Page:Henry Mayers Hyndman and William Morris - A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884).djvu/41

 overwork would betoken. Thus the very circumstances which should have bettered their condition and rendered their life more easy, actually pressed them down to a lower standard of existence.

Not until 1802 was any step taken to recognise even that children were overworked, and the Act then passed was wholly abortive. In 1814 the capitalist class even succeeded in removing the last vestige of the old restrictions notwithstanding the overwhelming array of petitions from the workers against any such action. At this time it must be remembered that all combinations among the workers to raise wages, or to strike for any reason whatsoever, were illegal. Soon afterwards the great war came to an end which had so much strengthened the power of the landowners, farmers and capitalists, at the expense of the people; and with its termination, and the consequent collapse of the fictitious prosperity created for certain classes, came a period of even greater pressure upon the people. From 1817 to 1848 was therefore one of almost continuous turmoil. The middle-class were striving to secure their complete control over the House of Commons by a limited extension of the suffrage, and a disfranchisement of rotten boroughs; the wage-earners were combining in all directions to obtain the suffrage for their class, but also to relieve themselves from the hideous economical injustice they suffered under. Riots in the towns and rick-burnings in the country were frequent.

The time of the fiercest struggle was shortly after the enaction of the Reform Bill of 1832. Then the effect of the New Poor Law, the constant immigration from