 Chapter 10, Section 3 of Capital, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Simon. Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production, Volume 1 by Karl Marx. Translated from the 3rd German edition by Samuel Moore and Advert Eveling and edited by Frederick Engels. Part 3, The Production of Absolute Surplus Value. Chapter 10, The Working Day. Section 3, Branches of English Industry Without Legal Limits to Exploitation. We have hitherto considered the tendency to the extension of the working day, the werewolves hunger for surplus labour in the department where their monstrous exactions, not surpassed, says an English bourgeois economist by the cruelties of the Spaniards to the American Redskins, caused capital at last to be bound by the chains of legal regulations. Footnote. Quote. Quote. The cupidity of mill owners whose cruelties in the pursuit of gain have hardly been exceeded by those perpetrated by the Spaniards on the conquest of America in the pursuit of gold. End of quote. John Wade. History of the Middle and Working Classes. 3rd edition, London, 1835. Page 114. The theoretical part of this book, a kind of handbook of political economy, considering the time of its publication, original in some parts, e.g. on commercial crises. The historical part is, to a great extent, a shameless plagiarism of Sir F. M. Eden's The State of the Poor, London, 1797. End of footnote. Now, let us cast a glance at certain branches of production in which the exploitation of labour is either free from fetters to this day or was so yesterday. Quote. Mr. Broughton Charlton, County Magistrate, declared as chairman of a meeting held at the assembly rooms, Nottingham, on the 14th January 1860, that there was an amount of privation and suffering among that portion of the population connected with the lay straight unknown in other parts of the kingdom, indeed in the civilized world. Children of 9 or 10 years are dragged from their squalid beds at 2, 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsistence until 10, 11 or 12 at night, their limbs wearing away, their frames dwindling, their faces whitening, and their humanity absolutely sinking into a stone-like torpor, utterly horrible to contemplate. We are not surprised that Mr. Mannet, or any other manufacturer, should stand forward and protest against discussion. The system, as the Reverend Montague Valpey describes it, is one of unmitigated slavery, socially, physically, morally, and spiritually. What can be thought of a town which holds a public meeting to petition that the period of labour for men shall be diminished to 18 hours a day? We decline against the Virginian and Carolinian cotton plantas. Is their black market, their lash, and their barter of human flesh more detestable than this slow sacrifice of humanity which takes place in order that veils and colours may be fabricated for the benefit of capitalists? End of quote. Footnote. Daily Telegraph, 17th January 1860. End of footnote. The potteries of Staffordshire have, during the last 22 years, been the subject of three parliamentary inquiries. The result is embodied in Mr. Scriven's report of 1841 to the Children's Employment Commissioners in the report of Dr. Greenhouse of 1860 published by Order of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, Public Health, Third Report 112 to 113. Lastly, in the report of Mr. Long of 1862 in the first report of the Children's Employment Commission of the 13th June 1863. For my purpose it is enough to take from the reports of 1860 and 1863 some depositions of the exploited children themselves. From the children we may form an opinion as to the adults, especially the girls and women, and that in a branch of industry by the side of which cotton spinning appears in agreeable and healthful occupation. Footnote. Conform. F-angles. Lager etc. Pages 249 through 251. End of footnote. William Wood, nine years old, was seven years and ten months when he began to work. He ran molds, carried ready-molded articles into the drying room afterwards bringing back the empty mold from the beginning. He came to work every day in the week at 6 a.m. and left off about 9 p.m. Quote. I work till nine o'clock at night six days in the week. I have done so seven or eight weeks. End of quote. Fifteen hours of labor for a child seven years old. Jay Murray, twelve years of age, says, I turn jigger and run molds. I come at six. Sometimes I come at four. I worked all night last night till six o'clock this morning. I've not been in bed since the night before last. There were eight or nine other boys working last night. All but one have come this morning. I get three chillings and sixpence. I don't get any more for working at night. I worked two nights last week. Furnio, a boy of ten. I've not always an hour for dinner. I've only half an hour sometimes. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Footnote. Children's Employment Commission first report, etc., 1863. Evidence pages 16, 19, 18. End of footnote. Dr. Greenhoe states that the average duration of life in the pottery districts of Stoke-on-Trent and Wall-Stanton is extraordinarily short. Although in the district of Stoke only 36.6%, and in Wall-Stanton only 30.4% of the adult male population above 20 are employed in the potteries, among the men of that age in the first district more than half, in the second nearly two-fifths of the whole, deaths are the result of pulmonary diseases among the potters. Dr. Boothroyd, a medical practitioner at Henley, says, Each successive generation of potters is more dwarfed and less robust than the preceding one. In like manner, another doctor, Mr. McBean, since he began to practice among the potters 25 years ago, he had observed a marked degeneration, especially shown in diminution of stature and breath. These statements are taken from the report of Dr. Greenhoe in 1860. Footnote. Public Health, third report, etc., pages 102, 104, 105, and the footnote. From the report of the commissioners in 1863, the following. Dr. J. T. Arledge, senior physician of the North Staffordshire Infirmary, says, The potters of the class, both men and women, represented generated population, both physically and morally. They are, as a rule, stunted in growth, ill-shaped and frequently ill-formed in the chest. They become prematurely old and are certainly short-lived. They are phlegmatic and bloodless, and exhibit their debility of constitution by obstinate attacks of dyspepsia and disorders of the liver and kidneys, and by rheumatism. But of all diseases, they are especially prone to chest diseases, to pneumonia, ftesis, bronchitis, and asthma. One form would appear peculiar to them, and is known as potters' asthma, or potters' consumption. Scrophila, attacking the glands, or bones, or other parts of the body, is a disease of two-thirds or more of the potters. The degeneracence of the population of this district, is not even greater than it is, is due to the constant recruiting from the adjacent country, and intermarriages with more healthy races. Footnote. Children's Employment Commission. First report, page 24. End of footnote. Mr. Charles Parsons, late house surgeon of the same institution, writes in a letter to Commissioner Long, amongst other things. I can only speak from personal observation, and not from statistical data, but I do not hesitate to assert that my indignation has been aroused again and again at the sight of poor children, whose health has been sacrificed to identify the avarice of either parents or employers. He enumerates the causes of the diseases of the potters, and sums them up in the phrase, Long Hours. The report of the commission trusts that a manufacturer, which has assumed so prominent a place in the whole world, will not long be subject to the remark that its great success is accompanied with the physical deterioration, widespread bodily suffering, and early death of the work-people by whose labour and skill such great results have been achieved. Footnote. Children's Employment Commission, page 22, and page Roman 11. End of footnote. And all that holds of the potteries in England is true of those in Scotland. Footnote. Children's Employment Commission, page Roman 48. End of footnote. The manufacturer of Lucifer matches dates from 1833, from the discovery of the method of applying phosphorus to the match itself. Since 1845, this manufacturer has rapidly developed in England, and has extended especially among the thickly populated parts of London, as well as in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle, and Glasgow. With it has spread the form of Lockjaw, which a Vienna physician in 1845 discovered to be a disease peculiar to Lucifer matchmakers. Half the workers are children under 13, and young persons under 18. The manufacturer is on account of its unhealthiness and unpleasantness in such bad odour that only the most miserable part of the labouring class, half-starved widows and so forth, deliver up their children to it. Quote. The ragged, half-starved, untaught children. End of quote. Children's Employment Commission Page, Roman, 54 End of footnote. Of the witnesses that Commissioner White examined, 1863, 270 were under 18, 50 under 10, 10 only 8, and 5 only 6 years old. A range of the working day from 12 to 14, or 15 hours, night labour, irregular meal times, meals for the most part taken in the very work rooms that are pestilent with phosphorus. Dante would have found the worst horrors of his inferno surpassed in this manufacture. In the manufacture of paper hangings, the coarser swords are printed by machine, the finer by hand, block printing. The most active business months are from the beginning of October to the end of April. During this time, the work goes on fast and furious, without intermission from 6am to 10pm or further into the night. Jay Leach deposes Last winter, 6 out of 19 girls were away from ill health at one time from overwork. I have to bowl at them to keep them awake. W. Duffy? I've seen when the children could none of them keep their eyes open for the work, indeed none of us could. Jay Lightbourne? We worked last winter till 9 evening, and the winter before till 10. I used to cry with sore feet every night last winter. G. Epson? That boy of mine, when he was 7 years old, I used to carry him on my back to and fro through the snow and he used to have 16 hours a day. I have often knelt down to feed him as he stood by the machine for he could not leave it or stop. Smith? The managing partner of a Manchester factory? We? He means his hands, who work for us. Work on with no stoppage for meals, so that day's work of 10.5 hours is finished by 4.30pm and all after that is overtime. Footnote? This is not to be taken in the same sense as hour surplus labour time. These gentlemen consider 10.5 hours of labour as a normal working day which includes of course the normal surplus labour. After this begins overtime which is paid a little better. It will be seen later that the labour expended during the so-called normal day is paid below its value so that the overtime is simply a capitalist trick in order to extort more surplus labour which it would still be even if the labour power expended during the normal working day were properly paid. End of footnote? Does this Mr Smith take no meals during 10.5 hours? We, this same Smith seldom leave off working before 6pm. He means leave off the consumption of our labour power machines so that we, Iterum Crispinus are really working overtime the whole year round. For all these children and adults alike 152 children and young persons and 140 adults the average work for the last 18 months has been at the very least 7 days 5 hours or 78.5 hours a week. For the 6 weeks ending May 2nd this year 1862 the average was higher 8 days or 84 hours a week. Still the same Mr Smith who is so extremely devoted to the