or wheeling hand-carts, and sometimes again in the bakehouse, leaving off work at various hours between 1 and 6 p.m. according to the season of the year, or the amount and nature of their master's business; while others are again engaged in the bakehouse in ' bringing out ' more batches until late in the afternoon.^...During what is called ' the London season,' the operatives belonging to the ' full-priced ' bakers at the West End of the town, generally begin work at 11 p.m., and are en- gaged in making the bread, with one or two short (sometimes very short) intervals of rest, up to 8 o'clock the next morning. They are then engaged all day long, up to 4, 5, 6, and as late as 7 o'clock in the evening carrying out bread, or sometimes in The Working Day. 235 the afternoon in the bakehouse again, assisting in the biscuit- baking. They may have, after they have done their work, sometimes five or six, sometimes only four or five hours' sleep before they begin again. On Fridays they always begin sooner, some about ten o'clock, and continue in some cases, at work, either in making or delivering the bread up to 8 p.m. on Saturday night, but more generally up to 4 or 5 o'clock, Sunday morning. On Sundays the men must attend twice or three times during the day for an hour or two to make pre- parations for the next day's bread The men employed by the underselling masters (who sell their bread under the ' full price,' and who, as already pointed out, comprise three- fourths of the London bakers) have not only to work on the average longer hours, but their work is almost entirely confined to the bakehouse. The underselling masters generally sell their bread...in the shop. If they send it out, which is not common, except as supplying chandlers' shops, they usually employ other hands for that purpose. It is not their practice to deliver bread from house to house. Towards the end of the week the men begin on Thursday night at 10 o'clock, and continue on with only slight intermission until late on Saturday evening."^ Even the bourgeois intellect understands the position of the " underselling " masters. " The unpaid labour of the men was made the source whereby the competition was carried on."^ And the " full-priced " baker denounces his underselling com- petitors to the Commission of Inquiry as thieves of foreign labour and adulterators. "They only exist now by first de- frauding the public, and next getting 18 hours' work out of their men for 12 hours' wages." ^ The adulteration of bread and the formation o£ a class of bakers that sells the bread below the full price, date from the beginning of the 18th century, from the time when the corporate character of the trade was lost, and the capitalist in the form of the miller or flour-factor, rises behind the nominal master baker.^ Thus was laid the foundation of capitalistic 1 1. c. p. Ixxi. 2 George Read, The History of Baking, London, 1848, p. 16.
3 Report (First) &c. Evidence of the "full-priced " baker Cheeseman, p. 108.
4 George Read, 1. c. At the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries the factors (agents) that crowded into every possible trade were still denounced as 236 Capitalist Production.
production in this trade, of the unlimited extension of the working day and of night labour, although the latter only since 1824 gained a serious footing, even in London.^ After what has just been said, it will be understood that the Report of the Commission classes journeymen bakers among the short-lived labourers, who, having by good luck escaped the normal decimation of the children of the working-class, rarely reach the age of 42. Nevertheless, the baking trade is always overwhelmed with applicants. The sources of the supply of these labour-powers to London are Scotland, the western agri- cultural districts of England, and Germany.
In the years 1858-60, the journeymen bakers in Ireland organised at their own expense great meetings to agitate against night and Sunday work. The public — e.g., at the Dublin meeting in May, 18(j0 — took their part with Irish warmth. As result of this movement, day labour alone was successfully established in Wexford, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Water- ford, &;c. " In Limerick, where the grievances of the journey- men are demonstrated to be excessive, the movement has been defeated by the opposition of the master bakers, the miller bakers being the greatest opponents. 'J'he example of Limerick led to a retrogression in Ennis and Tipperary. In Cork, where the strongest possible demonstration of feeling took place, the masters, by exercising their power of turning the men out of employment, have defeated the movement. In Dublin, the master bakers have offered the most determined opposition to the movement, and by discountenancing as much as possible the journeymen promoting it, have succeeded in leading the men into acquiescence in Sunday work and night work, con- trary to the convictions of the men."^ The Committee of the English Government, which Govern- ment, in Ireland, is armed to the te'eth, and general^ knows how to show it, remonstrates in mild, though funereal, tones " public nuisances." Thus the Grand Jury at the quarter session of the Justices of the Peace for the County of Somerset, addressed a presentment to the Lower House which, among other things, states, " that these factors of Black well Hall are a Public Nuisance and Prejudice to the Clothing Trade, and ought to be put down as a Nuisance." The case of our English Wool, &c., London, 1685, p. 6, 7.
