, 
 as the great hope of the future. Man long ages ago 
 emerged as the grand selected animal to whom the power 
 of thought and ordered analysis of causes and effects was 
 given. Through the ages he has toiled along the road 
 
 2 C 401 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 I 
 
 that Nature then opened to him. He will find his final 
 salvation when, discarding the methods of the brute, he at 
 length directs his course of action according to his reason, 
 and when that reason is cultivated to its highest and is 
 equipped with knowledge. That is the grand movement 
 that will most surely solve our present ills. 
 
 402 
 
A LIST OF SELECTED BOOKS 
 
 The following short list gives the books and editions which it is 
 believed will prove of the greatest interest to the general reader. 
 Blue Books and official publications are not included, A good 
 bibliography of such publications, which are extremely numerous 
 and often very valuable, will be found in the Catalogue of the Library 
 of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade (now the Ministry 
 of Labour). 
 
 Adamson, Professor J. W. 
 
 A Short History of Education. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1919. 
 Ashley, Sir W. J. 
 
 Economic Organisation of England. Longmans. London, 1 91 4. 
 
 The Beginnings of Town Life in the Middle Ages. 1896. Re- 
 printed from the Quarterly ^Journal of Economics, Boston. 
 
 The Progress of the German Working Classes in the Last Quarter 
 of a Century. Longmans. London, 1904. 
 Baines, Sir Edward 
 
 History of the Cotton Manufacture. London, 1836. 
 Bamford, Samuel 
 
 Early Days. T. Fisher Unwin. London, 1893. 
 Bellet, Daniel 
 
 L' evolution de Pindustrie. Paris, 19 14. 
 BiNNs, H. B. 
 
 A Century of Education. J. M. Dent & Sons. London, 1908. 
 Bland, A. E., Brown, P, A., and Tawney, R. H. 
 
 English Economic History — Select Documents. Bell. Lond. 1 9 1 4. 
 Bonar, James 
 
 Malthus and his Work. Macmillan. London, 1885. 
 BowEN, Judge Ivor 
 
 The Great Enclosures of Common Lands in Wales. Chiswick 
 Press. London, 19 14. 
 Brentano, Professor Lujo 
 
 On the History and Development of Gilds and the Origin of 
 Trade Unions. London, Oxford, 1870. 
 
 403 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Brown, P. A. — see Bland, A. E, 
 Bryce, James, Viscount 
 
 Democracy. Macmillan. London, 1921. 
 Buckland, Professor W. W. 
 
 The Roman Law of Slavery. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1908. 
 Butler, J. R. M. 
 
 The Passing of the Great Reform Bill. Longmans. Lond. 19 14. 
 Carlton, Professor F. T. 
 
 History and Problems of Organised Labour. D. C. Heath 
 & Co. Boston and London, 191 1. 
 Chamberlayne, Edward 
 
 State of England [Angliee Notitia). Various editions from 1 669 
 onward. 
 Chapman, Sir S. J. 
 
 fVork and IVages. 3 vols. Longmans. London, 1904-14. 
 
 (Edited by) Labour and Capital after the War John Murray. 
 London, 1918, 
 Clarke, J. J. 
 
 The Housing Problem. Pitman & Sons. London, 1920. 
 Commons, J. R. 
 
 Trade Unionism and Labor Problems. Selections and Documents 
 in Economics. Ginn & Co. Boston and London, 1905. 
 Commons, J. R., and Andrews, J. B. 
 
 Principles of Labor Legislation. Harper's Citizen Series. 
 Harper & Bros. New York and London, 1920. 
 
 COULANGES, FUSTEL DE 
 
 The Ancient City. Translated by Willard Small. Simpkin, 
 Marshall & Co. London, 191 6. 
 Craik, W. W. 
 
 Short History of the Modem British Working-class Movement. 
 Plebs League. London, 19 19. 
 Crapsey, A. S. 
 
 The Rise of the Working Class. Century Co. New York, 19 14. 
 Crowther, Samuel 
 
 Why Men Strike. G. G. Harrap & Co. London, 1920. 
 CULPIN, E. G. 
 
 The Garden City Movement Up-to-date. Garden Cities and 
 Town Planning Association. London, 191 3. 
 Cunningham, Archdeacon William 
 
 The Grozvth of English Industry and Commerce. 2 vols. Cam- 
 bridge University Press. 191 o. 
 404 
 
LIST OF SELECTED BOOKS 
 
 Cunningham, Archdeacon William 
 
 The Industrial Revolution. A reprint from an earlier edition 
 of the preceding work. Camb. Univ. Press. 1908. 
 Cunningham, Archdeacon William, and MacArthur, E. A. 
 
 Outlines of English Industrial History. Cambridge Historical 
 Series. Cambridge University Press. 1895. 
 Dulac, Albert — see Renard, Georges 
 Eckel, E. C. 
 
 Coal, Iron, and War. G. G. Harrap & Co. London, 1921. 
 Eden, Sir F. M. 
 
 The State of the Poor. London, 1797. 
 Emery, J. A. — see Schwedtman, F. C. 
 Engels, Frederick 
 
 The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Swan 
 Sonnenschein & Co. London, 1892. 
 Ernle, Lord — see Prothero, R. E. 
 Fagniez, Gustave 
 
 Essai sur P organisation de Industrie a Paris aux xiii' et xiv' 
 siecles. Paris, 1839. 
 Farnborough, Lord — see May, T. E. 
 Fay, C. R. 
 
 Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge Uni- 
 versity Press. 1920. 
 Fielden, John 
 
 The Curse of the Factory System. London, 1836. 
 Galloway, R. L. 
 
 Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade. Colliery Guardian 
 Co. London, 1898, 1904. 
 Gaskell, p. 
 
 The Manufacturing Population of England. London, 1833. 
 
