moved, that a new writ be issued for the borough of Launceston, to elect a Member to Parliament in the room of Sir H. Hardinge, who had been elected Governor General of India.

before the writ issued, wished to ask the right hon. Baronet if the acceptance of the office of Governor General of India vacated a member's seat, as such did not, in his mind, sufficiently appear from the terms of the Act of Parliament upon that subject?

had referred to the Act about a week ago, and was of opinion that by it such an appointment vacated a member's seat.

said, that the Governor Generalship was not an office under the Crown, and hence the difficulty. The seat would, of course, however, be vacated by the length of absence.

thought there was another question involved in the matter, as the right hon. Baronet could not be said to be Governor General till he was sworn into the office at Calcutta.

New writ ordered.

said that, in consequence of the answer which he had received from the hon. Member for Rochdale on a previous night, he had communicated further on the subject which he had then alluded to with the gentlemen who complained of having had their names falsely attached to a Petition, and he had requested them to forward their statement of the grievance which they complained of. That statement set forth that a Petition had been presented to the House, purporting to be from the town of Bridport, complaining of the grievances of the people, and praying that the supplies for the Army and Navy might not be granted till these were redressed. It contained a request that the signatures might be communicated to them, that they might be compared with their own, and it stated that the sentiments contained in the Petition were totally opposed to theirs. This statement was signed with the names of Mr. Stroud, Mr. Roberts, and others, who were among his principal supporters. It would be casting a reflection on these parties if it was not known that the Petition really came from other persons, and that they themselves did not agree with its sentiments. He thought it his duty to bring this matter before the House, as he had been requested by those concerned to do so.

said, that he was now in a better condition to give the hon. Member information on the subject than when he last questioned him with regard to it. The letter which he then held in his hand was from a gentleman of the name of Northmore, who wrote from the report which he had seen of the proceedings in the House upon a former occasion. He wrote that he was the person who got up and forwarded the Petition; that he witnessed the greater number of signatures; but that a person was employed to carry about the petition, who was not then in the borough. But he wished to be informed what the names were which were attached without the knowledge of the parties to the Petition, and he would make every inquiry in his power upon the subject, although, as far as his knowledge went, he was not aware of any names being signed to the petition without the authority of the parties. He would give the names of the gentlemen, that further inquiries might be instituted, as he was most anxious that the circumstances under which this petition was presented by him should be fully investigated.

wished to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it was his intention to originate any Measure upon the Report of the Commissioners who visited Wales last year, and if so, when he intended bringing it before the House.

said, that he had already mentioned his intention upon that subject. The bill was then in an advanced stale of preparation. The right hon. Baronet, in answer to the question of an hon. Member, stated, that the provisions of the Bill which he contemplated would in the first instance only extend to six or seven counties, and that if it was found to answer it would afterwards be made a general Measure.

intimated, that in consequence of what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet, he would postpone the further consideration of his Lime Bill for the present.

wished to take up the time of the House only for one moment on a matter of a personal nature. He found himself so sharply attacked in the newspapers of this day for a supposed crime of which it had been said he was guilty—if, indeed, it could be considered a crime, and not a virtue, to retract an erroneous opinion —that he must take this opportunity of saying a few words for the purpose of setting himself right with the House and the public. In the Times of to-day he had been asked if he could be possibly aware of the baseness of his conduct? And the Morning Herald said, that he had not only made shipwreck of his own character, but that of his party. [Loud laughter.] It was all very well for hon. Gentlemen to laugh, but these newspapers exercised a considerable influence upon the public mind, and certainly these were rather hard words to apply to a Member of this House, who had given a perfectly conscientious and independent vote. He wished to take this opportunity of repeating what he stated at the outset of the observations he made to the House on Friday last. He stated that during the whole of the discussion which took place previously upon this subject he was absent from the House, and that never on any former occasion did he by vote or language afford any person the slightest encouragement to suppose that he gave any support to the proposition for a ten hours' Bill.

The Order of the Day was then read, on which

said, that if he had not been fully aware that there were other Members of far more importance than himself who wished to address the House, he would not on his own account have desired an adjournment. Nor was it his intention, after the full discussion which the subject before them had already undergone, to trespass at any length on the indulgence of the House, and he was the less disposed to do so from his conviction, that the subject would come again and again under the notice of the House, till the principle contended for by his noble Friend's Motion should prevail. The question was one on which men were apt to be excited in proportion to the interest which they took in it. Under such excitement, he had on a former evening used language rather disrespectful to the Government, and particularly so to the right hon. Baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, which in a more cool moment he would not have used, and for which he now tendered his ample apology. He could not go so far, however, as the hon. Member for Nottinghamshire, in making concessions, and there was one phrase he had used in the course of a former discussion, which ought not to be retracted. He had then said, "that the opponents of his noble Friend's Motion must be responsible for the national guilt of the unrestricted factory system." That phrase had been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, the late President of the Board of Trade, who observed, that if that were so, we had already been guilty of a national sin in not having done long before what his noble Friend's Motion now called on the House to do; but that observation just left the question as it found it. It had been his lot to live much abroad, converse with politicians of various countries on the subject of our trade and commerce, and though he could not exactly wish with the poet,—

"Oh! would some power the giftie gie us,

To see oursel's as ithers see us".

Yet we ought not wholly to disregard the light in which we were viewed by foreigners, and should not entirely leave out of our consideration the estimation in which other nations held our factory system. Could it be a matter of surprise that other countries should regard our factory system in a somewhat similar light to that in which we regarded negro slavery in America? Let the House recollect what was said by one of our poets, Cowper, when speaking of the means by which some branches of our commerce were carried out in his day. He spoke of men, who

"—disclaiming all regard

For mercy and the common rights of men,

Build factories with blood, conducting trade

At the sword's point, and dyeing the white robe

Of innocent commercial justice red."

The reproach which the Slave Trade of that day cast on our national character, had since happily been removed by the abolition of slavery. It was curious to look back at the debates of that day, and to find that arguments similar to those now used against the Motion of his noble Friend, were at that time urged with equal warmth to put it beyond all doubt, that the abolition of the Slave Trade would be a death-blow to some of our most important commercial interests. Similar arguments were now urged against an abridgment of the labour of young women and children in our factories. Those arguments would, he firmly believed, be found equally fallacious in the present time as in that former period to which he referred. He would not believe that the Legislature which had voted 20,000,000l. of the public money collected from an over-taxed people to procure the abolition of Slavery in our colonies, and in doing so risked the security of our most important West-India interests, in order to remove a scandal from the English name, would eventually hesitate to abolish every trace of slavery in our domestic institutions. The expenditure of those 20,000,000l. for so worthy a purpose was a noble use of riches. It had been truly said, that "riches are strength as they are food, they are the means of procuring both," What was the distinction between the slave and the free man? In the case of the slave his time was his master's—his wife left her family to work for her master—the children were taken away to work; slavery might be said to consist in one man holding his life at the will of another. But what was life? It was the living hour. It was the power of receiving religious, intellectual, and moral improvement. This constituted the chief distinction between the freeman and the slave. The free labourer ought to be free in some other sense, than to be free to starve, or free to break the law if he chose to take the risk of punishment. It became the Legislature, then, to remove the evils which the factory system presented to the improvement of the freeman with as much zeal and earnestness as they had shown in removing slavery. His noble Friend had brought this question forward; because it was impossible that, by any other means education could be given to the children and young persons in factories. They might do all they could to give education and recreation; but under the present system in factories, the young could derive no benefit from such gifts, for they had no time for improvement. Unless that objection were got over nothing would be done for the young in our factories. It had been said, with a sort of triumphant air, on a former evening, that the evils now complained of with respect to factories were not necessarily inherent in them, for that persons were employed in factories in other countries, where the hours of labour were the same or even greater, and no such complaints were made. Had either of those right hon. Baronets, who referred to the establishment at Lowell, in New England, read the whole of Mr. Godley's letters, instead of a garbled passage, the House would have found that they had drawn most erroneous conclusions from them. Mr. Godley, after referring to the system at Lowell, went on to say,—

"At the same time, when the example of Lowell is quoted to show that the evils which have in Europe universally attended the manufacturing system are not inevitable in it, I cannot admit it to be at all conclusive. The experiment has been tried under eminently favourable circumstances, and in a country where the working class has advantages unknown elsewhere; nor can I conceive that when it shall be fully peopled, when the wages of labour shall have fallen, and when the manufacturing shall come to bear an important numerical proportion to the agricultural population, the favourable contrast which the New England factories now present to those of England, France, and Germany can continue. At present the factories are supplied by perpetual emigration from the agricultural districts; farmers' children come in from the surrounding states, spend three or four years here, accumulate a small capital, and go off to marry, settle, or embark in other pursuits, leaving their places to be supplied by a fresh influx of healthy rural blood."

This statement would show that the comparison made by the right hon. Baronet as to our system, and the Fourteen Hours' System at Lowell did not at all hold good in their most important points. Another case had been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control—the case of St. Gall, in Switzerland, where doubtless every festival of the Church was preserved, and where, no doubt, did take place that second Sunday, which the right hon. Baronet regarded with so much horror, but which he (Mr. Milnes) would be glad to see established. He could, indeed, fancy the right hon. Gentleman standing up in the National Convention some fifty years ago, and using the self same arguments as he had now done, in favour of abolishing the Christian Sabbath, and taking the tenth day instead. He considered that his noble Friend had made out an à priori case; the advantages of his recommendations were undeniable, and no one but the hon. Baronet, the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) had deemed the factories a perfect Arcadia, or had thought it would not be an advantage if the purposes of his noble Friend could be carried out. Supposing they could give young persons time for education, to the women time for domestic employment, and even if the adults could have more leisure without injury, no one doubted the advantage. They were met, however, on the there should with the declaration that they had better not interfere. That objection had been cleared away by the enormous majority of that House. He was happy to think that that question would never again be started in that House, and though as a simple crotchet, many able men might entertain it, yet that the House, as a body, had given to it a formal, a distinct, and a practical negative. It was of great advantage to have this doubt cleared away, by the right hon. Baronet himself introducing into his Bill a Clause limiting the labour of the young people to ten hours, although, by a peculiar kind of ingenuity, what advantage in the hours of labour he gave to the young people he took out of the children, who now worked only six and a-half hours a day. It was also said, "why interfere here when you do not elsewhere?" His answer was, because here they had the power; and because they had the power, they had also the responsibility; where they could do any thing which they refused to do, to improve the moral condition of the people, they incurred great moral responsibility by the refusal. All legislation was in fact interference. Was not the stopping of the Arts Union the other day an interference with free labour? Was not the very violent, but he admitted, very proper interference of the police with the gaming houses at the West End the other evening, an interference with the free employment of capital? But, "oh," said the right hon. Baronet, "you will spoil the cha- racter which distinguishes Englishmen by interfering." Now, notwithstanding this independence of character, it was these very Englishmen who came and asked for protection. The question was not whether they should step in voluntarily, but whether they should refuse to step in when called upon to enter? It was not the strong and safe swimmer who called upon them to come to the rescue, hut it was the appeal of drowning men. He had heard much of the diminution of wages, which would be the consequence of this diminution of time; but the noble Lord, the Member for Sunderland, had so satisfactorily answered that objection, that there was little left to say. He would only tell the House that one of the largest firms existing in England—if he mentioned the name it would meet with universal respect — had expressed their conviction that if this Bill passed, and they could work their machinery for sixteen hours, by relays of workmen of eight hours each, they would be enabled to make the same profits, and give as much wages for eight hours' work as they did now for twelve. If he compared this declaration with Mr. Senior's statement, he believed it not only to be possible, but probable. Some years ago the workmen laboured for sixteen hours for the same amount of wages as they now earned in twelve. There might be some panic at first. The manufacturers might at first be unwilling to pay the same amount of wages when the time was reduced, but he believed they would do so in the end, and the labourers were themselves willing to chance it, as they called the risk of the reduction of wages. If he had studied political economy at all, he knew of how much importance it was to ascertain the limits of the subject, and that there were some questions to which its doctrines were inapplicable. If a reduction of two hours took place, it would he of little use to the labourers, if means were not devised by which they might spend them profitably; and he was confident that the great and generous manufacturers of the country— such men as the Marshalls, the Greggs, the Ash worths — would find means of making the change profitable to them. The importance of the foreign market had been dwelt upon, but from the improvements which were every day taking place in machinery, and the facilities which were afforded for its exportation, it seems improbable that England can retain all the old markets of the world. Let them not for a feather weight, as the hon. Gentleman for Clitheroe called it, preserve a system which, by the medical evidence, was deteriorating the physical condition, and which prevented the moral improvement of the people. Every day machinery was approaching to simpler forms. The improvements were such and so rapid, that our manufacturers could hardly keep pace with them, and probably the time was not far distant, when some chymical preparation would be substituted for the use of coals. The common sense of the country felt that some change must be accomplished in order that we should maintain ourselves in the position which we now held. He was quite ready to acknowledge that no effort should be spared to preserve to us the enjoyment of our manufacturing ascendency; the more especially did he feel the force of this, when he recollected the probability of our being rivalled in every branch of our machinery. With the application of chymistry and of voltaic electricity, every form and variety of scientific improvement must come into full play, and this would become the more easy to foreigners as they now were at liberty to import machinery from this country. If it were true, therefore, as Colonel Torrens said, that our prosperity was owing to an Englishman producing more than any other man in a given time, they might regard their manufacturing superiority as at an end, and they must seek other means of keeping themselves in advance of the rest of the world. If the Government thought the peril so great and immediate, why did they not take off the duty on raw cotton? The Government had placed themselves in a wrong position before the country with regard to this measure. They were accused of inhumanity, and want of feeling towards the working classes; but how much was this at variance with the great provisions of the present Bill. By taking a different course, they might have avoided placing themselves in such a position. If they had placed the issue on the efficiency of their own Bill, and had said if that did not succeed they would try what others had proposed, they might have maintained their opinion as resolutely, without exciting the feeling of the people, who now understood protection to the factory worker as equivalent only to a ten hours Bill, and a ten hours Bill they declared they would have. Petitions had been presented to that House against such a measure by 360 masters. What must be the feelings of the workmen, who consider ten hours as their protection, towards those 360 masters who petitioned against them? It was in vain for the Government to declare they had gone far enough, and would not go any further. It would have been better for them to have done nothing at all, or to have withdrawn the Factory Bill altogether. But they knew the necessity for having this Factory Bill; they knew that all the assertions about non-interference were unmeaning and vague, and that a Factory Bill was as necessary for the country as any Bill which could be brought before the House. Believing confidently, therefore, in the successful result of this measure, then or at some future period, and agreeing with the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland that the people of England had never determined to have any great measure of a social or political nature which they did not ultimately gain, he hailed this Bill as the harbinger of a better system of legislation than had hitherto prevailed. He hailed that fusion of party which they then witnessed as something better than the binding of hon. Members for the purpose of misrepresenting their opponents. He saw banded together on that occasion a large body of men, who were more regardful of the social interests of the people than of any political consequences. He did believe that that Bill would lead to many important results. He did believe that if, on the question of the Corn Laws, it was distinctly made out that the repeal of those laws would be for the benefit of the mass of the people, the Corn Laws would be repealed. He be-believed that that and all other great social questions which came before them would have a better chance of coming within the domain of argument, and that the people would repose in that House such confidence as had never been reposed in it since the time of the Reform Bill. There was one other subject upon which he would touch very lightly, on account of its delicacy. Some hon. Members had declared their intention of voting that night differently from what they had voted on other occasions. He was not going to make himself their censor; but he implored them to remember that in the opinion of the whole country, they would for the future be marked men, and that the factory question would henceforth be regarded in connexion with their names. The right hon. Baronet at the head of Her Majesty's Government had told them that before three months passed away all those hon. Members who upbraided the Queen's Ministers for their obstinacy would then admire their firmness and applaud their consistency. For his part, he believed that, on the other hand, the Government themselves would view, with still more respect than ever that degree of approbation which they hoped to attract to themselves, the conduct of those Members of that House who held fast to their purposes and maintained their principles. Such a line of conduct was greatly to be preferred to the course pursued by those who, for the mere sake of saving Her Majesty's Ministers from a temporary inconvenience, were about to act contrary to their judgment, who were to stay away from the decision, or register their votes against the proposal of his noble Friend which they formerly supported.

