 Chapter 15, Section 3, Subsections A and B 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. Capital, a critical analysis of capitalist production, Volume 1 by Karl Marx. Translated from the 3rd German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling and edited by Frederick Engels. Part 4, Production of Relative Surplus Value. Chapter 15, Machinery and Modern Industry. Section 3, The Proximity Effects of Machinery on the Workman. The starting point of modern industry is, as we have shown, the revolution in the instruments of labour. And this revolution attains its most highly developed form in the organised system of machinery in a factory. Before we enquire how human material is incorporated with this objective organism, let us consider some general effects of this revolution on the labourer himself. Subsection A, Appropriation of Supplementary Labour Power by Capital, The Employment of Women and Children. Insofar as machinery dispenses with muscular power, it becomes a means of employing labourers of slight muscular strength. And those whose bodily development is incomplete, but whose limbs are all the more supple. The labour of women and children was, therefore, the first thing sought for by capitalists who used machinery. That mighty substitute for labour and labourers was forthwith changed into a means for increasing the number of wage labourers by enrolling under the direct sway of capital every member of the workman's family without distinction of age or sex. Compulsory work for the capitalist usurped the place not only of the children's play, but also of free labour at home within moderate limits for the support of the family. Footnote 38, Dr. Edward Smith during the cotton crisis caused by the American Civil War was sent by the English government to Lancashire, Cheshire and other places to report on the sanitary condition of the cotton operatives. He reported that from a hygienic point of view, and apart from the banishment of the operatives from the factory atmosphere, the crisis had several advantages. The women now had sufficient leisure to give their infants the breast instead of poisoning them with the so-called Godfrey's cordial. They had time to learn to cook. Unfortunately, the acquisition of this art occurred at a time when they had nothing to cook. But from this we see how capital for the purposes of itself expansion has usurped the labour necessary in the home of the family. This crisis was also utilized to teach sewing to the daughters of the workmen in sewing schools. An American Revolution and a universal crisis in order that the working girls who spin for the whole world might learn to sew. End of footnote 38. The value of labour power was determined not only by the labour time necessary to maintain the individual adult labourer, but also by that necessary to maintain his family. Machinery, by throwing every member of that family onto the labour market, spreads the value of the man's labour power over his whole family. It thus depreciates his labour power. To purchase the labour power of a family of four workers may perhaps cost more than it formerly did to purchase the labour power of the head of the family, but in return four days labour takes the place of one, and their price falls in proportion to the excess of the surplus labour of four over the surplus labour of one. In order that the family may live, four people must now not only labour, but expend surplus labour for the capitalist. Thus we see that machinery, while augmenting the human material that forms a principal object of capitalist exploiting power at the same time raises the degree of exploitation. Footnote 39. The numerical increase of labourers has been great through the growing substitution of female for male and above all of childish for adult labour. Three girls of thirteen, at wages of from six shillings to eight shillings a week, have replaced the one man of mature age of wages varying from eighteen shillings to forty-five shillings. End of quote. From Thomas de Quincy to Logical Political Economy in London, 1844 note to page 147. Since certain family functions such as nursing and suckling children cannot be entirely suppressed, the mother is confiscated by capital, must try substitutes of some sort. Domestic work such as sewing and mending must be replaced by the purchase of ready-made articles. Hence the diminished expenditure of labour in the house is accompanied by an increased expenditure of money. That of keeping the family increases and balances the greater income. In addition to this, economy and judgment in the consumption and preparation of the means of subsistence becomes impossible. Abundant material relating to these facts which are concealed by official political economy is to be found in the reports of the inspectors of factories, of the Children's Employment Commission and more especially in the reports on public health. End of footnote 39. Machinery also revolutionizes out and out the contract between the labourer and the capitalist, which formally fixes their mutual relations. Taking the exchange of commodities as our basis, our first assumption was that capitalists and labourer met as free persons, as independent owners of commodities, the one possessing money and means of production, the other labour power. But now the capitalist buys children and young persons under age. Previously the workman sold his own labour power which he disposed of nominally as a free agent. In the same way the capitalist sells wife and child, he has become a slave dealer. Footnote 40. In striking contrast with the great fact that the shortening of the hours of labour of women and children in English factories was exacted from capital by the male operatives, we find in the latest reports of the Children's Employment Commission traits of the operative parents in relation to the traffic in children that are truly revolting and thoroughly like slave dealing. But the Pharisee of a capitalist, as may be seen from the same reports, denounces this brutality which he himself creates, perpetuates and exploits, and which he moreover baptizes as, quote, freedom of labour, end the quote. Quote, infant labour has been called into aid even to work for their own daily bread. Without strength to endure such disproportionate toil, without instruction to guide their future life, they have been thrown into a situation physically and morally polluted. The Jewish historian has remarked upon the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus that it was no wonder it should have been destroyed with such a signal destruction when an inhuman mother sacrificed her own offspring to satisfy the cravings of absolute hunger, end the quote. Public economy concentrated by Carlisle, 1833, page 66. End of footnote 40. The demand for children's labour often resembles in form the inquiries for Negro slaves, such as were formerly to be read among the advertisements in American journals. Quote, my attention, end quote, says an English factory inspector, quote, was drawn to an advertisement in the local paper of one of the most important manufacturing towns of my district, of which the following is a copy. Wanted 12 to 20 young persons not younger than what can pass for 13 years, wages, four shillings a week, apply, etc. end of quote, a footnote 41. A red grave in reports of inspector's factories for the 31st of October, 1858, pages 40 and 41. End of footnote 41. The phrase, quote, what can pass for 13 years, end of quote, has reference to the fact that by the Factory Act children under 13 years may work only six hours. A surgeon officially appointed must certify their age. The manufacturer therefore asks for children who look as if they're already 13 years old. The decrease often by leaps and bounds in the number of children under 13 years employed in factories, a decrease that is shown in an astonishing manner by the English statistics of the last 20 years, was for the most part, according to the evidence of the factory inspectors themselves, the work of the certifying surgeons who overstated the age of the children agreeably to the capitalist's greed for exploitation and the sordid trafficking needs of the parents. In the notorious district of Bethnal Green, a public market is held every Monday and Tuesday morning where children of both sexes from nine years of age upwards hire themselves out to the silk manufacturers. Quote, the usual terms are one shilling eight pence a week, this belongs to the parents, and two shillings for myself and tea, end of quote. The contract is binding only for the week. The scene and language while this market is going on are quite disgraceful, end of quote. Footnote 42. Children's Employment Commission fifth report, London 1866, page 81, note 31. Added in the fourth German edition, the Bethnal Green silk industry is now almost destroyed. FE, end of footnote 42. It has also occurred in England that women have taken, quote, children from the workhouse and let anyone have them out for two shilling six pence a week, end of quote. Footnote 43. Children's Employment Commission third report, London 1864, page 53, note 15. End of footnote 