1 First Eeport, &c.
2 Report of Committee on the Baking Trade in Ireland for 1861.
The Working Day, 237 with the implacable master bakers of Dublin, Limerick, Cork, &;c.: " The Committee believe that the hours of labour are limited by natural laws, which cannot be violated with im- punity. That for master bakers to induce their workmen, by the fear of losing employment, to violate their religious con- victions and their better feelings, to disobey the laws of the land, and to disregard public opinion (this all refers to Sunday labour), is calculated to provoke ill-feeling between workmen and masters,...and affords an example dangerous to religion, morality, and social order...The Committee believe that any constant work beyond 12 hours a-day encroaches on the domestic and private life of the working man, and so leads to disastrous moral results, interfering with each man's home, and the discharge of his family duties as a son, a brother, a husband, a father. That work beyond 12 hours has a tendency to undermine the health of the working man, and so leads to premature old age and death, to the great injury of families of working men, thus deprived of the care and support of the head of the family when most required."^ So far, we have dealt with Ireland. On the other side of the channel, in Scotland, the agricultural labourer, the plough- man, protests against his 13-14 hours' work in the most in- clement climate, with 4 hours' additional work on Sunday (in this land of Sabbatarians l),^ whilst, at the same time, three railway men are standing before a London coroner's jury — a guard, an engine-driver, a signalman. A tremendous railway accident has hurried hundreds of passengers into another world. The negligence of the employes is the cause of the 2 Public meeting of agricultural labourers at Lasswade, near Edinburgh, January 5tli, 1866. (See "Workman's Advocate," January 13th, 1866.) The formation since the close of 1865 of a Trades' Union among the agricultural labourers at first in Scotland is a historic event. In one of the most oppressed agricultural districts of England, Buckinghamshire, the labourers, in March, 1867, made a great strike for the raising of their weekly wage from 9-10 shillings to 12 shillings. (It will be seen from the preceding passage that the movement of the English agricultural proletariat, entirely crushed since the suppression of its violent manifestations after 1830, and especially since the introduction of the new Poor Laws, begins again in the sixties, until it becomes finally epoch-making in 1872. I return to this in the 2nd volume, as well as to the blue books that have appeared since 1867 on the positipn of the Eng- lish land labourers. Addendum to the 3rd ed.)
238 Capitalist Production.
misfortune. They declare with one voice before the jury that ten or twelve years before, their labour only lasted eight hours a-day. During the last five or six years it had been screwed up to 14, 18, and 20 hours, and under a specially severe pres- sure of holiday-makers, at times of excursion trains, it often lasted for 40 or 50 hours without a break. They were ordinary men, not Cyclops. At a certain point their labour-power failed. Torpor seized them. Their brain ceased to think, their ej^es to see. The thoroughly " respectable " British jurymen answered by a verdict that sent them to the next assizes on a charge of manslaughter, and, in a gentle "rider" to their verdict, ex- pressed the pious hope that the capitalistic magnates of the rail- ways would, in future, be more- extravagant in the purchase of a sufficient quantity of labour-power, and more " abstemious," more " self-denying," more " thrifty," in the draining of paid labour-power.
From the motley crowd of labourers of all callings, ages, sexes, that press on us more busily than the souls of the slain on Ulysses, on whom — without referring to the blue books under their arms — we see at a glance the mark of over- work, let us take two more figures whose striking contrast proves that before capital all men are alike — a milliner and a black- smith.
^ *' Reynolds' Newspaper," January, 1866. — Every week this same paper has, under the sensational headings, " Fearful and fatal accidents," " Appalling tragedies," &c., a whole list of fresh railway catastrophes. On these an employe on the North Staffordshire line comments: " Everyone knows the consequences that may occur if the driver and fireman of a locomotive engine are not continually on the look-out. How can that be expected from a man who has been at such work for 29 or 30 hours, exj)osed to the weather, and without rest. The following is an example which is of very frequent occurrence: — One fireman commenced work on the Monday morning at a very early hour. When he had finished what is called a day's work, he had been on duty 14 hours 50 minutes. Before he had time to get his tea, he was again called on for duty...The next time he finished he had been on duty 14 hours 25 minutes, making a total of 29 hours 15 minutes without intermission. The rest of the week's work was made up as follows: — Wednesday, 15 hours; Thursday, 15 hours 35 minutes; Friday, 14^ hours; Saturday, 14 hours 10 minutes, making a total for the week of 88 hours 40 minutes. Now, sir, fancy his astonishment on being paid 6| days for the whole. Thinking it was a mistake, he ai:)plied to the time- keeper,...and inquh-ed what they considered a day's work, and was told 13 hours for a goods man (i.e., 78 hours)...He then asked for what he had made over and above the 78 hours per week, but was refused. However, he was at last told they would give him another quarter, t.e., lOd." 1. c, 4th February, 1866.
