I have already referred to the sympathy between the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The former, it is true, frightened our statesmen, but it gave courage to the working classes, and made them hope fiercely for freedom. The latter Revolution concentrated men more and more closely together in large centres of industry, dissociated them from their employers, and roused a spirit of antagonism which is inevitable when both employers and employed alike fail to recognize the essential identity of their interests. Now, wherever there are large bodies of men crowded together there is also a rapid spread of new ideas, new political enthusiasms, and social activities. And in spite of the lack of the franchise the artisans of our large towns made their voices heard; fiercely and roughly, no doubt, in riot and uproar, but they had no other means. There were found some statesmen in Parliament, chiefly disciples of Adam Smith, who gave articulation to the demands of labour, and owing to their endeavours the Combination Laws were repealed in 1824. But the following year proved how insecure was the position of the labourers without a vote. The employers of labour were able to induce Parliament in 1825 to stultify itself, by declaring illegal any action which might result from those deliberations of workmen which a twelvemonth before they had legalized. But still they were allowed to deliberate, strange as it may now seem that permission was needed for this, and their deliberations materially aided in passing the Reform Bill of 1832. For as soon as a class can make its voice heard, even though it cannot {191} directly act, other classes will take that utterance into account.
§ 4. Growth of Trade Unions
§ 5. The working classes fifty years ago
Year | Population | Poor Rate raised | Rate per head | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
s. | d. | |||
1760 | 7,000,000 | £1,250,000 | 3 | 7 |
1784 | 8,000,000 | £2,000,000 | 5 | 0 |
1803 | 9,216,000 | £4,077,000 | 8 | 11 |
1818 | 11,876,000 | £7,870,000 | 13 | 3 |
1820 | 12,046,000 | £7,329,000 | 12 | 2 |
1830 | 13,924,000 | £6,829,000 | 10 | 9 |
1841 | 15,911,757 | £4,760,929 | 5 | 11¾ |
But the mere figures of pauperism, significant though they are, can give no idea of the vast amount of misery and degradation which the majority of the working {194} classes suffered. The tale of their sufferings may be read in the Blue-books and Reports of the various Commissions which investigated the state of industrial life in the factories, mines and workshops between 1833 and 1842; or it may be read in the burning pages of Engels’ State of the Working Classes in England in 1844, which is little more than a sympathetic résumé of the facts set forth in official documents. We hear of children and young people in factories overworked and beaten as if they were slaves; of diseases and distortions only found in manufacturing districts; of filthy, wretched homes where people huddle together like wild beasts; we hear of girls and women working underground in the dark recesses of the coal-mines, dragging loads of coal in cars in places where no horses could go, and harnessed and crawling along the subterranean pathways like beasts of burden. Everywhere we find cruelty and oppression, and in many cases the workmen were but slaves bound to fulfil their master’s commands under fear of dismissal and starvation. Freedom they had in name; freedom to starve and die; but not freedom to speak, still less to act, as citizens of a free state. They were often even obliged to buy their food at exorbitant prices out of their scanty wages at a shop kept by their employer, where it is needless to say that they paid the highest possible price for the worst possible goods. This was rendered possible by the system of paying workmen in tickets or orders upon certain shops. It was called “truck”; and has at length been condemned by English law (1887).
But though as a matter of fact the sufferings of the working classes were aggravated by the extortions of employers, and by the partiality of a legislature which forbade them to take common measures in self-defence, yet there was one great cause which underlay all these minor {195} causes, and that was the Continental War which ended in 1815. “Thousands of homes were starved in order to find the means for the great war, the cost of which was really supported by the labour of those who toiled on and earned the wealth that was lavished freely—and at good interest for the lenders—by the Government. The enormous taxation and the gigantic loans came from the store of accumulated capital which the employers wrung from the poor wages of labour, or which the landlords extracted from the growing gains of their tenants. To outward appearance the strife was waged by armies and generals; in reality the resources on which the struggle was based were the stint and starvation of labour, the overtaxed and underfed toils of childhood, the underpaid and uncertain employment of men.”[53]
[53] Rogers: Six Centuries of Work and Wages.
§ 6. Wages
| Year | Weavers’ Wages* | Wheat, per qr.* |
|---|---|---|
| 1802 | 13s. 10d. | 67s. |
| 1806 | 10s. 6d. | 76s. |
| 1812 | 6s. 4d. | 122s. |
| 1816 | 5s. 2d. | 76s. |
| 1817 | 4s. 3½d. | 94s. |
| * From Leone Levi. | * From Porter’s Progress. |
weavers was particularly hard in the years of the great war, and affords an interesting example of the extortions of the capitalist manufacturers of the period. For purposes of comparison I give above the price of wheat and {196} of weekly wages in the same years; for the price of wheat forms a useful standard by which to gauge the real value of wages, even when it is not consumed in large quantities. It will be seen that wages were at their lowest point just after the conclusion of the war, while, on the other hand, wheat was almost at famine prices. After this, however, and till 1830 the wages of weavers rose again, for the new spinning machinery had increased the supply of yarn at a much greater rate than weavers could be found to weave it, and hence there was an increased demand for weavers, and they gained proportionately higher wages, the average for woollen cloth weavers from 1830–45 being 14s. to 17s. a week, and for worsted stuff weavers 11s. to 14s. a week. But even these rates are miserably low.