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
repugnance to the working-men agitating independently and the supporters
of the Ten Hours' Bill. It nowhere recognises the right of the working-
man to a life worthy of a human being, to independent activity, and
opinions of his own. It reproaches the operatives that in sustaining the
Ten Hours' Bill they thought, not of the children only, but of themselves
as well; it calls the working-men engaged in the agitation demagogues,
ill-intentioned, malicious, etc., is written, in short, on the side of
the bourgeoisie; and still it cannot whitewash the manufacturers, and
still it leaves such a mass of infamies upon the shoulders of the
employers, that even after this report, the agitation for the Ten Hours'
Bill, the hatred against the manufacturers, and the committee's severest
epithets applied to them are all fully justified. But there was the one
difference, that whereas the Sadler report accuses the manufacturers of
open, undisguised brutality, it now became evident that this brutality
was chiefly carried on under the mask of civilisation and humanity. Yet
Dr. Hawkins, the medical commissioner for Lancashire, expresses himself
decidedly in favour of the Ten Hours' Bill in the opening lines of his
report, and Commissioner Mackintosh explains that his own report does not
contain the whole truth, because it is very difficult to induce the
operatives to testify against their employers, and because the
manufacturers, besides being forced into greater concessions towards
their operatives by the excitement among the latter, are often prepared
for the inspection of the factories, have them swept, the speed of the
machinery reduced, etc. In Lancashire especially they resorted to the
device of bringing the overlookers of workrooms before the commissioners,
and letting them testify as working-men to the humanity of the employers,
the wholesome effects of the work, and the indifference, if not the
hostility of the operatives, towards the Ten Hours' Bill. But these are
not genuine working-men; they are deserters from their class, who have
entered the service of the bourgeoisie for better pay, and fight in the
interests of the capitalists against the workers. Their interest is that
of the capitalists, and they are, therefore, almost more hated by the
workers than the manufacturers themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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