Social Environment and Moral Progress

by Alfred Russel Wallace

whose managers made them work from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., or sometimes longer; and, in order to keep them awake in the close atmosphere of the factories it was found necessary to whip them at frequent intervals. It was not till 1819 that the age of children employed in factories was raised to nine years, while in 1825 the working hours were limited to seventy-two a week!

From that time onward, during the whole of the nineteenth century, there was a continued succession of "Factory Acts," each aiming at abolishing or ameliorating the worst results of child labour—its inhumanity, its cruelty, and its immorality. These legislative efforts were always opposed by the employers, who usually succeeded in so mutilating them in Committee of the House of Commons as to render them almost useless. Mrs. E. B. Browning's noble verses, The Cry of the Children, show that after nearly fifty years of struggle the condition of the child-workers was still, in a high degree, cruel, degrading, and therefore immoral; while that of the half-timers who succeeded them was almost as injurious.

As the century wore on, other evils of a similar nature were gradually brought to light. Children and women were found to be working underground in coal mines, under equally vile conditions as regards health and morality; and an enormous loss of life was caused by inadequate ventilation, insecure roof-propping, imperfect winding machinery, and other causes, all due to want of proper precautions by the owners of the mines. As a matter of simple justice, such owners should be held responsible to the injured person not only to the full extent of his wages and for medical attendance, but should also pay a liberal compensation for the pain suffered, and for the extra labour, expense and anxiety to his family. But all such things are ignored in the case of poor workers, so that even the money compensation is reduced to the smallest amount possible.

It is one of the great defects of our law that deaths due to preventable causes in any profit-making business are not criminal offences. Till they are made so, it will be impossible to save the hundreds, or even thousands, of lives now lost owing to neglect of proper precautions in all kinds of dangerous or unhealthy trades.

However costly such precautions may be, expense should not be considered when human life is risked; and the present state of the law is therefore immoral.

Notwithstanding Acts of Parliament and numerous Inspectors (whose salaries should be paid by the mine owners), explosions and other accidents underground continue to increase, the year 1910 being a record year, with its 1,775 deaths; and even the number in proportion to the workers employed is the highest for the last twenty years.

Yet no one is punished, or even held responsible for these deaths. Surely, this shows a deplorable absence of moral feeling, both in the general public and in Parliament. The responsibility of Parliament is really criminal, since it always allows its legislation to be made ineffective by the fear of diminishing the employers' profits, thus deliberately placing money-making above human life and human well-being.

In the case of mines and quarries, Parliament is especially responsible, because the possession of the mineral wealth of our country by private individuals is itself a gross usurpation of public rights, and should have been long ago declared illegal. Whatever

arguments—and they are very strong—show us that the land itself should not be private property, are ten times stronger in the case of the minerals within its bowels. The value of land increases with its proper use, but in the case of minerals, the value is absolutely destroyed. Surely, it is a crime against posterity to allow the strictly limited mineral wealth of our country to be made private property, and very largely sold to foreigners, solely to increase the wealth of individuals and to the absolute impoverishment of ourselves and our children.[45:A]

[45:A] I pointed this out forty years ago in an article entitled Coal a National Trust, which I republished twelve years ago in my Studies, Scientific and Social (Vol. II., Chap. VIII.).