 GiBBINS, H. DE B, 
 
 Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century. The Nine- 
 teenth Century Series. London, 1903. 
 Green, F. E. 
 
 J History of the English Agricultural Labourer, i8yo-ig2o. 
 P. S. King & Co. London, 1920. 
 Green, J. R. 
 
 J Short History of the English People. Macmillan. Lond. 1917, 
 Gross, Professor Charles 
 
 The Gild Merchant : A Contribution to British Municipal History. 
 2 vols. Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1890. 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Halevy, Elie 
 
 Histotre dii peuple anglais an xix' Steele. Paris, 1 91 2. 
 Hammond, J, L. Le B., and Barbara 
 
 The Skilled Labourer, 1260-1832. Longmans. Lond, 1919. 
 The Fillage Labourer, 1760-1832. Longmans. Lond. 1920. 
 The Town Labourer, 1760-1832. Longmans. Lond. 19 17. 
 Harrison, William ' 
 
 Elizabethan England. Edition edited by Lothrop Withrington. 
 The Camelot Classics. London, 1886, etc. ^| 
 
 Has BACH, W. 
 
 j1 History of the English Agricultural Labourer. Translated 
 by Ruth Kenyon. P. S. King & Co. London, 1908. 
 Howard, Ebenezer ™ 
 
 Garden Cities of To-morrow. Sonnenschein. London, 1902. 
 To-morrow : A Peaceful Path to Social Reform. Swan Sonnen- 
 schein & Co. London, 1898. 
 HuTCHiNS, B. L., and Harrison, A. 
 
 A History of Factory Legislation. P. S. King. London, 1911. 
 The Public Health Agitation, 1833-48. Fifield. London, 1909. 
 Leach, A. F. 
 
 English Schools at the Reformation. Constable. London, 1896 
 The Schools of Medieval England. Methuen. London, 19 15. 
 Levasseur, Emile 
 
 Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de Vindustrie en France avant 
 
 lySg. Paris, 1900. 
 Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de findustrie de ijSg a i8yo. 
 
 Paris, 1903. 
 The American Workman. Translated by T. S. Adams. John 
 Hopkins Press. Baltimore, 1900. 
 Levy, J. H. 
 
 Individualism and the Land Question. Personal Rights Series, 
 No. 5. The Personal Rights Association London, 191 2. 
 Lewinski, J. S. 
 
 U evolution industrielle de la Belgique. Brussels, 19 11. 
 • Macaulay, Lord 
 
 The History of England. 
 Macdonald, J. Ramsay 
 
 The Social Unrest. T. N. Foulis. London, 19 13. 
 Mackay, Thomas 
 
 A History of the English Poor Law. P. S.King & Co. London, 
 1899. Vol. iii published 1899. For vols, i-ii see 
 Nicholls, Sir George. 
 406 
 
LIST OF SELECTED BOOKS 
 
 Maine, Sir H. S. 
 
 Ancient Law. John Murray. London, 1901. Included in 
 Everyman's Library (Dent & Sons, London). 
 Mantoux, p. 
 
 La rivolution industrielle au xviii^ Steele [in England]. 
 Paris, 1906. 
 Marshall, Professor Alfred 
 
 Elements of Economics of Industry. Macmillan. London, 1899. 
 May, T. E. (Lord Farnborough) 
 
 The Constitutional History of England. Longmans. Lond. 1912. 
 i MiLNES, Alfred 
 
 ' From Gild to Factory. Macdonald & Evans. London, 1920. 
 
 i Money, Sir Leo Chiozza 
 
 The Trium-ph of Nationalisation. Cassell. London, 1920. 
 Montmorency, J. E. G. de 
 
 State Intervention in English Education. Camb. Univ. Press. 1902. 
 NicHOLLS, Sir George 
 
 J History of the English Poor Law. Vols, i and ii. P. S. 
 King. London, 1 854. For vol. iii see Mackay, Thomas. 
 Perris, G. H. 
 
 The Industrial History of Modern England. Kegan Paul. 
 London, 19 14. 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, and Maitland, F. W. 
 
 The History of English Law before the Time of Edward 7. 
 Cambridge University Press. 1898. 
 Porter, G. R, 
 
 The Progress of the Nation, 1838. New edition, edited by 
 F. W. Hirst. Methuen. London, 191 2. 
 Prothero, R. E. (Lord Ernle) 
 
 English Farming Past and Present. Longmans. London, 1 9 1 7. 
 Renard, Georges, and Dulac, Albert 
 
 U evolution industrielle et agricole depuis cent cinquante ans. 
 
 Paris, 191 2. 
 Histoire universelle du travail. Paris, 1 9 1 2. 
 Robertson, John 
 
 Housing and the Public Health. English Public Health Series. 
 Cassell. London, 19 19. 
 Rogers, J. E. Thorold 
 
 Six Centuries of JVork and Wages. Sonnenschein. Lond. 1890. 
 A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. 7 vols. Claren- 
 don Press. Oxford, 1 866-1 902. 
 Savage, Dr W. G. 
 
 Rural Housing. T. Fisher Unw^in. London, 19 19. 
 
 407 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 ScHWEDTMAN, F. C, and Emery, J. A. 
 
 Accident Prevention and Relief. National Association o| 
 Manufacturers, U.S.A. 191 1. 
 Smith, J. Toulmin, and Miss Toulmin Smith 
 
 English Gilds. Early English Text Society. London, 1870. 
 Snowden, Philip 
 
 A Living Wage. Hodder & Stoughton. London, 1 9 1 2. 
 Stone, Gilbert 
 
 The British Coal Industry. Dent & Sons. London, 19 19. 
 Tawney, R. H. — see Bland, A. E. 
 Taylor, R. W. C. 
 
