The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892Engels, Friedrich
History
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892
Engels, Friedrich
Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Working class -- Great Britain
A pretty list of diseases engendered purely by the hateful money greed of
the manufacturers! Women made unfit for childbearing, children deformed,
men enfeebled, limbs crushed, whole generations wrecked, afflicted with
disease and infirmity, purely to fill the purses of the bourgeoisie. And
when one reads of the barbarism of single cases, how children are seized
naked in bed by the overlookers, and driven with blows and kicks to the
factory, their clothing over their arms, {167a} how their sleepiness is
driven off with blows, how they fall asleep over their work nevertheless,
how one poor child sprang up, still asleep, at the call of the
overlooker, and mechanically went through the operations of its work
after its machine was stopped; when one reads how children, too tired to
go home, hide away in the wool in the drying-room to sleep there, and
could only be driven out of the factory with straps; how many hundreds
came home so tired every night, that they could eat no supper for
sleepiness and want of appetite, that their parents found them kneeling
by the bedside, where they had fallen asleep during their prayers; when
one reads all this and a hundred other villainies and infamies in this
one report, all testified to on oath, confirmed by several witnesses,
deposed by men whom the commissioners themselves declare trustworthy;
when one reflects that this is a Liberal report, a bourgeois report, made
for the purpose of reversing the previous Tory report, and rehabilitating
the pureness of heart of the manufacturers, that the commissioners
themselves are on the side of the bourgeoisie, and report all these
things against their own will, how can one be otherwise than filled with
wrath and resentment against a class which boasts of philanthropy and
self-sacrifice, while its one object is to fill its purse _a tout prix_?
Meanwhile, let us listen to the bourgeoisie speaking through the mouth of
its chosen apostle, Dr. Ure, who relates in his "Philosophy of
Manufactures" {167b} that the workers have been told that their wages
bore no proportion to their sacrifices, the good understanding between
masters and men being thus disturbed. Instead of this, the working-men
should have striven to recommend themselves by attention and industry,
and should have rejoiced in the prosperity of their masters. They would
then become overseers, superintendents, and finally partners, and would
thus--(Oh! Wisdom, thou speakest as the dove!)--"have increased at the
same time the demand for their companions' labour in the market!"
"Had it not been for the violent collisions and interruptions
resulting from erroneous views among the operatives, the factory
system would have been developed still more rapidly and beneficially."
{168a}
Hereupon follows a long Jeremiad upon the spirit of resistance of the
operatives, and on the occasion of a strike of the best paid workers, the
fine spinners, the following naive observation: {168b}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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