pluralis magistatus adds with a smile machine work is not great so the employers in a block printing say hand labour is more healthy than machine work on the whole manufacturers declare with indignation against the proposal to stop the machines at least during meal times A clause says Mr Otley manager of a wallpaper factory in the borough which allowed work between say 6am and 9pm would suit us note very well but the factory hours 6am are not suitable our machine is always stopped for dinner what generosity there is no waste of paper and colour to speak of but he adds sympathetically I can understand that the loss of time not being liked the report of the commission opines with naivete that the fear of some leading firms of losing time i.e. the time for appropriating the labour of others and then losing profits is not a sufficient reason for allowing 13 young persons under 18 working 12-16 hours per day to lose their dinner nor forgiving it to them as coal and water are supplied to the steam engine soap to wool, oil to the wheel as merely auxiliary material to the instruments of labour during the process of production itself footnote children's employment commission evidence pages 123,124 125 140 and 54 and the footnote no branch of industry in England we do not take into account the making of bread by machinery recently introduced has preserved up to the present day a method of production so archaic so as we see from the poets of the roman empire pre-christian as baking but capital as was said earlier is at first indifferent as to the technical character of the labour process it begins by taking it just as it finds it the incredible adulteration of bread especially in London was first revealed by the House of Commons committee on the adulteration of articles of food 1855 to 1856 and Dr. Hessel's work adulterations detected footnote alum finally powdered or mixed with salt is a normal of commerce bearing the significant name of baker's stuff and the footnote the consequence of these revelations was the act of august 6th 1860 for preventing the adulteration of articles of food and drink an inoperative law as it naturally shows the tenderest consideration for every free trader who determines by the buying or selling of adulterated commodities to turn an honest penny footnote and very energetic form of carbon and forms a manure that capitalistic chimney sweeps sell to English farmers now in 1862 the British jurymen had in a lawsuit to decide whether suit with which unknown to the buyer 90% of dust and sand are mixed is genuine suit in the commercial sense or adulterated suit in a legal sense the Amidu commerce decided it to be genuine commercial suit and non suited the plaintiff farmer who had in addition to pay the cost of the suit and the footnote the committee itself formulated more or less naively its conviction that free trade meant essentially trade with adulterated or as the English ingeniously put it sophisticated goods in fact this kind of sophistry knows better than protagoras how to make black and black white and better than the iliatics how to demonstrate at Oculus that everything is only appearance footnote the French chemist chevalier in his treatise on the sophistications of commodities enumerates for many of the 600 or more articles which he passes in review 10 20 30 different methods of adulteration he adds that he does not know all the methods and does not mention all that he knows he gives 6 kinds of adulteration of sugar 9 of olive oil 10 of butter 12 of salt 19 of milk 20 of bread 23 of brandy 24 of meal 28 of chocolate 30 of wine 32 of coffee etc even god almighty does not escape this fate see Rua the car on the falsifications of the materials of the sacrament Paris 1856 and the footnote at all events the committee had directed the attention of the public to its daily bread and therefore to the baking trade at the same time in public meetings and in petitions to parliament rose the cry of the London journeymen bakers against their overwork etc the cry was so urgent that Mr. H. S. Tremon here also a member of the commission of 1863 several times mentioned was appointed royal commissioner of inquiry his report together with the evidence given roused capitalist or landlord or sinicurist is commanded to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow but they did not know that he had to eat daily in his bread a certain quantity of human perspiration mixed with the discharge of abscesses, cobwebs, dead black beetles and putrid german yeast without counting alum, sand other agreeable mineral ingredients footnote report etc, relative to the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers etc, London 1862 and second report etc, London 1863 and the footnote without any regard to his holiness free trade the free baking trade was therefore placed under the supervision of the state inspectors close of the parliamentary session of 1863 and by the same act of parliament work from nine in the evenings to five in the morning was forbidden for journeymen bakers under 18 the last clause speaks volumes as to the overwork in this old fashioned homely line of business quote he then lies down upon a kneading board which is also the covering of the trowel in which the dough is made and with a sack under him and another rolled up as a pillow he sleeps for about a couple of hours he's then engaged in a rapid and continuous labour for about five hours throwing out the dough scaling it off, molding it putting it into the oven preparing and baking rolls and fancy bread taking the batch bread out of the oven and up into the shop etc etc the temperature of a bakehouse ranges from about 75 to upwards of 90 degrees and in the smaller bakehouses approximates usually to the higher rate than to the lower degree of heat when the business of making the bread rolls etc is over that of its distribution begins and a considerable proportion of the journeymen in the trade after working hard in the manner described during the night are upon their legs for many hours during the day carrying baskets or wheeling hand cards and sometimes again in the bakehouse leaving off work at various hours between 1 and 6pm according to the season for year or the amount and nature of their master's business while others are again engaged in the bakehouse in bringing out more batches until late in the afternoon footnote first report etc page roman 6 and the footnote during what is called the London season the operatives belong to the full priced bakers at the west end of the town generally begin work at 11pm and are engaged in making the bread with one or two short sometimes very short intervals of rest up to 8 o'clock the next morning they are then engaged all day long up to 4, 5, 6 and as late as 7 o'clock in the evening carrying out bread or sometimes in the afternoon in the bakehouse again assisting in the biscuit baking they may have after they have done their work sometimes 5 or 6 sometimes only 4 or 5 hours sleep before they begin again on Fridays they always begin sooner some about 10 o'clock and continue in some cases at work either in making or delivering the bread up to 8pm on Saturday night but more generally up to 4 or 5 o'clock Sunday morning on Sundays the men must attend twice or three times during the day for an hour or two to make preparations for the next day's bread the men employed by the understanding masters understand that a full price and who has already pointed out comprised three fourths of the London bakers have not only to work on the average longer hours but their work is almost entirely confined to the bakehouse the understanding masters generally sell their bread in the shop if they set it out, which is not common except as supplying chantless shops they usually employ other hands for that purpose it is not their practice to deliver bread from house to house after the week the men begin on Thursday night at 10 o'clock and continue on with only slight intermission until late on Saturday evening end of quote footnote, first report etc page, Roman 71 end of footnote even the bourgeois intellect understands the position of the underselling masters quote the unpaid labour of the men was made the source whereby the competition was carried on end of quote footnote, George Reid the history of baking, London 1848, page 16 end of footnote and the full priced baker denounces his underselling competitors to the commission of inquiry as thieves of foreign labour and adult traders quote they only exist now by first defrauding the public and next getting 18 hours work out of their men for 12 hours wages end of quote report, first etc evidence of the full priced baker cheeseman, page 108 end of footnote the adulteration of bread and the formation of a class of bakers that sells the bread below the full price date from the beginning of the 18th century from the time when the corporate character of the trade was lost and the capitalist in the form of the miller or flower factor rises behind the nominal master baker footnote, George Reid as before at the end of the 17th in the beginning of the 18th centuries the factors, agents that crowded into every possible trade were still denounced as public nuisances thus the grand jury at the quarter session of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Somerset addressed the presentment to the lower house which among other things states that these factors of Blackwell Hall are a public nuisance and prejudice to the clothing trade looked down as a nuisance the case of our English wool etc London 1685 page 6 and 7 end of footnote thus was laid the foundation of capitalistic production in this trade of the unlimited extension of the working day and of night labor although the latter only since 1824 gained a serious footing even in London footnote first report etc end of footnote what has just been said it will be understood that the report of the commission classes journeymen bakers among the short-lived laborers who having by good luck escaped the normal decimation of the children of the working class rarely reached the age of 42 nevertheless the baking trade is always overwhelmed with applicants the sources of the supply of these labor powers to London are Scotland the western agricultural districts of England and Germany in the years 1858 to 1860 the journeymen bakers in Ireland organized at their own expense great meetings to agitate against night and Sunday work the public, e.g. at the Dublin meeting in May 1860 took their part with Irish warmth as a result of this movement day labor alone was successfully established in Wexford Kilkenny, Klommel, Waterford etc quote in Limerick where the grievances of the journeymen are demonstrated to be excessive that movement has been defeated by the opposition of the master bakers, the miller bakers being the greatest opponents the example of Limerick led to a retrogression in Ennis and Teperi in Cork where the strongest possible demonstration of feeling took place the masters, by exercising their power of turning the men out of employment have defeated the movement in Dublin the master bakers have offered the most determined opposition to the movement and by discounting as much as possible the journeymen promoting it have succeeded in leading the men into acquiescence in Sunday work and night work contrary to the convictions of the men end of quote footnote report of committee on the baking trade in Ireland for 1861 end of footnote the committee of the English government which government in Ireland is armed to the teeth and generally knows how to show it, remonstrates in mild though funereal tones with the implacable master bakers of Dublin, Limerick, Cork etc quote the committee believe that the hours of labor are limited by natural laws which cannot be violated with impunity that for master bakers to induce their