43. In spite of legislation, the number of boys sold in Great Britain by their parents to act as live chimney sweeping machines, although there exist plenty of machines to replace them, exceeds 2,000. Footnote 44. Location site at fifth report, page 22, note 137. End of footnote 44. The revolution affected by machinery and the juridical relations between the buyer and the seller of labour power, causing the transaction as a whole to lose the appearance of a contract between free persons, afforded the English Parliament an excuse founded on juridical principles for the interference of the state with factories. Whenever the law limits the labour of children to six hours and industries not before interfered with, the complaints of the manufacturers are always renewed. They allege that numbers of the parents withdraw their children from the industry brought under the act in order to sell them where quote, freedom of labour, end of quote, still rules, i.e. where children under 13 years are compelled to work like grown-up people and therefore can be got rid of at a higher price. But since capital is by nature a leveler, since its exact and every sphere of production equality in the conditions of the exploitation of labour, the limitation by law of children's labour in one branch of industry becomes the cause of its limitation in others. We have already alluded to the physical deterioration as well of the children and young persons as of the women whom machinery first directly in the factories that shoot up on its bases and then indirectly in all the remaining branches of industry subjects to the exploitation of capital. In this place therefore we dwell only on one point, the enormous mortality during the first few years of their life of the children of the operatives. In 16 of the registration districts into which England is divided, there are for every 100,000 children alive under the age of one year only 9,000 deaths in a year on an average. In one district only 7,047. In 24 districts the deaths are over 10,000 under 11,000. In 39 districts over 11,000 but under 12,000. In 48 districts over 12,000 but under 13,000. In 22 districts over 20,000. In 25 districts over 21,000. In 17 over 22,000. And in 11 over 23,000. In who? Wolverhampton, Ashton underline at Preston over 24,000. In Nottingham, Stockport and Bradford over 25,000. In Whizbeach 16,000. And in Manchester 26,125. Footnote 45. Sixth report on public health, London 1864, page 34. End of footnote 45. As was shown by an official medical inquiry in the year 1861, the high death rates are, apart from local causes, principally due to the employment of the mothers from their homes, and to the neglect and maltreatment consequent on her absence, such as amongst others insufficient nourishment, unsuitable food, and dosing with opiates. Besides this, there arises an unnatural estrangement between mother and child, and as a consequence intentional starving and poisoning of the children. Footnote 46. Quote. It, the inquiry of 1861, showed moreover that while with the described circumstances, infants perish unto the neglect and mismanagement which their mother's occupations imply, the mothers become to a grievous extent denaturalized toward their offspring, commonly not troubling themselves much at the death, and even sometimes taking direct measures to ensure it. End of quote. Location cited. End of footnote 46. In those agricultural districts, quote, where a minimum in the employment of women exists, the death rate is on the other hand very low. End of quote. Footnote 47. Location cited. Page 454. End of footnote 47. The Inquiry Commission of 1861 led, however, to the unexpected result that in some purely agricultural districts bordering on the North Sea, the death rate of children under one year old almost equaled that of the worst factory districts. Dr. Julian Hunter was therefore commissioned to investigate this phenomenon on this spot. His report is incorporated with the sixth report on public health. Footnote 48. Location cited. Pages 454 to 463, quote, report by Dr. Henry Julian Hunter on the excessive mortality of infants in some rural districts of England. End of quote. End of footnote 48. Up to that time it was supposed that the children were decimated by malaria and other diseases peculiar to low-lying and marshy districts. But the Inquiry showed the very opposite, namely that the same cause which drove away malaria, the conversion of the land from a morass in winter and a scanty pasture in summer into fruitful corn land created the exceptional death rate of the infants. Footnote 49. Location cited. Page 39. And pages 455 and 456. End of footnote 49. The 70 medical men whom Dr. Hunter examined at that district were, quote, wonderfully in accord, end of quote, on this point. In fact, the revolution in the mode of cultivation had led to the introduction of the industrial system. Married women who work in gangs along with boys and girls are, for a stipulated sum of money, placed at the disposal of the farmer by a man called the Undertaker who contracts for the whole gang. Quote, these gangs will sometimes travel many miles from their own village. They're fed morning and evening on the roads, dressed in short petticoats with suitable coats and boots and sometimes trousers, looking wonderfully strong and healthy, but tainted with a customary immorality and heedless of the fatal results which their love of this busy and independent life is bringing on their unfortunate offspring who are pining at home. Footnote 50. Location cited. Page 456. End of footnote 50. Every phenomenon of the factory districts is here reproduced, including, but to a greater extent, ill-disguised infanticide and dosing children with opiates. Footnote 51. In the agricultural as well as in the factory districts, the consumption of opium among the grown-up laborers, both male and female, is extending daily. Quote, to push the sale of opiate is the great aim of some enterprising wholesale merchants. By drugists it is considered the leading article. End of quote. Location cited. Page 459. Infants that take opiates, quote, shrank up into little old men, end of quote, or, quote, whizzened like little monkeys, end of quote. Location cited. Page 460. We see here how India and China avenged themselves on England. End of footnote 51. Quote, my knowledge of such evils, says Dr. Simon, the medical officer of the Privy Council and editor-in-chief of the reports on public health, may excuse the profound misgiving with which I regard any large industrial employment of adult women, end of quote. Footnote 52. Location cited. Page 37. End of footnote 52. Quote, happy indeed, exclaims Mr. Baker, the factory inspector in his official report, happy indeed will it be for the manufacturing districts of England when every married woman having a family is prohibited from working in any textile works at all, end of quote. Footnote 53. Reporter of the inspectors of factories for the 31st October, 1862. Page 59. Mr. Baker was formerly a doctor. End of footnote 53. The moral degradation caused by the capitalistic exploitation of women and children has been so exhaustively depicted by F. Engels in his Lager der Arbeit in Klasse Englunds and other writers that I need only mention the subject in this place. But the intellectual desolation artificially produced by converting immature human beings into mere machines for the fabrication of surplus value, a state of mind clearly distinguishable from that natural ignorance which keeps the mind fallow without destroying its capacity for development, its natural fertility. This desolation finally compelled even the English Parliament to make elementary education a compulsory condition to the so-called productive employment of children under 14 years in every industry subject to the factory acts. The spirit of capitalist production stands out clearly in the ludicrous wording of the so-called education clauses in the factory acts in the absence of an administrative machinery, an absence that again makes a compulsion illusory, in the opposition of the manufacturers themselves to these education clauses and in the tricks and dodges they put in practice for evading them. For this the legislature is alone to blame by having passed an elusive law which while it would seem to provide that the children employed in factories shall be educated contains no enactment by which that professed end can be secured. It provides nothing more than that the children in the days of the week and for a certain number of hours, three in each day, being closed within the four walls of a place called a school and that the employer of the child shall receive weekly a certificate to that effect signed by a person designated by the subscriber as a schoolmaster or schoolmistress. End of quote. Footnote 54. L. Horner in reports of Inspector of Factories for 30th June 1857, page 17. End of footnote 54. Previous to the passing of the amended factory act, 1844 it happened not unfrequently that the certificates of attendance at school were signed by the schoolmaster or schoolmistress with a cross as they themselves were unable to write. Quote. On