intosh 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.

And yet this report suffices wholly to exhibit the most shameful
recklessness of the manufacturing bourgeoisie towards its employees, the
whole infamy of the industrial exploiting system in its full inhumanity.
Nothing is more revolting than to compare the long register of diseases
and deformities engendered by overwork, in this report, with the cold,
calculating political economy of the manufacturers, by which they try to
prove that they, and with them all England, must go to ruin, if they
should be forbidden to cripple so and so many children every year. The
language of Dr. Ure alone, which I have quoted, would be yet more
revolting if it were not so preposterous.

The result of this report was the Factory Act of 1834, which forbade the
employment of children under nine years of age (except in silk mills),
limited the working-hours of children between 9-13 years to 48 per week,
or 9 hours in any one day at the utmost; that of young persons from 14-18
years of age to 69 per week, or 12 on any one day as the maximum,
provided for an hour and a half as the minimum interval for meals, and
repeated the total prohibition of night-work for persons under eighteen
years of age. Compulsory school attendance two hours daily was
prescribed for all children under fourteen years, and the manufacturer
declared punishable in case of employing children without a certificate