Factories and the Factory System

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Excerpt from Factories and the Factory System: From Parliamentary Documents and Personal ExaminationTan object of this work may be explained in a few words: it is neither intended to attack nor to defend the Factory System, but simply to state what that system is to explain what is its nature and what are its results, so far as they have been yet developed in human expe ricuce. It is told of Charles II. That he once asked the Royal Society to tell him the reason why a dead salmon weighed heavier than a live one? Many learned disputations at once arose, and the controversy was daily becoming more violent, until some disinterested spectator proposed to inquire into the fact, and he found that there was no dif ference whatever between the two weights. In the countless pamphlets and speeches which have appeared on the Factory System, it seems to have been similarly taken for granted that the leading facts of the Factory System had been ascertained but, having reason to doubt the fact, I resolved to weigh the salmon, and to state the result of the experiment, leaving the disputants to harmonise that result with their experiments according to their own discretion. It may possibly be objected that I have used weights derived from Political Economy, but in all experiments it is necessary to have our standards determined by the accuracy of science, and Economics bear the same relation to social questions that Mathematics do to Astronomical phenomena. In all ages there have been controversialists who dislike this reference to the rigid standards of science, but men never set themselves against reason until they find that reason is set against them.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.