one occasion on visiting a place called a school from which certificates of school attendance had issued I was so struck with the ignorance of the master that I said to him, pray sir, can you read? His reply was I, some it. And as a justification of his right to grant certificates he added, at any rate I am before my scholars. End of quote. The inspectors when the bill of 1844 was in preparation did not fail to represent the disgraceful state of the places called schools, certificates from which they were obliged to admit as a compliance with the laws, but they were successful only in obtaining thus much that since the passing of the act of 1845 the figures in the school certificate must be filled up in the handwriting of the schoolmaster who must also sign his Christian answer name in full. Footnote 55. L. Horner in report of the inspector of factories for 31st October 1855, pages 18 and 19. End of footnote 55. Sir John King Cade, factory inspector for Scotland relates experiences of the same kind, quote. The first school we visited was kept by Mrs. Anne Killen. Upon asking her to spell her name she straightway made a mistake by beginning with the letter C but correcting herself immediately she said her name began with a K. On looking at her signature however in the school certificate books I noticed that she spelt it in various ways and her handwriting left no doubt as to her unfitness to teach. She herself also acknowledged that she could not keep the register. In a second school I found the school room fifteen feet long and ten feet wide and counted in this space seventy-five children who were gabbling something unintelligible. End of quote. Footnote 56. Sir John King Cade in report of the inspector of factories on October 31st, 1858, pages 31 and 32. End of footnote 56. But it is not only in the miserable places above referred to that the children obtain certificates of school attendance without having received instruction of any value for in many schools where there is a competent teacher his efforts are of little avail from the distracting crowd of children of all ages from infants of three years old and upward. His livelihood miserable at the best depending on the pens received from the greatest number of children whom it is possible to cram into the space. To this is to be added scanty school furniture deficiency of books and other materials for teaching and the depressing effect upon the poor children themselves of a close and noisome atmosphere. I have been in many such schools where I have seen rows of children doing absolutely nothing and this is certified as school attendance and in statistical return such children are set down as being educated. End of quote. Footnote 57. L. Horner in reports etc. for the 31st of October 1857 pages 17 and 18. End of footnote 57. In Scotland the manufacturers try all they can to do without the children that are obliged to attend school. It requires no further argument to prove that the educational clauses of the factory act being held in such disfavor among mill owners tend in a great measure to exclude that class of children alike from the employment and the benefit of education contemplated by this act. End of quote. Footnote 58. Sir John Kinkade in reports etc. 31st October 1856 page 66. End of footnote 58. Horribly grotesque does this appear in print works which are regulated by a special act. By that act quote. Every child before being employed in a print work must have attended school for at least 30 days and not less than 150 hours during the six months immediately proceeding such first day of employment and during the continuance of its employment in the print works it must attend for a like period of 30 days and 150 hours during every successive period of six months. The attendance at school must be between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. No attendance of less than two and a half hours nor more than five hours on any one day shall be reckoned as part of the 150 hours. Under ordinary circumstances the children attend school morning and afternoon for 30 days for at least five hours each day and upon the expiration of the 30 days the statutory total of 150 hours having been attained having in their language made up their book they return to the print work where they continue until the six months have expired when another installment of school attendance becomes due and they again seek the school until the book is again made up. Many boys having attended school for the required number of hours when they return to school after the expiration of their six months work and the print work are in the same condition as when they first attend the school as print work boys that they have lost all they gain by their previous school attendance. In other print works the children's attendance is made to depend altogether upon the exigencies of the work and the establishment. The requisite number of hours is made up each six months by installments consisting of from three to five hours at a time spreading over perhaps a whole six months. For instance, the attendance on one day might be from eight to eleven a.m. on another day from one p.m. to four p.m. and the child might not appear at school again for several days when it would attend from three p.m. to six p.m. then it might attend for three or four days consecutively or for a week then it would not appear at school for three weeks or a month after that upon some odd days and some odd hours when the operative who employed it chose to spare it and thus the child was, as it were, buffeted from school to work from work to school until the tale of one hundred and fifty hours was told end of quote footnote fifty-nine. A red grave in report of the inspectors of factories thirty-first October eighteen fifty-seven pages forty-one to forty-two. In those industries where the Factory Act proper, not the Print Works Act referred to in the text, has been enforced for some time, the obstacles in the way of the education clauses have in recent years been overcome. In industries not under the act the views of Mr. J. Getty's a glass manufacturer still extensively prevail. He informed Mr. White, one of the inquiry commissioners, quote, as far as I can see the greater amount of education part of the working class has enjoyed for some years past is an evil it is dangerous because it makes them independent. End of quote. Children's Employee Commission Fourth Report, London eighteen sixty-five, page two fifty-three. End of footnote fifty-nine. By the excessive addition of women and children to the ranks of the workers, machinery at last breaks down the resistance which the male operatives in the manufacturing period continue to advance to the despotism of capital. Footnote sixty, quote, Mr. E., a manufacturer, informed me that he employed females exclusively at his power looms, gives a decided preference to married females, especially those who have families at home dependent on them for support. They are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried females and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the necessaries of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues of the female character to be perverted to her injury. Thus all that is most dutiful and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and suffering. End of quote. Ten hours factory bill, the speech of Lord Ashley, March fifteenth, London eighteen forty-four, page twenty. End of footnote sixty. Subsection B, prolongation of the working day. If machinery be the most powerful means for increasing the productiveness of labor, i.e. for shortening the working time required in the production of a commodity, it becomes in the hands of capital the most powerful means, in those industries first invaded by it, for lengthening the working day beyond all bounds set by human nature. It creates on the one hand new conditions by which capital is enabled to give free scope to this its constant tendency and on the other hand new motives with which to wet capital's appetite for the laborer of others. In the first place, in the form of machinery, the implements of labor become automatic, things moving and working independent of the workmen. They are thenceforth an industrial perpetual mobile that would go on producing forever did it not meet with certain natural obstructions in the weak bodies and the strong wills of its human attendance. The automaton as capital, and because it is capital, is endowed in the person capitalist with intelligence and will. It is therefore animated by the longing to reduce to a minimum the resistance offered by that repellent yet elastic natural barrier man. Footnote 61 Quote Since the general introduction of machinery, human nature has been forced far beyond its average strength. End of quote Robert Owen, Observations on the effects of the manufacturing system, second edition, London 1817. End of footnote 61 This resistance is more overlesened by the apparent lightness of machine work and by the more pliant and docile character of the women and children employed on it. Footnote 62 The English, who have a tendency to look upon the earliest