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Both modern and contemporary commentators have over the past 140 years written many millions of words on the subject of the abuse of child labour in factories and trades in the first half of the nineteenth century. The subject was highly charged with emotion at that time. The detailed observations of intelligent and perceptive men contrast with the partial accounts of honest and not so honest early Victorians. Together they have blurred the definition between truth and the embellishment of it. This lack of clarity on the issue of child labour has left modern historians great scope for widely differing interpretations and the evidence for believing that conditions were as bad or as good as suited their particular point of view. It is regretted that there is insufficient material in South Africa to enter fully into the often bitter arguments of the, so called, 'optimists' and 'pessimists' in respect of the improvement or deterioration of the standard of living of the labouring classes in the first half of the nineteenth century. Child labour was not one of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution. The labour of children within the domestic economy had, certainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, been regarded as socially acceptable. The aim of this work is to trace the conditions of child labour in the early years of the Industrial Revolution as the spread of factories demanded more and more young hands and imposed an alien and sometimes inhuman discipline on the workers. As the numbers of children employed expanded not only in total but also as a proportion of the total labour force, the realisation that the labour of children was presenting a grave social problem gradually dawned upon the governments of the time. This work traces the development of legislation from the first faltering step forward of the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 to the passing of the Factory Act of 1847 which provided for a ten hours' working day. This type of legislation was an experiment which developed in efficiency by trial and error. Detailed consideration is given to the arguments of the supporters and the opponents of restrictions being placed on the complete freedom of the manufacturers. This was a battle eventually to be won by the supporters of restriction on the freedom of the masters. Nearly twenty years have passed since detail ed consideration was given to the parallel development of the awareness that the labour of children was a problem and the steps taken to alleviate it. The aim in this work is to consider the most recent publications that deal with particular aspects of the problem. The intention is to penetrate the contradictory claims made in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to attempt to clarify as accurately as possible the realities of the conditions of child labour and to trace their improvement to the middle of the century.

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The movement in India to abolish indentured emigration to tropical colonies (particularly Fiji, Trinidad, British Guiana and Natal) had its origins in the "Moderate" era of Indian nationalism and the politics of G. K. Gokhale. It began with the concern of the Indian middle class that their status in the British Empire was denigrated by that of their "coolie" compatriots. However, as the details of the indenture system were brought to light, the anti-indenture movement came to encompass almost every group in India, from village to metropolitan centre, from the conservative, orthodox Marwaris of Calcutta to the westernized Parsi elite of Bombay. The issue joined the era of Gokhale to the era of Gandhi, and was the vehicle for Gandhi's transition from overseas politician to a major political figure in India. The issue came to be seen by most Indians--and many imperialists--as a direct struggle between Indian national honour and the capitalist interests of colonial entrepreneurs. When indentured emigration was finally halted in 1917 it was in response, not to a moderate constitutional effort, but to India-wide political agitation and a threatened satyagraha movement. In the process, the confidence of Indian citizens in both imperial equality and the efficacy of constitutional methods was undermined at a crucial point in the development of Indian nationalism and the evolution of Empire into Commonwealth.

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