W.E.A. LECTURE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 142, 5 June 1929, Page 3

W.E.A. LECTURE

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO LABOUR CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND. THE DANGER OF REVOLUTION. Lecturing to the Hastings W.E.A. in Wesley Hall on Thursday last, Mr A. Ernest Mander, of Victoria University College, delivered the third lecture of his series, entitled “Labour Conditions. Unrest and the Danger of Revolution 100 Years Ago.” Mr W. T. Chaplin presided over a crowded audience. In a most illum/nating address, couched in vivid and arresting phraseology, Mr Mander held his hearers tensely interested for an hour and a half during his recital and portrayal of labour conditions as they developed in the new industrial England that arose in the age of steam. At the outset he reminded his hearers that in his first lecture of the course, he had pictured to them life in the villages of England, particularly in the southern and eastern counties. It was the period of the “cottage industries,” when all members of the family group worked together at their labour. Then followed the “industrial revolution” between 1770 and 1830 roughly, when the factory system of large scale production arose, and the old cottage industries were ruined. The plight of the villagers became desperate and they generally experienced terrible dis tres“

THE NEW INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM.

“To-night,” said Mr Mander, “we shall turn to the new industrial centres on the Clyde and in the Midlands where in the last lecture we studied the conditions of child labour and child slavery. First of all we should note the men who became the organisers of the new industrial system. The new rich were not the sons of the old rich, but the sons of workers, men of acquisitive ability. Starting with nothing they exhibited the good quailtes of enterprise, reSource, initiative; working like super-men for their ambition. Although they became rich, they did not spend lavishingly, but built up the new capital upon which the country’s future prosperity was to be based. They were hard men, uneducated, vulgar, coarse, callous. In most of them there was no spark of decency or honour. They lived for one thing alone, to make money. They measured success by money, and lived to get on and get money, regarding labour as so much material to be bought at the lowest price and to be used to the best advantage.'' SWEATED INDUSTRIES. He then described the England of 1800 to 1810. The old industries were ruined and the villages, many of which were deserted, were now experiencing appalling distress. In the new industrial centres of the midland anil the north factory chimneys belched their smoke and long rows of dingy dwellings arose. Children worked for 12 and even 14 hours per day. Slatternly women started at the mills at 5 a.m. not finishing until 8 p.m. Women and children formed the bulk of the factory operatives. There were not nearly so many men. The men were mostly mechanics and skilled tradesmen. The male hands on-the looms were very largely Irish immigrants, as the old hand-loom weavers yere not greatly absorbed. It was estimated that the Irish immigration at the time amounted to between 59,000 and 80,900 per year, and there was abundant evidence that they forced down the general level of wages. With such.an abundance of child labour, cheap women’s labour, and such a huge influx of Irish immigrants, what could the English males do? Of course there was the army, but that outlet offered no escape after the cessation of the war with Napoleon. Even after some 300,000 had been absorbed into railway construction, there were 1.500,000 on the dole. Wages were regulated by the Justices of the Peace, the squires. State regulation of wages had applied during hundreds of years, but under the new industrial system, this regulation tended to be broken down and to give place to the principle of supply and demand. Translated into terms of purchasing power in New Zealand to-day, if was estimated that in 1825 tradesmen and mechanics received £3 per week aud un skilled workers 30s, working 14 hours per day for six days per week, a total of 84 hours. Yet some people, even to-day, were wont to contend that the workers were better off a hundred years ago. RIOTINGS AND DISORDERS. All over the country there were riotings against the new order; but the disturbances were mainly in those parts of the country where the cottage industries previously flourished. To the cottagers the chief enemy was machinery and the growth of factories hence the Luddite riots of 18151816, when bands of desperate men met almost nightly on the moors, plan ning attacks upon isolated factories, launching their assaults destroying the hated machinery, burning the buildings and possibly committing murder, dispersing to their homes before dawn. The new industrial areas were comparatively free of such wild scenes. THE VERGE OF REVOLUTION. High prices, unemployment and the French Revolution exerted a stranglehold upon England during the last decade of the ,18th Century and the first decade of the 19th. In 1803 the English Government dared not call foi volunteers. Pitt took strong and prompt, action, 150,000 troops being barracked throughout the country, troops that. Wellington was begging of the Government. The country was practically under martial law. Even the soldiers were not wholly reliable, only the Yeomnnry being absolutely trustworthy. “Truly England escaped :i revolution by a hair's breadth only,” stated Mr Mander. What then was the influence of the Trades Unions? The combination laws made these illegal during tin, first, iiunrter of the It’tli t'eiitiiry. so that thev were driven under/rouml, tune-

Continued al I out ol Next Colinnu',.

Honing mainly* aX friendly societies, lodges, etc., with their strange oaths and ceremonials, and swift punishments against disloyalty. “The workers, however, were not emancipated by their own efforts,” declared the lecturer. “It is an historical fact that reforms were brought about by men outside their ranks. Class hatred mid antagonism-were born and these hatreds born at the industrial revolution still persist to-day.” At the conclusion of the lecture a selection of pictures representative of the time were shown upon the screen. The lecture to-niorrow (Thursday) night at S o’clock is entitled “The Remarkable Achievement of Robert Owen at Now Lanark.” and Mr Mandec reg-i'iis tins ns possibly the most interesting lecture of the whole series. The uttcaduacc is bound to be unduly swelled.