observed, that the hon. Gentleman who last addressed the House had resorted to a most convenient mode of settling this vexata questio. The hon. Member had not presented to them any fresh or original reasonings; but after availing himself of all the usual arguments, the hon. Gentleman assumed that an à priori case had been made out by the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire. He told the House, that if the object which he had in view could be practically accomplished—if it could be effected without any diminution of the national wealth, then it was to be regarded as a matter in the highest degree desirable. Why, that was a truism which they all admitted. Throughout the whole of his speech the hon. Member opposite appeared to be begging the question for the purpose of making out the case of the noble Lord. But the question which they were really called upon to decide, was this —would they, or would they not, aggravate the evils, which afflicted every class connected with manufactures, by carrying out the project now under the consideration of the House? This question the hon. Member had shrunk from. He had found it more convenient to assume, that he, and those who thought with him, must be right, because the House of Commons had been surprised into affirming the proposition for which they contended. But it should not be forgotten, that there was scarcely a proposition of any kind which the House had not affirmed. He should like to know what they had not voted? The House of Commons had affirmed, not thirty years ago, that a one pound note and a shilling were worth 27s., but did this make them worth it? In the reign of George III. they settled the wages of tailors by Act of Parliament, They affirmed then, that in ordinary times, the wages of a tailor ought to be 2s. 3½d., and in times of public mourning, 5s. 7d. Now, he should like to know upon what principle it was declared that 2s. 3½d. should be the amount in the one case and 5s. 7d. in the other? In neither case was the law carried out, for, within twelve months, it was laughed at by all parties. The hon. Member who last addressed them, appeared to justify the advice which he gave, on the ground that the House possessed the power to do what he recommended. But ought they not first to ascertain whether they had the right, before they proceeded to exercise the power? It had been said that political economy was a very ill-used science—no one seemed to know its proper limits. That was an assertion, in which he agreed, for he could hardly conceive greater outrages upon that unfortunate science, than had been perpetrated in that House, in the course of the present discussion. He would not follow the hon. Member, who had preceded him, into details. The House was tired of them, and he had hoped that the discussion might have been ended in a single night. He thought that such a result would have proved alike satisfactory to those whom he opposed, and to those in whose views he happened to concur; but since it was otherwise, he must be pardoned for replying to some of the many remarks which had been addressed to him personally, on the preceding evening, though he had not been much affected by censure proceeding from Gentlemen, who had themselves laid down such very incomprehensible doctrines. His hon. Friend the Member for Weymouth, for example, had complained that the question now before the House had been treated in too philosophical, and too theoretical, a spirit. The hon. Member said, that human beings were not like chessmen, to be moved from one side of the board to the other, as suited politicians. That reproach surely did not apply to those who objected to all interference. The hon. Member for Birmingham also objected to the speculative character of the discussion, and told the House, as his deliberate opinion, that the whole foreign trade of England was not worth having. That surely was a strange declaration to come from the representative of a manufacturing town, two-thirds of the produce of which was dependent upon foreigners for a market. The hon. Mem- ber for Nottinghamshire said, that he hated tall chimnies, and political economy; but would give his support to the Government Measure, because, having had time to reflect, and grow sober, he felt convinced, that the Government was right, and that he had been wrong, originally, in opposing it. Now, the difference between the hon. Member, and those who thought with him (Mr. Ward), was this, that they had reflected before they voted, while the hon. Member for Nottingham gave three votes before he reflected at all, and was deservedly ashamed of himself afterwards But even now that hon. Member was obviously unacquainted with his own case. He was one of those happy persons who were born with silver spoons in their mouths. He had had nothing to do but to sit with his arms folded while the long chimnies which he hated went on doubling his fortune, by the application of the principles of that very science which he still affected to despise. Hon. Members talked of theory. What was theory? Colonel Thompson said, that theory told a man not to run his head against a post, because it was the hardest of the two: but if he doubted the theory he had only to reduce it to practice, in order to get a convincing illustration of its truth. It was well that they should understand the theory before they tried the practice, and the larger the experiment the more need was there that the theory should be sound; and this was why he would not take for gospel everything which the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire said. He did not fear innovation of any kind; he was not one of those who thought so much of the wisdom of his ancestors, that he was unwilling to do anything for himself, lest he should happen to run counter to the ideas entertained 200 years ago. On the contrary, he advocated the largest and boldest change, and went much farther than either his hon. Friend, the Member for Weymouth, or the noble Lord, in his support of them, for he did not allow private interest to stand in the way of his conceptions of public good. His hon. Friend had told him, last night, that the economists, as he was pleased to call them, were all good, kind men, individually, but the most hardhearted, and short-sighted of mortals, as a class. But they were, at all events, sincere. They carried their principles out. They did not stop short in the application of them, just at the point where the interests of the working classes came into col- lision with their own. Why did his hon. Friend refuse to the people of England cheap sugar? Why did the noble Lord refuse them cheap corn? Because these were questions that touched their own class interests, and it was more convenient to fall back upon a ten hours' Bill. But he (Mr. Ward) did not allow private feeling to stand in the way of giving the fullest and fairest consideration to all questions affecting the working classes. He did not like people to use very poetical language about humanity—they would be almost sure to do less than others, by way of practical relief, when their interests came to be affected. He did not like such blind, and blundering, benevolence. He liked to see his way. He did not like people to speak in hieroglyphics, and legislate in the dark, and upon evidence so contradictory that they might prove, and disprove, everything out of the same blue book containing the evidence collected by the Factory Commissioners in 1833. He had accused the noble Lord before of having exaggerated his case, both as to the amount of labour in the factory districts, and its effects. He never meant to impute to him wilful misrepresentation; but he said that, on looking into that book, he had taken that part of the evidence which told most strongly in his own favour, and had overlooked the rest; and it was very natural that he should do so, when all the witnesses gave the most contradictory evidence as to facts. He could explain this by a very natural theory, and that was, that there was hardly anything against which they might not get up a case, if they employed two or three clever medical men and two or three lawyers, and gave them an inkling beforehand of the conclusion at which they were desired to arrive. Every page in the Factory Report was at variance with some other part. Medical men—Sir David Barry and Dr. Loudon —contradicted Dr. Bissett Hawkins;—and Mr. Homer, to whom the noble Lord had appealed, constantly contradicted himself. He was looking the other day at the Sanatory Report, which bears Mr. Chadwick's name, and he found in that Report a case got up against the trade of the tailors quite as strong as that which the noble Lord had represented to the House against factory labour; and this was done upon the authority of a medical man, whose name he (Mr. Ward) was told was an European one, though he (Mr. Ward) confessed he never heard it before,—M. Patissier, who went to the very bottom of the tailor's employment, and who proved that a tailor was a sort of walking concentration of all the evils that a man could be afflicted with. He proved that this trade caused phthisis, emaciation of the lower limbs, a peculiar walk, affections of the eyes, and other affections, all tending infallibly to shorten life. The tailors, when they heard this, were indignant, and Mr. Brownlow, himself a working tailor, contradicted the calumny, and proved that the tailors were exceedingly active, well-grown men,— that they were fond of foot-ball and cricket, and that in one of their strikes they had furnished a large number of fine men for the Guards, and that the only diseases which prevailed among them as a class, arose from habits of intemperance, and impure air. The late Mr. Thackrah, a man of great eminence in the medical profession, had devoted himself to the inquiry of the effect which different trades produced on health, and had given the results of his inquiries into 250 trades; and from that inquiry it appeared that there was not one man in ten who enjoyed the full plenitude of health. Some lived too low, and others too well; some ate too much; some wore themselves out, by over exertion, and some had not exercise enough to preserve health. And then the mind was just as fruitful a source of evil as the body. Anxiety killed as many people as fatigue. Idleness was as dangerous as over-work. Farmers died of apoplexy, Lords and Aldermen of gout. None but the trades of slaughterhouse-men, tallow-melters, nightmen, and other such trades as few people would like, were found to be compatible with perfect health; and a man might die, with Mr. Thackrah's book in his hand, before he could decide how he ought to live. This proved how much they ought to distrust the evidence relating to the effect of factory labour, which had been adduced. It was possible always to get up a case against any employment; and they ought not to disgust men with labour by dwelling too much on the evils to which all kinds of labour were subject. Unfortunately, in this country, labour was the condition of life even with women and children, as well as men. They might improve and mitigate the system by indirect legislation, but it must be more by measures in the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer than by a ten hours' Bill—more by altering and improving the fiscal system, than by dealing with its effects; for nothing was so preposterous and hopeless, as to attempt a remedy for existing evils, by dealing simply with the consequences of the system by which those evils were produced. They must compare factory labour with other labour, in order to judge of its effects. And he challenged this comparison. He affirmed, that factory labourers were better paid and better treated than the great majority of labourers at other employments in this country. They had heard the noble Lord the Member for Sunder-land quote Adam Smith's axiom, that labour was the patrimony of working men, and that they had no right to interfere in its adjustment without being well satisfied that there was a necessity for such interference. He called on the House to consider well before it pronounced that a sufficient plea for such interference had been made out. When the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire asked for interference in the case of factory labourers, had he inquired into the case of female nailors, employed at Sedgley, and Birmingham, of whom his own Commissioners had said, that they learned, at eighteen, to curse, swear, drink, and smoke, like the young men with whom they worked; that morality was a thing unknown amongst them; in fact, "they had no morals at all."? Look at the lace-making by hand in Nottinghamshire, and Bucks. In Bucks children of four or five years old were crowded, in the winter evenings, into cottages with three or four candles burning and no fire, learning their trade, and obtaining warmth from mere animal heat. Look at the weavers in Bethnal-green and Spital-fields; look at the condition of the maids of all work in London and elsewhere, every one of whom worked fourteen hours a-day, every day in the week. Look at the white slaves, as they had been justly called, of the London dress-makers, and the unfortunate creatures who were driven either from thence into the service of the slop-sellers to seek their bread. The responsibility on them to interfere in these cases was just the same as to interfere in the case of factory labourers. Unfortunately there were many cases where protection was more wanted than in the case of the factory labourers, but, in order to effect this fully, assuming it to be practicable, they must have a spy in every house, as the right hon. Baronet, the head of Her Majesty's Government, had told them, the other night. They only attempted to interfere in this case because they had great masses of labourers under their grasp. The hon. Member for Liskeard had said, that they ought to put an end to female labour—that there were other occupations, for which females were better fitted by nature. No doubt female labour was a bad thing, but it was part of a bad system, and only a proof that the system was bad. The only remedy was, by adopting those Measures, which the hon. Member for Liskeard had once advocated, in common with himself — by encouraging emigration, and by cheapening food; but there could be no more fatal mistake than to think that they could improve the condition of the labourer by adding to the restrictions which their system already imposed upon him. He had ventured to call this blind, and blundering benevolence, and it would be certain to produce results which those who recommended it did not seem to have the slightest idea of. The noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire had, the other night, for the first time, attempted to treat this as a practical, and not merely as a moral question. He had dealt for the first time with what he called "the commercial question," and how had he dealt with it? He was sorry that the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire was not in his place; but he saw that many of the noble Lord's supporters were present. He saw the hon. Member for the West Riding of York in his seat, and the noble Lord, the Member for Liverpool, and he would put it even to them to say, whether anything could be more short-sighted than the way in which the noble Lord had treated this as a commercial question? He had reasoned as if there were none but factory labourers in the world. He admitted that there would be a fall in the rate of profits and wages, and as to the increase in the cost of production, the noble Lord gave them his way, in which he thought this would be made up. He told them there would be an immediate decrease in the wear and tear of the machinery employed—that less coal, and oil, and tallow would be consumed, and that there would be fewer repairs. But did the noble Lord see the consequences of this? If they used ten hours coal instead of twelve, that was a decrease of one-sixth of the whole amount of coal consumed. Would this help to make up the difference which existed between the coal-owners and the coal-miners in the north? Would there be any prospect of the coal-owners being able to pay additional wages to their men, with one-sixth less demand for what they produce? The same reduction would extend to every thing consumed in the factories, oil, tallow, gas, dye stuffs, cotton, leather, flour, wool. There would be less wanted—less imported—less sold. There would be less shipping required—fewer Bailors—fewer wholesale and retail dealers —fewer machine-makers, and porters, and clerks. The proposed interference of the noble Lord was like a circle in the water, the effect of which was constantly spreading. The noble Lord had not ventured to allude to any one of these consequences which would follow his proposal. They extended to every ramification of their commerce; every business man would find himself touched by this Measure in a manner that he very little, expected, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be left at the end of a year or two to show them the result. The noble Lord had said that the notion that the labourer was to have twelve hours wages for ten hours work had never entered into his head, and he had never heard that this was intended or expected; but he (Mr. Ward) was persuaded that this was the expectation of every factory labourer. He had perused every one of those numerous reports of factory meetings which had taken place, and at not one of them had this question been fairly put to the operatives. They had been asked if they were ready to run the risk—to chance it? but there was not one of the meetings from which it might not have been inferred, from the arguments of all the principal speakers, that there was no fear at all of their wages being reduced. The clergy had held that language; Dr. Hook, of Leeds, had drawn the picture of a perfect Arcadia as the result of this Measure among the factory labourers, and the only man who had ventured to tell the truth on this subject and to use sober language was Mr. Hornby, the Rector of Bury. The letter, which he had written on this subject was a most sensible, and practical one. Mr. Hornby said, in excuse for not attending the meeting:—

"Nobody is more friendly, or wishes better to the population engaged in the mills than I do, and I should be very sincerely glad, on many accounts, to see the hours of work brought down to ten hours, so that more time could be given to those, who would be willing to make a good use of it, for purposes of comfort, and improvement, at home. But every question had two sides, which should be equally, and fully, considered. In the present case, the question was, how far the good which, would arise from shortened hours of labour, would be balanced by the loss of a certain proportion of wages, which would be lowered in consequence? That there would be this loss, I feel no doubt; and I would have the people in the mills consider this well, and ask themselves whether they are willing to take the gain they ask for at the price they will have to pay? I am no good judge of the effect which this measure, if carried, would have upon the prosperity of the nation. Most likely truth lies between the opinion of those who think it would be ruinous, and those who hold the very opposite notion. One thing, however, is certain, that if it proved hurtful to the nation, it would be so likewise to the individual; and that the workman would not, in the long run, profit by what the master was a loser in In a question in which there is so much doubt, I should be unwilling to take a part, which might lead to the harm, rather than the real gain, of numbers of people for whom I feel so strong and honest an interest as I do for the classes who work in the mills of this place; and this feeling would, independently of any other consideration, have prevented me from taking any share in the objects of this evening's meeting."

He called that sober and considerate language, which did honour both to those persons to whom it was addressed, and to him who wrote it. In the course of the fortnight's agitation on this question, this was the only instance in which the truth had been fairly, and calmly, stated to those, who had been called on to give a decision. [Lord Sandon: At Huddersfield the question was fairly debated on both sides.] He thought the noble Lord would find that the general language held by the speakers at these meetings was so encouraging, and led so directly to the belief, that wages must rise after the first two, or three, months, that it was hardly possible for any working man to entertain any other idea if he framed his conclusions from what he heard. He believed that the general feeling was, as stated by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, that the working men in every trade were, at the present moment, uniformly convinced that if they worked less, they would get more; that if what was now cheap and abundant were made scarce, and dear, and the amount of goods were diminished, there would be more competition for them, and the masters would get higher prices, and be able to afford the same wages, while the goods being reduced in bulk, and quantity, the men would have less to do. They left cheapness entirely out of the question, as an element of consumption, and reversed the rule on which they had proceeded for the last 100 years. He believed that the workmen would be the first to suffer from the application of this rule to themselves. They would suffer in the falling off of wages, and suffer from the increased price of things, which they had to buy, and a shock would be given to our foreign trade, to an extent which it was impossible for any one to estimate. He should feel himself culpable in the highest degree if he were to give the slightest encouragement to the proposal of the noble Lord, which he believed to be one of the most dangerous fallacies ever propagated. The hon. Member for Liskeard said, it was easy for them to retrace their steps, if they did wrong; but he believed this to be impossible. It was not always easy to keep a market; but there hardly ever was an instance yet in the commercial world of a market having been recovered when once lost. The noble Lord had said of his own proposition that he was "lighting a candle by it in this country, which could not easily be put out." Fortunately, there was a power in that House that would put an extinguisher on the flame. As to the hope expressed by the hon. Member for Pontefract, that let what would be the decision of the House that night, a time was coming when this question must be carried—he utterly disbelieved it. He thought the House of Commons had been surprised into a most incautious vote, and he did not think it would be so surprised again on this question. He thought the hon. Member for Durham would not have cause again to accuse the Government of not letting their usual supporters know what course they wished them to take. This was the only mistake made by the Government in this affair. Nothing would have been easier for the right hon. Baronet opposite than to to have acquired great popularity by conceding this question, after the vote of the other night, throwing the responsibility of its consequences upon Parliament, and he thought that the Government were acting generously, not tyrannically, as the noble Lord, the Member for Sunderland, had stated, in the course which they took. The Government might have said, as Members on both sides of the House supported this question, they would not stand in the way of the wish of the House, and then, three years hence, they might have come forward, and shown the results of the Measure, and have given the House an useful lesson to pay attention to wiser heads in future. He thought the Government had taken a much more wise, and manly, course, and had, in consequence of that course risen much in the estimation of the country, and had inspired him with a confidence in them which he believed he should never otherwise have felt. He thought that Ministers had taken a perfectly honourable and consistent course. The noble Lord, the Member for Sunder-land, told them that there were cases, in which the Government ought to bow to the opinion of the House; he told the noble Lord that he did not think that this was such a case. He entirely approved of the course which the Government had taken, in saying that they would not assist in carrying out a measure, of which they honestly disapproved. He hoped there was very little doubt as to the result of the division that night. He heard that there were some qualms of conscience—that some Gentlemen felt a natural awkwardness in retracting their votes, and that many who had reflected, and become sober, like the hon. Member for Nottingham, still hesitated to retract. He hoped that hon. Members would vote honestly without reference to past votes. Their arguments had been so much in favour of the opinions he held, that he then should not have the slightest apprehension of the issue. He did not presume to suggest a course to any hon. Member. He wished every one to vote for that, which he considered right, but he did entreat the House to recollect that there never was a question of more importance than this—a question of more vital importance to the working classes, who, he admitted, had but little confidence in the present principles of legislation—who did not see that by improving our fiscal system, we should improve their condition at the same time—who were not aware that by adopting such a course, England might be made the cheapest country in the world to live in, a country where labour might be the best remunerated, and which might be able to run the race with any country in the world, without the slightest fear of competition. He granted that at present he saw very little hope of this. There had been some few symptoms of concession, on that head, in the course of the debate, but little had yet been done to shake the convictions of the majority, or to make them acquiesce in the principles of free-trade, which, he believed, were the only salvation of the working classes. They had held out to the working classes no hope that in the application of their principles of humanity, they would disregard their own private interests. If they had given to the people a reason— the shadow of a reason—to believe that they would look not only to questions affecting their labour, but to questions affecting their food, and to the hardships to which the working man was exposed by those laws which forbade him to exchange his labour freely in the market of the world—if such a hope had been held out he believed that not a working man would be found to care for the ten hours' Bill. For these reasons he should oppose the Motion of the noble Lord. He hoped the result would be that the Motion would be successfully opposed, and defeated; but, whether this were so, or not, he must say that he had never given a vote with a firmer conviction that it was right.

