3. Though the protection of children and women is the strongest motive force in this legislative action, many of these measures interfere directly or indirectly with adult male labour--e.g. the limit on the factory hours of women and children practically limits the factory day for men, where the latter work with women or children. The clauses of recent Factory Acts requiring the "fencing of machinery" and other precautions, apply to men as well as to children and women. The Truck Act and Employers' Liability Act apply to male adult labour.
§ 2. Theory of this Legislation.--Under such legislation as the foregoing it is evident that the theory that a worker should be free to sell his labour as he likes has given way before the following considerations--
(1) That this supposed "freedom to work as one likes" often means only a freedom to work as another person likes, whether that other person be a parent, as in the case of children, or an employer, as in the case of adult workers.
(2) That a worker in a modern industrial community is not a detached unit, whose contract to work only concerns himself and his employer. The fellow-workers in the same trade and society at large have a distinct and recognizable interest in the conditions of the work of one another. A, by keeping his shop open on Sundays, or for long hours on week-days, is able to compel B, C, D, and all the rest of his trade competitors to do the same. A minority of workmen by accepting low wages, or working over-time, are often able to compel the majority to do the same. There is no labour-contract or other commercial act which merely regards the interest of the parties directly concerned. How far a society acting for the protection of itself, or of a number of its members, is justified in interfering between employer and workman, or between competing tradesmen, is a question of expediency. General considerations of the theoretic "freedom of contract," and the supposed "self-regarding" quality of the actions, are thus liable to be set aside by this socialistic legislation.
(3) These interferences with "free contract" of labour are not traceable to the policy of any one political party. The most valuable portions of the factory measures were passed by nominally Conservative governments, and though supported by a section of the Radical party, were strenuously opposed by the bulk of the Liberals, including another section of Radicals and political economists.
These measures signify a slow but steady growth of national sentiment in favour of securing for the poor a better life. The keynote of the whole movement is the protection of the weak. This appears especially in a recognition of the growing claims of children. Not only is this seen in the history of factory legislation, but in the long line of educational legislation, happily not ended yet. These taken together form a chain of measures for the protection of the young against the tyranny, greed, or carelessness of employers or parents. The strongest public sentiment is still working in this same direction. Recent agitation on the subject of prevention of cruelty to children, free dinners for school-children, adoption of children, child insurance, attest the growing strength of this feeling.
§ 3. General extension of Paternal Government.--The class of measures with which we have dealt recognizes that children, women, and in some cases men, are unable to look after their own interests as industrial workers, and require the aid of paternal legislation. But it must not be forgotten that the century has seen the growth of another long series of legislative Acts based also on the industrial weakness of the individual, and designed to protect society in general, adult or young, educated or uneducated, rich or poor. Among these come Adulteration Acts, Vaccination Acts, Contagious Diseases Acts, and the network of sanitary legislation, Acts for the regulation of weights and measures, and for the inspection of various commodities, licenses for doctors, chemists, hawkers, &c. Many of these are based on ancient historic precedents; we have grown so accustomed to them, and so thoroughly recognize the value of most of them, that it seems almost unnecessary to speak of them as socialistic measures. Yet such they are, and all of them are objected to upon this very ground by men of the political school of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Auberon Herbert. For it should be noted--
1. Each of these Acts interferes with the freedom of the individual. It compels him to do certain things--e.g. vaccinate his children, admit inspectors on his premises--and it forbids him to do certain other things.
2. Most of these Acts limit the utility to the individual of his capital, by forbidding him to employ it in certain ways, and hampering him with various restrictions and expenses. The State, or municipality, in certain cases--e.g. railways and cabs--even goes so far as to fix prices.
§ 4. State and Municipal Undertakings.--But the State does not confine itself to these restrictive or prohibitive measures, interfering with the free individual application of capital and labour, in the interests of other individuals, or of society at large. The State and the municipality is constantly engaged in undertaking new branches of productive work, thus limiting the industrial area left open to the application of private capitalist enterprise.