wished to know if it was in contemplation by the Government to introduce a Measure, or otherwise take means to carry into effect the suggestion of the Criminal Law Commissioners in regard to Statutes that had become obsolete.

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman having some weeks ago given him notice of his intention to put the question, he(Sir J. Graham) had turned his attention to the subject. The Criminal Law Commissioners had not recommended the repeal of the Statutes, but it was quite true that some of the Acts passed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I had fallen into disuse, and might be considered as obsolete, and in effect were so. It was the intention of the Government to direct the attention of the Law Officers of the Crown to the revision of these Statutes.

said, he had received a. communication, complaining of some observations which had fallen from him in the course of the debate on the Masters and Servants Bill, and which he was quite happy to explain. On that occasion he quoted a passage from a charge delivered by Sir Augustus Henniker to the Grand Jury of the Suffolk Quarter Sessions, and he added that the Measure introduced by the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Graham) was calculated not to remove, but rather to aggravate that discontent. Of this quotation Sir Augustus Henniker seemed to complain, and had written to him the following letter:—

"University Club, Pall Mall East,

Thursday, May 2, 1844.

"Sir—It is reported in the Morning Chronicle of this morning, that in the debate in the House of Commons last evening, on the Masters and Servants Bill, you made the following observation;—'What said Sir Augustus Henniker, as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Suffolk, a short time ago? He declared, that he did not believe that the whole metropolitan police could put down incendiarism in that County, there was so much discontent and suffering prevailing among the labouring population.'"

He (Mr. Duncombe) believed that in substance that was a correct report of what he did say. The writer went on to say:—

"The sentiments and opinions of an humble individual like myself, I am fully sensible, can be of very little moment to the public, but you will permit me to state, that the part of the charge at the Ipswich Quarter Sessions, to which you have done me the honour to allude, had reference only to the activity and efficiency of the police; and to show that it was unreasonable to expect they could by their utmost exertions prevent acts of incendiarism, which could be perpetrated with such facility, nor 'could the whole metropolitan police force be sufficient without an officer was stationed in every homestead.' This was the purport of my remarks, and which did not refer to the supposed state of discontent and suffering among the labouring classes in the County of Suffolk, nor to the cause of the prevalence of incendiarism, as the report of your speech would seem to imply. I feel, confident, therefore, you will do me the favour to correct this—no doubt—unintentional error.

"And I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant,

AUG. B. HENNIKER.

"To Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, Esq., M.P."

On referring to a speech from which he quoted, and from which he drew the inference he had stated to the House, he found that Sir Augustus Henniker addressed the Jury in the following terms:—

"Gentlemen, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there exists, unhappily, not only in our own county, but in other districts also, a wide-spread spirit of discontent—a discontent which manifests itself in the wanton destruction of property—I allude to those frequent acts of incendiarism which are calculated to bring discredit and disgrace upon the national character, whilst they bring ruin upon the owners of agricultural property. This, indeed, is a frightful state of things. The owners are, for the most part, insured, and are, therefore, absolved from loss; but, inasmuch as husbandry operations are suspended by the destruction of the farmers' premises and implements, the labourer must, for a time at least, be thrown out of employment, and his family, in consequence, be deprived of their ordinary means of subsistence. The question has been asked, how is it that the rural police have not been able to prevent the commission of incendiarism — why the perpetrators are not apprehended? If you had the whole metropolitan force sent down into even one division of the county—if you were enabled to allot a constable to watch each separate homestead—I think that would not ensure detection. If then the crime be so mysteriously planned, and so easily executed, as to baffle the most unceasing vigilance, it is imperatively necessary that we set ourselves to inquire into the cause of an effect which we all deplore and deprecate. I say that we have no right to throw the blame on the Local Constabulary. In my opinion, the only efficient protection for agricultural property—the only rational hope that exists of restoring the country to a wholesome state, and of ensuring permanent tranquillity, is to be obtained by securing to the labourer constant employment together with the payment of more liberal wages. I think that you will agree with me that there is no other mode so well calculated to prevent the recurrence of those frightful evils to which I have alluded. We are bound to mete out to the offender the fullest measure of punishment; but if we hope to preserve order and protect property, we should endeavour to take away all pretence for complaint on the part of the labourer. It is said that, as agriculturists, the soil will amply repay those who properly cultivate it. If that be true, I do not seek to controvert the proposition—it should operate only as an additional incentive to carry out every improvement, which, while increasing the productiveness of land, must afford more constant demand for labour, together with more liberal wages. But, independent of all pecuniary consideration, we shall have a far higher reward in the gratitude of the honest and well-disposed labourer, who returns kindness and consideration a hundred fold to those who compassionate his condition and seek to alleviate his suffering. To do this we must, I grant, make some sacrifice, but it would be accompanied by a satisfaction which cannot but be pleasing to us as men and Christians. This is a debt of justice to the labourers—it is a debt of mercy, which is 'twice blessed; it helpeth him that gives and him that takes.'"

He, (Mr. Duncombe) could only say, that he was quite ready to express his regret, if he had been unintentionally guilty of any misrepresentation of this charge; but it really appeared to him. that the only fault he had committed was in not having stated in sufficiently, strong terms, the charge which Sir Augustus Henniker delivered to the Jury on that occasion.

moved for the Order of the Day for the House to go into Committee on the Factories Bill.

I believe I am now in order in proposing to Move—

The hon. Gentleman was stopped by the Speaker, and the Order of the Day was read.

moved that the Speaker do now leave the Chair.

said, I believe I am at length in order in moving for a Resolution of the whole House before going into Committee on the Factories Bill

"That it is the opinion of this House that no interference with the power of adult labourers in Factories to make contracts respecting the hours for which they shall be employed be sanctioned by this House."