 Introduction to a History of the Factory System. Richard Bentley 
 & Son. London, 1886. 
 Taylor, W. C. 
 
 Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire. 
 London, 1842. 
 
 Factories and the Factory System. Jeremiah How. Lond. 1844. 
 Toynbee, Arnold 
 
 Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England. Rivingtons. 
 London, 1887. 
 Traill, H, D., and Mann, J. S. 
 
 Social England. Cassell. London, 190 1-4, 
 Usher, Dr A. P. 
 
 An Introduction to the Industrial History of England. G. G. 
 Harrap & Co. London, 1920. 
 Veitch, G. S. 
 
 The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform. Constable. Lond. 191 3. 
 Warner, G. T. 
 
 Tillage^ Trade^ and Invention. Blackie. London, 1920. 
 
 Landmarks in English Industrial History. Blackie. Lond. 1899. 
 Webb, S. J. and Beatrice 
 
 The History of Trade Unionism. Longmans. London, 1920. 
 
 English Local Government. 3 vols. Longmans. London, 1906. 
 
 Industrial Democracy. Longmans. London, 1908, 
 Wing, Charles 
 
 The Evils of the Factory System. London, 1837. 
 
 408 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, 156 
 
 Accident Law, the German, 372 
 
 Adamson, Professor J. W., 366 
 
 Addison, Joseph, 169 
 
 Agrarian changes, medieval, 112, 
 
 139 ; cause increase of poverty, 
 
 112. 
 Agrarian Revolution, 175 et seq. ; 
 
 due to enclosures, 177 ; general 
 
 results of, 193 
 Agriculture, in eighteenth century, 
 
 175 et seq. ; in Middle Ages, 137 
 Allotments, 192 
 Allowance system, 131 
 America, education in, 161 ; factory 
 
 legislation in, 319 ; slavery in, 64 ; 
 
 trade unions in, 230 
 Anselm, 156 
 Apprentices, age limit for, in mines, 
 
 302 ; and the butty system, 301 ; 
 
 conditions under which they 
 
 worked, 302 ; control of, by gild, 
 
 78 ; limitation of number of, 83 ; 
 
 Statute of, 104, 108 
 Apprenticeship, deeds of, 84 ; evils 
 
 of, 301 ; of pauper children, 301 ; 
 
 period of, 83 ; State interference 
 
 with, 85 ; term of, fixed, 108 ; 
 
 term' of, in mines, limited by Lord 
 
 Ashley's Act, 302 
 Arnold, Matthew, 163, 164, 354 
 Ashley, Lord, 293, 295, 298, 300, 302, 
 
 309, 336. See also Shaftesbury, 
 
 Earl of 
 Asquith, H. H., 284, 373, 375> 3»3 
 Attwood, Thomas, 252, 270, 271 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 160 
 
 Ball, John, 57 
 
 Bamford, Samuel, 197, 202 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 167 
 
 Beaumanoir, Philippe de, 48 
 
 Becket, Thomas, 156 
 
 Bell, Andrew, 170 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 179, 252, 265, 
 
 330 
 
 Binns, H. B., 362 
 
 Birmingham Political Union, forma- 
 tion of, 270 ; object of, 270 
 
 Black Death, consequences of, 54, ii2 
 
 Boileau, fitienne, 82 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, 302 
 
 Bowen, Judge Ivor, 177 
 
 Brampton, Lord, 375 
 
 Brentano, Dr Lujo, 66, 67 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 168, 170, 171, 172, 
 173, 271, 348,358, 364 
 
 Buckland, Professor W. W., 31 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 242, 253, 258, 259, 
 260 
 
 Burnside, Mr Justice, 292 
 
 Burt, Thomas, 236 
 
 Butler, J. R. M., 265, 269 
 
 Cadbury, George, 336, 345 
 
 Canning, George, 268, 367 
 
 Carlton, Professor F. T., 64, 231, 232, 
 
 385 
 Cartwright, John, 252, 258, 261, 265 
 Catholic Emancipation, 268 ; Bill 
 
 passed, 269 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 373 
 Chamberlayne, Edward, 138, 148, 
 
 151, 195 
 Chapman, Sir Sydney, 217, 229 
 
 Charters, town, 52 
 
 Chatham, Lord, 256, 257 
 
 Child, average day of, account of, 208 ; 
 the workhouse, 207 
 
 Child labour, and chimney-sweeping, 
 213 ; hours of, 208, 294 ; illegal in 
 mines underground, 302 ; in 
 factories, 308, 309 ; in mines, 207, 
 300 ; not affected by first Factory 
 Act, 291 ; parish, exploitation of, 
 207 
 
 Chimney-sweeps, the Lords and the, 
 
 213 
 Clarke, J. J., 335, 34i 
 Gierke, Sir P. J., 258, 260 
 Clothing, about 1800, 202 ; in Middle 
 
 Ages, 142 
 
 409 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Coal Industry Commission and 
 nationalization, 388 
 
 Cobbett, William, 261, 265, 266, 269, 
 270, 271, 276 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 334 
 
 Colbert, J. B., 149, 150, 218, 228, 
 229 ; his system of regulation, 150 
 
 Colet, Dean, 159 
 
 Collegia, development of, 28 ; whether 
 gilds descended from, 66 
 
 Combinations, Act against, loi ; 
 early, 75, 88. See also Gilds, Trade 
 unions 
 
 Combination laws, 225 ; abolition of. 
 Place's struggle for, 232 ; repeal of, 
 235 ; repeal of, results of, 235 
 
 Comenius, 159, 161 
 
 Commons, 114 
 
 Compensation under Enclosure Acts, 
 185 
 
 Compensation, workmen's, 375 ; com- 
 pulsory, 377 ; effect of, 377 ; English 
 system of, 373 ; for diseases special 
 to certain employments, 378 ; under 
 German Accident Law, 372 ; objects 
 of, 375 ; social gains from, 377 ; 
 to whom applied, 376 
 