The Working Day, 239 In the last week of June, 1863, all the London daily papers published a paragraph with the " sensational " heading, " Death from simple over-work." It dealt with the death of the milliner, Mary Anne Walkley, 20 years of age, emploj'-ed in a highly-respectable dressmaking establishment, exploited by a lady with the pleasant name of Elise. The old, often-told story,- was once more recounted. This girl worked, on an average, 16 J hours, during the season often 30 hours, without a break, whilst her failing labour-power was revived by occasional supplies of sherry, port, or coffee. It was just now the height of the season. It was necessary to conjure up in the twinkling of an eye the gorgeous dresses for the noble ladies bidden to the ball in honour of the newly-imported Princess of Wales. Mary Anne Walkley had worked without intermission for 26^ hours, with 60 other girls, 30 in one room, that only afforded J of the cubic feet of air required for them. At night, they slept in pairs in one of the stifling holes into which the bedroom was divided by partitions of board.^ And this was one of the best millinery establishments in London. Mary Anne Walkley fell ill on the Friday, died on Sunday, without, to the astonish- ment of Madame Elise, having previously completed the work in hand. The doctor, Mr. Keys, called too late to the death- 2 Dr. Letheby, Consulting Physician of the Board of Health, declared: " The mini- mum of air for each adult ought to be in a sleeping room 300, and in a dwelling room 500 cubic feet." Dr. Richardson, Senior Physician to one of the London Hospitals: " With needlewomen of all kinds, including milliners, dressmakers, and ordinary sempstresses, there are three miseries — over-work, deficient air, and either deficient food or deficient digestion...Needlework, in the main,...is infinitely better adapted to women than to men. But the mischiefs of the trade, in the metropolis especially, are that it is monopolised by some twenty-six capitalists, who, under the advantages that spring from capital, can bring in capital to force economy out of labour. This power tells throughout the whole class. If a dressmaker can get a little circle of customers, such is the competition that, in her home, she must work to the death to hold together, and this same over- work she mast of necessity inflict on any who may assist her. If she fail, or do not try independently, she must join an establishment, where her labour is not less, but where her money is safe. Placed thus, she becomes a mere slave, tossed about with the variations of society.
Now at home, in one room, starving, or near to it, then engaged 15, 16, aye, even 18 hours out of the 24, in an air that is scarcely tolerable, and on food which, even if it be good, cannot be digested in the absence of pure air. On these victims, consump- tion, which is purely a disease of bad air, feeds." Dr. Richardson: "Work and Overwork," in " Social Science Review," 18th July, 1863.
240 Capitalist Production, bed, duly bore witness before the coroner's jury that " Mar} Anne Walkley had died from long hours of work in an over- crowded workroom, and a too small and badly- ventilated bed- room." In order to give the doctor a lesson in good manners, the coroner's jury thereupon brought in a verdict that " the deceased had died of apoplexy, but there was reason to fear that her death had been accelerated b}'' over- work in an over- crowded workroom, &c." " Our white slaves," cried the "Morning Star," the organ of the free-traders, Cobden and Bright, " our white slaves, who are toiled into the grave, for the most part silently pine and die."
"It is not in dressmakers' rooms that working to death is the order of the day, but in a thousand other places; in every place I had almost said, where * a thriving business ' has to be done...We will take the blacksmith as a type. If the poets were true, there is no man so hearty, so merr}^, as the blacksmith; he rises early and strikes his sparks before the sun; he eats and drinks and sleeps as no other man. Working in moderation, he is, in fact, in one of the best of human positions, physically speaking. But we follow him into the city or town, and we see the stress of work on that strong man, and what then is his j)osition in the death-rate of his country. In Marylebone, blacksmiths die at the rate of 31 per thousand per annum, or 11 above the mean of the male adults of the country in its entirety. The occupation, instinctive 1 " Morning Star," 23rd June, 1863.— The "Times " made use of the circumstance to defend the American slave owners against Bright, &c. " Very many of us think," says a leader of July 2nd, 18G3, ' ' that, while we work our own young women to death, using the scourge of starvation, instead of the crack of the whip, as the instru- ment of compulsion, we have scarcely a right to hound on fire and slaughter against families who were born slave owners, and who, at least, feed their slaves well, and work them lightly. " In the same manner, the ' ' Standard, " a Tory organ, fell foul of the Rev. Newman Hall: " He excommunicated the slave owners, but prays with the fine folk who, without remorse, make the omnibus drivers and conductors of London, &c., work 16 hours a-day for the wages of a dog." Finally, spake the oracle, Thomas Carlyle, of whom I wrote, in 1850, "Zum Teufel ist der Genius, der Kultus ist geblieben." In a short parable, he reduces the one great event of contemporary histox-y, the American civil war, to this level, that the Peter of the North wants to break the head of the Paul of the South with all his might, because the Peter of the North hires his labour by the day, and the Paul of the South hires his by the life.
