asked the Postmaster General, Whether his attention has been called to the use of the Telephone by Telegraph Departments and Telegraph Companies abroad; and, whether it is his intention to introduce it in the Postal Telegraph Service?

Sir, the use of the telephone by the German telegraphic administration has been brought under my notice; but, from the result of the trials which have been made here by officers of the Post Office, it is evident that the instrument is at present unsuitable for the purposes of public telegraphy, and I do not, therefore, propose to introduce it in that branch of the Postal Telegraph Service.

asked the Lord Advocate, If his attention has been called to the case of Agnes Adams, a woman born in Dungannon, in the county Tyrone, who, after being many years resident in Scotland, was under a warrant granted by two Justices of the Peace for the city of Glasgow removed from Glasgow and delivered to the Master of the Thomastown Union, in the county of Kilkenny, though it appears she was not born in, nor had ever been resident in and was not in any way connected with the county of Kilkenny; if he can state whether any, and, if so, what examination was made by the said Justices before they addressed a warrant to compel the Thomastown Union to receive Agnes Adams; has any investigation been made into the conduct of the said Justices in the matter, and what has been the result of the investigation; and, is there any remedy for the injury suffered by the Thomastown Union, and in what way can that Union be recouped the expenses occasioned by Agnes Adams having been thus illegally left a charge on that Union?

Sir, I beg to reply to the Question of the hon. Gentleman, as the Lord Advocate is unavoidably absent. The learned Lord's attention was called to the allegation, and he made inquiries through the Board of Supervision. The pauper Agnes Adams was examined before two justices, and she stated on oath that she was born in Dungannon, county Kilkenny, and her deposition to that effect was, in consequence of her statement that she could not write, authenticated by the two justices in the usual form by their subscribing their signatures. The Lord Advocate had no reason to doubt that the pauper did make the statement on oath, as recorded by the justices. If it was the case that she was not born at Dungannon, county Kilkenny, but at Dungannon in the county of Tyrone, the Lord Advocate would recommend the Board of Supervision to give every assistance in their power to have the pauper re-transmitted to Glasgow. With regard to the legal point raised in the last half of the Question, the Lord Advocate does not feel called upon to give any information on that part of the inquiry.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he will lay upon the Table Copies of the Report of the Joint Commission appointed last year to inquire into the treatment of Indian labourers in the French Colony of La Reunion; and, of any Correspondence between the Government of India and the Foreign Office relative to the discontinuance of Coolie importation from India to French Guiana?

, in reply, said, the Report referred to in the Question of the hon. Gentleman was still under the consideration of the French Government, and until some authority was received from that Government, Her Majesty's Government would not be justified in publishing it.

asked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been called to the case of Hume against Hume and others in the Divorce Court, reported in the "Times" of 2nd instant, and the observations of the Right honourable the President on the anomaly in the Law, through which, although

"he had power," he said, "under the Divorce Acts to order the husband, when the successful party in the suit, to make a provision for the guilty wife, he had no power to make such an order in favour of an innocent wife, even though left destitute, on succeeding in her suit;"

and, whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill to amend the Divorce Acts in the present Session?

Sir, the observations of the right hon. President are not accurately stated in the Question. The President did not say that—

"Although he had power under the Divorce Acts to order the husband, when the successful party in the suit, to make a provision for the guilty wife, he had no power to make such an order in favour of an innocent wife, even though left destitute."

What the President complained of was that he had no power to make a guilty husband make any provision for his guilty wife, the consequence of the defect in the law being that collusion is much encouraged. A provision in the Matrimonial Causes Bill, introduced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Herschell), is intended to remedy the anomaly complained of; and that Bill the Government intend to support.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government has received any late information confirming the statements in the Press as to the general insurrection of the Christian population of Crete, and also as to the massacre of Christians at Retimo; and, whether he will lay Papers relating to Crete upon the Table of the House at the same time as Papers relating to Greece?

Sir, communications which have been received from Her Majesty's Consul do not confirm the statement that there is a general insurrection of the Christian population of Crete, nor have they heard that there has been any massacre of Christians at Retimo, although considerable excitement no doubt, exists there. The Government, I may add, do not think it advisable to lay the Papers relating to Crete before Parliament at present, as such a course might have a tendency to increase the excitement which prevails in the Island.

asked Mr. Attorney General, Whether his attention has been directed to the fact that Mr. Serjeant Atkinson, Judge of the Leeds County Court, in such Court, in the month of August 1877, adjudicated upon a Friendly Society dispute, and whether such adjudication was not a contravention of the following provision of the twenty-second Clause of the "Friendly Societies Act, 1875," viz. that disputes shall be decided in manner directed by the rules of the society, and the decision so made shall be binding and conclusive on all parties without appeal, and shall not be removable into any Court of Law; and, whether section thirty of the said recited Act can be made to apply to affiliated orders, such as the Ancient Order of Romans, the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows, and the Ancient Order of Foresters, such not being societies receiving "contributions at a greater distance than ten miles from the registered office of the society by means of collectors?"

Sir, I am always anxious to oblige hon. Members who ask me Questions when I can fairly do so. With reference to the first part of the Question of my hon. Friend, I do not think it would be right for me to return a reply, for I do not feel myself at liberty to express any opinion upon the judicial action of a learned Judge. If the learned Judge entertained a case which he had no jurisdiction to deal with, the parties aggrieved have an appropriate remedy to which they can resort. As to the second part of the Question, it is directed, I find, to obtain in another way the information sought for by the first Question; and therefore, I regret to say, I cannot answer it. I may, however, refer my hon. Friend to section 22 of the Act, Sub-section D.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If the opinions of the District Inspectors of Factories have been taken on the alterations of the existing Law proposed by the Factories and Workshops Bill either of this Session or the last; and, if so, whether he will kindly lay them upon the Table of the House?

in reply, said, the questions put by the Royal Commission to the several district inspectors of factories were of such a character as to elicit all the information they could give upon the general subject, and the answers given were printed at length in the Blue Book. All communications since then were of a private and conversational character. Therefore there was nothing in them that he could lay on the Table of the House.

Sir, perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer will allow me to ask him, Whether he is able to make any further statement to the House in respect to the progress of the negotiations with regard to affairs in the East, and especially with reference to the despatch which he mentioned on Monday last as having been recently received from the Russian Government, and which was then under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government?

Sir, the communication to which the noble Marquess alludes has reference to the occupation or possible occupation of the peninsula of Gallipoli and the Straits of the Dardanelles. Some communications have passed between the two Governments, and the result arrived at is this—that the Russian Government undertake that they will not occupy any portion of the peninsula of Gallipoli or the lines of Boulair, or land troops on the Asiatic side of the Straits of the Dardanelles, there being a corresponding engagement on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they will not land troops either on the peninsula of Gallipoli or on the Asiatic side of the Straits of the Dardanelles.

I will venture to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to lay those Papers on the Table of the House?

Yes—I apprehend that they will be laid on the Table. I do not suppose there will be any difficulty in doing so; but I cannot say at the present moment when they will be presented.

in rising to move—

"That it he an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions in the Bill for regulating the hours of labour and securing the attendance at school of children employed in agriculture,"

said, the question raised by the Amendment was simply, whether the House, having unanimously decided that the children employed in factories, workshops, and mines should not have their education spoiled by premature or excessive employment, was now going to make an exception, and allow children to be employed in agriculture without taking the slightest care for their education?

rose to Order. He asked whether it was germane to the Bill to raise the question which the hon. Member had done? The Bill was described "for the regulation of factories and workshops;" it consisted of 100 clauses, and there happened to be four which applied to the education of children employed in factories and workshops. The whole Bill related to factories and workshops. He therefore asked, whether the hon. Member's Motion was, in its terms, consistent with the rules of the House?

The Motion of the hon. Member for Hackney is in the form of an Instruction to the Committee. The Committee would not have power to deal with the question unless an Instruction of this kind were passed. So far as I can judge, I see no objection in point of Order to the Instruction as pro- posed to be moved by the hon. Member for Hackney.

said, he had taken great pains, before bringing forward the Motion, to ascertain whether it was strictly in Order; and he thought he should be able to show that it was most germane to the objects of the Bill. The measure proposed to take the most anxious care for the education of every child employed in any one of the thousand industries of the country, and to prevent his being employed between the ages of 10 and 13 unless he attended school 13½ hours a-week. It went on to enact that if at the age of 13 he had not attained a certain standard of education, school attendance should be enforced until the child had reached the age of 14 years. These provisions would apply even to children employed in the homes of the poor, but they did not extend to agriculture. A child employed in agriculture, if at the age of 10 he had attained the Fourth Standard in reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, or if he had made 250 attendances during the previous year, could begin work as a full-timer, and the State then washed its hands altogether of his education What occasion was there for this distinction, and upon what ground was this line of demarcation to be drawn between agriculture and the other industries of the country? He knew that he would be answered by the statement that the measure was a sanitary one, but it was idle to contend that it was not an educational one also. If it was desirable to secure the education of children who were employed in factories and workshops, was it not equally desirable to secure the education of children engaged in agriculture during the same period? Looking upon it as a national question, no one would, he thought, for a moment contend that it was not just as important to the nation and the community that so important a branch of industry as agriculture should be administered and attended to by an educated, intelligent population, as it was for other branches of industry. It might be said that these regulations as to factories and workshops were intended for towns, while agriculture was carried on in the country. But the Bill applied to factories and workshops wherever they were situated, and there could not be a greater mistake than to suppose that they were all situated in large centres of population. In Yorkshire, in some quiet valley close to the unenclosed moor, they would find factories, and the children employed in those factories were just as much subject to the Act as those employed in Manchester or Birmingham. It was absurd, therefore, to discuss this question as if all our factories and workshops were in one part of the country and agriculture was carried on in another. He wished to show with what extraordinary inequality legislation would act both upon the labouring population themselves and also upon employers, if hon. Members permitted this Bill to pass without obtaining a guarantee that some measure would be introduced for securing the education of children employed in agriculture. If they looked at the future, they would see that the man, employed when a child in agricultural work, would find himself to a great extent ignorant; whereas his brother, because he had been employed in the factory or the workshop, and had had his schooling carefully watched over until he was 13 or 14 years of age, would be in an entirely different and improved position. He would, therefore, put it to the House whether agriculture should have this badge of inferiority placed upon it, and whether it should thus be discredited, and the priceless blessings of education denied to those who were engaged in it? But there was another aspect of the subject, to which he wished particularly to direct the attention of men of business in the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, some three or four years ago, when he brought forward his Motion for a Commission, on whose Report the present Bill was based, was most specific and urgent as to the importance of avoiding, as far as possible, different labour regulations in regard to trades and industries which competed with one another in the same market; and that doctrine was enforced the other night, with great cogency and ability, by the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Tennant), who sat behind the Government bench. Now, what would be the position, with regard to the labour market generally, if they did nothing to secure the education of children employed in agriculture? Let them take a parent, for instance, who sent his boys to agricultural labour. Those boys would become full-timers when they were 10 years of age, and the parent had no further trouble with their education. If, however, he sent them to a factory or workshop, they were bound to attend school for 13½ hours in every week until they were 13 or 14 years of age. And what would be the result of such a state of things? The natural and equitable growth of labour would be disturbed; and it would have the effect of driving an undue amount of labour into the industry which was not restricted, and deprive of a fair share of labour those which were restricted, reducing wages, in the former case, below their natural rate, and, in the latter case, placing an obstacle in the way of employers obtaining their proper share of juvenile labour. One great disadvantage would therefore result, for many industries would be subjected to specific restrictions, while agriculture would be free from those restrictions. Then it was next said by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary—"Oh, but in a matter like this, we must advance by degrees, step by step." The fact was, however, that instead of advancing by degrees, instead of going forward stop by step, the steps which the Government had been taking were distinctly steps backward. In 1873 the Agricultural Children's Act was brought forward and passed by the assistance of hon. Members opposite, and was supported by two hon. Members who were supposed to be two leading representatives of agriculture in the House—the hon. Member for South Norfolk and the hon. Member for South Leicestershire. That Act distinctly recognized the principle that children employed in agriculture should make so many school attendances in the year, up to the ago of 12 years. It was true that Act did not produce any great effect, because of its defective machinery. But it was pointed out that that machinery might be effectively improved, and the hon. Member for South Leicestershire brought forward a proposal to improve the machinery. What had been the action of the Government, however, in reference to that Act? Why, the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council, in introducing the Education Bill of 1876, actually repealed the Act without giving any explanation; and, at the present time, so far as the principles of the question were concerned, we had distinctly gone backwards. That was clearly shown from the fact that, before the repeal of the Act, children employed in agriculture and other industries were bound to make a certain number of attendances until they were 12 years of age. That was not so now, as a child could not be employed in agriculture until he was 10 years of age; and, when once employed, he need not make a single school attendance. His Motion was objected to on the ground that it would necessitate a great army of Inspectors to carry out the education of agricultural children, and that it was idle to bring such a Motion forward. But if this plea of an excessive number of Inspectors was to be urged as a reason for doing nothing for agricultural children, what would become of the plea when they came to the portion of the Bill which sanctioned interference with all the industrial homes in England, by empowering Inspectors to knock at every man's door, in order to ascertain whether the mother or the child wore making up any work from which they could possibly derive any profit? If it was intended to let the Inspectors pry into every corner in England, they would want, for the metropolis alone, five times more Inspectors than all the agricultural children in England would require. But then, perhaps, it would be said that the Commission, on whose Report the present Bill was based, did not recommend that agriculture should come within its scope. In one sense it was true they did not; but in another, they did recommend some such provision as that set forth in the Motion now proposed. They said there was sufficient evidence to show that women and young persons were not injured by agricultural work; but, with regard to children, they again and again distinctly recognized the principle that children employed in agriculture should be educated as efficiently as children employed in other industries. Perhaps it might be said that this was a difficult subject. It might be so; but what was its difficulty compared with carrying factory Inspectors into all the industrial homes of England? He submitted that the two matters were not to be compared. But, again, it had been urged with regard to the Report of the Agricultural Commission, which reported in 1869, and recommended restrictions, that the Commissioners were not agreed, and that no legislation was needed. But although Mr. Tremenhere and Mr. Tufnell did disagree in some respects, they agreed in others. But what did the Government do? They undid that which Mr. Tremenhere said ought not to have been undone, and they did that which Mr. Tufnell said ought not to have been done. Mr. Tremenhere said that a certain amount of school attendance ought to have been enforced on children employed in agriculture until they were 12 years of age, and the Act which secured that object the Government repealed; while, on the other hand, Mr. Tufnell said that of all the farces that possibly could be with regard to education, the greatest was to rely simply upon the certificate of 10 years of age—because, while it kept the stupid child out of work, it sent the clever child to work prematurely, and eliminated all high intelligence from the labouring classes. What one Commission condemned, the Government now rested upon; and the only security now left was that the child should have made so many school attendances up to 10 years of age, and then he might go to work. He might be told that this Motion was inopportune. So far as he remembered, he had never brought forward a Motion in the House which was not inopportune. Ten years ago he brought forward a Bill upon this subject. That was inopportune, and not only so, but he was severely reprimanded, and told it was a subject which the Government ought to deal with. He next took refuge in an abstract Resolution, and, of course, that was highly inopportune. He was told next to wait for the Report of the Royal Commissioners. He did wait for it, and brought forward another Resolution, and pressed for legislation. Then he was told that there would be legislation if he withdrew his Resolution, and in a moment of weakness he did withdraw it. He pressed for legislation again in 1875, when he was told how unreasonable it was to bring forward the question again, seeing that the Agricultural Children's Act had only been in operation for a few months, and that he ought to wait to see the results of that measure. He did wait, and what was the result? The Government repealed the very Act upon which they placed so much reliance, leaving nothing whatever in its stead. Last year, when again calling attention to the matter, he was told that the question was inopportune, and was referred to the Vice President of the Council. He went to the Vice President, and the answer he received was that the Government had made great efforts for the education of agricultural children, but that they had given no pledge to legislate upon the subject. He had been asked whether he would take the sense of the House on this Motion, and if he received a similar reply he certainly should do so. When this question came before the House last year, the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) tried to discover some danger which might possibly arise from the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourers. The agricultural labourers were the only great class of labourers in this country who were unrepresented; and in after life it was the agricultural labourer who alone would be able to say, that of all the great industries of the country, the State took no care of his education, and denied him the blessings arising from it. He begged to move—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee, that they have power to insert provisions in the Bill for regulating the hours of labour, and securing the attendance at school of children employed in agriculture."