 Condorcet, Marquis de, 162, 211, 
 352 
 
 Conspiracy, law of, 236 
 
 Co-operative movement, 397 
 
 Corry, M. W. L., 340. See also Row- 
 ton, Baron 
 
 Craik, W. W., 239 
 
 Crewe's Bill, 260 
 
 Cross, R. Assheton (later Viscount), 
 311, 338 
 
 Cross Acts, 337 
 
 Cunningham, Archdeacon William, 
 117, 119, 203 
 
 Davenant, Charles, 140 
 
 Day, Mr Justice, 339 
 
 Democracy, modern, 400 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 215, 301 
 
 Direct action, 241 
 
 Distress, and laissez-faire, 334 ; 
 
 caused by enclosures, 193 ; of 
 
 cotton weavers, 209. See also 
 
 Poverty, Poor Law 
 Domestic manufacturers, 72, 97, 137 ; 
 
 disappearance of , 175 
 Dominus, 26; power of, 27 
 Dowdeswell, William, 257 
 Dulac, Albert, 195 
 Dundas, Henry, 264 
 
 Dunning, John (Baron Ashburton), 
 
 259 
 Durham, Earl of, 267. See also 
 
 Lambton, J. G. 
 
 Eden, Sir Frederick Morton, 56, 60, 
 91, 135, 138, 142, 179, 180, 181, 
 189, 192 
 
 Education: Act of 1870, 362; and 
 Lollard movement, 156 ; before 
 nineteenth century, chapter on, 
 153 et seq. ; Brougham's Bill for, 
 358 ; Bryce Commission of 1895 
 on, 365 ; Church control of, 155 ; 
 effect of Reformation on, 158; in 
 America, 161 ; in Brito-Roman 
 schools, 153 ; in England in nine- 
 teenth century, 170, 355 et seq.; 
 in France, 163, 352 ; in Germany, 
 348 ; in Middle Ages, 145, 154 ; 
 modem, chapter on, 348 et seq. ; 
 national system developed, 366 ; 
 Parliament's attitude toward, 211 ; 
 report of Newcastle Commission on, 
 351, 359; results of voluntary 
 activity in, 359 ; Roebuck's speech 
 on, 355 ; State and, in Middle 
 Ages, 157 ; State grants aid, 356; 
 State grants for, increase in, 358; 
 under Commonwealth Government, 
 161 ; under Elizabeth, 159; Uni- 
 versity extension movement, 364 ; 
 voluntary activity in, 357; volun- 
 tary system and Lord Brougham, 
 172 
 
 Efficiency, need for, 398 ; of State 
 control, 391 
 
 Emancipation, Catholic, 268 ; of the 
 serfs, 44 et seq. ; of the slaves, 44 
 et seq. ; of the towns, 46, 49 
 
 Enclosure : Acts, 1 77 ; awards or com- 
 pensation, 185 ; commissioners, 
 185 ; distress caused by, 193 ; 
 facilitated mineral development, 
 181 ; legislation, tendency of, 212 ; 
 motives for, 178 ; movement, 
 advantages of, 179; movement, 
 early, 112, 116 ; movement, nature 
 of, 176 ; movement, Parliament at 
 time of, 181 ; movement, second, 
 175 et seq. ; opposition to, ineffec- 
 tive, 184 ; private Bill legislation 
 and, 183 ; remedial proposals for, 
 192 ; resulting evils of, 188 
 
 Enfranchisement — see Emancipation 
 
 Epictetus, a slave, 30 
 
 Erasmus, 159 
 
 410 
 
INDEX 
 
 Factory, agitation for ten-hour day 
 in, 294; chapter on, 285 et seq.; 
 child labour in, 308, 309 ; con- 
 dition of, 210 ; condition of work 
 in, 295 ; legislation in America, 
 319 ; legislation in Belgium, 319; 
 legislation in England, 285 et 
 seq. ; legislation in France, 315 ; 
 legislation in Switzerland, 319 ; 
 legislation, State interference and, 
 307 ; relay system in, 308 ; 
 spiritual losses resulting from, 
 206 
 
 Factory Acts, 290 ; female labour 
 and, 304 ; first, conditions of, 290 ; 
 list of, 287 ; principles of, 314 ; 
 Reform Association organized, 
 310 
 
 Fagniez, Gustave, 51, 66 
 
 Famborough, Lord, 128 
 
 Farrar, Dean, 249 
 
 Fay, C. R., 329 
 
 Fealty, form of oaths of, 36 
 
 Female labour, 299, 304 ; abolished 
 in mines underground, 302, 304 ; 
 and Factory Acts, 304 ; protection 
 of, 300 
 
 Feudal system, a social system, 38 ; 
 based on land-ownership, 33 ; 
 central idea of, 36 ; spirit of, 212. 
 See also Manor, Lord 
 
 Fielden, John, 211, 293, 295 
 
 Fisher, H. A. L., 366 
 
 Fleming, Contarini, 23 
 
 Flood, Henry, 263 
 
 Food in Middle Ages, 139 
 
 Fox, C. J., 261 
 
 France, education in, 163, 352 ; 
 expansion of industry in, 149 ; 
 factory legislation in, 313, 315 et 
 seq. ; housing improvements in, 
 339 ; industrial society in, struc- 
 ture of, 82 ; industry of, in 
 Middle Ages, 149; trade unions 
 in, 228 
 
 Franchise, borough, 255 ; extension 
 of, 283 ; forms of, 255 ; unequal 
 distribution of, 253 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, 253 
 
 French Revolution, excesses of, 226 
 
 Friendly Societies, 76 ; Labourers' 
 Friend Society, 329 
 
 Games in the Middle Ages, 148 
 Gaskell, P., 138, 142, 198 
 George, D. Lloyd, 380 
 
