Physical Description:  105pp 18 1/2 cm.

: ...the factory system. In the old domestic system little machinery was required, but the factory system altered the situation. Capital became relatively more important than labour. Machinery, vast quantities of raw materials, and funds to meet large running expenses were necessary to meet the demands of competition in the new industrial system. Before the Industrial Revolution wealth had been accumulated by gains from agriculture, commerce, and from the crude industries then in existence. By amassing some wealth in the old industries and by taking advantage of the new machines, men were enabled to lay the foundations of immense fortunes, and thus to acquire almost unlimited power over the lives of others. The hand worker without capital could not compete with organised mechanical industry, and conseq uently he was forced to become entirely dependent upon his employer who, taking advantage of the lawlessness of the time, pushed wages toward the lowest point of subsistence. Says Gibbins: " It is a sad but significant fact that, although the total wealth of the nation vastly increased at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, little of that wealth came into the hands of the labourers, but went mainly into the hands of the great landlords and the new capitalist manufacturers, or was spent in the enormous expenses of foreign war." In addition to the tremendous power which possession of wealth gave to the employers, by legal methods, they were enabled to turn the institutions of government into instruments of oppression. As the government was almost entirely in the hands of the wealthy classes, they took advantage of the position of the workers so that the greatest possible gains could be obtained from their labour....