in seconding the Amendment, said, the speech of his hon. Friend had been so full and exhaustive that it left him little to say; but he should like, in the few remarks he had to offer, to look at the question from the farmer's point of view. It used to be supposed, not altogether falsely, that an agricultural labourer required very little knowledge and very little intellect for the labour he had to perform; but such an idea was now altogether a mistake, for what with improved labour-saving implements, and the introduction of machinery into farming, an agricultural labourer required a better general education than the artizan, who did not require so much general information. Experience now showed that the agricultural labourer who had not had some education in his youth, and had not had his intellectual faculties in some way drawn out, could not exercise that amount of thought, that amount of reasoning faculty, which was necessary to work advantageously the improved modern implements now used. One of the principal hindrances in the way of the introduction of steam in agricultural processes was, that it was impossible to find agricultural labourers sufficiently skilled to work the machines. While his hon. Friend had dwelt upon the necessity of education from the children's point of view, and from that of the general public interest, he insisted on the necessity of their education in the interest of the farmers themselves. He was very happy to believe that the compulsory provisions contemplated would not be required in Scotland. If children under 13 were employed there at all in agriculture, they were not required for more than two months of the year, the time being divided into one month at harvest, a fortnight at potato planting, and a fortnight at potato gathering. In England they might add to this a month for weeding, and another month for gathering fruit. There would still be eight months in the year during which children ought not properly to be employed on farms, and during which they might comply with the provisions of the Factory Acts, and obtain education by means of the agencies now in force. In Scotland, however, he was glad to say parents vied with each other in endeavouring to give children the best education in their power, and it would be thought derogatory even for an agricultural labourer to send his children out to work at the tender age customary in England. Speaking not only from his own experience, but from the experience of large farmers in his constituency, he said, with very considerable confidence, that it was very little profit or advantage, indeed, to employ juvenile labour upon a farm. In proof of this, one illustration of the effect of premature employment of labour upon farms would be, perhaps, of more effect than any argument which he could use. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), who had given much of his personal attention to this subject, made with him a few years ago a comparison as to the cost of wages on their respective farms in Norfolk and Aberdeenshire. Twelve months later, his hon. Friend having occasion to address a body of agricultural labourers, referred to the two farms, which he conceived should require about the same amount of manual labour. Yet the labour bill on the Aberdeenshire farm was only £510, while that on the Norfolk farm was £800. Therefore the hon. Gentleman came, he said, reluctantly to the conclusion that the highly paid Scotch hind was a cheaper and better man than the Norfolk labourer. In his statement his hon. Friend omitted one very significant point, that in Norfolk he paid 14s. a-week all the year round, while in Aberdeenshire he [Mr. J. W. Barclay) paid his labourers 20s. a-week each. While they had on both farms an equal amount of labour done, and he (Mr. J. W. Barclay) paid nearly 50 per cent more wages to each man than his hon. Friend, yet the labour of his farm cost 30 per cent less than the labour on his hon. Friend's farm. What was the explanation of such an anomaly? The only explanation which he (Mr. J. W. Barclay) could conceive, and he knew the circumstances pretty well, was this—that those children who were sent so soon afield became stunted men, who had neither the physical strength, energy, nor spirit to do a fair day's work; and the farmers of England, by putting the children to work so early as they did, were doing a great injury to themselves by greatly enhancing the future cost of labour. If this were not the explanation of the facts he had mentioned, he should be glad to have any others. It seemed to him that they had hero conclusive proof of the injudicious-ness and unwisdom of the English farmer in turning little children so early afield. Instead of being educated and working a few months in summer, the children wore exposed in the cold days of winter to hard labour, and grew up to be stunted men in after years, from whom the farmers could not get a fair day's work. In this view of the case, he thought it would be doing a great service to the farmers of England, indeed, if the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would use a moderate pressure—he hoped only moderate pressure would be required—to induce them to put their children to school for the period from 10 to 12, if not to 13, years of age. If this were done, they might hope in a few years to have a supply of labourers far superior in physical strength, and with also that superiority in education which was required now-a-days, to meet the exigencies of modern British agriculture.

declined to enter into a discussion as to the physical condition of agricultural labourers in different parts of the country, believing such a question to be quite irrelevant to the principle of the Bill. Neither did the Amendment appear to him to be germane to a measure which dealt incidentally with the question of education, for only four clauses out of 100 composing the Bill had reference to that subject. But as the House had heard the speech of the hon. Member for Hackney, he would in reply state a few facts to demonstrate the erroneous view that hon. Gentleman had taken on this and several other occasions when discussing the subject of education in the agricultural districts. The hon. Gentleman had made serious charges in reference to education in rural places, and had stated on one occasion that nothing had been done, nothing was being done, and nothing would be done for the education of children employed in agriculture; but he would show that under the provisions of the Act of 1876 as much was being done for them as for children engaged in any other occupation. Under the Education Act no child, whether employed in agriculture or in factories or workshops, could be set to work until he was over 10 years of age, and then he must have passed certain Standards, or have made a sufficient number of attendances, which became higher each year until 1881. In the year 1876 the Vice President of the Council of Education (Viscount Sandon) introduced a measure which subsequently became law, and which gave parishes all over the Kingdom through the Boards of Guardians very large powers to extend the restrictions of the Education Act to children between the ages of 10 and 13 years; and no doubt he should astonish the House by stating that under the Act of 1876, which only came into practical operation last May—for the election of School Committees took place in April—bye-laws had been submitted to and sanctioned by the Department which would embrace in their operation no less than 500,000 children in Lincoln- shire, Devonshire, and other agricultural counties. The effect of those bye-laws was that no child under 13 should be allowed to work unless he had passed a certain Standard, and had made a certain number of attendances, and unless he had passed a still higher Standard he could only be employed as a half-timer. This he considered was a most extraordinary effort on the part of one particular class of the community to give to the children who worked for them the benefit of educational privileges, and it was very hard under such circumstances that those interested in agriculture should be taunted by the hon. Member with having done nothing, and having no inclination to do anything for the the educational benefit of the children they employed. It would be impossible to include agricultural children within the operation of the Bill with any practical advantage to the children themselves, and they could not be employed under the same conditions as children engaged in factories or workshops.

said, he was sorry to interrupt his hon. Friend, but he had distinctly guarded himself against proposing that they should be placed under the same regulations. The plan he advocated was that there should be throughout the year a certain number of school attendances; but he never said anything about the half-time, the alternate day, or the alternate week system.

was very glad to hear the hon. Gentleman's explanation, because he saw he was quite on all fours with him in reference to that particular point. He had assumed that the hon. Gentleman had taken a contrary view, which he knew to be impracticable. The bye-laws contemplated that children employed between the ages of 10 and 14 should make, say, 150 attendances during the year, but not necessarily on alternate days or weeks. As in other countries, advantage must be taken of given periods of the year to get through certain agricultural work, and during the remainder of the year children could make up the requisite number of attendances. He hoped that after his statement the Amendment would not be pressed, as it would discourage the efforts of those who wore engaged in putting the present law into operation, and impede the progress of a measure having a different object in view.

also opposed the Amendment, because he objected to its principle being embodied in a Factory and Workshops Bill. The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) had referred to the extent to which the bye-laws were being put in force in the southern parts of the country, and he could testify to the pains which were being taken in the North to get agricultural children to school. The hon. Member for Hackney had laid stress upon the fact that he had often been laughed at for bringing forward inopportune Motions; but the House would surely agree that this was no time to raise such a question. Allusion had been made to the number of Inspectors who would be required to get the children into school; but however many they had it would be impossible to compel the attendance of agricultural children at school during all seasons of the year. It had been said that children need only be absent from school during the times of harvesting and potato gathering and planting; but in Scotland there were other seasons when the services of children on the land were highly necessary. Turnip hoeing, for example, was a most important operation in the South of Scotland; and if it were performed hastily, and without sufficient care and attention, the damage and destruction to the crops would be so great in some months of the year that the face of the whole country would be set against education, and it would be impossible to carry out efficiently the provisions of the law. Parents in Scotland were very diligent in sending children to school for eight or nine months during the year. All the farmers had an interest in attaining that end, and many of them were members of school boards; and it was only when the real stress of work came that farmers had no hesitation in employing children in the fields. There was such a great difference between the circumstances under which children were employed in manufactures and in agriculture, that he hoped the Government would not consent to have provisions relating to both jumbled up together in one Bill. A manufacturer had many more children to pick and choose from than a farmer, and could obtain a sufficient number of extra hands under the pressure of a large order; whereas farmers had to get what hands they could, often in a sparsely-populated country, or without them loose their crops. Again, a manufacturer, in the execution of a large foreign order, was independent of the weather; but unless a farmer took advantage of the fine days to gather his crops he must suffer severely. The hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. Barclay) had drawn a picture of the great advantages to be found in the higher wages paid in the North, as compared with the results obtained by paying a lower scale of wages in the South; and. had urged, somewhat curiously, that because agricultural children in the South might be stunted in their educational training, they turned out inferior in physique to those in the North; but it was unfair to attribute so much to education—as other causes, such as difference in race and character, must have an effect on the development of the Northern and Southern peasantry. As the Amendment was inopportune in a Bill of the kind, and would satisfy neither employers nor employed, he trusted the Government would not assent to it.

wished to say that the hon. Member for Hackney had not desired that this question should be dealt with in the Bill, but that the Government should give some assurance that the matter should be legislated upon during the Session in some way or other. The hon. Member had laid down no mode in which his Resolution should be carried out, so that the matter was quite open. He was glad to hear the statement of the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) that 500,000 of agricultural children had been brought under the Education Acts; earnestly he wished that he would be able soon to say that all were being educated; but he saw no reason why they should not have applied to them the compulsory laws which already related to children employed in factories and mines. He supported the Amendment.

said, certain hon. Gentlemen were very fond of saying hard things against farmers, in the same way as others were never tired of attacking the Clergy of the Church of England; but, judging from what he had seen in the part of Surrey where he resided, none were more anxious than the farmers and Boards of Guardians to see the children employed in agriculture educated. Bye-laws had been passed, by means of which they hoped to catch every child in the district; and he, amongst others, had received a Question Paper under the Elementary Education Act, asking for particulars as to the names, ages, and instruction given to his own children. The views of many farmers of Sussex and Surrey, expressed while the Education Acts were under discussion, were that children employed in agriculture should be educated; but that it was undesirable to go too far at first, and that it should be seen how a tentative measure worked before it was sought to pass more stringent enactments. He held this view, and hoped the country would not be inundated with Inspectors if it could be avoided. It would not be possible, if the Amendment were carried, to deal with agricultural children under such a Bill as that before the House. The hon. Member for Forfarshire had argued that because labourers were not educated so highly in the South as in the North, they were inferior; but it must be remembered that long before labourers in England had been educated at all, farmers said they got more work out of them, and that they were better men than they were at the present time. There was a great deal of juvenile labour employed in the South, and the difficulty was to get enough of it, on account of the obstacles thrown in the way by education. He trusted, therefore, that no more stringent measures would be put upon the farmers for the present, and that the Act of 1876 would be allowed to be in operation a few years longer before it was sought to harass one of the greatest industries of the country.