 Germany, Accident Law of, 372 ; 
 education in, 348 ; town-planning 
 in, 343 ; trade unions in, 237 
 
 Giddy, Davies, 211 
 
 Gild(s), and apprentices, 83; Bever- 
 ley, 70 ; chapter on, 66 et seq.; com- 
 parison of present-day industrial 
 system and gild system, 288 ; con- 
 fiscation of property of, 80 ; con- 
 trol of labour by, 78 ; craft, 69, 
 71 ; decline of, 81 ; distinction 
 between, and trade unions, 66, 69 ; 
 free towns and, 66 ; free trade and, 
 51 ; general nature and purposes 
 of, 68, 69 ; importance of, 79 ; in 
 capacity of friendly society, 78 ; 
 influence of, 66 ; journeymen and, 
 89 ; King's license not necessary 
 for, 69 ; merchant, 69 ; origin of, 
 67 ; policy of, 83 ; protective 
 organization of, 51, 69, 75, 83 ; 
 regulation of, 71, 72, 73 ; schools 
 of. 79, 145, 155; types of, 69; 
 whether descendants of collegia, 66 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., 237 
 
 Goderich ministry, 268 
 
 Gordon, Mr Justice, 292 
 
 Gouge, Thomas, 168 
 
 Graham, Sir James, 359 
 
 Green, J. R., 142, 281 
 
 Grey, Lord, 267, 269, 270, 274, 276 
 et seq. ; and the Reform Bill, 274, 
 275; fall of, 279 ; return to power, 
 280 
 
 Grose, Mr Justice, 292 
 
 Gross, Professor Charles, 72, 79 
 
 Guinness, Sir E. C., 336, 340. See 
 also Iveagh, Lord 
 
 Guizot, F. P. G., 354 
 
 Hall, Sir Benjamin, 337 
 
 Halliday, Thomas, 374 
 
 Hammond, J. L. Le B. and Barbara, 
 
 23, 143 
 Harigild money, 61 
 Harrison, William, 138, 140, 147, 159, 
 
 175 
 
 Hartshorn, Vernon, 292 
 
 Harvard, John, 161 
 
 Hasbach, Dr W., 179 
 
 Haverfield, Professor, 153 
 
 Health Insurance, 378 
 
 Homage, mode of doing, 36 
 
 Home, chapter on, 325 et seq. ; 
 environment at commencement 
 of Victoria's reign, 325 ; environ- 
 
 411 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 ment and Lord Shaftesbury, 333 ; 
 general conditions of, 326 ; sani- 
 tary conditions of, 328 ; state of, 
 in Metropolis, 327, 330 
 
 Home, John, 257. See also Tooke, 
 Home 
 
 Hours of work, 88, 152 ; fixed by 
 Statute of Apprentices, 105 ; State 
 regulation of, in fifteenth century, 
 
 95 
 
 Household budget, a, 189 
 
 Houses, contents of, in Middle Ages, 
 135, 143 ; description of, in Middle 
 Ages, 142 ; general conditions of, 
 at commencement of Victoria's 
 reign, 326 ; local authorities given 
 power to inspect and condemn, 
 337 ; of present day, 346 ; over- 
 crowding in, due to lack of trans- 
 port, 333 ; water supply in, 332 
 
 Housing, Act of 1890, 341 ; Act of 
 1909, 342, 344 ; Acts, working of 
 earlier, 339 ; back-to-back system, 
 327 ; conditions at commence- 
 ment of Victoria's reign, 325 ; con- 
 ditions in London in 1884, 327 ; 
 conditions in provinces, 327; 
 Continental schemes of, 343 ; early 
 measures for better conditions of, 
 336; first reformers of, 336; garden 
 city movement, 345 ; general 
 conditions of, 326 ; in rural districts, 
 346 ; private benefactors, 339 ; 
 proposals of 1885, 341 ; report of 
 Royal Commission on, 341 ; sani- 
 tary conditions, 328 ; Town-plan- 
 ning Act of 1909, 342 ; Lord 
 Shaftesbury and, conditions, 329 
 
 Howard, Ebenezer, 336, 345, 346 
 
 Hume, Joseph, 233 
 
 Hume's Committee, 210, 228, 230, 
 
 233 
 Hunt, Henry, arrest of, 266 
 Huskisson, William, 269 
 
 Industrial areas, development of, 
 202 
 
 Industrial life, conditions of, con- 
 sidered in Peace Treaty, 321 
 
 Industrial Revolution, absence of 
 stable combinations before, 220 ; 
 attitude of unreformed Parliament 
 toward, 211 ; changes due to, 203 ; 
 chapter on, 195 et seq. ; displace- 
 ment of population by, 201 ; lack 
 of sympathy of governing classes 
 toward, 212 ; material gains from, 
 
 412 
 
 205 ; meaning of, 196 ; standard 
 of life at time of, 198 
 
 Industry, nature of early, 45, 
 82 ; of France in Middle Ages, 
 149 ; regulation of mining, 303 ; 
 State's interference with rival 
 forces in, 218 ; State regulation of, 
 286, 288 ; sweated, conditions of 
 work in, 288 
 
 Insurance, Act passed, 380 ; com- 
 pulsory, 372; National Health, 379 
 
 Irnerius, 156 
 
 Italy, town-planning in, 343 
 
 Iveagh, Lord, 340. See also Guin- 
 ness, Sir E. C. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 266 
 
 Jenkins, Sir Leoline, 60 
 
 Johnston, Sir H. H., 62, 63 
 
 Joubert, Ambroise, 316 
 
 Journeyman, 86 et seq. ; a gild 
 brother, 89 ; control of, by gild, 
 78 ; hire, term of, for, 86 ; hire, 
 term of, fixed, 102 ; hiring of, 87 ; 
 meaning of term, 86 ; wages of, 
 88. See also Wages, Hours of 
 work 
 
