ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a critical assessment of attitudes towards the role of the state between 1870 and 1920 in the UK, when various intellectual and social factors combined to present a new approach to economic and social welfare. Convinced that economic principles were objective and transcended class interests, Marshall was intent on showing that working-class needs could be met within capitalism. By the end of the 19th century, "sweated" women workers were the subject of many reports, journalistic exposures and earnest debates among middle-class social investigators. In 1897, the International Labour Congress, which was initiated by the Swiss Workers League, demanded an 8-hour day, a 44-hour week, equal pay for equal work, eight weeks maternity leave, and the protection for pregnant women against work that was dangerous for them. The state regulation of wages was thus being urged in many countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for various social, economic and political reasons.