said that, though it might seem a thankless and ungrateful course for him, who thanked Her Majesty' Government for this Bill, which was a great improvement, to take up a position against that Government upon a question of humanity, yet upon this occasion he must support the proposition of the noble Lord. During the Easter recess he had taken the opportunity of accompanying Mr. Horner in a tour through the manufacturing districts, and he had been present when Mr. Horner had put to the operatives the question whether they would prefer ten hours labour with a corresponding reduction in the amount of wages, and he had received the following answers:—One woman, a weaver, whose wages were 11s. 6d. a-week, and who had two children, said she would rather take less wages with ten hours; money got in wage went to the doctor; she thought she should gain a great deal in health and comfort at home, as well as save money, with only ten hours labour. A man, a dresser, with 24s. a-week wages, said no reasonable man could suppose that there would be no loss of wages for less work; he had six children, three of whom did no work; he had talked the matter over with his wife, and they thought they should miss the money at first, but they were quite sure they should gain in other ways. Two brothers, under-carders, with wages of 15s and 17s., said they should greatly prefer ten hours. They did work short time for eighteen months previous to Easter, 1843, and enjoyed better health than at any other time—the last one hour and-a-half of the day was worse than all the rest of the day. Under the short time wages were reduced in proportion, and they found their health better, they could eat coarser food, and did well on it. A manager in that mill, in order to show the effect on wages of legislation, said, "That in 1827 carders' wages were 8s., now they were 9s., and if they were reduced to 8s again, the people would be better off, considering the cheapness of provisions and clothing." A woman who had an aged mother to support out of her earnings, and very little time to attend to her or to do her own washing, said that she should have more time to improve herself and to go to church, which they were all too tired to do now. There were many churches open there for the working people of an evening which they should like to attend. Another man, a weaver, stated that he had suffered a great deal in infirmaries; when he had been in the hospital his house always went to rack and ruin — doctors could only "patch up" factory people—they were ill again in a week or two; he added, that they all wished to try shorter hours, and that none but those who were very ignorant thought they were to have the same wages. As regarded saving, a man who worked twelve hours wanted more food and more stimulating drinks; three meals with ten hours would do more good than six meals with long hours. Those were the answers of the operatives themselves, and he must say he could not but admire the philosophy of those people, which in many points of view exceeded what was often met with in that House. A great number of persons whom he had seen expressed a doubt whether they could stand the diminution of wages consequent upon the reduction of hours, and upon that ground they said they would rather remain as they were, though all allowed that they found the work too severe, and would gladly have the hours shortened. He must confess that he had come back from the factory districts thoroughly impressed with the high intellectual condition of those people. It was curious to observe the desire for knowledge which they exhibited. In other parts it was difficult to keep children at the Sunday schools after they attained the age of twelve or fourteen but in the manufacturing districts there were persons of twenty, twenty-five and frequently thirty years of age remaining in the schools, and even at that period of life showing a great indisposition to become teachers, so highly did they value the instruction which they were themselves receiving. His impression was, that on the part of the majority of the operatives there was a strong feeling that a great necessity existed for some such measure as that proposed by the noble Lord; and he must add that in no case had he met one operative who expected that wages would not fall concurrently with a reduction in the hours of labour. He confessed he was not disposed to give any weight to the argument that if they commenced interference they must go on interfering. It appeared to him that upon that point the noble Lord the Member for London had very fairly stated, that as interference had been found beneficial in this matter, it might be well to extend that interference, and that the point where interference should stop should be that where interference would be likely to produce more evil than good. He could not help thinking that it would be much more satisfactory to the people of this country if the Government could be carried on upon some more certain set of fixed principles than those upon which they appeared at present to act. For a country which gave 20,000,000l. to relieve the slaves in the West Indies, which went further than that, and in the act for the emancipation of the slaves limited the hours of labour— not to ten hours a day—but to forty-five in a week, and which gave the power by a subsequent Clause, in the case of misconduct, to increase the labour by not more than fifteen hours, making in all sixty hours of labour a week — for a country which did that to stop short when its own population was concerned, and to stand out so very strongly when the question was one of mere pecuniary gain, was he thought, most anomalous. He trusted sincerely, that in spite of the many difficulties with which this question was beset,—despite of the strong feeling which has been exhibited by the advocates of either side, the measure of the noble Lord might be carried into effect, not to satisfy party or political purposes merely, but in order to instil into the people of this country a confidence in that House and in the Government, and to carry out those great measures for the improvement of the moral, the physical, and the intellectual condition of the people which were shown by every inquiry that had been made upon the subject to be most imperatively necessary.

should not have intruded upon the House upon this occasion but for some observations of the hon. Member who had just sat down. He was perfectly aware that the hon. Member had, with a praiseworthy desire to ascertain the feelings of the working classes themselves upon this question, taken advantage of the Easter recess to make a personal visit to the manufacturing districts. The results of his observation there the hon. Member had communicated to the House. It was perfectly true that the hon. Gentleman had lately accompanied Mr. Horner in a tour through that Gentleman's district, and that he was with Mr. Horner upon several occasions when the questions to which he had referred were put to the operatives. The hon. Gentleman had stated to the House the nature of the replies which were given to the questions, which had been so put to the operatives by Mr. Horner in his presence and he was willing to give the hon. Member credit for having afforded the fullest and fairest explanation to the House of all the information which he had acquired upon this subject; but he was able to inform the House that with regard to the answers to the questions put by Mr. Horner to the factory operatives, viz., whether they were prepared to accept the proposed reduction in the number of the hours of labour with an equivalent reduction in the amount of their wages, a very great majority of them gave a distinct denial of their willingness to accept any such proposal. The number of operatives to whom this question was put by Mr. Horner was 130. Of the 130, no less than 70 gave it as their opinion that their wages would not bear any reduction, and that consequently they would prefer the present hours of labour to any alteration of those hours which would be accompanied by a reduction in their wages. The hon. Gentleman had very fairly stated, that of the remaining 60 to whom the question was put, and who said that they were prepared to accept a further limitation of the hours of labour, with some diminution of wages, there were many (about 20 he was informed) who stated that the present amount of their wages would not allow them to accept of the limitation of the hours of labour proposed by the noble Lord. Out of the whole 130 operatives, therefore, whose opinions had been taken by Mr. Horner on this subject, there was what he might almost call the insignificant minority of 40 in favour of the Measure of the noble Lord, and the opinions of this minority, therefore, could not fairly be cited as the opinions of the great body of those engaged in factory labour. But it must be remembered, that though the question put to the operatives was, "Are you in favour of a limitation of the hours of labour, which, if carried into effect, will be followed by an equivalent reduction in the amount of your wages?"—and though the answer of some of the operatives might have been that they were prepared to accept such a limitation of hours of labour, and to endure such a reduction of their wages, yet, who would tell him that they might not themselves entertain the opinion which had found advocates in that House —that such a reduction in the amount of wages would not follow a reduction in the hours of labour? He had heard it stated both in that House and out of that House —and he need not go further than the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, or than the hon. Member for Pontefract, who both concurred in the opinion that a limitation of the hours of labour would increase the demand for labour, and who appeared to think that this increased demand for labour would prevent such a reduction of the wages of the operative. He was not of this opinion; but who would tell him that those labourers whose answers had been referred to as favourable to the Measure of the noble Lord, did not look upon the evil of a reduction of wages as a prospective evil, which could not, at least, be expected immediately to fall on them. They might look on this reduction as a remote and doubtful contingency — which they would never be called upon to suffer—and in that belief might have given their answers. Their answers might have been influenced by such opinions. It was quite unnecessary for him to say one word with regard to a reduction of wages being the immediate and necessary consequence of a reduction of the hours of labour. That part of the question had been so fully discussed, and the arguments produced to show that a reduction of wages must be the immediate consequence of the adoption of the Measure proposed by the noble Lord had been altogether so conclusive, that it was not necessary for him to trouble the House further upon this branch of the subject. There was not, indeed, one of the arguments made use of against the noble Lord which had not been admitted by the supporters of the noble Lord as true. The principal arguments against the Clause brought forward by the noble Lord were— first, that a reduction of the hours of labour would reduce the productive power of this country; and, secondly, that it would reduce the wages of the operatives. The noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, who strongly supported the Measure of the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire, had not only admitted this, but had also declared, that with, a reduction of productive power and of wages, there would be a reduction in the amount of the returns for goods sent abroad to the foreign markets. It was true that the noble Lord, when he admitted this, said that the change in this respect would be but slight and unimportant. But what did the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire himself state as his calculation of the probable reduction of the productive power of the country which would result from the adoption of his Measure? Why that noble Lord admitted, that the effect of this Measure would be to reduce by one-eighth the whole productive power of the mills and factories to which, if passed, it would apply. There were several inaccuracies in the noble Lord's data: at all events his calculations were based on the reduction from 69 to 60 hours per week, whereas his own proposal was to reduce the hours of labour to 58 in the week; a weekly reduction of two hours more than that which the noble Lord himself admitted would diminish the productive power by one-eighth. Now the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland had told them that the consequence of this must be an equivalent reduction of our exports, and let the House consider what was the amount of those exports that were thus to be affected as a part of our national resources. The value of goods of this nature exported in 1843 was 35,246,047l., the entire exports of the country being 51,932,000l. Now a reduction of one-eighth, which was the noble Lord's (Lord Ashley) calculation upon this amount, would give a loss of 4,500,000l. or one-twelfth of the whole exports of the country. He thought the House was bound most strenuously to resist a Measure of which its supporters admitted that such would be the result. The noble Lord, the Member for Sunderland had also stated that a reduction in the amount of our imports from abroad, and an increase in the price of foreign commodities would be another consequence of any further limitation of the hours of labour in factories, but upon that subject he would not at present enter; he would content himself with the remark that this rise in the price of articles of foreign produce would take place simultaneously with a reduction of the wages of the operatives, and that it wets not, there- fore, a matter of trivial importance, or one to be lightly considered by the House. Then, as to the reduction in wages, the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland said, he did not believe there would be a reduction to any great amount; but the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire distinctly admitted that the reduction Would amount to one-eighth of the whole amount of wages paid. Taking the number of persons employed in cotton mills, to be 240,000, and calculating the rate of wages paid to the operatives in these mills at 10s. a week per head, the annual amount of the wages so paid, would be found to be at least 6,000,000l., and the effect, therefore, of a Ten Hours Bill would, according to the noble Lord (Lord Ashley) himself, be, to subtract from these operatives annually, the sum of 857,140l. This reduction of wages would have a most detrimental effect upon their comfort; but its effect would not be confined to them, it would extend at once to the shopkeepers, as in the case of Paisley, to the carrying trade, and to the coal trade, and be felt through all the ramifications of commercial and manufacturing industry. The House might rely upon it that this demand for short hours would not be limited to factories. In fact the demand for a restriction of the hours of labour was not at the present moment, confined to the factory operatives: it was insisted on also by the colliers, who had taken it into their heads (to use the words of the hon. Member for Oldham) that they worked too long, and got too little. The hon. Member for Knaresborough had called the attention of the House the other evening to the miserable and destitute condition of the factory operatives, which was such, he said, as to draw tears from the eyes of Her Majesty's Attorney General; and from this observation of the hon. Gentleman, it was clear to him at the moment, as it must have been apparent to the House, that the miserable and destitute condition to which he so pathetically alluded, and upon which he relied as an argument in favour of the proposal of the noble Lord, was that of the factory operative in 1842, not in 1844. He would take the liberty to remind the hon. Gentleman, and the House, that the misery and destitution of 1842 was caused, not by long hours of labour, but by working short time—by diminished work and by the necessary consequence of diminished work, an equivalent reduction of wages. Now, the object of the supporters of the Ten Hours' Bill, was still further to restrict the hours of labour; it was admitted, that the effect of this Bill would be still farther to reduce wages; and it was by calling the attention of the House to the unhappy condition of the factory operatives in 1842, when the hours of labour were short, and when wages were proportionably low, that the hon. Gentleman sought to induce the House to adopt this Measure, of which such was the object, and of which it was admitted that such would be the effect. But, if he did not mistake, in 1842, the hon. Member for Knaresborough proposed, as a remedy for the distress which then prevailed among the factory operatives, that the grant of a million of public money should be made by the House for their relief; a sum not widely differing from that of which he now proposed annually to deprive them. If the noble Lord's Clause were adopted, who would assure him—who would assure the House—that the hon. Member for Knaresborough would not come down to the House next year and propose to make up that sum by another vote to the same amount? Could the opponents of this Clause, then, be fairly branded with inhumanity for warning the House against the consequences which would ensue from its adoption? He was sure that even the factory operatives themselves, when they had overcome this delusion in which he feared that they were at present involved, and he confidently looked forward to the time when that delusion would pass away —would be of opinion that a Measure which would have the effect of reducing the productive power of the country, and the productive power of the country constituted the wealth of the country, diminishing, if not ruining, the export trade, crippling commerce in all its branches, and reducing their own wages, could not be either beneficial to them or to any other part of the community.

while he concurred with the noble Lord and his supporters on this Occasion, by no means concurred in the opinion which many of them had expressed as to the manufacturers, for he considered that no body of employers exhibited more solicitude for the welfare of those they employed than the manufacturers, as a body, did. The arguments of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had the common vice of all that had been urged on that side of the question. The speech of the hon. Gentleman, if good for anything, was good against all inter- ference, and yet he, among many others, advocated a Bill which for the first time interfered with a large portion of adult labour in this country. He was by no means disposed to admit the accuracy of the estimates which the Government had formed as to the amount of injury which would be inflicted, according to their account, on the trade of the country, were the principle, originated by the Government itself, carried out to the extent which the noble Lord very legitimately contended for. It was said, that profits had already been brought to the minimum, and they ought to be extremely jealous of any Measure which would have the effect of still further depressing the commercial interest. He admitted the fact, but he believed the evil arose from the restrictive policy of the Gentlemen opposite. Government placed restrictions upon everything—upon food, upon industry, upon the application of capital; the only thing they would not limit was the amount of labour; and he, for one, was not disposed to sanction their seeking to make up the profits which they limited by their restrictions upon every thing else, by drawing more severely than was just, or right, or politic, upon the labour of the operative classes. The distress under which the country had suffered arose from the grossly vicious commercial policy which had hitherto been pursued; and he did not think it was in their power to prevent those fluctuations which brought about such melancholy scenes of wide-spread distress, without an extensive alteration in the general commercial policy of the country. The question with him now was, whether a Ten Hours' Bill would be a safe and practicable Measure, what were the evils, if any, that would necessarily flow from it, and what the counterbalancing advantages that might be expected from its adoption? Let not the House forget what had been done on this subject for the last ten years. They had already some experience in factory legislation to which they might appeal. All the arguments now used against interference were as strenuously urged in 1833. The Factory Act restricting labour to some extent had been now in force for more than ten years: had it not been attended with great advantage? He was not going too far when he said that the trade had enormously increased, the number of the employed had increased, and generally wages had also increased. But were they disposed to push the interference still further? What was the amount of interference sought for in addition to what the Government offered? Now, the total number of persons employed in the silk, woollen, and cotton manufactories, was 419,250; of these 242,296 were females, and with this far larger portion of adult labour the Government itself proposed to interfere, so that the whole extent to which he (Mr. Hawes) and those who supported the noble Member for Dorsetshire sought to carry out still further this interference was 177,000; and he could not understand in what way the ruin of the country could ensue from this extension of the Government's own principle to its legitimate result. The Government proposed to act upon a very proper principle, as regarded 242,296 persons out of 419,590; the noble Lord asked that the principle should be caried out as regarded the much smaller number remaining. The hon. Gentleman talked about a loss of four millions as to result from the proposed Amendment; he (Mr. Hawes) considered the hon. Gentleman was herein proceeding upon assumptions of a very vague character. There never was, in fact, a more monstrous proposition. The hon. Gentleman did not base his calculations on official information, but assumed the data of the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, to be correct. That was not the way in which a Member of the Government ought to argue this question. He had the means of accurately ascertaining all the facts, and it was his duty to come prepared to state them distinctly, and on the credit of official documents, fairly to the House. The evils of the present system were admitted, and the Government, having brought in this Bill, affecting adult labour for the first time, and forced the House to consider it, ought to carry out their own principle. He confessed he did not advocate the Ten Hours' Bill as an isolated Measure; but as one of a series, conducive to the increased well-being, moral and physical, of the working classes, and the prosperity of the country, which the House must of necessity, if this were adopted, take into discussion in more or less rapid succession, and must, moreover, pass. He looked upon the Measure, not merely in itself as a plan for the limitation of labour, but as a decided step onwards to an inevitable course of im- provement in our legislation as to trade and commerce—to a removal of the restrictions, not merely on the hours' of labour, but on the operations of labour, the capital, and the energy of the country. If the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, succeeded in carrying this Measure, not a day would elapse before they would feel the pressure of the manufacturing interest demanding the abolition of all restrictions on commerce. The evils which were now anticipated from the limitation of the hours of labour, would be more than compensated by the profits derived from allowing capital and industry to go free and unfettered to the markets of the world. What limited the profits of labour but their own restrictions? Did the hon. Gentleman remember the four bad harvests which the First Lord of the Treasury pointed out as one of the great causes of distress? What were the means of counteracting those four bad harvests? Unrestricted trade in corn. It might not be in the power of the House, or of the Government, to prevent the ills arising from the fluctuations of trade; but they would have done all they could by legislation for the advantage of the country when they had set trade free. Taking this Measure by itself, he might not be disposed to support it; but he regarded it as part and parcel of a system of legislation which he yet expected to see adopted. He made a frank and fair confession that he viewed this Measure as only one among others which, if carried, would be beneficial. That statement was not one likely to win votes from hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Government said they were in great distress. The fact was, that they wanted to keep a large majority; and, it any body thought they would be in a minority, they were greatly deceived. It was part of the Parliamentary tactics, which distinguished the Government, to raise a cry of distress in order to keep up their numerical majority. He did not believe the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Graham) who, he saw, was watching what he said, ever thought that he would be in a minority on this question, if it were once debated seriously in that House. He was not going to quarrel with the Government, if they thought the Measure was an evil as they described it to be, for resisting it, nor did he object to their taking the sense of the House upon it in the most solemn manner; but to suppose for a moment that they would be in a minority would be to do great injustice to their sagacity. Now, he knew that it was thought strange to couple political economy with this subject. He should covet no better reputation than to be thought a sound and sincere political economist. But there was a great difference between being guided in opinion by certain principles and the working of them out in legislation. Political economy could have nothing to do with the improvement of the condition of the people; it related to the increase of the wealth of the nation: but legislation had. It was no disgrace to political economy that it did not take into consideration the social condition of the people. He would, however, beg to support his vote on this occasion with a quotation from a writer who, he believed, would be admitted on all sides to be an authority in political science of very great eminence. Mr. Mill said:—

"Two things are absolutely certain; that without the bodily labour of the great bulk of mankind, the well-being of the species cannot be obtained; and that if the bodily labour of the great bulk of mankind is carried beyond a certain extent, neither intellect, virtue, nor happiness can flourish upon the earth. What, then, is that precious middle point, at which the greatest quantity of good is obtained with the smallest quantity of evil, is in this part of the subject the problem to be solved. The state of defective food and excessive labour is the state in which we find the great bulk of mankind; the state in which they are either constantly existing, or into which they are every moment threatening to fall. These are two, therefore, in settling the rank among the circumstances which concur in determining the degree of intellect and morality capable of being exhibited in the societies of men, which ought to stand in a very eminent place. The mode of increasing to the utmost the quantity of intellect, morality, and happiness in human society, will be very imperfectly understood till they obtain a new degree of consideration."