To this line of conduct it has been ob- jected to me that I ought to move this Resolution in Committee; but in my opinion, great advantage will result from moving this Resolution before going into Committee. The reason is, that I wish, to know the principle upon which the Bill is brought into the House by the right hon. Baronet opposite. I think, as far as I am able to infer from what I have seen (for I have not been engaged, in discussing this subject)—I think that the right hon. Baronet and the other persons reasoning on the Bill have alternated, if I may use the word, between various principles; that at one time they have been enlisted in support of the doctrines of non-interference with labour, and that at another time; these have been entirely disregarded, and arguments have been drawn by them from the necessity of interfering with the power of labour in manufactories. I am anxious to learn the principles upon which the right hon. Baronet builds his propositions. And first, I will address myself to the general principle of interference with labour. I wish to deprive the right hon. Baronet of the power of having two ways to support, the Bill; of applying any one of these ways, when it is a matter of right in the labouring classes to have the power of contracting for their own labour. I mean to throw the onus upon the right hon. Baronet of taking the power of contracting from the manufacturing labourer—of interfering between him and his power of contracting for himself, and of making a general rule for this object. This shall be my first object. I shall then address myself to the noble Lord opposite (Lord Ashley,) and throw upon him the on us to show the advantages of legislating in a manner which he contemplates for the working classes. Therefore in this case there are two antagonists whom I wish to grapple with, and reduce to their proper position, so that they may not draw weapons from any armory not legitimately theirs. Before, however, I enter on this discussion, I wish to relieve myself from an imputation—an odium which is usually and gratuitously cast upon me and the persons who hold the same propositions as I do—that of inhumanity, disregard for the people, of unnatural selfishness, of cold-heartedness of hard-heartedness, nay even to the accusation of being cold-blooded besides. I do not know what is meant by the last epithet; but I should, suppose, if it was cast on me, that it con- veyed an imputation that I was regardless of the misery of the working men of the country. As far as I and myself concerned. I sympathize so much with the working classes that I can only be satisfied with seeing them invested with the power of governing themselves. The professing friends of the working classes would not go so far as this, they could not expect it from the gratuitous humanity of the noble lord (Lord Ashley), or from any of the representatives of his opinions; and before you pretend to be the friends of the working classes, you must give them the power to speak for themselves—you must give them the power to legislate for themselves. When they have that power, when they speak as Legislators in this House, when I find hon. Gentlemen supporting their power, then I will believe that there is some real sympathy for their sufferings. Now to my proposition. I take it as a general rule, the result of experience, that the labouring man. has the greatest interest forming a wise contract for himself. He certainly has the greatest interest at least. My next proposition is, that he has the best knowledge of his own circumstances, and that no general rule could be framed to meet all the exigencies of his case so well as his own strong and excited interests, and his strongly inclined views of his wants and his necessities. Experience has shown that we ought not in any manner to interfere with private rights where private interests were strong and armed with a peculiar knowledge, and where the parties were best calculated to think for themselves on any question. That is the general principle. If any interference took place a reason should be shown. The onus lies on those who come to the conclusion that interference is necessary to show what the circumstances are which justify that interference. First, then, I hold it clear that where parties have strong interests and peculiar knowledge it is incumbent on those who interfere with that peculiar knowledge and interest to show the greater knowledge and greater interest, or greater power of judging, which they possess. I will now place before the House my position distinctly,—that they ought not to interfere with the power of persons to contract. First, then, the noble Lord (Lord Ashley) says, that there are a peculiar class of men in the country—the factory labourers, who have peculiar interests, and are altogether in a condition which calls for legislative interference. The noble Lord says, that that peculiar condition arises from overwork and under-pay, and thereupon he gathers together a huge heap—an indigested mass, and flings it at the House, evidence which he thinks shows great misery and immorality, and degradation in the factories. These are the noble Lord's premises. Having laid a foundation and attached to him the sympathies of Members, the next step taken by the noble Lord is a remarkable one. He says that he had shown the existence of great misery from overwork and underpay, and he now begged to propose the remedy, and every man who did not support him in his proposition was careless of the interests of the labouring classes, an alien to humanity, and ought to be branded as an enemy to his kind. Now, there is this remarkable fact as to the noble Lord's argument—that there is between his premises and his conclusions no connexion whatever. It is not enough to show that there is an evil. Having made out the evil, having established its existence, it must be shown by the noble Lord that the measure proposed by him is a remedy. However anxious you may be to alleviate the distress, you may be a bad physician, or you may be an ignorant one, and what you propose, instead of relieving, may increase the distress which he describes; and so far from ameliorating a single misfortune, may draw down the curses of those whom you legislate for. This, I think, describes the position of the noble Lord. He has been misled by his sympathies, and has come down to the House with a heap of evidence to show that great misery exists in a particular class of labourers. Now, it is very easy for a ranting demagogue to push himself as a sort of wandering instrument through the country, disseminating as he goes ignorance and ill-feeling. This is very easy. It is assumed by the moat vulgar and most ignorant of mankind. That is an object easy of attainment. But what the House requires is something beyond that ignorance—something beyond that blustering weakness—something beyond that cowardly following out of opinion, which in the House dare not be maintained. All that is easy. But what the House requires is, not only to prove the evil but also to show the efficacy of the remedy, that the House may not be accused as being the cause of evils which clearly arise from the circumstances of our condition as human beings, and that there should not be applied to any class of people in the kingdom the odium of what arises from the common necessities of our nature. I have said, that that class of mind which seeks to obtain popularity is among the least and vulgarist which degrade humanity, and which, though in a time of excitement it may meet with some transient favour from the House, yet when the House returns to its senses, I hope it will, as it ought to do, abandon such a mind, and declare its assertions to be a calumny and a falsehood. I want to know what was the first step which had to be taken by the noble Lord. The first step to be taken by him was to show that the factory labourer was in a peculiar position, that he was in a position which distinguished him, that there was that which attached to him incidents peculiar in the history of the labourer, and which enabled the legislative body to interfere on his behalf. Now, I want to know what the peculiar characteristics of the factory labourer are. In the first place, I find that the factory labourer is as well paid as any other in the community. ["Hear, hear."] You say "Hear," but I say that at least the factory labourer is better paid than any other kind of operative in the community. Then, I find that the factory labourer is not subject to greater toil than the rest of the community; and I would beg the House to remark, that it is not enough to get an unconnected mass of evidence on this point; for, if I chose to turn the weapons of the noble Lord against himself, I could draw from it such a mass of proofs of all sorts of misery in every species of labour throughout the country. I take one case now in this town,—and let not the House take it as a matter of merriment when I mention the class of labourers, for I do so in the belief that they are a more sorely taxed class of labourers than any other in the community,—I mean the women of all work in London. Compare them with the labouring girl in the factories, and you will find that the condition of the latter is a sort of Paradise. Contrast, also, the labouring man in the factories with those engaged in agriculture in the fields. Those who work in factories are warm, covered, and sheltered from the inclemencies of the season; they have good food and good pay, and are far healthier beings than the agricul- tural labourer, exposed to cold, wet, and frost, with bad pay, bad clothing, and bad lodging. Now, I think it quite a remarkable instance upon this particular point that the factory labourer has better pay, less toil, better clothing, and better lodging; and now, what is there to distinguish the factory men in such a way as to require a legislative interference on their behalf? I find that there are two circumstances which distinguish their condition. I find that they are congregated into masses which invite investigation, which insure inspection, and which bring their condition continually before the public, which is ready to investigate their position. They do not live, like the agriculturist, far distant from the gaze of local superintendance, which might bring their misery and toil before the world, which would bring down indignation upon the masters, and make their agricultural tyrants tremble. Such is not the condition of the factory labourer. His condition is to be congregated into multitudes, which multitudes make a force of themselves which invites attention from the very fact of their being so congregated into masses, which covers with an ægis of protection from the mere fact of being thus exposed to the public gaze. That I find to be the first characteristic of the factory labourers' condition, and there follows, as a consequence from this, the present meddling with their condition. The factory labourer works in conjunction with machinery also, which, being put into fair and ordinary English, means this—that the machinery does all the hard work, and that only mental labour is required of the workman. It will not do for the noble Lord to say, that as machinery improves, the labour of the operative is increased. I deny that position. In every process, as machinery advances, its peculiarity is to supply the place of the human mind; it does what in human ingenuity, and à priori two centuries ago, if any one had anticipated, he would have been conceived a dreamer—it relieves the labour of the operative, and reduces him, in fact, to be a mere superintendant of certain almost superhuman powers. I want, therefore, some specific proof that any improvement in machinery increases the labour of those who superintend it. I make this proposition. I put it forward without any doubt of its accuracy. I invite every man who knows, or who wishes to know, anything of the matter, to test it; and I assert this, that every advance in the improvement of machinery lessens human labour in time and in intensity. Now, then, I have found two peculiarities attaching to factory labourers—the one that they are congregated into masses, and the other that they work in conjunction with machinery. I can find no other; and if the general rule be accurate that they who have the most interest, and the greatest amount of knowledge to judge of their own affairs, ought to make contracts for themselves, I ask the noble Lord, how it comes that these two elements entering into the composition of this proposition should render it a ground for him to interfere in this case, when he will not interfere in the case of the agricultural labourer? That is a point I want to clear up. It won't do to come down to this House with exaggerated descriptions of misery, of want, and of suffering. I deny them all. ["Oh, oh."] "Oh, oh," said the hon. Member for Pontefract; I want to know if that hon. Gentleman has investigated the case. It is very easy to make propositions, pretty in sound, and with jingling syllables; but I want knowledge before I legislate. This being the condition of the persons for whom the House is about to legislate, I will not trouble the House with a mass of evidence. Indeed, I ought to apologize to the House for having already spoken at such length upon the matter. I stated broadly, and I call upon the noble Lord to deny it, that the Factory Commission of 1833 declared that the condition of the factory population of the country was superior to any other part of the labouring population. I know, that individual cases can be picked out here and there of suffering, and far be it from me to cast the slightest levity into the tone in which human misfortune is discussed. I feel for the misery of the factory labourer as much as that of the agricultural labourer, and I will by-and-by argue that subject with the noble Lord. What I say is this, it is easy to bring forward instances of deformity, but the noble Lord must make out that these are the consequences of the system, and besides making out that they are the consequences of the system, he must show that by legislative enactment these consequences may be relieved. Have not the Factory Commissioners of 1833 declared distinctly and dearly that the labourers of the manufacturing popula- tion were better off in every particular than any other class of labourers in the country? As I have already said, they are better paid, better clad, and better lodged; and I now come to that which I know will be said to be the ad captandum argument on this occasion. "What," says the noble Lord, "have you such little regard for woman as to wish that she should be taken from those labours which are her peculiar sphere, which make her the solace of our lives, the instrument of our early education, and which, in fact, form her to be the framer of the mind of man? Are you to take her into the factory to destroy her vital powers, to make her a mere machine, to unfit her to raise her race in effect,—are you willing to degrade the human race by making their mothers miserable beings?" My answer is, first and foremost,—is the labouring woman in the factory worse off than she would be if she were not in the factory? Judging of her situation as an agricultural labourer, I should think that her situation is far better. I have this peculiar evidence in her favour—that all the medical men who investigated the subject in 1833 declared that the labouring woman is far better able to cope with the labour in factories than the man, and I can easily understand why. It is in-door work, warm and comfortable, and all that is required is continuous attention. It is their characteristic that they can give this continuous attention without hurting their health. A man feels all this when he is so tasked. Without one exception, medical men declare that women in factories bear the factory labour best— that it is suitable to their condition— to their habits—and to their physical and physiological development. I do not recollect any statement of theirs about hard labour, and so far from thinking that women are deteriorated thereby, the physicians were of opinion that they were a far better race for the propagation of the species than any other class of labourers. I have stated my opinions on this matter without, circumlocution, as to language; and now, Sir, as to the men. Are the men worse off in any way in factories than the labourers in other businesses? I have shown already that they are better paid, better fed, and better clothed; and I now come to ask if there is anything peculiar in their condition as regards the masters, which requires the interference of the Legislature? It is said that the master has privileges with regard to factories which the agriculturist does not possess. So far from it, that instants regulate wages in Factories the same way as in every other case, with this difference, that it takes place there with more rapidity from the numbers that act together, and the unity of sentiment by which they are actuated. If there is a demand for labour, labour will get its reward, but if otherwise, unfair combinations are formed, not in the country, but always in the manufacturing districts. This shows that factory labour is better than agricultural; the latter dare not combine lest they should be crushed in an instant. Factory labourers have the power which the other labourers have not, and they require no assistance. And now, Sir, I come to the proposition of the noble Lord for the relief of this class. Let us allow that the noble Lord had made out his case; let us allow that he has established that they are worse fed, worse paid, and worse clothed; in short that they are more miserable than any other class of labourers in the Kingdom. And now let us put the proposition of the noble Lord in form, and understand what it is. First, the noble Lord says, that the factory labourer is over-worked, and then, that he is underpaid; this he meets by a ten hours Bill. The noble Lord says, confine the period of labour to ten hours. I do so—and then see what is the effect. It is clear that the noble Lord is quite right, if the labourers in Factories are over-worked. The labourer has come forward and brought his labour to the labour market, to obtain for it what price he can get, that is, the highest price which it is the interest of the manufacturer to give him. I know that there is an objection to dwell upon the name of the manufacturing capitalist. I may be permitted to say that I have seen in this House a feeling of antipathy to the manufacturing capitalist. If I were asked why, if I had to define the feeling to which I point, it might be difficult to find an answer; but if I look abroad to the interest of the community—if I ask who lifted this country from the abyss of destruction in the wars with Napoleon—if I ask who enabled us to fight the fight of nations, my answer is—the manufacturing capitalists of the country—the manufacturing knowledge, ingenuity, and power, which has made England what she is among the nations; and however disagreeable it may appear to the agricultural nobles, and to the ignorant country gentlemen, it was the manufacturer who applied his mind to business, and who carried with him the manliness to do so—while our aristocracy were spending their lives in the fox-chase, who formed the grandeur of the country. It is the power of this community which elevates us over every other country on the face of the earth. These mere Nimrods had learned that they were men unsuited to be governors of the world: not only did they make our country known and respected in Europe but over the whole world. Our ships floated on every sea, our flag was upon every wave; and this was done by—the agricultural aristocracy? No, but by the manufacturing capitalist. And how can you condemn them as enemies of humanity, as curses to the community, when they have made us what we are—the first country upon the face of the earth—which we seek as a speck upon the map, but which in influence is capable of overpowering the whole world. I ask, when all this has been done by the people,—I ask the House if it is prepared in the mere wantonness of party spirit in the one case, and of discontent in the other,—I ask if it will, under such an impulse of feeling, interfere with all that has made us so great in the world? I have no hesitation in saying, that the late majority, made up as it was, did no honour to the House; and I ask the noble Lord opposite, if I do not rightly describe the impulse which led him to the course which he has pursued. I ask, how many votes were given upon that side of the House in consequence of the hon. Member for Stockport going into the agricultural parts of the country? Hon. Gentlemen opposite reason thus—"The manufacturers have troubled us in our dominions; we will put a torch to their factories." I want this to be answered. I want to know how many votes were given in the expectation of putting the right hon. Baronet opposite in a difficult position? All of a sudden a new light broke in upon those who conducted the affair, supporting upon the shoulders all the weight of the mighty inquiry, like so many Atlases. I want to know what new light it was, that thus broke in upon them? for it doth behove them to show some new circumstance, of which during their long political existence they had no knowledge, but of which they have suddenly become aware. It behoves them to show that they were enabled by this sudden inspiration—this peculiar and almost divine light—at once to discover that during their whole past lives they had been wrong; and that, though they had been some twelve years in office, they had been acting under the dark cloud of ignorance during all that time. I must confess, that on this occasion I am peculiarly sceptical, inasmuch as I find their interest is actually fitted and dovetailed to the peculiar circumstances of the time. An opportunity offered for creating a division, and it was seized upon. I do not deny that there are those who really believe the interference of the Legislature would be beneficial. I am not quarrelling with such parties, but I do quarrel with those who have been actuated by the base motive of throwing a torch into their enemy's camp, whether it may come from the agriculturists on the other side, or the ex officios on this. Now, Sir, I want to know what is to be the effect of the noble Lord's panacea. His object is to prevent the labourer from working more than ten hours a day, but what would be the consequence of that restriction? It would be this:—The immediate and inevitable consequences would be the lowering of wages throughout the land. ["No."] When Gentlemen cry "No," I Should be glad to hear them prove their "No," and if they do so, there is no one will be more ready to admit my error than I shall. But let us see whether I am not justified in what I allege. The number of labourers will remain the same. The demand for work will be same. But each individual labourer will be deprived of a certain portion of his power. He will be in reality a less efficient labourer. Therefore, when he comes into the market to apply for employment, he does so as a person who, being less efficient, can ask only for less wages. Let us see how this proposition can be borne out. Take a manufacturer; he has a large portion of his capital expended in his machinery and his mill. They are the larger portion Of his producing power, and the smaller portion is the manual labour. The labourer who produces that labour works, let us say, for twelve hours a-day, and hi that time he performs a certain quantity. Let him work for but ten hours, and it is cleat he must produce a less amount. But the capital in the machinery and the mill remains the same, and there-fore, the fixed capital, if I may so term it, continues unaltered; while the floating capital that is employed in the shape of wages becomes smaller. The whole produce of both species of capital must be less than before, and therefore some one of these three things must inevitably be the result,—either prices must rise, or the profits of stock must fall, or else wages must fall. With respect to the first, I say, it is impossible that prices can rise above what they are at present, for recollect we have foreign competition on every side. At the present moment it is as much as our manufacturers can possibly do to maintain their footing in the foreign market, and a turn in the scale would have the effect of driving them out of half the countries to which they now export their goods. ["No, no!"] The Gentlemen who cry, "No, no," will, I hope, explain by-and-by their reason for saying so. If the hon. Gentleman opposite, who cries "No, no," has changed his opinions ten times over, I think it is hard that he can have been at all times right; and he has changed them often. It is very curious that there is a class of persons who claim infallibility for themselves, and who are yet the most changeable people in the world. They are always infallible, notwithstanding their constant changes; and it never suggests itself to them that they must have been some time or other wrong. But, as I was saying, it is impossible that prices could rise while the competition of foreigners remains what it is. There are the United States of America—there is Germany—there is Switzerland—there is France—I will go no further—all anxious to drive us from the market. I want to know how hon. Gentlemen can pretend to expect that prices can rise at this moment when there is not a manufacturer in the country who does not know that within the last ten years there is no portion of the globe in which our manufactures have not been losing ground. And he will in every case tell you that a turn of the scale would drive him from the market altogether. This applies too to those peculiar articles of trade in which England is supposed to be most supreme and perfect. At this moment a turn of the die will drive even them out of the foreign market. Take America. Very quickly you will find the United States competing with you all over the world—for remark, they have a saga- cious population, who have a peculiar knowledge of the powers of machinery, and by whom almost all the great changes and improvements that have been made in machinery during the last thirty years have been invented. They are constantly making out new modes for substituting the power of machinery for that of manual labour, and depend upon it, if you proceed further in the spirit of meddling with our manufacturing interests, in which you are now indulging, you will find America side by side with you every where, as she now is in many parts of the globe, and then you may come home to your famished labourer, and tell him that you have no more work for him. Well, then, if prices will not rise, perhaps profits may fall. I would appeal to any man who sees the manner in which capital is employed at present, to believe that to be possible. I would appeal to any man who looks even to the last operation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to say whether profits can become lower. It may be a fine thing to an old country gentleman to say, "Consols are at par, and I will drink another glass of wine;" but does not the very fact of their being at par show that so small is the return for capital, that it is regarded as an advantage to expend it even in 3 per cent. stock. Go to America, and ask what 3 per cent. stock can be found there. [Laughter.] That laugh is a proof how sensitive we have become at the loss of our capital. It shows that we are sensitive of the fact that in America the return to capital is great—and that we are overwhelmed with the recollection that they have cheated us out of a certain sum by an act for which I hold them to be as despicable as can any person in this House. But that is not the question before us. The question is, whether in this country the return to capital is not exceedingly small, whether the trifling nature of its extent is not evident from the high rate at which stock now stands in the market—by even the very fact of our being willing to lend our money on such securities as that to which I have just been alluding, and by the singular fact, that there is no adventure so extravagant but that we will venture to advance our money upon it. What is it makes us do this? Why, the circumstance that the return which we get for our capital, is so small, that there is no venture which we will not make, and no danger, how- ever great, which we will not face in the hope of getting something like profit for our money. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is, that the profits derived from capital employed in manufactures is at this moment at the lowest possible rate, and that we cannot reduce it lower and expect that the manufacturer will have any return whatever. His means of employing labour is also so much reduced, that each succeeding year will exhibit a less number of operatives employed. Instead of being a thriving manufacturer, constantly extending his operations and increasing his hands, he will be gradually contracting his work, because you have forced him into a position from which it is impossible he can advance. Well, if the profits from capital cannot fall, and if the prices of our manufactured goods cannot be expected to rise, the only other alternative is, that the wages paid to the labourer must fall; that he who is unable to protect himself, and whom you cannot protect by your Ten Hours Bill—the manufacturing labourer, will be forced side by side with his starving competitors, to consent to take less for his ten hours labour. Yes, it is he whom you are now deceiving, by telling him, that he will get as much wages for his ten hours labour as he now gets for twelve hours. But let us not deceive him, for on him must inevitably fall the heavy weight of the noble Lord's humanity. On him will fall the consequences of your ignorance. Numerous as is the body to which he belongs, every day's want will frighten him into demanding employment; but the capitalist will say to him, as he says now, "Your labour is worth so much, and no more; that you must take, or you will get nothing." It is an important but a most awful conclusion, and I now address myself to the right hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I ask him why will he meddle with such measures? I have much respect for the right hon. Gentleman, if he will permit me to state so, but I ask him why he unfortunately meddles with what it must be clear to his sagacious mind, that the consequences which. I have been depicting, are the necessary results that must follow? I ask him what good he can expect to obtain in this perilous struggle for the existence of our manufactures? I have carefully abstained from any remark on the labour of chil- dren, as that depends on totally different circumstances. They are not capable of judging for themselves, and are subject to the power of others; but I am here to learn, that the roan who has power over his own affairs, and the woman who has control over the matters in which she engages, are to be controlled, without cause, by restrictive laws. Why, I ask you, will you interfere in concerns in which the labourers can best judge for themselves, and by a crude and restrictive Legislation, attempt to make laws respecting matters with regard to which individuals and private interests can best form an opinion? I have made these remarks without any feeling of hostility towards the right hon. Gentleman; but I would entreat of him, before he ventures again on this dangerous ground, to consider well the principles and interests that are involved — to pause before he hops between two openings, and to reflect long and calmly before he throws overboard the doctrine of non-interference. With these remarks I beg to submit [to the House the proposition with which I commenced, and which is this,—

"That it is the opinion of this House that no interference with the power of adult labourers in factories, to make contracts respecting the hours for which they shall be employed, be sanctioned by this House."

was unwilling that the House should proceed to a division on this question before he had made some few observations on the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman. He must say he had rather anticipated that some advocate of the ten hours' Clause would have replied to the speech. With a very large portion of that speech which opposed the abridgement of the hours of manufacturing labour he was not disposed to quarrel. Many of the principles for which the hon. and learned Member contended, it had been his duty to urge on the House in opposition to the Motion of the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, and in respect of the whole of that argument which the hon. and learned Member had addressed to the House against the reduction of manufacturing labour to ten hours, it was for those who differed in opinion from him and from the hon. and learned Member to reply. He was extremely unwilling to refer to hasty expressions, but the hon. and learned Gentleman had said, that they were running a race of ignorance. He would not, however, refer to various expressions somewhat exaggerated which had fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman in the heat of debate. In reference to these he would only say, that far too much of exasperation already prevailed on this subject, and that in the few observations which he should address to the House, he would refrain from using or retorting language of this kind. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman, that compassion for the working classes, combined with a just view of what would be conducive to their interests, ought to be the guiding rule of the House in coming to their decision. It was not for him to dive into the motives of hon. Members, but he did believe, though the difference of opinion amongst them was wide, that generally speaking the desire, which influenced the decision of the House, was, that this question should be decided in a manner conducive both to the comforts and the interests of the working classes. Far be it from him to depreciate the immense value of machinery to this country. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman in the eulogy which he passed upon manufacturing capital, and he believed the employment of that capital, the greater portion of which was expended in wages, was of the greatest value to the manufacturing labourers. Not one word would he say to call into question the great principle of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the minimum of interference in these matters was the greatest wisdom on the part of the State. But he must say, that it did appear to him that the argument addressed by the hon. Gentleman to the House at this advanced period of the discussion, when they were about to discuss in Committee the details of the Bill, was an argument much better suited to a Motion for the repeal of the existing law than to a Motion for staying the progress of the present Measure. The first principle for which the hon. and learned Gentleman contended was a principle which was fully brought under discussion in 1833, when the Legislature first thought fit to deal with this subject by enactment. All the arguments used by the hon. and learned Gentleman were then urged—he would not say with greater ability—but they were all equally applicable to the enactment of 1833. They were carefully weighed and considered by the Government of that day and by the Legislature. He spoke in the presence of the noble Lord opposite, and of those who were then at the head of affairs, and they would remember that the subject underwent much anxious consideration from the Executive, and at that time at the head of the Board of Trade, was the late Lord Sydenham, then Mr. Poulett Thomson, who certainly was not insensible to arguments of this description, and it was with very great hesitation that right hon. Gentleman consented to the passing of the law. He was, however, compelled to yield to the weight of argument and to the urgent necessity of the case. But what was the principle of this Bill? He said it was the regulation of the labour of children and unemancipated young persons in connection with factories, and abstinence from interference with the labour of adult persons. That was the principle of the existing law. If the hon. and learned Member had confined himself to the narnow point which his Motion raised, he would have discussed the question, why had the Government departed from the principle of the existing law which is non-interference with the labour of adult persons? As to the question of ten hours' labour, or twelve hours' labour, he thought this was not the Motion on which it should be discussed, nor was this the most convenient time for discussing it; and though he did say at the commencement of his address, that the noble Lord, and those who agreed with him in opinion, were expected to answer the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, yet, considering the notice which the noble Lord had given, and all that had passed, if there was to be a discussion in that House for limiting factory labour from twelve hours to ten, it would be more conveniently postponed to a later period of the evening. It would be impossible for him to enter upon the discussion respecting the proposed limit of ten hours in a sense adverse to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he would therefore confine himself to the reasons why he departed from the principle of non-interference. He begged to recall the recollection of the House to what was admitted in 1833, when the present law was passed. It was then admitted on all hands that the practical effect of limiting the hours of labour for children and young persons to twelve out of the twenty-four, was in effect a limitation of the working of machinery to that period. He was quite satisfied, that as a general rule the practical effect had realised that expectation, and he believed, speaking of the cotton districts generally, it was not possible without the aid of children and young persons, that machinery could be worked for a longer period than twelve hours. He looked to the measures introduced prior to the Bill now Under discussion. He was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Perth, now in his place. The last Bill was introduced by that right hon. Gentleman under Lord Melbourne's Government in 1841, and that right hon. Gentleman and Mr. Sheil, the then Vice President of the Board of Trade, proposed, on behalf of the late Government, to extend the limitation of age of young persons from eighteen to twenty-one, the effect of which limitation, had the Bill passed, would have been that neither children under thirteen, nor young persons between thirteen and twenty-one, would have been allowed to work longer than twelve hours. If there were any doubt as to the practical effect when the limitation of the age of young persons was only eighteen, beyond all doubt, if that limitation were extended to twenty-one, it must have prescribed a limitation of the working hours of machinery to twelve. This was the general rule, but there were exceptions, and through the intervention of female adult labour, it was possible for competing manufacturers to work their machinery a longer time. He had it from the most unquestionable authority, that a very unfair advantage had been gained by the few who worked their machinery more than twelve hours over their brother manufacturers, and not only did they gain this unfair advantage, but they gained it in a manner which threw an obloquy on the whole manufacturing interest for working their operatives beyond the ordinary hours, and for imposing an amount of labour which was especially injurious to the health of female adults. He had seen many deputations on this subject, and he could state, that several master manufacturers in Lancashire, paying the largest amount of wages for labour, were favourable to a Clause limiting the labour of female adults to twelve hours on the ground thus stated; and he was confident, that if the opinion of the master manufacturers were taken on this Clause, there would be a decided majority in favour of the limitation. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked why they confined their legislation, if they interfered at all in limiting the hours of labour, to labour immediately connected with machinery? In the first place he would state to the House, he admitted at once this interference was contrary to principle. He admitted at once that every departure from principle, was attended by unquestionable danger, and that, step by step, they were led to a greater distance from the original principle, and were involved in greater difficulties. He felt this to the utmost extent, and whilst advocating this particular departure from principle, he felt he was illustrating his own remark. But in the first place they dealt with labour connected with machinery, because it was in the power of the Legislature so to deal from the circumstance of its being concentrated, subject to inspection, and because it could be brought immediately under the control of the Legislature, so that if the Legislature thought it expedient to interfere, they had the power to do so, whilst with the scattered agricultural labour of the country, and with other species of labour not equally concentrated, and not open to inspection, it was impossible with effect to enfore regulations. The hon. and learned Gentleman might combat the policy of so doing, but it was evident that it was possible to do it. As to the more important point whether they were justified in that interference, he could not state his own view of the question in more appropriate terms than it was stated by Mons. Charles Dupin in a Report which he made to the French Chamber, in consequence of which they adopted a code of laws limiting the hours of labour in factories, which code, however, had become inoperative, form the want of a system of inspection. The Report of M. Dupin was in these terms:—

"The vast competition that subsists among the individuals who, in every country, are engaged in the same branch of industry, the competition no less formidable among nations producing the same description of manufacture, and struggling to obtain some advantage, are the most general causes of that fatal tendency in the present day to prolong, beyond all just bounds, the duration of daily labour. That disposition is excited by additional motives, and becomes more dangerous in those establishments where production depends on agents whose strength is inexhaustible, and insensible to fatigue, Such as the moving powers of water and steam. Thus in manufactures that progress which we admire so much, on account of the ingenuity that has been displayed by the inventor, may lead to consequences the most fatal to health, and even to human life—the workmen becoming in some degree sacrifices to the great impelling power we derive from inanimate nature. 2d. To all factories, mills, and workshops where the mechanical moving power is inanimate, such as water, steam, &c., because, those kinds of moving power not requiring any rest to recover their strength, there is a tendency to continue the labour beyond what human powers can beat."