said, he should be very sorry to see this discussion degenerate into vapid declamation against farmers, or any other class. His desire was that education should make progress in this country; and he was bound to recognize what had been done by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) and the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) in the Bill which they introduced three or four years ago. Really that Bill was a great improvement upon any former measure for the education of children employed in factories. It placed all children engaged in workshops under the provisions of the Act of 1874. No child could be employed till he was 12 years old; he might then work on half-time until he was 13; and then, if he passed a Standard fixed by the Education Department for the time being, he might continue as a half-timer until he was 14. That was a very stringent and a very proper change in the Act, in his opinion. He asked the House to consider what would be in future the position of the agricultural districts and of the manufacturing districts. He agreed that they could not have a "hard-and-fast-line" which would be applicable alike to both. The two cases were utterly dissimilar. They could not send a child to school for five half-days in the week all the year round in the agricultural districts as they could do in the case of children employed in factories. But they might avail themselves of the winter months. How was it proposed to do this? There was nothing to enable them to do it, either in this Bill, or in the Education Act of 1876.

interposing, remarked that that Act empowered the Guardians to pass bye-laws.

observed that that power was permissive, and not compulsory. Their legislation on this subject had been of a piecemeal kind. What was wanted was not a body of Inspectors to see how many children were employed on a farm and how many days they attended school; but some moans of laying down that every child who was employed in agriculture should have a certain amount of education. In that respect the Act of 1876 was most defective. He was prepared to support the present Bill in nearly all its principles and in its general application. But if they enacted that a child employed in manufactories should not go to work until he was 12 years old, and that he should continue to be a "half-timer" until he was 14, what an inducement they would give to parents, in places where the two industries were going on side by side, to find agricultural employment for their children. Why should they not have something like equality in this respect? The principle had been applied to agriculture in Scotland, and the same thing ought to be done in this country. Every Scotch child went to school until he was 13 years of ago. He appealed to the House whether they ought not to do something to remedy the existing state of things. The Factory Acts had a double object, as far as children were con- cerned. One object was sanitary; the other, educational. He admitted that a child employed in agricultural pursuits did not require so much care to be taken of his health as a child employed in a factory; but surely the former ought to have as much education as the latter? Why should not the House resolve that all British children should have the same education whether their parents were artizans or agricultural labourers? The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) had made a very large concession when he said that suitable times would be accepted. But were the Government going to advise that? If not, they were simply giving a premium to the parent in a manufacturing village to send his boy from 10 to 14 years of age to work full-time at agriculture, and afterwards to bring him back to work in a factory when he was 14. Was not this a natural consequence of making a distinction between the two branches of industry? It was said that the proposal of the hon. Member for Hackney was inopportune. Well, it always was inopportune. When the Education Act was introduced, this subject was said to be inopportune; and now that the labour question was under discussion, it was said that this subject must be dealt with in a separate Act. As long as it was dealt with effectively in some way or another, no one would have a right to complain, whereas if it were not dealt with at all, everybody would have good grounds of complaint. He thought they ought to apply to agriculture this lever, which had worked so well in manufactures, and to provide that children employed in agriculture should be educated as well as those who worked in factories.

was much obliged to his hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire for having made the statement with regard to the wages paid to Scotch labourers as compared with the wages paid in England. That statement showed that in England the farmers did not pay so miserable a pittance for labour as many hon. Gentlemen opposite supposed. The hon. Member for Forfarshire had quoted from a statement which he had made. He, however, was speaking on that occasion of the winter time, when the wages of an agricultural labourer in Norfolk were 14s. a-week; but if they were to extend over the whole year, the harvest wages, piecework, and extra time during the summer, the Norfolk labourer would receive quite 3s. a-week more than he was receiving in the winter. The worst of it was, that somehow or other these subjects were so complicated that we could not quite unravel them. Those who spoke of the cheapness with which farms were managed in Scotland never stated, by any chance, how many women were employed on the land. Generally speaking, when he had been upon a Scotch farm, he had seen two women to one man. On an English farm, on the contrary, there were 10 men to one or two women, and the latter wore employed chiefly in the summer months. It struck him that it was quite as well to see a strong boy of 11 or 12 years of age working on a farm, as it was to see women employed in some of the operations of agriculture, in the way he had seen them employed in Scotland. The hon. Member for Forfarshire imagined that the physique of boys was better developed in Scotland than in England. Perhaps the abundance of milk might have something to do with that, for in Scotland there was a great deal of milk compared with the small quantity which was to be found on the arable lands of England. It had been said it was necessary that a labourer should be well educated in order that he might understand machinery. To that argument he would reply, that it was wonderful to see how well many an ordinary agricultural labourer could manage an intricate steam-engine. For his own part, he believed that if a man had not a mechanical genius within him, no amount of education could knock it into him. He would appeal to the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) to let the agriculturists alone for a time. It was only last May that the new Act came into force, and the provisions of that measure would increase in stringency very considerably during the next four or five years, until the year 1881. If at that date it was found not to be stringent enough, by all means let hon. Gentlemen opposite move still more stringent clauses. His hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield said that there were now only moderate restrictions on agricultural children, and that the Legislature did not insist on their having so much education as children employed in workshops and factories wore compelled to receive. He would remind the House, however, that this kind of legislation had been going on for factory operatives during 30 or 40 years, whereas no restriction had been placed on the employment of agricultural children until the passing of the Act introduced by his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire.

said, the largest proportion of operatives—namely, those employed in workshops, were not brought within the scope of the law until the year 1867.

went on to remark that that was 10 or 11 years ago, and that the Act in question was passed by the Gentlemen who now occupied the Treasury benches. In Scotland, it should be remembered, a good system of education was established throughout the length and breadth of the country 300 years ago. Indeed, in the rural districts of Scotland, it had always been the pride and boast of the inhabitants that their agricultural labourers were well educated. Under all the circumstances, he appealed to hon. Gentlemen opposite to give the agricultural interest a little time to recover from the severe restrictions already placed upon them—and, in 1881, if they should be found insufficient, he should be happy to increase their stringency.

thought the hallucination under which hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be labouring, with regard to the effect of the Education Acts on agricultural labourers' children, was most extraordinary. It was incorrect to say that these Acts were not compulsory, for in point of fact they were compulsory in the highest degree. A farmer could not employ a boy under 10 years of age, and it was made penal to employ a boy at a later age, unless he had an educational certificate. What could be more compulsory than that? In some parts of his own county children could not be obtained at all to work on farms owing to the regulations which obliged them to go to school. To make the existing law more stringent would be equivalent to driving agriculturists to the Scotch and Welsh system of employing women in agriculture if they could be obtained. He knew one case in his own county where children could not be procured to drive manure carts, and women were accordingly employed for the purpose. He hoped the Motion of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) would not be pressed to a division. Referring to the statements of the hon. Member for Forfarshire, he said he thought that it would be found that labourers were quite as good in England as in Scotland, and that they were quite as dear. There was no doubt that if more restrictions were insisted upon in this country they would drive the farmers to despair.

said, he should be unable to support the Instruction which his hon. Friend had moved, although, at the same time, he agreed with many of his hon. Friend's arguments. For example, he admitted that uniformity was of great importance. No one could doubt that it was equally important that children should be well educated, whether they were employed in workshops or in agricultural labour. In his opinion, they ought to have free trade in labour, and none of those bounties which were at present given to certain kinds of employment. The present measure, however, was a Consolidation Bill, based to a great extent on the Report of a Royal Commission, of which he had the honour of being a Member. The task imposed upon the Commissioners was a most difficult one. Among other things, they had to consider how far the Factories and Workshops Acts could be made applicable to agriculture. The Commissioners reported against such an extension of the provisions of the Acts. They were prepared to vote whatever sums of money were necessary for a very large staff of Inspectors; but it seemed to them that the object desired could be attained much better by means of bodies like school boards, which they hoped soon to see established throughout the country. It was with that view that the Commissioners recommended that the laws relating to the employment of children should be assimilated in the matter of compulsory attendance and non-employment up to the age of 10 years; and that between the ages of 10 and 14 some system of half-time—he did not say whether it should be half-days or what—should be applied to all employments. At the time that the Elementary Education Act of 1876 was before the House, he (Lord Frederick Cavendish), in common with many others who felt with him on the subject, urged that these recommendations should be adopted. But he was sorry to say they were defeated, and another plan was adopted by a very large majority. That having been done, and the plan which was adopted only having come into force in last May, he thought it was impossible to suppose that the House would now reverse the former decision deliberately arrived at by a very large majority in 1876. He could not think that the House having done that, would like now to call on the Government, in a Bill which was mainly a Consolidation Bill, to jeopardize that measure by the introduction of the complex machinery which would be necessary to carry out the wishes of the hon. Member for Hackney, and to attain an object which, in 1876, it was contended that it would not reach. He wished to say one word in respect to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella.) He said in that Consolidation Bill they were making the laws respecting the employment of children much more stringent. But that which the hon. Member thought was now introduced for the first time, was really proposed in the Elementary Education Act of 1876. And he (Lord Frederick Cavendish) thought if there was a Member of that House who would be well acquainted with the whole details of that matter, it would be the hon. Member for Sheffield. However, in conclusion, he trusted that before long they would see the principle of assimilation carried further, and compulsory attendance up to 10 years of age, and half-time in some form up to the age of 14.

said, he agreed so much with what had fallen from the noble Lord opposite (Lord Frederick Cavendish), that he did not think it would be necessary to trouble the House with more than a very few words. He heartily appreciated the motives of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) in bringing forward the Motion; but he agreed with the noble Lord that to carry out the wishes of the hon. Member would be beyond the powers of the staff of Inspectors they contemplated appointing, and that the whole question was outside the principles of the Bill. He thought they might take it for granted that inquiries had already been made on that subject, and the conclusions of the Royal Commission made it quite clear that, as far as the health of agricultural children was concerned, nothing was wanting. As far as their social condition was concerned, that practically was met, when required, by the Agricultural Gangs Act—which set out that those matters ought to be regulated very much more by provisions concerning age, sex, the distance the children had to walk, and other matters, than by any other means, and that that must be carried out locally, and not by any central inspection. Then, practically, the Motion of the hon. Member for Hackney went purely to the question of education, and he joined with the hon. Gentleman very much in the wish that in process of time those children should have the best education that was to be obtained in the country. But when the hon. Gentleman said that they must place those children at once on the same footing as the children under the Factory Acts, he (Mr. Cross) must ask him to remember the whole system on which the Factory Acts were based. No one imagined that the Factory Acts were not of gradual growth; and it was only by a gradual improvement in the education, and in the laws respecting education, that they could, without inflicting the greatest possible injuries on the industries with which they were dealing, bring it up to the necessary standard. The noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) would, he was quite sure, bear him out when he said that although it was quite true that they did not recommend that agriculture should be included in the Bill, they made certain recommendations which they thought should be carried out. But the noble Lord had not the advantage at that time of the discussions which took place during the passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1876, and that Act was passed since the issue of the Report of the Commission. This seemed to him to make a very great difference. That Act had really only been in operation a very short time, and he thought a large majority of hon. Members would agree with him when he said that time ought to be given for seeing the effect of the Act. They hoped, that as people became accustomed to the working of the Act, they would themselves see the advantages of education, and would be the first to promote a system which, if forced upon them, they might feel inclined to resist. He might say, before sitting down, that the Education Act was really working even very much better than had been stated. He had, from the very highest authority, a few facts which he should like to quote to the House. Taking the population of England and Wales at 23,700,000, there was a total attendance, under the school attendance committees, of over 1,000,000; under school boards, 11,597,000; making a total of 12,679,000—while 2,500,000 more might be added, who would be brought under schemes at present before the Education Department, and that brought the number of those practically under the operation of that Act to over 15,000,000 out of 22,000,000. That was certainly saying a good deal. He ought also to call the attention of the House to the model bye-laws which were issued by the Education Department, and which affected that particular part of the question; because those bye-laws, which, he understood, were being very generally adopted throughout the country, contained the minimum requirements of the Education Department. One of these provisions was that a child between the ages of 10 and 13 should not be required to attend school if the child had received a certificate from one of Her Majesty's Inspectors proving that he had reached the Fifth Standard. That, he thought, showed that there was a great and growing anxiety in the country to put those bye-laws into operation, while the Education Department had not been slack in trying to raise the standard of education. That being so, he did hope that hon. Members would allow the Act to work for a few more years, as it really could not yet be said to be in full operation, before they attempted to disturb it by fresh legislation. He could not conceive that the terrible picture which had been drawn by the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) of the difference between one child which attended school between the ages of 10 and 13, and another that did not, could be an accurate one. He could not say that the proposal of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) would be fatal to the Bill; but it would cause so much delay and inconvenience, and would also raise so much opposition to it, that he was quite certain it would be almost impossible to pass it. He quite agreed with the noble Lord who had just sat down (Lord Frederick Cavendish), that the best way to promote education was not by Inspectors under the control of the Secretary of State, but through the school boards and school attendance committees throughout the country. He believed those bodies were doing their duty, and that they would carry into effect before long all that the hon. Member for Hackney wished. He therefore trusted the House would now allow them to go into Committee.

said, that although he had no right to reply, the House would perhaps allow him to make one observation. He did not propose to bring children employed in agriculture under the same provisions as children employed in factories; but what he wanted was to bring them under educational provisions similar to these new provisions, which, by that Bill, would be applied to every child in England working in his own home. On that point he had received no assurance from the Home Secretary, who only said they must rest satisfied with the working of the Act of 1876.

moved, in page 1, line 25, after "harmless" to leave out to "all," on the ground that they were unnecessary, and that such words tended to make Acts of this nature inoperative. The words would give the owners an opportunity of escaping from the consequences of not complying with the provisions of the Act. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill would see his way to remove the words of which he complained. As a matter of course, he should not attempt to divide the House on the question; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider whether it really did not impede the force of the Bill if such a provision as that were allowed to be inserted. He felt confident that these words were put there not to strengthen the Bill, but the reverse.

said, of course the object of the hon. Member was entirely the same as his own; but he would remind him that the words of which he complained actually had been in force for a long time. They appeared in the Act of 1864, and also in the Sanitary Act of 1866; and, he believed, had hitherto worked very well. But in a factory they could not do things which could be done in other places, and he did not see how he could accept the Amendment.