workmen by the fear of losing employment to violate their religious convictions and their better feelings to disobey the laws of the land and to disregard public opinion this all refers to Sunday labor is calculated to provoke ill feeling between workmen and masters and supports an example dangerous to religion, morality and social order the committee believe that any constant work beyond 12 hours a day encroaches on the domestic and private life of the working men and so leads to disastrous moral results interfering with each men's home and the discharge of his family duties as a son, a brother, a husband, a father that work beyond 12 hours as a tendency to undermine the health of the working men from age and death to the great injury of families of working men thus deprived of the care and support of the head of the family on most required end of quote footnote report of committee on the baking trade in Ireland for 1861 end of footnote so far we've dealt with Ireland on the other side of the channel in Scotland the agricultural laborer the plowman protests against his 13 to 14 hours government with four hours additional work on Sunday in this land of sepitarians whilst at the same time three railway men are standing before a London coroner's jury a guard, an engine driver a signalman a tremendous railway accident has hurried hundreds of passengers into another world the negligence of the employee is the cause of the misfortune they declare with one voice before the jury that 10 or 12 years before the labor only lasts at 8 hours a day during the last 5 or 6 years it had been screwed up to 14, 18 and 20 hours and under especially severe pressure of holiday makers at times of excursion trains it often lasted for 40 or 50 hours without a break they were ordinary men, not cyclops at a certain point their labor power failed torpedo sees them their brain sees to think, their eyes to see the thoroughly respectable British jurymen answered by a verdict that send them to the next exercises on a charge of manslaughter and in a gentle rider to their verdict express the peers hope that the capitalistic magnets of the railways would in future be more extravagant in the purchase of a sufficient quantity of labor power and more more self-denying more thrifty in the draining of paid labor power footnote Reynolds newspaper, January 1866 every week this same paper has under the sensational headings fearful and fatal accidents appalling tragedies etc a whole list of fresh railway catastrophes on these an employee on the north Stafford-Charline comments everyone knows the consequences that may occur if the driver and firemen of a locomotive engine are not continually on the lookout how can that be expected from a man who has been at such work for 29 or 30 hours exposed to the weather and without rest the following is an example which is a very frequent occurrence one fireman commenced work on the Monday morning at a very early hour when he had finished what is called a day's work he had been on duty 14 hours 50 minutes before he had time to get his tea he was again called on for duty the next time he finished on duty 14 hours 25 minutes making a total of 29 hours 15 minutes without intermission the rest of the week's work was made up as follows Wednesday 15 hours Thursday 15 hours 35 minutes Friday 14 and a half hours Saturday 14 hours 10 minutes making a total for the week of 88 hours 40 minutes now so fancy his astonishment he paid 6 and a quarter days for the whole thinking it was a mistake he applied to the timekeeper and inquired what they considered a day's work and was told 13 hours for a goodsman i.e. 78 hours he then asked for what he had made over and above the 78 hours per week but was refused however he was at last told they would give him another quarter i.e. 10 pence Reynolds newspaper 1866 and a footnote from the motley crowd of labourers of all collings ages, sexes that press on us more busily than the souls of the slain on Ulysses on whom, without referring to the blue books under their arms, we see at a glance the mark of overwork let us take two more figures whose striking contrast proves that before capital all men are alike a milliner and a blacksmith in the last week of June in 1863 all the London Daily Papers published a paragraph with the sensational heading death from simple overwork it dealt with the death of the milliner Mary Ann Walclay 20 years of age employed in a highly respectable dressmaking establishment exploited by a lady with a pleasant name of Eliza the old often told story was months more recounted footnote conform F. Engels page 244 pages 253 and 254 and a footnote this girl worked on an average 16 and a half hours during the season often 30 hours without a break whilst her failing labour power was revived by occasional supplies of sherry port or coffee it was just now the height of the season it was necessary to conjure up in the twinkling of an eye the gorgeous dresses for the noble ladies bidden to the ball in order of the newly imported princes of Wales Mary Ann Walclay had worked without intermission for 26 and a half hours with 60 other girls 30 in one room that only afforded three of the cubic feet of air required for them at night they slept in pairs in one of the stifling holes into which the bedroom was divided by partitions of board footnote Dr. Leatherby of health declared the minimum for each adult ought to be in a sleeping room 300 and in a dwelling room 500 cubic feet Dr. Richardson senior physician to one of the London hospitals with need of women of all kinds including willingness, dress makers and ordinary semesters there are three miseries overwork, deficient air and either deficient food or deficient digestion need of work in the main better adapted to women than to men but the misuse of the trade in the metropolis especially are that it is monopolized by some 26 capitalists who under the advantages that spring from capital can bring in capital to force economy out of labour this power tells throughout the whole class if a dress maker can get a little circle of customers such as the competition that in her home she must work to the death to hold together and this same overwork she must of necessity inflict on any who may assist her if she fail or do not try independently she must join an establishment where her labour is not less but where her money is safe placed thus she becomes a mere slave tossed about with the variations of society now at home in one room starving or near to it then engaged 15, 16, I even 18 hours out of the 24 in an air that is scarcely tolerable and on food which even if it be good cannot be digested in the absence of pure air on these victims consumption which is pure the disease of bad air feeds Dr. Richardson work and overwork in social science review 18 July 1863 and the footnote and this was one of the best millenary establishments in London Mary Ann Walkley fell ill on the Friday died on Sunday without to the astonishment of Madame Eliza having previously completed the work in hand the doctor Mr. Keys called too late to the death bed Julie bore witness before the coroner's jury that Mary Ann Walkley had died from long hours of work in an overcrowded work room and a too small and badly ventilated bedroom in order to give the doctor a lesson in good manners the coroner's jury on brought in a verdict that the deceased had died of apovexia but there was reason to fear that her death had been accelerated by overwork in an overcrowded work room etc our white slaves cried the morningstar the organ of the free traders captain and bride our white slaves who are toiled into the grave for the most part silently pine and die footnote Morningstar 23 June 1863 the times made use of the circumstance to defend the American slave owners against bride etc very many of us think as a leader of july 2nd 1863 that while we work our own young women to death using the scourge of starvation instead of the crack of the whip as the instrument of compulsion we have scarcely a right to hound on fire and slaughter against families who are born slave owners and who at least feed their slaves well and work them lightly in the same manner the standard atory organ fell foul of the reverend newman hall he excommunicated the slave owners but praised with a fine folk who without remorse make the omnibus drivers and conductors of London etc work 16 hours a day for the wages of a dog finally spake the oracle thomas carlyle of whom i wrote in 1850 some toyful is their genius their kultus is gubleben in a short parable he reduces the one great event of contemporary history the american civil war to this level that the peter of the north wants to break the head of the pole of the south with all his might because the peter of the north hires his labour by the day and the pole of the south hires his by the life mcmillan's magazine ilias americana in nutia august 1863 thus the bubble of tory sympathy the urban workers by no means for the rural has burst at last the sum of all is slavery and the footnote quote it is not only in dressmaker's rooms that working to death is the order of the day but in a thousand other places in every place i'd almost said where a thriving business has to be done we will take the black smith as a type if the poets were true there is no man so hearty so merry as the black smith he rises early and strikes his sparks before the sun he eats and drinks and sleeps as no other man working a motheration he is in fact in one of the best of human positions physically speaking but we follow him into the city or town and we see the stress of work on that strong man and what then is his position in the death rate of his country in maryl bone black smith's die at the rate of 31 per thousand per annum or 11 above the mean of the male adults of the country in its entirety the occupation instinctive almost as a portion of human art unobjectionable as a branch of human industry is made by mere excess of work the destroyer of the man he can strike so many blows per day walk so many steps breathe so many breaths produce so much work and live an average say of 50 years he's made to strike so many more blows to walk so many more steps to breathe so many more breath per day and to increase all together a fourth of his life he meets the effort the result is the producing for a limited time a fourth more work he dies at 37 for 50 and of quote footnote dr. Richardson as above and the footnote and of part 3 chapter 10 section 3 chapter 10 section section 4 of capital volume 1 this is a lipovox recording all lipovox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit lipovox.org recording by Anna Simmel capital a critical analysis of capitalist production volume 1 by Carl Marx translated from the third german edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling and edited by Frederick Engels part 3 the production of absolute surplus value chapter 10 the working day section 4 day and night work the relay system constant capital the means of production considered from the standpoint of the creation of surplus value only existed to absorb labour and with every drop of labour a proportional quantity of surplus labour while they failed to do this their mere existence causes a relative loss to the capitalist for they represent during the time they lie fellow a useless advance of capital and this loss becomes positive and absolute as soon as the intermission of their employment necessitates additional outlay at the recommencement of work the prolongation of the working day beyond the limits of the natural day into the night only acts as a palliative it quenches only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour to appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is therefore the inherent tendency of capitalist production but as it is physically impossible