No doubt there were considerable difficulties in the way of carrying out the object desired by the noble Lord, but certainly many of the evils predicted by the Government and their supporters, and by writers out of the House, among others by Mr. Senior, who in a letter to the right hon. C. P. Thomson, dated April 4, 1837, in reference to the proposal:—

"That the sub-inspectors or superintendents should have free access, without asking permission, to every part of a factory, (said), I firmly believe that if this enactment is carried the following will be the consequences:—1st, That a considerable number of the educated and intelligent mill-owners, that is, of those who have the sensibilities of gentlemen, will cease to follow their occupation within the British islands."

But that interference had been established; and yet none of the hon. Gentlemen in that House who were connected with manufactures had said a word against it. It had been proved and had been shown by their own factory inspectors, and by other high authorities, as Mr. Gregg and others, that no such consequence had arisen from the interference with factory labour, which had now been in operation since 1835. There were many restrictions on trade which were extremely unpleasant and injurious, There were the excise laws for example; but they were not to be discontinued. nor did they drive people out of trade. The right hon. Baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, laid great stress upon the reduction of wages, which he said would necessarily ensue; he (Mr. Hawes) would at once admit that some reduction of wages must be the consequence; but what he contended was, that the throwing open the field to industry and capital, which must inevitably also ensue, would far more than compensate for any reduction of wages that would be likely to take place. Let the restrictions on trade and commerce, which now so fearfully impeded the exertions of our manufacturers and our merchants—let the price of food and of the articles of necessity used by our working population—be reduced by the operation of improved legislation, and the working classes would make great gain by the limitation of their hours of labour, even though accompanied with a reduction of wages. Some short time ago, the Mayor of Manchester drew up some valuable statistical information on the state of the working population around him—their numbers, their wages, their expenditure. From these statements he (Mr. Hawes) had drawn up a calculation as to the compensation which the labourer would derive, even under reduced wages, from a free trade in provisions, which, while it reduced the price of articles of food, and of other commodities which they used, would produce a benefit to the revenue; and he regarded the Factory Bill as the lever which would bring about that great object. From these statements, which Mr. Neeld compiled in 1841, he had formed the following calculations:—He took a spinner's family of five persons, their weekly income being 14s. 4d.

The lower the income the greater the saving, for the greater the proportion spent necessarily in the articles mentioned. It was thus shown that the Legislature had it in its own hands richly to compensate the labouring classes for any reduction in their wages, which they might occasion by such a measure as that before the House. But this would not be the only consequence of lessening the hours of labour. Mr. Gregg, in one of his able pamphlets, said, that the only remedy for the evils of the factory system, was education; but how absurd to talk of education, when you made men work fourteen hours a day! Give the labouring population the means of improving their intellectual and moral condition, and you increase their efficiency and their value as labourers. Dr. Laing, who was known by his travels in Norway, said, "If you uphold long and incessant labour, you must give up education." They could not go together: it was utterly impossible. The right hon. Baronet insisted much on foreign competition. The right hon. Baronet himself had spoken of the hours of labour Switzerland and other countries: we had for years past reduced the hours of labour in this country, yet, our foreign trade had gone on increasing; and it would go on increasing, if Parliament would let it. The effect, in every instance, of the removal of restrictions which had been effected by Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Poulett Thomson, had been to increase the foreign trade in the particular articles, and the present Government had admitted the principle, by relieving commerce as far as their supporters would allow them to do so. The hon. Gentleman talked about a loss of four millions; what was that loss, suppose it to be correctly estimated in comparison with the loss this country annually sustained, by the restrictions on trade in sugar and corn alone? And by the way, the noble Lord's plan, which was spoken of so generally as a Ten Hours' Bill, was actually only an Eleven Hours' Bill, so that the hon. Gentleman must deduct from his calculations of loss one clear half. He looked upon the present as an invaluable opportunity presented to Parliament of opening up a system of enlightened legislation, which should, while it greatly benefited the empire, conciliate the working classes and attach them to the institutions of the country. At present, no one, who duly considered the accumulation of property in one direction, and the misery, distress, and ignorance in the other, could fail to regard the state of the manufacturing districts with anxiety, and alarm; and no one should regard it without feeling a desire to yield to the reasonable demands of the labouring classes. When the right hon. Baronet proposed to interfere to a certain extent with labour, was it too much that they should ask him to go further, and deal with the whole question? The right hon. Baronet might credit him that if he dealt with it properly, and adopted a general system for honestly and sincerely improving the social and moral condition of the working classes, any evils that might possibly arise from it would be nothing compared with the benefits which it would confer.

remembered the benevolent exertions of Mr. Sadler in reference to this subject, and had taken every occasion of giving his support to measures similar to that now proposed by the noble Lord. He saw no reason to change either his opinion or his vote, because those who had at that time sat on the Ministerial side of the House, now' sat on the Opposition benches. But he would confess that when he saw a Government in which he placed great confidence, and which, whether in public or in private, he was always happy to be able to support a Government who had never shown any undue desire to force their own plans against a majority in the House, or a large party in the country (he might instance the Ecclesiastical Courts Bill of last year, and the Educational Clauses in the Factory Bill)—when he saw this Government persevering against the proposed Measure in the face of two divisions, he confessed he had felt perplexed, and had determined not to vote again without maturely and deliberately considering the subject. He, therefore, resolved to make the best use he could of the Easter Recess, and in the language used by the right hon. Baronet on a very different occasion, he analyzed the majority. He found in that majority the name of the noble Lord, the Member for South Lancashire, of the two Members for the West Riding of Yorkshire, of the hon. Members for Leeds, Oldham, and other large manufacturing towns. With respect to the great sites of commercial activity, he found that though the City of London was divided, Hull, York, and Liverpool gave, through their representatives, a unanimous vote in favour of the noble Lord. He had, during the Easter Recess, made a good deal of inquiry amongst the woollen manufacturers in his neighbourhood. He found opinions divided upon a Ten Hours' Bill; but their general impression was, that the proposal of Eleven Hours could do no injury whatever, and the medical men he had consulted, all said that Ten Hours' labour in Factories was as much as the sinews of females and young people could bear. As to the effect of the Measure on the profits and wages, he could not but say that he thought the argument of the right hon. Baronet with respect to giving the people a double Sabbath, was by no means as forcible as were that right hon. Gentleman's appeals in general. Much the same argument was used at the time of the French Revolution, and the result showed that the working people always received less wages for seven days' labour than they had before received for six days. Would the right hon. Baronet contend that an inverse result would be experienced in England? But the right hon. Baronet had gone on to introduce the Corn Law Question, and insinuated that the effect of the passing of the Ten Hours' Bill would be tantamount to the Repeal of the Corn Laws—that if the Ten Hours' Bill became law, the Corn Laws must necessarily be repealed. Now he would say to that, that if the Corn Laws rested on so rotten a foundation, he would be the first man in the House to support their instant repeal. He had never supported the Corn Laws except for the purpose of protecting native agriculture, and he could not forget that the first and strongest claim to the sympathy and protection of Parliament was that of the weak and helpless, on behalf of whom the noble Lord had made so many and such persevering efforts. The hon. and learned Member for Bath had indulged in rather strong remarks on the motives of those by whom the limitation of the hours of labour were supported. He (Lord Pollington) would beg to call that hon. and learned Gentleman's recollection to a saying of Dr. Johnson, that whenever you found a man maintaining the universal knavery of mankind, he would turn out, if tested, to be a knave himself. He was very far certainly from saying that the hon. and learned Member for Bath was a knave, but he did hope that the hon. and learned Member, bearing this saying in his memory, would allow that those who supported the Measure might give an honest vote. Some of the reasons given for not supporting the limitation of hours reminded him of a speech made in Parliament on one of Mr. Wilberforce's motions respecting the Slave Trade. The speech in question was extracted in a late number of the Edinburgh Review. When the question was discussing, Mr. Grosvener got up, and said, that the Slave Trade was certainly not the most amiable trade in the world, but that, as it was so intimately bound up with the interests of the country, they should not too curiously inquire into all its circum- stances. So in the speech of his hon. Friend, the Member for the County of Durham (Mr. Liddel) the other night, and in some other speeches that had been delivered, much the same kind of argument had been attempted to be delivered. He had hoped to have seen his hon. Friend a supporter of the noble Lord's proposal, but for his own part, he could say, that the noble Lord would find in that House no more sincere supporter than himself.

would occupy the time of the House for a very short period whilst he again stated the reasons which induced him to give the vote which he was about to give on the question before the House, for he felt it necessary, considering the very great importance of their decision to put forward those reasons briefly and concisely. He had listened with great attention to all the debates which had taken place on this subject, and he paid particular attention to the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, for he was sure that the best arguments that could be adduced would be brought forward by that hon. Member in support of the view which he took of the subject, in a frank and candid manner, and he was also sure that if those arguments failed to convince him, it would be vain to expect that he could be convinced by any more prolonged discussion. He was, however rather surprised at that speech, for his hon. Friend said that the measure if taken singly, would be fraught with danger, in case the House did not follow it up with other great and extensive changes. His hon. Friend appeared to think that the Measure would not do, and ought not to be supported, unless on the understanding that it was to be followed up by other Measures. Now he (Mr. Labouchere) would not follow him in that course of policy—he could not agree to support the Measure on the ground that it would bring about a repeal of the Corn Laws. He yielded to no man in his desire to see proper advantages and facilities afforded to commerce; he yielded to no man in a desire to see the Corn Laws put on a sound footing, or to witness those other ameliorations in our fiscal and commercial system which, by enlarging the sphere of employment for our manufacturing population, would afford the only true and legitimate means of improving their prospects and advancing their condition. He was opposed, however to purchasing an advantage too dearly, and he shuddered at the prospect of agreeing to a proposition of so much importance with the frightful prospect of persons out of employment, and suffering all the distress that might result from this interference if unsuccessful. No one was more desirous than he to improve the condition of the labouring classes in this country, but even if they could accompany their alterations with the other Measures to which the hon. Member for Lambeth alluded, he doubted whether it would be safe to interfere with the labour market in this country. Hon. Members who advocated this interference, said that the objection against interference would be all very well if the Legislature had never interfered on any former occasion; but they said that the Legislature had interfered before, and they now only wished to extend the experiment of interference a little farther. He, however, denied that it was a question between non-interference and an interference which he (Mr. Labouchere) thought extreme. He believed that interference with the market of labour had done harm in some respects, but he thought, that under proper regulations and within proper limits, it had done more good than harm; but because, with a cautious application, it had done more good than evil, it would be a strange argument that interference should, therefore, be pushed to an extreme. It was said, that labour had been already interfered with by the Legislature, but would that justify such an extreme interference as limiting the labour in factories to ten hours in this country, whilst in all the countries which were our competitors in manufactures the hours were at least twelve hours a day! If that were not a violent and alarming interference with the market of labour he did not know what violence meant. The question before them was, whether they were to agree to that extreme interference or not; and in looking at it, they should take into consideration the important consequences which their decision must necessarily produce on the condition of the manufacturing population. It had been said that the proposal to interfere in this manner with labour was only an experiment in extending the principle which had been already acted upon, but it was an experiment which he should not wish to have the responsibility of voting for. He had heard hon. Members say, that they only asked to reduce the hours to eleven, and afterwards gradually follow it up by a Ten hours Bill, and that nothing would be more easy than to retrace their steps, if the experiment failed, and re- turn to the present system. Did those hon. Members recollect what failure in such a case meant? Did they know by what signs such a failure would be discovered, the symptoms by which it could be indicated? A failure in such a case meant the loss of our foreign trade, a loss which could not be easily recovered. A failure meant a loss of trade, want of employment for the manufacturing population, suffering, and demoralization. Let them reflect that if the industry of the manufacturing population was checked, and their moral tone injured, they could not so easily be restored to their present position. He entreated the House, therefore, not to give way to this proposition on the ground which he had alluded to—not to agree to it as an experiment. If they were satisfied that it ought to be done, let them agree to it; but if they had any doubts as to the successful operation of the Measure, he called on them to pause and deliberate before they agreed to a proposition from which there was no retreat. A great deal had been said to show how small a decrease in the amount of wages would be caused by the reduction of the hours of labour. Now he should confess that he had a great distrust in minute calculations and nice deductions with respect to such a subject as this. He could not undertake to say how much the reduction in amount of wages would be under a Ten-hours Bill; but he could see plainly in what direction the Measure would be likely to act, and what effect might be produced by it on the condition of the working population in the manufacturing districts. He thought that it was capable of demonstration that a reduction of the hours of labour from twelve to ten would progressively and speedily reduce the amount of wages; and, inasmuch as that fact could be demonstrated, he would ask the House ought they not to pause before they agreed to such a proposition? It was said, that the question had been fairly stated to the operatives throughout the country, and that they were prepared to accept the measure reducing the hours and await its effect on wages; but he did not think that the subject had been ever fairly and fully put before the operatives, and their minds directed to the effect which it was calculated to have in reducing wages; and, consequently, he could not believe that they had fairly and fully agreed to abide by the results which night follow it. He (Mr. Labouchere) had the curiosity to attend rather carefully to the proceedings in the manufacturing districts during the recess, on the occasions when Gentlemen attended in those districts to explain to the operatives the effects which the Ten Hours Bill was calculated to produce, and to ask their opinions with respect to it; and if it were possible that he could find amusement in connection with a subject which he could not contemplate without melancholy feelings, he should have been amused by the manner in which the subject was put before the operatives. It was described to them as a measure which could not have the effect of reducing wages, whilst in some cases it would raise wages; but it was added that it would be necessary to be able to tell the House of Commons that the operatives would agree to it, even with the risk of its reducing wages. He had an extract from a speech of Mr. Oastler at Blackburn, in which it was put in the following way, "He (Mr. Oastler) would not say what the effect of the Measure would be, [cheers and cries of "It will raise wages,"] but suppose it would reduce wages, what would be the conduct of the men of Blackburn?" Now, would any one say that a question, thus put and responded to, was a fair way in which to judge of the feelings of the operatives with respect to the Ten Hours Bill? If it did in reality materially reduce wages, what, he asked, would be the feelings of the people when they found all their expectations disappointed? There was another point of some importance, which he should allude to just for a moment. It would be allowed that on the whole the tendency of wages was downwards. If they were dealing with a state of society in which wages were buoyant and employment regular, and trade increasing, the effect of such an interference might not be so soon felt but how much more dangerous must it be to commence with such an interference in the present condition of affairs. When the tendency of wages was downwards the results must be more dangerous. It was said that in the present complicated state of the social system in this country they ought to discard old rules and adopt new modes of legislation. He had listened attentively to the arguments put forth by those who advocated that, and he was not yet disposed to give up those rules—to discard the pages of Adam Smith, and to replace them in his library by the writings of Mr. Sadler and Mr. Oastler. He believed that in certain cases departures from strict abstract principles might be just and necessary, but the structure of society was at present so complicated and artificial as to render any departure from principle more dangerous, and made such a step more difficult to retrace, than in a simpler state of the social system. A great deal had been said about over-labour, and the argument had been urged as if over-labour had been now heard of for the first time—one would suppose that except in the factories there had never before been any overtaxing of the energies of the working classes. But how could that be said? Over-labour was not of so recent a date. Every Gentleman who heard him must have read and admired the description which, eighteen centuries ago, had been written by the Roman poet, of the mother of a family in humble life, suffering in her health and strength from her exertions in supporting her family—

"sopitos suscitat ignes,

Noctem addens operi^{* * *}

^{* * * *} castum ut servare cubile

Conjugis et possit parvos educere natos."

That was the condition of mankind in all ages; and though he admitted that they were bound to alleviate it as much as they could, to apply to such a state any measures unwisely constructed, or in an empirical spirit, would only aggravate the disease, and render the condition of those who suffered from that labour worse than before. They were told that there would be great danger in disappointing the hopes and expectations of the people on this subject, but he doubted that the working classes entertained that wish to the extent which was represented. He did not believe there was so general a feeling with respect to it, on the part of the working classes, as was some years ago felt on the subject of a maximum of wages. He hoped he felt as strongly as any man the duty of the House to have, in all legislative proceedings, for its object the well-being of the great body of the people; for the maxim of every honest Member of Parliament ought to be always for the many, but not always with the many; and he believed the House would stand better with the country (unless they were convinced that this Measure of a Ten Hours Bill would benefit the working classes) if they opposed it, rather than, not being certain of its effects, they might do that which would lead to disappointment in the minds of the manufacturing population, who would then turn round and be the first to accuse the House of yielding to demands which were not founded on reason and justice, and only lead to ultimate disappointment and increased misery.

said, the delusion of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke rested altogether on the assumption that he thought himself justified in making. He assumed that certain consequences were to follow this step—he assumed that the representations made to the working classes were not founded on justifiable grounds, and then he said the support of this proposition must end in delusion. The assumption was altogether gratuitous. He wished to make a few remarks in support of the Motion of his noble Friend, and he rose to perform this duty with some feeling of pain, because he found himself opposed to those with whom he usually agreed—because he found himself placed in hostility to the Government in whom he usually placed the strongest confidence. But having arrived at conclusions which were based upon some little knowledge of the question, and a careful examination of it, he had only one course to pursue, and that was, to act upon his conviction. He admitted that there were some considerations of the utmost importance involved in this question, and so strongly had he felt the difficulties by which the case was surrounded, that he had always reserved to himself the right to look calmly into the matter, and it was not until he found himself in the position which he had the honour to fill that he consented to announce the opinions which he now ventured to express. It was said there was nothing to justify the interference now proposed, but if the House would consider the history of the question they would find that great changes had taken place, and that the male adult population had almost been displaced by women and children. It was urged that the House was proceeding to limit the hours of the adult male population. They interfered for this reason, that the women and children were helpless and defenceless,—that they were employed for unreasonable hours, and under circumstances that did not leave them at liberty to choose for themselves. The working-day almost universally consisted of twelve hours, and what was the result? Why that men who were occupied in other branches of industry worked twelve hours, whilst their wives and children were employed fourteen hours in the Mills. This was a state of society which had grown up within the last twenty years, and which ought not to be overlooked. But there were many persons who had had some practical experience of the step which it was not possible to take, and these were authorities which ought not to be disregarded. The right hon. Baronet the other night referred to a Petition which he had presented against the amendment of his noble Friend. As a set-off against that Petition, he (Mr. Wortley) would call the attention of the House to a Petition which he presented two years ago from about 300 master-spinners and manufacturers of the West Riding of the County of York. They said

"That twelve hours a day of actual labour, and two hours for meal times and going to and from their work, leaves to these young persons only ten hours out of the twenty-four for sleep, recreation, and attention to their moral, religious, and domestic duties. That your Petitioners are of opinion that ten hours out of the twenty-four is too short a time for sleep and the proper observance of these duties. That your Petitioners are further of opinion that no necessity whatever exists for such long labour in factories; and that their continuance, while it would injure these young persons, would be unattended by any profit to their employers."

