would be got over; and accordingly, by clause 6 of section 6 of the Factory Acts Extension Act, passed during this Session of Parliament, an interval of eighteen months is given to them from the passing of the Act before they are required to conform to the meal hours, specified by the Factory Acts.”[1] 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.”[2] 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. Mirabeau’s “Impossible! ne me dites jamaisce bête de mot!” is particularly applicable to modern technology. But though the Factory Acts thus artificially ripen the material elements necessary for the conversion of the manufacturing system into the factory system, yet at the same time, owing to the necessity they impose for greater outlay of capital, they hasten on the decline of the small masters, and the concentration of capital.[3]
Besides the purely technical impediments that are removable by technical means, the irregular habits of the work-
- ↑ “Ch. Empl. Comm. II. Rep., 1864,” p. ix., n. 50.
- ↑ “Rep. of Insp. of Fact., 31st Oct. 1865,” p. 22.
- ↑ “But it must be borne in mind that those improvements, though carried out fully is some establishments, are by no means general, and are not capable of being brought into use in many of the old manufactories without an expenditure of capital beyond the means of many of the present occupiers.” “I cannot but rejoice,” writes Sub-Insp. May, “that notwithstanding the temporary disorganization which inevitably follows the introduction of such a measure (as the Factory Act Extension Act), and is, indeed, directly indicative of the evils which it was intended to remedy, &c.” (Rep. of Insp. of Fact., 31st Oct., 1865.)