to exploit the same individual labour power constantly during the night as well as the day to overcome this physical hindrance this alternation becomes necessary between the work people whose powers are exhausted by day and those who are used up by night this alternation may be affected in various ways e.g. it may be so arranged that part of the workers are one week employed on day work the next week on night work it is well known that this relay system this alternation of two sets of workers held full sway in the full nature and that at the present time it still flourishes among others in the cotton spinning of the Moscow district this 24 hours process of production exists today as a system in many of the branches of industry of Great Britain that are still free in the blast furnaces forges, plate rolling mills and other metallurgical establishments in England, Wales and Scotland the working time here includes the 24 hours of the six working days a great part also of the 24 hours of Sunday the workers consist of men and women, adults and children of both sexes the ages of the children and young persons run through all intermediate grades from 8 in some cases from 6 to 18 footnote children's employment commission third report London 1864 pages Roman 4 5 and 6 and the footnote in some branches of industry the girls and women work through the night together with the males footnote both in Staffordshire and in south Wales young girls and women are employed on the pit banks and on the cocaebes not only by day but also by night this practice has been often noticed in reports presented to parliament as being attended with great evils these females employed with the men hardly distinguished from them in their dress and begrimmed with dirt and smoke are exposed to the deterioration of character arising from the loss of self-respect which can hardly fail to follow from their unfeminine occupation loco citato 194 page Roman 26 conform fourth report 1865 page Roman 13 it is the same in glass works and the footnote placing on one side the generally injurious influence of night labour the duration of the process of production unbroken during the 24 hours offers very welcome opportunities of exceeding the limits of the normal working day e.g. in the branches of industry already mentioned which are of an exceedingly fatiguing nature the official working day means for each worker usually 12 hours by night or day footnote a steel manufacturer who employs children in night labour remarked it seems but natural that boys who work at night cannot sleep and get proper rest by day but will be running about loco citato fourth report 63 page Roman 13 on the importance of sunlight for the maintenance and growth of the body light also acts upon the tissues of the body directly in hardening them and supporting their elasticity the muscles of animals when they are deprived of a proper amount of light become soft and inelastic the nervous power loses its tone from defective stimulation and the elaboration of all growth seems to be perverted in the case of children constant access to plenty of light during the day and to the direct rays of the sun for a part of it is most essential to health light assists in the elaboration of good plastic blood and hardens the fibre after it has been laid down it also acts as a stimulus upon the organs of sight and by this means brings about more activity in the various cerebral functions Dr. W. Strange senior physician of the Worcester General Hospital from whose work on health 1864 this passage is taken writes in a letter to Mr. White one of the commissioners I've had opportunities formally when in Lancashire of observing the effects of night work upon children and I have no hesitation in saying contrary to what some employers were fond of asserting those children who are subjected to it soon suffered in their health Lococitato 284 page 55 that such a question should furnish the material of serious controversy shows plainly how capitalist production acts on the brain functions of capitalists and their retainers and a footnote but the overwork beyond this amount is in many cases to use the words of the English official report truly fearful footnote Lococitato 57 page Roman 12 and a footnote it is impossible the report continues for any mind to realise the amount of work described in the following passages as being performed by boys from 9 to 12 years of age without coming irresistibly to the conclusion that such abuses of the power of parents and of employers can no longer be allowed to exist footnote Lococitato 484 page Roman 12 and a footnote quote or at pressing times seems inevitably to open the door to their not unfrequently working unduly long hours these hours are indeed in some cases not only cruelly but even incredibly long for children amongst a number of boys it will of course not unfrequently happen that one or more are from some cause absent when this happens that place is made up by one or more boys who work in the other turn that this is a well understood system is playing from the answer of the manager of some large rolling mills who when I asked him how the place of the boys absent from that turn was made up I dare say sir you know that as well as I do and admitted the fact footnote Lococitato and a footnote quote at a rolling mill where the proper hours were from 6am to 5.30pm a boy worked about 4 nights every week till 8.30pm at least and this for 6 months another at 9 years old sometimes made 3 12 hour shifts running and when 10 has made 2 days and 2 nights running a third now 10 worked from 6am till 12pm 3 nights until 9pm the other nights another now 13 worked from 6pm till 12 noon next day for a week together and sometimes for 3 shifts together e.g. from Monday morning till Tuesday night another now 12 has worked in an iron foundry at Stavley from 6am till 12pm for a fortnight on end could not do it anymore George Allensworth age 9 came here a cellar boy last Friday next morning we had to begin at 3 so I stopped here all night lived 5 miles off had a furnace overhead with an apron on me and a bit of a jacket over me the 2 other days I have been here at 6am I it is hot in here before I came here I was nearly a year at the same work at some works in the country began there too at 3 on Saturday morning always did but was very gain near home and could sleep at home other days I began at 6 in the morning and ginned over at 6 or 7 in the evening e.g. the degree of culture of these labour powers must naturally be such as appears in the following dialogues with one of the commissioners Jeremiah Haynes age 12 4 x 4 is 8 4 x 4 is 16 a king is him that it is all the money and gold we have a king told it is a queen they call her the princess Alexandra told that she married the queen's son the queen's son is the prince Alexandra a princess is a man William Turner age 12 don't live in England think it is a country but didn't know before John Morris age 14 have heard say that God made the world and that all the people was drowned but one heard say that one was a little bird William Smith age 15 God made man man made woman Edward Taylor age 15 do not know of London Henry Matthewman age 17 had been to chapel but missed a good many times lately one name that they preached about was Jesus Christ but I cannot say any others and I cannot tell anything about him he was not killed but died like other people he was not the same as other people in some ways because he was religious in some ways and others isn't Loco Cittato Page Roman 15 the devil is a good person I don't know where he lives Christ was a wicked man this girl spelled God as dog and did not know the name of the queen children employment commission fifth report 1866 page 55 and 278 the same system obtains in the glass and paperworks as in the metallurgical already cited in the paper factories where the paper is made by machinery is the rule for all processes except rag sorting in some cases night work by relays is carried on incessantly through the whole week usually from Sunday night until midnight of the following Saturday those who are on day work work five days of 12 and one day of 18 hours those on night work five nights of 12 and one of six hours in each week in other cases each set works 24 hours consecutively on alternate days one set working six hours on Monday and 18 on Saturday to make up the 24 hours in other cases an intermediate system prevails by which all employed on the papermaking machinery work 15 or 16 hours every day in the week this system says commissioner lord seems to combine all the evils of both the 12 hours and the 24 hours relays children under 13 young persons under 18 women work under this night system sometimes under the 12 hour system they are obliged on account of the non-appearance of those that ought to relieve them to work a double turn of 24 hours the evidence proves that boys and girls very often work overtime which not infrequently extends to 24 or even 36 hours of uninterrupted toil in the continuous and unvarying process of glazing are found girls of 12 who work the whole month 14 hours a day without any regular relief or cessation beyond 2 or at most 3 breaks of half an hour each for meals in some mills where regular night work has been entirely given up overwork goes on to a terrible extent and that often in the dirtiest and in the hottest and in the most monotonous of the various processes children's employment commission report 4 65 page roman 38 and roman 39 end of footnote let us now hear how capital itself regards this 24 hour system the extreme forms of the system its abuse in the cruel and incredible extension of the working day are naturally passed over in silence capital only speaks of the system in its normal form messers nailer and figures manufacturers who employ between 600 and 700 persons among whom only 10% are under 18 and of those only 20 boys under 18 work in night sets thus express themselves the boys do not suffer from the heat the temperature is probably from 86 to 90 degrees at the forges and in the rolling mills the hands work night and day in relays but all the other parts of the work are day work i.e. from 6am to 6pm in the forge the hours are from 12 to 12 some of the hands always work in the night without any alternation of day and night work we do not find any difference in the health of those who work regularly by night and those who work by day and probably people can sleep better if they have the same period of rest than if it is changed about 20 of the boys under the age of 18 work in the night sets we could not well do without lets 18 working by night the objection would be the increase in the cost of production skilled hands in the heads in every department are difficult to get but of lads we could get any number but from the small portion of boys that we employ the subject i.e. for restrictions on night work is of little importance or interest to us footnote fourth report etc. 1865 79 page roman and the footnote Mr. J. Ellis one of the firm of messers John Brown and Co steel and ironworks employing about 3000 men and boys part of whose operations namely iron and heavier steelwork goes on night and day by relays states that in the heavier steelwork one or two boys are employed to a score or two men their concern employs upwards of 500 boys under 18 whom about one third or 170 are under the age of 13 with reference to the proposed alteration of the law Mr. Ellis says i do not think it would be very objectionable to require that no person under the age of 18 should work more than 12 hours in a 24 but we do not think that any line could be drawn over the age of 12 at which boys could be dispensed with for night work but we would sooner be prevented from employing boys under the age of 13 or even so high as 14 at all than not be allowed to employ boys