Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Síða 135

ECONOMIC ADAPTATION
129
graveside, whispering with quiet sorrow and lowered voices
about the unique achievements, but also about the price of it,
the ruthlessness, egotism and materialism which it engendered,
and which all from within marked the society which grew up
under the hectic fertilisation of laissez faire.
Out of official reports we may read of children beginning
at the age of 11 their work in the factory at 6 o’clock in the
morning and continuing till 7.30 in the evening, or of children
who at the age of 14 had been working 16V2 hours a day for
two years1), or of the commission of 1833 which reports on con-
ditions in the silk industry that many children are crippled for
life and that young women are seriously injured by their work
in that industry.2) From the same commission of 1833 we may
hear of children who at the age of 5 were sent to work for 13
hours a day, and at the ages of 9, 10 and 11 had to work 14
or 15 hours a day.3) We may also read from a report by a com-
mission appointed in 1842 to inquire into the conditions of
women’s and children’s work in mines, that the practice of em-
ploying children of only 6 and 7 in mines was not uncommon,
and that there was no reduction in their hours of work. Usually
the children went down with the men at 4 o’clock in the morning
and remained in the pit for 11 or 12 hours.4)
Books have indeed been written about these horrors.5) Here
we can only remind admirers of the system that it had a seamy
side, and that our standard of living in Europe has had its dear
price.
And from this seamy side the effects of the system on indi-
viduals, classes and the community as a whole emerge. Money
has more and more become the only standard of value. Spiritual
values — hats off, with all due respect. If they can produce
further technical progress and all the other things external it
is certainly excellent. It was, of course, a pity that the discoverar
W. Cunningham: The Industrial Revolution, Cambridge 1908, p. 785,
note 4.
2) ibid. p. 780 et seq.
3) ibid. p. 779 and note.
4) ibid. p. 805.
B) See for instance: Ludvig Bramsen: Englands og Tysklands Lovgiv-
ning for Arbejdere i Industri og Haandværk, (English and German Legisla-
tion for Workers in Industries and Crafts) Copenhagen, 1889, and A. Fraen-
kel: Mellemstanden (The Middle Classes) Copenhagen 1932, p. 212 et seq.