Talk:Sadler report

Cleanup message
Bot identified the article as needed cleanup and put the relevant maintenance tags. Please fix the identified problems. If you think the maintenance tags were put in error then just revert the bot's edits. If you have any questions please contact the bot owner.

Yours truly AlexNewArtBot 15:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Assignment
Okay you guys. I did not create this article but I edited and wrote most of it. First I would like to say that this is for my class, and I am not an experienced editor. Second, if there is anything I need to fix please let me know. Third I am not done yet so I would really appreciate the help. Kiara11591
 * Comments left at User_talk:Kiara11591. I have moved parts of the article to Michael Thomas Sadler as they were out of place here, and my comments were not addressed for several days (and the assignment deadline has passed). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

working hours for children
Parking this here for now- it doesn't really fit into the article

Data on hours of work
The Morning Post of 17 January 1833 printed the following information on "Hours of labour of other trades than the cotton, in which children are employed in conjunction with adults (delivered in and proved on oath, and inserted in Appendix to the Evidence on the Factory System, No 34)" Rjccumbria (talk) 00:03, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Is this copied?
What does this sentence mean?

"The following provides an in-depth view of the history of the report and of Michael Sadler as well as how the report was related to the labour of women and children."

This sounds like something from a source with an ax to grind? It makes me think the whole thing, or at least big parts of it, is copied from somewhere else. it certainly isn't the language of a typical encyclopedia article.AnthroMimus (talk) 23:35, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Point of View
This whole article is not only argumentative, it is based exclusively on Austrian School Economic arguments and cites. All of the "economic historians" are libertarian-Mises Institute types. There are no citations to historians of British political history at all.

Moreover, it is not written like an encyclopedia article. It is shaped solely to agree with a certain view of political economy.AnthroMimus (talk) 13:07, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The article was apparently originally produced as someone's high schoool assignment (the article on Michael Thomas Sadler himself seems to have similar origins (the same class?)) and of roughly the quality one might therefore fear. Little but the lede remains from that.  I also would have my doubts about the second half of the lede, because it over-cites economists (one critic (preferably Hayek) is ample) and whilst it is correct in saying the Factory Commission gave short shrift to the more lurid elements of the report it is a bit remiss not to mention that (on a procedually sounder basis) the Factory Commission also found a lot wrong with working hours and conditions for children in factories. (I would suggest that there should be a separate article on the  Commission and the 1833 Act: once that is sorted it will be a lot easier to give a simple balanced view of the Commission's views & 'disproof' of the report of Sadler's committee)


 * Claims that 'the whole article' is based exclusively on Austrian School Economic arguments and cites and 'shaped solely to agree wih a certain view of polical economy' are of concern - if true. Most of the body of the article was (to declare an interest) put together myself over the last year from contemporary newspaper reports and Parliamentary debates.  It contains multiple references to those and no references to Austrian economists.  It does not knowingly venture upon matters of political economy, let alone seek to push any particular view (certain or uncertain) on the matter.  Since Hayek, Engels (who admittedly probably was following Gaskell), the Manchester Guardian, and Sadler's fellow committee members all thought the report unreliable in detail it would be interesting to know what view of political economy the article is supposedly peddling Rjccumbria (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Rjccumbria, I see that you have substantially recast the article, especially the lede, since my observation several weeks ago and I think it changes the perspective correctly. I have removed the tag. If there was going to be any additional work done on this article (perhaps I will get around to it in the future), I think that many of the statements of the factory owners should be put in context by recent research by British economic historians such as Carolyn Tuttle. It would also be good, I think, to go into more detail about the historical (and parliamentary) context of the report and a larger description of what the report contains. Computer troubles which make typing difficult prevent me from going on at length here until I get the keyboard repaired. Cheers. AnthroMimus (talk) 14:45, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The substantial element of recasting was to expand the article body with material (more appropriate to an article on the 1833 Act, and likely to be repeated there in due course) on what the Factory Commission found; effectively that (as the article correctly stated) Sadler's report was unreliable. My view would be that the perspective stays the same if expressed somewhat more emolliently; nonetheless thank you for de-tagging.
 * I would (and feel others should) resist expanding the article further, because I don’t think it is an appropriate starting point for exploring the wider issues. Whilst Sadler's report clearly contains a hard kernel of unpalatable truths, at the end of the day it is unreliable, and there are better places to go to for a view on factory conditions. I would argue that the article should restrict itself to explanation of what the report was, how it came about, what it said, what the reaction it was, what happened next, and where less contentious source material on British factory conditions in the 1830s can be found.  For anything else,” if I was wanting to go there, I wouldn’t start from here”.
 * What seemed more sensible to me (not so sure, now I am bogged down in the middle of 1832 (what can one think, let alone say, about Richard Oastler ?)) is trying to get together a half-decent set of Wikipedia articles on British factory legislation from Peel's 1802 Act to the point where ‘all right-thinking people’ stopped arguing about the principle.  That seems to be some time 1850-60, I think: Mr Hayek is perfectly reconciled to Factory Acts in principle according to The Road to Serfdom.  That is proving harder than I had anticipated: too much of the stuff already out there on factory conditions and factory legislation is ‘Whig history’ (in the loose sense of the phrase: in this case the people opposing the march of humanity onto broad sunlit uplands were generally Whigs) and better on context and broad sweep than on facts (particularly inconvenient ones).  I have had a quick Google at Ms Tuttle's output; not British, not a historian, apparently controversial, (and (I appreciate it's unfair of me to think this) apparently not that well read;'dark Satanic mills' she says is a Dickens quote - if so he borrowed it from Blake).  As far as I can see her stuff is not directly relevant to the veracity of Sadler's report: it might be of interest if one wished to go into context deeply or in detail, but I think to do so would be a mistake. 'Putting into context’ is a phrase that gives me concern since it's what spin doctors claim to be doing a lot of the time: how far will the primacy of facts be respected, and who gets to choose the context ?
 * (When the 10-Hour Act was passed, what contexts should be noted? Was this because of the fall of a Tory government, because of the fall of Peel (specifically), because agricultural Tories wanted revenge on Whig mill-owners for repeal of the Corn Laws, because over-capacity in the industry meant resistance to output limitation was much reduced, because of an irresistible campaign in the manufacturing districts, as a reward for working-class support in the manufacturing districts  for repeal of the Corn Laws, or because Parliament having heard the arguments simply considered a ten-hour day long enough?
 * It seems to me that a bare minimum of context should be provided. To go beyond this in Wikipedia is simply asking for trouble: if one person’s careful collection of relevant and verifiable contemporary comment can readily be denounced by another as clearly selectively shaped to support  a particular (and objected to) set of views on political economy (or the right way to open a boiled egg, or whatever), the specification of the context in which facts are to be viewed is likely to prove even more contentious Rjccumbria (talk) 17:02, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * (PS: unless you're getting your keyboard repaired for free, surely it's cheaper to buy a new one? Certainly the case in the UK.  Regards Rjccumbria (talk) 17:02, 19 December 2014 (UTC))