Here, then, the principle was laid down; Competition induced the capitalist to push the advantage which he derived from those inanimate agents to their utmost possible extent, and the question arose not exactly upon the principle of interference with labour, but rather on the question of degree, as to the extent to which this inanimate power should compel the assistance of human labour. The Legislature had already come to the conclusion that twelve hours was a sufficient period. It enacted directly that children and young persons should not be worked beyond that limit, and when it did so it indirectly fixed the principle that twelve hours ought to be the general limit to the working of machinery. But that rule was in a manner broken by the instrumentality of female adult labour, and the great portion of females in the mills in the manufacturing districts was a consequence which ought to be duly considered by the House. Since the last discussion on this subject, Mr. Horner, an inspector of the cotton districts, had, by his direction, visited several factories, and he would state the result of (Mr. Horner's) inquiries. In nine factories, of the work people employed, Mr. Homer found that more than 50 pet cent. were females, and of them nearly 70 per cent. were above eighteen, while 27½ per cent. were married women. The hon. and learned Gentleman himself had laid down the principle that though they ought not to interfere with parties able to decide and judge for themselves, yet when that was not the case, as in the instance of children, it was right for the Legislature to interfere. A question then arose upon the Returns as to whether there was not something peculiar in the situation of female adults which brought them, if not quits within the limit, at least to the very verge of that principle. Did they decide and judge for themselves? So far as married women were concerned, the Law held distinctly the reverse. The Law held that they were under such control that they could not decide and judge for themselves, and to the female sex generally many of the rights of freedom are denied. The most important consideration of all was, that the restriction which had been already imposed upon the labour of children and young persons had driven those who sought to evade the Law in working machinery for more than twelve hours, by the force of legislation to avail themselves of the lower paid labour of females, in order to work beyond the limited time. Married women might clearly be influenced by their husbands, for the sake of gaining higher wages, thus to overwork themselves, and generally as to females, considering that they were the weaker portion of the community, having a claim by nature on our compassion and on our care, he thought the House would feel they were more peculiarly entitled to the protection of the Legislature. He was prepared to stand by the enactment of 1833, and to limit the hours of labour indirectly to twelve, but beyond that limitation he was not prepared to go. He had thus shortly answered those observations which called upon him for reply. He would not detain the House longer than by stating that he must oppose the Motion of the hon. and learned Member.

would only detain the House a short time, as he did not wish to prevent the House from going into Committee, and he would, therefore, confine himself strictly to the Question before the House—whether there was any justification for the House assenting to a principle hitherto unheard of and unadmitted in the legislation of this or any other country— namely, that they should, by direct legislation, limit the hours of labour of the adult population. To that question he had no hesitation in saying that he felt it his duty, by his vote to-night, to record his opinion that it was most inexpedient and highly dangerous to embark in this course of legislation. The speech which he had just heard from the right hon. Baronet had only confirmed the opinion which he had originally entertained, that he deeply regretted that Her Majesty's Ministers should have taken an opportunity of introducing into the Bill before the House a principle which he believed to be so dangerous and inexpedient. He confessed that if no other Member had moved this question he should not have done so. He had allowed former opportunities to pass without taking such a course; for he saw the Government resisting—resisting, he was bound to say, firmly and creditably—another proposition fraught with the greatest, the most imminent, and the most immediate dangers to the most important interests of the country; and, heartily supporting them in that opposition, he was unwilling to take any course which might, by any possibility, increase the difficulties of the Government. But the question being thus brought forward, he felt bound to give it his support. He stated then to some of his Friends, as he would state now, that if any other Member thought fit to move this question, his course was clear. He agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Bath, that it was much to be regretted that the Government had introduced this most dangerous and unprecedented principle. The right hon. Gentleman, he thought, feeling the pressure of this argument, had endeavoured to make out a special case for legislation. He thought, however, that his special case had entirely failed, because he thought that to say it was wrong to interfere with the labour of the adult population in general, and then to strike off one half of that population, and have no scruple to interfere with the labour of females, when it was thought inexpedient to do so with males, was abandoning the principle. If the argument of the right hon. Gentleman was correct, that twelve hours ought to be the limit of labour, they had better put a stop to machinery altogether. Now, he really must say, that all this proceeded on what he held to be a false principle— namely, that there was something in the factory labour of this country that was worse than the average nature of employment to which the labouring population were subject; and so far from that being the case, he believed that there were many favourable circumstances attending it; and that as good a reason might be urged for limiting the labour of women in a hundred other occupations, as within the walls of a factory. There was one fact which spoke volumes to his mind; he found in the Reports, and other evidence to which they could have access, that the employment of females in factories was spoken of as a favourite employment, and it was very difficult to get a young woman in the factory districts to become a domestic servant. That was a practical answer to all the cases selected to produce a feeling in that House against factory labour for females. He would then look across the Atlantic to the United States of America, to a country where there was no pressure on any portion of the population to oblige them to engage in dangerous and unwholesome occupations. And what did he find there? He held in his hand an extract which he had made from a recent able and intelligent work on the United States, published by a gentleman of the name of Godley, and which extract stated that he visited the cotton manufactories in the State of Massachusetts, and that he went round one of the mills, and was much pleased with the comfort and cleanliness of the workpeople, who were mostly adult. The wages of the men were 3s. 6d. per day, and of the women half a dollar, and they worked from 5 a. m. to 7 p. m., with a short intermission, which made the abso- lute period of female labour amount to twelve hours and three-quarters. That was a palpable proof that this labour was not so cruel, not so overwhelming and oppressive to the human frame. Do not let him be understood to say that he did not wish the labouring population to work for a less period of time than they did at present. That was not the question. The question was, whether the labour was so dangerous and bad, that persons ought to be prevented from working any length of time they would in the employment. He had before ventured to say that he was very much afraid, if they interfered with the labour of women in this particular branch of employment, they would drive them to other employments far worse, and more prejudicial; and with the best intentions in the world, they might produce very evil effects. If there was any one mode of interference at all to be justified, those who were in favour of interference would agree that it was in protecting very young children from being overworked in factories—that would appear at first sight to be the safest and wisest interference. Now, with reference to this, he was much struck by the evidence given before one of the Factory Commissioners of the effects produced in the town of Warrington by that interference. There were three employments in that town—factory labour, which was the lightest; next, the employment of fustian cutters, which was severe; but the last employment would afford details which were shocking and revolting to the mind, and which he would not harrow the feelings of the House by giving; suffice it to say that it was a most cruel and dangerous employment: he referred to the employment of making pins'-heads, the dangers of which to the eyesight were most shocking. What did the Factory Commissioners tell them of the effects of limiting the employment of children in the factories in Warrington? They said they went to many families, and asked what had become of their young children, whom they did not find at home, and they were told that they were gone to work in the pin and fustian manufactories until they were old enough to go into the cotton mills, where they would have been glad to have been able to send them. He mentioned that to show the ill effects which such legislation might produce when its object was really good. One word more, and he should have done. He held it most important to keep the correct principles of legislation in view in this matter. He was not one of those who would say that they never might modify principles abstractedly correct so as to do more good than harm; but this he would say that they never could widely depart from them without much danger. And he would further say that without much stronger reasons than any which they had had the good fortune to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary for the Home Department, if the House sanctioned the principle, he was afraid, especially after the way in which they found some Gentlemen in the former debate had argued upon this matter, they could not oppose any interference with labour hereafter. He should, therefore, vote with the hon. and learned Gentleman, and refuse to consent to introduce into the legislation of this country the novel principle of limiting the hours of adult labour by legislative interference.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman, said that the limitation of the hours of labour would break through a great principle. He might well say so, for when the right hon. Baronet, the First Lord of the Treasury turned round in the late debate, and asked the House if they meant to interfere with such and such employments which he pointed out, and limit the hours of labour in them also to ten—he believed he enumerated twenty other cases—he was met with cheers on that (the Ministerial) side of the House; and he went out of it considering that there were many more foolish than wise persons in the House. If they consented that the House of Commons should interfere with the manufacturing interests, and dictate to the master-manufacturers how many half-holidays they should give, and tell them that they would appoint inspectors, and sub-inspectors, who should walk into the factories whenever they pleased, and do whatever they liked—if they admitted such a principle as that, how could they defend the City of Westminster and London from a similar interference, which would allow these inspectors to walk into the leading and great commercial houses in the same way? There was one very extraordinary thing with respect to this subject of ten or twelve hours labour—that not one hon. Gentleman on either side of the House had taken a proper view of it. It was not a question whether the labourer should work for ten or twelve hours—that certainly was not the question; but the question was, whether, in the event of a bargain being made between the master manufacturer and women and persons of a certain age, that they should work beyond twelve hours—a mutual agreement—whether any penalty should be inflicted upon those who worked beyond that time. If such a Law were passed the great capitalists would be able to improve their machinery, and do as much in the ten hours as they did now in twelve, but the smaller capitalists, and those who had water mills, would be obliged to work on at the same rate, and be ruined. Thus the manufactures of the country would get into the hands of a few persons, who would have the sole control of the market. There was another reason why he opposed any interference with the hours of labour; it would cause the creation of such an army of Government functionaries, in the persons of inspectors, sub-inspectors, and others, which would entail a great expense upon the country. He presumed that the hon. Member for Oldham meant to work his mills eight or ten hours a day. Now, he wanted to know how that matter stood, because perhaps that hon. Gentleman proposed paying his workmen for twelve hours' labour, and that step must of necessity be contrary to his interest. If, indeed, the hon. Member for Oldham, or any other mill-owner thought that eight hours' labour was sufficient, he could not conceive that the masters would have a right to employ their workmen one moment longer than for that period. He was satisfied that the effect of the limitation of the hours of labour to ten would be that the great capitalists would immediately improve all their machinery so much as to increase the speed to such a degree as to get twelve hours' work done; but the smaller capitalists, who had not the means to do this, must work the full time; nay the smaller capitalists must be ruined. The great capitalists would have the sole command of the markets. Pressure and bankruptcy would result from the adoption of the principle of legislative interference on this important question, and be therefore must oppose it.

said, that with regard to the principle of this Bill, it was his opinion, that the ground on which restraint on individual liberty in any case was justifiable was this, that it was only applied where the free exercise of the individual right would be injurious to society. In that case, restriction was proper. But, he maintained that the working man was not a free agent; that he must obey the commands of his master, and that he was not in a condition to say to his employer, "I will work so long and no longer." The House was bound, therefore, to step in and protect the working man and the working woman. Protection was necessary, because there was so overwhelming a pressure on the labour market; whole classes of the labouring poor were thrown on their daily labour without any other means of support. The New Poor Law terrified them by the workhouses which it had erected; the support they might have expected under the old law was withdrawn; they had lost the rights they held under the old law, and they were now left without any compensation. Until hired employment could be joined with occupation of land, the working man never could be in a condition to contend with his employer. It was said wages must fall if this restriction were passed by the House. He had always understood that wages depended on the supply and demand, and at any rate it was impossible, he thought, for any man to say what would be the event of this Measure with respect to wages. Let the consequences, however, be what it would, he would not consent to see the working man oppressed; he should do that which he deemed just and right to the working man. They might as well say that because States which employed Slave-labour had greater power to compete with us, therefore we should employ Slave-labour also. He was convinced that England was able to compete with any country in manufactures without resorting to pressure on her working population. Could any man deny, that in parts of the manufacturing districts the population was employed seventeen or eighteen hours out of the twenty-four! He believed that was the case. The hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck) had spoken of the sufferings of the poor, and of the necessity of giving the working man more power in the House of Commons, by means of extending the suffrage; but if the suffrage were extended to the working man, did the hon. and learned Member think that such a Bill as this would not be passed immediately? The expression of opinion of the working classes was unanimous, or nearly so, in favour of this Bill. Now, with regard to the petition of the operatives of Belfast, which he had presented to the House. There were peculiar circumstances relating to that Petition, There had been three or four petitions presented from different bodies of operatives from the mills of different employers. The operatives of Belfast, when they found these Petitions were going forward, assembled in a public meeting, and agreed to the Petition which he had presented, having passed resolutions stating that ten hours daily was as much labour as women and children of tender years could endure without injury, and that it was desirable that they should have more leisure and time for improvement than at present, The hon. Member for Belfast had mistaken, he believed, the sentiments of his Constituents, and in consequence, on a former occasion, the hon. Member had declared his intention to vary from the vote he had first given, on the ground that masters and operatives were alike against restrictions on labour. The petition he had presented was framed for the purpose of showing what was the real state of opinion among the masters and operatives of that town on this subject, and it was directly contradictory of the hon. Member's view of the case. It must be remembered that petitions brought from particular mills would be signed under the influence of the owners of the mills, and might not, therefore, perhaps, express quite fairly the opinions of the operatives. His sincere opinion was, that the Belfast petition fairly represented the opinions of the operatives of that borough. When the working man was driven from the occupation of land, and when he was placed in such a position that it became impossible for him to bear up against oppression, he knew not how Parliament could do otherwise than hold out to them the means of protection and support. Bestowing upon the question before the House the most serious and dispassionate attention, he was bound to say, that it became his duty to support the views entertained by the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire, and to oppose the motion of the hon. Member for Bath.

observed that he had carefully examined the petition which had been presented by the hon. Member for Rochdale, and he would at once say that he did not consider it to be the petition of the operatives of Belfast. His hon. Col- league and himself had presented petitions against the ten hours Clause from the operatives in sixteen mills at Belfast and its vicinity. Now he had reason to believe that the persons who signed these petitions constituted the majority of the working people employed in the cotton mills in that town, and that the other petition did not emanate from those persona. At the meeting at which the petition was adopted, an operative was, not in the chair, but it was occupied by a printer. Some operatives employed at the mills attempted at this meeting to speak against the limitation of the hours of labour, but instead of being listened to they were clamoured down. Some of the parties who supported this petition made use of the most violent language, which he was sure would not meet with the support of the operatives of Belfast. One of the persons who spoke at this meeting said, that they had been told that if this Clause were adopted, the manufactures of the place would be destroyed, but that that was of little consequence, for the result would be that they would then get rid of the Corn Laws. He (Mr. Ross) was opposed to the Corn Laws, but he could not contemplate such a mode of getting rid of them without horror. His hon. Friend had intimated that the Petitions against interfering with labour had been got up at the instigation of the masters. Now, he happened to know that this was not the case. The only thing that occurred that could in any way justify such an assumption was, that the operatives were told, that if they obtained a limitation of labour to ten hours, there would be a proportionate reduction of wages; and the general expression of opinion was, that they did not wish for short hours and low wages. The working men of Belfast were not a, class of persons who would submit to the dictation of their, masters, or any other persons.

