[34] Hart, National Ideals Historically Traced, pp. 188-189.
CHAPTER III
The Effects of Industrial Changes Upon the Homes of the Working Poor
Under the domestic system of industry the lord or the master assumed a moral responsibility for the welfare of his working people. It was his recognized duty to care for them when in distress. Although this system of industry centered great power in the hands of a few, and admitted of great abuse, it relieved the workman of a sense of responsibility for the future. With the introduction of machinery, this protection afforded by the master ceased along with the servitude of the worker. A prop was removed from the working people as well as a weight. The immediate result was almost disastrous.
Under the old domestic system there was little encouragement of individual initiative, and the routine of life was subject to few, if any, disturbances that thrust great responsibilities upon the individual. Initiative was a characteristic of the master but the poor worker was taught obedience from the cradle. He was never stimulated nor encouraged to start out on a new line for himself. In other words, he and his family were protected from the uncertainties and responsibilities imposed upon the modern workman. His standard of living was necessarily low. Hunger was not unknown, but it was apt to be a hunger common to all in his class, and so seemingly inevitable, rather than a hunger endured by his family because of his failure in the every day industrial struggle.
The cheapened cost of production of machine industry played havoc with the small domestic manufacturer. His employees were forced into the cities to compete for work at the machine a new experience which was markedly reflected in the homes of the workers. The industrial conditions of the domestic workers in England when forced to compete with machine industry, were similar to those pictured by Dawson when he says of Germany, “the condition of the house workers in most country districts is lamentable, and in towns it is not much better. It would, indeed, be difficult to exaggerate the misery which has for years been the lot of this class of workers. There, as in Silesia, a hand-weaver is glad to earn 5s. or 6s. for work which occupies nine days of from sixteen to eighteen hours (less than a halfpenny per hour), while his wife toils six hours a day for three weeks to complete a web which will bring her an equal sum, the problem how to make ends meet suggests to the social economist many reflections.”[35]
The bringing together of laborers into industrial centers deprived them of the use of land for agricultural purposes. This increased the laborer’s dependence upon industrial conditions, and upon his employer. His employer was now an individual tending to be indifferent to his employe’s well-being and considering him only as so much labor power to be utilized for his advantage.
The laborer found his relations to his new master purely economic, and he himself responsible for his personal welfare and the welfare of his family. His sickness and misfortune, though of social importance, was no longer of economic importance to his employer since the supply of labor equalled or exceeded the demand for it.
A few individuals profited by the breaking down of class barriers, and asserted an individuality in harmony with economic conditions. But the bulk of the people, either from sheer inefficiency or lack of opportunity failed to get a foot-hold and constituted a class easily exploited by the more successful.
The literature of the period of transition pictures vividly the sufferings endured by the families of the workers. The poverty and misery of thousands resulting from the adjustment to machine industry appealed to all classes of society, and while the essayists and novelists made a pathetic appeal to the general public, the economists attempted in vain to suggest some alleviation for the existing distress.
The poorest class of workers was composed largely of persons who were highly skilled in the handicraft stage, but were now forced into occupations requiring little training, and open to labor formerly considered inefficient. Not only was the number of persons needed to turn out the finished product much smaller than formerly, but the work formerly done by men could be done by women and children.