their wives and children.  If the master craftsmen had other helpers these were usually lodged and fed in the homes, and were taught by the side of the masters’ own families.  The old English law of master and servant was the labor law of that time as, to some extent, it still is to-day in Great Britain and America.  The living and working conditions of the wage-workers were in general the same as those of the master himself and of his own family; and this was the best possible guarantee that the conditions would be kept up to the best standards of that time.  The same change in industrial relations that led to the rise of the organized labor movement[1] revealed new and often horrible neglect and evil in and about the factories.  They had been erected with no thought of sanitation, safety, and decency for the workers.

Sec. 2. #Improvement of factory conditions#.  Legislation to remedy these evils began in England a century ago, and the English code of factory laws, regulating the construction and operation of factories and providing for their inspection, has become voluminous.  It has been copied, and in some respects improved, by all of the great industrial nations.  This is true in America of the manufacturing states, tho the agricultural states have still very few such regulations.  As a result of these measures, accompanying and stimulating an enlightenment of the employers’ self-interest, there has been a very remarkable improvement in such matters in recent years.  In many American factories erected in the last quarter-century the conditions as to lighting, heating, ventilation, stairways, fire-escapes, protection of the workers against accidents, and lavatory and sanitary arrangements, are better than the best conditions ever existing in domestic manufactures.  A somewhat corresponding improvement has taken place on railroads, in mercantile establishments and, perhaps less, in mining.

Factory legislation often has been opposed by employers because of the expense it causes; but if the regulations apply to all factories, the expense becomes a part of the cost of production and is shifted, like the other expenses of production, to the general body of consumers, of which the employers form only a small part.  Much of the recent progress in some establishments has, however, gone much beyond the requirements of any existing laws.  Many employers recognize that it is costly and unprofitable to themselves to allow their workmen to be in surroundings that reduce their vitality and efficiency, such as do the conditions mentioned at the close of the preceding section.