Further, men brought up to the frame and loom were as a rule totally unfitted for other occupations when they reached middle age. Poverty prevented them from apprenticing their children in better-paid trades, and compelled them to employ their families at the earliest possible age, long before they reached their teens. To be sure, the coal and iron mines and the railways took more and more of the young men and, sad to say, young women and children. Thus these industries were recruited largely from the families of those actually employed in them, but a natural elimination, especially in the weaving trade, caused those who were young, hardy, and enterprising to leave it, whilst the old, worn-out, the shiftless, and the young children remained. These, either from discontent engendered by memories of more prosperous days, or by reason of their ignorance, or through hopelessness of improvement, were a ready prey for the revolutionary literature which was freely circulated amongst them.
The case of these industries is not the only one which gave support to those Klassenkampf theories which form so conspicuous a part of the Chartist philosophy. Amongst all classes of society the evils of the factory system were held in abhorrence. That those evils were great is sufficiently clear from any impartial account of the early factories. That they attracted universal attention is testified by the immense literature upon the subject. The popularity of the agitation which was led by Sadler and Oastler during the 'thirties is a sign of a developing public conscience. Amongst the working people, however, the agitation was also a part of the general campaign against Capitalism. In other industries, indeed, the exploitation of child-labour was the work not of the capitalist employer, but of the workers themselves. It was done even where there was no excuse on the score of poverty.[1] There employment by the master was a welcome reform. One of the leaders of the Lancashire operatives in the ten hours' campaign was John Doherty, a Trade Union leader of renown and a prominent Chartist. In fact, factory agitation was the one form of Trade Union action which was both safe from legal attack and popular amongst other classes than the operatives themselves. The factory masters were denounced not merely because they did on a large scale what many small employers were doing on a small scale, but also because they represented
- ↑ E.g. Staffordshire potteries, Birmingham metal trades. Parliamentary Papers, 1843, xiii. passim.