asked the Homo Secretary, whether it would be the duty of the Inspectors who were appointed to see that the provisions of the clause were carried out?

replied that it would be the duty of the Inspectors to see that that portion of the clause was carried out where there were structural works which required it.

wished to point out the necessity for some better definition of the provisions to be enforced for ventilation. As the clause stood, he feared it would be inoperative in that respect. Who was to define what was meant by ventilation?

said, the hon. Member would not be in Order in making any general observations now, unless he proposed to move an Amondment to the clause.

replied that he did propose to move an Amendment. This was a matter of grave importance to the borough which he represented, in which many thousands of persons were engaged in the different departments of pottery, and he could show the Committee that the health of the operatives was seriously injured, and the mortality among them rendered excessive, from the want of proper ventilation and other sanitary arrangements in their workshops.

rose to Order. The hon. Member had announced his intention of moving an Amendment, but he had not stated what were its terms, and the Committee were quite in the dark as to the question before them.

said, that inasmuch as the hon. Member had declared his intention to conclude with an Amendment, he presumed his remarks were directed to the subject of that Amendment; but he must point out that it would be much more convenient to the Committee to have a definite proposal before them.

replied that he had not drawn his Amendment, as he had wished before doing so to see what a discussion would elicit.

pointed out, that unless the hon. Member had an Amendment to propose, he must defer his general observations on the clause till the Question was put that the clause stand part of the Bill.

moved to add words to render imperative the use of smoke -consuming furnaces.

remarked that he could not accede to the Amendment. The words of the clause were copied from existing Statutes, and no difficulty had ever arisen about their interpretation.

said, that he was not by any means satisfied with the clause, because, as it seemed to him, the general word "ventilation" in it was too vague to secure the object desired. It was owing to want of ventilation that some of the most serious diseases befel the working classes. That was particularly so in the potting trade, in which he, as Member for Stoke, felt deeply interested. There were, in round numbers, 46,000 persons employed in pottery work in this country, of whom 30,000 were males and 16,000 were females. That was a very large number; and it behoved the House to consider well the language of an Act which concerned the happiness and health of so many individuals. In the Potteries which he represented, there were 13,000 males and 7,000 females engaged in this branch of industry, and it was on their behalf he now stood up. They were persons for whom all sympathy and respect should be felt—persons of cultivation and high artistic skill. They filled the mansions of Kings and Nobles with beautiful works, and brought beauty into the humblest home. Now, among these persons it had been proved that three diseases prevailed much—namely, scarlet fever, typhoid, and cholera—diseases in a great measure preventible; and which were owing also, in no slight degree, to want of proper ventilation. To these must be added scrofula, which was due to want of fresh and healthy air, as much as to any other cause. Now, he found that taking 100 as the average of deaths of males of all ages in England, who worked at employments, those of grocers ranged from 75 to 78, those of workers in wool and worsted from 100 to 126, publicans from 138 to 157, cabmen, &c, 143 to 150; the mortality among workers in earthenware rose from 138 and 154 to 192. That was a sad contrast to that presented in other callings, and well deserved public attention. These persons were, as a rule, properly fed, and they were not intemperate. Instances there were, no doubt, where many of them drank too much; but, as a rule, the persons engaged in potting were sober, regular, and temperate of life. There were among them two special diseases, which were traceable distinctly to that want of proper ventilation in the workshops for which he contended, and to which he specially directed the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary—and those diseases were "Potter's asthma" and pulmonary consumption. If the right hon. Gentleman could arrest the progress of these scourges, he would deserve well of mankind; nor did he doubt that the right hon. Gentleman had any wish to do so; for the Bill which he now brought forward was one, that like the admirable Artizans Dwellings Act of a year or two since, did honour not only to himself, but to the Ministry under whose auspices it was introduced. There was another disease called "lead paralysis," which could not be interfered with, indeed, by ventilation; but surely the right hon. Gentleman, surrounded as he was by the best counsel, might devise some means by which that dread calamity might, at all events, be made less frequent than it unhappily was. This was produced by the lead that was used in order to give a gloss to earthenware; and it would be a proud discovery if Science could find out some other material that would not be noxious, and Law could enforce the general use of that material in place of so powerful a poison as was contained in, and communicated by, lead. He invited the right hon. Gentleman's attention to this. The whole course of his legislation in that House indicated a warm sympathy in remedial and beneficial measures for the humbler classes of society. No sort of provision was contained in this Bill to meet this particular evil; nor was there any that could war against the diffusion of fine dust, which was the source of much disease. The following extract from The Journal of the Society of Arts, showed how great were the ravages produced; and great would be the honour of the framer of the Bill, if he could alleviate them:—

"The statistics on this part of the subject have been admirably worked out by Dr. Arlidge, who obtained every fact that was obtainable from the register of deaths in Stoke parish, and who declared that in that parish lung diseases and phthisis kill 13·41 per 1,000 living; in Longton, 24·20 per 1,000. Among 210 males at 10 and upwards who died from those diseases in Stoke, 83, or 40·47 per cent wore potters. Of 148 male potters, 46 or 31·08 per cent died from phthisis alone, and 85 or 57·43 per centfrom that malady and lung disease together. On comparing the mortality of male potters at 15 and upwards, from diseases of the lungs and phthisis combined, with that prevailing in England at the same ages, it is as 57 to 32 per cent of the deaths that take place. Among 100,000 adult males living aged 20 and upwards, there die in Stoke from diseases of the chest 505, and from consumption 505, whilst in all England the proportions are for diseases of the chest 339, and for phthisis 373. Adult females die in Stoke in the ratio of 323 from lung diseases, and 411 from consumption. In England 259 die from lung diseases, and 349 from consumption. Of children under 10 years old 22·61 per cent perish from diseases of the lungs and consumption together. Of individuals above 10, 41·52 are cut off from the same causes. Eighty-three out of 100 potters die before completing their 60th year. The mean age of adult male potters was 46· of adult men in all England 56 years. Among male potters themselves nearly 60 per cent die from diseases of the lungs."

asked the hon. Member the date of the journal to which he referred?

replied, that all the statistics would be found in The Journal of the Society of Arts for February, 1876. That it was possible to remedy the existing state of things, and save the operatives from the suffering and dangers to which they were now exposed, was clear enough. It was to the honour of the French people, that they made greater advances than ourselves in many of the arts which prolong human life, or mitigate human suffering; and it afforded him no slight pleasure to read the following extract from the same periodical:—

"In the course of the last few years, many improvements have been carried out in different factories where danger in previous times was imminent. At Amiens, M. Kuhlmann has devoted much attention to the process of fixing chemical vapours given off in various processes of chemical manufacture. He has invented a mill with wings by which vapours are carried into neutralizing solutions distributed in fine divisions almost like spray. In some aniline works in France the distinguished Chevalier has successfully exerted his ingenuity in constructing a special room for the manufacture of aniline, so arranged that exposure to the vapour is practically an impossibility, and is, indeed, placed out of the reach of the workman, be he even careless in the performance of his work."

Surely we ought not to be behind the French in these beneficent improvements. There was another evil in the Potteries for which the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman did not furnish any remedy—that was the enormous quantity of smoke with which the atmosphere was filled. Upon this, he ventured to cite the words of a gentleman of high authority—

"There is," says Dr. Arlidge, "a constant belching forth of smoke into the atmosphere from scores of ovens in which the pottery is baking, from a multitude of slip-house chimneys, of chimneys of mines and iron works, and what is worse, from the blast furnaces of smelting iron; for the smoke from those last is loaded with poisonous gases, such as sulphurous acid, which tell the tale of their destructiveness on surrounding vegetation. Other sources of contamination are derived from the heaps of ironstone in process of calcining on the surface of the ground, and from the numerous flues of brick and tile ovens which emit a very dense, suffocating smoke."

The right hon. Gentleman could almost, by the insertion of a line or two in his Bill, cheek this nuisance; he might render compulsory, in a more stringent way than at present existed, the consumption of smoke on the premises by the various manufacturers. That would be better than leaving it to the local authority, which was always slow to move in matters of this kind. Such an obligation introduced into this Bill would render it still more valuable than it was; and would help much to produce the sanitary reform which the right hon. Gentleman had at heart. Then they would no longer have the pain of reading such a description as that which Dr. Richardson gave of the working class, and with which he would conclude. That gentleman said—

"In plain, solemn fact, the whole of the industrial class of England, made up of 6,000,000 of living hearts, is sick at heart, is physically and therefore mentally unhealthy. It lives, as it were, in hospital, undergoing various treatment, but wanting the conditions, without which, if by some miracle it was for a moment cured, it could not continue to live in health of body and of mind."

said, the reason he had asked the date of the publication to which the hon. Member referred, was to see whether it had been written since or previous to the legislation of 1874—as, under the last Factory Act, the powers of the Inspectors had been much enlarged, and steps had been taken and improvements effected, which had already had very beneficial effects in the prolongation of life. He would point out that the excessive mortality in the Potteries was partly due to scarlet fever, typhoid, scrofula, and other diseases arising from defective drainage. If anything further could be done by the insertion of other words in the clause, to make its operation more effective, of course he would be very glad to insert them; but he had understood from the Inspectors that the terms of the clause as they stood were amply sufficient. All he could do would be to consult them on the subject again, and see if any alteration was necessary. With regard to smoke-consuming furnaces, which the hon. Member had remarked upon, he would remind him that that was a subject which the Government had already taken in hand. A Royal Commission had been sitting on the subject of noxious vapours for two years. Their Report was shortly expected, and when it was received, it would receive the most serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

wished, in reply to the hon. Member for Stoke (Dr. Kenealy), who complained of the defi- ciency of the ventilation in workshops and factories, and the consequent mortality among the operatives, to say that the evil, if it existed, was in no way due to the manufacturers, but rather to the determination of the workpeople not to make use of the means of ventilation which were placed within their reach. It was they themselves who, in 19 cases out of 20, kept the rooms in which they were employed at such a temperature that it was almost impossible to live in them. Provision was now made, he might add, that they should not take their meals in the workshops, and that they might be able to wash their faces and hands before sitting down to them—a supply of soap and water was at hand, at least, in his factories. Accidents, too, would not happen nearly so frequently if the work-people were only a little more thoughtful. As to volumes of smoke issuing from the furnaces, that was due to the neglect of the local authorities, whose duty it was to attend to such matters, rather than to any fault on the part of the employers. But although he believed it to be possible to reduce the quantity of smoke, it could not be done away with altogether in the process of manufactures which necessitated the burning of coal on a large scale. The clause as it stood went, he thought, very much to the root of the whole matter; and he felt quite satisfied that it was more to the interest of the masters than of the men—leaving the humanitarian argument altogether out of the question—that the workshops should be well ventilated and the health of the work-people as good as possible.

moved, in page 2, line 22, after "fenced," to insert—

"save where such steam-engine and fly-wheel, or either of them, are or is contained in a house or room solely appropriated and used for them or its reception."

The clause, as it stood, he contended, was unnecessarily stringent, inasmuch as it required every part of a steam engine to be fenced whether dangerous or not, and would impose a very large tax on manufacturers without securing any corresponding immunity from accident to the work-people.

objected to the Amendment, observing that he had never seen a fly-wheel which was not fenced.

said, the Amendment was quite impracticable.

thought it would be better to leave the clause as it stood.

moved the omission of the word "fourteen" in order to substitute for it the word "seven." He was of opinion that in a matter of so much importance, seven days were ample time to allow the occupier to ask to have the question referred to arbitration.

pointed out the necessity which existed for providing that when a matter of the kind was referred to arbitration, it should be decided as speedily as possible. It had occurred to himself to have been appointed an arbitrator some four or five months ago, and not a single step had been taken since then to decide the question at issue in consequence of his co-arbitrator, who was an eminent engineer, not having time to attend to the business. It would be seen, therefore, that it would be in the power of the owner of a factory to delay arbitration for an indefinite period by appointing some person similarly situated.

having expressed his readiness to assent to the substitution of the word "seven" for "fourteen" said, he had no objection to introduce some words into the Bill which would obviate the objection which was raised by the hon. Member who spoke last (Mr. Charles Lewis).

said, it might be met by providing that unless the arbitration were proceeded with within a certain time, any one of the arbitrators appointed might deal with the case on his own responsibility.

moved the omission, in page 5, line 1, of the word "woman" in order to substitute for it the words "married woman or woman under the age of 21 years." The clause, as it stood, he said, was one of a series whose object was to place women, children, and young persons in an exceptional position as to the hours during which they should be employed, as compared with the rest of the factory operatives. That seemed to him to be a very proper provision so far as children and young persons were concerned, and also married women, who, he thought, ought to be afforded an opportunity of attending to their household duties. The clause, as it stood, would, however, in his opinion, interfere unwarrantably with the rights of unmarried women over the age of 21 as members of the community, who were able to judge for themselves as to whether they should work during certain hours or not. He could not see, therefore, any good reason why they should not be allowed to make their own bargain with their employors.

expressed a hope that the Home Secretary would not agree to the Amendment, which would entirely reverse the policy of our legislation for many years past. Women over the age of 21 were very frequently no better able to make their own bargains than children or young persons, and protection ought to be secured, as it now was, to them by the law.

also spoke in opposition to the Amendment, contending that it would be a retrograde step, was in reality going back for the legislation of the last 40 years, and would lead to the infliction on women of considerable cruelty in many instances.

said, he thought the present was not an opportune moment for raising the question contained in the proposal before the Committee. It would be very dangerous to enact any special and particular legislation for unmarried as compared with married women. To do so would be to give a privilege to unmarried women, and that would be taking a step in the direction of inducing working men and women employed in factories and workshops to live together as man and wife without having gone through the ceremony of marriage.

said, that, in order to shorten discussion, he must say that he could be no party to altering the settlement which was arrived at with regard to this branch of the question in 1874.

