I would now submit for consideration, with the view to promulgation for voluntary adoption, instances of the arrangements which have been found most beneficial in their operation on the condition of the manufacturing population.
The most prominent of these instances was pointed out to our attention in the course of the Factory Inquiry, in the habitations connected with the mills superintended by the late Mr. Archibald Buchanan, at Catrine, in Ayrshire. Nearly 1000 persons are employed in these mills, the places of work are well ventilated and carefully kept; the village where the workpeople live is advantageously situated, and the houses are well built. They are thus described by his son in answer to my inquiries:—
“The system that has been pursued here, and which was adopted by my father for the purpose of giving the workers a greater interest in the place, at the same time that it gave them an object to be careful and saving, while it raised them in point of standing and respectability, has been different from that generally acted upon at country works. Instead of our company continuing the proprietors of the dwelling-houses and letting them to the workpeople, my father gave the workers every encouragement to save money, so that they might themselves become the proprietors of a house and small garden, either by making a purchase from the company or fencing ground and building a house for themselves. This plan has been very successful, and many of our people are proprietors of excellent houses with gardens attached, which afford them employment and amusement in their spare hours; and among themselves they have a horticultural society and an annual competition. Though many houses have been sold in this way, a considerable part of the village is still the property of our company, and those that have been built by other parties are in accordance with a plan of streets laid down; and I should say are about equal to the others in comfort and conveniences, it being the interest of the person investing his money to get the best return he can for it; and that he may get his house let and a fair rent for it, he must build as good a house as the tenant can get for the same rent from another. The houses are substantially built of stone and lime, and slated, and are generally of two stories, containing four families, occupying two rooms each. They have generally small plots of garden-ground behind, in which are dungsteads and necessaries, with a space between them and the houses. The village is well supplied with water by spring-wells and pumps in various parts of it; and some of the streets have water conveyed to them in pipes from the aqueduct to the water-wheels that give motion to the works. I cannot, however, very well give any distinct plan or drawing of the dwellings of the workpeople, our houses being a good deal mixed with those belonging to others.
“The population of the village, per census taken 30th December last, is 2699, and the number of families 566, so that the proportion of individuals to each family is 4435
566, and the number employed in the works is 936. The proprietors of houses appoint annually a committee of their number to attend to the repairs of the streets, and the keeping of them clean; and they have a man constantly in their employment for this purpose, the expense being defrayed by the feuers assessing themselves according to the rental of their properties.”
These mills were pointed out to our attention during the Factory Inquiry, by Mr. Stuart, the commissioner, who observed that the workpeople, “more especially the females, are not only apparently in the possession of good health, but many of them (quite as large a proportion as we have seen in any of the extensive well-regulated similar establishments in country districts) are blooming—as unlike as possible to the pale, languid-looking females too frequently to be found in similar works in great cities.”
Mr. Hill, the prison inspector for Scotland, stated that the procurator fiscal, or public prosecutor, reported to him that he had nothing to do in that village; and in his Third Report he thus mentions it:—
“There is little crime here, and very few offences of any kind, and it is reported that there is not a single person in the village who is of a bad character. Indeed no person of bad character, or who is in the habit of drunkenness, is allowed to remain in the mills, on which nearly the whole population of the village is directly or indirectly dependent. The few offences which are committed are almost all by vagrants. The inhabitants of Catrine appear to be in the enjoyment of an unusual amount of comfort; they are well clad, live in neat houses, many of them their own property, and look healthy and cheerful; indeed the only person in the village who has reason to be downcast is the medical man, who complains that he has nothing to do.”
Similar effects are manifested in the mills at New Lanark, at the flax-mills near Cupar. These instances would suffice to establish the fact of the very little sickness that is essential to the occupation itself. Mr. Hill who, by his office, is led to appreciate highly instances of exemption from crime and disorder, exclaims, upon the sight of such establishments,—“Notwithstanding what has been said on the subject of factories, I have no hesitation in declaring that I believe that the workpeople at Catrine, New Lanark, and other similar establishments, form some of the healthiest, happiest, and most moral communities in the world.”
From other examples it appears to be by no means essential to such improvements that the labourers should become proprietors of their occupations. Mr. Buchanan, jun., expresses his concurrence in the general conclusions to which I have arrived of the advantages derived by the labourer from his connexion with his place of work, and says,—
“I perfectly agree that a labouring man will generally be found in a state of greater comfort, holding a tenement from his employer, than when left to provide a dwelling of whatever kind he chooses for himself. In our case the proprietors, in the first place, furnished the house, in which the workmen formed habits of cleanliness and comfort, and when by care and economy he had saved as much as enabled him to purchase it, he was advanced a step higher by becoming himself the proprietor, continuing to occupy part of the house himself, and letting the other parts to his fellow-workmen.