; I shall not upon this occasion say one word on the question of whether, if we decide upon limiting by law the hours of labour, it is, better that ten hours or twelve hours daily should be permitted. In common fairness to my noble Friend, the Member for Dorsetshire (Lord Ashley), I think we ought to reserve, anything we have to urge upon this question until he brings it regularly under our notice; and, therefore, although the hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck) has not by any means adhered to this rule, and has tempted me to follow him in transgressing it, by advancing arguments very specious, but as it seems to me very shallow and very easily to be answered, not applying to the subject immediately in hand, but to the proposal of my noble Friend which is not yet before us, I will abstain from entering into this discussion, and will strictly confine the observations I shall make to the Motion on which we are about to vote. The Resolution which the hon. and learned Member has moved is, "That it is the opinion of this House that no interference with the power of adult labourers in factories to make contracts respecting the hours for which they shall be employed be sanctioned by this House." This is what we have now to discuss, and undoubtedly it is a very large, a very difficult, and a very important question. Sir, I confess, when we entered upon this debate, I felt much curiosity as to how the right hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, would be able to reconcile his resistance to the Motion of the hon. and learned Member with what fell from him on a former occasion; for the House, I am sure, will remember that the right hon. Baronet, in the debate on the former Bill urged as his main argument against the Amendment of my noble Friend, the Member for Dorsetshire, that it involved the violation of an important principle of legislation. Now, as it appeared to me, that the principle of the original Bill and of the Amendment was precisely the same, and that the only difference between us was as to the extent to which that principle should be carried—as I had heard this distinctly acknowledged by my noble Friend, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who said that the difference between the Government and those who supported the Amendment was one not of principle but of detail, I was curious to hear how the right hon. Baronet would be able to reconcile what he had said in condemnation of the principle of my noble Friend's Amendment with his resistance to the present Motion; I was, I say, anxious to hear how the right hon. Baronet would extricate himself from this dilemma; but I confess, among all the conjectures I made, it never occurred to me that the right hon. Baronet would take the line he actually has done, and would avow that the Measure of the Government, no less than the Amendment of my noble Friend, involved a violation of an important principle, and yet call upon the House to adopt it. This is a declaration which, coming from a Minister, I was altogether unprepared for. We are told that to violate a sound general principle is most dangerous; that having once been induced to do so, we never can tell where we shall be able to stop;—and having told us this, the right hon. Baronet goes on to advise us to adopt a measure which he distinctly admits to violate a principle he regards as sound. This does seem to me to be most extraordinary. What, let me ask, is meant by a general principle? I understand by a general principle some rule drawn from long experience and careful observation of facts, which sound legislation ought to follow; and if it is proved to my satisfaction that what I have been accustomed to regard as a general principle does not hold true in some particular instance—that it is for the good of the community that it should be departed from, the conclusion I come to is, that what I have been accustomed to regard as a sound principle of legislation is not so in fact; or that, at all events, there must be some mistake in the manner of stating it, and that it requires some limitation and qualification which has not been properly attended to. To me it seems like a positive contradiction, to say, that a principle is sound, and yet that it ought to be violated; I am quite unable to understand that kind of reasoning which admits a principle to be true, and yet that it ought not to be applied in practice; though it is, I know, rather favourite language with the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are very much in the habit of telling us that the doctrines of free-trade cannot be disputed in the abstract; but yet ought not to be carried practically into effect: for my part I cannot recognise this difference between what is true in theory and what is true in practice. I acknowledge facts and experience as the only grounds upon which solid reasoning can rest; and the conclusions thus supported and established, I am prepared to apply in practice. Sir, I am prepared to go further than the right hon. Baronet in defence of his own Bill, and I maintain that neither that Bill, as originally proposed, nor the Amendment of my noble Friend, can justly be charged with violating any sound principle of legislation. Let me ask, what is the principle which is said to be violated? I wish to put the case as strongly as I can against myself; I will therefore quote, in language far better than any I could use, the statement of the principle which I believe you mean to argue that we violate by such legislation as that which I have undertaken to defend. It has been said by a writer, whose authority has and ought to have the greatest weight with the House, that

"The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him."

The House will easily recognise this passage as a quotation from the 'Wealth of Nations;' this I believe to be the authority on which you rely when you assert that principle is violated by the kind of legislation which is now proposed; but, for my own part, while I subscribe to the principle in the sense in which it was meant to be laid down by the distinguished author I have quoted, I utterly deny that it applies to the question now before us. To judge of the real application, according to the meaning of the author, of the rule he has led down, we must consider what is the course of reasoning by which he has been led to it. Now, Sir, in the chapter of the "Wealth of Nations" in which this passage occurs, Adam Smith had been treating of the various impolitic laws which the different European nations have passed for what is called the protection of manufactures, and for giving peculiar privileges and advantages to persons carrying on certain trades. As opposed to the policy of all such laws, I have no doubt that the principle stated by Adam Smith is a sound one, because all experience proves that men can judge far better for themselves than any Government can judge for them how to apply their labour and their capital to the best advantage with a view to their own pecuniary interest, and that as the wealth of the community is the sum of the wealth of all its members, in order to increase the wealth of the state the best rule to be followed is to leave each man at liberty to act for himself; individuals under this system will no doubt make mistakes, and will, in consequence, incur losses, but, as a general rule, it is proved by experience to be undeniably true that the productive power of a nation will be best developed by giving the utmost liberty to individual exertion, and that you cannot attempt to direct industry into channels which it would not otherwise seek without very seriously imparing its efficiency. All such interference with the freedom of industry, founded on the notion that you can thus increase a nation's wealth, I regard as in the highest degree impolitic and mischievous; if the object of the interference is to benefit not the whole community, but some particular class, it is not merely impolitic, but unjust; it is a real violation of what Adam Smith has well described as the most sacred of all property. For instance, if a Manchester spinner or weaver, if allowed to do so, could exchange the produce of a year's labour for twenty quarters of Dantzic wheat, but that by law you prohibit this exchange, and allow him only to obtain home-grown corn for his consumption, of which the same labour will only procure him fifteen quarters, you unjustly, as it seems to me, deprive that man of one-fourth of the fruits of his labour. I agree, therefore, with Adam Smith, (and I believe this is all that he meant to assert) that restrictions upon the freedom of industry, if intended to increase the wealth of a particular class, are unjust—if that of the whole community, are impolitic and defeat their own aim; but I contend that you altogether misapply the maxim of leaving industry to itself when you use it as an argument against regulations of which the object is, not to increase the productive power of the country, or to take the fruits of a man's labour from himself and give it to another, but, on the contrary, to guard the labourer himself and the community from evils against which the mere pursuit of wealth affords us no security. The mere increase of a nation's wealth is not the only—it ought not even to be the first and highest object of a Government. The welfare, both moral and physical of the great body of the people, I conceive to be the true concern of the Government; national wealth no doubt, rightly used, greatly contributes to that welfare, but he must indeed have a low and mean idea of our nature, who thinks that mere wealth is all in all to a nation, and who does not see that in the too eager pursuit of wealth, a nation like an individual, may neglect what is of infinitely higher importance. But if this be true, it follows, that there is an important distinction, which has not been sufficiently adverted to in these debates, between restrictions imposed upon industry, with the visionary hope of increasing a nation's wealth, or with the unjust design of taxing one class for the benefit of another, and those of which the aim is to guard against evils, moral or physical, which it is apprehended that the absence of such precautions might entail upon the people. It was only to restrictions of the former kind that the French merchants referred in their celebrated answer to the Minister, who, being asked what he could do for commerce, was told they only desired to be left alone; it is of these only that Adam Smith and his distinguished followers have treated, when arguing from experience— the only sure basis of all such reasoning— they have established the conclusion which I wish you would recognise in practice as well as in words, that industry is most productive when least encumbered with the trammels of law. This is no doubt a just conclusion, because it rests upon experience; but allow me to ask, whether, if you attempt to push the rule farther, and apply it to cases which perhaps the words in which you express it may seem to include—if you assert that it is never necessary, in order to guard against social evils which may arise from the unchecked pursuit of gain, to impose restrictions upon industry—does your reasoning still hold good, and can you still with equal confidence appeal to experience? So far from it, is it not true that experience has, on the contrary, demonstrated such regulations to be in some cases indispensable, and that they have in consequence been established? It is only a Session or two ago that the House, at the instance of my noble Friend (Lord Ashley), passed a Bill, almost by acclamation, to prohibit the employment of females in mines and collieries. Let me ask you, was it wrong to do so? I think I hear some hon. Gentleman say "yes;" but I am convinced he must stand almost alone in that opinion, when I remember how nearly unanimous the House was upon the subject, and that even what little objection was made to the Measure was almost exclusively on the ground that it ought to have been more entirely pro- spective, and should not have prohibited labour in collieries to those women who had already been accustomed to an employment so unsuitable to their sex, and tending so much to disqualify them for any other mode of earning their livelihood. If that Measure was right—and looking to the abuses which in some districts were proved to exist while the experience of the majority, including all the best-regulated collieries, showed that there was no necessity for so employing women, I cannot doubt that it was so—if, I say, that Measure was right, it at once puts an end to your argument, that there is any sound principle of legislation resting upon experience, which you violate by imposing restrictions of this sort upon industry. If you are prepared to maintain as a principle that it is wrong to interfere by law to prevent persons of mature age making what bargains they please as to their own labour, I wish to know how far you are prepared to carry it; you must, I think to be consistent, go so far as to allow men, if they choose, to sell themselves for slaves. Yes, much as it may startle you, I am persuaded, if the law of the land allowed it, such bargains would have been made, and, so far as the mere increase of productive power and of wealth is concerned, would have been made with advantage. We know the great value of labour in our Colonies; we know, too, that experience has shown that capitalists cannot venture without certain loss to carry out labourers to the Colonies, trusting to any bargain for services they may have previously made; every plan of apprenticeship has failed; and it is known that no bargain will answer, short of giving to the capitalist complete command over the person of the labourer. But, under these circumstances, do you doubt, that if the law had allowed it, there would have been found capitalists to buy and labourers to sell themselves as slaves? In times of distress, do you not think that a Dorsetshire peasant, for instance, one of those men whose situation was so powerfully described not long ago by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden), would willingly have sold himself as a slave, under the assurance that by doing so he would secure to himself and his family in Australia an ample supply of the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life? I have no doubt that such bargains, if legal, would have been made, and would very generally have proved highly advantageous to the parties contracting them. But does it follow that it is wrong to forbid them—that it is unjust to prohibit the starving peasant from contracting the only engagement by which he can obtain the means of being carried to a colony where the high value of his labour would so greatly improve his condition? Certainly not; because whatever might be the immediate advantage of allowing such bargains to be made, we know that the evil of introducing into colonial society the element of slavery would far outweigh any partial good that might thus be obtained. I might mention other instances of the necessity of similar interference, but I will only refer to what has been done on the very subject of factory labour now before us. The right hon. Baronet said, very truly, that the principle of not interfering with labour was first violated as regards factories by the Act of 1833, and he went on to state as a matter of fact that the regulations then adopted had proved exceedingly useful, so much so that he has this night informed us, that great as were the objections urged by the master-manufacturers to these regulations when they were introduced, the majority of these persons now admit them to have been beneficial; nay more, they are quite willing that the interference of the Legislature should be carried as much farther as it would be by the adoption of the Measure Her Majesty's Government have recommended to us. Now, Sir, the mere fact that I am able at once to mention more than one case in which we have practically admitted the necessity, and experienced the advantage, of subjecting industry by law to such restrictions as are now proposed, completely, in my opinion, refutes the notion that it can with any propriety be said that by doing so we are acting in violation of principle. What I understand by a principle is, as I have already remarked, some general rule drawn from long experience, and which it is thus proved that we ought to adhere to in legislation; but when you claim for any rule this authority—when you ask me to submit my judgment to what you call a general principle, and rather than violate it forego some apparent benefit which by doing so, in some particular instance, we might hope to obtain—before, I say, you can ask me to do this, you are bound to show that the experience on which you rest your case is uniformly in your favour. Adam Smith's rule, that industry should be left free, understood as I understand it and I believe he meant it, will bear this test; among the multitude of laws which the different nations of Europe have made, in the hope of increasing their wealth and their trade by directing industry into channels which it would not naturally take; amongst all the devices of this kind by which commerce has been tortured and perplexed, you cannot show one that has really answered its intended purpose, and has not diminished instead of increaing the productive power and the wealth of the country by which it has been adopted. But when you attempt to twist the words of Adam Smith into a meaning which I am convinced he never contemplated, and try to establish a principle far wider than he intended, instead of being able to show that it rests upon uniform and unvarying experience, you find, on the contrary, that we can easily bring before you cases in which you are forced to admit that experience is against you. Sir, I am so far from admitting the authority of the principle which I have heard contended for, more particularly by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward), that I regard its admission as a most dangerous error, or rather as one out of many erroneous inferences from what seems to me to be a most mistaken idea of the proper duties of a government. There are some who believe that if a government maintains the honour and interests of a nation in its relations with foreign countries, and protects the lives and property of its subjects from violence or wrong, it accomplishes all, or almost all, that can reasonably be expected from it. We must be sensible that for a long series of years the Government of this country has practically been conducted very much as if these were the only objects for which it is called upon to provide, and as if in all other respects the welfare of society might safely be trusted to the unaided efforts of individuals. In the present state of the country and of society, it seems to me that we have too many convincing and alarming proofs that this view of the duties of the supreme authority of the State is a wrong one, and that far more is required from the Government and the Legislature. More especially when we look to the present state of the manufacturing districts we must feel that such is the case; I do not mean to throw any blame upon individuals in the manufacturing districts which does not fall equally on every other class in the community;—there is much that is amiss in the condition of the agricultural population also, much that in my opinion requires the active interposition of the House; but still, from various reasons to which it is not necessary now to advert, the danger is less pressing in the agricultural than in the manufacturing districts. When we look at the dense masses of population that are there collected, or rather heaped together, without any adequate provision either for their moral or physical well-being; when we learn, as by recent inquiries we have learnt (I must say for one, to my astonishment and dismay) —when we learn what abuses prevail, and how much misery exists amongst the thousands of human beings crowded together in the busy seats of our commercial and manufacturing industry; when we consider this state of things, surely we must feel that we have trusted too much in a case where it does not apply, to the maxim that men should be left to take care of their own interests; and that it would have been well if even at the price of some sacrifice of productive power and of national wealth the State had earlier interfered, and had taken measures which should have opposed some check to so vast an increase of population without some corresponding increase in the machinery for maintaining order and decency, and diffusing the blessings of education and of religion. Sir, this is felt very deeply, not only by those who, like myself, support the views of my noble Friend opposite (Lord Ashley), but by many of the most distinguished of our opponents; I have myself heard the opinion expressed by one of the ablest of our antagonists, that the State would have done wisely if, at the beginning of our manufacturing system, it had interposed and had forbid any woman or child from ever setting foot in a factory—those who think it would be dangerous now to interfere, hold this opinion as to what would earlier have been desirable;—I for my own part do not share in this opinion; on the contrary, I am persuaded that employment in factories under proper regulations might be a blessing to women and children; but of the necessity of regulations, and of the State stepping in to prevent the abuses which now exist, I am most firmly convinced; and of all the points on which such regulations are required there is none which appears to me to be more pressing than that of restricting to a reasonable time the hours of labour of women and children. The right hon. Baronet, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, has himself to-night expressed this opinion, and has used the very arguments I should have urged in its support. He has told us that practically, in the state in which the country is—under the pressure of the intense competition which prevails, individuals are not free to act as they could wish in this matter; that a few individuals doing what is disapproved of by the great body both of the manufacturers and of those whom they employ, are able to force the whole trade to follow their example; and that to restrain this abuse, the majority of master manufacturers themselves are agreed as to the expediency of regulating by law the hours of female labour. I believe that such a regulation is most desirable; I believe that looking to the future welfare of the labouring classes, it is most important that we should take measures to prevent excessive competition from driving females and young persons into the performance of an amount of labour which is utterly inconsistent with the due discharge of their domestic duties, with the maintenance of health, and with education. Our interference, both for this and for other objects of the same sort, is most urgently required; and I am persuaded, that if we would avoid some fearful catastrophe which sooner or later (probably at no very distant period) will overtake us if we persevere in our present course of passive helplessness, we must resolve to deal much more boldly and much more decisively than we have hitherto thought of doing with the evils of our actual social state. Parliament must first seriously consider what ought to be done, and having deliberately considered, must act with energy to amend the condition of the people; and in this we have a right to look to Her Majesty's Government to take the lead. Our duty is to press upon them the necessity of not leaving things as they are. This momentous question as to how the condition of the people is to be improved, can no longer, in my opinion, be safely neglected; and I, therefore, have hailed with satisfaction the measure to which the hon. and learned Member for Bath objects, because I think the discussions to which it has given rise have brought home to us a sense of the evils of the present state of things—because I consider it, even in its present imperfect shape, a beginning—no doubt a feeble and hesitating beginning, but still a beginning—of what I believe to be a wiser and more manly course of policy than that which we have hitherto pursued, in being content to deplore, without setting vigorously to work to amend, what we find to be amiss in the actual state of society, I say it is a beginning of what I think a wiser policy; for whether we adopt the Bill in one shape or in the other, as proposed by my noble Friend, or by the right hon. Baronet, we equally adopt the principle of protecting female and youthful labourers from the excessive toil to which they are driven by extreme competition. Having once adopted this principle, you must of necessity continue to act upon it, for the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, in the last debate upon this subject, truly told us, that it was not in factories only that there exists evils of the same kind as those against which we are now directing our legislation; but by the appalling account which he gave us of the similar abuses which prevail in other branches of industry, far from deterring me from the proposed interference by showing me how much further it must be carried, he only convinced me yet more than before of its necessity; he proved to me with how much reason we have refused to admit the principle of leaving men to be guided in these matters merely by their own interest, since in practice this principle has so completely failed as to allow such abuses to grow up; and he demonstrated the importance of beginning our work without delay, as we have so much upon our hands. Sir, I support this measure, not as one which even if the Amendment of my noble Friend should be carried, would be complete and perfect in itself—far from it; I approve of fixing by law a limit to the hours of female labour, I approve of placing under legal control the great branches of manufacture affected by the Bill; but I have great doubts whether the machinery employed is the best that could be adopted, as I still retain the opinion I expressed on a former occasion that it would not be impossible to devise some means by which the parties concerned might them- selves be entrusted with the task of framing and enforcing such regulations as are required, and I am persuaded that however by direct prohibition we may check some abuses arising out of excessive competition, the evil lies too deep to be thus extirpated; it is the deficiency of employment which causes, and while it continues to exist, must continue to cause, the intense competition whence all these difficulties really spring, and this we can only remedy by altogether removing those artificial restrictions which an unwise legislation has created, to narrow the field for the employment of industry. Entertaining these opinions, I support this Measure, regarding it as I have said as the beginning of an improved policy, as being calculated at once to mitigate at least, some of the evils arising from excessive competition, and as holding out the promise of leading by steps which perhaps may be slow, but are not the less sure to a more complete reform. Experience will teach us what is the most effective machinery we can adopt for the regulation of the different branches of trade, and when our attention is thus strongly directed to the condition of the working classes, it will not, I am convinced, be possible that we should long maintain the system of monopoly which is at the bottom of all the difficulties and distress to which they are subject.

