Hyde Greg, perhaps, Edmund Ashworth, Thomas Ashton,
or others. They are told of your wishes. The manufacturer understands
you, knows what he has to do. He accompanies you to his factory in the
country; Mr. Greg to Quarrybank in Cheshire, Mr. Ashworth to Turton near
Bolton, Mr. Ashton to Hyde. He leads you through a superb, admirably
arranged building, perhaps supplied with ventilators, he calls your
attention to the lofty, airy rooms, the fine machinery, here and there a
healthy-looking operative. He gives you an excellent lunch, and proposes
to you to visit the operatives' homes; he conducts you to the cottages,
which look new, clean and neat, and goes with you into this one and that
one, naturally only to overlookers, mechanics, etc., so that you may see
"families who live wholly from the factory." Among other families you
might find that only wife and children work, and the husband darns
stockings. The presence of the employer keeps you from asking indiscreet
questions; you find every one well-paid, comfortable, comparatively
healthy by reason of the country air; you begin to be converted from your
exaggerated ideas of misery and starvation. But, that the cottage system
makes slaves of the operatives, that there may be a truck shop in the
neighbourhood, that the people hate the manufacturer, this they do not
point out to you, because he is present. He has built a school, church,
reading-room, etc. That he uses the school to train children to
subordination, that he tolerates in the reading-room such prints only as
represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, that he dismisses his
employees if they read Chartist or Socialist papers or books, this is all
concealed from you. You see an easy, patriarchal relation, you see the
life of the overlookers, you see what the bourgeoisie _promises_ the
workers if they become its slaves, mentally and morally. This "country
manufacture" has always been what the employers like to show, because in
it the disadvantages of the factory system, especially from the point of
view of health, are, in part, done away with by the free air and
surroundings, and because the patriarchal servitude of the workers can
here be longest maintained. Dr. Ure sings a dithyramb upon the theme.
But woe to the operatives to whom it occurs to think for themselves and
become Chartists! For them the paternal affection of the manufacturer
comes to a sudden end. Further, if you should wish to be accomp