 Justices, their power to fix wages, 
 91, 104, 105 
 
 Kenyon, Lord, 172 
 
 King, Lord, 214 
 
 Kyffin-Taylor, General Gerald, 326 
 
 Labour, cheap, 299 ; conditions as 
 to, in Peace Treaty, 321 et seq.; 
 dearth of agricultural, 113; female, 
 299, 304 ; female, protection of, 
 300 ; female and child, and Lord 
 Ashley's Act, 302 ; hired, 37, 42 ; 
 hours of, 208 ; hours of, in mines, 
 300; in Tudor times, 100; regula- 
 tion of hours of, 95. See also 
 Journeyman, Hours of work. Wages 
 
 Labour Party, becomes notable force 
 in twentieth century, 239 
 
 Labourers, Statute of, 55 
 
 Laissez-faire, distress and, 334 ; 
 resulting evils of system of, 285 ; 
 theory of, in England, 223 
 
 Lambton, J. G., 267, 268. See also 
 Durham, Earl of 
 
 Lancaster, Joseph, 170 
 
 Land-holding, feudal system of, 114 
 
 Lanfranc, 156 
 
 Lansdowne, Marquess of, 261. See 
 also Shelbume, Lord 
 
 I 
 
INDEX 
 
 La Salle, J. B., 165, 1 68 
 
 Lauderdale, Earl of, 214 
 
 Laurence, Edward, 1 75 
 
 Leach, A. P., 158 
 
 Learning, state of, in Middle Ages, 
 
 145 ; State and, 157 
 Legislation, factory, 286 et seq. ; 
 
 labour, and Peace Treaty, 321 ; 
 
 private Bill, 183 ; Tudor, 100 ; 
 
 Tudor, effect of, no 
 Levasseur, fimile, 45, 53, 66, 67, 88, 
 
 97> 152 
 Leverhulme, Lord, 336, 345 
 Levy, J. H., 177 
 Lister, Jebe, 57 
 Liverpool, Lord, 268 
 Localities, trade, 98 
 Lollards, 156 ; education movement 
 
 of, 157, 158 
 
 London Corresponding Society, 265 
 
 Lords, and townsmen, 52 ; free ser- 
 vice for, 37 ; manorial, 37, 43, 48 ; 
 powers of, over serf, 43, 48 ; rights 
 of, 43 ; struggle between serf and, 
 44 et seq. See also Dominus 
 
 Lowe, Robert (Viscount Sherbrooke), 
 362 
 
 Lowell, Francis, 230 
 
 Luther, Martin, 158, 159 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 23 ; and cheap 
 
 labour, 299 
 Macdonald, Alexander, 236 
 Machinery, changes caused by de- 
 velopment of, 202 ; introduction 
 of, results of, 204 
 Mackay, Thomas, 367 
 Macnamara, T. J., 361, 364 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 25 
 Maitland, Professor F. W., 36 
 Manning, Cardinal H. E., 339 
 Manor, the, 37, 114 ; industry shifts 
 from, to the town, 46 ; labour and, 
 
 37 
 
 Manorial courts, 43 
 
 Manorial lords — see Lords 
 
 Manorial system, 37 
 
 Mantoux, P., 197 
 
 Map, Walter, 157 
 
 Marshall, Professor Alfred, 217 
 
 Master, 26 ; obligations of, 99 ; 
 penalties for failure of, to fulfil 
 obligations, 99 ; privilege of 
 becoming, 97 ; relation between 
 medieval, and workmen, 97. See 
 also Dominus, Lords 
 
 Master worker, the, 82 et seq. 
 
 Maurice, F. D., 365 
 
 Medieval period — see Education, 
 
 Poor Law, Labour, Slavery, Wages, 
 
 etc. 
 Melanchthon, Philip, 159 
 Merton, Statute of, 113, 116 
 Middle class, rise of, 57 
 Migration of labour, restricted in 
 
 fifteenth century, 92, 96 
 Millerand, Alexandre, 373 
 Mines, Commission for Inquiring into 
 
 the Condition of Children Employed 
 
 in, 300 ; conditions of labour in, 
 
 300 ; child labour in, 300 ; female 
 
 labour in, 300 
 Minimum wage, 380 ; Australia and, 
 
 383 ; first attempt to secure, 108 ; 
 
 in coal-mines, 383 ; State and, 382 
 Mining industry, led way in industrial 
 
 legislation, 303 ; regulation of, 
 
 302 
 Money, Sir L. C, 392 
 Montmorency, J. E. G. de, 156, 159, 
 
 162 
 More, Sir Thomas, 159 
 Moryson, Fynes, 142 
 Muensterberg, Dr E., 379 
 Muir, Thomas, 264 ; activity of, for 
 
 Parliamentary reform, 265 
 
 Naif, 35. See also Serf 
 
 Nationalization, definitions of term, 
 386 ; efficiency the test of, 389 ; 
 of coal industry, 387 ; of indus- 
 tries, 386 
 
 Nicholls, Sir George, 367 
 
 North, Lord, 261 
 
 Oastler, Richard, 293, 295 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 268, 269, 271 
 Owen, Robert, 293, 329 
 
 Page, William, 158 
 
 Palmer, T. F., 265 
 
 Parliament, and Reform Bill, 276, 
 277 ; at time of enclosure move- 
 ment, 181 ; bribery of members of, 
 254 ; corruption, of 253 ; early 
 reformers of, 257 ; economic 
 reformers of, 258 ; feudal spirit of, 
 212 ; institution of, 252 ; new Re- 
 form, 278 ; property, not persons, 
 represented in, 256 ; unreformed, 
 253 ; unreformed, attitude of, to 
 the poor, 211 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Pattison, Mark, 349, 350 
 Pauper, the — see Poverty 
 Peabody, George, 336, 340 
 Peace Treaty, advances the well- 
 being of workers, 320 ; labour 
 legislation of, 323 ; provisions of, 
 concerning labour, 320 
 
 Peasant, dispossession of, 116, 175 
 et seq. 
 