Sir, I think it necessary that we should clearly understand what we mean by the word "principle." Now, there certainly are principles which we ought not to violate in legislating. There are principles founded on the moral sense; there are principles instilled by religion; there are principles which the heart and conscience of every man tell him are con-current with the dictates of justice and humanity, and by those principles so understood our Legislation ought to be directed. There are certain other rules which are occasionally called principles, which are not founded either on morality or religion, but which have a binding force upon Legislation, because long experience, and the observance of facts tell us that they are concurrent with the dictates of prudence, and tell us that they ought to be the general guide of Legislation. I admit, with the noble Lord, that these "principles" (as he calls them) or these "general rules" (as I call them) of Legislation, are to be determined, not by any intuitive sense, but by the observance of facts, and from the conclusions of wisdom drawn from long experience. When we say, therefore, that any enactment is conformable with principle, all I think we mean is that our general experience tells us, that that is a rule to which Legislation in general ought to conform, and the question always is in these cases, will the practical good derived from any particular enactment in a particular case, counterbalance the evil of that enactment? Now, I say, certainly, that it is a general rule, which we ought to observe, to leave persons to judge for themselves what is a profitable mode of employing their labour. There is another general rule, not inculcated perhaps by morality, or by religion, but which is strongly recommended by the dictates of prudence and experience, and that is that we should leave to parents to judge what is the best mode of educating and of employing their children. That is a rule, I apprehend, on which we do universally act with respect to the rich. We may be quite convinced in some particular case, that it would be much better that the son of a rich man should be sent to school; that he should receive a good education; that it is very wrong of a parent to allow him to waste his time, and that he should not learn the first rudiments of literature and science: why do we not interfere, and pass a law compelling the rich to bring up their children in a certain particular mode? Not because we doubt that in particular cases our Legislation might not improve, but because we believe on the whole that it is better to respect the great principle of liberty, and to trust to the parent the education of, and the control over his children. Sir, I admit to the noble Lord, that the present condition of the working classes is most unsatisfactory—that the Legislature has not attended to their moral and social condition as it should have done, and that the mere accumulation of wealth is not and ought not to be the only object of the Government of this country. I also admit to the noble Lord that the moral strength and power of a country is not dependent exclusively upon its wealth. But I must always ask myself this question when I begin to legislate—"There is nothing easier than to lay down these general rules; but do I, by my intermeddling, interfere with the true liberty of the people: am I more likely to promote not merely their wealth but their essential comfort, happiness, and moral improvement?" I support the noble Lord in his principle, that the social happiness and the moral comfort of the people ought to be regarded by the Government. I agree with the noble Lord, that when we look at those great manufacturing populations and see no means provided for their amusement or relaxation, that when we see, as we do see, what were villages become immense towns, and yet subjected to the same discipline which they were left under when they were villages—when we see every space crowded, and no place left where there is an opportunity of amusement or recreation, with nothing to divert them either from constant labour or the indulgence of sensual habits—when we see all this, I admit that it is a great evil, and that the Legislature, ought to apply the public wealth to the promotion of their rational enjoyment. That, I think, is a perfectly legitimate interference on the part of the Legislature. Don't overlook these moral considerations—give the people the advantage of education, and feel certain that, by weaning them from habits of intemperance and vice, you will elevate them in the social scale. But this is a perfectly different question. Shall I improve their moral condition; shall I elevate them in the social scale by any enactment controlling the application of their labour? I admit to the noble Lord, that if you ask me whether I prefer that children should work twelve hours or ten hours, I say, I shall infinitely prefer their working ten hours. If you ask me whether I wish to see the mother of a family working eight hours, and able to devote some portion of the remainder to domestic duties and the superintendence of her family, I perfectly admit that I should infinitely prefer the spectacle of shorter labour, and an increased attention to domestic duties. But, I say, after that admission, that it does not necessarily follow, that it would be for the advantage of that woman that I should interfere and say, " You shall not work more than eight hours, and I prescribe to you by enactment the exact time during which you shall work." And see what the noble Lord says—it is possible I may apply the principles now in the case of factories; but he says, he rejoices in your application of this principle, because he foresees that it must be extended a great deal further. I said, the other night, " I will show you trades and occupations imposing heavier burthens upon children, upon females, and upon males, than factory labour." If your principle be good, and if you can give effect to it, you ought to extend your interference with them, and I said, therefore, " Beware how you do deal too precipitately and incautiously with this factory labour, because if you do not take care, if you interdict the employment of the people in factory labour, and subject it to restraint, take care that you don't give a premium and an encouragement to other descriptions of labour in themselves more oppressive and more onerous, but which are yet beyond your Legislative control." How am I met? Why, it was said, " I wish you had gone on extending your twenty to beyond 200 instances of more oppressive labour, because you would only have shown to me the necessity that Parliament should now act upon some great principle of controlling -not only factory labour, but every description of labour;" and that I say is an utter impossibility. In those great buildings where machinery is employed, and which are subject to constant inspection, it is possible to apply the principles of interference; but if you go to every house—to the tailor who works his men twenty hours—to the sempstress who works her women fifteen or sixteen hours—if you are about to establish in individual cases and in private families this principle of interference, you are about to establish a system of domestic inquisition and tyranny, which may occasionally produce a good effect in limiting the hours of labour in a particular case from sixteen boors to twelve, but which will end by entirely changing the character of the British people. You may make them entirely dependent upon Government interference; you mast then, indeed, have an army of domestic inspectors and sub-inspectors. And the only protection against your interference is this, that your Bill may become so odious that the whole mass of the population will rise up against it. Well, then, I say that were you to make an exception from this general rule you are bound to consider not merely whether you are limiting the production of wealth— that I quite admit—but whether you are really thereby promoting the social comfort and happiness of the people. It is a good thing no doubt to restrict, we will say, factories; but if there be other descriptions of labour in the same place, like fustian-cutting or pins'-head-making, and if I do not control fustian-cutting or pins'-head-making, and if I cannot control them, then I say it is perfectly open to me to consider whether the advantage which I gain from my attempt at interference in that particular instance be not counterbalanced by the disadvantage arising from giving a premium and encouragement to employment in more laborious and less gainful occupational, Take the case of pin-making. The consequence of my interference with the more healthy occupation may be, that many may be driven to injure their sight by engaging in pin-making; then my own object to promote their happiness will have been countervailed by the impossibility which I find to interfere with these trades; and, therefore, Sir, in every particular case I am bound to consider whether any departure from the general rule upon which I am inclined to act, and which wisdom and experience have sanctioned, will be beneficial. If you can prove to me that that exception will increase the moral comfort of the people, I think your exception from the general rule will be justifiable; but you are bound to show to me that that will be the result. That is the limitation which must be applied to your exceptions from the general rule. Now, as to the Ten Hours question; if I take a narrow view of it, I have no doubt that, for a certain time and in certain localities, it will have a good effect; but, can I compel other nations to adopt the same principle? And if they do not, what is the consequence? Why, is it possible to suppose that a people whose labour is so curtailed will have the enjoyment of full wages? Is it not contrary to common sense to say that you will reduce the labour from twelve hours to ten, and yet give the same amount of wages? And, supposing that, by giving that stimulus to the manufacturing industry of other countries which you will give to Switzerland, to France, and to the United States, for instance, you raise up there great manufacturing establishments, and that you do by that means diminish the power of employing your people; suppose that they are unable to do that which constitutes the independence of their moral character—viz., to earn their subsistence by honest industry; suppose you drive them to the workhouse; suppose by means of employment failing, and your being met in the third market by persons who are willing to work more, and who have a greater command over the raw material; supposing you diminish the hours of employment, and lessen the power of individuals to earn their subsistence by honest industry: supposing all that, have you then promoted the moral character or the social comfort and welfare of the people? I haven't a doubt about your intentions. I admit the general principle, that it should be regarded as a rule that it is not the accumulation of wealth which is the great desideratum, but I want to show you that by your unnecessary interference, by legislating to supply the parental place, and to enforce morality by law, that by so doing you incur the hazard of defeating your own object, of diminishing the physical comforts, and of lowering the moral character of the people. And, Sir, looking at what the noble Lord has expressed, I am inclined to think that the noble Lord was trying to make a speech to vindicate his vote rather than to establish a principle which hereafter was to govern the legislation of this country. When he says that the Government must take up this matter, that interference must be extended to a hundred other trades— why deal in these generalities, which of course provoke a cheer? Why, after the noble Lord has been reading Adam Smith, and has been thinking upon the subject, why persist in dealing in generalities? Why does he not treat us to a little practical knowledge of the mode in which the thing is to be done. [Viscount Howick: I said extend the principles.] Oh! The noble Lord said, "I rejoice in your limiting the labour in the case of females in factories, because we see that it is a provident and beneficent principle; but it must be extended a great deal further, and we must interfere between the employer and the labourer, and we must teach the employer that he is not to make money out of the industry of the people." The whole of the noble Lord's speech was a vindication of that principle of interference for the purpose of promoting morality. Why, I will venture to say, that the principle laid down by the noble Lord will perfectly justify a compulsory attendance at Church. I am not astonished to hear the noble Lord say he will vote for the abolishing of monopolies, and for widening the sphere of labour; but to hear from the noble Lord doctrines which would lead to the establishment of inquisition into almost every trade, to hear from him that we are not to content ourselves merely with the production of wealth, but that we are to watch over the habits and morals of the people; why, there is not one proposal in former times for compelling the observance of any law which would not be justified by the wide principle the noble Lord lays down. I want to know by what mode he will set about carrying out these principles of provident and beneficent legislation? Looking at the moral character of the people— looking at their sense of wrong, at their hatred of oppression, at their philanthropy, at their charity, at their religious feeling, which have grown up with independence and freedom of action, depend upon it, your attempt to substitute legislative interference for that independence, and for that freedom of action, will change materially the character of the people. Sir, there is one point with respect to which I think we may be entitled to interfere with parental authority; there is, I think, one instance which would justify us in doing so. I doubt whether or not, in the case of proof of actual neglect of education and instruction, the Legislature would not be perfectly justified at least in supplying ample means of instruction: to compel instruction by law, I believe, in the present stale of religious feeling in the country, would be attended with very great difficulty; but, in the case of factory employment, I think we are entitled to say at least, "you shall not subject your children to such an amount of labour as shall preclude them obtaining education:" that trenches on parental authority, no doubt. You insist upon it that there shall be an opportunity of gaining the elements of instruction. You have the means of enforcing that in the case of factories; and, because you have the means of enforcing that—because you find that the labour there has been excessive, and that you can control parental authority — that gives you a right to interfere in the case of factories. There is a practicability of making an exception in their favour, and I think upon the whole, that the advantage of according the means of instruction has been proved by experience to countervail the objections that exist against any interference. I think so upon the whole. I think it was a doubtful question. When there are 200 or 300 young children brought together, and you have the power of preventing the abuse of their youthful minds, and of giving them a good opportunity for instruction, I think you are justified in doing so. With respect to females, I am quite aware that there is a material difference between the capabilities of the two sexes —that the law establishes it—that the law considers woman in many respects not a free agent — that the law controls the power of woman in many respects; assuming in the case of a married woman that she is entirely subject to her husband. There is this difference also, that there are circumstances connected with the female sex, particularly at the period of pregnancy, that make labour unfit for them; but still these circumstances alone are not sufficient to induce an interference with the great principle of allowing to all the power of determining for themselves what shall be the extent of the work and the nature of the labour to which they shall devote themselves. I think that the Act of 1833 was founded upon correct principles. I assume that it was right to restrain the labour of children. If you say that Act should be repealed, that is another question; but I assume now that it was right to restrain the labour of children. Then I say, with respect to females, that though I think the great principle of permitting to adults the free determination of labour should be respected, still I think that you ought not to subject females by your legislation to evils to which they would not be subjected if there were no legislation. The main vindication of your curtailing the hours of labour in the case of females to twelve hours arises from the fact that you passed a law limiting the hours of children. Men alone cannot work in cotton factories; then it is just possible for the females to be employed more than twelve hours in this way. The master manufacturer says, "without the aid of women and children I can't work my cotton; you prevent me employing children; I wish to work fifteen hours, but I can't, because you won't allow me children; but this I can do, I can employ women as substitutes for children, and, in consequence of your law, I am driven to the employment of female labour." The effect, is, then, that you make the necessity for the employment of females, and that you give them an inducement to labour which would not have been but for your enactment. I am quite willing to admit that that is an argument against your own legislation: you subject them to a disadvantage to which they would not have been subject but for that enactment. I assume that the Bill limiting the hours of children's labour is itself on the whole, comparing the advantages and the disadvantages, a Bill which ought to be retained. I am strongly inclined to think that it is such a Bill. The Reports of the Inspectors show upon the whole that the evil of legislative interference has been less than might have been anticipated, and therefore I think it to be a legitimate principle in the case of children; but, assuming it to be the case in their instance, I am desirous of applying a corrective in the case of females. I believe that the mischief which will arise in that case will be exceedingly small. There are very few mills which work more than twelve hours: there are some which work more, and in those married women are employed. All my right hon. Friend proposes is, to prevent the employment of women beyond twelve hours. The master manufacturers generally are not opposed to it. The great body of them are in favour of it. The factory Inspectors are in favour of it. I think at least four-fifths of the roaster manufacturers support it, and I admit it is an exception to what ought to be the general rule in these cases; but I accede to it, because I believe that the evil will be more than counterbalanced by the good which will in some instances result from it. Above all, I regard it as an exception arising out of and rendered necessary by your previous legislation, and upon that ground, I give it, after due consideration, my full and cordial consent. I should not have been provoked to rise upon this occasion, or to anticipate any part of the discussion, which will more properly take place upon the Motion of my noble Friend, but, hearing from a quarter I little expected a proposition which if carried out would diminish the comforts of the people, and impair their moral character, I was, on account of the respect I feel for the ability and integrity of the noble Lord, and the just weight which attaches to his opinions, desirous not to permit an interval of a moment to pass before I rose for the purpose of giving, perhaps an imperfect, but certainly a sincere reply to the arguments brought forward by the noble Lord.