It was well known that in Leeds the usual time was eleven hours, and in many other parts of the country the Millowners had shortened their hours of labour; and one Gentleman who had written on the subject said—" I think an eleven hours Bill, allowing all above ten years to work, would meet with the approbation of most manufacturers, and no reduction of wages would then be necessary." It had been stated in the course of the debate by the hon. Member for Sheffield that there had been latterly a depression of wages consequent upon a shortening of the hours of labour, but he believed that that arrangement had taken place under peculiar circumstances—the demand for that species of manufacture having fallen off, the employers thought it most advisable to spread the employment over a larger number of hands, while at the same time the hours of labour were shortened. That could not, therefore, be used as an argument against the proposition of the noble Lord. He would not trouble the House further, so much having been already said upon the subject; but believing that the proposition could be adopted with perfect safety, he should give his vote for the Clause proposed by his noble Friend. He cared not what effect it might have upon local interests, but without any great apprehension of the consequences which had been predicted by those who opposed the Motion he should support that protection to which he thought the labouring classes were entitled.

said, much time had been taken up by the question then before the House, but he was inclined to think that they would ultimately find the time so spent had not been altogether wasted. The change that was proposed to be made, was one that would affect the well being of the working classes in this country, and it would be most unwise in any Legislature to attempt such a change without having first examined into all the facts and all the consequences that were likely to result from it. Before the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, had spoken three sentences of the speech in which he had introduced the question, he had come to the conclusion that the House could not determine the matter on the arguments of the noble Lord, because the noble Lord had set out by proposing to lay aside altogether the question of the result which the alteration that he proposed would have on the commerce of the country. The noble Lord could not conceive that any connexion should exist between the consequences which the change he proposed would produce on commerce, and the humane view, as he termed it, which the noble Lord was disposed to take of the question; but he was glad to find the noble Lord had since then decided on viewing the matter in what he should regard as a more sane light. The House should not decide on any mere sentimentalities. They should base the conclusion to which they came on facts and reasons and sound arguments, and they should make sure that the new ground on which it was proposed they should tread was safe before they consented to change their present position. The interference proposed by the noble Lord was admitted on all sides to be likely to lead to more serious results than any that had been heretofore attempted, and it was, therefore, right that the House should require to have a good case made out before it decided on adopting that change. The more attention he bestowed on the subject, the more convinced did he become, that the case on which the noble Lord relied was made up of inaccuracies and gross exaggerations. Since the question had been last before them, he believed every Member of the House had had submitted for his consideration certain facts, or what were put forward as facts, by the parties connected with both sides of the question. On one side they had a document prepared by persons who called themselves delegates of the operative classes of the north of England, and signed by their chairman, George Higginbotham, and they had on the other side a paper put forward on the authority of eight mill-owners, who were admitted to be the most respectable members of their class, whether regarded with respect to intelligence, to wealth, or to general character. He wished to call the attention of the House briefly to these two documents. The first to which he had alluded, that coming from the persons who styled themselves the delegates of the working classes, commenced with an attack on Mr. Henry Ashworth, of Bolton, who was described in it as " one of the foremost of that class of manufacturers who are the worst masters in that part of the country, and the most opposed to any general amelioration of the condition of the working classes." When he read that sentence he saw at once the species of consideration to which the paper was entitled. He might ask the House how many testimonies had they of the respectability and intelligence of Mr. Ashworth? Had they not the testimony of the Rev. Baptist Noel, of the hon. Member for Honiton, of the noble Lord, the Member for Newark, and others? but there was no necessity for him to attempt any justification of the character of such a man as Mr. Ashworth. This much he might be allowed to say, that the place where that Gentleman now resided had been a wilderness, whereas it had now the appearance of a garden; and he would add, there were around it more well built cottages inhabited by independent families, than could probably be found on any mere landed estate in the Kingdom. So much for the slander with which that document commenced, and he was sorry to find that such a paper should have been introduced to the notice of the Members of that House under the sanction of the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, the influence of whose name was stated to have been used for the purpose of bringing it under their notice. Next, as to the account which it gave of the work which the spinner performed per day. It contained a wood-cut of the operation, and a diagram showing the distance which the workers were obliged to walk each day. He had no hesitation in saying that these representations were in every part of them calculated to mislead the House, and he was sorry the noble Lord was not present to hear his denunciation of them. [Lord Ashley, who was in the Gallery—"Hear, hear."] They were calculated to create an impression the very reverse of the truth, and he was sure they would apply with equal accuracy to any other trade, or to any other country, as to the spinning trade as carried on in England. The diagram was based on the principle, that the worker began at the very end of the machine, and then passed over working at every spindle—a thing which was never done. If the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, had ever been in a mill himself, he should know that such was not the case; and the persons who prepared that paper put forward what he had no hesitation in saying they must have been aware was entirely false. The noble Lord stated the other night that Mr. Ashworth and Mr. Gregg had refused to meet the delegates of the operatives and himself; but the fact was, those Gentlemen were quite ready and willing to meet the noble Lord. [Lord Ashley: "No, no."] He had the correspondence in his hand in which he was borne out by those Gentlemen themselves. [Lord Ashley: " Read it then."] It would be a waste of time for him to go through the correspondence, and, if the House were not willing to take his word for the substance of it, he could not help it. The noble Lord should bear in mind that Mr. Gregg had been singled out by the party with which the noble Lord was connected as a man on whom every slander that could be invented was to be poured, and it was on that account he declined to meet the men who were represented to be the delegates of the operative classes. Another subject to which he wished to refer was a statement made by the noble Lord, that the improvements made within the last fifteen years in the power loom materially increased the toil of the operative: that formerly the shuttle passed through the loom 60 times in a minute, whereas it now passed through 120 times in a minute. If he recollected rightly, the term used by the noble Lord was that the labour was at least doubled: but what was the fact? In the hand-loom, the weaver was obliged to move the entire of the machinery by working with his feet on the two paddle-boards below, and he had also to throw the shuttle, and move the reed with his hands, whereas in the power-loom the entire motion is effected by steam, and the weaving would go on just as well if the man were two miles instead of two feet distant, ex- cept for putting in the weft, which might be considered as no toil at all, as it occurred only once in some minutes. That statement was, therefore, a gross and undeniable exaggeration on the part of the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, and he pledged his honour that the fact was as he had stated. The noble Lord quoted M. Villermé but he gave a colouring to the opinion of that gentleman which he (Mr. Blight) considered could not be sustained. He next came to the document put forward by the mill-owners, and which, as he had before stated, was signed by eight of the most respectable members of the trade. It was a paper made up in the most careful, and, he believed, in the most fair manner. A committee had been appointed for the purpose, and had sent circulars to 700 or 750 mills; and though the returns did not exceed more than 470 or 480, still it should be recollected that in many instances three or four mills belonged to the one firm, and therefore these returns should be considered as containing the opinions of the great majority of those to whom the circulars had been sent. It was his firm conviction that there was nothing in the document prepared by those eight gentlemen that was not perfectly true. It appeared from it that in only one return was the distance which the worker had to walk put down as twenty miles, while not one of the others calculated the distance at more than twelve miles. And yet the document sent in, on the part of the operatives, described the distance to be thirty-eight miles, and the noble Lord in his speech considered the average distance walked by each worker at least twenty-six miles. He would ask whether the returns made from such a number of mill-owners, belonging to all shades of politics, was not more to be relied on than either the statement of the noble Lord, or of his friends, the operative delegates? Was it not impossible, on the very face of it, that any person could walk thirty-eight miles at regular work, much less that it could be continued for a succession of days, and that too even by children? The thing was perfectly ridiculous. Then it was said they walked bare-footed; but it should be recollected, that the boarded floor on which they moved was smooth and slippery from the oil that fell upon it, and, at all events, they did not go without shoes from the want of money to purchase them. There was another part of that document which was calculated to mislead the House. He alluded to the attitude in which the person was described when piecing up the threads. The wood cut was intended to explain the painful and unhealthy manner in which females were obliged to perform that operation. But if the noble Lord knew anything of mule-spinning, he should be aware that though that posture was necessary when the carriage of the mule was much drawn out, still it would clearly be the interest of the worker to piece the threads when there would be no necessity for stretching so much, and which could nearly at all times be done. He considered it the grossest imposition ever practised to attempt giving the House so unfair an impression of the nature of the labour performed in that particular branch of the trade. He would not go into the question of education and wages, and the number of persons above forty years of age who were employed in the mills; but on these heads he was convinced the House might rely on the paper which had been prepared by the eight gentlemen to whom he had before alluded. Before leaving that part of the subject he should observe that it was most satisfactory to find hon. Members opposite paying so much regard to the opinions of the operatives, as often when petitions had been presented, signed by 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 of the labouring classes, he found those same hon. Gentlemen considering them as not weighing a feather in that House. He would mention one or two cases which strongly showed what the operatives thought with regard to this question. A paper had been placed in his hands by a large manufacturer, and it referred to a deputation which waited on a manufacturer in one of the Lancashire towns, asking his support to the ten hours proposition. This manufacturer asked the men whether they were in earnest in expressing a wish to work only ten hours, and after a little hesitation, one of them answered that he should like to do so. His employer then said to him, "You have as good a pair of mules as any in my mill, and if you choose you may work ten hours a day only for twelve months, and I will neither discharge you, nor disturb you." The man replied that he should not like to work ten hours alone, and the manufacturer then observed, that if all the spinners in this workman's room chose to work ten hours they might do so, and he would not disturb them for twelve months, and he said the same thing with regard to all the people in the mill, giving them time to consider their answer. This occurred on the 27th of April; but up to the last ac- counts which he (Mr. Bright) had received, which were to the middle of last week, the manufacturer in question had had no further intimation from his men, that they were anxious to work only ten hours. He would mention another case, communicated by a gentleman who had a large manufacturing establishment, not far from Bury. This gentleman thought he would try how far the ten hours project was agreeable to his men, and he, consequently, stopped the engine after ten hours, and persisted in it for a short time, until his hands told him they would turn out unless his engine worked twelve hours, as before. The following, too, was an extract from a letter which had been placed in his hand:—

"I hope you made use of the statement I gave you with respect to the disposition of our hands working short time. The account I stated was a plain simple fact, and I have no doubt might be verified at any time, even in the presence of the warmest advocate of the Ten Hours' Bill, by the signatures of 900 out of the 1,000 bauds we employ. They appear to have more sense than to believe that we shall be able to pay twelve hours' wages for ten hours' work."

It had been said, that no delusion had been practised on the men with respect to this question: but he would declare that gross and cruel delusion had been practised on them. The principal party among the manufacturers who was anxious for a Ten Hours' Bill, was the hon. Member for Oldham, and some two or three others who agreed with him. Now, so far back as the 25th of November, 1833, a meeting took place at Manchester, at which certain resolutions were passed, and he would state what those Resolutions were, as well as the names of some of the parties present. The following were the Resolutions:—

"Unanimously resolved, that it is desirable that all who wish to see society improved and convulsion avoided, should endeavour to assist the working classes to obtain for eight hours' work the present full day's wages, such eight hours to be performed between the hours of six in the morning and six in the evening; and that this regulation should commence on the 1st day of March next. That Messrs. Oastler, Wood, Bull, Sadler, and others be urgently requested to desist from soliciting Parliament for a Tea Hours' Bill, and to use their utmost exertions in aid of the Measures now adopted to carry into effect, on the 1st of March next, the regulation of eight hours' work for the present full day's wages."

So that the proposition for ten hours' work was to be superseded by this new Measure of eight hours' work for twelve hours' wages. Who were some of the parties chosen to be on the Committee to carry out this New Moral World scheme? Mr. John Fielden, M. P., John Doherty, a name familiar to the noble Member for Dorsetshire, George Higginbottom, James Turner, a party who had acted for the noble Lord, Philip Grant, who might be in the lobby of the House that night, or if not, his absence was an exception to his usual course for some time past, and last not least, Robert Owen, esq. Now, he (Mr. Bright) had no objection to this meeting or to these Resolutions, but he had a great objection to these men being connected with the short-time agitation, and endeavouring to persuade the House that this project could be carried into operation by law without involving a reduction of wages to the working men. Nothing could be more cruel or mischievous than to raise hopes which never could be fulfilled. The hon. Member for Oldham had a peculiar philosophy, but it appeared to be much the same as the philosophy of the Morning Post, in reference to another question, the Corn Laws; for that paper told the farmers that three-quarters of a crop would give them as much money as a full crop. So the hon. Member for Oldham told the operatives only to make ten pieces of cloth instead of twelve, and that they would get as much for the ten as the twelve; but the hon. Member did not take into consideration the circumstance, that if they raised the prices, some people who were now clothed must be worse clothed, and that if trade were crippled there could not he constant employment for the constantly increasing population of the country. He (Mr. Bright) would have nothing to do with such a proposition. It appeared to him childish, and something like the political economy of 100 years back. The hon. Member for Liskeard said, that a new state of society existed, and that new principles of legislation must be established for it; but if the hon. Member looked back to some of the old statutes he would find, that the attempt to regulate different trades by Acts of Parliament was not new. The House was now called on to fix the hours of labour, but wages would, in this case, follow the rule which regulated them in all others, and a reduction of wages would ensue on the time of labour being diminished When he addressed the House on a former occasion, he took the liberty of charging the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire with the employment of agents such as he ought not to be connected with; and who furnished him with such information as ought not to be relied on. He (Mr. Bright) did not go much into this matter then; but it was not because he had not sufficient information.

[The hon. Member next alluded at some length to parties, who, as he alleged, had misled the noble Lord, and whom he earnestly entreated the noble Lord to get rid of.]

He might state other facts, only that they were not suitable to that House, but he was perfectly convinced, that there had been for years past, and still was, a conspiracy against the manufacturers of the north, as well as a most determined resolve to keep up a perpetual blister on the manufacturing districts — so that the employers and employed might be divided, and thereby weakened, in order that some party purpose might be served which other persons thought important. This was the opinion of the manufacturers themselves. He had watched this agitation for ten years, and he was the more convinced, after hearing the debate and seeing the votes, and having at the same time some idea of the motives, on account of which those votes were given, he was the more convinced that there was a bitter and a hostile feeling towards that portion of the country which was most populous and most industrious, and which employed a very large portion of the population of the island. He asked the House to consider whether it would not be better to pursue another tack? It was admitted on all hands, that the noble Lord's proposition violated principle—that it would reduce wages, and interfere, as many believed, with the foreign trade. When proceeding in the direction of a bad principle, too great caution could not be exercised. The House was not justified in putting restrictions on the labour of the manufacturers of this country, until it had taken off every burthen of which it could relieve them. If there was any feeling in favour of a Ten Hours Bill, the feeling in favour of free-trade was 10,000 times stronger. There could be no doubt that the burthens laid on trade were excessive and enormous. He agreed with the hon. Member for Stock-port in thinking it would be a very excellent thing if the workmen could live with ten hours labour, and he believed they might if the House did justice to the industrious population. The manufacturers did not come to that House to ask for favours. He, for one, would scorn to ask for that which was not given to the rest of his fellow-countrymen; but the manufacturers desired that the House, instead of passing a Measure which would tend to restrict their market and diminish wages, should give to their workmen the means of obtaining sugar, bread, and other necessaries at a low rate. If there was any real sympathy for the working classes on the part of this House, there would be a disposition to give freedom to their industry, value to the produce of their toil, by relieving them from all restrictions on trade rather than by miserable legislation on principles false and mischievous, to endeavour to restore a prosperity which their own blunders had well nigh destroyed.

wished to say one word in explanation. The hon. Member had charged him with gross, violent, and he almost thought, with wilful exaggeration. ["No, no."] Well, not with wilful, but with gross and exceeding exaggeration, and the hon. Member proved his charge by saying that he (Lord Ashley) had stated that in the weaving department labour had so increased, as to be now actually double what it was a short time ago. It was unnecessary for him to reply to all the statements of the hon. Member, for he would take this case as a sample of his other statements against him. What he had really said was, that "in the weaving room, where a vast number of persons were employed, and principally females, an operative writing to him (Lord Ashley) stated that the labour had increased within the last few years,"—how much? to double the extent, or to one-third?—no; but "fully 10 per cent." That was precisely what he had said, and no more; and he now left the House to decide who was the gross and intolerable exaggerator.

