Factory legislation

“ If the general extension of factory legislation to all trades for the purpose of protecting the working class both in mind and body has become inevitable, on the other hand, as we have already pointed out, that extension hastens on the general conversion of numerous isolated small industries into a few combined industries carried on upon a large scale; it therefore accelerates the concentration of capital and the exclusive predominance of the factory system. ”

“ It is a very small department of factory legislation that we are going to speak of. The great subjects of hours of labour and wages do not concern us here; nor does the general heading of the security of machinery, though Lord Palmerston and the Factory Inspectors mislead the public, and, perhaps, themselves into thinking that it does. The one point on which the existing controversy proceeds is not the securing the entire machinery in factories, but only horizontal shafts ”

“ It has ever been found that in regard to ordinary factory legislation, organized employés were the best inspectors to see that the law was enforced. This principle holds good in even a more marked degree, where the representatives of the workers have themselves a say in the decision, as is the case during the long sessions of a wages board, where all who take part in the discussions and in the final agreement are experts in the trade, and intimately acquainted with the practical details of the industry. ”

“ Arguments for and against Factory Legislation.—The need for regulation which was claimed to exist arose from the long hours of work which were customary, from the very early age at which many children were sent to be employed in the factories, and from various incidents of manufacturing which were considered injurious, or as involving unnecessary hardship. The actual working hours in the factories in the early part of the century were from twelve and a half to fourteen a day. ”

“ The next step in the progress of factory legislation was to extend the protection to young persons engaged in manual employment whether apprentices or not. Time does not permit us to follow the interesting history of factory legislation, under the devoted leadership of Mr. ”

“ The propriety, and even necessity, of what is called factory legislation, in its general principles, is rarely dis- puted now. The danger of employment in manufacturing estab- lishments increases yearly with the perfection by modern inventive genius of complex, rapidly moving, and dangerous machinery. The number of death cases and cases of serious injury in manufacturing establishments increases yearly in pro- portion. ”

“ Officials of the state factory departments are bound to give opportunity to trustees of the trade associations to express an opinion on special rules. In a large number of industries the Federal Council has laid down special rules comparable with those for unhealthy occupations in Great Britain. Among the regulations most recently revised and strengthened are those for manufacture of lead colours and lead compounds, and for horse-hair and brush-making factories. ”

“ It appears to us that the public are under great obligations to the National Association of Factory Occupiers, for undertaking the important but difficult task of ascertaining,—first, what the law is, as between factory employers and their workers ”

“ While every factory worker who is prevented from coming to work at nine next morning, by any kind of injury,—whether by a cut, or a bruise of thumb or forefinger (used in the spinning process) , or a kick or fall in the play-ground, or any hurt however slight,—is to be reported upon as gravely and precisely as if he had lost head or limb, the Parliamentary Committee rejected, by a majority of 108 to 10, a less stringent provision of the Mines and Collieries Bill. ”

“ Growing complexity of aims and of legislative machinery. Primarily Factory Acts aim at regulation of quantity of labour. Reductions of the working-day forms a backbone of this legislation. A twelve-hour day, ten, nine, eight, covering wider classes of workers and applied to a larger number of industries, marks the line of movement. With each advance the basis of protection is broadened, other considerations of machine-fencing, sanitation, education, etc., entering more largely into the Acts. ”

“ The health of the present generation and of those as yet unborn may depend on these matters, and the practices in a single factory may have economic repercussions upon a whole region and affect widespread systems of marketing. The merest glance at State and Federal legislation on the subject demonstrates the force of the argument that labor relations are not matters of mere local or private concern. ”

“ In point of fact the best manufacturers do not oppose social legislation. They understand the need of a common rule, and the regulations of the Factory Acts have usually been modelled on the existing practice of the better kind of employer. Labour legislation is weakened and kept back by several causes other than the greed of employers. ”

“ If men and women are to be absolved from the care of their own lives and limbs, and the responsibility cast on anybody else by the law of the land, the law of the land is lapsing into barbarism. If the charge is thrown upon the employers of industry, they will retire from occupations so intolerably burdened. That will be one consequence; and it seems to be agreed by the common sense of all concerned who have any common sense that our manufactures must cease, or the Factory Laws, as expounded by Mr. Horner, must give way. ”

“ It is evident that the English legislature, which certainly no one will venture to reproach with being overdosed with genius, has been led by experience to the conclusion that a simple compulsory law is sufficient to enact away all the so-called impediments, opposed by the nature of the process, to the restriction and regulation of the working day. Hence, on the introduction of the Factory Act into a given industry, a period varying from six to eighteen months is fixed within which it is incumbent on the manufacturers to remove all technical impediments to the working of the Act. ”

“ Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales, refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee, which has the right to exclude from participation in the discussion any members of the factory administration. ”

