Thus it appears that factory work is not the worst of all for children. The influence of factory work appears in such a bad light simply because, owing to its being more readily supervised, and owing to the facility for statistical statement of its results, the data are in this case more readily obtainable.
The lives of children employed in circuses and similar spectacular public entertainments are always in danger. Any work which is disproportionate to the powers of the weak and undeveloped body of the child is injurious to the latter’s health. Arduous work interferes with proper growth, and the effects of such work may be especially disastrous in the female sex, giving rise to pelvic contraction, &c. By interfering with the proper development of individual organs, different forms of child-labour give rise to characteristic deformities. It is a well-known fact that the disease-rate and the death-rate are higher in youthful wage-workers and in apprentices than in other children. In this connection it suffices to refer to the so-called “diseases of occupation.” It is a matter of general knowledge that in those districts in which children engage in very arduous wage-labour, the percentage of adults found to be fit for military service is exceptionally small. The best example of this is found in those districts of Sicily in which children work in the sulphur mines. In the year 1827, King William III of Prussia ordered measures to be taken against excessive child-labour, in consequence of reports made to him to the effect that a large proportion of child-workers subsequently proved unfit for military service.
When a child begins in early youth to work for wages, his school attendance is interfered with. If the child-worker does attend school, it is so tired that it cannot follow the teacher with sufficient attention. In districts in which a large percentage of the children are at work, the educational development of the whole population suffers, and not merely that of those who work for a living. Children whose occupation involves a very restricted use of their faculties become unfitted for other occupations, and, indeed, lose almost entirely the faculty of adaptation. In the streets of great manufacturing towns, large seaports, and like places, we find numbers of children engaged in the sale of matches, flowers, newspapers, &c., and they hawk such wares also in public-houses, coffee taverns, and the like. Most of them use this traffic merely as an excuse for vagabondage, begging, criminal practices, or the offer of their persons for use by sexual perverts. They frequent the streets by night as well as by day, and make no secret of the fact that their aim is to beg rather than to sell their wares. It will readily be understood that in the streets and other places in which they hawk their wares, such children get into very bad company, and are likely to become completely depraved. Those children who work in factories or workshops, and those who are employed in agriculture, are in continuous contact with adult workers, by night as well as by day, listen to their obscene conversation, and watch their improper acts. Some youthful workers are quite independent and free from all supervision. Such workers often earn comparatively good wages, and this early command of money is in such circumstances apt to be fruitful of evil in various ways.
Excessive work awakens in the child an aversion, and even a hatred, to work. Such a child works only from compulsion and under the influence of fear. The hatred of work thus engendered becomes a cause of truancy and idleness. Vagabondage and begging are easier and more lucrative than incessant toil. When the child perceives that its lot is one of arduous toil, whilst others live, not comfortably merely, but in luxury, anti-social sentiments are aroused. When such a child grows up, we have an adult disinclined for exertion and taking pleasure in nothing. Owing to the monotony of his occupation and the neglect of his education, his intelligence is dull and stupid. He sees that his parents force him to work and otherwise neglect him, and this destroys his affection for his relatives. The foundation of the authority of family life, namely, the economic dependence of the other members of the family upon its head, is undermined by child-labour. Some wage-earning children are entirely dependent upon their work, and, if unemployed, as often happens, they lose their only legitimate means of support, and are forced into vicious modes of livelihood. It is proved by statistical data that a larger percentage of youthful wage-earners than of other children become criminals; and, further, that in those districts in which child-labour especially prevails, criminality is more extensive than in others.
The Consequences of Women’s Labour.—Many girls begin to work for wages before their physical development is completed, and when their sexual life is just beginning to awaken. The injurious effects of work upon the health are much greater in women not yet fully developed than in older women. By hard work the subsequent development of the blossoming girl is disturbed. By wage-labour girls are deprived of the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the details of household management; their mode of life is free and unsupervised, so that they are apt at an early age to enter into illegitimate sexual relationships. It will be readily understood that, in different classes of workwomen, the unfavourable influence of these factors will exert itself in different ways. It will suffice to refer to the different working conditions of female factory hands and of female domestic servants.
There are many branches of manufacturing industry in which women ought not to be employed at all, because the work these branches involve is injurious to women’s health, and, in especial, to the functions of their sexual life; there are many other branches of industry in which women should only be employed if certain specific precautions have been taken, and if certain regulations are rigidly enforced. But at present economic pressure forces women into these occupations also, and the necessary precautions and regulations are too often ignored. Many women are engaged in the most exhausting and offensive occupations, and have to continue at work even in the later stages of pregnancy. It may even happen that the capitalist pays a pregnant woman a smaller wage than his other women workers, notwithstanding the fact that her needs are greater. It will readily be understood how disastrous may be the influence of this upon the unborn child. The children of women who continue at work during pregnancy are born earlier and are weaker than the children of other women. Occupations especially dangerous for the unborn child are those in which the mother has to sit for long hours at a time in a bent posture; those in which she has to stand continuously; those in which she works in contact with mercury, phosphorus, aniline, iodine, lead, or nicotine. In women who continue to work during pregnancy, miscarriage, premature labour, and still-births are commoner than in other women. With regard to the question of the prohibition of women’s work during pregnancy and lactation, another point has to be considered. If the woman remains away from work throughout the whole period of pregnancy and lactation, not only does she lose her place with her employer, but also she loses to a large extent her previously acquired skill and aptitude for work. It results from this that the woman is no longer able to work when work again becomes possible to her. If the mother of a young infant is forced to engage in wage-labour, the consequences are extremely disastrous to the child, for its care is inevitably neglected. The proletarian mother neglects her child in many instances not, as is so often believed, because of the lack of maternal affection, but simply because she is forced to go out to work.