(" Macmillan's Magazine." Ilias Americana in nuce. August, 1863.) Thus, the bubble of Tory sympathy for the urban workers — by no means for the rural — has burst at last. The sum of all is — slavery!
The Working Day, 241 almost as a portion of human art, unobjectionable as a branch of human industry, is made by mere excess of work, the de- stroyer of the man. He can strike so many blows per day, walk so many steps, breathe so many breaths, produce so much work, and live an average, say of fifty years; he is made to strike so many more blows, to walk so many more steps, to breathe so many more breaths per day, and to increase alto- gether a fourth of his life. He meets the effort; the result is, that producing for a limited time a fourth more work, he dies SECTION 4. — DAY AND NIGHT WORK. THE RELAY SYSTEM.
Constant capital, the means of production, considered from the standpoint of the creation of surplus-value, only exist to absorb labour, and with every drop of labour a proportional quantity of surplus-labour. While they fail to do this, their mere existence causes a relative loss to the capitalist, for they represent during the time they lie fallow, a useless advance of capital. And this loss becomes positive and absolute as soon as the intermission of their employment necessitates additional outlay at the recommencement of work. The prolongation of the working day beyond the limits of the natural day, into the night, only acts as a palliative. It quenches only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour. To appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production. But as it is physically impossible to exploit the same individual labour- power constantly during the night as well as the day, to over- come this physical hindrance, an alternation becomes necessary/ between the workpeople whose powers are exhausted by day, and those who are used up by night. This alternation may be effected In various ways; e.g., it may be so arranged that part of the workers are one week employed on day work, the next week on night work. It is well-known that this relay system, this alternation of two sets of workers, held full sway in the full-blooded youth-time of the English cotton manufacture, and 242 Capitalist Production, that at the present time it still flourishes, among others, in the cotton spinning of the Moscow district. This 24 hours' process of production exists to-day as a system in many of the branches of industry of Great Britain that are still " free," in the blast-furnaces, forges, plate-rolling mills, and other metal- lurgical establishments in England, Wales, and Scotland. The working time here includes, besides the 24 hours of the 6 working days, a great part also of the 24 hours of Sunday. The workers consist of men and women, adults and children of both sexes. The agesof the children and young persons run through all intermediate grades, from 8 (in some cases from 6) In some branches of industry, the girls and women work through the night together with the males.- Placing on one side the generally injurious influence of night- labour,'' the duration of the process of production, unbroken dur- 1 Children's Employment Commission. Third Report. London, 1864, p. iv., v., vi.
2 "Both in Staffordshire and in South Wales young girls and women are employed on the pit banks and on the coke heaps, not only by day but also by night. This practice has been often noticed in Reports presented to Parliament, as being attended with great and notorious evils. These females employed with the men, hardly dis- tinguished from them in their dress, and begrimed with dirt and smoke, are exposed to the deterioration of character, arising from the loss of self-respect, which can hardly fail to follow from their unfeminine occupation." (1. c. 194., p. xxvi. Cf. Fourth Report (1865), 61, p. xiii.) It is the same in glass-works.
3 A steel manufacturer who employs children in night-labour remarked: " It seems but natural that boys who work at night cannot sleep and get proper rest by day, but will be running about." (1. c. Fourth Report, 63, p. xiii.) On the import- ance of sunlight for the maintenance and growth of the body, a physician writes: ' ' Light also acts upon the tissues of the body directly in hardening them and supporting their elasticity. The muscles of animals, when they are deprived of a proper amount of light, become soft and inelastic, the nervous power loses its tone from defective stimulation, and the elaboration of all growth seems to be perverted In the case of children, constant access to plenty of light during the day, and to the direct rays of the sun for a part of it, is most essential to health. Light assists in the elaboration of good plastic blood, and hardens the fibre after it has been laid down. It also acts as a stimulus upon the organs of sight, and by this means brings about more activity in the various cerebral functions." Dr. W. Strange, Senior Physician of the Worcester General Hospital, from whose work on "Health" (1864) this passage is taken, writes in a letter to Mr. White, one of the commissioners: " I have had opportunities formerly, when in Lancashire, of observing the effects of night- work upon children, and I have no hesitation in saying, contrary to what some employers were fond of asserting, those children who were subjected to it soon suffered in their wealth." (1. c. 284., p. 55.) That such a question should furnish the material of f.erious controversy, shows plainly how capitalist production acts on the brain- f unctions of capitalists and their retainers.
The Working Day. 243