that we do have at night those boys who work in the day sets must take that turn in the night sets also because the men could not work in the night sets only it would ruin their health we think however that night work in alternate weeks is no harm Messers Naylor and Vickers on the other hand in conformity to the interests of their business considered that periodically changed night labor might possibly do more harm than continual night labor we find a man who do it as well as the others who do other work only by day our objections to not allowing boys under 18 to work at night would be on account of the increase of expense but this is the only reason aside what cynical naivety back to quote we think that the increase would be more than the trade with due regard to its being successfully carried out could fairly bear aside what mealy-mouthed phraseology back to quote labor is scarce here and might fall short if there was such a regulation aside i.e. Alice Brown and Co. might fall into the fatal perplexity of being obliged to pay labor power its full value footnote loco citato 80 page roman 16 and a footnote the cyclops steel and ironworks of Messers Camel and Co. are concocted on the same large scale as those of the above mentioned John Brown and Co. the managing director had handed in his evidence to the government commissioner Mr. White in writing later he founded convenient to suppress the manuscript when it had been returned to him for revision Mr. White however has a good memory he remembered quite clearly that for the Messers cyclops the forbidding of the night labor of children and young persons would be impossible it would be tantamount to stopping their works and yet there in business employs little more than 6% of boys under 18 and less than 1% under 13 footnote loco citato 82 page roman 17 and a footnote on the same subject Mr. E. F. Sanderson of the firm of Sanderson Brothers and Co. Steel rolling mills and forges at a cliff says great difficulty would be caused by preventing boys under 18 from working at night the chief would be the increase of costs from employing men instead of boys I cannot say what this would be but probably it would not be enough to enable the manufacturers to raise the price of steel and consequently it would fall on them as of course the men what queer headed folk would refuse to pay it Mr. Sanderson does not know how much he pays the children but perhaps the younger boys get from four shillings to eight shillings a week the boys' work is of a kind for which the strength of the boys is generally generally of course not always quite sufficient and consequently there would be no gain in the greatest strength of the men to counterbalance the loss or it would be only in a few cases in which the metal is heavy the men would not like so well not to have boys under them as men would be less obedient besides boys must begin young to learn the trade leaving day work alone open to boys would not answer this purpose and why not why could not boys learn their handicraft in a day time your reason owing to the men working days and nights in alternate weeks the men would be separated half the time from their boys and would lose half the profit which they make from them the training which they give to an apprentice is considered as part of the return for the boys' labor and thus enables the men to get it at a cheaper rate each man would want half of this profit in other words Mr. Sanderson would have to pay part of the wages of the adult men out of their own pockets instead of by the night work for the boys Mr. Sanderson's profit would thus fall to some extent and this is the good Sandersonian reason why boys cannot learn their handicraft in a day footnote in our reflecting and reasoning age a man is not worth much who cannot give a good reason for everything no matter how bad or how crazy everything in the world that has been done wrong has been done wrong for the very best of reasons Hegel Logo Citeto page 249 in the footnote in addition to this it would throw night labor on those who worked instead of the boys which they would not be able to stand the difficulties in fact would be so great that they would very likely lead to the giving up of night work altogether and as far as the work itself is concerned says E. F. Sanderson this would suit as well but Mr. Sanderson have something else to make besides steel steel making is simply surplus value making the smelting furnaces, rolling mills etc the buildings, machinery iron, coal etc have something more to do than transform themselves into steel they are there to absorb surplus labor and naturally absorb more in 24 hours than in 12 in fact they give by grace of God and law the Sanderson's a check on the working time of a certain number of hands for all the 24 hours of the day their character is capital and are therefore a pure loss for the Sanderson's as soon as their function of absorbing labor is interrupted quote but then there would be the loss from so much expensive machinery lying idle half the time and to get through the amount of work which we are able to do on the present system we should have to double our premises and plant which would double the outlay end of quote but why should these Sanderson's pretend to a privilege not enjoyed by the other capitalists who only worked during the day and whose buildings, machinery, raw material therefore lie idle during the night E.F. Sanderson answers in the name of all the Sanderson's it is true that there is this loss for machinery lying idle in those manufactories in which work only goes on by day but the use of furnaces would involve a further loss in our case if they were kept up there would be a waste of fuel aside instead of as now a waste of the living substance of the workers and if they were not there would be a loss of time in laying the fires and getting the heat up aside whilst a loss of sleeping time even to children of eight is a gain of working time for the Sanderson tribe back to quote and the furnaces themselves would suffer from the changes of temperature aside whilst those same furnaces suffer nothing from the day and night change of labor footnote loco citato 85 page roman 17 to similar tentative scruples of the glass manufacturers that regular meal times for the children are impossible because as a consequence a certain quantity of heat radiated by the furnaces would be a pure loss or wasted commissioner white makes answer his answer is unlike that of Yuri senior etc and their cuny german plagiarists ala rusher who were touched by the abstinence self-denial saving of the capitalists in the expenditure of their gold and by their timard tamerlainish prodigality of human life a certain amount of heat beyond what is usual at present might also be going to waste if meal times were secured in these cases but it seems likely not equal in money value to the waste of animal power now going on in glass houses throughout the kingdom from growing boys not having enough quiet time to eat their meals at ease with a little rest afterwards for digestion loco citato page roman 14 and this in the year of progress 1865 without considering the expenditure of strength in lifting and carrying such a child in the sheds where bottle and flint glass are made walks during the performance of his work 15 to 20 miles in every six hours and the work often lasts 14 or 15 hours in many of these glass works as in the Moscow spinning mills the system of six hours relays is in force during the working part of the week six hours is the utmost unbroken period ever attained at any one time for rest and out of this has to come the time spent in coming and going to and from work washing, dressing and meals leaving a very short period indeed for rest and none for fresh air and play unless at the expense of the sleep necessary for young boys especially at such hot and fatiguing work even the short sleep is obviously liable to be broken by a boy having to wake himself if it is night or by the noise if it is day Mr. White gives cases where a boy worked 36 consecutive hours others where boys of 12 drudged on until 2 in the morning and then slept in the works till 5 am 3 hours only to resume their work the amount of work say Tremon here and Tufnil who drafted the general report done by boys, youths, girls and women in the cause of their daily or nightly spell of labour is certainly extraordinary Lococitato Roman 43 and 44 meanwhile late by night self denying Mr. Glass capital primed with port wine reels out of his club homeward droning out idiotically Britons never, never shall be slaves end of part 3 chapter 10 section 4 chapter 10 section 5 of capital volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer LibriVox.org recording by Anna Simon capital a critical analysis of capitalist production volume 1 by Carl Marx translated from the third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Eveling and edited by Frederick Engels part 3 the production of absolute surplus value chapter 10 the working day section 5 struggle for a normal working day compulsory laws for the extension of the working day from the middle of the 14th to the end of the 17th century what is a working day what is the length of time during which capital may consume the labour power whose daily value it buys how far may the working day be extended beyond the working time necessary for the reproduction of labour power itself it has been seen that in the last questions capital replies the working day contains the full 24 hours with the deduction of the few hours of repose without which labour power absolutely refuses its services again hence it is self evident that the labourer is nothing else his whole life through than labour power therefore all his disposable time is by nature and law labour time to be devoted to the self expansion of capital time for education for intellectual development for the fulfilling of social functions and for social intercourse for the free play of his bodily and mental activity even the rest time of Sunday and that in a country of Sabaterians, moonshine footnote in England even now occasionally in rural districts a labourer is condemned to imprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath by working in his front garden labourer is punished for breach of contract if he remains away from his metal, paper or glassworks on a Sunday even if it be from a religious whim the Orthodox parliament will hear nothing of the Sabbath breaking if it occurs in the process of expanding capital a memorial, August 1863 in which the London day labourers in fish and poultry shops asked for the abolition of Sunday labour states that their work lasts for the first days of the week on an average 15 hours a day and on Sunday 8 to 10 hours from the same memorial we learn also that the delicate gourmands among the aristocratic hypocrite of extra whole especially encouraged this Sunday labour these holy ones so zealous in Kutukuranda show their Christianity by the humidity with which they bear the overwork the privations and the hunger of others obsequium ventris istis the labourers perniciosis est and a footnote but in its blind unrestrainable passion it's werewolf hunger for surplus labour capital oversteps not only the moral but even the merely physical maximum bounds of the working day it usurps the time for growth development and healthy maintenance of the body it steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight it higgles over a mealtime incorporating it where possible with the process of production itself so that food is given to the labourer as to a mere means of production as coal is supplied to the boiler grease and oil to the machinery it reduces the sound sleep needed for the restoration reparation, refreshment of the bodily powers to just so many hours of torpor as the revival of an organism