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The Industrial Revolution 495 would be kept down by competition among the manufacturers, and wages would be fixed by the supply and demand. Everyone should have the greatest freedom to do what he was able to do. If he was a person of ability he would prosper ; if he had no special ability he could only hope to get the wages that the em- ployer found it advantageous to pay him. 879. Sad Results of the Industrial Revolution. The chief trouble with this theory was that it did not work well in practice. On the contrary, the great manufacturing cities, instead of being filled with happy and prosperous people, became the homes of a small number of capitalists, who had grown rich as the owners and directors of the factories, and multitudes of poor working people with no other resources than their wages, which were often not enough to keep their families from starvation. Little children under nine years of age, working from twelve to fifteen hours a day, and women forced to leave their homes to tend the machines in the factories were now replacing the men workers. After their long day's work they returned to miserable tenements which were the only lodgings they could afford. 880. Laws to Protect Workingmen. After the close of the Napoleonic wars, as things got worse rather than better, there were increasing signs of discontent in England. This led to various attempts to improve matters. There were those who hoped to secure reforms by extending the right to vote, in order that the working classes might be represented in Parliament and so have laws passed to remedy the worst evils at least. In this movement some of the wealthier class often joined, but the work- ing people were naturally chiefly interested, and they embodied their ideas of reform in a great " people's charter," which will be described later (954). 881. Origin of Trade-unions. In addition to this attempt to secure reform through the government, the workingmen formed unions of their own in the various trades and industries, in order to protect themselves by dealing in a body with their employers. The trade-union movement began in the early part of the nineteenth