ABSTRACT
The labour market was swollen by the entrance of large numbers of children, probably increasing annually for some time with the rise in the effective birth-rate. It is practicable to determine how far the proportionate contribution of minors to productive capacity was affected by their transference from the home to the factory; considered in relation to standards of life and indeed to long-run productivity, their employment has latterly been condemned, on economic as well as on humanitarian grounds. The persistence of the "family group" as a productive unit was held to induce the early employment of children and their long hours; the same objection as is still heard was made by parents to any interference with their children's capacity as wage-earners. The employment of children in Glasgow cotton mills, usually by the male operative spinner as "piecers," for hours and at wages in violation of the law, was described and condoned by witnesses at the Select Committee on Trade Unions.