“ The products of a mine pass daily into interstate commerce; many things are brought to it from other states. Are the owners and the miners within the power of Congress in respect of the latter's tenure and discharge? May a mill owner be prohibited from closing his factory or discontinuing his business because so to do would stop the flow of products to and from his plant in interstate commerce? May employees in a factory be restrained from quitting work in a body because this will close the factory and thereby stop the flow of commerce? ”

“ We've directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and call for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure and that means plant, equipment, roads, bridges, factories. People take 10, 15, 20 years to get disapproved for a factory. ”

“ It is only in such laws and their proper administration that a safe remedy is to be found. Your committee are of opinion—That it should be a duty upon all manufacturers to find workshop accommodation for those they employ, whether the number be many or few. That any part or parts of a dwelling house so occupied should be considered a factory, and should be so registered for the purposes of any Act of Parliament made to apply to their supervision, and that all rules and acts made for the inspection and regulation of factories and workshops should be applied equally in all cases. ”

“ Money or some equivalent must be had to keep the machinery of the department going. Arrearages especially should be provided for. For instance, over $5,000,000 is now due to the factory interest alone for goods long since delivered and expended, and that, too, after a liberal use of call certificates, non-taxable bonds, and even the raw material, cotton. All the factories are under contract to deliver at fair prices two-thirds of their production. They all work under a uniform system, one built up with care and labor, and with a result perfectly satisfactory. ”

“ Under a scheme of subdivided toil the factory hand succeeded to the journeyman who, with a few mates, had split nails or drawn wire in a shop no bigger than some day he might own for himself. With the need to occupy large premises, to install engines and elaborate machinery, the capital of an employer has to be vastly more than of old, creating a new dependence on the part of the workman, and rendering it all but impossible that he should ever have a factory of his own. While the factory system of production is general in America, it is far from universal. ”

“ Factories containing machinery operated by steam power could produce cloth, shoes, implements, and almost every other sort of manufactured commodity more cheaply than they could be made by hand-industry in the homes or in small shops. So the factory system spread over the length and breadth of the land, drawing large investments of capital into its vortex, giving rise to great industrial corporations, creating a new labor class, fostering the growth of great cities, and compelling the government to take a hand in the regulation of industry. ”

“ But though the factories in which cotton, whiskey, and cards are manufactured are stringently regulated under the factory code and the Public Health and Building Acts, the inspectors appointed to carry out these Acts never go to a manufacturer and inform him that unless he manufactures woollens instead of cottons, ginger-beer instead of whiskey, Bibles instead of playing-cards, he will be forbidden to place his products on the market. ”

“ The only modifications of the Act of 1833 which have been made since, have been mere extensions of its principles. The regulations, which at first applied to cotton, cloth, and silk mills only, have been extended by subsequent Acts to bleaching and dyeing works. Powers have also been given to compel the fencing of machinery, and to enforce other safeguards against injury to the workpeople.
Even after the Factory Commission had finished its work, and had ceased to exist, my grandfather continued to watch with interest the results of what had been done. ”

“ Hardly had the Act been passed when our friends the manufacturers found out: “The inconveniences we expected to arise from the introduction of the Factory Acts into our branch of manufacture, I am happy to say, have not arisen. We do not find the production at all interfered with; in short, we produce more in the same time.” ”

“ The League early saw the evils prevailing in many factories, and therefore decided [Pg 124] to carry the white-list idea under a slightly different form into this field. After a thorough investigation by its own representatives and consultation with the State factory inspectors, the League, where the situation is satisfactory, allows the use of its label guaranteeing that the goods are made under clean and healthful surroundings. The conditions under which the label is issued are:
1. The State factory law is obeyed.
2. No children under the age of sixteen are employed. ”

“ If factories are dispersed throughout the inland district, it will not alter these effects, because excises must either extend to a great number of household manufactures, or these factories could not furnish objects for an excise to act upon. If farmers consume the factory manufactures, they must pay the excises laid upon them, which would be equivalent to the payment of the same taxes upon household manufactures. ”

“ It is matter of congratulation, however, that the bill has been suffered to have an existence, if for nothing more than to test its merits in removing the evils of which the factory people complain. Of its success I have strong reasons to doubt.
If there is any merit in the ten hour system, the benevolent portion of the manufacturers will come in for their share. We find the first man to move in it was a manufacturer; and since then, many petitions have been sent to the House, and the ministers, for the bill, by manufacturers. ”

“ The immediate change to be desired for the tailors is the introduction of the back-shop. There are two or three reasons for such a change. In the first place, the owner of a factory does not require or expect his workers to pay rent for the room in which they work nor to own the machines they use. The factory system is supposed to have displaced domestic industry in this age in America. ”

“ There is no ground on which reasonably to hold that refusal by a manufacturer, whose raw materials come from states other than that of his factory and whose products are regularly carried to other states, to bargain collectively with employees in his manufacturing plant, directly affects interstate commerce. In such business, there is not one but who distinct movements or streams in interstate transportation. The first brings in raw material and there ends. Then follows manufacture, a separate and local activity. ”