The Elements of Child-protection

by Sigmund Engel

As regards the diffusion of child-labour, those branches of manufacture which take the form of home-industry are by far the worst. The manual workers fight the machine-workers with the same weapons that these latter themselves employ. These weapons flay the hand-workers even more than the machine-workers, because the attempt is made to compete with the machine-labour by human over-exertion. This phenomenon becomes apparent in every branch of industry directly the use of machines begins. In agriculture, child-labour becomes a serious matter only when manufacturing industry comes to draw labour more and more from the country into the towns, so that a scarcity of labour begins to prevail in the country districts. Child-labour in agriculture is a necessary accompaniment of the small-holding system, because the small-holder is able transitorily to maintain his independence only through the use of cheap labour in the form of the utilisation of the working powers of all the members of his family. The widely celebrated patriarchal conditions which were reputed to exist in agriculture have completely passed away. When the condition of the labour market renders it possible, certain factory owners, even to-day, discharge men to replace them by the cheaper labour of women and children.

Diffusion of Child-Labour.—In most countries the children, alike in the villages and in the towns, are employed in agricultural production, in trade, and in manufacturing industry. They herd geese, cows, sheep, and swine; work in the fields and in the mines; beg, sell matches, flowers, laces, newspapers; perform in the street, at the theatre, the circus, and the music-hall; work at home with their parents in inns and drinking saloons, and work in factories and workshops. In Germany, about two and a half million children are engaged in wage-labour, and of these more than 600,000 are of school age. Of these latter children of school age, nearly 60 per cent. are engaged in manufacturing industry. The number of children employed on Sunday is certainly not less than 100,000. In the years 1890–1894, the number of children returned as working in factories underwent a decline, for the law of 1891 and the need for notifying the employment of children drove a portion of the children previously employed in factories into unregulated domestic industry. In Switzerland, 50 per cent. of the children of school age are engaged in wage-labour; in Austria, only about 30 per cent.

The child at work in the open air enjoys a healthy freedom of movement. For this reason, under certain conditions (which, however, to-day can hardly be said to obtain) agricultural labour is healthier than any other. It is seasonal work—that is, it is in abeyance in certain seasons of the year, but in other seasons is pursued with the greatest diligence and the greatest possible intensity, so that the children engaged in it must work very hard from early in the morning till late in the evening. No one who knows the wretched condition of the country schools will speak favourably of the school training of those children engaged in agricultural work. Child-labour in agriculture does not replace the labour of adults. Notwithstanding the increase in agricultural child-labour, the complaints of lack of labour-power in the country districts are unceasing. The increased working contributions of the children are more than counterbalanced by the withdrawal of adult labour. This is all the more important, because, owing to the multiple character of agricultural activities and the lesser extent of the division of labour, agriculture demands more independence and ability from the worker than manufacturing industry.

Domestic work is an interesting field of child-labour. Working-class parents are out at work all day, and have but little time to give to housework. It is the children who attend to this. They clean out the house, and wash and dress and take care of the little ones; that is to say, such children do nearly as much work as those employed in factories or workshops. In addition, the girls have to knit, sew, mend, and cook.

Wage-earning work for children of school age is another interesting question. The number of children of school age engaged in such work is very great, and most of them are engaged in domestic industry. For a proportion of school children, the holidays mean simply harder work than ever, because, when school attendance ceases for a time, there is no hindrance to their exploitation.

The Causes of Child-Labour.—Capitalism, notwithstanding the ever-increasing utilisation of machines, still needs a larger and larger supply of human labour-power. Competition becomes increasingly fierce, and therefore the capitalists are driven to seek cheaper and ever cheaper human labour-power. The material needs of children are much smaller than those of adults. In Austria, the earnings of children engaged in domestic industry for eight hours a day, in addition to their school work, amount to from 6 to 20 keller (6d. to 2d.) daily. In Germany, the wages of children per hour seldom exceed 7 or 8 pfennig (about one penny). The development of technical science leads to a simplification of the process of manufacture by means of a continually-increasing division of labour. This renders it possible to employ in the work of production persons who have no technical training whatever, and whose bodily powers are very small. In the case of children, technical training and bodily strength are less than in the case of adults. The employers gladly make use of the working powers of children for the following reasons: the children are inexperienced, they are less inclined to combine with their fellow-workers, they can more readily be forced to accept unfavourable conditions of work, and in the struggle with his adult employees the possibility of replacing their labour by that of children can be used by the employer as a trump card. Through the employment of the labour of children, the total quantity of labour available for employment is increased. It is owing to this fact, and to the greater cheapness of their labour, that the employment of children in wage-labour helps to force down the wages of adults. It is through poverty as a rule that children are forced to adopt wage-labour. The earnings of the parents and of other adult members of the family are so small that the earnings of the children are absolutely indispensable, and constitute no inconsiderable addition to the family income. The parents, who, according to the existing laws, for the most part have full control over the earnings of children under age, have a direct interest in sending the child to work. Many parents even believe that they have unrestricted rights over their children, and that there is no reason why they should not send the latter to the hardest possible work in the earliest years of childhood. Many parents think that it is good alike for them and for their children that the latter should work for wages. They are too ignorant to understand that this expectation will prove illusive, and that the actual result will be the precise opposite of what they suppose. Many children are themselves pleased to go out to work, which saves them from having to spend every day and all day in their dull and gloomy parental home, saves them from spending all their time under the eyes of their parents, and secures for them freedom and independence, and opportunity for all kinds of lawful and unlawful pleasures.