form of appearance of a thing as the cause of its existence, are in the habit of attributing the long hours of work and factories to the extensive kidnapping of children practiced by capitalists in the infancy of the factory system and on work houses and orphanages by means of which robbery, unresisting material for exploitation was procured. Thus, for instance, Fysedin himself a manufacturer says, quote, It is evident that the long hours of work were brought about by the circumstance of so great a number of destitute children being supplied to the country, that the masters were independent of the hands, that having once established a custom by means of the miserable materials they had procured in this way, they could impose it on their neighbors with a greater facility. End of quote J. Fysedin, the Curse of the Factory System, London 1836, page 11. With reference to the labour of women, Saunders, a factory inspector says in his report of 1844, quote, amongst the female operatives there are some women who for many weeks in succession, except for a few days, are employed from 6 a.m. till midnight with less than two hours from meals so that on five days of the week they have only six hours left out of the 24 for going to and from their homes and resting in bed. End of quote. End of footnote 62. The productiveness of machinery is as we saw inversely proportional to the value transferred by it to the product. The longer the life of the machine, the greater is the mass of the products over which the value transmitted by the machine is spread and the less is the portion of that value added to each single commodity. The active lifetime of a machine is however clearly dependent on the length of the working day or on the duration of the daily labour process multiplied by the number of days for which the process is carried on. The wear and tear of a machine is not exactly the working time. And even if it were so, a machine working 16 hours daily for seven and a half years covers as long a working period as and transmits to the total product no more value than the same machine would if it worked only eight hours daily for 15 years. But in the first case the value of the machine would be reproduced twice as quickly as in the latter and the capitalist would by this use of the machine absorb in seven and a half years in the second case he would in 15. The material wear and tear of a machine is of two kinds. The one arises from use as coins wear away by circulating the other from non-use as a sword rusts when left in its scabbard. The latter kind is due to the elements. The former is more or less directly proportional, the latter to a certain extent inversely proportional to the use of the machine. Footnote 63 quote, occasion injury to the delicate moving parts of a metallic mechanism by inaction end of quote, your location cited page 281 end of footnote 63. But in addition to the material wear and tear a machine also undergoes what we may call a moral depreciation. It loses exchange value either by machines of the same sort being produced cheaper than it or by better machines entering into competition with it footnote 64. The Manchester Spinner times 26th November 1862 before referred to says in relation to this subject quote, it namely the allowance for deterioration of machinery is also intended to cover the loss which is constantly arising from the superseding of machines before they are worn out by others of a new and better construction end of quote, end of footnote 64. In both cases be the machine ever so young and full of life its value is no longer determined by the labor actually materialized in it but by the labor time requisite to reproduce either it or the better machine. It has therefore lost value more or less. The shorter the period taken to reproduce its total value, the less is the danger of moral depreciation and the longer the working day the shorter is that period. When machinery is first introduced into an industry, new methods are deeply followed blow upon blow and so do improvements that not only affect individual parts and details of the machine but its entire build. It is therefore in the early days of the life of machinery that this special incentive to the prolongation of the working day makes itself felt most acutely. Footnote 65. It has been estimated roughly that the first individual of a newly invented machine of the second, end of quote, Babbage, location cited, page 349. End of footnote 65. Footnote 66. Quote, the improvements which took place not long ago in frames for making patent net were so great that a machine in good repair which had cost 1200 pounds sold a few years after for 60 pounds. Improvements succeeded each other so rapidly that machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of their makers because new improvements had superseded their utility. End of quote, Babbage, location cited, page 233. In these stormy go ahead times, therefore the Tull manufacturers soon extended the working day by means of double sets of hands from the original 8 hours to 24. End of footnote 66. Given the length of the working day all other circumstances remaining the same, the exploitation of double the number of workmen demands not only a doubling of that part of constant capital which is invested in machinery and buildings but also of that part which is laid out in raw material and auxiliary substances. The lengthening of the working day on the other hand allows a production on an extended scale without any alteration in the amount of capital laid out on machinery and buildings. Footnote 67. It is self-evident that amidst the ebbings and flowings of the markets and the alternate expansions and contractions of demand occasions will constantly recur in which the manufacturer may employ additional floating capital without employing additional fixed capital. If additional quantities of raw material can be worked up without incurring an additional expense for buildings and machinery. End of quote. Our torrents on wages and combination London 1834 page 64 End of footnote 67. Not only is there therefore an increase of surplus value but the outlay necessary to obtain it diminishes. It is true that this takes place more or less with every lengthening of the working day but in the case under consideration the change is more marked because it is converted into the instruments of labour preponderates to a greater degree. Footnote 68. This circumstance is mentioned only for the sake of completeness for I shall not consider the rate of profit i.e. the ratio of the surplus value to the total capital advanced until I come to the third book. End of footnote 68. The development of the factory system fixes a constantly increasing portion of the capital in a form in which on the one hand its value is capable of continual self expansion and in which on the other hand it loses both use value and exchange value whenever it loses contact with living labour. Quote. When a labourer said Mr. Ashworth, a cotton magnate to Professor Nassau W. Sr. lays down his spade he renders useless for that period a capital worth 18 pence. As the mill he renders useless a capital that has cost £100,000 sterling. End of quote. Footnote 69. Senior, Letters on the Factory Act, London 1837 pages 13 and 14. End of footnote 69. Only fancy making useless for a single moment a capital that has cost £100,000 sterling. It is in truth monstrous that a single one of our people in the factory the increased use of machinery as senior after the instruction he received from Ashworth clearly perceives makes a constantly increasing lengthening of the working day quote desirable. End of quote. Footnote 70. Quote. The great proportion of fixed to circulating capital makes long hours of work desirable. End of quote. With the increased use of machinery motives to long hours of work will become greater as the only means by which a large proportion of fixed capital can be made profitable. End of quote. Location cited pages 11 through 13. Quote. There are certain expenses upon a mill which go on in the same proportion whether the mill be running short or full time as for instance rent rates and taxes, insurance against fire wages of several permanent servants deterioration of machinery various other charges upon a manufacturing establishment the proportion of which to profits increases as the production decreases end of quote. Report of the inspector of factories for the 31st October 1862 page 19 end of footnote 70. Machinery produces relative surplus value not only by directly depreciating the value of labor power and by indirectly cheapening the same through cheapening the commodities that enter into its reproduction but also when it's first introduced sporadically into an industry by converting the labor employed by the owner of that machinery into labor of a higher degree and greater efficacy by raising the social value of the article produced above its individual value and thus enabling the capitalist to replace the value of a day's labor power by a smaller portion of the value of a day's product. During this transition period when the use of machinery is a sort of monopoly the profits