absolutely exhausted renders essential it is not the normal maintenance of the labour power which is to determine the limits of the working day it is the greatest possible daily expenditure of labour power no matter how deceased, compulsory and painful it may be which is to determine the limits of the labourer's period of repose capital cares nothing for the length of life of labour power all that concerns it is simply and solely the maximum of labour power that can be rendered fluent in a working day it attains this end by shortening the extent of the labourer's life as a greedy farmer snatches increased produce from the soil by robbing it of its fertility the capitalistic mode of production essentially the production of surplus value the absorption of surplus labour produces thus with the extension of the working day not only the deterioration of a human labour power by robbing it of its normal conditions of development and function it produces also the premature exhaustion and death of its labour power itself footnote quote we have given in our previous reports the statements of several experienced manufacturers to the effect that over hours certainly tend prematurely to exhaust the working power of the men loco citato 64 page roman 13 end of footnote it extends the labourer's time of production during a given period by shortening his actual lifetime but the value of the labour power includes the value of the commodities necessary for the reproduction of the worker or for the keeping up of the working class if then the unnatural extension of the working day that capital necessarily strives after in its unmeasured passion for self expansion shortens the length of life of the individual labourer and therefore the duration of his labour power the forces used up have to be replaced at a more rapid rate and the sum of the expenses for the reproduction of labour power will be greater just as in a machine the part of its value to be reproduced every day is greater the more rapidly the machine is worn out it would seem therefore that the interest of capital itself points in the direction of a normal working day the slave owner buys his labourer as he buys his horse if he loses his slave he loses capital that can only be restored by new outlay in the slave market but quote the rise grounds of Georgia or the swamps of the Mississippi may be fatally injurious to the human constitution but the waste of human life which the cultivation of these districts necessitates is not so great that it cannot be repaired from the teeming preserves of Virginia and Kentucky considerations of economy moreover which under a natural system afford some security for humane treatment by identifying the master's interest with the slave's preservation when once trading in slaves is practiced become reasons for racking to the uttermost the toil of the slave for when his place cannot once be supplied from foreign preserves the duration of his life becomes a matter of less moment than its productiveness while it lasts it is accordingly a maxim of slave management in slave important countries that the most effective economy is that which takes out of the human chattel in the shortest space of time the utmost amount of exertion it is capable of putting forth it is in tropical culture where annual profits often equal the whole capital of plantations that Negro life is most recklessly sacrificed it is the agriculture of the West Indies which has been for centuries prolific of fabulous wealth that has engulfed millions of the African race it is in Cuba at this day whose revenues are reckoned by millions and whose plantas are princes that we see in the servile class the coarsest fare the most exhausting and unremitting toil and even the absolute destruction of a portion of its numbers every year end of quote footnote cairns slave power page 110 and 111 end of footnote mutato nominate the te fabula narrator for slave trade read labor market for Kentucky and Virginia, Ireland and the agricultural districts of England, Scotland and Wales for Africa, Germany we heard how overwork thinned the ranks of the bakers in London nevertheless the London labor market is always overstocked with German and other candidates for death in the bakeries pottery as we saw is one of the shortest lift industries is there any want therefore of potters? Josiah Wetchwood the inventor of modern pottery himself originally a common workman said in 1785 before the House of Commons that the whole trade employed from 15,000 to 20,000 people footnote John Ward London 1843 page 42 end of footnote in the year 1861 the population alone of the town centres of this industry in Great Britain numbered 101,302 quote the cotton trade has existed for 90 years it has existed for three generations of the English race and I believe I may safely say that during that period they employed nine generations of factory operatives end of quote footnote France speech in the House of Commons 27 April 1863 end of footnote no doubt in certain epochs of feverish activity the labor market shows significant gaps in 1834 E.G. but then the manufacturers proposed to the poor law commissioners that they should send the surplus population of the agricultural districts to the north with the explanation that the manufacturers would absorb and use it up footnote those were the very words used by the cotton manufacturers and the footnote quote agents were appointed with the consent of the poor law commissioners an office was set up in Manchester to which lists were sent of those work people in the agricultural districts wanting employment and their names were registered in books the manufacturers attended at these offices and selected such persons as they chose when they had selected such persons as they're once required they gave instructions to have them forwarded to Manchester and they were sent ticketed like bails of goods by canals or with carriers others tramping on the road and many of them were found on the way lost and half staffed this system had grown up into a regular trade this house will hardly believe it but I tell them that this traffic in human flesh was as well kept up they were in effect as regularly sold to these Manchester manufacturers as slaves are sold to the cotton grows in the United States in 1860 the cotton trade was at its zenith the manufacturers again found that they were short of hands they applied to the flesh agents as they are called those agents sent to the southern downs of England to the pastures of Dorsenchar to the glades of Devonschar to the people tending kind in Wiltshire but they sought in vain the surplus population was absorbed end of quote the berry garden said on the completion of the French treaty that 10,000 additional hands could be absorbed by Lancashire and that 30,000 or 40,000 will be needed after the flesh agents and sub agents had in vain sought through the agricultural districts quote a deputation came up to London and waited on the right honourable gentleman Mr. Villiers, president of the poor law board, with a view of obtaining poor children from certain union houses for the mills of Lancashire end of quote footnote loco citato Mr. Villiers, despite the best of intentions on his part was legally obliged to refuse the requests of the manufacturers these gentlemen however attained their end through the obliging nature of the local poor law boards Mr. A. Redgrave, inspector of factories asserts that this time the system under which orphans and pauper children were treated legally as apprentices was not accompanied with the old abuses on these abuses see Engels, loco citato although in one case there certainly was abuse of this system in respect to a number of girls and young women brought from the agricultural districts of Scotland into Lancashire and Cheshire under this system the manufacturer entered into a contract with the work house authorities for a certain period he fed, clothed and lodged the children and gave them a small allowance of money a remark of Mr. Redgrave to be quoted directly seems strange especially if we consider that even among the years of prosperity of the English cotton trade this stands unparalleled and that besides wages were exceptionally high for this extraordinary demand for work had to contend with the depopulation of Ireland with un-exampled emigration from the English and Scots agricultural districts to Australia and America with an actual diminution of the population in some of the English agricultural districts in consequence partly of an actual breakdown of the vital force of the labourers partly of the already affected dispersion of the disposable population through the dealers in human flesh despite all this Mr. Redgrave says this kind of labour however would only be sought after when none other could be procured for it is a high-priced labour the ordinary wages of a boy of 13 would be about 4 shillings per week but to lodge to clothe, to feed and to provide medical attendants and proper super- attendants for 50 or 100 of these boys and to set aside some remuneration for them could not be accomplished for 4 shillings ahead per week report of the inspector of factories for 30th April 1860 page 27 Mr. Redgrave forgets to tell us how the labourer himself can do all this for his children out of their 4 shillings a week wages when the manufacturer cannot do it for the 50 or 100 children lodged, boarded, super- handed all together to guard against false conclusions from the text I ought here to remark that the English cotton industry since it was placed under the factory act of 1850 with its regulations of labour time etc must be regarded as the model industry of England the English cotton operative is in every respect better off than his continental companion in misery the Prussian factory operative labours at least 10 hours per week than his English competitor and if employed at his own loom in his own house his labour is not restricted to even those additional hours report of the inspector of factories 31st of October 1855 page 103 Redgrave the factory inspector mentioned above after the industrial exhibition in 1851 travelled on the continent especially in France and Germany for the purpose of enquiring on the conditions of the factories of the Prussian operative he says he receives a remuneration sufficient to procure the simple fare and to supply the slender comforts to which he has been accustomed he lives upon a scarce fare and works hard where in his position is supported to that of the English operative report of the inspector of factories 31st of October 1855 page 85 and a footnote what experience shows to the capitalist generally is a constant excess of population i.e. an excess in relation to the momentary requirements of surplus labour absorbing capital although this excess is made up of generations of human beings stunted, short lived swiftly replacing each other plucked so to say before maturity footnote the overworked die off with strange rapidity those who perish are instantly filled and a frequent change of persons makes no alteration in this scene England and America London 1833 volume 1 page 55 by E.G. Wakefield and the footnote and indeed experience shows to the intelligent observer with what swiftness and grip the capitalist mode of production dating historically speaking only from yesterday has seized the vital power of the people by the very root shows how the degeneration of the industrial population is only retarded by the constant absorption of primitive and physically uncorrupted elements from the country shows how even the country labourers in spite of fresh air and the principle of natural selection that works so powerfully amongst them and only permits the survival of the strongest are already beginning to die off footnote see public health 6th report of the medical officer of the