felt, that he had no claim to trespass at any length upon the House on the question then before it. He would not, therefore, attempt to follow the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Durham (Mr. Bright), through the various details he had dwelt upon in his speech. But, as he was about to give a vote painful to his own feelings, he hoped the House would allow him a few minutes—and he would not take more—to explain it. He had, upon the several divisions which had already occurred on the question, voted in support of the Ten Hours' Clause, as pro- posed by his noble Friend (Lord Ashley.) He had not done so without much and anxious deliberation—he had not been unaware of the difficulties of the subject— he had not shut his eyes to the danger, upon general principles, of interposing between employers and their work-people, to regulate labour; and had the Government been able to take their stand upon the broad ground of no interference at all, against what had been termed in that debate, and, perhaps, with some truth, the impulses of humanity and benevolence, he might have hesitated longer. But the Government could not take that ground— their own was a Bill of interference. He did not blame them for having interfered —on the contrary, he thought they had interfered rightly; but they had, in fact, interfered—and the question then became one of degree and not of principle. In short it was this: as we are to interfere, what will be a useful and effectual interference? He had listened with great attention to the able arguments and ingenious calculations of his right hon. Friends (Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham) to show the ill consequences which must be brought upon the commercial prosperity of that country, if two hours of daily labour were subtracted from the time of women and young persons in the great factory and mill establishments in the manufacturing districts; but those arguments and calculations appeared to him to apply equally to any two hours, as well the two between twelve and fourteen hours which the Government themselves prohibited, and in a double degree to the four between the Government time, and the sixteen hours mentioned by his right hon. Friend that the people worked in the factories of Switzerland—and the point still resolved itself into this—if the Legislature is to limit, what is the reasonable and right limit? He, for his part, could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Taunton (Mr. Labouchere,) that the period proposed by his noble Friend was an unreasonable limit, but concurred with his hon Friend, the Member for the West Riding (Mr. Stuart Wortley), that if we were, by legislation, to prescribe the hours beyond which the weaker classes of women and young persons were not to work, it was but consonant, not only with the dictates of humanity, but the voice of reason, that we should name a period not greater than the ordinary day's labour of mature and robust men—namely, ten hours exclusive of meals and rest. He thought, moreover, that too much stress had been laid upon those last two hours; for not only the evidence in this case, in which there might be some conflict, but all analogy, as applied both to mental and bodily labour, went to satisfy him that ten hours' healthful and vigorous labour would yield a greater profit than twelve hours under the influence of over work and its consequent listlessness—and that independently of the consideration which ought not to be overlooked, and which had then been so feelingly and ably dwelt upon by his hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. M'Geachy), that, even if there should be some money-loss to the labourer, it would be more than compensated by increased health and enjoyment, and the improved physical and moral economy of his family and household. He would confess that he had been greatly influenced in the decision to which he had come by a deep conviction, that we had arrived at a time when, seeing the extremes of wealth and poverty—that great luxury and crying destitution were presented in more vivid contrast in our social system than they ever had been in the history of these countries—that, he said, the time was come when it behoved the Legislature to take some further step towards protecting the most helpless, and ameliorating the condition of the most suffering, of our labouring classes—and experience and precedent, as well as the Government itself pointed out the present as the safest direction for such a step. He therefore, however painfully, must persevere in voting as he had voted before. He had heard with great regret the declaration of his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Graham), that the success of the present amendment would affect the endurance of the Cabinet. He thought that such a course on the part of the Government would be wholly unjustified by such a result. He, however, thought there were symptoms observable throughout the debate that rendered that result highly improbable. He must, at all events, go straight forward—and he would conclude by alluding to a sentiment which had fallen from his right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Peel), upon a former occasion, on the same subject, in which he entirely concurred. It was—that with whatever regret his right hon. Friend differed from so many friends he esteemed, yet, that he (Sir (Sir Robert Peel) was certain they would appreciate his motives, and respect him the more for acting on his own conscientious conviction, so he was persuaded that the same measure of judgment which his right hon. Friend justly claimed for himself, he would extend to those Members, whose every personal and political predilection would lead them to support his right hon. Friend, but who, on the present occasion, felt bound to maintain their own consistency, and satisfy their own consciences, by voting for the amendment of his noble Friend (Lord Ashley).

commenced by remarking that the Government had got themselves into their present dilemma entirely by their own fault. He was not, however, about to dwell upon their mistakes; but would rather confine his observations to the effect which this measure would have in limiting the hours of labour of adults working in mills. It was admitted pretty generally, that by this limitation considerable sacrifice would be entailed. Some hon. Members had attempted to set up that the workmen were willing to make this sacrifice. The House, however, was not to consider the opinions of the workmen, so much as they should consider the impressions under which those opinions were formed. It was possible that some one working at an average rate of wages of 24s. a week, might declare himself ready to allow a reduction in his weekly earnings; but Members must reflect what would be the effect of the change, not upon persons of this standing, but on those who were only just able to maintain themselves and their families by their industry. Now, what would be the effect of the alteration upon this class? The hon. Member for Knaresborough had told the workpeople at Leeds that the effect would be not to lower, but to raise wages, and he (Mr. C. Wood) conscientiously believed that the great mass of the labourers really thought that no reduction would follow, or at least that such a demand would be created as ultimately, if they fell, must raise them to their present level. Now he (Mr. C. Wood) believed precisely the reverse of this would be the consequence: he believed that no immediate reduction would occur, but ultimately there must and would be a fall; and for that reason, looking, as it was his duty to look, to the interests of the manufacturing class, he considered himself bound to re- fuse an alteration calculated, as he believed, to operate so injuriously to their own interests. Now, he did not think it would be difficult at all to show how materially this change would diminish the products of factory labour. Some persons deluded themselves With the notion that as much would be done by working ten hours as by working twelve. These reasoners forgot that the machinery of a mill worked at nearly an equal rate throughout the day—that the spindles revolved with regularity—that with a very slight difference the produce of a mill was equal during every hour that the work was carried on—and that, consequently, if two hours were abstracted from the twelve, in which the work was now performed, they would be cutting off one-sixth of the period during which capital was wrought upon, and the wages of labour were earned. Now, admitting for the sake of argument, that prices at first would rise, so as to allow wages to be maintained at their present rate, what, let him ask, would be the effect upon those who were engaged in trades, which were only ancillary to factory labour? Surely the House could not be generally aware of the probable extent of the effects of the change. The demand for labour would be diminished one-sixth in the trade. The labour of bleachers, sawyers, dyers, would be equally diminished by one sixth, whilst the iron-founder, cotton merchant, coal merchant, and even the ship-owner would find one-sixth less of their capital required. Every trade in connection with factory labour, in which the employment depended not upon price or quality, but upon the quantity produced, would find that one-sixth must go. This would be an indirect effect. Now, let them contemplate a more direct and equally certain consequence on another class. In the town he represented (Halifax) there were sixty-two mills engaged in the worsted manufacture, in which no less than 8,000 hands were employed. One-sixth of these, as an inevitable consequence of the Clause, must be thrown out of occupation. In the country very many of the mills must certainly come to a stand-still. It would be impossible to find relays of children to work them, and the consequence would be that the children must migrate to towns, and that that system of centralization of which they complained so much would be carried to an extent which at present they little con- ceived. But the operation of the Clause might extend even further than this There might be a great loss on capital. A ten hours clause would operate to diminish the income of the country. He knew some rich manufacturing houses in Yorkshire who had returned nil to the last call of the income-tax on the average of three years. That was the case at present, and if manufacturing income were generally diminished, the funds from which to pay wages would be diminished also. Hence the artisan and factory labourer who now asked for this Measure would have to pay for it in the end. He knew of houses in Sheffield whose foreign orders were going abroad to be executed, not on any idea of the balance of trade, as had been suggested by the noble Lord, but for the simple reason that the orders could be executed more cheaply abroad than at Sheffield. He was perfectly ready to ameliorate the condition and increase the comforts of the factory labourer, but it was incumbent on those who advocated a ten hours Clause to show that it would have that effect. He did not believe that by diminishing the profits of the masters they would improve the moral condition of the working people any more than their physical condition. Look at the reports of the state of the manufacturing towns, and they would find that the greatest amount of depravity and vice displayed itself in the haunts of the greatest poverty; and he considered it incontestable that by diminishing the comforts of the working population they diminished their power to resist temptation. Some hon. Gentlemen were very anxious to build more churches and extend education among the working classes; he was quite ready to go along with those Gentlemen, but without at the same time increasing or at least refraining from diminishing, the means of material comfort of those classes, everything of that sort was a mockery. Then, again, he was quite ready to join with the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Hawes) in taking off duties on raw materials; but why was the Legislature to tie its hands in one way only to untie them afterwards in another way? Others had pointed to improvements in the police and sanatory condition of manufacturing towns, and he was quite ready to join in any measures of that sort. In the propriety of legislative interference for those objects he quite agreed, because they could not be effected by individual means; but where all that their legislation could do might equally well be done by individual effort, then he would not interfere. Accordingly, he was sorry that interference had taken place at all in this matter, but the choice being between twelve hours and ten, he had no hesitation in voting for twelve hours as the least evil of the two; indeed he should not consider himself worthy of his seat in that House if he could hesitate to embrace that measure which he thought the least evil of the two, and resist that which he was persuaded would lead to the destruction of trade and of the comforts of the labouring population.

was understood to say that, on the one hand, the efforts of Her Majesty's Government had been exerted to obtain a majority; on the other, those who advocated a ten hours clause had undertaken to agitate the country in its favour. He must own, with respect to this agitation, that he had been no party to it; he did not see that agitation of questions of this nature was a good; he thought that questions of this nature should be discussed calmly, and with sentiments superior to the effervescence of agitation. He thought that any person acquainted with the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) with his past conduct, and the care and attention which had been devoted by him to those persons with whom he was familiarly connected, could not doubt his intention honestly to fulfil his duty. Therefore, thinking it wrong to attribute motives at any time, he thought it particularly wrong in this case, and he, therefore, did not attribute any motives to him; but when the right hon. Baronet circumscribed labour to twelve hours, then the whole principle was admitted; the question became one of detail; and in questions of detail, principle having been once sacrificed, then he thought that a compromise ought to have been allowed, and the Government would have done well to have allowed one. However, that having been refused, it remained to consider the case as it stood. It was a question connected with the social wants, the wishes, and condition of the working classes; and with respect to the effect of the proposed limitation to ten hours, he should not himself think the limitation would materially affect either the master or the workmen. It might, perhaps, do so at first, and sacrifices to some extent might be necessary, but he thought that ultimately those sacrifices would be made up to the master by increased prices—to the working man by the advantage of increased time for recreation and self-improvement. He appreciated fully a sentiment stated by the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) in 1828, when he said that he would never enter the service of the Crown or the country, intending to lay down his opinion as a formula to which every one of his followers must absolutely defer. That was stated by the right hon. Baronet in 1828. What was the conduct of his Government now? At first the question had not been considered as a party question by the Government; it was only by an afterthought that Government made it a party question. In what position then were those Gentlemen placed who had voted against them at first? The Government said to them, "Look at this side and at the other, which will you support—will you sacrifice a Government whose measures have your general support on this single account?" But might not he or any other hon. Gentleman thus addressed retort on the Government, "If your policy is so far superior to that of the Gentlemen opposite, and so much safer for the country, will you, for one vote on this question, sacrifice the interests of the country, by throwing up the Government and quitting the service of the Crown, because I vote against you on this single question?" He firmly believed Her Majesty's Government would not do so, but would see the necessity of not sacrificing their position on a single vote on such a question as this. The hon. Member concluded by expressing a hope that Gentlemen on both sides of the House would see the fairness and expediency of not making this a party question.

I am certainly very sorry to trouble the House at this hour of the morning; but I do think it is of great importance that we should come to some decision on the subject without much further protraction of the discussion; and I think, at the same time, that I should abandon the duty which I have to perform in this House, if I did not state without reserve and without hesitation, the strong opinions which I entertain upon the Bill now under consideration. The question for the House to decide is, shall we at this early period curtail factory la- bour to the extent of two hours a-day?— that is the question. Of what avail is it to taunt us with a violation of principle? If necessary, the House may reject our proposition, but what vindication is it of you that you alter our alleged violation of principle from twelve hours to ten? You say that Her Majesty's Government have committed an error in proposing a twelve hours Clause, and you say that that error shall justify you in interfering with adult labour. Now, for the present I will put the question of principle altogether aside, and I will discuss the matter with you as a question of degree; but I tell you first that we, the Government, have arrived at the utmost limit to which we can go in a case of this kind—we have reached the utmost extent to which we can agree to limit the labour of adults. At the same time, remember, that our error, if we have committed one, will be no vindication of you for adopting an impolitic measure. Prove me wrong if you can, but do not taunt me with doing that which you have done yourselves; for you have violated principle just as much as we have. Again, I recur to the question which the House has to decide—is it politic, or is it not, to limit the hours of labour in factories to ten? As I before said, I will discuss this with you as a question of degree; and, in such a discussion, I should be glad to learn what is the advantage of referring to the Corn Laws? If you ask me what I think of the Corn Laws, I am prepared to state my opinions; but why in the present discussion tell us that we are inconsistent because we maintain the Corn Laws? Granted that we maintain a restriction upon Corn, how can that justify you for imposing other restrictions upon the manufactures of the country? Take either branch of the dilemma, and you must find yourselves equally embarrassed. Agree with us that the Corn Laws happen to be justified by the peculiar circumstances of the country, and then you cannot with any consistency be favourable to the imposition of any such restriction as this ten hours' Clause. Say, on the other hand, that the Corn Laws ought to be removed, and how can you consistently set them free and impose restrictions upon any other branch of trade? How can you restrict labour if you set free commerce? How do you reconcile the one or the other with justice? You tell us that the extent of your inter- ference is very trifling, that it only goes the length of two hours in the work of the day; but have you forgotten that in all these cases there is a vast machine at work; that in fixing the employment of adult males you limit the labour of the machine? The factories at present employ the power of about 100,000 horses. The quantity of goods exported amounts to 51,000,000l. Now, in the present Bill, it is proposed to deal with 35,000,000l. of exports. We have a steam-engine power equal to 100,000 horses. This power gives employment to 450,000 persons, and I will state the grounds of this calculation. In the year 1839, the horse-power employed in machinery was estimated upon good authority at rather below 97,000, and the persons employed in connection with that machinery at 430,000, being four and a half persons for each horsepower. Since that time there has been a considerable increase in the amount of machinery employed, which probably would justify us in fixing the present amount at 100,000 horse power, and this would give a proportionate increase in the number of persons employed, which fixes them at about 450,000. Of these persons the average weekly wages is 10s. Taking the children and men one with another, the average weekly wages cannot be less than 10s., which gives a gross weekly payment of 225,000l. for factory labour, paid to 450,000 persons. But what says the hon. Member for Lambeth upon this point? He said that we could not get at the number; and that even if we did it would hardly prove considerable, compared with the whole population. [Mr. Hawes: What I stated was simply in answer to the statements of the right hon. Baronet, the Home Secretary, that the account must be considered in reference to the whole population.] But what I say is, that this limitation of the hours of labour in factories to ten, is no test of the degree in which the Measure will interfere with the manufacturers and with the labourers generally of the country. In our factories an immense amount of power in machinery is employed, which must be governed and controlled by a directing mind, and therefore, by your interference you do not merely contract the manual labour of a few men, you limit the operations of mind, and of that wonderful machinery which assists in the production of articles intended both for the home and foreign market. But even the number of persons employed in immediate connection with the machine that you throw out of labour is not the whole consideration. When you throw a certain number of factory labourers out of occupation, you take away employment from a much greater number than if you legislated to the same extent upon an equal number of persons engaged in spade husbandry. Prohibit the use of one spade, and only one individual loses his work, but how many are thrown into idleness by the stoppage of a single steam-engine—a power 1,000 times as great as that of a single spade, or any other simple instrument? In looking at a question of this kind, we must look at all the incidents of the case; we must remember that in changing the hours of labour from twelve to ten, we are dealing with an amount of weekly wages of not less than 225,000l., and the effect of this is to lay a tax upon labour of not less than 16¼ per cent. It is an Income-tax upon the poor man of 16¼ per cent., when you deny him a command over his own labour, and say he shall work only ten hours instead of twelve. That 16¼ per cent. amounts to 36,000l. of weekly wages to be deducted from the gross sum of 225,000l. That, however, is not the whole amount of the loss, for 16¼ per cent. does not cover the whole sum; fixed capital will suffer by your proposed change in a corresponding degree, and the manufacturer to compensate himself will still further reduce wages, and looking at the amount thus deducted from the retail trade, I beg the House to contemplate for a moment the effect of such a Measure as this upon a single mill in Manchester. The case of this mill is a fair test of what may be the probable effect of this Measure upon other establishments. The owners of this mill hold their water-power upon lease. They never contemplated such an interference as the present, they have no clause in their lease to protect them from the interference of Parliament, and what are they now to do with all their arrangements and liabilities founded upon the basis of the existing law? In that mill they at present work twelve hours a-day. There are 475 persons employed in it, of whom 119 are adult males; the remaining number, 356, would have their hours of labour also curtailed; and why should all this take place?—for the purpose of improving the social condition of the people employed in that mill. Let the House only look at the state of health of the persons employed in that mill. Out of 475, only 7 are absent on account of illness. That is to say, that only 1 in 68 is incapacitated on account of illness, being 1½ per cent. on the 475. Of the whole thus employed, 259 reside in Manchester, and 216 of the number have been attracted to that establishment: they have been allured to it by a high rate of wages, and they have been toiling during a period of prosperity in trade, to make a provision which shall guard them against the evils of poverty in old age. You tell these poor people that they are not to make the most of their labour while they can, and then you tell me that the prohibition is for their physical comfort, their moral improvement, and their social happiness. I admit freely, that our first consideration ought to be the moral habits of our people. But let us now observe the effect of the restrictions of factory labour upon other descriptions of labour not immediately connected with factory labour. I was told the other night that I ought not to refer to the trades connected with the working of metals—that I have no right to say that the labour there is more oppressive, and the labourers more entitled to interference and protection, because it is said that with those trades Parliament would interfere if it could; but let us observe the effect upon other branches of industry, indirectly connected with factory labour. I am now discussing the question upon the moral and social view— keeping the commercial view of the subject entirely apart, and out of consideration for the present. Now, what effect will a tax upon machinery to the amount of 16 per cent.—that very tax for which all along the hand-loom weavers have been contending—what effect will it have upon hand-labour? The hand-loom weavers have always been saying, "See how we are affected by machinery—it destroys our trade—it ruins ourselves and families —impose a tax upon it, that we may have a chance of a fair competition." Now, that is the very thing that you are going to do. You are about to give a stimulus to the hand-loom weavers—but their condition has occupied your attention, you have appointed Committees of the House to consider that condition, you have established Commissions, and you have sent down sub-commissioners, to examine evi- dence upon the spot. The effect of your Measure will, no doubt, be, to give to that trade a short-lived prosperity, but, by affording this premium, are you advancing the morality, or the social comforts, of the labouring people of the country? You have evidence upon the point. The hand-loom weavers exist, in different parts, in great numbers. They have been languishing hitherto, and nothing, but a tax upon machinery, could give them even a short-lived chance of success. Here is the Report of the Commissioners. Now, first, as to the number of hours. You complain of twelve hours labour in factories. What is the number we find stated here, as the common hours of the hand-loom weavers, which, mark, you cannot control, unless you admit the right of interference in every individual house, and upon every individual loom? With reference to this class of operatives, Mr. Muggeridge reports:—

"I am of opinion that the ordinary hours of labour of the weaver, when work is attainable, may be estimated, on the average, at fourteen daily. I think the weavers wait for, or are out of work, about one-fourth of their time, on an average of years. In the township of Briercliffe with Entwistle, in this neighbourhood, Mr. James Smith, of Haggate, stated— 'Our tenants are nearly all weavers. There has been no payment of rents for the last two half-yearly rent days, in our township, and a third is fast approaching.' In a survey of this township, I found 171 families of weavers, numbering 968 persons, and possessing 606 looms, all then employed. Their gross earnings for the week, were 85l. 16s. 6d., or 10s. 0¼d. per family, from which, it was alleged, 30l. 4s. 10d. must be deducted for expenses, giving net 6s. 6d. per family, on an average of 3 ½ looms to each family."

