with it. There is absolutely no guiding principle of action throughout. A new set of definitions, and a body of rules founded upon it, is promulgated, legalised, and abandoned. An entirely new system supplants it, or a portion of the former is tacked on to, or slipped in with, the latter. Presently a fresh one supervenes. All are excogitated piece by piece, and with no reference at all to the whole field to be covered, or to a proper knowledge of the nature of the enterprise thus entered on. But they teach also how superficially as yet the nation has laid to heart the full meaning and bearings of that new system of production itself, which within little more than a century has nearly ousted all others from its midst; how partially heretofore it has conceived the new obligations that have been thus cast upon it. When its course is still more fully run, the obligations in question will doubtless be made clearer, and will be faced then, it may be hoped, in a philosophic and systematic spirit. When the whole labour question is comprehensively re-studied, as it should be, in the light which the factory system sheds upon it, the inconsistencies adverted to may be removed. In the meanwhile it appears to the present writer that it is in tracing the influences that have gone to the formation and development of that system, and by contrasting it with other industrial systems, that we may most hopefully approach this task. On such an enterprise then we are about to enter, and an obvious preliminary is, to state in what sense will be used throughout this work the expressions factory, factory system, mill, and manufacture, about which so much has been already said; and in what order, and to what end, the subsequent recital will be made. The word "factory," then, will be used all through these pages in its popular rather than its historical or legal sense up to the period of its being defined by statute.

PLAN OF THIS WORK.

The early

signification of a trading establishment will be altogether and everywhere excluded, and the later meaning, of a place of production, will be at first, and everywhere, understood. It will be held to be any such place of production; that is, any definite place where associated industrial production is carried on, by whatever means.1 This definition of it will postulate its close connection with the term "manufactory," and that word and factory will be regarded as practically synonymous up to the time of statutory definition. The verb Manufacture will signify in all cases to make any commodities on a large scale, especially for exportation, and the noun of multitude Manufacture will mean the sum of the commodities produced in that way. Where A Manufacture (noun of multitude) is referred to, it will be understood that there must be, of course, a system of manufacture to have produced it, but not necessarily manufactories, for a manufactory is a place of definite bounds, but manufacture is a term far more indefinite. Thus a district may possess a great handicraft manufacture but have no manufactories. Such is, for instance, the case with India, and is and has been with other places. It is the case in several districts of England now, where cottage industries prevail. From the time of special statutory enactment the meanings of these words vary with the vicissitudes of statutory definition, and they will be employed accordingly. The word mill, however, will be kept

1 One of the best definitions of a factory yet offered is in a Report on the Factory System of the United States, by Carroll D. Wright, Washington, 1884:-"A factory is an establishment where several workmen are collected for the purpose of obtaining greater and cheaper conveniences of labour than they could procure individually in their homes; for producing results by their combined efforts which they could not accomplish separately, and for preventing the loss occasioned by carrying articles from place to place during the several processes necessary to complete their manufacture." This is too far removed, however, from our modern English definitions to be made practical use of here.

as nearly as possible to its proper signification throughout, namely, that of a place in which a certain class of operations, usually of the nature of reducing a greater bulk to a less, is carried on.

With respect to the term factory system a somewhat lengthier exposition is requisite. From the dawn of history there are occasional indications of factory systems of some kind existing; that is to say of combined labour in establishments of definite bounds being employed for purposes of industrial production. This Introduction will commence its survey with those early types. In some primeval countries they remain indications only, or the traces fade away when subjected to closer examination. In others, no traces of the kind exist at all-there was apparently no production beyond the supply of immediate wants, and no trade. In a few they assume large and shadowy proportions, which pique while they fail to satisfy curiosity. It is chiefly in the world of remote antiquity that remains of this latter kind are found -remains of a great factory system which prevailed over certain parts of it, and supplied millions of customers with products. The enormous populousness of the ancient world at various epochs seems to have necessitated some such system of production, which accordingly sprang into being at those times and places to meet those wants, even as it has done at various epochs of later times under a like compulsion. In Egypt, in Assyria, in Phoenicia, and elsewhere, such an organisation of labour seems to have prevailed. In India, in China perhaps, and in some other places, the manufacturing organisation was dissimilar:-labour was not conducted on the factory system. As history proceeds, the

1

1 See Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, chap. v., where the suggestion is made that the world may have been at many other epochs as populous as it is now. See also for the classical period Hume's well-known essay, "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," vol. i. p. 411, edition of 1767.

memory of those old times, and of their political and industrial conditions grows faint, and classical civilisation coming to the front for a while dominates mankind. There

is little about the factory system to be noted then, except its bare existence, the circumstance that as society became again more highly organised, and the necessity for making provision for its wants again more pressing, a more highly organised labour system came necessarily into vogue, a circumstance common alike to the later civilisations of Greece and Rome; and which will be noted accordingly. Then follows the rush of the barbarians upon the western world, and all familiar forms of social life go down before it. No great manufacture is traceable in the west during the Dark Ages, but in the south-east of Europe it still maintains its place, transmitting its traditions, and a method modified by new conditions, by the familiar, but at that time almost imperceptible channel of trade. Then emerges an order of things, in many respects resembling, yet in some so unlike, the ancient order. An immense stimulus is given to industry, partly by a great increase of population and greater facilities for trade, but also by novel contrivances in the physical and mechanical worlds, having production for their end. New political and economical conditions accompany these changes, and at length the modern factory system fully fledged takes its place among the great labour systems of the world.

The materials that are accessible for ever so superficial a review of the tendencies and events thus indicated are extremely meagre. Many of the great nations of antiquity, and still more of the classic ages, had an inveterate scorn of trade and industry, things which they regarded as in their nature mean and sordid, beneath the dignity of highspirited and enlightened men. They have left accordingly scarcely any trustworthy accounts of such matters, and

those which we possess are to be found elsewhere than in their formal writings. They are to be found in the chance allusions of their poets and sacred writers, in their descriptions of the manners and customs of other races; and in the results of modern antiquarian and anthropological research. Similarly, the writers of the Middle Ages had other and very different preoccupations. During the early part of that period they were engaged in almost constant controversies among themselves, they were entangled in the toils of the scholastic philosophy, and their thought was of almost anything but industry and social organisation. There was in fact very little industry to write about, and very little organisation at all, except of the religious kind. Then followed the Renaissance, where all the prejudices of the ancient world were revived with the ancient learning, and the vices of classicism imitated with even a greater success than were its virtues. The writers of those times adopted, with their models, a tone of contempt towards industry, which the military spirit of the day tended to foster and perpetuate; and the tone thus begotten of classicism and nurtured by feudalism has continued, with rare exceptions, until within about a century of the present day, since when the industrial and democratic spirit has been superseding it. It will be our own endeavour to exhibit this progression, so far as it relates to the subject under review, in an orderly succession, though necessarily in the briefest manner. This Introduction does not pretend to be in any proper sense a history of manufacture, of commerce, or of trade; of the organisation of labour-further than of the particular form of organisation with which it is specifically concerned-of processes, inventions, or usages. These things are to be found treated of elsewhere, with a fulness proper to their importance, and a special knowledge to which the present writer does not by any means lay claim. It will suffice for