privy council 1863 published in London 1864 this report deals especially with the agricultural labourers Sutherland is commonly represented as a highly improved county but recent enquiry has discovered that even there in districts once famous for fine men and gallant soldiers the inhabitants have degenerated into a meagre and stunted race in the healthiest situations on hillsides fronting the sea the faces of their famished children are as pale as they could be in the foul atmosphere of a London alley W.T.H. Thornton overpopulation and its remedy Logo Cytato pages 74 and 75 they resemble in fact the 30,000 Gallant Highlanders whom Glasgow picks together in its wanes and closes with prostitutes and thieves and the footnote capital that has such good reasons for denying the sufferings of the legions of workers that surround it is in practice moved as much and as little by the sight of the coming degradation and final depopulation of the human race as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun in every stock-jubbing swindle everyone knows that sometime or other the crash must come but everyone hopes that it may fall in the head of his neighbour after he himself caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety après moi le deluge is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation hence capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer unless under compulsion from society footnote quote but though the health of a population is so important a fact of the national capital we are afraid it must be said that the class of employers of labour have not been the most forward to guard and cherish this treasure the consideration of the health of the operatives was forced upon the mill owners times November 5th, 1861 the men of the west riding became the clothiers of mankind the health of the work people were sacrificed and the lays in a few generations must have degenerated but a reaction set in Lord Shaftesbury's bill limited the hours of children's labour etc reported the register general for October 1861 and the footnote to the outcry as to the physical and mental degradation, the premature death the torture of overwork it answers all these to trouble us since they increase our profits but looking at things as a whole all this does not indeed depend on the good or ill will of the individual capitalist free competition brings out the inherent laws of capitalist production in the shape of external coercive laws having power over every individual capitalist footnote we therefore find e.g. that in the beginning of 1863 26 firms owning extensive potteries in Staffordshire amongst others Josiah Wetchwood and Sons petition in a memorial for some legislative enactment competition with other capitalists permits them no voluntary limitation of working time for children etc much as we deployed evils before mentioned it would not be possible to prevent them by any scheme of agreement between the manufacturers taking all these points into consideration we have come to the conviction that some legislative enactment is wanted children's employment commission report 1863 page 322 most recently a much more striking example offers the rise in the price of cotton during a period of feverish activity had induced the manufacturers in Blackburn to shorten by mutual consent the working time in their meals during a certain fixed period this period terminated about the end of November 1871 meanwhile the wealthier manufacturers who combined spinning with weaving used the diminution of production resulting from this agreement to extend their own business and thus to make great profits at the expense of the small employers the letter thereupon turned in their extremity to the operatives urged them earnestly to agitate for the nine-hour system and promised contributions and money to this end and the footnote the establishment of a normal working day is the result of centuries of struggle between capitalists and laborer the history of this struggle shows two opposed tendencies compare e.g. the English factory legislation of our time with the English labor statutes from the 14th century to well into the middle of the 18th footnote the labor statutes the like of which were enacted at the same time in France the Netherlands and elsewhere were first formally repealed in England in 1813 long after the changes in methods of production had rendered them obsolete and the footnote whilst the modern factory acts compulsorily shortened the working day the earlier statutes tried to lengthen it by compulsion of course the pretensions of capital and embryo when beginning to grow it secures the right of absorbing a quantum sufficient of surplus labor not merely by the force of economic relations but by the help of the state appear very modest when put face to face with the concessions that growling and struggling it has to make in its adult condition it takes centuries ere the free laborer thanks to the development of capitalistic production agrees i.e. is compelled by social conditions to sell the whole of his active life his very capacity for work for the price of the necessaries of life his birthright for a massive potage hence it is natural that the lengthening of the working day which capital from the middle of the 14th to the end of the 17th century tries to impose by state measures on adult laborers approximately coincides with the shortening of the working day which in the second half of the 19th century has here and there been affected by the state to prevent the coining of children's blood into capital that which today e.g. in the state of Massachusetts until recently the freest state of the North American Republic has been proclaimed as a statutory limit of the labor of children under 12 was in England even in the middle of the 17th century the normal working day of able-bodied artisans robust laborers athletic blacksmiths footnote quote no child under 12 years of age shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment more than 10 hours in one day end of quote general statutes of Massachusetts 63 chapter 12 the various statutes were passed between 1836 and 1858 quote labor performed during a period of 10 hours until the full cotton woolen silk paper glass and flex factories or in manufacturers of iron and brass shall be considered a legal day's labor and be it enacted that hereafter no miner engaged in any factory shall be holding or required to work more than 10 hours in any day or 60 hours in any week and that hereafter no miner shall be admitted as a worker under the age of 10 years in any factory within this state state of New Jersey enact to limit the hours of labor et cetera paragraph 1 and 2 law of 18th march 1851 quote no miner who has attained the age of 12 years and is under the age of 15 years shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment more than 11 hours in any one day nor before 5 o'clock in the morning nor after 7.30 in the evening end of quote revised statutes of their state of Rhode Island et cetera chapter 139 paragraph 23 1st of July 1857 end of footnote the first statute of laborers 23 Edward III 1349 found its immediate pretext not its cause for legislation of this kind last centuries after the pretext for it has disappeared in the great plague that decimated the people yet as a Tory writer says the difficulty of getting men to work on reasonable terms i.e. at a price that left their employers at a reasonable quantity of surplus labor grew to such a height as to be quite intolerable footnote sophisms of free trade 7th edition London 1850 page 205 9th edition page 253 this same Tory, moreover states that acts of parliament regulating wages but against the labourer and in favour of the master lasted for the long period of 464 years population grew these laws were then found and really became unnecessary and burdensome local citato page 206 end of footnote reasonable wages were therefore fixed by law as well as the limits of the working day the latter point that here interests us is repeated in the statute of 1496 Henry the 7th the working day for all artificers and field labourers from March to September odd according to this statute which however could not be enforced to last from 5 in the morning to between 7 and 8 in the evening but the meal times consist of one hour for breakfast one and a half hours for dinner and half an hour for a noon-meat i.e. exactly twice as much as another factory acts now in force footnote in reference to this statute Jay Wade with truth remarks from the statement above i.e. with regard to the statute it appears that in 1496 the diet was considered equivalent to one third of the income of an artificer and one half the income of a labourer which indicates a greater degree of independence among the working classes than prevails at present for the board both of labourers would now be reckoned at a much higher proportion of their wages Jay Wade, history of the middle and working classes, pages 24, 25 and 577 the opinion that this difference is due to the difference in the price relations between food and clothing then and now is refuted by the most cursory glance at chronic on Pre-Kyosem etc by Bishop Fleetwood 1st edition London 1707 2nd edition London 1745 and the footnote in winter work was to last from five in the morning until dark with the same intervals a statute of Elizabeth of 1562 leaves the length of the working day for all labourers hired for daily or weekly wage untouched but aims at limiting the intervals to two and a half hours in the summer or to two in the winter dinner is only to last one hour and the afternoon sleep of half an hour is only allowed between the middle of May and the middle of August for every hour of absence one penny is to be subtracted from the wage in practice however the conditions were much more favourable to the labourers than in a statute book William Petty the father of political economy and to some extent the founder of statistics says in a work that he published in the last third of the 17th century quote labouring men then meaning field labourers work 10 hours per diem and make 20 meals per week vis three a day for working days and two on Sundays whereby it is plain that if they could fast on Friday nights and dine in one hour and a half whereas they take two from 11 to 1 thereby thus working 120th more and spending 120th less the above mentioned tax might be raised end of quote footnote W. Petty political anatomy of Ireland Verben Sapienti 1672 edition 1691 page 10 and the footnote was not Dr. Andrew Eurer right in crying down the 12 hours bill of 1833 as a retrogression to the times of the dark ages it is true these regulations contained in the statute mentioned by Petty apply also to apprentices but the condition of child labour even at the end of the 17th century is seen from the following complaint quote it is not their practice in Germany as with us in this kingdom to bind an apprentice for seven years three or four is their common standard and the reason is because they are educated from their cradle to something of employment which renders them the more apt and docile and consequently the more capable of attaining to a ripeness and quicker proficiency in business whereas our youth here in England being bred to nothing before they come to be apprentices in slow progress and require much longer time were in to reach the perfection of accomplished artists end of quote footnote a discourse on the necessity of encouraging mechanic industry London 1690 page 13 Macaulay who has falsified English history in the interests of the wigs and the bourgeoisie declares as follows the practice of setting children prematurely to work prevailed in the 17th century the extent which when compared with the extent of the manufacturing system seems almost incredible at Norwich the chief seat of the clothing