wheels, window
panes, etc., must be paid for by the weaver. 5. No weaver to stop work
without giving a week's notice. The manufacturer may dismiss any
employee without notice for bad work or improper behaviour. 6. Every
operative detected speaking to another, singing or whistling, will be
fined 6d.; for leaving his place during working-hours, 6d. {179b} Another
copy of factory regulations lies before me, according to which every
operative who comes three minutes too late, forfeits the wages for a
quarter of an hour, and every one who comes twenty minutes too late, for
a quarter of a day. Every one who remains absent until breakfast
forfeits a shilling on Monday, and sixpence every other day of the week,
etc, etc. This last is the regulation of the Phoenix Works in Jersey
Street, Manchester. It may be said that such rules are necessary in a
great, complicated factory, in order to insure the harmonious working of
the different parts; it may be asserted that such a severe discipline is
as necessary here as in an army. This may be so, but what sort of a
social order is it which cannot be maintained without such shameful
tyranny? Either the end sanctifies the means, or the inference of the
badness of the end from the badness of the means is justified. Every one
who has served as a soldier knows what it is to be subjected even for a
short time to military discipline. But these operatives are condemned
from their ninth year to their death to live under the sword, physically
and mentally. They are worse slaves than the negroes in America, for
they are more sharply watched, and yet it is demanded of them that they
shall live like human beings, shall think and feel like men! Verily,
this they can do only under glowing hatred towards their oppressors, and
towards that order of things which place them in such a position, which
degrades them to machines. But it is far more shameful yet, that
according to the universal testimony of the operatives, numbers of
manufacturers collect the fines imposed upon the operatives with the most
heartless severity, and for the purpose of piling up extra profits out of
the farthings thus extorted from the impoverished proletarians. Leach
asserts, too, that the operatives often find the factory clock moved
forward a quarter of an hour and the doors shut, while the clerk moves
about with the fines-book inside, noting the many names of the absentees.
Leach claims to have counted ninety-fiv