said, he agreed in the main with what had fallen from the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don); but he also sympathized with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell). They were not now proposing for the first time to legislate for working women. There were as many women employed in textile factories as in non-textile factories, and these women were legislated for in the Act of 1874. Having proceeded thus far, he could not see how Parliament could now, with any show of consistency, abstain from making regulations for women employed in non-textile trades. Print works, bleaching and dyeing works, were very similar to works in which textile manufactures were carried on, and, having dealt with the one class, he failed to see how Parliament could refuse to deal with the other.

hoped the Amendment would not be pressed at the present stage in the progress of the Bill. The Amendment would go a great deal further than they were called upon to go under present circumstances. He did not think any broad distinction could be made between married and unmarried women; but he thought that in a later clause some alteration, which, though slight, would, he thought, prove satisfactory, could be made.

agreed in the desirability of postponing this particular branch of the question until the later clause was reached.

thought some legislation was necessary alike in the interest of the health and morality of women employed in factories and workshops.

hoped the Home Secretary would remain firm in reference to this matter. There could be no doubt that women required more protection than men in reference to their hours of labour. They were more easily influenced than men through their feelings of affection and sympathy, and care should be taken that they should not be influenced into the attempting more severe work than they were at present engaged in.

thought unmarried women were as able to take care of themselves as married women were, and could therefore see no reason for drawing a distinction between them. Among the working classes women were not only able to take care of themselves, but, in many cases, they had to take care of their husbands also. They were the stewards of the husbands' wages—or, at any rate, of as much of them as they did not themselves spend in the public-house—and, therefore, to regard the woman as a weaker vessel and a being requiring more protection than her husband, was altogether wrong in principle.

said, that this question of the employment of women involved and revived a great principle which was thoroughly thrashed out in 1874, and he could not think it would be wise on the present occasion to enter upon a full discussion of the question. He, nevertheless, sympathized with what had been said about the freedom of women.

said, he recognized the fact that this was not the clause on which to raise the question before the Committee; but he could not admit that it was logical to say that Parliament ought not to place unmarried women in an exceptional class as compared with married women. The entire law had always made a distinction between the two classes of women, and if the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) thought the law was faulty, his only logical course was to endeavour to bring about a repeal. He (Mr. Parnell) should have preferred to raise the discussion on a question as to whether, in the first place, all women of full age ought not to be put under restrictions; and, in the second place, whether the time had not come at which women, as a body, should be placed in some sort of independent position. He could not admit the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) that, because the question was "thrashed out" in 1874, it should not be re-discussed in 1878. He would, however, withdraw his Amendment.

said, his Amendment would have come in well at this point, as the clause dealt with textile manufactures; but as the form of his Amendment was objected to, and he had not another ready, he would simply ask the Home Secretary whether he would not consider the subject between the present time and the Report, with a view to putting women in a somewhat better position than they occupied at present?

said, that, having considered the question for some years, and having carried through the House the Bill of 1874, he should be doing wrong if he held out any hope of alteration in the sense suggested by the hon. Member. The present Bill, as far as it related to the particular question under consideration, was based on the lines of the Bill of 1874, and he saw no sufficient reason to depart from those lines.

said, one section of the clause ran as follows:—

"(3) A young person or woman shall not be employed continuously for more than four hours and a-half without any interval of at least half-an-hour for a meal."

He moved, as an Amendment, to leave out the words "or woman." This Amendment would not disturb any other part of the Bill, and would, at the same time, apply a test to what had, not inaptly, been described as grandmotherly legislation.

said, he had no doubt that the hon. Member for Edinburgh moved his Amendment from, very philanthropic motives; but he must know that all the employés in a factory must take their meals at the same time, or the work could not proceed, by reason of the fact that all the workers must be attending to their respective departments at the same moment. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it had been thought that four-and-a-half hours did not constitute too long a stretch for each spell of work to be completed by women and young persons.

said, that the Royal Commission, of which he was a Member, found very little complaint in reference to the four-and-a-half hours' rule, in essentially textile districts; but there were objections raised in some other parts of the country, particularly in Coventry and other districts, where the ribbon trade was carried on. He would suggest that the Home Secretary should make some exception in the case of some peculiar textile manufactures.

pointed out that nothing was said in the clause about men. There were no factories of any kind in which men wore not employed; but there were many in which women and children were not employed, and, therefore, exceptional legislation was defended in certain cases. The clause would allow men and boys to work as many hours as they chose without taking meals, and the protection only came in for women and young persons. If the clause laid it clown that no person should be employed for more than four-and-a-half hours, the arguments in its favour would hold good; but he objected to it on the ground that women and young persons only should not work without food for a longer period than four-and-a-half hours.

pointed out that, if the debate was to go on in its present form, the question would be raised over and over again whenever the word "woman" appeared in a clause. The point was one upon which the only serious debate arose in the progress of the Bill in 1874, and it was then thoroughly settled. He would, there- fore, suggest that a division should be at once taken upon the question, and that such division should be regarded as final, as far as the present Bill was concerned.

said, there could be no doubt that the four-and-a-half hours' spell perfectly suited the textile manufactures; but, on the other hand, there was very strong evidence to show that it did not suit many other trades. Furthermore, it was a dangerous experiment to make a sudden change in the habits of a large number of persons employed in a particular calling.

said, he should be quite willing to discuss the question when the Amendment of the hon. and learned Baronet the Member for Coventry (Sir Henry Jackson) was before the Committee; but as far as purely textile manufactures were concerned, he could accept no proposal which would have the effect of changing the system fixed by the Act of 1874.

thought the fact of the Act of 1874 having been passed ought not to interfere with the right of Parliament to re-open and re-discuss any provisions contained in that measure which bore upon the present Bill. He could not see why protection proposed to be accorded to children should be forced upon adult women. He should use every effort to relieve women from being placed under the false protection of a piece of what had been described as grandmotherly legislation.

agreed in principle with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), but thought that if the opinion of the Committee was to be challenged, it would be well to take a division at once. It must not be forgotten that the present measure was, to a great extent, a Consolidation Bill.

said, he saw great force in much that had been said, and should, in consequence, ask leave to withdraw his Amendment for the present. It could be resumed on Clause 13, to which the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) would move an Amendment, and a division could then be taken.

said, the Government proposal was something more than a mere Consolidation Bill, in that it contained provisions relating to certain trades carried on in the North of Ireland, which had not been dealt with before. The Bill might occasion great inconvenience in connection with the flax manufactures, and he hoped the Home Secretary would seriously consider the question in connection with the proposal of the hon. and learned Baronet the Member for Coventry (Sir Henry Jackson).

moved, in page 5, line 38, to leave out "four hours and a-half" and insert "five hours." He said, the four-and-a-half hours' rule, by making a distinction between textile and non-textile factories was inconvenient, particularly in places where there were industries of a mixed character. From his own experience as a mill-owner, he believed the four-and-a-half hours' regulation would be found to give considerable trouble; and, therefore, he wished to have five hours inserted instead of four-and-a-half hours, which would give uniformity in all factories, whether textile or non-textile.

said, he thought his hon. Friend who had moved the Amendment would have been aware that there were no textile manufactures where the five hours' practice was in force. It was, he believed, the universal rule to work three or four hours, and that was found to be amply sufficient—namely, from 6 to 9, from 10 to 2, and from 3 to 6. He contended, from his own knowledge of the matter, that it was quite unnecessary to make the people in any textile factory work for more than four hours, or at the outside four-and-a-half. He hoped his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary would not accept the Amendment, as it would entail a great hardship upon many trades, such as dyers, bleachers, printers, and those engaged in similar branches of manufacture.

replied, that he had already stated, as far as the textile factories were concerned, that there was not the slightest desire among the workmen in any form or shape to change the present system; but when they came to deal with certain particular trades, that was another matter, as there were special circumstances connected with them. With regard to the winter months, for instance, special regulations might be made. The only argument, therefore, which the hon. Member brought forward to support his Amendment was that there should be absolute uniformity. But that was a ground which could not be taken up, for if they were to legislate on the principle of absolute uniformity, certain classes would obtain protection who did not require it, while they would be releasing women and young persons in other trades from that protection which was absolutely necessary for them.

said, it should be optional for the employer to make a five hours, instead of a four-and-a-half hours spell of work between meals. He could give many cases where such an arrangement would be very convenient. It would be very convenient, for instance, in many mills in his own neighbourhood if, while working short time, the five hours' arrangement could be put into operation. Then work could begin at 9 o'clock, and go on until 2 o'clock, which was the usual dinner hour. He did not lay much stress on the matter of uniformity, and only referred to it because it appeared to him desirable that there should not be two arrangements of hours in works of a similar character. He could not conceive that there would be the slightest possible hardship to the work-people if the Amendment were adopted.

pointed out that the Amendment would, of course, apply to young persons as well as to women. He did not believe it would be desirable in the regular textile trades to have young persons working the machines which were used for five hours continuously. He believed it would be found very injurious to them. While they were at work they could not for a moment relax; they must keep their minds and bodies at work during the whole time. That was very different from many kinds of employment which were carried on mechanically, and thus gave opportunities for resting.

said, it seemed to him that if there was really any reason for limiting the hours to four-and-a-half between meals, that was a reason which should be applied to all trades. He admitted that perhaps it might be right for persons not to have more than four-and-a-half hours' work between their meals; but the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Orr-Ewing) said that, as a matter of fact, in the district with which he was acquainted, the men did not work longer hours.

said, he referred to spinners and weavers.

asked if they were going to have one meal time for one set of workers, and another meal time for another set? It appeared to him that there must be a considerable amount of inconvenience in having different meal hours for different sets of workers in the same factory.

said, he understood all workers at the same factory stopped at the same time.

said, that in some of the non-textile factories, where the work was very arduous, it was surely as desirable that there should be a short interval between meals as in a textile factory.

said, during the passing of the Act of 1874, he argued against the four-and-a-half hours' limit. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) that in some of the factories there was a strain on the young children who worked at machinery persistently, which required the closest attention of eye, of hand, and of energy; but he did think that there would be found a number of factories—a large proportion of industries—where some distinction should be made, and all that went to show that they could not have absolute uniformity.

moved, in page 6, line 33, to leave out "women." He confessed that this Amedment opened a wide field for discussion; but, while he maintained that every adult man and woman had a right to work as long as they liked, he was not inclined to disturb the existing law regarding textile manufactories. In small factories and workshops the conditions of labour were, however, so varied, that it was impossible to adopt any fixed principle; and for that reason, he thought it much better that women should be allowed to decide for themselves how long they should work, and what kind of work they should undertake. Parliament might very justly regulate the work of children, and might with great advantage lay down sanitary laws applying to workshops and factories; but he denied its right to restrict the labour of any adult. The clause, as it stood, would work most unjustly, and would cause the greatest inconvenience in many trades. Although he did not understand the textile manufactures, he was well acquainted with the trades of the town he represented, and also that of the surrounding towns; and he could assure hon. Members that in these places there would be the greatest possible difficulty in applying the clause under discussion. Certainly, the exemptions specified in Clause 59 were carefully drawn, for it was stated therein that the restriction should not apply to a private house, room, or place which, though used as a dwelling, was, by reason of the work carried on there, a factory or workshop within the meaning of the Act, and in which neither steam, water, nor other mechanical power was used, and in which the persons employed wore members of the same family or dwelling there. Now, it frequently happened that the steam power supplied by a single factory passed through two or three houses; but the fact of steam power being used would invalidate the exemptions under Clause 59, although no danger accrued to the women and children working under such conditions. He knew a case where a single manufactory supplied steam-power to 15 or 20 houses in which the inmates did the work on their own premises, merely utilizing the power so supplied to them. Frequently working men who had saved a few hundred pounds sot up these little factories, in conjunction with their wives, and became most respectable citizens—sometimes, indeed, amassing small fortunes. Well, the wife had her domestic duties to attend to, and it was not until the evening, on the return of her husband, that the couple were enabled to eke out their income by private industry. If the Inspector was allowed to place an embargo upon such houses it would put an end to half of the manufactures, and for that reason he was obliged, on behalf of his fellow-citizens, to oppose the proposed restriction, and to claim a total immunity for women. There were already complaints as to the working of the Workshops Act. Then, the restriction would operate most inconveniently as regarded laundries, and this inconvenience would be felt nowhere more than in London. Take the case of a gentleman living at an hotel, who was compelled to depart on Monday morning, and who expected his clothes to be delivered on Saturday evening. If the women employed in the large laundries were obliged to leave work at two o'clock on Saturday it might become impossible to comply with exigencies of that kind. He trusted that the Homo Secretary would see his way to meet the difficulties he had pointed out.

hoped that the Home Secretary would not yield to the suggestions of the hon. Member for Birmingham. The hon. Member had said that there were great complaints respecting the Workshops Act. Having travelled over many districts in the country, he (Mr. Macdonald) had never heard a complaint as to the working of that Act from a single man or woman. Would the hon. Member inform the House how many Petitions had been presented against the Act as it affected women? Until there was some such demonstration of dissatisfaction he would be unwilling to recognize that these were the views of the working people affected, and he was rather inclined to believe that the hon. Member was the spokesman of manufacturers and others, who troubled themselves much on this subject, and who were interested in female labour.

said, that the labour of women had been regulated for many years, and he was not aware that there had been any complaints as to the manner in which the Act had been administered, or of any hardships inflicted by it. He himself endorsed the statement of the Commissioners that the Workshops Act had done a great deal of good, although, doubtless, much inconvenience might have been caused at first by its strict application. Much of that inconvenience had now been remedied, and he believed that all parties were becoming more and more reconciled to the Act. In the words of the Commissioners, he might add—

"The absence of all complaints of the manner in which the Inspectors have exercised the power thus entrusted to them proves that it is one which may be safely left in their hands."