are therefore exceptional and the capitalist endeavors to exploit thoroughly the sunny time of this his first love end of quote by prolonging the working day as much as possible. The magnitude of the profit wets his appetite for more profit. As the use of machinery becomes more general in a particular industry the social value of the product sinks down to its individual value and the law that surplus value does not arise from the labor power that has been replaced by the machinery but from the labor power actually employed in working with the machinery asserts itself. Surplus value arises from variable capital alone and we saw that the amount of surplus value depends on two factors, namely the rate of surplus value and the number of the workmen simultaneously employed. Given the length of the working day the rate of surplus value is determined by the relative duration of the necessary labor and of the surplus labor in a day. The number of the laborer simultaneously employed depends on its side on the ratio of the variable to the constant capital. However much the use of machinery may increase the surplus labor at the expense of the necessary labor by heightening the productiveness of labor it is clear that it gains this result only by diminishing the number of workmen employed by a given amount of capital. It converts what was formerly variable capital invested in labor power into machinery which being constant capital does not produce surplus value. It is impossible for instance to squeeze as much surplus value out of two as out of 24 laborers. If each of these 24 men gives only one hour of surplus labor in 12 the 24 men give together 24 hours of surplus labor while 24 hours is a total labor of 22 men. Hence the application of machinery to the production of surplus value implies a contradiction which is imminent in it. Since of the two factors of the surplus value created by a given amount of capital one the rate of surplus value cannot be increased except by diminishing the other the number of workmen. This contradiction comes to light as soon as by the general employment of machinery in a given industry the value of the machine produced commodity or commodities of the same sort. And it is this contradiction that in its turn drives the capitalist without his being conscious of the fact to excessive lengthening of the working day in order that he may compensate the decrease in the relative number of laborers exploited by an increase not only of the relative but of the absolute surplus labor. Footnote 71 Why it is that the capitalist and also the political economists who are imbued with his views are unconscious of this imminent contradiction will appear from the first part of the third book. End of footnote 71 If then the capitalistic employment of machinery on the one hand supplies new and powerful motives to an excessive lengthening of the working day and radically changes as well the methods of labor as also the character of the social working organism in such a manner as to break down all opposition to this tendency on the other hand it produces partly by opening out to the capitalist new strata of the working class previously inaccessible to him partly by setting free the laborers at the plants a surplus working population which is compelled to submit to the dictation of capital. Footnote 72 It is one of the greatest merits of Ricardo to have seen in machinery not only the means of producing commodities but of creating a quote redundant population end of quote. End of footnote 72 Hence that remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern industry that machinery sweeps away every moral and natural restriction on the length of the working day. Hence to the economic paradox that the most powerful instrument for shortening labor time becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the laborer's time and that of his family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the labor of his capital. If dreamed Aristotle the greatest thinker of antiquity quote if every tool when summoned or even of its own accord could do the work that befits it just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves or the tripods of Hephaestus went of their own accord to their sacred work if the weavers shuttles were to weave of themselves then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords end the quote footnote 73 F. Beese the philosophie des Aristoteles volume 2, Berlin 1842 page 408 end the footnote 73 and Antipatros a Greek poet of the time of Cicero hailed the invention of the waterwheel for grinding corn an invention that is the elementary form of all machinery as the giver of freedom to female slaves and a bringer back of the golden age footnote 74 I give below the translation of this poem by Stolberg because it brings into relief quite in the spirit of former quotations referring to division of labor the antithesis between the views of the ancients and the moderns quote spare the hand that grinds the corn or miller girls and softly sleep let Chanticleer announce the mourn in vain Dio has commanded the work of the girls to be done by the nymphs and now they skip lightly over the wheels so that the shaken axels revolve with their spokes and pull round the load of the revolving stones let us live the life of our fathers and let us rest from work and enjoy the gifts that the goddess sends us Chonet der malenden Hand o millerinnen und schlafen sanft es verkündet der Hahn verges sûre Graf zu Stolberg, Hamburg 1782, and the footnote 74. Oh, those heathens! They understood, as they learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser McCulloch have discovered, nothing of political economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the grounds that it was a means to the full development of another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and half-educated parvenu might become, quote, eminent spinners or extensive sausage-makers and influential shoe-black dealers, to do this they lacked the bump of Christianity. End of subsection B. Chapter 15, section 3, subsection C 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. Capital, a critical analysis of capitalist production, volume 1, by Karl Marx. Translated from the third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, and edited by Frederick Engels. Part 4, production of relative surplus value. Chapter 15, machinery in modern industry. Section 3, the proximate effects of machinery on the workmen. Subsection C, intensification of labor. The immoderate lengthening of the working day, produced by machinery in the hands of capital, leads to a reaction on the part of society, the very sources of whose life are menaced, and thence to a normal working day whose length is fixed by law. This fourth phenomenon that we have already met with, namely the intensification of labor, develops into great importance. Our analysis of absolute surplus value had referenced primarily to the extension or duration of the labor, its intensity being assumed as given. We now proceed to consider the substitution of a more intensified labor for labor of a more extensive duration and the degree of the former. It is self-evident that in proportion as the use of machinery spreads, and the experience of a special class of workmen habituated to machinery accumulates, the rapidity and intensity of labor increase as a natural consequence. Thus in England, during half a century, lengthening of the working day went hand in hand with increasing intensity of factory labor. Nevertheless the reader will clearly see that where we have labor not carried on by fits and starts, but repeat a day after day with unvarying uniformity, a point must inevitably be reached where extension of the working day and intensity of the labor mutually exclude one another. In such a way that lengthening of the working day becomes compatible only with a lower degree of intensity and a higher degree of intensity only with a shortening of the working day. So soon as the gradually surging revolt of the working class compelled Parliament to shorten compulsorily the hours of labor and to begin by imposing a normal working day on factories proper, so soon consequently as an increased production of surplus value by the prolongation of the working day was once for all put a stop to, from that moment capital threw itself with all its might into the production of relative surplus value by hastening on the further improvement of machinery. At the same time a change took place in the nature of relative surplus value. Generally speaking the mode of producing relative surplus value consists in raising the productive power of the workmen, so to enable him to produce more in a given time with the same expenditure of labor. Labor time continues to transmit as before the same value to the total product, but this unchanged amount of exchange value is spread over more use value, hence the value of each single commodity sinks. Otherwise however so soon as the compulsory shortening of the hours of labor takes place. The immense impetus it gives, the development of productive power and to economy in the means of