THE ENGLISH FACTORY SYSTEM.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue I, 10 December 1842, Page 160

THE ENGLISH FACTORY SYSTEM.

. A work has recently been- published bearing the title of " The- Factory System Illustrated," which was written for the purpose of showing the present state of the manufacturing population. The author, who is a " factory cripple," named William Dodd, made a tour through the manufacturing districts for the express purpose of collecting information, and the result of his inquiries in each town was forwarded to Lord Ashley, and forms the volume in question. The misery and suffering endured by the poor creatures whose ill-fortune it has been to be brought up to any branch of manufacture, is greatly aggravated by the knowledge that they must follow their unhealthy and half-starved occupations until death shall relieve them from their sufferings ; and, compelled to force their children to assist in the maintenance of their families, they from their infancy condemn them to a life as cheerless as their own. Unlike the labourer and mechanic, emigration offers them no chance of an assurance of sufficient food, and the probability of recruited health, in remote lands, as the employment it has been their lot follow renders them unfit for a life of usefulness in a new country. The Spectator has an able review of the above work, and we will not apologise for tranferring it to our columns, as the state of things which it shadows forth as likely to be the result of the manufacturing distress, if it long continue, is indeed frightful. " Considered with regard to its facts, ' The Factory System Illustrated 9 either establishes nothing to the purpose, or it tells nothing which was not already known even to familiarity. The scanty wages, and as a consequence the bad nourishment, of the factory operatives when in work, and their severe distress when unemployed — the LU- ventilated, ill-drained, dirty and disgusting hovels in which they are crowded together, much like animals in styes — the monotonous character and terrible length of their labour, which incapacitates the body for exercise, renders the mind indisposed to any pleasures but of the grossest and most sensual character, and reduces an entire class of persons in many towns to a half-brutish state of ignorance, debauchery, and vice. " But though the facts of which the volume mostly consists adds very little to our knowledge, we gather, or rather we guess, from incidental passages, that a very peculiar state of society is forming in the factory districts, whose counterpart has never yet existed. The present state of the labour-market is sueh — wages are so low and competition is so great — that the operatives are entirely dependent upon the mulowners, and something like an abjectly servile dread of them seems growing up among the masses in the factory towns; influencing even the persons who are beyond their power, through the connexions whom they still employ. If the system extend, and this feeling with it, there is no difficulty in 'perceiving that a virtual state of slavery may be induced more destructive to human happiness than has ever yet been witnessed. Under the Feudal system, in its very worst state, there was some regular gradation of ranks to check the power of the greater barons ; and they were, in the last resort, at the mercy of their military vassals. The opinion which required fidelity to a lord even to death, rendered it infamous in the lord to deny protection, even when reason would decide that his people did not deserve it. If many were ascripti glebes, they at least had the land ; they had certain rights with it ; they had the opinion we have spoken of, and the powerful influence of the Roman Church. The slaves in the West Indies were, from economical circumstances, always secure of food, even had their master's interest not rendered it advisable to keep the animal in good condition. And European serfs, West Indian Negroes, and the subjects of the abominable tyrannies of the East, had at least the free air of heaven, whilst such of them as were hungry had also the luxury of idleness. But with the oligarchy whose growth is dimly indicated in the casual and fiteral descriptions of these pages, there would be none of the circumstances which have mitigated other systems of slavery. " To the factory owner the factory operatives have not the use or dignity attached to a feudal retainer, or the pecuniary value attached to a slave: if hundreds perish hundreds are ready to replace them. Money being the sole object of pursuit, they have every temptation, even if they do not yield to it, to grind the faces of the poor. Nor can their pursuit, as a pursuit, be varied or elevated by the stirring objects which throw an air of romance over the feudal chief or the tropical planter; no middle class can check them, for no sufficient middle class could exist in those towns; no equals can control them, for no equals would submit to live in those smoke-blackened hives. They would exist a band of manufacturing lords amidst a wretched populace driven to labour far more severely than slaves, without the open-air employment, the sufficient food, and the consequent physical wellbeing of the Negro. The last check to tyranny, fear, might be wanting : reduced in natural stamina, the little vigour they possess exhausted by excessive labour and bad living, with the mind gradually bowed down to abject submission, the operatives could only be stimulated by some accident, as a famine or monetary crisis, to the dangerous effort of resistance: till at last a Northern invasion might be as needed to sweep the system

from the earth, as it was to purify the~corrup : tion of the Roman empire." a " The following extract from "Mr". Dodd's book shows that one, at least, of the millowners is determined to be prepared : — " Factory Fortification. — I have made a few trips to the large cotton-factories of Messrs. Strutt, which present the most singular appearance of any establishment I have met with in the whole course of my travels. This is the principal, if not the only firm carrying on the cotton- trade in this neighbourhood ; besides their large factories in Belper, they have one at Milford, about a mile and a half from the town. The factories here are surrounded by fortifications ; and I **nve been told « that the other is guarded in a similar manner. The whole length of the work is about one ■ hundred yards, and they extend along both sides of the road. Connecting the factories is a gallery across the road, about thirteen feet wide, supported by three arches. In this gallery are loop-holes for cannon, small-arms, &c, which completely command all the approaches to the mills by the road. One part of their works is made bomb proof, with loopholes similar to the above. The opposite building is nearly surrounded by water, over which a small bridge is thrown from the road, which^ I was told, could be easily removed in case of danger. The river is made to cover two sides of the works ; in addition to which, there is a high wall nearly all round, with many hundred loop-holes, from which those within might fire upon any crowds assembled outside. There are also other means of protection, which are too numerous to mention in this letter."