He thanked the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) for his approval of the drafting of the Bill, for the excellence of which he was chiefly indebted to the draftsman, who had given him valuable assistance. So far as domestic workshops were concerned the Bill did not affect female labour; and in no case, so far as females were concerned, had they sought to extend the existing law. After a good deal of discussion, to which the opinions of well-informed persons wore contributed, the Government had deemed it advisable to put on the Amendment Paper a relaxation so far as concerned domestic workshops. Difficulties might arise in giving effect to the exemptions in several trades. Take the case of straw-plaiting, pillow-lace weaving, and other light trades. Supposing the real business was, say, lace weaving—if they exempted it from the operation of the Bill, people might take advantage of the exemption to evade the Act, and the old workshops which they desired to cheek would be revived. But in the case of a domestic workshop, where the main business of the females was something else, and at odd hours they made certain things, there could be no such necessity for interfering, and no danger of the house being turned into a regular workshop, and therefore such cases might be omitted from the Bill. He thought, moreover, that with regard to such light trades as straw-plaiting, which children acquired at a very early age, and practised chiefly for recreation, the law might be allowed to continue as at present. But there was a distinction to be drawn where the parent required the child as a feeder; in that case, the position of the child was somewhat analogous to that of a steam-engine, and it might be worked beyond its strength. Where there was no danger of such a result the law might remain unchanged. He had no doubt that the difficulty in respect to laundries could easily be obviated. He hoped that the Committee would not go back from the principle which Parliament had laid down in its legislation now for many years, and which had worked so well for the protection of women and young persons.

was of opinion that, respecting female labour, some trades had been introduced into the Bill for the first time. He maintained that the absence of Petitions could not be taken as an indication of satisfaction with the law, as the operatives affected by it waited quiescently for its amendment by the House. At the proper time he should be prepared to discuss the question of domestic factories with some vigour, as he thought the change proposed in the Bill was a monstrous one.

said, it was not proposed to disturb existing legislation, as this was merely a Consolidation Bill. He had letters from many persons interested in the Bill, stating that they were prepared, if necessary, to petition in its favour. If anyone had proposed to reverse the existing legislation affecting women, every woman in Lancashire would have petitioned against such a change.

said, that when the Factory Bill was before the House in 1874, he distinctly raised the issue that it was unjust and inexpedient to interfere with the labour of women, and he obtained Petitions from thousands of women in support of the principle he was advocating. Again and again, under the pretext of Consolidation Bills, new regulations had been introduced. They proposed to interfere with the home of every Englishman and Englishwoman; because the Bill, as it stood, would give the Inspector the right to knock at his door to ascertain whether his wife and children were at work after 9 o'clock at night. Under the cloak of a Consolidation Bill a monstrous interference with individual liberty was proposed to be sanctioned. The clause embraced all work done for the purpose of earning money; the wife might be doing some needlework to sell at a bazaar, but the Inspector would be empowered to say that such work could not be continued after 9 o'clock. The question raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) involved an important principle. That a bad principle had been sanctionod 30 years ago was no conclusive reason why, after the social, educational, and moral progress of the country since then, they should go on re-enacting that principle in successive Acts of Parliament. What right had Parliament to interfere with the labour of adult women any more than with the labour of adult men? There were hundreds of thousands of women in this country who had to earn their bread by daily toil, and Parliament had no right to place an impediment in the way of these women earning an honest livelihood. The only reason which would justify an interference with the labour of adult women was that women were tyrannized over and treated despotically and cruelly by the working men who happened to be their husbands, brothers, or fathers; but such a reason cast so grave a slur on the working men of this country, that he was astonished that those who called themselves the working man's friends should advance it. He, for one, was not prepared to admit such a charge unless it could be distinctly proved, and he maintained that if women wore not under the harsh, despotic, and cruel control of the men with whom they were connected, there was no reason whatever for such an interference with their labour as was proposed by the Bill. The case of children was, of course, a different one. They were not adults, and he was quite willing to claim the fullest security that they should be properly educated, and that their health should not be sacrificed; but the same reasons did not apply in the case of adult women, and he repeated that there was no more justification for interfering with their labour than there was for interfering with the labour of men. Such interference, if insisted on in these critical industrial times, was calculated to produce great mischief; for no one could doubt that, indirectly, an interference with the labour of adult women would place a limit in tens of thousands of cases upon the length of a day's work for men, and surely it would be most inexpedient to arrive at such a result as that. It would be far better for the Legislature to leave such questions to be settled between the employers and employed themselves, and not to insist on too much inter- meddling. If his hon. Friend divided the Committee on this question, he (Mr. Fawcett) should certainly support him.

while agreeing with much that had been said by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), did not think this a proper occasion for pressing the Amendment. The best way of dealing with the question would be to raise it when they came to the Schedules.

also concurred in the views advanced by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), and believed that the Legislature ought not to interfere any more than it could help with the labour of adult women. At the same time, he did not think the question should be raised in the manner proposed by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz); for, unless Parliament were prepared to reverse the whole of its legislation on the subject, it was hardly likely that the Amendment would be adopted. He (the O'Conor Don) had himself an Amendment to propose, which he thought would meet with the approval of the hon. Member for Hackney; but, at the same time, he thought it only right to point out that the proposed legislation of the Bill, with regard to domestic employment, was not, in reality, new. So far as that point was concerned, the Bill was only a Consolidating Bill. No doubt, it was an objectionable feature; but still there were certain Amendments, of which the Home Secretary had given Notice, which would, to some extent, remedy it.

explained that when he proposed his Amendment, he was unaware of the important and extensive Amendments to be proposed by the Home Secretary, with regard to private dwellings; which, though the principle of this part of the Bill was bad, undoubtedly removed the sting from it. Under those circumstances, he would not put the Committee to the trouble of dividing. At the same time, he might say that he had found a very strong feeling existing among the trade councils of his own town—Birmingham—that workmen's houses should not be interfered with by the Inspectors, unless the houses of the gentry were interfered with also.

moved, in page 6, line 34, to leave out "and of young persons in a" and insert "or." The object of the Amendment was to place women who were employed in workshops in the same category as women employed in non-textile factories. If a uniform rule were not adopted for the two cases, the result would be that women employed in almost precisely the same occupations, would be placed under very different laws. It was very difficult to define what was a factory and what was a workshop. In the Act of 1867, one of the definitions was that a place employing less than 50 people was a workshop; and a place employing more than 50 people was a factory; so that this curious anomaly arose—that a brickyard employing 49 people was a workshop, and one employing 51 people was a factory. The Home Secretary had provided another definition—that a place where steam or other mechanical power was used should be considered a factory; but that, he thought, was not a satisfactory distinction, as it would embrace a good many places that ought not to be included. It would be very difficult to draw the line between a workshop and a non-textile factory in a large variety of trades, such as tailoring, millinery, shoemaking, and other industries connected with the manufacture of clothing, in which women were employed. Under the Home Secretary's definition, a largo millinery establishment, employing a number of women who worked sewing machines by their own physical power, would be a workshop; but the moment a steam-engine or other mechanical power was introduced to work—say, half-a-dozen out of perhaps a hundred machines, the place became a factory, notwithstanding that the introduction of steam-power for the hardest work made the labour easier instead of more difficult for the women. Non-textile factories were brought under the regulations of this Bill; but workshops practically escaped from many of them, as, under Clause 59, they were exempt from inspection in regard to cleanliness, over-crowding, ventilation, the affixing of notices as to the hours for meals, the length of time for employment, and so on. The only way in which women employed in workshops were dealt with was by fixing the period of employment at 12 hours—any time between 6 in the morning and 9 at night—and obliging the employer to give four-and-a-half hours for relaxation, absence from work, or meals. By such provisions the evils of the old system would be perpetuated, for the Inspector would find it utterly impossible to ascertain whether the women were working more or less than the prescribed time. It would be impossible for him to tell whether there had been four-and-a-half hours of relaxation—he could only tell whether work had been commenced before 6 or carried on after 9—and thus it would still continue, as it always had been, utterly impossible to enforce the regulations for the hours of employment in workshops. Then, if the Committee passed the clause as it stood at present, they would be giving a premium to hand-labour over machinery, by providing that where there was no mechanical power the regulations should be comparatively loose; but where propelling machinery of any kind was introduced, the place should be under all the stringent regulations of a non-textile factory. That would be a distinct discouragement to the introduction of machinery. The employment of children and young persons would also be discouraged by the clause; for a place where women worked, but where no child or young person was employed, would be deemed a workshop, but if one child or young person was introduced, the place would at once become a non-textile factory under all the stringent regulations of the Bill with reference to inspection, cleanliness, over-crowding, ventilation, &c. About half the workshops in London employed young persons and children, but a distinct inducement would be held out to employers by this clause to exclude them for the future.

said, the effect of the Amendment would be to place further restrictions on the employment of women; and, therefore, on that ground, if on no other, he must oppose it, for wherever he possibly could give relaxation to the regulations under which working women came he should do so. But the hon. Member (Mr. Holms) was in error as to the effect of the clause. Where women were working without children or protected persons in a workshop, they would not come under the 59th clause of the Bill, which only applied to domestic workshops or work at home. Where there were no protected persons there was no reason for inter- ference; but where women were employed in a workshop along with protected persons, of course, all the regulations must apply.

said, he had placed an almost similar Amendment on the Paper; but his object was exactly the opposite of that of his hon. Friend (Mr. Holms), as he had no desire to place new restrictions upon the labour of women. The effect of the Amendment now before the Committee would be to do away with the liberty given by the clause in workshops, and to compel women to work within a given limit of 12 hours—from 6 to 6, from 7 to 7, or from 8 to 8, whether working in a factory or workshop. Women themselves would strongly object to the restriction proposed by the hon. Member, and distinct evidence to that effect was given before the Commissioners. Women often liked to have an extra amount of leisure in the middle of the day, and frequently worked at piecework—being paid not by time but by the quantity of labour performed, in order to have more freedom in the matter of time. A married woman especially often found it convenient to go to work at one hour on one day and at another on another. Under these circumstances, he could not support the Amendment now before the Committee; but he had an Amendment of his own to propose in order to cure another restriction upon the labour of adult women which had been imposed by the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman, in the next clause but one, had done away with the adult woman's privilege of working at the hours she found most convenient if it happened that a young person was working with her, so that if a married women was employed with her daughter of 15, 16, or 17 years old, that employment of the daughter would subject the mother to restrictions to which she was not subject at present. He (the O'Conor Don) thought that Parliament ought not to go beyond the present restrictions, especially as the Pill before the Committee was in the main only a consolidating measure; and, therefore, when the clause to which he referred was arrived at, he should move an Amendment, the object of which would be to leave young persons and women working in workshops the same freedom they now possessed. In order to carry out this Amendment, it was necessary to omit all reference to young persons in the present clause, and to confine it exclusively to the regulations of non-textile factories. Experience had shown that no injurious result had arisen from the liberty which now existed in this respect, and as the Home Secretary had stated that he did not wish to place any new restriction on the labour of women, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to accept his Amendment.

objected to the new distinction made by the Bill between factories and workshops; the definition which it was now proposed to give to a factory being a place where steam or other mechanical propelling power was used. It might or it might not be advisable to make the change proposed; but, at all events, this new distinction was a very important one, and the Committee ought to weigh well all the consequences which would flow from it before they finally adopted it. The distinction was not, perhaps, so very important as the Bill stood; but if the Amendment which the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) intended to move were accepted by the Government, that distinction would become very important indeed. A place where only human physical power was used would be a workshop, but the moment steam or other physical power was used it would become a factory. Such an arrangement seemed to place human physical power—the highest and most intelligent of all—at a disadvantage.

Of course, I am only bound to treat the Bill as it stands. I am not bound to suggest anything else.

said, there were many trades that were not worked on the system pursued in workshops, but were almost domestic trades. The hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) would lay down no specific time at which persons should work. He contended that they would have no less work done by limiting the time, as it would conduce to greater regularity. There could be no doubt that this might be convenient for some people employed in certain trades that were not worked by steam-power or by water, but were worked just as convenient to the workers themselves. If this was the case, how wore Inspectors or school boards to know when they were at work? The clause as it now stood mot all the requirements of the Commissioners, and he should certainly vote for it in its present form.

admitted that it was perfectly true that the object of the Amendment was to extend the restrictions to women; but if they could strike out women altogether he should be pleased. They had legislated for women as regarded textile factories; to be consistent, let them legislate for them as regarded both non-textile factories and workshops. It appeared to him rather a serious matter that they should say to an employer who employed a large number of women, that when their sewing-machines were driven by steam-power they should be placed under more severe restrictions than when worked by physical application. Therefore, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to accept this Amendment.

wished to say one word on what fell from the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) as to the comparative hardship that would devolve upon women where steam-power was employed. Let them consider what was the actual restriction involved in this clause. It was that the work should be carried on between certain fixed hours, either between 6 and 6, 7 and 7, or 8 and 8."Would the noble Lord maintain for a moment that whenever steam and mechanical power was employed, anyone could avoid working in that way? Any owner, where there was steam-power, must fix the hours at which his machinery was to be in motion. He could not have the work of two or three women in one part of the day, and two or three women in another. The owner of a mill with steam-power must have fixed hours. Therefore, he maintained it could be no hardship to put into their Bill what these hours were. But when they came to shops, whore no machinery was used, and where the hours depended on the will of the worker and not on the will of the employer, the case was wholly different, and he thought it but fair that the hours in such cases should be regulated on a more elastic principle.

observed that the charge of inconsistency brought against the body of Members who sat near him early in the evening could be retorted with good effect. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms) simply desired that women should not be compelled to work, and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary appeared to wish that women, when they could not be compelled to work, should not have the protection of this Bill. It was proposed that women employed in that metropolis might be compelled to work 15 hours a-day. ["No, no!"] The clause provided from 6 in the morning till 9 in the evening—that was 15 hours. In the definitions at the end of the Bill a workshop was defined as a place where no steam-power was employed. The consequence was that there might be work done now by a woman, such as making boots and shoes and driving a sewing-machine, where the period of employment might be 15 hours a-day. ["No, no!"] He knew there were hours for meals. For instance, if they took the working of the sewing-machine for making boots and shoes, that was undoubtedly very heavy work. Yet a woman might have to do that work, and not having the assistance of steam-power, would be deprived of the help the right hon. Gentleman gave to the women who had the benefit of steam. He, therefore, thought the Amendment of the hon. Member for Paisley was very important. The mere fact that four hours were given as meal hours in one day made very little difference.