production, imposes on the workmen increased expenditure of labor in a given time, heightened tension of labor power, and closer filling up of the pours of the working day or condensation of labor to a degree that is attainable only within the limits of the shortened working day. This condensation of a greater mass of labor into a given period thence forward counts for what it really is, a greater quantity of labor. In addition to a measure of its extension, i.e. duration, labor now acquires a measure of its intensity or of the degree of its condensation or density. Footnote 75. There are of course always differences in the intensity of labor in various industries, but these differences are, as Adam Smith has shown, compensated to a partial extent by minor circumstances peculiar to each sort of labor. Labor time as a measure of value is not however affected in this case, except insofar as the duration of labor and the degree of its intensity are two antithetical and mutually exclusive expressions for one and the same quantity of labor. End of footnote 75. The denser hour of the 10 hours working day contains more labor, i.e. expended labor power, than the more porous hour of the 12 hours working day. The product, therefore, of one of the former hours has as much or more value than has the product of one and one-fifth of the latter hours. Apart from the increased yield of relative surplus value through the heightened productiveness of labor, the same mass of value is now produced for the capitalist, say, by three and a third hours of surplus labor and six and two thirds hours of necessary labor, as was previously produced by four hours of surplus labor and eight hours of necessary labor. We now come to the question, how is the labor intensified? The first effect of shortening the working day results from the self-evident law that the efficiency of labor power is in an inverse ratio to the duration of its expenditure. Hence, within certain limits what is lost by shortening the duration is gained by the increasing tension of labor power, that the workman moreover really does expend more labor power is insured by the mode in which the capitalist pays him. Footnote 76, especially by piecework, a form we shall investigate in part six of this book, and the footnote 76. In those industries such as pottery's, where a machinery plays little or no part, the introduction of the factory acts has strikingly shown that the mere shortening of the working day increases to a wonderful degree the regularity, uniformity, order, continuity, and energy of the labor. Footnote 77, C, report of the inspector of factories for 31st October, 1865, and the footnote 77. It seemed, however, doubtful whether this effect was produced in the factory proper, where the dependence of the workman on the continuous and uniform motion of the machinery had already created the strictest discipline. Hence, when in 1844 the reduction of the working day to less than twelve hours was being debated, the masters almost unanimously declared, that their overlookers in the different rooms took good care that the hands lost no time, end of quote, that the extent of vigilance and attention on the part of the workman was hardly capable of being increased, end of quote, and therefore that the speed of the machinery and other conditions remaining unaltered, to expect in a well-managed factory any important result from increased attention of the workman was an absurdity, end of quote. A footnote 78, report of the inspector of factories for 1844 and the quarter ending 30th April, 1845, pages 20 to 21, end of footnote 78. This assertion was contradicted by experiments. Mr. Robert Gardner reduced the hours of labor in his two large factories at Preston on and after the 20th of April, 1844 from twelve to eleven hours a day. The result of about a year's working was that, quote, the same amount of product for the same cost was received, and the work people as a whole earned in eleven hours as much wages as they did before in twelve, end of quote, footnote 79. Location cited page 19. Since the wages for piecework were unaltered, the weekly wages depended on the quantity produced, end of footnote 79. I pass over the experiments made in the spinning and carting rooms, because they were accompanied by an increase of 2% in the speed of the machines. But in the weaving department, where moreover many sorts of figured fancy articles were woven, there was not the slightest alteration in the conditions of the work. The result was, quote, from 6th January to 20th April, 1844, with a 12 hours day, average weekly wages of each hand ten shillings, one and a half pence, from 20th April to 29th June, 1844, with a day of 11 hours, average weekly wages, ten shillings, three and a half pence. Footnote 80. Location cited page 20. End of footnote 80. Here we have more produced in 11 hours than previously in 12, an entirely inconsequence of more steady application and economy of time by the work people. While they got the same wages and gained one hour of spare time, the capitalists got the same amount produced and saved the cost of coal, gas, and other such items for one hour. Similar experiments and with like success were carried out in the mills of Messers Horrocks and Jackson, footnote 81. The immoral element played an important part in the above experiments. The work people told the factory inspector, quote, we work with more spirit. We have the reward ever before us of getting away sooner at night. And one active and cheerful spirit pervades the whole mill from the youngest piece or to the oldest hand, and we can greatly help each other. End of quote. Location cited page 21. End of footnote 81. The shortening of the hours of labor creates to begin with the subjective conditions for the condensation of labor by enabling the workmen to exert more strength in a given time. So soon as that shortening becomes compulsory, machinery becomes in the hands of capital, the objective means systematically employed for squeezing out more labor in a given time. This is effected in two ways. By increasing the speed of the machinery, and by giving the workmen more machinery to tend, improved construction of the machinery is necessary partly because without it greater pressure cannot be put on the workmen, and partly because the shortened hours of labor force the capitalist to exercise the strictest watch over the cost of production. The improvements in the steam engine have increased the piston speed, and at the same time have made it possible by means of a greater economy of power to drive with the same or even a smaller consumption of coal, more machinery with the same engine. The improvements in the transmitting mechanism have lessened friction, and what so strikingly distinguishes modern from the older machinery have reduced the diameter and weight of the shafting to a constantly decreasing minimum. Finally, the improvements in the operative machines have, while reducing their size, increased their speed and efficiency as in the modern power loom, or while increasing the size of their framework have also increased the extent and number of their working parts as in spinning mules, or have added to the speed of these working parts by imperceptible alterations of details such as those which 10 years ago increased the speed of the spindles in self-acting mules by one-fifth. The reduction of the working day to 12 hours dates in England from 1832. In 1836 a manufacturer stated, quote, the labor now undergone in the factories is much greater than it used to be compared with 30 or 40 years ago owing to the greater attention and activity required by the greatly increased speed which is given to the machinery. End of quote, footnote 82. John Fieldon, location site at page 32, end of footnote 82. In the year 1844, Lord Ashley, now Lord Shaftesbury, made in the House of Commons the following statements supported by documentary evidence, quote, the labor performed by those engaged in the processes of manufacture is three times as great as in the beginning of such operations. Machinery has executed no doubt the work that would demand the sinews of millions of men, but it has also prodigiously multiplied the labor of those who are governed by its fearful movements. In 1815 the labor of following a pair of mules spinning cotton of number 40, reckoning 12 hours to the working day, involved a necessity of walking eight miles. In 1832 the distance traveled in following a pair of mules spinning cotton yarn of the same number was 20 miles and frequently more. In 1835, query 1815 or 1825, the spinner put up daily on each of these mules 820 stretches, making a total of 1,640 stretches in the course of the day. In 1832 the spinner put up on each mule 2,200 stretches, making a total of 4,400. In 1844 2,400 stretches, making a total of 4,800, and in some cases the amount of labor required is even still greater. I have another document sent to me in 1842 stating that the labor is progressively increasing, increasing not only because the distance to be traveled is greater, but because the quantity of goods produced is multiplied, while the hands are fewer in proportion