said, it is related of Mr. Wyndham, who though he spoke with great ability, was apt to balance his argu- ments—viewing the question first at one side and then at another—it is related of Mr. Wyndham that, having on one occasion made a very clever speech, he became so much involved by his own ingenuity, that he turned round to a Friend behind him and said, "Which way shall I have to vote?" Now I think that in the early part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, if he had recollected this caution, that some of the arguments which he made use of against my noble Friend might have been spared, because, when the right hon. Gentleman says, " See the mischief of interferences—look at the evils that have been produced by interference with industry, and, above all, beware how you interfere with parental control as the true and effective guardianship of the child," I don't know how those arguments are used consistently with the subsequent part of his speech, in which he calls on the House to permit a further interference, not only to place the employment of children under the control of the State, and defends a measure which introduces a new principle of interference with adult labour. Sir, I am induced to ask, what has the right hon. Gentleman been arguing about, and whether he mean to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Bath, and, succeeding in a majority on that Motion, whether he mean to-morrow to give notice of a Bill to repeal the Act of 1833? I think that in the speech which the right hon. Gentleman has just addressed to the House he has done much to shake the Act of 1833, and the principle on which it rests. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has, in the course of his speech, said a great deal to show that we ought now to consider the question, whether we should go back to the place where we were previous to the legislation of 1833; but if, on the contrary, he means to support the proposition of his right hon. Friend near him, how can he reproach my noble Friend for advocating interference with labour, and for attempting to interfere with the relations between parents and children, and with the liberty of industry in this country? My noble Friend went into an argument with respect to the general principle on which you legislate on this subject. It happens that I agree on general principles with my noble Friend, but it often occurs that my noble Friend chooses to carry those principles further than I am dis- posed to carry them, and perhaps this is the case with respect to some of the remarks which my noble Friend has made on the present occasion. But my noble Friend argued in favour of the course which he intended to adopt, whereas the right hon. Gentleman argued in opposition to the course he is about to adopt, and against the Bill which he is about to support. The right hon. Gentleman has asked whether my noble Friend is in favour of reviving the law of compulsory attendance at Church. Now I think I have heard of an interference with respect to this very matter, proposed not by my noble Friend, but by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, in the Bill introduced last year—(with respect to education in the factory districts) — an interference which I should be disposed to applaud, on account of the motives that dictated it, and which I should be very glad to see carried into effect, if it could be done without any violation of the liberty of conscience, but which, as proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, placed the whole education of the children throughout the entire factory districts, under the Bishops and Clergy of the Established Church. This would have been the effect of the Bill if carried into effect; but the right hon. Gentleman reproaches my noble Friend with wishing to revive doctrines that would justify compulsory attendance at Church. The right hon. Gentleman says, if we interfere, how far do we propose to carry our interference—for that there are many labours more irksome, and many employments, the confinement attendant on which, is more unwholesome than the imprisonment in Factories. Now, in the first place, I think that nothing has been brought forward to show us that the interference produced by the Act of 1833 was mischievous—on the contrary, I contend that it has been beneficial, and, indeed, until it became necessary to raise an argument against the proposition of my noble Friend the Member for Dorset-shire, that Act has been generally admitted to have worked beneficially. One of the effects of interference has been, that persons are desirous to remove their children into mills which have been regulated by Act of Parliament, and to take them away from the employment of fustian cutters and other manufactories which are not under the regulations of an Act of Parliament. Therefore, where labour is per- fectly free we have seen that the workpeople themselves discover that in those places not under regulations they are exposed to ill health and long hours, whilst in the Factories regulated by Act of Parliament, they find good wages, together with wholesome and beneficial employment. Now, these are not instances which show that interference is injurious, and as you say you should limit your interference by acting on the principle that you should only interfere where your interference would do good, that would more than compensate any possible evil. The principle on which you interfere was stated to-night. You interfere in Factories, having found that they are large establishments into which Inspectors can easily enter, and where interference may be exercised without producing any very great evil. You act upon the principle that you ought not to interfere wherever there is a chance of your interference producing more evil than good. What is the great principle of your Criminal Law? You transport a person or send him to prison because he has stolen a loaf. There are instances where persons have turned round upon their benefactors and brought them to an untimely grave by persecution and ill treatment. It cannot be doubted that persons who act thus are more criminal than the poor man who steals a loaf, but you cannot attempt to punish them, because if you interfere at all, you must go through all the transactions of private life, and your interference would do more harm than good. Though you are convinced that they are more guilty and more criminal yet you cannot interfere, because if you attempted to interfere in cases of this kind, you would destroy the peace and harmony of the community. Wherever you can interfere beneficially—wherever you can see your way —wherever your interference is calculated to do good, there you ought to interfere; where it does not do good, there you ought to stop. The same rule ought to be applied with respect to other legislation. In 1833 the first question which we had to consider was, whether we should interfere at all, and the Government at that time fully agreed as to the propriety of interference, but they felt that they ought to appoint a Commission to acquire some further facts, and that Commission in their Report, made certain propositions, which in the Bill afterwards brought forward were carried into effect. They, at the same time, advised the Government not to be deterred by saying that things were impracticable or impossible because it was customary to apply those words to anything that was troublesome to carry into practice, or which was contrary to the usual custom. Now, what was the statement of this Commission with respect to the employment of children? It was, that the protracted employment had deteriorated the physical constitution of the children, and produced various diseases, some of them often altogether irremediable; and, secondly, that it produced an exclusion of the means of education —elementary and moral—or, where those means were accessible, rendered the children unable to profit by them owing to excessive fatigue. These were good reasons for interference. They were not based on any economic grounds connected with the production of wealth, but they were reasons suggested by the physical evils attendant on the persons thus employed for those protracted periods. It was a question which called for interference, and we have seen that that interference has been attended with advantage. A law was proposed by the then Government in 1833; that law was carried generally with the assent of Parliament, and it has produced good and wholesome effects in its operations. When we see such results produced, and when we see that interference has been attended with advantage, how can we refuse to consent to the general principle of interference? I say, that seeing that the principle has been beneficially carried into effect, I am rather encouraged than deterred by the experience that is before me. With respect to the introduction of that part of the Bill which interferes with adult labour, I own I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State has made a greater advance in showing sufficient reasons for the introduction of that part of the Bill than he did on a former occasion. I have already said, and reflection has the more confirmed my opinion on that point, that it would have been the best course to have introduced a Bill which would not apply to labour beyond the age of eighteen or of twenty-one years. I think that twenty-one years of age would be the better limit. With this principle, coupled with the proposition of my noble Friend the Member for Dorsetshire, of first eleven hours and afterwards ten hours, as the period of labour, I think that such a measure would be a better proposition than interfering with adult labour, for I think that every adult person ought to be free to choose his occupation, and to apply his labour as he might think best. The right hon. Gentleman has stated, that some evil has been produced by legislation with respect to children, and that in mills where they do not employ young persons for longer than twelve hours, they have introduced the labour of women. Any evils that may have arisen ought to be remedied, and it should be the effect of a measure of this kind to apply a remedy. With respect to the whole of this subject the hon. Member for Bath divides all who support the proposition of my noble Friend the Member for Dorsetshire, into two classes—namely, hon. Gentlemen opposite who, he says, are much annoyed at the interference of the hon. Member for Stock-port in the agricultural districts, and those on this side of the House who, discontented in the cold shade of Opposition, think that the supporting of a proposition of that kind might embarrass Her Majesty's Government. Now, I think it would be much better if the hon. Member would not interfere in this manner. If he can give any good reasons why our vote was wrong, let him—if he can show that adult labour ought to be left free, and that great evil has been produced in the country by legislation on this subject, let him so argue; but the hon. Member, not content with supposing that he possesses all the wisdom and purity of the House, calls in question the motives that induce us to pursue the course we have taken on this question, and denies political integrity to everybody but himself. Now, without thinking it necessary to take any pains to vindicate myself, and those who act with me, on this occasion, I must say, that I really think that the hon. Member for Bath, in dealing out censures of this kind, is assuming a situation in this House which, perhaps, he is hardly entitled to assume. We may have been exceedingly mistaken in voting for my noble Friend (Lord Ashley's) proposition — my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield thinks that we are—but what I have heard since I gave that vote induces me to think that we were not so very wrong, particularly as only a few nights ago I heard the hon. Member for Stockport declare that the time which was at present given by la- bourers in factories was unreasonable. Now I am sure if the time employed is unreasonable in its duration, there was nothing wrong or irrational in my noble Friend's attempting to alter that unreasonable time. I have heard it said, that if the Corn Laws were altogether repealed, the consequence would be that, as the labouring people themselves declare, they would not remain in the factories longer than ten hours, or twelve hours at the utmost. If this was the case, the ten hours' labour would not produce the same quantity of manufactured articles, and an enhanced price would be the consequence of that state of things; but without going the length of such a proposition as I have stated before, I think that a very large alteration of the Corn Laws, by which an increased quantity of food would be brought into the country, would promote the interests of the manufacturing operatives, and the general prosperity of the country. I think, however, if at once we took away the Corn Laws, it would be doubtful whether the consequences would follow of a reduction from twelve to ten hours labour, I doubt whether the anxiety of parents to send their children to earn more wages would not lead to greater employment than now takes place. At all events, having heard those opinions, I cannot think that my noble Friend will make an unreasonable proposition by proposing a Ten hours' Bill. I cannot vote for the proposition of the hon. Member for Bath, having already stated that I thought the best law would be one that would limit the interference to the period of twenty-one years of age.

said, the right hon. Baronet had said that by the present law women had been placed in a worse position than they had been before without a law—that the House must now interfere directly, because they had before interfered indirectly —that in spite of Adam Smith, and the broad principle that capital and labour should be left to take care of themselves, interference was necessary in order to correct the evils that were growing up around us. The House had been told that they must adopt a new and bold principle of legislation, that they must lay violent hands upon the whole adult population of the country, and instruct them what was their real interest. The noble Lord, the Member for London, said, that when he interfered he wished to see his way clearly. He wished also to see his way clearly, but that was exactly what he could not do if he followed the noble Lord in this case, for he did not think the noble Lord himself could tell where his own principles would leave him. He did not think that the new-principle of intervention was proved to be right or necessary. Although a case might be made out to a certain extent for interference in the case of children, he was not sure that all the principles of the Act of 1833 had worked to the interest of those it was intended to benefit. There were complaints from the factory inspectors that the first effect of it had been to throw 10,000 children into infinitely worse employment, and that many of them went into the Coal Mines, until the time came when the law allowed them to return to the factory. The Act of 1833 was passed when the House and the country were under the influence of one of the most extraordinary delusions that had existed in this country since the days of Titus Oates, produced by the partial, one-sided, evidence given before Mr. Sadler's Committee. The noble Lord (Lord Ashley) seemed to have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing, since 1832, for his argument in favour of a Ten hours Clause rested upon a revival of all the horrors which had poisoned the mind of the country in that year. But the whole tenor of the evidence of the Factory Commission, and the Factory Inspectors went to show how utterly unfounded were the statements of 1832. The noble Lord, however, revived all the charges then made. His speech was a speech against the manufacturing system of this country. If his statements were accurate, why not go along with the hon. Members for Oldham, and Knaresborough, and come down at once to eight hours labour. The question could not be dealt with upon such grounds. The noble Lord must admit, that some of his charges had been recently proved to be entirely unfounded. He had made several strong allegations against the system, as affecting married women. Now, there had been prepared, with the greatest care, a statement, the result of an inquiry into the condition of no less than 412 factories in Lancashire, and Yorkshire; and it appeared that out of 116,000 persons employed in those factories 61,000 were females, and of them only 10,000 were married women. The noble Lord had said, that out of 22,000 factory operatives, who turned out in 1832, only 108 were above the age of forty. Of the 10,000 married women, the husbands of 5,000 were employed in the same factories as their wives; and 3,400 more of them were accounted for, as being employed in other works connected with the cotton manufacture. The noble Lord had alleged that ill health arose from the excessive fatigue, privation of sleep, and constant standing in one position; and the noble Lord also dwelt much upon the frequent accidents. Now, the paper, to which be had just referred, proved that the number of accidents occurring in factories was greatly below those which occurred in almost any other branch of industry. The last charge of the noble Lord was, that a preference was given to the employing of married women, for the reason which appeared to him (Mr. Ward) to be very unfair and invidious. The noble Lord said, that the reason why married women were preferred, was not, that the labour was more suitable for them—not because they were willing to work for less wages than men—but it was because their attachment to their offspring compelled them to use their utmost exertions in order to provide the necessaries of life for them; and the noble Lord went on to say, that thus were the peculiar virtues of the female character perverted, and all that was most beautiful and tender in their nature made an instrument of their sufferings; and then the noble Lord appealed to the House, and asked if Parliament would impose upon the women of England the perpetuation of such a burthen? But here lay the fallacy of the noble Lord's whole argument. He seemed to presume that Parliament had a choice in this matter. It was a peculiar error of the noble Lord, and of those who supported him, to assume that it depended upon the House of Commons whether married females should be employed or not. Their employment, and the necessity of it, were subject to other more controlling causes. But with respect to the condition of females in factories, he (Mr. Ward) believed that women employed in factories were better off, as regarded wages, comforts, and morals, than those employed in any other labouring occupation. The noble Lord, the Member for Newark, whose authority could not be disputed, went over the mill of Mr. Ashton, at Hyde, and was occupied the whole day in inspecting the operations going on, and on his leaving the mill he said, "Well, Mr. Ashton, I cannot conceive what Lord Ashley is driving at in wishing to interfere with such a system as this." It was well known that those labourers who had come into the manufacturing towns from the agricultural districts had declared that they would rather be transported than go hack into the agricultural districts again. These were strong indications that there was nothing so very vicious in the system as to call upon the Legislature to interfere. A strong case ought undoubtedly to be made out before any such interference met the sanction of the House. He had never listened to a speech with more curiosity in his life than he had done to the speech of the noble Lord, the Member for Sunder-land (Lord Howick). Although all the other speeches in favour of this Measure had failed to convince him that the proposition of interference was wise, still he felt perfectly satisfied, that when he should have heard the noble Lord, he should see his way so clearly as to have no difficulty whatever on his mind upon the subject. Now he had heard the noble Lord, and he confessed, that after listening attentively to all the noble Lord had said, it appeared to him that the noble Lord had made that darker, "which was dark enough before." It was his own inability, no doubt; but he really could not comprehend the noble Lord's principles at all. This being so, ought he (Mr. Ward) to assent to the proposition upon the mere chance of its success? The House could not venture to chance it. The question had in several parts of the country been put to the working people — "Were they willing to chance the Measure?" This might be all well enough for the boys and girls, in the factory districts, but it would not do for the fathers and mothers, who were responsible for the support of their children, still less was it a principle to be acted upon by the British House of Commons. The right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had laid down most admirably the principles upon which the House could concur with the Gentlemen who called upon them to interfere with labour, and the principles upon which they could not. On the questions of education, and of religion, and of police, there could be no difference of opinion. That these things should be properly attended to, all were agreed. The only question on which any difference arose was, whether they could improve the condition of the working man by restricting his hours of labour? All parties went together up to that point. It seemed to him most singularly cruel, and the most unwise experiment that ever suggested itself to the mind of a practical Statesman. The hon. Gentleman concluded by reminding those who supported this Measure, that the document upon which they were most inclined to rely did not always bear out the view of the case which they were supposed to be in favour of. The noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, had quoted several cases which had been given in a report by Mr. Horner, the Factory Inspector. Now, Mr. Horner was a very able man, and certainly sufficiently qualified, by his station and intelligence, to give an opinion upon this important subject. And what was it that Mr. Horner said? In his report of 1837 he observed, that—

"He had in the discharge of his functions as a Commissioner of Inquiry, and an Inspector of Factories, during the course of the last three years, visited as great a number of factories as perhaps any individual had done. Having done this, he deemed it an act of public duty and justice, considering the relation in which he stood to the millowners, and the references so constantly made to his district, to give a most unqualified denial to those general accusations that were made as to the deprivation of health that characterised factory employment. He felt himself the more urgently called upon to express this, his firm conviction, at the present time, because he found that statements which had been recently made on different occasions were calculated to make a great impression on the public mind, and had been giving fresh currency to a very erroneous impression as to factory labour fostering prejudices that were most unjust against a large and respectable portion of the community."