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not consent to the Amendment. It was objectionable, because it would place women in the position of young persons, and this had never been done up to the present time. He did not think it mattered what length of time women were allowed to be employed in these shops, because the women were adults, and were able to take care of themselves. Then, again, with respect to the distinction between a workshop and a factory, he thought there was very great distinction indeed between a place where steam-power was used and a place where steam-power was not used, and where persons might work just as they thought proper.

said, he was afraid he would have to take the same course as his hon. Friend, and withdraw his Amendment. He must point out that the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) was under an entire misapprehension as to Sub-section 2, Clause 15, because that, instead of being a restriction, was exactly the opposite; but under it no woman or young person would be employed more than 10½ hours. It was true that the 10½ hours' work might be put in within a limit of 15 hours—that was to say, the workers or employers might select the exact hours of work within that limit; and that was the principle he sought by his Amendment for all adult women working in workshops, whether they worked with young persons or not. If he could get support, he would move the Amendment of which he had given Notice. ["Move, move!"]

remarked that they had gone through Bills of much less importance than this, and had spent nights over them, and he considered it essential that this clause should be discussed. He hoped the hon. Member would give the House an opportunity of expressing an opinion; because if they went on the principle that they were not to divide because they would not be able to carry their proposition, then they would not have to divide till Christmas. He was in 120 divisions last year, and so far as he knew he was seldom in a majority. This Amendment seemed to him to be a very important one. This Bill was going to extend its restrictions far and wide; because, as he understood it, if a woman employed two children even in her own house, that would be a workshop. There would be some hundreds and thousands of these workshops in this metropolis, and it was idle to say that all these small rooms could be conducted in strict accordance with rule. What was required was to give greater elasticity to the clause. The Amendment did not say that women should have more work or less; but what it did say was, that if they worked 10 hours, they should be allowed greater consideration as to the time they should work those hours. When they considered how multitudinous were the other labours which women might have to do, to look after her children, to interrupt her work to cook the dinner, or something of that kind, it was certainly desirable that they should give to persons coming under these Acts the greatest facility or liberty as to the period of the day they should be allowed to work.

must say a word in reply to the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett). The Committee could hardly realize from the speech made by the hon. Member that he was more responsible for this Bill than anyone else. In 1867 he was most anxious for every point in this Bill. He was a Member of the Committee in 1867 on the Workshops Act. There was not then the slightest intimation that this clause was an invasion of the domestic liberties of Englishmen, and the clause was not noticed in any way except in the way of recommendation. Now, there had been an amount of domestic labour taken out which was put in by his hon. Friend (Mr. Fawcett). In the discussions in 1867 the hon. Member was in favour of restrictions, and he must say it was too bad of him to appear in the form he did now, when he had over and over again thanked the Government in 1867 for having passed that Act. The Home Secretary must now stand by his Bill or fall by it. If he once let a single brick out of the walls, down would come the whole.

I have not the slightest intention of taking out a brick.

moved, in page 6, to leave out from "excepted," inline 37, to "in," line 40, and insert—

"be a period not exceeding twelve hours, inclusive of meals hours, between six o'clock in the morning and eight o'clock."

Under the clause, as it now stood, the employer might name a period of employment commencing at 6 in the morning and ending at 6 in the evening, or one commencing at 7 in the morning and ending at 7 in the evening. According to his proposal, the employer might fix any consecutive 12 hours, in- eluding meal hours, between 6 in the morning and 8 in the evening. His reason for making the proposal was, that he found that, under the 3rd schedule of the Bill, a large number of trades were allowed to work from 8 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening; and that, according to figures published in the Report of the Royal Commission on Factories, nearly half of all the persons employed in non-textile factories and workshops were embraced in this schedule. He thought it would give greater elasticity to the system of employment in these places if they allowed the hours of working to be from 6 to 6, from 7 to 7, or from 8 to 8. What he proposed was that the employer should be allowed to fix any period, not exceeding 12 hours, he liked, between 6 in the morning and 8 in the evening, but he must strictly define the period he adopted.

said, he hoped the Committee would let the clause stand as it was, as it was well adapted to meet all requirements. In his opinion, the Commission had come to a wise resolution on the subject.

said, he was anxious to propose a small Amendment of which he had not given Notice. He thought it would be a great convenience, in many instances, if employés were allowed to work from half-past 6 to half-past 6, or from half-past 7 to half-past 7, taking in the half-hour, and he found that the Commissioners had made such a recommendation. Some of his own constituents were of that opinion, and had represented to him the great inconvenience of their being compelled to begin half-an-hour sooner or half-an-hour later than they otherwise did.

said, he should not like to accept the hon. Gentleman's Amendment without further consideration. He understood that there was practically no inconvenience in the arrangement which the clause provided. In most cases the day was taken to begin at 6, the first half-hour being allowed for breakfast, and the employed going back to work at half-past 6. That was done at many factories, as he understood.

who had on the Paper an Amendment for substituting four-and-a-half hours for five hours, as the limit of duration of continuous labour without a break of half-an-hour for meals, said, it was not his intention to press it, as he meant to meet his object by proposing to give the Home Secretary some discretionary power in the matter.

moved, in page 7, sub-section 3, line 25, to leave out "one o'clock," and insert "half-past twelve." He thought it would be a better arrangement, and he did not anticipate for his proposal any objection in any quarter.

said, he understood that in some cases on Saturdays, though the persons employed had their dinner hours at 12, they came back to work at a quarter before 1. He did not see any particular objection to the Amendment; but he would suggest to the hon. Member that the Amendment should run "or at any hour later than half-past 12."

said, he had no objection to the alteration.

said, he wished to move an Amendment in sub-section 4, with regard to children working alternately morning and evening. Such an arrangement, he believed, would work most inconveniently, and he had received some strong representations on the subject from the Trades Council of Leicester. He was informed that at Leicester, not only the regular workers would be affected by the arrangement, but the errand-boys, and young people going out with goods. He moved to omit the sub-section.

The clause does not affect them at all.

If the right hon. Gentleman says so, that is enough; but it is thought otherwise at Leicester, and the persons he referred to were persons working in factories.

said, he had to apologize to the House for not having an Amendment ready on this matter, which he had intended submitting, but he would bring it up on the Report. He wished to support the remarks of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor). He entirely agreed with him in what he said, so far as regarded boys working alternately in morning and afternoon turns. What he should propose was, that the children employed in the morning one week, should in the next be employed in the afternoon, and vice versâ.

pointed out that that was not the object of the hon. Member for Leicester, and if this subsection were struck out, the effect would be injurious to the education of the children. The object was to make school work succeed factory work in a manner favourable to education. The hon. Member for Leicester was, how-over, in error, in supposing that this provision would apply to errand-boys, and the Royal Commission recommended that they should not be touched.

I am told it will touch the winders, and those who take out the work.

observed that he, also, had received some strong representations from Leicester on this subject, and he was informed that the Bill would be very injurious to a large number of workers.

said, it was not his intention to move the first of the Amendments of which he had given Notice, with the object of extending to young persons the regulations for the employment of women in workshops, as it was a consequential Amendment upon that which the Committee had just negatived. But he now rose to move an Amendment that would cast out of the clause a sub-section that imposed a considerable and new restriction on the employment of women. His proposal was that the hours of work should not be tied up within the short limit of the 12 hours provided for in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman now proposed to subject adult women to a new re- striction, by providing that in workshops in which both women and young persons were employed, the former should only be employed in the same period, and subject to the same restrictions, as if they were young persons. Employment would thus be restricted to the 12 hours, from 6 to 6, or from 7 to 7. The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella), in his evidence before the Royal Commission, said it would be impossible to interfere in this manner with the habits of the people and the trade of the country, and he went on to state that he did not propose to compress the period of a day's labour between stated hours. He thought he might, therefore, claim the support of his hon. Friend for his Amendment to strike out of the clause the sub-section which restricted the labour of adult women in workshops, when working with young persons. It was very important to consider what would be the effect of the clause, coupled with the other provisions in the Bill. If they placed further restrictions on the labour of adult women, and at the same time removed them from work done at home, the necessary result would be that they would drive work out of places which, as a rule, were well ventilated, to the homes of the workers themselves, where it would be carried on under the most disadvantageous circumstances. He thought, therefore, in view of every consideration which the right hon. Gentleman had before him in this Bill, it was most important that the Committee should consider whether it was wise, merely because young persons happened to be employed in these workshops, to place this restriction on the employment of adult female labour. Such persons mostly had domestic duties to attend to which deserved consideration, and he asked the Committee to reflect whether they were justified in making such a recommendation merely on the ground that they must have similarity. He begged, therefore, to propose the second of the Amendments which stood in his name.

said, the Amendments which he proposed would not have the effect which the hon. Gentleman attached to them.

wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill as it stood gave very great relaxation for work which was carried on by people in their homes. Similar relaxation was not made with regard to work carried on in workshops. It would, in his opinion, be a dangerous plan to pursue, to put further restrictions on the workshops, whilst relaxing them on work done at home, a relaxation which, he believed, was necessary.

said, he had given Notice of an Amendment, the effect of which would be to take homes altogether out of the category of workshops. Since he gave Notice of the Amendment, his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had placed on the Paper what went a great way towards meeting the object he had in view; but still he thought it was just as well that the Committee should have an opportunity of discussing the whole question upon this clause. Under the law as it at present stood, an Inspector might go into the home of any working man, bringing with him a policeman and a doctor, and might put questions as to the persons who were inhabiting that room, and. as to what they were doing. This law had never been carried into effect, because it would never be submitted to, and if an attempt were made to enforce it, it would cause a revolution. The Home Secretary proposed that the fact of work being carried on for the purpose of gain, in a private house or room where the family dwelt, should not in itself constitute such house or room a workshop within the meaning of the Bill, provided that the work was done at irregular intervals, and that it did not furnish the whole or the principal means of the living of the family. He thought this proposal would open almost as wide a door to work being done in the homes, as if the Amendment which he had put on the Paper were adopted. At all events, the principle involved in the right hon. Gentleman's proposal was very much the same. If the right hon. Gentleman had any preference for his own Amendment, he should not object to it; but he thought it right to give the Committee an opportunity of now discussing the matter, and therefore he moved the following Amendment in page 8, line 41, at commencement of clause, to insert—

"Save as hereinafter provided in regard to the education of children, the regulations of this Act with respect to the employment of children, young persons, and women, and the powers of Inspectors, shall not apply."

viewed with very great suspicion the passing of such a clause. The adoption of the proposal of the Home Secretary, while qualifying the clause, would not remove the difficulty. How, for instance, would it be possible to ascertain whether the work done at home furnished the whole or principal means of the living of the family? Other exemptions ought to be made besides those proposed by the Home Secretary. There were houses in the West End of London where ladies did work, of a decorative character, for first-class upholsterers. Were the Inspectors to enter such houses, and if not, where were they to draw the line? He thought it was dangerous to put in the Statute Book laws which could not be carried into effect.

said, it appeared to him that the Amendments of the Homo Secretary showed that the right hon. Gentleman himself felt strongly pressed, either by the present state of the law, or by the state of the law as it would be created by this Bill. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman sought to obviate the strength of the objections which he himself felt in regard to this kind of legislation, and he did this by means of the qualifications embodied in the Amendments which he had placed on the Paper. The proposals of the right hon. Gentleman were various. They seemed rather obvious specimens of what the law was or should be, and they would have been still more so, but for the fact that this Bill and some parts of the Act of Parliament rendered them necessary. He would take the last of the amending proposals as a specimen. It provided that the exercise, in a private house or private room by the family dwelling therein, or by any of them, of manual labour for the purposes of gain, should not constitute such house or room a workshop within the meaning of the Bill. That "went without saying," because it could not enter into the mind of any man, that such a house or home was a workshop, under any system of legislation applying to this country, where we had been accustomed to have the management of our own houses and our own business. Yet the subsequent words of the amending clause made this plain right depend upon whether the labour was at irregular intervals, or was wholly the subsistence of the family. How could an Inspector learn this, except by entering any house he pleased, which was most objectionable?

pointed out that the question raised by the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) had long ago been investigated and disposed of. It was found that frequently children were driven out of workrooms and sent into private houses, in order to evade the regulations of the Act. Further, there was no case within his knowledge of a complaint on the part of an individual that his domestic privacy had been invaded. Altogether, the effect of the Home Secretary's measure was exaggerated. It was forgotten that his Bill was simply a consolidation of previous Acts. They were dealing with an old form of legislation, and not with a new one, as the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) seemed to think.

said, that the whole question raised by the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) had come before the Royal Commission, and had been carefully considered by them. They concluded that it was unquestionably necessary that some restriction should be placed on the employment of persons in private dwelling-houses. Nobody who read their Reports could fail to agree with them in this conclusion. The question for the Committee now was, whether any mischief had been found to result from the working of previous Acts. The Commissioners had inquired very carefully into the matter, and there had been a com- plete absence of any complaint as to the manner in which the Inspectors performed the duties entrusted to them. What would happen if the clauses now objected to were omitted? There would be the strongest temptation to transfer children from workshops to these private dwelling-places; and so an Act which was intended to consolidate previous Acts on the same subject, would have the effect of perpetuating the evils it purposed to prevent. He fully admitted the delicacy of the whole matter; and he would listen attentively at the proper time to whatever changes of a reasonable character hon. Members might wish to make.

would ask those hon. Members who objected to the clause to reflect that the interference with private dwelling-houses would not have been sanctioned in the Act of 1867 if the gravest necessity for such interference had not been demonstrated. There was naturally the greatest repugnance to this form of legislation; but the Commissioners, composed of very efficient men, who had considered the question for years, had reported in its favour, and it was hard to resist the weight of such high authority.

felt strongly the force of the arguments that had been advanced in defence of the clause. He was conscious of the evils that might exist in these dwelling-houses, especially in the tailoring trade. He was ready to withdraw his Amendment.