than before, and moreover because an inferior species of cotton is now often spun, which it is more difficult to work. In the carding room, there has also been a great increase of labor. One person there does the work formerly divided between two. In the weaving room, where a vast number of persons are employed and principally females, the labor has increased within the last few years fully 10%, owing to the increased speed of the machinery in spinning. In 1838, the number of hanks spun per week was 18,000. In 1843, it amounted to 21,000. In 1819, the number of picks in powerloom weaving per minute was 60. In 1842, it was 140, showing a vast increase of labor. End of quote, footnote 83. Lord Ashley, location cited, pages 6 to 9, pass him. End of footnote 83. In the face of this remarkable intensity of labor, which had already been reached in 1844 under the 12 Hours Act, there appeared to be a justification for the assertion made at that time by the English manufacturers that any further progress in that direction was impossible, and therefore that every further reduction of the hours of labor meant a lessened production. The apparent correctness of their reasons will be best shown by the following contemporary statement by Leonard Horner, the factory inspector, their ever-watchful censor. Quote, now as the quantity produced must in the main be regulated by the speed of the machinery, it must be the interest of the mill owner to drive it at the utmost rate of speed consistent with these following conditions, namely, the preservation of the machinery from too rapid deterioration, the preservation of the quality of the article manufactured, and the capability of the workman to follow the motion without a greater exertion than he can sustain for a constancy. One of the most important problems, therefore, which the owner of a factory has to solve is to find out the maximum speed at which he can run, with a due regard to the above conditions. It frequently happens that he finds he has gone too fast, that breakages and bad work more than counterbalance the increased speed that he has obliged to slacken his pace. I therefore concluded that as an active and intelligent mill owner would find out the safe maximum, it would not be possible to produce as much in 11 hours as in 12. I further assumed that the operative paid by piecework would exert himself to the utmost consistent with the power of continuing at the same rate. End of quote, footnote 84. Report of the inspector of factories for quarter-ending 30th September, 1844, and from 1st October, 1844 to 30th April, 1845, page 20, end of footnote 84. Horner, therefore, came to the conclusion that a reduction of the working hours below 12 would necessarily diminish production. Footnote 85, location cited page 22, end of footnote 85. He himself, 10 years later, cites his opinion of 1845 in proof of how much he underestimated in that year the elasticity of machinery and of man's labor power, both of which are simultaneously stretched to an extreme by the compulsory shortening of the working day. We now come to the period that follows the introduction of the 10 Hours Act in 1847 into the English cotton, woolen, silk, and flax mills. Quote, the speed of the spindles has increased upon throstles 500 and upon mules 1,000 revolutions a minute. I.e., the speed of the throstle spindle, which in 1839 was 4,500 times a minute, is now in 1862 5,000, and of the mule spindle that was 5,000 is now 6,000 times a minute, amounting in the former case to one-tenth and in the second case to one-fifth additional increase. End of quote. Footnote 86, report of the Inspector of Factories for 31st October, 1862, page 62, end of footnote 86. James Nasmith, the eminent civil engineer of Patrick Croft near Manchester, explained in a letter to Leonard Horner written in 1852, the nature of the improvements in the steam engine that had been made between the years 1848 and 1852. After remarking that the horsepower of steam engines being always estimated in the official returns according to the power of similar engines in 1828 is only nominal, footnote 87. This was altered in the parliamentary return of 1862. In it, the actual horsepower of the modern steam engines and water wheels appears in place of the nominal. The doubling spindles too are no longer included in the spinning spindles, as was the case in the returns of 1839, 1850 and 1856. Further, in the case of woollen mills, the number of gigs is added, a distinction made between jute and hemp mills on the one hand and flax mills on the other, and finally stocking weaving is for the first time inserted in the report, end of footnote 87. And can serve only as an index of their real power, he goes on to say, quote, I am confident that from the same weight of steam engine machinery, we are now obtaining at least 50% more duty or work performed on the average, and that in many cases, the identical steam engines, which in the days of the restricted speed of 220 feet per minute, yielded 50 horsepower, are now yielding upward to 100. The modern steam engine of 100 horsepower is capable of being driven at a much greater force than formerly, arising from improvements in its construction, the capacity and construction of the boilers, et cetera. Although the same number of hands are employed in proportion to the horsepower as at former periods, there are fewer hands employed in proportion to the machinery, end of quote, footnote 88. Report of the Inspector of Factories for 31st October, 1856, pages 13 through 14, 20, and 1852, page 23, end of footnote 88. Quote, in the year 1850, the factories of the United Kingdom employed 134,217 nominal horsepower to give motion to 25,638,716 spindles and 301,445 looms. The number of spindles and looms in 1856 was respectively 33,503,580 of the former and 369,205 of the latter, which reckoning the force of the nominal horsepower required to be the same as in 1850 would require a force equal to 175,000 horses. But the actual power given in the return for 1856 is 161,435, less by above 10,000 horses than calculating upon the basis of the return of 1850, the factories ought to have required in 1856, end of quote, footnote 89, location cited, pages 14 through 15, end of footnote 89. Quote, the facts thus brought out by the return of 1856 appear to be that the factory system is increasing rapidly, that although the same number of hands are employed in proportion to the horsepower as at former periods, there are fewer hands employed in proportion to the machinery, that the steam engine is enabled to drive an increased weight of machinery by economy of force and other methods, and that an increased quantity of work can be turned off by improvements in machinery and in methods of manufacture by increase of speed of the machinery and by a variety of other causes, end of quote, footnote 90, location cited, page 20, end of footnote 90. Quote, the great improvements made in machines of every kind have raised their productive power very much. Without any doubt, the shortening of the hours of labor gave the impulse to these improvements. The latter, combined with the more intense strain on the workmen, have had the effect that at least as much is produced in the shortened by two hours or one sixth working day as was previously produced during the longer one, end of quote, footnote 91, reports, et cetera, for 31st October, 1858, pages 0 through 10, compare reports, et cetera, for 30th April, 1860, page 30, end of footnote 91. One fact is sufficient to show how greatly the wealth of the manufacturers increased along with the more intense exploitation of labor power. From 1838 to 1850, the average proportional increase in English cotton and other factories was 32% while from 1850 to 1856, it amounted to 86%. But however great the progress of English industry had been during the eight years from 1848 to 1856 under the influence of a working day of 10 hours, it was far surpassed during the next period of six years from 1856 to 1862. In silk factories, for instance, there were in 1856 spindles in the number of 1,093,799. In 1862, 1,388,544, in 1856 looms in the amount of 9,260, in 1862, 10,709. But the number of operatives was in 1856, 56,131, in 1862, 52,429. The increase in the spindles was therefore 26.9% and the looms, 15.6%, while the number of the operatives decreased 7%. In the year 1850, they were employed in worsted mills, 875,830 spindles. In 1856, 1,324,549, an increase of 51.2%, and in 1862, 1,289,172, a decrease of 2.7%. But if we deduct the doubling spindles that figure in the numbers for 1856, but not in those for 1862, it will be found that after 1856, the number of spindles remained nearly stationary. On the other hand, after 1850, the speed of the spindles and looms was in many cases doubled. The number of power looms in worsted mills was in 1850, 32,617, in 1856, 38,956, in 1862, 43,048. The number of the operatives was in 1850, 79,737, in 1856, 87,794, in 1862, 86,063, included in these, however, the children under 14 years of age were in 1850, 9,956, in 1856, 11,228, in 1862, 13,178. In spite therefore of the greatly increased number of looms in 1862 