Mr. Horner also stated he was satisfied that "no unprejudiced observer could come to any other conclusion, that in no occupation could there possibly exist among the working people a larger proportion of well fed, well clothed, healthy, and cheerful-looking people." It had been argued that those who supported the noble Lord in his Measure for suppressing female labour in coal mines were pledged to the principle of the present Bill; but that was a fallacy. He supported the noble Lord in that Measure, because it was proved that female labour in coal mines gave rise to conduct of the grossest indecency, and immorality. He put it down as an offence against decency. It was not an interference with adult labour, but, in the case of the employing females in factories, there was no instance of decency being violated or immorality encouraged. The hon. Gentleman concluded by declaring it to be his intention to support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Bath.

said, that as the hon. Member for Sheffield had thrown out some direct charges against him, of having made misstatements to the House (as we understood the noble Lord to say, but the very indistinct tone in which his Lordship spoke throughout his speech, prevented us from hearing much that he said)—the hon. Member having made these charges against him, it was absolutely and indispensably necessary that he should endeavour to reply to the hon. Gentleman, or at any rate to substantiate the statement he (Lord Ashley) made on the 15th of March last. It was not his intention to have troubled the House at all this evening, and most assuredly he should not travel into that other subject, which had been reserved for a single and subsequent debate. He thought it would be far more fit that the great question of the limitation of the hours of labour should be discussed upon the coming on of the Motion of which he had given notice. He hoped that in the few observations he should make he should not be betrayed into any angry language, notwithstanding that both in the House and out of it, terms considerably offensive had been used against him. He would not, however, be provoked by any such language into an intemperate reply. He thought the question was one of too mighty an importance to be interfered with by the petty and miserable personalities and imputations of motives that might have been indulged in. He would first reply to that part of the hon. Member's speech in which he asserted that his (Lord Ashley's) whole statement was made entirely to depend upon the evidence taken in 1832. Now, it so happened that in the whole of that statement he only once made reference to the evidence of 1832. The only testimony that he adduced in the statement was, that all the great medical men of the country, who deposed to the great leading fact, which wag true under all circumstances, and at all times—as true a hundred years ago as now, and would be as true a hundred years hence as at this moment; namely, that the physical organization of woman wholly disqualified her for long protracted labour, and particularly in a standing position. That was the only statement he quoted from the evidence taken in 1832. The hon. Member had quoted the evidence taken in 1833, which had been taken from the report of the Factory Commissioners, who sent out persons to collect testimony against the evidence produced before the House in 1832. But what did these Commissioners themselves say? In the 25th page of their Report of 1833, they stated that the peculiar and immediate effects of factory labour were fatigue and sleepiness, and that all the children who were questioned were uniform in the statement of their own feelings as to these effects. This was the result under all circumstances. Whether the factories enjoyed pure air or impure air, whether they were under the best or under the worst management, whatever might be the nature of the work, whether light or laborious, whether the treatment was kind and conciliatory, or strict and harsh—the account from the children was invariably the same. This excessive fatigue and privation of sleep produced pain in various parts of the body, swelling of the feet, &c, all arising from the constant attention, the peculiar attitudes of the body, and the peculiar motions of the limbs which were required in factory-labour. These facts were borne testimony to by the most eminent medical men, and these were the facts which he (Lord Ashley) quoted to the House; observing that the peculiar attitude of the body, the peculiar motion of the limbs, together with the elevated temperature and the impure atmosphere in which the labour was often carried on, terminated in producing incurable disease. This was the testimony of the Commissioners in 1833. They recommended that for all children under thirteen years of age only eight hours labour should be admitted, and that not more than ten hours labour should be allowed to children beyond thirteen and not above eighteen years of age. It was necessary that he should reply to two or three statements which had been circulated throughout the House and the country, and more particularly to a document which purported to be a memorial presented to the Members of the House of Commons, in the name of 200 firms extensively engaged in the cotton, wool, and similar trades, and to be signed by Mr. Henry Ashworth. He had communicated to Mr. Ashworth in writing that if the facts contained in that memo- rial were true, which so directly contradicted all that he had asserted in the House, it would he utterly impossible for him ever again to rise in the House and , make a statement, or have any right to expect the least attention or confidence from those who heard him. This memorial, signed by Mr. Ashworth, contained two or; three very important allegations. It first contained a direct denial of the statement which he (Lord Ashley) made as to the distances travelled by the children, and the next point it touched upon was as to the source of the evidence adduced by him. The third charge, and the most grievous one was, that he had misquoted a foreign writer—M. Villermé—who had written on the subject of employment in mills and factories. When he first read this memorial, he wrote to Mr. Ashworth, and proposed to him as a means of verifying the statement he (Lord Ashley) had made respecting the distance travelled by children in factories, that Mr. Ashworth and Mr. Greg should meet two gentlemen manufacturers of great experience—the hon. Member for Oldham and Mr. Ken-worthy—and that they, assisted by two operative spinners, should remeasure the ground by the same process which was made use of on the original admeasurement. Those Gentlemen declined that proposition. They suggested a variety of other ways, which it was absolutely impossible to adopt. In short, they were exceedingly unwilling, under all the circumstances, that the remeasurement should be made by that process. They declined that proposition, and he could only say that he had reconsidered the matter with the eminent mathematician who made the original calculation, and that Gentleman asserted most decidedly that he would maintain to the last every Measure he had made; but over and above all, he (Lord Ashley) had a greater confirmation still, for he had the testimony of thirty-Tour delegates of the operative spinners of twenty-one of the greatest manufacturing towns in Lancashire. Those persons met, and took the whole matter into consideration, and made a Report thereon, in which they not only confirm all that he (Lord Ashley) had ventured to assert, but in many instances greatly exceeded it. He had received many kind letters from different master-manufacturers, all differing as to the amount of distance, but in every instance they went very consider- ably beyond any calculation laid down by Mr. Ashworth. But there was a great fallacy running through Mr. Ashworth's statement, which he was the more anxious to show, as the charges made against him were couched in no measured terms. The fallacy consisted in this:—he (Lord Ashley), in his calculation, took the movements of the "piecers," whereas Mr. Ashworth took the movements of the " spinners." It was well known that the "piecers" on an average took two steps for every one step taken by the " spinners." This he would maintain upon the authority of the thirty-four operative spinners, who were ready to give evidence of the fact, either at the Bar of the House or before a select Committee. Nothing could give them more satisfaction than to meet a representative body of the master mill-owners, for the purpose of bringing to a conclusion this question. It appeared that in order to make out the number of miles walked by the "piecers," the average of all the hands in the factory had been taken, which was obviously unfair, as he wished only to show the number of miles passed over by the "piecers." Where there were self-acting mules he believed that the number of miles was greater than in other mills. His statement had been drawn from certain mills, not the mills of his Friends but his opponents, and it was by those calculations he stood. The averages he had given were 22, 24, 30, 19, and 21. With respect to the number of females occupied in mills, there was a tabular statement which had been put out by the millowners. From 412 cotton-mills in Manchester and neighbourhood—

Why was this taken from so small a surface when there were at least 2,000 mills? But the House would observe that his (Lord Ashley's) statement was drawn from the official Reports in 1839, namely— that the number of females in all the cotton-mills formed 56¼ per cent. of the whole body of operatives in that department. He had also stated the return of Mr. Orrell's mill in Stockport, in 1843, to show that numbers were increasing—

The statement of mill-owners omitted altogether the

He would like to know whether, in the selection of these 412, all the weaving mills were included or excluded, because in those was the great proportion of females. His statement as to the age of the persons above forty, was partly taken from a Letter of Mr. Ashworth himself, written in 1833, where he talked of an old man as unfit for work at forty, and the number of men above forty he found by the Table to be only 8 per cent., whilst, in some agricultural districts with which he had made a comparison, the number above forty years of age exceeded 50 per cent. A charge also was intended to be made against him when it was said that 95,643 were able to read out of 116,000: he had relied on Mr. Horner's Report, and he had been told by many on the spot, that many had said they could read, but were never examined, and when rebuked by his fellow workmen, one said, " I did not like to say I could not read." To very few was the test applied. As to the charge not only of want of accuracy, but in some instances of want of veracity, he must say a few words in the statement of Mr. Ashworth, and he attached greater importance to it, as it professed to represent 200 firms, there was a charge made against his veracity. Talking of the debate of March 15, it was said—

"We have before us the important fact that the only one of Lord Ashley's witnesses mentioned by name in the report of the debate was thoroughly discredited, and finally abandoned by the noble Lord himself. * * * We cannot tell how many of them (his statements) were furnished by William Dodd."

The House would recollect, after his disclaimer in that House of any degree of information derived from William Dodd, that Mr. Ashworth and the 200 master manufacturers asserted that he mentioned the name of Dodd as the only authority. It did so happen that he never did mention the name of Dodd; and he had counted the names of those from whom he did derive the information he quoted, and they amounted to twenty-nine, besides reports of public inspectors and public documents. This was the way in which these Gentlemen published documents, circulated among Members; and impugned in the most outrageous manner, he would not say a Member of the House, but an individual who had endeavoured most cautiously not to say anything that could not be substantiated. Here was a charge also of garbling evidence in the most monstrous manner, which was really too bad. He thought he should be able to show that his accusers had garbled in a more fearful manner. The statement cautioned the House how it trusted any statement from him, because they showed "from the use, or rather abuse, that has been made of a foreign statistician, how little reliance can be placed on the anonymous collections of pretended facts at home." They went on to say—

"The speech attributed to the noble Lord quotes the authority of M. Villermé", to prove the tendency of the cotton manufacture ' to produce coughs and pulmonary consumptions and early death.' So far is M. Villermé" from making this statement, or anything like it, that he strongly asserts the direct contrary. He does, indeed, attribute such a tendency to one branch of the manufactures as practice in France—the process of batting cotton; but the practice has been disused in England for more that twenty years; and M. Villermé himself states that the mechanical invention by which batting has been superseded, wherever he has found it, completely obviates the evil."

M. Villermé, spoke of carding as well as batting; he added too that numerous as were the victims of these diseases, "leading to their premature death, they seemed less deplorable than the development of scrofula in the mass of the work people engaged in the manufacturing districts." What, he asked, did they continue to say? "M. Villermé deprecates legislative interference with the factory labour, as of injurious tendency to the working classes." He had gone through the whole book, and he had only found one passage against interference, that had only been in part quoted in the statement. M. Villermé said that "he saw no good in establishising a maximum of labour, as coupled with a minimum of wages," the last part dropped out of the statement. In his conclusion M. Villermé urged the necessity of putting the large factories under some government or law, to determine the maximum of labour for children, so as to prevent abuses.

"My task is at last finished; if I have been enabled to impart my opinions—above all, if I have been enabled to convince my readers of the urgent necessity of putting the large collective manufactories under a system of government, or under a law which should determine a maximum of daily toil for the chil- dren, according to their age, and so prevent the abuse, carried even to the sacrifice, of these unfortunate creatures, I should have nothing further to desire. There is no doubt that twelve years ago the Measure in question would have been rejected by everybody as a species of madness; but look at the progress it has made! In foreign countries Governments are adopting it; at home manufacturers are asking for it, even against their own interests; and the Chamber have thought themselves obliged to press upon the notice of Ministers the Petitions praying for it. It will be with this reform as it was in the last century with the abolition of torture, and as it is in these days with the emancipation of the negroes. In France public opinion is taking up the question, though only three years have elapsed since it was first mooted, and the Measure which I desire will be sooner or later the result. But we must not be content with waiting for it; we must hasten it by all possible efforts."

Yet he was told that he had taken a liberty with the confidence of the House in his former statement. Again he was charged with painting the fac ory system in colours which were not a true description. It would be recollected that the statement he had made was drawn from evidence on the spot, and from masters who were more conversant with the matter than he was. He could turn to a passage in the letter of a Gentleman who must be a good authority, a letter from Mr. Kenworthy, who was partner in the great house of Hornby and Kenworthy, than whom no one was so capable of forming an opinion, for he had been himself an operative, and had gone through all the degrees till he had risen to the station of a partner. He (Lord Ashley) had never said anything so strong as did that Gentleman—

"Englishmen are proverbially industrious —they cannot live in a state of idleness, yet occupation is wanted by a great number of hands, who are willing and able to work; and this state of things exists, too, in the face of the lamentations of suffering thousands, who cry out with all their voice for relief and relaxation from excessive and too greatly prolonged labour in the anxious and contaminating atmosphere of our manufactories. Let the British nation be degraded no longer by the toleration of such a system, which exercises the most demoralizing influence over its unhappy victims. Let us release from our confined mills and factories, after a reasonable period of labour, the suffering thousands who are rendered weak and emaciated by long and excessive toil, in atmospheres loaded with noxious gases, which experience has demonstrated to be the most detrimental to the health of the human species. How abominably absurd and inconsistent it is that the suffering thousands, who have so often called and patiently waited for the redress of their grievances, should have their miseries protracted, under the delusive notion of the dangers arising from foreign competition Justice and humanity call aloud for a legislative act to remedy the evils of the long hour system. I entreat all those who are interested (and who is not?) to give every consideration to a subject of such vital importance to the welfare of this country, and to lend an active and energetic helping hand, to snatch from the vortex of disease, immorality and crime, in which they are engulphed, the major part of the manufacturing artizans—the wealth of Great Britain."

If they charged him with exaggeration, they must charge Mr. Kenworthy also; and if they did not, let them not attribute these expressions to aristocratic or agricultural antipathy, and let him at least be exonerated from the charge of dishonest and wilful exaggeration. Let the hon. Member who charged him with exaggeration read the various reports at the different meetings which had taken place in the country, and the evidence afforded in the speeches of the Rev. D. Hearne, the Roman Catholic Priest at Manchester, who could not have any sympathy with him, and of Robert Sutcliffe:—

"It was moved by the Rev. D. Hearne, Roman Catholic Priest, of Manchester, at a meeting at Manchester, April 19, 1844, That this meeting is fully convinced that if it was made known to Her Majesty the Queen, that two-thirds, and in very many instances, three-fourths of the factory workers are females (many of them wives and mothers), she would use her Royal influence for, and sympathise with them. The great majority of them were persons of her own sex and many of them mothers. He was no new recruit in the cause of the factory children, for a dozen years ago he advocated it in company with Mr. Oastler; this, too, was not the first time in which he had united with the Clergy of the Established Church in the cause of humanity and charity, to whose sincerity he paid a well merited tribute. When he reflected upon his situation in the town—that a whole mass of his people were operatives; and when he reflected how often he had held the tiny bones and flabby flesh of their infants on the font—he felt he should be acting against the suggestions of conscience not to stand forward in defence of the cause of factory children and factory women."

And Robert Sutcliffe, an operative, at a meeting at Halifax, on the 13th April, 1844, said—

"With regard to their own families, he would say, as the father of several daughters, that Lord Ashley's Bill was well worth struggling for alone. If they did not wish their daughters to grow op completely unfit for every domestic duty which, as wives and mothers, they would be called on in after life to discharge, they must insist on a curtailment of the present excessive and protractive toil they endured in the factories. He had daughters at work in the factory—they were required to get up at five in the morning, and they did not get home till eight in the evening, and they were then in such a state of exhaustion, both of body and mind, they were altogether unfit to learn anything of household economy. If they had a little sewing to do, in mending their clothes, they no sooner sat down than they began to nod, and sank to sleep, in spite of all their efforts to keep themselves awake. Mr. Baines said that factory labour, particularly in the flax and woollen mills, was not unhealthy; that was not the fact. He was in the habit of meeting hundreds of the operatives in the flax mills at Holbeck, and they were more like walking corpses than young women. The contrast between them and country girls was so great, that the two seemed to be inhabitants of different climates."

He could assure the House that he was perfectly aware that he was trespassing on their indulgence; but he hoped the House would do him the justice to recollect that it was not his intention to make a speech, and though the subject was of great interest to him he had determined not to say a word; but where the veracity of a public man was called in question, unless he could justify himself, he might as well abandon his seat at once, and retire from Parliament. He only asked the House to hear the evidence corroborative of his statement. He was sorry that any hon. Gentleman should have accused him of speaking against the millowners; he had spoken of them as men having done the greatest good, the humanity of some of them for their workpeople could not be surpassed; some of them were the best friends he had in the world, and he could quote amongst them instances of munificence which could hardly be equalled in our generation; but there were exceptions in every position, and he had carefully drawn the distinction. He had stated that he had been borne out by the statements at these meetings; was there a more distinguished surgeon than Mr. Samuel Smith? He had declared that he would abide by all the evidence given before Mr. Sadler's Committee. At Blackburne, Mr. Langley, a surgeon, had confirmed his statement of the evil effects of the system on the physical condition of the people; and at a great meeting at Bolton who was the Chairman, Mr. J. Moor, a surgeon of forty years' practice, who stated that unless something was done, the race would go on degenerating till it would be absolutely deformed. A meeting of millowners and manufacturers had taken place, and the first resolution they adopted was in these words—

"That the hours of working now customary for women and young persons in the mills in this place and its neighbourhood are not oppressive to the work people, nor injurious to their health."

Mr. Smith at the Leeds meeting, on the 10th of April, in reference to this, said—

"First of all he would say, that these Gentlemen were not at all competent to give an opinion on that question. He himself had been sent for by Mr. Sadler, to give his opinion before that Commission, and he gave it in simple plain language founded on intimate personal knowledge, and a very extended experience. It was known to many of those present at that meeting, that he had been, for upwards of a quarter of a century, one of the principal Surgeons of the Leeds Infirmary. He had seen the practice of that Institution nearly thirty-seven years, and long before the factory question was agitated either by Mr. Oastler or Mr. Sadler, he had felt very keenly, indeed, upon the subject. Every case of the injurious effects of factory labour which came under his attention, he had made it his peculiar business most minutely to investigate. The evils were actually worse than they had been represented by Mr. Sadler. As a practical man, he had long been accustomed to see the injurious effects produced by the protracted labour of young persons in factories; he therefore begged again most positively to contradict the resolution which had been come to by the mill-owners to whom he had alluded. He was ready to stake his professional reputation upon this point, and to declare, that they had stated what was not the fact. He knew that twelve hours' work in a standing position in factories was positively injurious to any young persons, and more particularly to females. Let those persons who gave their opinion so readily that twelve hours factory labour daily was not injurious to females and young children, in an erect posture, without a sofa to lie down upon, or a chair to rest on, but constantly following the machine; let them try their own daughters upon such labour, and after six weeks' trial he would be bound to abide by their opinion on the subject.