Obviously it makes a great difference whether the mother’s wage-earning work is carried on at home or elsewhere. In the latter case the mother can do less for her child, but home-work has the great and obvious disadvantage, that it transforms the dwelling into a workshop, and thereby accentuates the already-existing hygienic defects of the proletarian home. Moreover, in domestic industry the protective regulation of women’s labour is far less complete, and the wages are also lower. If the wife goes to work instead of the husband, matters are not quite so bad as they otherwise might be, for the husband in such cases to some extent takes his wife’s place in the household. The conditions are far worse when both husband and wife go out to work. If both the parents go to work in a factory, the interests of the entire family suffer; the children receive no proper upbringing, and the whole family life is ruined. In districts in which the married women go out to work in factories, the percentage of miscarriages and of still-births, and the death-rate and the criminality-rate among the children, are all greater than in regions in which factory work for married women does not prevail. In manufacturing regions, in times during which female unemployment is widely prevalent, there is a decline in infant mortality, in spite of the increasing poverty resulting from the lack of employment. The death-rate of the children, and more especially the death-rate of the infants, in any area, is found to increase in a direct ratio with an increase in the number of hours that the mothers work away from their homes, and to vary inversely with the amount of the daily earnings. The chief cause of high infant mortality is artificial feeding, or rather the diseases engendered by artificial feeding. Among the Jews, the infantile death-rate is lower than among those of other creeds. The chief cause of this difference is that so small a percentage of the Jewish married women work for wages. But in the Jewish proletariat the conditions as regards infantile mortality are identical with those that obtain among the Christian proletariat.
The result of the wife’s absence from home in order to work for wages is that she is unable to attend to the work of the household; for this reason, the housekeeping of her home is at once costly and bad; commodities and services which in working-class homes are usually provided by the labour of the housewife have to be obtained or provided elsewhere for money—washing and mending, for instance. Owing to the prevailing disorder of the household, many articles have to be bought anew, when the old ones would have done very well for a long time if carefully mended or patched. Various housekeeping accessories are required; a servant may have to be employed. The dirt and disorder of the dwelling, the bad feeding, and the irregular family life, often drive the husband to drink; and this further increases the family expenses.
Regulation of Child-Labour.—Of all working conditions, those affecting child-labour are perhaps most unrighteously regulated. The relationship between the protection of child-labour and the protection of other kinds of labour is analogous to the relationship between the sections of criminal law dealing with youthful offenders and those dealing with adult criminals. It is an actual fact that legislation for the protection of adult workmen originated in the protection of child-labour. It was in England, the true fatherland of the factory system, that the regulation of child-labour first made its appearance. The first English law for this purpose was passed in the year 1802. Even as early as this it was necessary to intervene for the protection of child-labour, for at that time the conditions were perhaps the worst in the whole history of child-labour. The individualist state, being already to some degree permeated by socialist ideas, protects women’s labour and child-labour. But this protection, like that of labour in general, was not in any way based upon ethical considerations; it arose simply from the need to protect the working capacity of the labourers considered as profit-making tools. Moreover, in many countries, the regulations for the protection of labour are for the most part evaded or ignored by the employers.
In the more advanced countries, but only in these, we find the following legislative provisions for the regulation of child-labour. Child-labour and compulsory school attendance are contradictories. If merely in the interest of the protection of child-labour, the State must ordain that every child shall attend school from the age of six to the age of twelve, and must employ every means in its power to see that the duty of school attendance is never evaded. Regulations are made for the prevention of mendicancy by children. In addition, the State prescribes the conditions under which children may perform in public (in the theatre, the concert-room, the music-hall, the circus, &c.). The general groundwork of these regulations is that children under fifteen shall not appear in public for money at all, and those over fifteen only by special permission of the local authorities. Apprenticeship is also subject to State regulation. Before the indentures are signed, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the local authority, and there must be a written contract between the child’s legal representative and the master. The master must employ the child only upon suitable work, and must provide proper housing, food, and education for the apprentice; the apprentice must live in a place altogether apart from the workshop, and must attend an apprentices’ or continuation school; the master has no right to inflict corporal punishment. What has been said about apprentices applies in some degree also to juvenile domestic servants. The State regulates child-labour in the larger workshops and in factories. The employment for wages of children below a certain age is completely forbidden. When this age is surpassed, a child may be employed only when permission has been obtained from the local authority. Night work by children is absolutely prohibited; a maximum number of hours is prescribed for daily work (five to eight), and for weekly work (thirty to forty-eight), adapted to the child’s age and physical constitution; the intervals (daily and weekly) for rest and the intervals for meals, and also the minimum wage, are likewise prescribed. The State, of course, arranges that breach of these regulations should be visited with punishment, with withdrawal of the authority of the parent or guardian, and with prohibition of the employment of children by the employer concerned.