trade a little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour several writers of that time and among them some who were considered as eminently benevolent mention with exultation the fact that in that single city boys and girls of very tender age create wealth exceeding what was necessary for their own subsistence by 12,000 pounds a year the more carefully we examine the history of the past the more reason shall we find to descend from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils that which is new is the intelligence and the humanity which remedies them history of England volume 1 page 417 Macaulay might have reported further that extremely well disposed Amid du Cumaire in the 17th century narrate with exultation how in a poor house in Holland a child of four was employed and that this example of virtue mise en pratique passes muster in all the humanitarian works à la Macaulay to the time of Adam Smith it is true that with the substitution of manufacture for handicrafts traces of the exploitation of children begin to appear this exploitation existed always to a certain extent among peasants and was the more developed the heavier the yoke pressing on the husbandmen the tendency of capital is there unmistakably but the facts themselves are still as isolated as the phenomena of two-headed children hence they were noted with exultation as especially worthy of remark and as wonders by the far-seeing Amid du Cumaire and recommended as models for their own time and for posterity this same scotch sycophant and fine-talker Macaulay says we hear today only of retrogression and see only progress what eyes and especially what ears and a footnote still during the greater part of the 18th century up to the epoch of modern industry and machinism capital in England had not succeeded in seizing for itself by the payment of the weekly value of labour power the whole week of the labourer with the exception however of the agricultural labourers the fact that they could live for a whole week on the wage of four days did not appear to the labourers a sufficient reason that they should work the other two for the capitalist one party of English economists in the interest of capital denounces this obscenity in the most violent manner another party defends the labourers let us listen, e.g. to the contest between Posthwaite, whose dictionary of trade then had the same reputation as the kindered works of McCulloch and McGregor today and the author, already quoted of the essay on trade and commas among the accusers of the work people the most angry is the anonymous author quoted in the text of an essay on trade and commas containing observations on taxes etc London 1770 he had already dealt with this subject in his earlier work considerations on taxes London 1765 on the same side follows Polonius Arthur Young the unutterable statistical pretler among the defenders of the working classes the foremost are Jacob van der Linde London 1734 the Reverend Nathaniel Forster in an inquiry into the causes of the present high price of provisions London 1767 Dr. Price and especially Posthwaite as well in the supplement to his universal dictionary of trade and commas as in his Great Britain's commercial interest explained and improved in the second edition 1755 the facts themselves are confirmed by many other writers of the time among others by Josiah Tucker and the footnote Posthwaite says among other things quote we cannot put an end to those few observations without noticing that tried remark in the mouth of too many that if the industrious poor can obtain enough to maintain themselves in five days they will not work the whole six days in a week without seizing I must back leave to differ in sentiment from those great politicians who contend for the perpetual slavery of the working people of this kingdom they forget the vulgar adage all work and no play have not the English boasted of the ingenuity and dexterity of her working artists they have no idea what they are doing they have no idea what they are doing with the ingenuity and dexterity of her working artists and manufacturers which have heretofore given credit and reputation to British wares in general what has this been owing to to nothing more probably than the relaxation of the working people in their own way where they oblige tutorial a year round the whole six days in a week in a repetition of the same work might have not blunt their ingenuity and render them stupid Our workmen lose their reputation instead of maintaining it by such eternal slavery. And what sort of workmanship could be expected from such hard-driven animals? Many of them will execute as much work in four days as a Frenchman will in five or six. But if Englishmen are to be eternal drudges, just to be feared they will degenerate below the Frenchman. As our people are famed for bravery in war, do we not say that it is owing to good English roast beef and pudding in their bellies, as well as their constitutional spirit of liberty? And why may not the superior ingenuity and dexterity of our artists and manufacturers be owing to that freedom and liberty to direct themselves in their own way? And I hope we shall never have them deprived of such privileges, and that good living from whence their ingenuity no less than their courage may proceed? End of quote. Footnote? Puzzletweight, Lococitato, First Preliminary Discourse, page 14, and the footnote. Thereupon the author of the essay on trade and commerce replies, If the making of every seventh day and holiday is supposed to be of divine institution, as it implies the appropriating the other six days to labour, he means capital as we shall soon see, surely it will not be thought cruel to enforce it, that mankind in general are naturally inclined to ease an indolence, we faithfully experience to be true from the conduct of our manufacturing populace, who do not labour upon an average above four days in a week, unless provisions happen to be very dear. Put all the necessaries of the poor under one denomination, for instance, call them all wheat, or suppose that the bushel of wheat shall cost five shillings and that he, a manufacturer, earns a shilling by his labour, he then would be obliged to work five days only in a week. If the bushel of wheat should cost but four shillings, he would be obliged to work but four days. But as wages in this kingdom are much higher in proportion to the price of necessaries, the manufacturer, who labours four days, has a surplus of money to live idle with the rest of the week. I hope I have said enough to make it appear that the moderate labour of six days in a week is no slavery. Our labouring people do this, and to all appearance are the happiest of all our labouring poor, footnote, an essay, etc. He himself relates on page 96 wherein the happiness of the English agricultural labourer already in 1770 considered, quote, their powers are always upon the stretch, they cannot live cheaper than they do, nor work harder, end of quote, end of footnote. But the Dutch do this in manufacturers and appear to be a very happy people. The French do so when holidays do not intervene, footnote. Protestantism, by changing almost all the traditional holidays into workdays, plays an important part in the genesis of capital, end of footnote. But our populace have adopted a notion that as Englishmen they enjoy a birthright privilege of being more free and independent than in any country in Europe. Now this idea, as far as it may affect the bravery of our troops, may be of some use. But the less the manufacturing poor have of it, certainly the better for themselves and for the state. The labouring people should never think themselves independent of their superiors. It is extremely dangerous to encourage mobs in a commercial state like ours, where perhaps seven parts out of eight of the whole are people with little or no property. The cure will not be perfect till our manufacturing poor are contented to labour six days for the same sum which they now earn in four days. End of quote. Footnote. An essay. 4C pages 15, 41, 96, 97, 55, 57, 69. Jacob Wenderwind, as early as 1734, declared that the secret of the outcry of the capitalists as to the laziness of the working people was simply that they claimed for the same wages six days labour instead of four. End of footnote. To this end, end for extirpating idleness, debauchery and excess, promoting a spirit of industry, lowering the price of labour in our manufacturing and easing the lens of the heavy burden of poorest rates, our faithful accurate of capital proposes this approved device to shut up such labourers as become dependent on public support in a word, porpoise, in an ideal workhouse. Such ideal workhouse must be made a house of terror and not an asylum for the poor, where they are to be plentifully fed, warmly and decently clothed, and where they do but little work. Footnote. Lococitato page 242, end of footnote. In this house of terror, this ideal workhouse, the poor shall work 14 hours in a day, allowing proper time for meals in such manner that there shall remain 12 hours of need labour. End of quote, footnote. Lococitato. The French, he says, laugh at our enthusiastic ideas of liberty. Lococitato page 78, end of footnote. 12 working hours daily in the ideal workhouse, in the house of terror, of 1770. 63 years later, in 1833, when the English parliament reduced the working day for children of 13 to 18 in four branches of industry, to 12 full hours, the judgement day of English industry had dawned. In 1852, when Louis Bonaparte sought to secure his position with a bourgeoisie by tempering with the legal working day, the French working people cried out with one voice. The law that limits the working day to 12 hours is the one good that has remained to us of the legislation of the Republic. Footnote. Quote. They especially objected to work beyond the 12 hours per day because the law which fixed those hours is the only good which remains to them of the legislation of the Republic. End of quote. Report of inspectors of factories, 31st October 1856, page 80. The French 12 hours bill of September 5th, 1850, a bourgeoisie edition of the decree of the provisional government of March 2nd, 1848, holds in all workshops without exceptions. Before this law, the working day in France was without definite limit. It lasted in the factories 14, 15 or more hours. See, des classes ouvrières en France pendant l'année 18 viren-tachter par Monsieur Blanqui. Monsieur Blanqui, the economist, not the revolutionist, had been entrusted by the government with an inquiry into the condition of the working class. End of footnote. At Zurich, the work of children over 10 is limited to 12 hours. In Argo, in 1862, the work of children between 13 and 16 was reduced from 12 and a half to 12 hours. In Austria in 1860, for children between 14 and 16, the same reduction was made. Footnote. Belgium is the model bourgeois state in regard to the regulation of the working day. Lord Howard of Weldon, English Plenipotentiary at Brussels, reports to the Foreign Office May 12th, 1862. Monsieur Roger, the minister, informed me that children's labour is limited neither by a general law nor by any local regulations, that the government, during the last three years, intended in every session to propose a bill on the subject, but always found an insuperable obstacle in the jealous opposition to any legislation in contradiction with the principle of perfect freedom of labour. End of footnote. What a progress since 1770! Macaulay would shout with exultation. The House of Terror, for paupers of which the capitalistic soul of 1770 only dreamt, was realized a few years later in the shape of a gigantic workhouse for the industrial worker himself. It is called the factory, and the ideal this time fades before the reality. End of section 5.