compared with 1856, the total number of the work people employed decreased and that of the children exploited increased. Footnote 92, reports of the Inspector of Factories for 31st October, 1862, pages 100 and 130. End of footnote 92. On the 27th of April, 1863, Mr. Ferrand said in the House of Commons, quote, I have been informed by delegates from 16 districts of Lancashire and Cheshire, in whose behalf I speak, that the work in the factories is in consequence of the improvements in machinery constantly on the increase. Instead of, as formerly, one person with two helps tinting two looms, one person now tents three looms without helps and it is no uncommon thing for one person to tent four. 12 hours work as is evident from the fact that the work to do is now compressed into less than 10 hours. It is therefore self-evident to what an enormous extent the toil of the factory operative has increased during the last 10 years. End of quote, footnote 93. On two modern power looms, a weaver now makes in a week of 60 hours 26 pieces of a certain quality length and breadth. While on the old power looms, he could make no more than four such pieces. The cost of weaving a piece of such cloth had already soon after 1850 fallen from two shillings nine pence to five and one eighth pence. Quote, 30 years ago, 1841, one spinner with three placers was not required to attend to more than one pair of mules with 300 to 324 spindles. At the present time, 1871, he has to mind with the help of five pieces 2,200 spindles and produces not less than seven times as much yarn as in 1841. End of quote, Alex Redgrave, factory inspector in the Journal of Arts, 5th of January, 1872. End of footnote 93. Although therefore the factory inspectors unceasingly and with justice commend the results of the acts of 1844 and 1850, yet they admit that the shortening of the hours of labor has already called for such an intensification of the labor as is injurious to the health of the workman and to his capacity for work. Quote, in most of the cotton worsted in silk mills, an exhausting state of excitement necessary to enable the workers satisfactorily to mine the machinery, the motion of which has been greatly accelerated within the last few years, seems to me not unlikely to be one of the causes of that excess of mortality from lung disease which Dr. Greenhow has pointed out in his recent report on this subject. End of footnote 94. Report of the inspector of factories for 31st October, 1861, pages 25 and 26. End of footnote 94. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the tendency that urges capital so soon as a prolongation of the hours of labor is once for all forbidden to compensate itself by a systematic heightening of the intensity of labor and to convert every improvement in machinery into a more perfect means of exhausting the workman must soon lead to a state of things in which a reduction of the hours of labor will again be inevitable. Footnote 95. The agitation for a working day of eight hours as now in 1867, begun in Lancashire among the factory operatives. End of footnote 95. On the other hand, the rapid advance of English industry between 1848 and the present time under the influence of a day of 10 hours surpasses the advance made between 1833 and 1847 when the day was 12 hours long by far more than the latter surpasses the advance made during the half century after the first introduction of the factory system when the working day was without limits. Footnote 96. The following few figures indicate the increase in the so-called factories of the United Kingdom since 1848. And cotton. Cotton yarn in 1848 exported where 135,831,162 pounds of weight. In 1851, the quantity exported was 143,966 and 106 pounds of weight. In 1860, the quantity exported was 197,343,655 pounds of weight. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 103,751,455 pounds of weight. Of sewing thread in 1848, the quantity exported is not available. In 1851, the quantity exported was 4,392,176 pounds of weight. In 1860, the quantity exported was 6,297,554 pounds of weight. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 4,648,611 pounds of weight. In cotton cloth, the quantity exported in 1848 was 1,091,373,930 yards. In 1851, it was 1,543,161,789 yards. In 1860, the quantity of cotton cloth exported was 2,776,218,427 yards. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 2,015,237,851 yards. Of flax and hemp, in 1848, the quantity exported was 11,722,182 pounds of weight of yarn. And in 1851, the quantity exported was 18,841,326 pounds of yarn. In 1860, the quantity exported was 31,210,612 pounds of yarn. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 36,777,334 pounds of yarn. Of flax and hemp cloth, in 1848, 88,901,519 yards were exported. In 1851, the export of cloth was 129,106,753 yards. In 1860, it was 143,996,773 yards. And in 1865, it was 247,012,529 yards of flax and hemp cloth. In silk yarn, in 1848, the quantity exported was 466,825 pounds of yarn. In 1851, the quantity exported was 462,513. In 1860, the quantity exported was 897,402 pounds of yarn. And in 1865, the quantity exported of silk yarn was 812,589 pounds of yarn. Of silk cloth, the number for 1848 is not available. In 1851, the export consisted of 1,181,455 yards of silk cloth. In 1860, it was 1,307,293 yards of silk cloth. And in 1865, it was 2,869,837 yards of silk cloth. Of wool, woolen and worsted yarns, for 1848, there are no numbers. For 1851, the export was 14,670,880 pounds of woolen and worsted yarns. In 1860, the quantity exported was 27,533,968 pounds of woolen and worsted yarns. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 31,669,267 pounds of yarn. Wool cloth for 1848, there are no numbers. In 1851, the quantity of woolen cloth exported was 151,231,153 yards. In 1860, the quantity exported was 190,371,507 yards. And in 1865, the quantity exported was 278,837,418 yards of woolen cloth. In cotton, turning to the value of the exports, in 1848, the value of exported cotton yarn was 5,927,831 pounds sterling. In 1851, it was 6,634,026 pounds sterling. In 1860, the value of exported cotton yarn was 9,870,875 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported cotton yarn was 10,351,049 pounds sterling. The value of exported cotton cloth in 1848 was 16,753,369 pounds sterling. In 1851, the value of exported cotton cloth was 23,454,810 pounds sterling. In 1860, the value of exported cotton cloth was 42,141,505 pounds sterling. And in 1865, it was 46,903,796 pounds sterling, the value of exported cotton cloth. For flax and hemp, in 1848, the value of the exported yarn was 493,449 pounds sterling. In 1851, it was 951,426 pounds sterling. And in 1860, it was 1,801,272 pounds sterling. And in 1865, it was 2,505,497 pounds sterling, being the value of exported flax and hemp yarn. For flax and hemp cloth, the number in 1848 was 2,802,789 pounds sterling, being the value of exported cloth. In 1851, the value of exported flax and hemp cloth rose to 4,107,396 pounds sterling. In 1860, it was 4,804,803 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported flax and hemp cloth was 9,155,358 pounds sterling. For silk, the value of silk yarn exported in 1848 was 77,789 pounds sterling. In 1851, it was 196,380 pounds sterling. In 1860, it was 826,107 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported silk yarn was 768,064 pounds sterling. For silk cloth, there are no numbers for 1848. In 1851, the value of the exported silk cloth was 1,130,398 pounds sterling. In 1860, the value was 1,587,303 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported silk cloth was 1,409,221 pounds sterling. Turning to wool, the value of exported wool yarn in 1848 was 776,975 pounds sterling. In 1851, it was 1,484,544 pounds sterling. In 1860, the value of exported wool yarn was 3,843,450 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported wool yarn was 5,424,047 pounds sterling. Exports of wool cloth in 1848 were valued at 5,733,828 pounds sterling. In 1851, exports of wool cloth were valued at 8,377,183 pounds sterling. By 1860, the value of exported wool cloth stood at 12,156,998 pounds sterling. And in 1865, the value of exported wool cloth stood at 20,102,259 pounds sterling. See the Blue Book, Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom, Numbers 8 and 13, London 1861 and 1866. In Lancashire, the number of mills increased only 4% between 1839 and 1850, 19% between 1850 and 1856, and 33% between 1856 and 1862, while the persons employed in them during each of the above periods of 11 years increased absolutely but diminished relatively. See Report of the Inspector of Factories for 31st October, 1862, page 63. The cotton trade preponderates in Lancashire. We may form an idea of the stupendous nature of the cotton trade in that district when we consider that of the gross number of textile factories in the United Kingdom, it absorbs 45.2% and of the spindles 83.3% of the power looms 81.4% of the mechanical horsepower 72.6% and of the total number of persons employed 58.2%. Location Sided, Pages 62 to 63. End of Footnote 96. End of Chapter 15, Section 3 of Capital Volume 1.