You don't attempt to interfere with this description of labour, because you feel it would be impossible, unless you established a system of domestic inquisition throughout every house wherein the business is carried on. True it is, they are without work three or four months in the year. Mr. Hickson, a competent authority on this subject, states, that—

"Weaving, as a domestic occupation, among the hand-loom cotton-weavers, is carried on in circumstances more prejudicial to health, and at a greater sacrifice of personal comfort, than weaving in any other branch. The great majority of hand-loom cotton-weavers work in cellars, sufficiently light to enable them to throw the shuttle, but cheerless, because seldom visited by the sun. The reason that cel- lars are chosen, is because cotton requires to be woven damp. The air, therefore, must be cool and moist, instead of warm and dry. Unhappily, the medium which might be preserved, without injury to the constitution, and which is preserved in the best power-loom factories, the impoverished hand-loom cotton-weavers are obliged often to disregard. I have seen them working in cellars dug out of an undrained swamp; the streets formed by their houses, without sewers, and flooded with rain; the water, therefore, running down the bare walls of the cellars, and rendering them unfit for the abode of dogs or rats. It is difficult to imagine a darker picture; and it may surprise the denouncers of our factory system, to find all the vices and miseries which they attribute to it flourishing so rankly, in the midst of a population, not only beyond the walls of a factory, but also beyond the contamination of a large town. Still more, that these vices and miseries decline, as the population emerges from the condition, which might have been fondly anticipated to be one of rural innocence and happiness, to be a town, and factory population. For the single-hand trade of the country, not only exhibits the greatest demoralisation at home, but helps to fill the criminal calendars of neighbouring counties."

So I say, that I doubt the policy of discouraging the factories, if the consequence be to give a premium to a trade more immoral, more oppressive, and less productive. Now, allow me, shortly to refer to the arguments by which this Mea-sure is attempted to be sustained. I will simply state them, and will not introduce one superfluous word, in giving what I consider to be a sufficient answer to each. First, then, it is stated, that by limiting the number of hours to ten, as ranch work will be done, as with twelve hours' labour —that there will be such an exercise of animal spirit and strength, on the part of the labourer, as more than to compensate for the difference in time. That is the statement, and I believe it to be an assumption entirely without foundation. As the hon. Gentleman says, it might be true of manual labour, but, with regard to the work done by machinery, I cannot help thinking that it is quite impossible. I have had an opportunity of knowing the actual amount of work performed in a factory, in which the mill happened, for a time, to be in operation for only ten hours. The account was kept without any reference to the present question, and I think it affords a good indication of the general results of ten hours' labour. From March to July, 1842, a period of fifteen weeks, the mill was worked for twelve hours, for five days, and the usual time upon the Saturday. After that time, it was compelled to work five-sixths of the time—ten hours, instead of twelve, during fire days. Now, the average weekly produce, when the time of working was twelve hours a day, was 119,000 hanks of cotton. According to the difference in the time of labour, the proportionate amount produced under the ten to that produced under the twelve hours, would be 99,574 hanks. You argue, however, that a greater quantity will actually be produced, in consequence of the increased strength and spirits of the men; but, in this case, the fact was, that less was produced; that the actual amount produced, was only 99,172 hanks, being an amount, nearly corresponding to the proportion with time, but rather under than over the proportion. I have the greatest confidence in that statement, and to me it seems a convincing proof, that your assumption of the produce of ten hours' labour, being nearly equal to the produce of twelve hours' labour, is entirely without foundation. Another argument very much relied upon, put forward in a manner which shows, that it is considered quite conclusive on the subject, is shortly this. It has been repeated in every night's debate, and seems very popular. It is said, that "which is morally wrong, cannot be politically right." This is a sort of saying, which is very much admired in certain quarters. [Lord Ashley: Hear.] But, all the arguments in the House ought to be submitted to the test of reason, and my noble Friend must not be offended, if I claim the privilege of submitting his argument to the same test. "That which is morally wrong, is not politically right." That is the principle, but what is the meaning of it? What is the meaning of that argument? I can understand it in reference to some enormous act of injustice or of aggression, as in the case of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, or the partition of Poland; but I wish to know, does it mean that I am bound to interfere by law with that which I feel to be morally wrong? If so, I distinctly say that such is not the true principle of legislation. I may be, as perhaps I shall be, denounced for holding this doctrine; but I shall be utterly regardless of such denouncement, and shall proceed fearless to examine the principle. I will show you there are many things which I know to be morally wrong, with which neither I nor you can interfere in the way of legislation; for instance, intemperance —envy, are great moral offences. Both, though convinced that they are wrong, I tolerate them, because I am also convinced they are not within the sphere of legislation. However grave the offence against morality, the Legislature attempts to strike a balance, and see whether the attempt to interfere would not be more prejudicial than connivance. But who is to decide the question of an act being immoral? or how am I to apply the rule of interference? In a despotic country the adoption of such a principle might lead to justify any atrocity. The Inquisition itself could be defended upon this principle, for it only attempted to put down what it deemed morally wrong by the exercise of power. But in this case, where I admit that we ought to consult that which is for the lasting benefit of the people—for the advancement of morality and not for the increase of wealth —are we not left free to determine whether the means you propose will produce that end—whether those means are or are not morally right? In that sense I deny, Sir, that we are perpetrating a wrong in legislating for twelve hours' labour a day. Some go, however, further, and how am I to deal with those who advocate eight hours a day? The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fielden) says "restrict labour in factories to eight hours, there is no use in carrying it to ten; ten hours' labour of a female, perhaps pregnant, perhaps having a large family, will leave no sufficient time for the performance of domestic duties—your measure is incomplete, extend it to eight hours." Will those who contend for this simple rule, that what is morally wrong can't be politically right, vote for a Motion of the hon. Gentleman for restricting the period of female labour to eight hours a-day? He says that for them to work more is morally wrong; and if hon. Gentlemen don't vote for it, are not they precisely in the same difficulty that I am, who object to the limitation of twelve hours? Certainly it would be much more agreeable to me to see women working ten hours than twelve; but, balancing the evils of the interference with the good, seeing on the one hand a diminution of wages, on the other a risk of the loss of commerce, I fear that in a short time there would not be occupation for the productive industry of the country. I prefer twelve hours to ten upon that ground—not ab- stractedly, but upon a large and comprehensive view of the subject. Why, if you apply the same argument in opposition to the Bill of him who asks you to limit the hours of labour to eight instead of ten, you admit that that great rule of legislation, that "that which is morally wrong cannot be politically right," constitutes no rule to act on; and that is the only way to test the proposal of my noble Friend. I say that affords no safe rule for legislation. We meet you at once on the abstract question. Not that we like to see women labouring twelve hours, but because we doubt whether we should not be doing more that is morally wrong, by curtailing the labour and diminishing the wages and the comforts of the labourers, than by positively permitting them to work the twelve hours, which they may do now. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Howick) vindicated his vote on commercial views, and I was rather surprised at the views which he took of the moral and social bearings of the question. I thought he would have said, that he was for the principle of non - interference, but that this was an exception to his principles of political economy; and I was surprised to hear him attempt to vindicate his vote by those novel views of political economy and foreign trade with which he favoured the House. If I understood the noble Lord rightly, he is of opinion that it was a matter of no great importance whether or not we are able to undersell the Americans in the Chinese market. I always thought that the more cheaply you could produce an article of manufacture as compared with another competing power, the more it was for your advantage, and that if you could command a greater quantity of the produce of another country—be it tea, cotton, or sugar—at a less sacrifice than they could be purchased by a third power, it would be a great advantage to you. But the noble Lord has a doctrine that, because America wants tea, and levys no duty on it, it is therefore of no consequence on what terms we meet the Americans in the Chinese market. I do not understand the noble Lord. I know that this is a great crisis in the commerce of that country. I know that America has been sending goods in large quantities to China, and that the Chinese have a preference for English goods, and that a great rivalry and contest for supremacy exist, and I should, therefore, have thought that if, under such circumstances, England could have undersold America, it would, according to the doctrines of common sense and the received opinions of writers on political economy, have been a great advantage to us. The noble Lord's views of foreign trade were rather peculiar. According to him, the extent of the foreign trade depends on the amount of the articles of importation for which you have a demand in your own country. But on what does this demand in your own country depend? Does it not depend on the profits of trade, on the accumulation of capital, and on the savings of industry? If I can save more money and make more profit by working for twelve hours instead of ten, shall I not be able to command a greater quantity of the commodities of other countries? If I produce an article more cheaply, accumulate more capital, and make more profit, is it not clear that I shall have a greater command of foreign articles? And therefore it is, that I cannot reconcile the doctrines of the noble Lord as to foreign trade, with what appears to be the doctrines which have prevailed on foreign trade from the days of Adam Smith to the present moment. The noble Lord says, "import as much as you can." I say, export as much as you can. The noble Lord thinks that profits depend entirely on imports, and that imports ensure exports. But I say that profits depend on exports; that exports ensure imports, for you cannot export without importing something equivalent; therefore, I say that the novel doctrine of the noble Lord has no foundation whatever; that foreign trade is a matter of barter, and that the policy of import and export stands on precisely the same foundation. I am, therefore, not at all disposed to agree to a Ten Hours' Bill, by the novel theories which the noble Lord advanced the other night, and which were so very peculiar and not well understood. I admit that I am afraid of foreign competition, and that the danger will be increased by the restriction on the hours of labour which you now propose. We have had a long peace—industry has been unfettered, and a disposition has been felt in all countries to seek for employment in manufacturing industry. There is a prospect of a continuance of that peace. There is a tendency to equalise the profits on all trades in this country. There is a similar tendency throughout the world. You thought it advisable to forego the ad- vantage which your skill in machinery gave you exclusively. You had the command of iron and coal, and you did not abandon your advantage through generosity or feelings of disinterestedness, but because you could retain your exclusive possession of machinery no longer. You might keep the machines, perhaps, but you could not keep the men who made them. You had found that though you could prevent the export of whole machines, yet you could not prevent the exportation of the models, or of the machinery in parts. There was an attempt at the Custom House to prevent the export of machinery, but all was in vain—machinery went out. That deprived you of the nominal advantage which you possessed as to machinery, and made you liable to be undersold by the rest of the world. There is a work written by a Belgian Gentleman, Monsieur Ducpetiaux, a member of a commission charged to propose a projet de loi to regulate the labour of young persons. I cannot, of course, be certain of the accuracy of all his details, but this is his account of the hours of labour in different countries. He professes to take them from a French work, published in 1837. Different regulations may have been published since, but the work states the number of hours of labour per week to be, in the United States 78; France 72 to 84; Prussia 72 to 90; Switzerland 78 to 84; Austria 72 to 80; Tyrol 78 to 80; Saxony 72; Baden 84; Bonn 94; and in England 69, being less in England than in any other competing country in Europe. We have permitted the exportation of machines—we have already less of weekly labour than any other country, and yet now it is proposed that those 69 hours should be reduced to 58. I do think that is a most serious matter, and it requires statements of facts of a most unquestionable character, and arguments of the most cogent description to justify such an experiment. As it has been very truly said, we are now recovering from the depression of four disastrous years; during which we have had an opportunity of watching the effect of a forced limitation of the hours of labour. We have seen what it was to leave persons in the possession of time for which they had not a demand—we have seen the moral and social evils it produced; there is now a revival in trade; but with that revival in trade, you seek to dispirit competition by a legisla- tive restriction of the hours of labour New markets are opened, but in those new markets we meet competing rivals. We have to labour for several hours less in the week than any other country, and not satisfied with that, and as if we were not satisfied with the experience of the last four years, when manufacturing prosperity is returning, we don't permit six months to elapse before we try to reduce our amount of labour from sixty-nine hours per week to fifty-eight. I do earnestly and sincerely deprecate such interference. Are the facts which have been stated to be relied on? They made a great impression when stated; and when it was said that young females were compelled to walk (in addition to mental toil) from twenty to twenty-seven or twenty-eight miles a-day, it had great influence on the House and on the public; but if it be not so, don't let the original impression remain, and induce you to make this perilous experiment. Thirty-seven miles. Sir, I have from certain circumstances of my life some knowledge of factories, and I declare it as my conviction that such a distance, even as an extreme case, must be utterly impossible. Nay, taking it at twenty, I believe such never was the distance. I have the strongest impression upon my mind that no person ever walked that distance in a factory in one day. I have seen calculations made, in which I have much greater confidence than in others, and my firm impression is, that the maximum of possible distance is twelve miles in the course of the twelve hours—(I was surprised to see it stated even so high)—and I believe the average to be from eight to nine miles; but I am convinced it is capable of demonstration, that, taking all ordinary data, it is impossible that the distance should exceed a mile per hour. Whether or not a certain degree of walking may or may not be beneficial to the artisan is matter for inquiry. A moderate degree of labour I should think accompanying factory labour renders it more healthy, certainly, than that of the hand-loom weaver. Of course it must be limited; but, at all events, restricted to eight miles in the course of the day, I do not consider it can be prejudicial to health. But as to those impressions which have been founded on the statement made, that the number of miles trodden by the factory children per day is eighteen or twenty I think it clear that those impressions are erroneous, and that those impressions which may have guided some gentlemen on former occasions ought not to influence them in giving their vote this night. To show the straits to which some men are driven in vindication of their votes, I need only refer to the statement made by an hon. Member last night, that Gentleman being a Member (of all places in the world) for Birmingham, whose prosperity depends upon the demand in the foreign markets for its production; and that hon. Gentleman, feeling it difficult to deny that the consequence of this interference must be to raise the price of the manufactured article, to diminish the demand, and curtail our export trade, he, with a practical knowledge of business, not content with the facts which were stated, got up and told us in his vindication, and said, "Very true it may be that it will injure our foreign trade, and that is now hardly worth having; —what would the country suffer if we lost it?" When we have a statement of that kind from an hon. Gentleman who represents a great commercial and manufacturing town like Birmingham — is not the statement of the hon. Member that if our foreign trade were ruined the country would not suffer—is not that statement enough and sufficient to awaken our minds to the unsoundness of his argument? Some hon. Gentlemen, I think the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe), and the hon. Member for Weymouth (Mr. R. Bernal), complained of Her Majesty's Government for offering an opposition to the Motion of my noble Friend. The hon. Member for Weymouth said we could not deal with men as we would with chessmen that we could not apply that principle to the laws of political economy. The hon. Member for Finsbury tells us to give way in time; that these men who are employed are determined to resist the proposition for twelve hours' labour, and that the sooner we capitulate the better; that their wish is to have ten hours' labour per day, and that a Ten Hours' Bill they will have. Sir, I deeply regret to hear an argument of this kind raised by a Gentleman of the experience and authority of the hon. Member for Weymouth, denying as he does the great principles of all our legislation in respect to the employment of capital, and which ought to be the sound principles of political economy; that is to say, the principles of wisdom matured by ex- perience. I say, I deeply regret to hear hon. Gentlemen abjure those as the leading principles; for, depend upon it, that will be a bad system if they take popular feeling and the popular will as the guides to legislation. If we are to concede now to those demands upon the ground that it is the promulgated wish and feeling of the people, and that they are the best judges of their own case, and of what constitutes their interests, will hon. Gentlemen tell me how long it will be before similar appeals will be made and when, proceeding on the same principle, much larger concessions will be demanded? I fear the interval will be short; indeed, the ground has already been laid for fresh demands. Here is an address of a body of men—I allude to "the Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland" — and they briefly state the nature of their demands; and, surely, acting on the principle which has been laid down, we ought to accede to these demands, because these people wish us to do so. And if the presumption be correct that these people are best acquainted with their own interests, clearly after they shall have established this precedent for concession, we shall have no alternative but to make further concessions. This is "The Address of the turned-out Miners of Claycross to a sympathising public." They state their grievances, and then set forth the remedy which they propose in these terms;—

"Having thus stated a few of our grievances we now lay before you those boons we ask, yea, we would say demand, as a redress of those grievances. First, we wish to work eight hours per day and no more. Secondly, we wish to receive 4s. per day. Thirdly, we wish to receive our wages weekly. Fourthly, we wish to be united for our protection.

"Friends and fellow-countrymen, we now appeal to your sympathies, and ask you in the name of justice, whether, to be buried in caverns of the earth inhaling the most obnoxioxs air for eight hours a day be not long enough?"

Whatever is morally wrong cannot be politically right. The United Colliers however proceed—

"We ask you whether we are exorbitant in our demands, when we ask 4s. for eight hours' toil, hewing from the bowels of the earth so useful a commodity as coals, our lives always being in the most imminent danger, every moment threatening us with the most horrible death, and no provision whatever being made for our wives and children except the cold bastile.

"Fellow-countrymen, we feel confident that when you have read this (which is but a shadow of our grievances) you will be ready to render us that support which the urgency of our case demands at your hands, and that you will likewise be ready to acknowledge that we are no way exorbitant in our demands.

"We remain,

"Your suffering fellow-countrymen,

"THE TURNED-OUT COLLIERS."

This is the address to a sympathising public, and upon the same principle on which we are now asked to legislate, I contend that it ought to be presumed these persons are the best judges of their own interest; so, on the same principle, you ought to concede the point that men ought not to be confined at work in the bowels of the earth—that they should not labour more than eight hours a day, and that four shillings a day ought to be their reward. But I believe that nothing could be more injurious to the best interests of these people than an acquiescence in their demands. I will not act upon the presumption that they are better judges of their interests than the Legislature; and I will not abandon them because they demand these things. It would be no vindication to us to say, that we acted in communion with the feelings of those who raised these demands. No. Sir,

"Evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis Di faciles."