Mr. J. B. Langley, the surgeon, at a meeting at Blackburn, 22nd of April, 1844, said, the mind, the intelligence, of the working classes never could be pro- properly developed under the present system of long hours; that system not only debased the mental aud moral character of the people, but exercised a most injurious effect upon their physical condition. Scrofula was extensively prevalent, and he had been horror-struck to find how few factory families were without some burthen. In most instances there was some member of a family of an age to work, but who was unable, and consequently dependent on others. The system, as now pursued, was most destructive to children and injurious to mothers. Was it right that such a system should continue? Mr. John Moor, surgeon, at a meeting at Bolton, April 18, 1844, stated,

"Unless something was done to improve the condition of the factory workers, the rising generations in the manufacturing districts would be debilitated more than the present, and so generation would go on until the human species would be everything but extinguished. As a medical man, of forty years standing in the town of Bolton, he had no hesitation in making this declaration. The ravages which, in his capacity of surgeon, he had witnessed from scrofula and other diseases, consequent upon confinement to the mills had been so disastrous, that he did not hesitate to say, that if the system of confinement in the mills for so long a period each day was continued much longer, there would be but few engaged in factory labour who would escape deformity. In many cases which came under his own knowledge, inflammation of the feet and legs ensued, which had to be followed by amputation. From these and many other considerations, he was decidedly of opinion that ten hours labour in factories was even more than cold be endured without injury to the human constitution."

One other of his statements, and it was the last to which he would allude, had been called in question. He had made it on the authority of a medical man in Lancashire, that long protracted labour had a most injurious effect, especially in cases of pregnancy, that varicose veins had formed and bursting, ended in death. One witness had since mentioned a case within his own knowledge analogous to the one he had quoted in his opening:—

"John Tomlinson, an operative, at a meeting at Blackburn, April 22, 1844, seconded the Resolution, and stated a striking fact, as bearing upon the twelve hour system. It was but the other day that an over looker rushed into the room in which he was working, in the last hour of the factory day, announcing that something had happened. On going to see what was the matter, he found that a married woman, advanced in pregnancy, was bleeding profusely in consequence of a blood vessel in one of her legs bursting, and a pool of blood was on the floor of the room. He had assisted in carrying this poor woman home, and he could not help thinking, that if she had not stood the last hour of the twelve, that accident which might possibly disable her for life, would not have occurred."

He would content himself with having adduced the evidence in support of his statements. He certainly would not enter into the merits of the question as to the amount of interference with the labour of adults; he gave his cordial and conscientious support to the Clause in the Bill. He was not answerable for the principle, because he had not propounded it; but having said that all he had formerly stated had been borne out at these different meetings in the country, he had only to thank the House for the attention with which they had heard him, and declare that he should vote against the amendment.

said, that the question raised by the hon. and learned Member for Bath was a question of principle, being a question whether the House would or would not interfere with the discretion of adult persons in the regulation of their own labour, and to that question, and that question only, should he address himself. Painful as it was for him to differ in his Vote from those with whom he usually acted, and painful as it was for him to differ from their reasons, he must say he never gave a Vote with a clearer conscience than the Vote he was about to give in favour of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Bath. The House would hereafter come to the Vote on that which had been treated as a question of detail, namely, the number of hours during which labour should be regulated. On that occasion he should have very little difficulty in making up his mind, for he thought that if it should be the pleasure of the House to affirm the principle of interfering with labour, then the best thing that he could do would be to see that it was interfered with as little as possible. What had been the grounds taken by the hon. Gentlemen who had supported the opposite course? The right hon. Secretary of State told the House, that the course he was proposing was wrong in principle. The noble Lord the Member for London was against regulating labour above the age of twenty-one. His noble Friend the Mem- ber for Sunderland (Lord Howick), though he voted in consistency with himself, which was more than could he said of the others, yet when he came to carry his principles into practice, would probably find he had some little difficulty to encounter. Let it be remembered that the Government were now departing from principle for the first time. What a door were they opening! They admitted they had abandoned principle, and that they had nothing to guide them but the caprices (for such they seemed) of hon. Members with respect to what should be the number of hours of labour. The Government thought they should be twelve. The hon. Member for Leeds said eleven. The hon. Member for the West Riding would have ten and a half. The noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire, said ten, and he (Mr. C. Wood) had even heard eight mentioned, and why the House should prefer one period rather than another he could not make out. The right hon. the Secretary for the Home Department and the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had stated that this measure was necessary in consequence of the measure of 1833, which regulated the labour of children; but in his (Mr. C. Wood's) apprehension that Measure depended on a totally different principle—the principle of protecting those who could not protect themselves. On that principle he was prepared to act again; had they interfered with the factory labour of children, why not carry the principle further? He could not see why a number of children collected together in a large building called a pottery was not as much to be protected against an injurious amount of labour as a number of children collected together in a large building called a cotton factory. To be consistent, hon. Gentlemen should bring in a Bill, not to regulate factory labour, but to regulate the labour of children generally. What had been the effect of the Act of 1833? To drive children from more healthy to less healthy employments, and if they had brought about this end by their legislation as to children, was it not reasonable to suppose that if they passed this Bill they would produce the same effect with regard to adult females. The right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham) had told them that the Bill of 1833 was meant not only to restrict the labour of children, but all factory labour to twelve hours per day; but that the intention of the Bill had been evaded by substituting the labour of adult females for that of children, and thus working for a longer time. Hence the necessity for the present Bill to prevent that evasion, and to enforce the limitation of all factory labour to twelve hours, by limiting to that time the labour of grown-up women. This was a statement of the object of the Bill of 1833, which he believed the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), and his friends near him, heard with surprise, but, however that might be, if the object of the present Bill was as stated by the right hon. Baronet, that was to says if it was intended by it to limit the hours of labour in factories generally, let the House do it, not indirectly in this way, but by stopping the machinery at once; then they would be sure that there could be no mistake or evasion of the Law. That was what the workmen in fact wanted; what they asked for was, not the limitation of the hours of labour of women and children, but the limitation of labour generally. So said the Member for Knaresborough, and the vicar of Leeds who took the chair at a meeting in that town a short time ago, openly avowed that. "We want to stop the mills," he said. He for one objected to the course of the Government altogether; he adhered to the principle of Adam Smith, believing it to be most unjust and most injurious to the workman to interfere with his discretion as to the management of his own labour; he (Mr. C. Wood) was not of opinion that legislation ought to do for him what, if he liked, he could do for himself. The hon. Member for Finsbury had observed, and he agreed with him, that the workman, without any legislative interference, might effect all this for himself. He had heard of many strikes for wages, but seldom, if ever, of a strike for short hours. The workmen of Sheffield had by peaceable means, without any strike, or violence, limited their hours of work: he believed the result would be most mischievous to them: but they had accomplished this object for themselves and other workmen might do as much elsewhere. Before he sat down, he owed it to the House to refer to a statement he made on a former occasion to the House, in which statement he had been accused of misrepresenting a large portion of his constituents. The hon. Member for Knaresborough had alluded to a large meeting of his (Mr. C. Wood's) constituents at Halifax ["No, no"] —he begged pardon, then it was the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fielden), who had attended there, and had put questions to the meeting. Now, he would at once frankly admit that the opinions of the persons there assembled was in favour of a limitation to ten hours. But what was his statement to the House? What he said was, that up to that time he had received no representations from his constituents in favour of a limitation to ten hours. In fact, he had received no representations at all on the subject of a Ten Hours Bill, either one way or the other. The question put to the meeting was, whether any person had made any representations to him against a Ten Hours Bill. The fact, as he had stated it, remained, un-contradicted, and any man would judge from this, that there was no strong feeling in favour of a Ten Hours Bill. He believed that such a Measure would tend materially to deteriorate the physical condition of the operative; that it would not conduce to the improvement of his moral or religious condition, or raise the value of that which had been called the working man's most sacred property— his labour. He was ready, however, to remove all the restrictions on the employment of labour which our general legislation imposed. He would give the fullest development to the industry of the country. When they had done that, they would have done all they could; when they had done that he should be as ready as the noble Lord (Lord Ashley) to take care to provide for the religious instruction, for the education, for the recreation and amusement of the operatives, and for such Measures as would prevent their habitations being, as now, a source of disease and misery. For these grievances, and all of them, he (Mr. C. Wood) was ready to apply a remedy, but he did not see how any man who looked at the present position of the people could think their condition would be improved by shortening the hours of labour, and thus diminishing the amount of their earnings, as proposed by this Bill.

I hope I shall be permitted to address the House for a short time on a matter personal to myself. In the course of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Bath, I took the liberty of dissenting from some of his observations, when the hon. and learned Gentleman observed I was always intolerant. Now, as I never expressed an opinion on this subject, except by vote, I do not think I stand under the imputation of being intolerant. I think in discussing a Measure of this great importance, we should not bandy personal charges, but, viewing it in a calm and deliberate manner, come to that conclusion which was the most just. The House cheered the remark of the hon. Gentleman, and I now wish to know whether he really did intend to charge me with intolerance? I shall oppose the present Motion, having received instructions from the working men in the town which I represent to give the twelve hours Clause a most decided opposition. As to the benefit of legislative interference, I appeal not only to factory inspectors, but I say that those who have lived like myself, in manufacturing districts, have seen that legislative regulations did no harm to the masters, and were a great blessing to the poor. One consequence of it alone was enough to justify it—the superior cleanliness and ventilation of the mills. The factory inspectors reported, too, that before the Legislature took it up there was no instance of the slightest regard being paid to the education of the children. All the people ask is, that the Government should go on in the same direction, wisely and judiciously. I, for one, think that eleven hours would give the greatest satisfaction to the men, and not inflict the slightest injury on the masters. In 1832, the very arguments now urged against interference were appealed to, and one master manufacturer said he should go to the other side of the water if such a Bill as that proposed passed. Yet all those predictions of decline of trade were utterly unfounded.

could only say, that whilst he was speaking there was a running commentary kept up behind him, which he was anxious to put a stop to; but if he used the word complained of, as applied to the hon. Gentleman, he was sorry for it. He certainly had intended to designate a class of Members in that House as considering themselves infallible, and as not very tolerant towards others.

I was present in this House when the hon. Member for Halifax made a most extraordinary statement. I went to a meeting at Halifax, for the purpose of testing its accuracy. These were the words I used at the meeting:—

"The hon. Gentleman said in his place, that the working men of Halifax were opposed to altering the hours of labour, except under the belief that the diminished time of labour would not lead to diminished wages; and that he had not received from any body of his constituents, or from any individual, any representation on the subject, or any request in favour of short time."

These were the words which the hon. Gentleman uttered on a former occasion, but which I do not think he gave quite accurately to-night. Now, I put those words to the meeting, which was as full as it could be packed, and which was composed of several of the wealthier classes in Halifax, and of a great number of working men. I asked them,—

"Did Mr. Wood fairly represent you when he made this statement [cries of 'No, no']?" I beg to repeat another question, "Do you wish the Ten Hours Factory Bill should be passed without delay [cries of 'Yes, yes']?" Then I put a third question, "Are you willing to run the risk of wages being reduced if a Ten Hours Bill pass [loud cries of 'We are'" Then I put this fourth question, "Do you authorise me to state this to the House of Commons [Yes, yes]?"

That is my answer to the representations made as to the feeling of the working men of Halifax. Having done here what I stated I intended to do, I have done with the subject. I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman has as kind feelings towards the working classes as any man; but I do not believe he fairly represented their views in the statement he made in this House, and if he will go to Halifax and call a meeting in the Odd Fellows-hall, and take the sense of the people on this subject, I am convinced he will be as persuaded that he did not give a true representation of their sentiments as I am. Now, as to the question before the House. The hon. and learned Member for Bath has made a motion which amounts to this, that the principle which said that poor women in factories should not be worked more than twelve hours a day was a bad one. Oh, but said the hon. and learned Gentleman, "these factory labourers have the power of protecting themselves if they will only turn out." Now, do you wish for a repetition of the turns-out in Yorkshire and Lancashire. If some of you had been in that part of the country as I was during those scenes, you would not so readily recommend a recurrence to them, nor would you have felt very comfortable when Manchester was, I may say, in the hands of the insurgents, and they might have done what they pleased there. It is not wise to encourage such turns-out. The hon. and learned Gentleman says, that all protection is injurious. Now, I do not believe any such thing. At any rate, I have always looked upon it as the duty of the Legislature to protect the weak against the strong, and that is the protection I contend for. Though it may be difficult to enforce, we should never be deterred from it where practicable. All acknowledge it is practicable as to factory labour. Then why not put it in force? Your inspectors recommend it. It is true the mill-owners complain of them. I should prefer not being subjected to their visits myself; but the condition on which we hold our liberties is to give up some that we may better secure the remainder. The hon. and learned Member for Bath says, we do a great injury to the labourer by interfering with him at all. And this from one of the most zealous supporters of the New Poor Law. Before that Bill passed the poor had a stake in the land of which you could not deprive them—no man in England need starve in the land of his birth. But the hon. and learned Gentleman and the other supporters of that Bill clamoured for the principle " that the poor should be thrown on their own resources." That is a specimen of his protection. The hon. and learned Gentleman, as a lawyer, can talk glibly, of course; but if the arguments he gave us against interference be all he can produce, he had much better mind his business in the Courts of Law. The hon. and learned Gentleman says, he does not think prices will rise if we do less. I do not think he knows anything about the matter. However, I was informed at the Halifax meeting that for seven hours and a half, in Leeds, they got more wages than they did formerly. The working people have got it into their heads (whether rightly or wrongly) that they work too hard and produce too much, and that, if they did less, manufacturers would get better prices, and workmen better wages. There was a feeling abroad in favour of a diminution of labour, and it was reasonable that the factory workpeople should have the advantage of the limitation to ten hours a day. He believed that those who employed them and those who did the work would be better off and happier, if that step were taken.

said, that a more anti-national speech than that of the hon. Member for Oldham he had never heard. The hon. Member wanted to divide the trade of this country, and. place a part of it in the hands of foreigners. He believed it was a known fact with reference to the trade of Sheffield that the combinations which had taken place in that town for short hours of work and high wages had driven a large and valuable portion of the trade of Sheffield entirely out of this country, and sent it into the hands of the German manufacturers. He had been engaged in the foreign trade himself, and he was convinced that no trade in England had suffered more than that of Sheffield from the cause he had stated. If, from various causes of that sort, it was sought to secure higher prices in the shape of wages than could fairly be given—the demand and supply regulating each other, as they ought to do—then he would say that they would not only have the hardware trade of Sheffield placed in jeopardy, but the cotton trade as well. He was not prepared to take any such course; he was not prepared by such rash legislation to risk interests so vast as were involved in the trade of this country. It was his intention to vote with the hon. Member for Bath. Nothing ought to guide them as to a restriction of the hours of labour. He could not vote with those who would affirm that it was right and just to interfere with adult labour in this country. He would just as soon think of the Legislature naming an hour of the day when a man's hand, should be tied up, as that they should interfere in any way with the present laws of labour. There were not more than four or five manufactories in Manchester working more than twelve hours a-day. He did not wish to see the labouring population working for a longer period; he should be glad indeed if they could obtain sufficient in ten hours, but he was sure they could not in the present state of things, he must enter his protest against interfering with the laws of adult labour.

said, that as the town which he represented (Sheffield) had been so frequently alluded to, he would only address a word or two to the House. He was one of those who took his stand upon the law passed in 1824, that a man had a perfect right to use his labour as he pleased, to make the best of it whenever opportunities occurred. It appeared to him that the interference with adult labour, commenced for the first time this Session, was fraught with great danger. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Old- ham; he felt that if the course of legislation which he suggested was adopted, there would be an end to the prosperity of this country, for we should soon find ourselves in a declining position. He felt it was the duty of persons representing large and important districts of the country, as he did, to take their stand at once upon a plain and intelligible principle, and not to talk of ten hours, or eight, or six, but to say that with the adult labour of this country, the Legislature had no business to interfere. The working class had a distinct right to use their labour as they pleased, and whatever number of hours they chose to work, Parliament had no right to attempt a limitation. With respect to the other question, if they once admitted the right of interference, it then became a question of degree, and his course would be to vote for the least possible interference with adult labour that the House would permit; but he would still take his stand upon the principle that the House had no right whatever to interfere in any way. As to the infant labour, that was a different matter. It was quite discretionary whether they would fix the period at which labour should begin , that would depend on circumstances which were fair matters of discretion, and which might be dealt with without interfering with the principle.

The House divided on the Question that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—Ayes 282; Noes 76; Majority 205.

House went into Committee and resumed. Committee to sit again.

House adjourned a quarter past one o'clock.