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under thirteen were not allowed to work more than eight hours per day, while under
the Factory Acts of 1874 no child under ten years of age was allowed to work in a
factory. In 1871 the first Elementary Education Act came into force and had an
immediate effect upon the value of children of the poorer class to their parents as
a means of supplementing the family income. The continuous decrease in the
employment of children is evident in the census figures of occupation. In the census
of 1901 we find that only 1.3 per cent. of the children under thirteen years of age
were returned as occupied.
Effect of
Factory and
Education
Acts.
The birth-rate in England and Wales reached its maximum in the seventies, and
has since continuously declined. One of the factors in this decline has no doubt been
the reduced value of the child to parents of the poorest class, which is also the most
prolific class of the population. The effect of the later age of wage-earning among
children brought about by the Elementary Education Acts and Factory Acts is also
shown in the marriage-rate. The children brought within the scope of compulsory
education by the Education Acts, who previously had had, little or no schooling (we
are again dealing principally with children of the poorest class), were between five
and thirteen years of age, or nine years of age on the average, and they came to the
age of marriage some ten or twelve years later. It would be expected on comparing
these youths with those of the same age in years prior to the Education Acts that
they would not have attained the same skill and wage-earning power in their trade
or occupation, nor would they be comparatively so well developed physically. The
decline in the marriage-rate among young women under twenty-one years of age,
dating from about 1883, may be thus accounted for, and no doubt gave an additional
impulse to the rate of decline in the birth-rate.
From 1883 down to about 1910 the birth-rate in England and Wales declined
pari passu with the decrease in the percentage of women under 21 years of age
among the married in each year; but after 1910, and down to the present time, the
birth-rate and marriage-rate part company. The percentage of minors among women
married ceased to decline and has even increased, but it is interesting to note that
the birth-rate has not followed, on the contrary, the fall has been accelerated.
Housing
shortage and
increased
cost.
Owing to the shortage of houses the accommodation on the Council's estates
is rationed, and a married couple without children is not allowed to have more than a
two-room tenement. On post-war estates the weekly rent of these tenements is about
13s. A married couple with two children may have a three-room tenement, for
which the rent is about 16s., while where there are more than two children a fourroom
tenement is allotted, for which the rent is about 19s. Since between 25 and
30 per cent. of the rent represents rates, it will be seen that the parents of more than
two children pay from 5s. to 6s. a week in respect of rates.
Although the principle of abatement of taxation in respect of wife and children
is recognised in income tax assessment, relief of this kind does not reach the poorer
class of the population. Two children per married pair only suffice to maintain
the family, but, since there are many childless couples, it is the family of more
than three children to which we must look, even only to maintain the existing
population.
One way of eking out the family income open to these families is that of taking
in lodgers, and statistics collected some years ago show that many families of the
poorer classes in London made a regular practice of so doing as a means of supplementing
their earnings. In this direction it is suggested that municipal authorities
might do much by building houses specially designed for the accommodation of
large families and so arranged as to allow of one or more lodgers being taken.
A difficulty frequently met with, more especially among the lower middle
class, is the objection on the part of landlords to children. "No children taken"
is more frequently met with as a stipulation nowadays than ever before. There is
something to be said for the landlord's position since the cost of repairs is likely to