Background: Edward Baines was a newspaper journalist and editor for the Leeds Mercury Newspaper. In the 1830s, he was elected to Parliament, and served there as a political liberal. Although Baines supported the end of slavery and various political reforms, he opposed legislation regulating factories and extending voting rights to the English working class. These are excerpts from his book History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain.
Source: Baines, E. (1835). History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain.
Above all, it is alleged that the children who labor in mills are often cruelly beaten by overlookers, that their feeble limbs become distorted by continual standing and stooping, that in many mills they are forced to work thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen hours per day, and that they have not time either for play or for education.
Factory Inspectors who have visited nearly every mill in the country have proved that views mentioned above of labor in factory mills contain a very small portion of truth. It is definitely true that there have been instances of abuse and cruelty in some factories. But abuse is the exception, not the rule. Factory labor is far less injurious than many of the most common jobs of civilized life.
I am not saying that factories are the most agreeable and healthy places, or that there have not been abuses in them, which required exposure and correction. It must be admitted that the hours of labor in cotton mills are long, being twelve hours a day on five days a week, and nine hours on Saturday. But the work is light, and requires very little muscular exertion. On visiting mills, I have noticed the coolness and calmness of the work-people, even of the children, whose attitudes are positive and not anxious or gloomy.
