A short experience with the factory system showed the need of regulations designed to protect the laborer.[469] There was a temptation for the new factories to force the employees to work an excessive number of hours under unhealthful conditions. Women and children were set to run the machines, and their strength was often cruelly overtaxed. Women and children were also employed in the coal mines, under terribly degrading conditions. One of the great functions of our modern governments has been to pass laws to protect the working men and women and to improve their condition. Germany has been particularly active in this sort of regulation, and has gone so far as to compel workingmen to insure themselves for the benefit of their families.[470]
Labor unions.
Another development of the factory system has been the rise of labor unions. These are voluntary associations intended to promote the interests of their members. They have grown as the factory system has been extended, and they now enjoy an influence in certain industries comparable to that exercised by the craft guilds of the Middle Ages. The governments do not undertake, however, to enforce the regulations of the labor unions as they formerly did of the guilds.[471]
The people admitted to a share in the government.
Character of modern constitutions.
282. The extension of manufacturing industries has had much to do with the gradual admission of the people to a share in the government. The life in towns and cities has quickened the intelligence of the working classes, so that they are no longer willing to intrust the affairs of government entirely to a king or to the representatives of the upper classes. The result of this was, as we have seen, that constitutions were, during the nineteenth century, introduced into all the western European states. While these differ from one another in detail, they all agree in establishing a house of representatives, whose members are chosen by the people at large. Gradually the franchise has been extended so that the poorest laborer, so soon as he comes of age, is permitted to have a voice in the selection of the deputies.[472] Without the sanction of the representatives of the people, the king and the upper, more aristocratic house are not allowed to pass any law or establish any new tax. Each year a carefully prepared list of expenses must be presented to the lower house and receive its ratification before money collected by taxation can be spent.
Equality before the law.
The French prefaced their first constitution by the memorable words: "All citizens being equal before the law, are alike eligible to all public offices and positions of honor and trust, according to their capacity, and without any distinction, except that of their character and ability." This principle, so different from that which had hitherto prevailed, has been recognized in most of the modern European constitutions. The privileges and exceptions which everywhere existed before the French Revolution have been abolished. Modern European governments are supposed to treat all alike, regardless of social rank or religious belief.
Religious equality in England.
Repeal of the Test Act, 1828.