Or as it has been happily paraphrased—

"How nations sink by darling schemes oppressed,

When vengeance listens to the rash request."

But vengeance will not arise; our duty is to take a comprehensive view of all the great interests, commercial, political, social and moral, of all classes of this great empire. It is a maxim of distributive justice, a maxim of law, a technical rule, in the administration of justice—"volenti non fit injuria"—that injury cannot be done to him who consents to it; but you, deputed to perform the functions of watching the welfare of a great country, you cannot act upon that principle. And it cannot be a greater proof of your possessing attributes appropriate to the duties of legislation, that you reverse the maxim "volenti non fiat injuria," and you tell the people "We will resist your wishes in order to promote your welfare." "We will discharge the duty assigned to us, on account of our being able to take a more comprehensive and more beneficent view, than you are." I protest, then, against the doctrine, that we are to concede because it is the popular will. If we are satisfied that it is not for the popular in-interests, then it is our painful but necessary duty to resist. If this House be of a different opinion—if you are satisfied that you must make this great experiment on labour—or if you think concession is inevitable, and that you must give way to the wishes and feelings of the people—be it so! But if you take that course, and if you resolve (as you cannot but do in consistency) to pursue it, you must—I say it with all respect—you must do so under other auspicies, and under guides who can trace a clearer and a better way than can the present Administration. The noble Lord says that we ought not to attach so much importance to this question, that it is a question not of principle but of degree, that the majority will be composed of conflicting elements, and that we ought not, therefore, to insist upon acting on our own opinions. I say, that attaching the importance we do to this question, and foreseeing its results it is our duty in this case to act upon and to enforce our opinions. There is no other way in which we can avert that which we believe to be a serious evil. It may be that by the combination to which the noble Lord refers, you may succeed: but there are occasions when it is the duty of a Government to refuse to be the instruments of carrying into effect the decisions of such combinations. I believe this to be one of those cases. I know not what the result may be this night, but this I know, that I shall with a perfectly safe conscience, if the result be unfavourable to my views, retire with perfect satisfaction into a private station, wishing well to the result of your legislation, but for myself prepared to pursue that more rugged but not inglorious path of duty—prepared to resist concessions which, though popular, I believe to be injurious, and to consult the public interest at the expense of popular favour.

said, it was not his intention to have taken part in this debate. He considered that, after the declaration which was made after the withdrawal of the first Bill, the question in the view of that House was totally and essentially changed. When the noble Lord (Lord Ashley) brought forward his proposition in the first instance, it was supported by many hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House, while the Government were supported in the course they adopted by many Members on that side. Some of his right hon. Friends, with whom he had always acted with the most cordial concurrence, entirely differed from him on this subject, and he could state that he never attempted in the slightest degree to influence either those right hon. Gentlemen or any others with whom he had spoken on the subject, on a question which he considered was far removed from one of party character; but, after the declaration that was made some weeks ago, that this was to be a question upon which the Ministry were to stand or fall, it appeared to him useless to attempt to argue the question on those grounds on which the noble Lord and others had rested it; because, supposing it to be proved that the present Law was destructive to the health, to the life, and to the morals of the people employed in factories; that the mortality was even more extensive than had been stated; and that the Law might be changed with perfect security to those engaged in factories and without danger to our foreign trade,—supposing all this to be proved to demonstration, yet hon. Gentlemen were prepared to say, "We admit all this; we should be very glad if two hours out of the twelve could be spared; we think it would be highly to the advantage of the persons employed, and that no mischief whatever would ensue; but there is another and further question—The Ministers of the Crown will not consent to this alteration, and therefore we shall oppose such a proposition." Now that was a question which he was not disposed to argue; for he did not think it fit to mix up this great and important question with any question of Ministerial confidence, or want of confidence. He did not think the Ministers of the Crown had done well in saying virtually and in effect, "We will be Ministers so long as all legislation is carried on according to our notions; but, if any alteration of which we do not approve is made in a Bill, from that moment we cease to be the Ministers of the Crown." When they knew that there was in that House a majority favourable to those Ministers, and who wished to retain them in office, there was an end at once to all argument; there was an end to the question whether the proposal were useful or right, or whether it was likely to prove advantageous to the country. The House of Commons had no business with legislation. The only question for its consideration was, "Are the present Ministers of the Crown to be preferred to any others? or, if they were to resign office would they not embarrass, and thwart, and defeat any Ministry that could be formed? Let us, therefore, choose the lesser of two evils; let us reject all advantageous measures of reform or improvement, and only vote in obedience to the Ministry of the day." That was, he conceived, the point to which right hon. Gentlemen opposite were bringing this question. But, though he was hopeless of producing any effect upon hon. Gentlemen who entirely agreed with the views of the noble Lord, who had nothing to urge against them, but who were desirous of keeping in the present Ministry, yet as he had been called upon by the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill to justify his vote on this subject, he ventured to ask the attention of the House for a few moments while he entered upon that justification. After so much had been said in the discussion of this question with regard to principles, he asked the House to consider what was the principle on which they wished to proceed? Were they inclined to say that the production of manufactures—the attainment of wealth — should be their only object? If that was the view they took, let them adopt the system to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred as prevalent in Germany, in France, and in Prussia,— let the period of work be seventy-two hours, eighty hours, or ninety hours; and, if manufacturing production was their object, undoubtedly they would succeed. True, many myriads of children must be swept away by a constantly recurring mortality; the countenances of the factory population might bear the impress of disease, which was fast hurrying them to the grave; all sense of morality—all knowledge of religion—might be lost or disregarded; but they would secure their object,— they might leave all foreign competition at a distance,—their productions would be unrivalled in the world,—and their manufacturing prosperity would increase to a degree hitherto unexampled. But the House would not agree to that principle, they would not adopt the fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen hours system of other countries. The principle for which he, and those who adopted the same views, contended, was the very principle on which the present law was founded. But they were told that if they adopted the noble Lord's proposition, they might throw aside Adam Smith, and fill their libraries with more modern pamphlets and books. Whatever Adam Smith might say on this subject, he did not think he had pointed out a distinction between twelve hours' work and ten, that he had shown that twelve hours' work was in accordance with the principles of political economy, while the ten hours' system was opposed to them. He contended, that the existing law, and the proposal of the noble Lord opposite, were founded on the same principle—the principle of regard for national health and morality. The noble Lord (Lord Ashley) contended that children, or, as they were termed in the language of the law "young persons" between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, could not, consistently with the maintenance of their health, and with their instruction in religious and secular knowledge, be employed at work for twelve hours a day, being fourteen hours in all in the mills. The noble Lord therefore proposed that the labour of these young persons should be limited to ten hours. He (Lord J. Russell) asserted that this proposal was founded upon views of national health, religion, and morality, —considerations which the Legislature ought to hold in as high regard as any considerations of national wealth. It might happen that, in some degree, those considerations were conflicting; they might conflict to such an extent, that the House could not carry out its wishes with respect to one or the other of them. It was objected to the proposal of the noble Lord, that though he only professed to apply a restriction to the labour of young persons up to the age of eighteen, yet that that restriction would in practice extend to the whole of the persons employed in factories. He did not think that hon. Gentlemen who had supported the proposal of the noble Lord, had at all shrunk from this consideration. It must not be forgotten that this was no part of the proposal of the noble Lord, and that, if adult males were ready to work twelve or fourteen hours a day, there was nothing in the noble Lord's proposition to prevent them from doing so. The first question was, would wages be diminished by the reduction of the hours of labour from twelve to ten? No- thing he had heard induced him to depart from the opinion he had expressed on a former occasion; he did not believe that the same wages would be given for ten as for twelve hours daily labour. He should be sorry that any deception should be practised on that subject. Of course he could not say, nor could any man say, what the rate of wages would be if this Bill passed any three or four years hence; because there was an infinite number of circumstances that might vary wages at any particular time, of which they could not now speak. But, so far as the effect of the proposal went, he thought the effect would be to diminish wages. Still, however, he entirely agreed with what had been stated, that with some diminution of wages, the increase of comfort, the increase of the power of obtaining instruction in domestic duties, the increase of the power of keeping up those ties of family which were as dear to the poorest as to the highest in the land, there would be in those respects an improvement, and a gain effected by the adoption of the noble Lord's proposition. With respect likewise to the saving of money, he was justified in saying that there were various arrangements with regard to cookery and the economical preparation of meals, by which a saving would be effected if the females were enabled to return home earlier than they now did. But the great question, in which much difficulty appeared to have arisen, was with regard to foreign competition. Now, he was not one of those who at all inclined to speak lightly of foreign competition; but at the same time he must consider both the calculations and the observations which had been made by persons of high authority on this subject. He would not go back to the various calculations made by persons who had taken rather a theoretical view of this question. They had in former debates the estimate of Mr. Senior; since then, they had had the estimate of Colonel Torrens, totally opposed to that of Mr. Senior, and they had now the estimate of eight manufacturers, which in itself was more incomprehensible than either the arguments of Mr. Senior or Colonel Torrens. The noble Lord (Lord Ashley) cited the authority of persons practically acquainted with this subject; and the right hon. Baronet almost seemed to adopt that statement, although he stated it was underrated,—that on twenty-five yards of calico the difference would be an increase of 5d. in the cost of its production, and in the price, supposing profits to remain the same, at which we could sell our goods abroad. But, then, let it be remembered that they were not to reckon on any diminution in a great part of the expences of this article. In the first place, with respect to the cost of bringing the cotton from America, the proposal of his noble Friend would make no difference; with respect to the charges of manufacture it would make no difference. The difference entirely consisted in the diminution of the number of hours employed in labour, and the charges which fall on labour; and these charges it was, which were to effect our total ruin in foreign markets, and make our goods unsaleable there. In looking at this question his attention had been directed to the Hand-loom Weavers' Commission, at the head of which, were Mr. Senior and Mr. Jones Loyd, persons well able to form an opinion on the subject. These gentlemen stated, that it was a great mistake to suppose, because labour was nominally cheap, that it was really cheap. 6d. a-day was very often dearer pay for labour than 1s. a-day. They went on to say that, with respect to many foreign countries, the labourers employed in the mills were so inferior to ours, that in that respect alone we enjoyed a great advantage. Further than this, the question of foreign competition had been discussed by Mr. M'Culloch, and this argument appeared in the last edition of his Commercial Dictionary,

"With respect to American competition, he said it was quite ridiculous to suppose that America could compete with this country. With such vast tracts of unoccupied and uncultivated land, it was not to be supposed that the mass of their population could be engaged in manufactures."

He adds, that

"France, Saxony, and Switzerland, we have as little to fear as from America. Switzerland and Saxony, situate almost in the centre of Europe, can only draw their supplies of the raw material by way of Marseilles and Genoa, and a long and expensive land carriage, and it is well known that a bale of cotton can be conveyed from Charleston to Manchester cheaper than from Marseilles or Genoa to Switzerland or Saxony. This saving in the cost of conveying the cotton to those places is of itself a guarantee against the Swiss competition."

But supposing this competition to be more formidable than he believed it to be — although he admitted to some extent its formidable character—were there no other methods, especially with respect to cotton, by which they might afford to meet this competition? A memorial had been presented from parties interested, praying relief from the tax on raw cotton, stating the tax at 8 per cent. on the value. Now, the noble Lord proposed to take away about 7 per cent. by diminishing the hours of labour one-fourteenth, while they maintained a duty of 8 per cent. upon the raw material, and this, be it remembered, applying chiefly to a material which entered most largely into the manufactures which we sent abroad; because it was the coarser fabrics which were sent abroad, whilst the finer sorts were consumed at home. This then was the way in which they met the question of foreign competition. But there was another question which the right hon. Gentleman opposite complained had been unfairly brought into this discussion. He alluded to the restrictive duties on food imported from foreign countries. The question came to this—if you found yourselves pressed by foreign competition, and were obliged to admit food at a very low duty, or without any duty at all, would you make these young persons employed in factories work more hours than their health would enable them to bear? The question was to which alternative they would incline. Would they say, as was stated some nights ago, "Let these people go on working these two hours a day for ever in order to maintain the Corn Laws," or would they rather give up the Corn Laws than enforce those hours of labour? If that, then, were the question, let them but consider in how odious a light they placed these restrictions on foreign corn, when they said, that they would oblige these people to work longer because of the Corn Laws. Such then were the methods which to him appeared far preferable to a continuance of their present restrictions. He had stated these opinions, because the right hon. Gentleman had called on him for an opinion, as he had expressed an opinion on a former night, totally different, he admitted, from that pronounced by him on former occasions. All he could say was, that he had changed his opinion. On reconsidering this question his opinions had undergone a change. The first question was, then, whether in this change of opinion he had been influenced by any unworthy motive? There was but one Member, who in the course of this debate had insinuated such motives, both against him and some who sat near him. With respect to that hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck) he would say little, because he had entirely taken himself out of the sphere of our mortal and peccable nature. With great candour, and at the same time with great modesty, that hon. and learned Member said—

"Fools rush in"—

declining to quote the rest of the line; but it was very clear, as lawyers put it, by way of innuendo—he meant "fool," such as the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, "rush in where angels," meaning thereby the hon. and learned Member for Bath, "feared to tread." With great appropriateness the hon. and learned Member claimed to himself the benefit of the comparison. But, putting aside all dispute with the hon. and learned Member, because he only pretended to be fallible and erring on this subject, he came next to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who had quoted the remarks he had made on this subject in former years. He had stated formerly what were his views; he had stated them both when in office and after he left office; he stated then the views and impressions which he held at that time. His opinion had now undergone a change. Did the right hon. Baronet mean to assert consistency on every subject to be absolutely necessary to a politician? He might refer to great examples on former days, who were not afraid to avow inconsistency on certain subjects, when reproached with having changed their opinions; but the right hon. Gentleman himself, who appeared there as the organ of a Government composed of men with whom he said at one time it would be inconsistent with his honour to act, because they had always opposed good government and promoted bad—surely he had changed his opinion, having pronounced, as he thought, a somewhat rash judgment on that occasion. He did not think that a change of opinion on such a subject as this was after all so very extraordinary. Again, the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Treasury had said the other day, that it would be the greatest degree of presumption and vanity to pretend always to have the same opinion on some subjects. The House had lately heard from that right hon. Gentleman a most admirable exposition of the sound principles which should regulate the currency, although in his early life, before he had fully examined that subject, the right hon. Baronet voted with his party, confiding in their judgment, which he had since seen reason to see was utterly erroneous; but what a loss to the country would it have been if he had foolishly said, "By giving such and such votes, I am pledged to this view of a question, and therefore I will not look into it or endeavour to form a better opinion." He was really sorry to detain the House with these accusations, because he felt it was no reproach to have changed his opinion, thinking as he did that his present opinion would be most conducive to the welfare of the country. He thought so, not merely judging within the narrow limits of the present proposition of the noble Lord. Whatever the consequences of that proposition might be, he thought there were other consequences which were still more important. It was not that he wished, as the right hon. Baronet reproached some with desiring, that they should yield merely because this was a popular question. He did not ask the House to consider any such grounds; but he did think they were bound seriously and year by year to consider what ought to be the future fortunes of this great country. Commercial and manufacturing prosperity should ever be dear to them, but that was not all that should be dear to them. The right hon. Baronet had said there were 450,000 persons, with others dependent on them, who were engaged in manufactures. It was on account of these numbers, on account of their being crowded together in large towns, and because they had not sufficient means and leisure to obtain religious and secular instruction, that he was induced to vote for some plan by which they might in future be cemented and bound up with the institutions and welfare of the country. He felt persuaded, if the Legislature were to neglect this subject, if it were to look for nothing but manufacturing wealth and commercial prosperity, and to say it mattered not what happened so long as the country possessed these, that they would some day or other awake from that pleasant dream to the sad reality of an immense mass of people estranged from those institutions, setting no value on that which was held to be sacred, and guided by the wildest demagogues, seeking to effect the worst and most mischievous desires. He wished, by some proposition like that of the noble Lord, to give the young time by which they might receive both a better groundwork of domestic affection, and more ample means of instruction in what every citizen of a free state, and above all a state like this, where public discussion was so general, must admit to be advantageous—he might say necessary, for the welfare of the country. With these considerations, and in this spirit, he should cheerfully support the noble Lord, whatever might be the fate of his amendments.

said, he hoped the House of Commons, which had heard the speech of the head of the Government, would hear him in reference to that part of it in which his right hon. Friend referred to that noble proposition, which he used, with a kind of insinuation which was popular with a certain class of persons, "that what was morally wrong could never be politically right." His right hon. Friend proceeded in a somewhat taunting tone to ask his noble Friend who had the honour of having originated that proposition, whether he meant to pursue it into the details of legislation, and whether he would pursue all moral vices, and he instanced one or two, by a course of new legislation. The answer of his noble Friend would be this, that he would interfere wherever legislation was possible, and would stop there. The law of England interfered with respect to many private vices, whether with much or little success he would not presume to say; but the principle might be seen carried out in every police-court in the Kingdom. For himself, he firmly believed, that private vices could never be public benefits.

said, he was opposed to all interference with the hours of labour between the employers and the employed, and therefore he had voted against the proposition of the noble Lord: and for the same reason he voted against the third reading of this Bill. For the same reason he should vote for the Motion of the noble Lord, because he considered, in the first place, that ten hours was better than twelve hours; and, secondly, that if this Amendment were carried, which he hoped it would be, it would be the means of getting rid of a very improper and pernicious Bill.

The House divided on the question that the Clause be read a second time:—Ayes 159; Noes 297: Majority 138.

On the question that the words where the penalty awarded shall be more than "three pounds" be inserted at page 25, line 30 of the printed Bill, that the appeal against these convictions, shall be extended to all convictions under the Act.

opposed the Amendment.

said, he believed that reason and argument were with his hon. and learned Friend on that occasion, but he should recommend him not to divide the House as they had that evening seen too much of what might be done by the Government in the House of Commons to encourage any Member to divide against them.

said, he should divide the House on the question.

The House divided on the question that the words be inserted:—Ayes 124; Noes 29: Majority 95.

On the question that the Bill do pass, the House again divided:—Ayes 136; Noes 7: Majority 129.

Bill passed.

House adjourned at two o'clock.