Women’s Labour.—The parts played by the two sexes in production and consumption differ in consequence of sexual differences. It is for this reason that in earlier times women’s labour was concerned to a small extent only with production, and was mainly employed in the regulation of consumption within the household. With the development of commerce, manufacturing industry, and town life, as a sequel of the modern economico-technical changes resulting from the evolution of capitalism, which rendered home industry more difficult, women’s work entered upon a new phase. Women gradually adopted work for wages, completely divorced from the home and its labours. Whereas formerly women’s work was performed on behalf of certain specific persons, under conditions largely of the women’s own choice, women’s work had now to be conducted in accordance with a prescribed code of rules, and the products were for consumption by unknown persons. It is widely maintained that this change was referable to the development of the movement for women’s emancipation, to the desire of women for independence, but this view is erroneous. The change just mentioned, far from contributing to the emancipation of women, has tended rather to fix the yoke more firmly on their shoulders. The character of women’s work naturally experienced these changes in the towns earlier than in the country, in manufacturing districts earlier than in agricultural. Such wage-labour as women to-day carry on in their own homes is urban, not rural, in character. Of late, therefore, ever more and more women leave the domestic hearth to sell their labour in the industrial market. Wage-labour employs an ever-increasing number of women. The census returns of all civilised countries show that in the last decade, notwithstanding special legislation for the regulation of the work of female wage-earners, there has been a marked increase in women’s work, and that this increase is proportionally greater than that of the wage-labour of men. In countries in which capitalist production is fully established, wage-earning men constitute about 60 per cent. of the total adult male population, whereas 25 to 30 per cent. of the adult female population are wage-earning women. In the factories of Germany, more than 1,000,000 women are employed, of whom more than 30,000 are married.

The labour-force of women is utilised by capitalism on much the same grounds as that of children. Female labour is cheap, the customary wage for women being one-half to one-third of that for men. The reasons for this are as follows. On the average women are more subject than men to bodily disorders whereby their ability to work is interrupted. In many women, wage-labour is merely a subsidiary occupation. Such women are willing to accept lower pay, and thus depress the wages of other women doing the same classes of work. Moreover, they are unorganised, for the obvious reason that in the case of women much less often than in the case of men does wage-labour constitute their permanent life-work, and the centre of their life’s interest is to be found in their actual or expected family life. Women are dexterous and quiet workers, conscientious, punctual, change their dwelling-place less readily than men, and are willing to undertake the most disagreeable and difficult kinds of work (married women do this for the sake of their families). Many girls are compelled to work for absolute vital necessities. In the case of a married couple, the husband’s earnings may be so small that vital necessities can be supplied only when the wife also goes out to work. The most tragic feature of such cases is that the woman is usually forced to go out to work precisely at the time when, in consequence of illness, the large size of the family, &c., she is especially needed at home.

The Consequences of Child-Labour.—A moderate amount of occupation for children accustoms them to bodily and mental activity, cultivates in them a sense of diligence and economy, and safeguards them against idleness and other evil courses. Work affords an important educational influence, and one whose value must not be underestimated. A moderate amount of bodily work in addition to the mental work of school is not merely harmless, but is in most cases desirable. It is not wage-labour in and by itself which is harmful, but the conditions under which that labour is usually carried out. (This applies equally to the labour of women and of children.) The greed of employers, the deficient resisting powers of children, and the poverty of the children’s relatives, make child-labour dangerous in manifold ways for the bodily, mental, and moral health of the child. (a) Character: the work is monotonous, difficult, carried on in dusty, evil-smelling, damp places, very early in the morning or late at night. (b) Duration: many children work five to six or even eight to ten hours, in addition to their school work. (c) Age: even to-day, hundreds of children of six, seven, or eight go out to work for wages; in home-industries, children even of four or five are employed. (d) Other conditions: the tragical revelations of official inquiries display very clearly certain other disastrous results of child-labour.

Let us consider, for example, the case of the apprentices. Although children of fourteen to sixteen years of age are not so strong as the adult workers, they have to rise at an earlier hour to put the workshop in order; for the same reason they leave later than the adult workers. They have to serve the master, his family, and his assistants, and, in addition, to attend school. Thus most apprentices have to work very hard from early in the morning till late at night, and this not only in the workshops, but also at domestic work. At the same time they are often very badly treated. Many employers engage many more apprentices than are really needed, simply in order to be able to dispense with the services of assistants and servants, whose duties are performed by the apprentices. In course of time this ill-treatment of apprentices becomes more widely diffused. The misery of the apprentices is greater in proportion to the poverty of the factory or workshop in which they are employed. No one need be surprised that there is universal complaint of the lack of apprentices. They are so badly treated that no parents want their own child to become an apprentice. Moreover, many families are so poor that their children must earn money as soon as possible, and therefore cannot be apprenticed. The relationship between apprentice and master involves a contract on the one side to give care, protection, and instruction, and on the other to do work. Thus the relationship of the apprentice to the master is a twofold one, the apprentice being a pupil, but also a workman. It is the duty of the master to instruct the apprentice. For this purpose the apprentice is wholly entrusted to the master’s care, and must carry out the duties ordered by the master. The master is the stronger party economically, and possesses a kind of parental authority over the apprentice, so that the former’s rights and duties in respect of the contract of service cannot be very precisely defined. Such protective rules as exist for apprentices practically ignore the smaller industries and home-work, for in these the difficulties of proper supervision appear almost insuperable. What has been said will have shown that there are sufficient causes for the miseries of apprentices.