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The Classical Economists and the Factory Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Kenneth O. Walker
Kenneth O. Walker
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Extract

Between 1815 and 1850, the economic policy of England was marked by several far-reaching reforms advocated by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and their disciples. Revision of monetary and banking policy, abandonment of the archaic Navigation Acts, and eventual repeal of the Corn Laws, all bear the unmistakable impress of the influence of the classical economists.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1941 , pp. 168 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

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References

1 Halévy, Élie, A History of the English People (London, 1927), III, 109–113Google Scholar. See also, Hall, Walter P., “Certain Reactions against Laissez Faire,” American Historical Association, Annual Report (1913), I, 129–138Google Scholar.

2 One writer referred to “… the most revolting, the most injurious, as well as happily, the most unfounded and irrational doctrines” of political economy, Quarterly Review XLVI (November, 1831), 117Google Scholar; to a writer in Blackwood's, “… this political economy is a destroyer, not only of morals, but of wealth likewise …”, Blackwood's Magazine, XXIX (February, 1831), 358Google Scholar; the political economists who contributed to the Edinburgh Review were called “… serpents, whose hiss, however, is worse than their bite,” ibid., 404.

3 Ratzlaff, C. J., “Economic Control in the Nineteenth Century,” Planned Society Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (edited by Mackenzie, Findlay, New York, 1937), 135–137Google Scholar; Keynes, J. M., The End of Laisses Faire (New York, 1926), 27Google Scholar; Cannan, Edwin, A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848 (London, 1917), 379–392.Google Scholar

4 Edwin Cannan, History of the Theories, 379–392.

5 Cunningham, William, The Growth of English Commerce and Industry in Modern Times: Part II, Laissez Faire (Cambridge, 1912), 789Google Scholar.

6 J. L., and Hammond, Barbara, Lord Shaftesbury (London, 1923), 25Google Scholar.

7 B. Hutchins, L. and Harrison, A., A History of Factory Legislation (London, 1911), 49–50Google Scholar.

8 For examples see Bready, J. W., Lord Shaftesbury and Social-Industrial Progress (London, 1926), 183Google Scholar; Birnie, A., An Economic History of Europe, 1760–1930 (London, 1930), 199, 201Google Scholar; Hall, Walter P., “Certain Early Reactions …,” in American History Association, Annual Report (1913), I, 131Google Scholar; Trevelyan, G. M., British History in the Nineteenth Century and After (London, 1937), 248Google Scholar; Knight, M. M., Barnes, H. E., and Flugel, F., Economic History of Europe in Modern Times (New York, 1928), 401–402Google Scholar; Toynbee, Arnold, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century in England (London, 1890), 18, 130.Google Scholar

9 See, e.g., McCulloch, John Ramsay, The Literature of Political Economy (London, 1845), 236–247Google Scholar; also, Williams, Judith Blow, A Bibliography of the Social and Economic History of Great Britain, 1750–1850 (New York, 1926), II, 188–205Google Scholar; Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 282–284. I examined also the Seligman Collection at Columbia University in an effort to locate tracts on the subject.

10 This, in spite of their readiness to deal with current controversial subjects in these treatises.

11 Proceedings of the Political Economy Club, 1821–1920 (London, 1921), VI, 41.

12 Hammond, Shaftesbury, 26.

13 Proceedings of the Political Economy Club, VI, 46.

14 For example, Cunningham, English Commerce and Industry, II, 789.

15 Proceedings of the Political Economy Club, VI, 273–275. (Extract from the “Diaries of J. L. Mallet,” May 5, 1837.)

16 Bowley, Marian, Nassau Senior (London, 1937), 256–257.Google Scholar

17 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Series 3, XIX, 900–901 (July 18, 1833)Google Scholar.

18 Hansard, Series 3, XIX, 246 (July 5, 1833). Toynbee states that Hume opposed factory legislation (Toynbee, Lectures, 18). He opposed legislation for adults, but favored the Act of 1833 so long as it was limited to children.

19 Hammond, Shaftesbury, 21.

20 Proceedings of the Political Economy Club, VI, 273–275.

21 Chapman, Sydney J., The Lancashire Cotton Industry (Manchester, 1904), 85.Google Scholar

22 Hansard, Series 3, XIX, 249 (July 5, 1833) ; Hammond, Shaftesbury, 43.

23 Smart, William, Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1910), II, 316.Google Scholar

24 Hansard, Series 1, XXXVIII, 548 (May 7, 1818) ; XXXIX, 288 (February 4, 1819) ; XXXVIII, 656 (February 25, 1819).

25 Toynbee, Lectures, 130.

26 The Edinburgh Review, XLVI (June, 1821), 35Google Scholar; Quarterly Review, “The Factory System,” LIX (December, 1836), 396–444Google Scholar; Fraser's Magazine, “The Commission for Perpetuating Factory Infanticide,” VII (June, 1833), 707–715Google Scholar.

27 Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 16.

28 Ibid.

29 Hansard, Series 1, XXXVII, 559–560 (February 23, 1818) ; Alfred (i.e., Samuel Kydd), The History of the Factory Movement, 1802–1847 (London, 1852), I, 30–31.Google Scholar

30 Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 24.

31 Smart, Economic Annals, I, 662–663.

32 “The arguments used to weaken the Act of 1819 are those that belong to the mercantilist order of ideas, and are based on the twofold assumption that (a) the protection and preservation of industry on its commercial side should be the object of the State, and (b) that the proposed regulation would injure trade and drive it out of the country, eventually reducing not only the capitalists, but also the workers to beggary.” Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 27.

33 Smart, Economic Annals, I, 669.

34 Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 25; Hansard, Series 1, XXXVII, 581, 582, 585 (February 23, 1818); XXXVIII, 174, 346, 349, 362, 548, 549, 1252; XXXIX, 560, 655–656, 1131–1133; XL, 1131; XLI, 929.

35 Hansard, Series 2, XIII, 421–422, 643, 645, 646–647, 1008 (May 1825); Series 3, IV, 501–502; V, 388–389, 588 (1831).

36 Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, 98–99; Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 49; Hansard, Series 3, XIX, 235, 246 (July 5, 1833) ; XIX, 889 (July 18, 1833).

37 Hutt, W. H., “The Factory System of the Early Nineteenth Century,” Economica, VI (March, 1926), 79Google Scholar; Engels, Friedrich, The Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844 (London, 1892), 170Google Scholar.

38 For example, see Hansard, Series 3, XVI, 642–643 (March 14, 1833) ; XIX, 235, 246, 900–901 (July 5, 1833); XX, 449 (August 9, 1833).

39 See above, pp. 174–175.

40 Hansard, Series 3, XIX, 235 (July 5, 1833); XIX, 900 (July 18, 1833); XX, 449 (August 9, 1833).

41 Hansard. Series 3, XVI, 879; XVII, 84, 899; XIX, 892–893, 896, 912.