Here we men, and the prohibition of the employment of married women. Agitation in this direction was strengthened by the The Collieries appearance in 1842 of a report on the employReport. ment of women in mines and collieries, of which we shall have more to say in the next chapter. have to note that the appalling picture presented of female labour in the mines, made just that kind of appeal which was of the utmost service in moving popular sentiment on the whole subject of female employment. The general approval with which a very strong Collieries Act was passed, made the way very much easier for a less drastic Act dealing with factories which, after three abortive Bills, was introduced in 1844. The public looked at matters from a humanitarian point of view, with very little regard for abstract economics, which it left to pamphleteers and public debaters. It realised an evil, and wanted to have that evil abated. Its imagination had at last laid hold of the inherent cruelty of extensive child labour which, in 1844, was driven home to it by Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children more effectively than by any amount of statistics; and it began to realise the Sentiment. ruinous effect on the next generation of the monstrous overworking of young women. This had actually been increased by the limitations on the work of children and 'young persons,' which had been partly replaced by the next cheapest kind of work available, that of women. Women's work was cheaper than that of men, even when it was of equal efficiency, because normally the minimum for which a woman would work was the amount on which she could keep herself alive, but the minimum for which a man would work was that which would at any rate help to keep alive a wife and children as well as himself. Moreover, it was not easy for any one except an extreme doctrinaire to claim that women were free agents. As in the case of the children, public opinion recognised in women, though not in men, fit objects of legislative protection. The men might take care of themselves, but the health of the mothers of the next generation was a matter which the State could not afford to neglect. Public Driven by public opinion, Peel's ministry passed the Factory Act of 1844, by which women were brought into the same category with young persons. For children Factory the half-time system was enacted. The diffi- Act of 1844. culty of the fifteen hours day during which young persons might be employed for thirteen and a half hours, that is, for twelve hours plus an hour and a half for meals, was met by the regulation that the thirteen and a half hours must be reckoned continuously from the hour at which their personal employment began. The meal-times must be simultaneous; and thus there was a definite check on the practice of encroaching on off-hours and meal-times to extract more than twelve hours' work. Further regulations were introduced requiring machinery to be fenced when women, young persons, and children were liable to passing near it. Protection for women in this respect was the more necessary from the greater risk of their garments becoming entangled. The powers of inspectors were, in some degrees, increased, but that of actually laying down regulations was transferred from them to the Home Secretary. Still, however, the ten hours goal was not attained. It was not reached till the passing of Fielden's Factory Act three years later, in 1847. In the course of the Fielden's Act. debates on the Act of 1844, the House of Commons had actually, at one stage, voted in favour of the ten hours day; that is, of making the day, as opposed to the night, a period of twelve hours from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., out of which two hours were to be allowed for meals. Night work being prohibited, except for adult males, this was the practical equivalent of ten hours for the women, which must have become in practice a ten hours day for the men also. That vote, carried by a majority of nine, was rescinded a fortnight later by a majority of three; but in the course of the next three years there was a considerable shifting of public opinion, and Fielden's Bill was carried by substantial majorities, the ten hours day coming into operation in 1848. It will be worth while here to note something as to the The The Last Hour. character of the arguments urged upon both sides during the later stages of the battle for ten hours. There appears to have been very little reference to what may be called first principles; that is, no stress was ever laid, after a very early stage, on the theory that the State ought in no circumstances to intervene. The proposals were habitually resisted on the ground of their specific inexpediency. It was claimed either that things were nothing like so bad as they were painted, and therefore there was no ground for interference, or else that, however bad they were, any restrictions on the employers' liberty of action would ruin the particular trades concerned. For example, there was the celebrated exposition of Nassau Senior, a professor of political economy, that the cotton manufacturers made all their profits out of the last hour of employment; so that if that hour were struck off, they would have no profits at all, and if two hours were struck off, they would work at a definite loss. It would be superfluous here to examine the argument, but its fallacy was demonstrated by the actual fact that the two hours were struck off, and the manufacturers continued to work at a profit. The truth probably is, that down to a certain point shortened hours are actually compensated by increased efficiency. The real economic problem is to ascertain the precise point at which the shortening of hours ceases to beget an equivalent increase in efficiency. It is clear, however, that that point was not passed in the Ten Hours Bill. As to the other argument, it generally resolved itself into declarations that there was much less reason for interfering with women and children in the factories concerned than in other employments. Whether that was the case or not, the evidence was convincing that there was more than sufficient ground for intervention if once the question was removed from the sphere of general principles. It was always possible to maintain the abstract proposition that no circumstances could warrant State intervention at all; but if it were once granted that State inter The 'Other vention for the protection of workers might, under certain circumstances, be justifiable, the case for intervention for the protection of women and children in factories was convincing; and the event proved the economic soundness of the shortened hours of Fielden's Act. From this point of view, the fact that incidentally the Act entailed shorter hours for adult men's labour, or even that this was the real aim held in view by large numbers of those who were most urgent on behalf of the ten hours, could not be treated as a sufficient reason for refusing protection to the women and children. Loopholes. CHAPTER XXVI INTERVENTION EXTENDED FIELDEN'S ACT imposed the ten hours limit, but still did not completely secure it; as it left the old legal period of the day, the fifteen hours from 5.30 to 8.30, unaltered. This fifteen hours day had always given opportunities for the evasion of the time limit-an evasion which it was intended to check in 1844 by the clause in the Bill of that year, which required the thirteen and a half hours then allowed for work and meals together to be continuous. But after the Ten Hours Bill was passed, employers found that the wording of the clauses left loopholes which enabled them to work women and young persons on the relay system, which was described in one of the inspector's reports as one 'for shuffling the hands about in endless variety, and shifting the hours of work and rest to different individuals throughout the day,' so that it again became impossible to test whether the legal hours were really being maintained. The Opposition among Masters. masters in general were quite convinced that the new regulations would prove extremely injurious; many of them were anxious to prevent the effective operation of the Act, and were very indignant with those inspectors who endeavoured to insist on the law being obeyed to the letter. The inspectors had lost their judicial powers, and the magistrates habitually favoured the manufacturers' point of view. As a matter of fact, they can hardly have felt the limitation of hours at all markedly at the outset, since the passing of the Act coincided with an epoch of great depression, when only fifty-two per cent. of the mills and of the operatives in Manchester were working |