 Peasants' Rebellion, 56 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 269 ; opposes 
 Catholic emancipation, 268 
 
 Pensions, Old Age, 384 
 
 Pepo, 156 
 
 Percival, Dr, 289, 291 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, i6i 
 
 Pitt, Thomas, 259 
 
 Pitt, William, 252, 254, 261, 265 ; 
 Reform Bill of, 262 ; repressive 
 measures of, 264 
 
 Place, Francis, 228, 231, 232 et seq., 
 237, 252,261,265,266,270,271,276 
 
 Pollard, Professor, 118 
 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 36 
 
 Poor, the spirit of the, 145 
 
 Poor Law, abuses of, 128 ; allowance 
 system under, 131 ; Commission, 
 report of, 369 ; condition of, in 
 1905, 371 ; effect of, 367; Eliza- 
 bethan, 125 et seq. ; maladminis- 
 tration of, 128 ; pauperization and, 
 128, 129; reform of, 369; schools 
 under, 160; workhouse and, 132 
 
 Poor Law Commissioners, aims of, 
 369 ; report of (1905-9), 369 
 
 Poor rate in 1685, 138 
 
 Population, displacement of, in thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries, 
 54 ; displacement of, in eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries, 201 ; 
 growth of, 136, 199; causes for 
 growth of, 199 
 
 Poverty, attack on, 367 et seq. ; 
 chapter on, in et seq.; due to 
 sickness, 378 ; effect of workmen's 
 compensation on, 377; increase 
 of, due to agrarian changes, 112; 
 other causes of, 119; Old Age 
 pensions and, 384. See also Dis- 
 tress, Poor Law 
 
 Raikes, Robert, 169 
 
 Ratke, Wolfgang, 159 
 
 Reform, Parliamentary, Blandford's 
 Bill for, 271 ; chapter on, 252 et 
 seq.; of House of Lords, 284; 
 Lambton's measures for, 268 ; 
 
 414 
 
 methods of suppressing, 265 ; 
 need for, 266 ; opposition to, 263 ; 
 Pitt's Bill for, 262 ; Pitt's sup- 
 pression of societies for, 264 ; 
 public opinion and, 269 ; radical, 
 261 et seq. ; results of, 281 ; 
 Russell's Bills for, 268, 271 ; subse- 
 quent history of movement, 283 ; 
 Tories' attitude toward, 272 ; 
 Wellington's speech on, 272 
 
 Reform Bill, dissolution of Parlia- 
 ment over, 277; Government draft 
 of, 275 ; introduction of, 275 ; 
 Lord Grey and, 274 ; passing of, 
 280 ; Pitt introduces a, 262 
 
 Reformation, 158 ; effect of, on edu- 
 cation, 158 
 
 Renard, Georges, 195 
 
 Restoration, the, 166 
 
 Revolution, Agrarian, chapter on, 
 175 et seq.; general results of 
 Agrarian, 193; Industrial, 195 et 
 seq. ; results of Industrial, 205 ; 
 French, excesses of, 226 ; Russian, 
 
 389 
 Riecke, Dr V. A., 144 
 Robertson, Dr John, 344 
 Rockingham, Lord, 260, 261 
 Roebuck, J. A., 348, 355, 363 
 Rogers, J. E. Thorold, 120, 121, 125, 
 
 212 
 Roman Empire, decline of, 33 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 207 
 Roscellinus, 156 ► 
 
 Rowton, Baron, 336, 340. See also 
 
 Corry, M. W. L. 
 Ruegg, Judge, 219 
 Russell, Lord John, 268, 269, 271, 273, 
 
 275 
 Russian Revolution, 389 
 
 Sadler, M. T., 293, 295, 296 
 
 Sanitation, condition of, in nine- 
 teenth century, 328 ; early efforts 
 toward, 58, 144 ; reform of, 326 
 
 Savage, Dr W. G., 346 
 
 Sawbridge, John, 257 
 
 Schools, charity, 167 ; factory', con- 
 dition of, 360; gild, 155; table 
 showing average attendance at, 
 360; voluntary, 167 
 
 Serf(s), a chattel, 39 ; condition of, 
 40 ; condition of child of, 41 ; 
 difference between slave and, 35 ; 
 emancipation of, 44 et seq. ; how 
 one might become a, 41 ; labour 
 of, 42 • no incentive for, to work, 
 
INDEX 
 
 48 ; no protection for, against 
 lord, 39, 42, 48 J power of lord 
 
 (over, 43 5 power of, to rise in social 
 scale, 40 ; rights of, 35, 39, 42 ; 
 security of, 112 ; status of, 39 
 Serfdom, based generally on birth, 
 41 ♦ decline of, 41 j extinction of, 
 58 5 the end of, in England, 60 
 Servile labour, 46 ; inefficiency of, 
 
 ; 47,62,65 . 
 
