Industrialization carried with it broad social and economic changes that were quickly felt  by those involved.  The most striking changes were in the working conditions in the new factories and mines.  During the first decades of industrialization, there was little government control over working conditions and few effective labor organizations; laborers were this at the mercy of factory owners who were pursuing profit in a competitive world.  Investigations into conditions in factories and mines conducted by the British Parliament in the 1830s and 1840s led eventually to the enactment of legislation, such as the Factory Act of 1833.  These parliamentary investigations provide us with extensive information about working conditions and attitudes toward them.  The following selection contains three excerpts from a parliamentary commission's investigations into child labor in factories.  The first is a summary by the commission of medical examiners from northeastern England.  The second is the testimony of John Wright, a steward in a silk factory .  THe third is the testimony of William Harder, a silk manufacturer.

Consider: what these people perceived as the worst abuses of factory labor; the causes of the poor working conditions; how Harter might defend himself against the charges that he was abusing the working class; what biases the witnesses might hold.

TESTIMONY OF THE COMMISSION OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS

The account of the physical condition of the manufacturing population in the large towns in the North-eastern District of England is less favourable.  It is of this district that the  Commissioners state, "We have found undoubted instances of children five years old sent to work thirteen hours a day; and frequently of children nine, ten, and eleven consigned to labour for fourteen and fifteen hours."  The effects ascertained by the Commissioners in many cases are "deformity," and in still more "stunted growth, relaxed muscles, and slender conformation:" twisting of the ends of long bones, relaxation of the ligaments of the knees, ankles and the like."  " The representation that these effects are so common and universal as to enable some persons invariably to distinguish factory children from other children is, I have no hesitation in saying , an exaggerated and unfaithful picture of their general condition; at the same time it must be said, that the individual instances in which some one or other of those effects of severe labour are discernible are rather frequent than rare.

Upon the whole, there remains no doubt upon my mind,  that under the system pursued in many of the factories, the children of the labouring classes stand in need of, and ought to have, legislative protection against the conspiracy insensibly formed between their masters and parents, to tax them to a degree of toil beyond their strength.

In conclusion, I think has been clearly proved that children have been worked a most unreasonable and cruel length of time daily, and that even adults have been expected to do a certain quantity of labour which scarcely any human being is able to endure.  I am of opinion no child under fourteen years of age should work in a factory of any description for more than eight hours a day.  From fourteen upwards I would recommend that no individual should, under any circumstances, work more than twelve hours a day; although if practicable, as a physician, I would prefer the limitation of ten hours, for all persons who earn their bread by their industry.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN WRIGHT
How long have you been employed in a silk-mill?  More than thirty years.
    Did you enter it as a child" Yes, betwixt five and six.
    How many hours a day did you work then?  The same thirty years ago as now.
What are those hours?  Eleven hours per day and two over hours: over hours are working after six in the evening till eight.  The regular hours are from six in the morning to six in the evening, and two others are two over-hours; about fifty years ago they began working over-hours....
    Why, then are those employed in them said to be in such a wretched condition? In the first place, the great number of hands congregated together, n some rooms forty, in some fifty, in some sixty, and I have known some as man as 200, which must be injurious to both health and growing.
    Why, then, are those employed in them said to be in such a wretched condition?  In the first pace, the great number of hands congregated together, in some room forty, in some fifty, in some sixty, and I have known some as many as 100, which much injurious to both health and growing.  In the second place, the privy is in the the factory, which frequently emits an unwholesome smell; and it would be worth while to notice in the future erection of mills, that there be twixt  the privy door and the factory wall a kind of a lobby of cage-work. 3rdly, The tediousness and the everlasting sameness in the first process preys much on the spirits, and makes the hands spiritless.  4thly, the extravagant number of hours a child is compelled to labour and confinement, which for one week in seventy-six hours.  ... 5thly, About six months in the year we are obliged to use either gas, candles, or lamps  for the longest portion of that time, nearly six hours a day, being obliged to work amid the smoke and soot of the sam; and also a large portion of oil and grease is used in the mills.
    What are the effects of the present system of labour?  From my earliest recollections, I have found the effect to be awfully detrimental to the well-being of the operative; I have observed frequently children carried to factories, unable to walk, and that entirely owning to excessive labour and confinement.  The degradation of the work people baffle all description; frequently have two of my sisters been obliged to be assisted to the factory and home again, until by and by they could go no longer, being totally crippled in their legs.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM HARTER

What effect would it have on your manufacture to reduce the hours of labour to ten?  It would instantly much reduce the value of my mill and machinery, and consequently of far prejudice my manufacture..
    How so? - They are calculated to produce a certain quantity of work in a given time.  Every machine is valuable in proportion to the quantity of work which it  will turn off in a given time.  It is impossible that the machinery could produce as much work in ten hours as in twelve.  If the tending of the machines were a laborious occupation, the difference in the quantity of work might not always be in exact proportion to the difference of working time; but in my mill, and silk mill in general, the work requires the least imaginable labour; therefor it is mills in general, the work requires the least imaginable labour; therefore it is perfectly impossible that the machines could produce as much work in ten hours as in twelve.  The produce would vary in about the same ratio as the working time.