"Socialistic Legislation."
§ 1.Legislation in restraint of "Free" Contract.--The direct pressure of certain tangible and painful forms of industrial grievance and of poverty has forced upon us a large mass of legislation which is sometimes called by the name of Socialistic Legislation. It is necessary to enter on a brief examination of the character of the various enactments included under this vague term, in order to ascertain the real nature of the remedy they seek to apply.
Perhaps the most typical form of this socialistic legislation is contained in the Factory Acts, embodying as they do a series of direct interferences in the interests of the labouring classes with freedom of contract between capital and labour.
The first of these Factory Acts, the Health and Morals Act, was passed in 1802, and was designed for the protection of children apprenticed in the rising manufacturing towns of the north, engaged in the cotton and woollen trades. Large numbers of children apprenticed by poor-law overseers in the southern counties were sent as "slaves" to the northern manufacturer, to be kept in overcrowded buildings adjoining the factory, and to be worked day and night, with an utter disregard to all considerations of physical or moral health. There is no page in the history of our nation so infamous as that which tells the details of the unbridled greed of these pioneers of modern commercialism, feeding on the misery and degradation of English children. This Act of 1802, enforcing some small sanitary reforms, prohibited night work, and limited the working-day of apprenticed children to twelve hours. In 1819, another Act was passed for the benefit of unapprenticed child workers in cotton mills, prohibiting the employment of children under nine years, and limiting the working-day to twelve hours for children between nine and sixteen. Sir John Cam Hobhouse in 1825 passed an Act further restricting the labour of children under sixteen years, requiring a register of children employed in mills, and shortening the work on Saturdays. Then came the agitation of Richard Oastler for a Ten Hours Bill. But Parliament was not ripe for this, and Hobhouse, attempting to redeem the hours in textile industries, was defeated by the northern manufacturers. Public feeling, however, formed chiefly by Tories like Oastler, Sadler, Ashley, and Fielden, drove the Whig leader, Lord Althorp, to pass the important Factory Act of 1833. This Act drew the distinction between children admitted to work below the age of thirteen, and "young persons" of ages from thirteen to eighteen; enforced in the case of the former attendance at school, and a maximum working week of forty-eight hours; in the case of the latter prohibited night work, and limited the hours of work to sixty-nine a week. The next step of importance was Peel's consolidating Factory Act of 1844, reducing the working-day for children to six and a half hours, and increasing the compulsory school attendance from two hours to three, and strengthening in various ways the machinery of inspection. In 1845 Lord Ashley passed a measure prohibiting the night work of women. In 1848, by the Act of Mr. Fielden, ten hours was assigned as a working-day for women and young persons, and further restrictions in favour of women and children were made in 1850 and 1853.
It must, however, be remembered that all the Factory legislation previous to 1860 was confined to textile factories--cotton, woollen, silk, or linen. In 1860, bleaching and dyeing works were brought within the Factory Acts, and several other detailed extensions were made between 1861 and 1864, in the direction of lace manufacture, pottery, chimney-sweeping, and other employments. But not until 1867 were manufactories in general brought under Factory legislation. This was achieved by the Factory Acts Extension Act, and the Workshops Regulation Act. For several years, however, the beneficial effects of this legislation was grievously impaired by the fact that local authorities were left to enforce it. Not until 1871, when the regulation and enforcement was restored to State inspectors, was the legislation really effectual. The Factory and Workshop Act of 1878, modified by a few more recent restrictions, is still in force. It makes an advance on the earlier legislation in the following directions. It prohibits the employment in any factory or workshop of children under the age of eleven, and requires a certificate of fitness for factory labour under the age of sixteen. It imposes the half-time system on all children, admitting, however, two methods, either of passing half the day in school, and half at work, or of giving alternate days to work and school. It recognizes a distinction between the severity of work in textile factories and in non-textile factories, assigning a working week of about fifty-six and a half hours to the former, and sixty hours to the latter. The exceptions of domestic workshops, and of many other forms of female and child employment, the permission of over-time within certain limitations, and the inadequate provision of inspection, considerably diminish the beneficial effects of these restrictive measures.
In 1842 Lord Ashley secured a Mining Act, which prohibited the underground employment of women, and of boys under ten years. In 1850 mine inspectors were provided, and a number of precautions enforced to secure the safety of miners. In 1864 several minor industries, dangerous in their nature, such as the manufacture of lucifer-matches, cartridges, etc., were brought under special regulations. To these restrictive pieces of legislation should be added the Employers' Liability Act, enforcing the liability of employers for injuries sustained by workers through no fault of their own, and the "Truck" legislation, compelling the payment of wages in cash, and at suitable places.
This slight sketch will suffice to mark the leading features of a large class of laws which must be regarded as a growth of State socialism.
The following points deserve special attention--
1. These measures are all forced on Parliament by the recognition of actual grievances, and all are testimony to the failure of a system of complete laissez faire.
2. They all imply a direct interference of the State with individual freedom--i.e. the worker cannot sell his labour as he likes; the capitalist cannot make what contracts he likes.