 I Servus, derivation of term, 26 
 
 Settlements, parish, 127 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 249, 251, 293, 
 328 et seq. See also Ashley, Lord 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, 261 . See also Lans- 
 downe, Marquess of 
 
 Simon of Paris, 40 
 
 Slave(s), 25 ; a thing, 26, 30 ; a 
 power, 31 ; difference between 
 serf and, 35 ; disabilities of, 29 ; 
 emancipation of, 44 et seq. ; in 
 commerce, 32; means of obtaining, 
 34 ; marriage of, 29 ; power of 
 master over, 27 ; professions of, 
 30 ; protection of honour of, 31 ; 
 Roman, the, 26 et seq. ; status of, 
 26 ; torture of, 29 ; traffic in, 34 
 
 Slavery, African, 62, 64 ; American, 
 64 ; causes of, 34 ; colonial, 61 ; 
 end of, in England, 60 ; end of, 
 in Scotland, 60 ; Greek view of, 
 25 ; Hebrew view of, 25 ; made 
 ; illegal in England, 60 ; not limited 
 to manual workers, 30 ; Roman 
 view of, 25 ; Tudor legislation 
 relating to, 59, 100 ; Wilberforce 
 and abolition of, 61 
 Slums, 200 ; of London in 1884, 
 
 327 
 Smith, Adam, 151, 223, 289 
 Smith, Dr Southwood, 330, 331 
 Smith, J. Toulmin, 67, 69, 77 
 Smith, Miss Toulmin, 77 
 Snowden, Philip, 381, 384 
 Society for Constitutional Informa- 
 tion, 260, 261, 265 
 Society for Promoting Christian 
 
 Knowledge, 169 
 
 Standard of life, in 1836, 198 ; Tudor 
 
 efforts to secure a reasonable, 103 ; 
 
 worker entitled to reasonable, 217 
 
 ; State control, collateral advantages 
 
 of, 395 ; efficiency of, 391 ; experi- 
 
 \ ences of, in other countries, 394 ; 
 
 in Germany, 393 ; of industries, 
 
 j 391. See also Wages, Hours of 
 
 ' work. Apprentices 
 
 Strikes, common in twentieth cen- 
 tury, 239 ; direct action in, 241 ; 
 illegal, 224 
 
 Sturm, John, 159 
 
 Suffrage, adult, 284; universal, re- 
 jection of O'Connell's Bill for, 271 ; 
 women's, 284 
 
 Sutton, W. R., 336 
 
 Sweden, town-planning in, 343 
 
 Talleyrand, 264 
 
 Thompson, Poulett, 299 
 
 Tillotson, Dean, 167 
 
 Tooke, Home, 257, 265. See also 
 Home, John 
 
 Torrens, W. T. McC, 338 
 
 Torrens Acts, 337 
 
 Towns, charters of, 50, 52, 53 ; free, 
 49 J rise of, 46, 49 ; strength of, 57 
 
 Trade, depression of, in 1846-7, 
 308 ; development of, 147 ; inter- 
 national, commences, 58 ; localities 
 and groups, 98 ; localization of, 50 ; 
 lord's control of, 50; nature of, in 
 early times, 34, 45 
 
 Trade unions, decentralization of 
 authority of, 240 ; direct action by, 
 241 ; early, 225 ; early, political, 
 232 ; effect of combination laws 
 on, 225 ; forming of, induced by 
 coming of factory system, 230 ; 
 German, 237; in America, 230; 
 in France, 228 ; in twentieth cen- 
 tury, 239 ; increased activity of, 
 239 ; necessary for interests of 
 people, 237; no connexion between 
 gild and, 66 ; not legal, 223 ; no 
 longer illegal in 1871, 236 ; repres- 
 sion of, 225 ; results of activities 
 of, 234 ; rise of, 217 et seq. 
 Trevelyan, Sir George, 57, 274, 279 
 Turgot, Baron, 229, 352 
 Tyler, Wat, 57 
 
 Unemployed, the, 122 ; increased 
 numbeis of, through introduction 
 of machinery, 204 ; penalties for, 
 122 ; under Elizabeth, 122 ; Poor 
 Law system and, 124. See also 
 Vagabonds 
 
 Unfree, the — see Slaves, Slavery, 
 Serfs, Serfdom 
 
 Usher, Dr A. P., 176, 185 
 
 Vagabonds, and the Tudors, 100, 
 123, 138, 146 ; and unemployment, 
 122 ; threatened with slavery, 60 
 
 Veitch, G. S., 256, 261, 267 
 
HISTORY OF LABOUR 
 
 Vemey, Sir Harry, 130 
 Villein, 35. See also Serf 
 
 Wage(s), allowance system and, 
 131 • Australia and minimum, 383 ; 
 Coal Mines Minimum, Act, 383 ; 
 comparative tables of, 92 et seq. ; 
 in tenth and eleventh centuries, 
 46 ; in fourteenth century, 88 ; in 
 seventeenth century, 144 ; justices 
 and fixing of, 91, 105; 'living,' 
 381 ; maximum, in fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, 92 et seq. ; 
 maximum, in sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, 105 et seq. ; 
 minimum, first attempt to secure, 
 108 ; reasons for standardization 
 of, 92, 96 ; regulation of, by State 
 in fourteenth century, 90 ; regu- 
 lation of, by Statute of Labourers, 
 55 ; standardization of, 92 ; State 
 and minimum, 382 > under Tudor 
 legislation, 105 
 
 Warner, G. T., 121 
 
 Waste lands, 114 
 
 Webb, S. J., 66, 286, 399 
 
 Webb, S. J. and Beatrice, 220, 221 
 222, 225 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 268, 269, 272J 
 280 
 
 Wesley, John, 200 
 
 Whitbread, Samuel, 170, 207 
 
 Whitley Councils, purpose of, 241 
 
 Wilberforce, William, agitation to 
 abolish slavery, 61 
 
 Wilkes, John, 252, 257, 258 
 
 Worker, the landless, 204 
 
 Worker's control, 396 
 
 Workhouse, the, 132 
 
 Workmen's compensation — see Com- 
 pensation, workmen's 
 
 Wycklif, John, 156 
 
 Wyvill, Christopher, 252, 254, 258, 
 261, 270 
 
 Ypres, 57 ; centre of cloth trade, 58 
 
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