workman moreover really does expend more labour-power, is ensured by the mode in which the capitalist pays him.[1] In those industries, such as potteries, where machinery plays little or no part, the introduction of the Factory Acts has strikingly shown that the mere shortening of the working-day increases to a wonderful degree the regularity, uniformity, order, continuity, and energy of the labour.[2] It seemed, however, doubtful whether this effect was produced in the factory proper, where the dependence of the workman on the continuous and uniform motion of the machinery had already created the strictest discipline. Hence, when in 1844 the reduction of the working-day to less than twelve hours was being debated, the masters almost unanimously declared “that their overlookers in the different rooms took good care that the hands lost no time,” that the “extent of vigilance and attention on the part of the workmen was hardly capable of being increased,” and therefore, that the speed of the machinery and other conditions remaining unaltered, “to expect in a well-managed factory any important result from increased attention of the workmen was an absurdity.”[3] This assertion was contradicted by experiments. Mr. Robert Gardner reduced the hours of labour in his two large factories at Preston, on and after the 20th April, 1844, from twelve to eleven hours a day. The result of about a year’s working was that “the same amount of product for the game cost was received, and the workpeople as a whole earned in eleven hours as much wages as they did before in twelve.”[4] I pass over the experiments made in the spinning and carding rooms, because they were accompanied by an increase of 2% in the speed of the machines. But in the weaving department, where, moreover, many sorts of figured fancy articles were woven, there was not the slightest alteration in the conditions of the work. The result was: “From 6th January to 20th April, 1844, with a twelve hours’ day, average weekly wages of each hand 10s. 13d., from 20th April to 29th June, 1844, with
- ↑ Especially by piece-work, a form we shall investigate in Part VI. of this book.
- ↑ See “Rep. of Insp. of Fact. for 31st October, 1865.”
- ↑ Rep. of Insp. of Fact. for 1844 and the quarter ending 30th April 1845, pp. 20-21.
- ↑ l. c., p. 19. Since the wages for piece-work were unaltered, the weekly wages depended on the quantity produced.