moved, in page 9, line 1, after "used" to insert "in aid of the manufacturing process carried on there."

agreed to the Amendment.

moved to leave the words "women and children" out of the clause. He said, he had been reproached with having changed his mind on this question. But he recollected much more startling changes in the minds of hon. Members opposite. He remembered the proposal to establish household suffrage being denounced by the Conservative Party. ["Question, question!"] That was the question, because they had cheered him when he said he had changed his mind. Household suffrage, which the Conservative Party had denounced, was carried within a year by the head of a Conservative Government. Therefore this taunt against him of having changed his mind was rather strange. With regard to the proposal in the clause, it seemed to be considered an absolutely conclusive argument in its favour that it had been proposed in the Act of 1867. But it was ridiculous to argue that they must accept in 1878 everything that had been done in 1867. What was the question raised by that clause? This clause said that in every house in England, whether it were the home of a rich or a poor person, where a woman carried on manual labour for the sake of money, labour could only be pursued under certain strict conditions, and could not, however severe the woman's necessities, be continued after 9 o'clock in the evening. It went farther. It gave the right to Government Inspectors, medical officers, and police, to enter every home, so as to see whether, in a humble garret or a drawing-room, any woman was working after 9 o'clock. The Home Secretary was said to contemplate the introduction of arrangements which would relax the severity of this clause. He was said to intend giving women the precious privilege of coming to him as suppliant mendicants to beg that they might be allowed to toil without these restrictions. The clause would establish an intricate system of Government interference with the whole domestic and internal life of England. They were asked to sanction a principle which it was absolutely impossible to carry out, and nothing could be more mischievous in legislation than to carry measures which could not be brought into practice. Could all the Home Secretaries that ever existed, and all the Government Inspectors in the world, put down the work done in the dwelling-houses—say, for example, among his constituents in the East End of London? How could they hope to establish a body of Inspectors bearing any proportion in their numbers to the work to be done? Sixty or eighty thousand children employed in agriculture required a larger number of Inspectors than Government could supply. What, then, would be the number of In- spectors wanted to see that in no house in court or alley, or even in country village, a woman was working more than nine hours? They would not, besides, be able to confine the operation of this Act to the homes of the poor. It was an undisputed fact that there were many persons in their own position in life—as, for instance, when a father had died, leaving behind a wife and children in a respectable position in society—in which women had to supplement the income of the family. They had to work in various ways—by painting porcelain, and the like—to make an addition to their means, in order that they might make a respectable appearance, or that the younger children might be educated. Under this clause, an Inspector, a medical officer, or a policeman, would have a right to come and knock at the door of such a lady and a daughter, and say—"You are working after 9 o'clock in the evening; you are contravening this Act; we will compel you to incriminate yourself"—for that could be done under the Act—"and we will inflict a fine upon you." It was argued that a workshop might be converted into a dwelling-house. That was an evil; but how small an evil in comparison with that of passing a law which could thus interfere with the right of a woman to work for her own livelihood in her own home.

said, a fallacy which underlay the whole of the hon. Member's argument completely destroyed its force. The clause did not apply to a woman who was working for herself; such a woman was entirely free; she was not employed; she employed herself. The clause applied solely to those who employed others.

asked what would be the effect if the woman worked for her husband?

replied, that, according to the best authorities, a woman could not be considered as an employé in that case.

suggested that the difficulty raised by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), and the counter-objection put forward by the Home Secretary, would be met if the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) would so amend his Amendment that children should be under inspection, and women in the position described by the hon. Member for Hackney should be ex- eluded. All women, however, should not be excepted, for then they would not have provided for the ease in which women were employed by women.

asked if the Act applied to Ireland?

thought the hon. Member for Hackney had made out a case that required the consideration of the Home Secretary.

said, the clause only affected the case where they were all the members of the same family. He had already stated that the mother of a family would not come under it. The only people that would be affected would be those members of a family who were above 18. It did not apply to younger persons.

thought it would be monstrous to extend the application of this clause to Ireland. It really gave to the police exactly the same powers that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) had succeeded in eliminating from the Coercion Act for Ireland. The clause might suit England, whose cities were teeming with industry; but it would be utterly unsuitable for Ireland.

pointed out that a similar Act had existed in Ireland since 1867, and not a single instance had ever occurred of its being abused. With regard to the objection raised against the power given to a policeman, he had introduced words in a subsequent clause which would allow the Inspector to take a constable only in such cases as he had cause to expect resistance in the discharge of his duty.

believed that the Act would be both useless and mischievous in Ireland. The effect of it would be that a person here and there would be summoned by the police, at a great deal of personal annoyance, but that the great mass of people would be left completely uncontrolled.

assured the House that in Ireland the clause was practically a dead letter. He had been asked if he could mention a single instance in which the privacy of a family had been intruded upon by Inspectors. No, he could not, for the reason that if an officer were to attempt to make his way into an Irishman's house on such an inquisitorial mission, he would meet with considerable obstruction—and very justly so.

moved to omit the clause.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, I trust the House will proceed to the second reading of this Bill. Hon. Members are no doubt aware that the Inns of Court exercise the power of calling students to the Bar, and also the very disagreeable and unsatisfactory function of censuring for misconduct such as have been called, of suspending them, if necessary, or disbarring them altogether. These four Inns of Court have hitherto provided, by arrangement, for the legal education of those about to become barristers; but it has been thought desirable not only that they should be relieved from the disagreeable duty of dealing with persons who misconduct themselves in the Profession, but that the education of students should be transferred to a Council of the four Inns. The Bill provides for the constitution of such a Council. The body is to consist of SO members—a certain number to be appointed by the Crown, the rest by the Inns of Court. The Bill also provides for the election and retirement of members, and for filling up vacancies. Jurisdiction is given to the Council over the legal education and examination of students, the censuring, suspending, and disbarring of barristers, and over all other matters that may be referred to them for advice and decision. There is, too, this most important provision—that the four Inns shall respectively contribute to the Council, out of their general funds, such annual sums as may be required, not exceeding the following amounts:—Lincoln's Inn, £1,300; Inner Temple, £1,500; Middle Temple, £1,200; Gray's Inn, £600. These contributions, it is thought, will be quite sufficient to enable the Council to provide for the legal education of those studying for the Bar; but provision is made in the Bill that that body may accept donations in aid of the purposes coming within the scope of their powers. This Bill, I may add, was introduced by the Lord Chancellor, and passed through the other House, last Session; but a pressure of Public Business prevented us here proceeding with it to its final stages. The measure is one which I regard as of the greatest importance; it has received the universal approbation of the Inns of Court, and I trust, therefore, that the House will assent to the second reading.

said, that as the Bill involved several important principles, and as the hon. Member who had an Amendment on the Paper (Mr. Norwood) did not expect the second reading would be taken at such a late hour, and was not then present, he begged to ask the Government not to proceed farther with the measure that evening. The simple object of the Bill, as he road it, was to perpetuate and extend a trades' union of an objectionable character, and the reason why those additional powers were asked for was that that trades' union found itself in the present day unable to exercise proper control and supervision over its members. If the aim of the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General was to secure an irreproachable race of lawyers and law agents, then there would be some excuse for maintaining the trades' union; but they know, by experience, that the Inns of Court exercised no such influence. To his mind, it was a question whether the public would not be better served if the Legal Profession were entirely thrown open, and the close corporations called Inns entirely abolished. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Hull was directed against one very serious abuse—namely, that an advocate could accept a retaining fee, and yet not consider himself bound to render his client any services in return. It had been the prac- tice among leading practitioners to accept fees in cases which they knew beforehand they could not attend to. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members dissented; but was it not a fact that the abuse had become so glaring that the attention of the members of the Bar themselves had been called to it? It was, no doubt, true that there were gentlemen of a higher order of morality in the Profession; but he repeated that the practice did prevail. If working men, in their trades' unions, were to act as barristers did in this matter, there would be no end of reprobation passed upon them. But he defied hon. Members to point out the case of a single trades' union in which working men conducted themselves so utterly in defiance of all the principles of political economy as did certain members of standing at the Bar, who were sometimes retained in order to prevent their being engaged on the other side. Now, surely it was a great abuse for an advocate to accept a retaining fee when he knew perfectly well that his other engagements would not permit him to give any attention to the case. Seeing, then, that a very important principle was involved, and that the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood), who felt very strongly on the matter, was not in his place, he trusted that the Attorney General would not proceed with his Motion that evening. He moved the adjournment of the debate.

must express his regret that this very important Bill had been brought forward at an hour when it was absolutely impossible it could be properly discussed. Therefore, he hoped that the hon. and learned Gentleman would allow some further opportunity for debate on going into Committee. Now, the Bill, to his mind, practically rendered the office of the four Inns of Court a sinecure. The education and discipline of the Bar were to be vested in a Council, leaving the Inns of Court with the one simple prerogative of calling students, and making their functions purely ministerial. The result would be that some day the Benchers, like the Serjeants and the Doctors before them, would sell the property of the Inns, and divide the pro- ceeds amongst themselves. They would vote themselves to be without anything to do, and perfectly useless. So great a revolution in the constitution of the Bar as that proposed by the Bill, ought not to be decided upon without full discussion. A point of great importance was that the Inns were to contribute for the purposes of legal education. Now, Parliament would want to know more than they did at present on that subject, and particularly what was the proportion of the several contributions to the incomes of the Inns. The entire question was one not so much for lawyers as for the whole community.

I am only going to say that I hope the hon. Member will not persist in his Motion for the adjournment of this debate. This Bill has been fully considered by those who are most interested in it—the Benchers of the different Inns—and I think they have fully accepted its principle, which is, that instead of four bodies acting without any unison, there should be a federation of those bodies, with the view of giving them greater strength and unity. That being agreed to, all the rest can as well be discussed in Committee as on the second reading. The point involved in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hull was very fully discussed last year, when I called attention to a particular case which it was supposed created a grievance, but which, on inquiry, it was found inflicted no grievance at all. It is now asserted—rather crudely, it is true—that counsel are in the habit of receiving fees, well knowing, at the same time, that they will not be able to attend to the cases for which they receive those fees. Now, I think I shall not be exceeding the limits of Parliamentary language, when I say that the hon. Member has not the slightest foundation for that statement; he has no foundation for it so far as my knowledge and experience goes. It is true that owing to peculiar circumstances—the arrangements of the Courts and the uncertainty of the duration of cases—it is impossible for an advocate of distinction to pledge himself to be in a particular place at a particular hour; but I do know that the fullest acknowledgment is made of these harassing conditions by the gentlemen who give us our instructions. It is not they who complain. The complaints are made by persons who have no practical knowledge of the inconveniences attending the exercise of the Profession, and who not unnaturally, perhaps, think the fault must be with the members of the Bar. But if these charges are to be brought, let them be founded on particular facts, and made against particular persons—not preferred in vague and uncertain form, convicting no one, and yet casting a slur on the whole Profession. If anyone wants an opportunity of making any of these charges, no doubt it will be afforded him; but I trust the Attorney General will consult the convenience of the House rather than that of the hon. Member for Hull, who might have been present, and that he will proceed with the second reading.

I am sorry the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) is not here; but his absence is not owing to any fault of mine. The other night I put off the Bill at great inconvenience to myself, because he was not present. I am very desirous of taking the second reading to-night, and therefore I hope hon. Members will give way. Due Notice will be given of the day on which the Committee stage will be taken, so that any matters which it is wished to be discussed may be raised.

said, in regard to the very high ground taken by the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James), he did not intend to make any charges against the Bar, but simply to ask some consideration for the vast body of gentlemen who employed the Bar. He would not say that a Profession so distinguished as that to which his hon. and learned Friend belonged, and which numbered in its ranks men of the highest integrity, knowingly pursued a system that was something like unprincipled; but he was prepared to assert that the arrangements under which the legal business of the country was carried on was most unsatisfactory. Whether that arose from any want of agreement between the members of the Bar themselves, or any want of comity between the Bench and the Bar, he could not say; but it was perfectly notorious that persons who paid large sums of money in retaining eminent counsel, frequently found themselves left without the services of those gentlemen when their cases were called on. This was no new matter. Two years ago there was an important discussion on the subject in that House, when a large number of Members voted in favour of the Bill brought in by the hon. Member for Hull. And things had not improved in the meantime; indeed, at this moment the hopeless state of confusion into which their legal business had fallen was a disgrace to the Judicature system of the country, and demanded the very serious consideration of the House. It was all very well for legal Members of that House to stand up in the panoply of their own distinguished position, and argue for the Bill; but it was perfectly clear that it was in the power of the Bar to make better arrangements—say, by dividing itself into sections—by which a legitimate chance would be given to suitors of securing the services of counsel to whom they had paid large retaining fees. It was perfectly well known that in the Chancery Courts such an arrangement prevailed. There were four Courts of First Instance in that branch of the Judicature, and the leaders of the Bar, practising in them, divided themselves into as many sections, which they never left except on special retainers. The consequence was that there was very few complaints of neglect of suitors in the Chancery Division. Why should not some such attempt be made on the Common Law side? He had ceased, himself, to be a member of the Legal Profession; but as one who had taken an active part in it for 37 years, he was prepared to say that there was very wide - spread dissatisfaction amongst clients, in reference to this question of retainers. He did not say that it was the fault of advocates that they did not sometimes render those services for which they were paid—it was the fault of the system which made it a mere matter of haphazard whether clients could reckon upon the attendance of counsel to whom they have given heavy fees. He ventured to suggest that if the second reading were agreed to that night, it should be on the understanding that the next stage should be made the first Order of the Day, so that the hon. Member for Hull might have an opportunity of taking a division on his Amendment. The hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James), in taking high ground, slightly overstated his case; for he (Mr. Lewis) happened to know that there were counsel who professed to take briefs in every one of the Common Law Divisions of the High Court of Justice, and who, at the same time, occasionally went in for the Divorce Court and heavy arbitration cases. Now, in these instances, it was found, as a matter of practice, that it was entirely a question of mere chance whether clients were able to obtain the services of counsel they had retained, when those services were required. If the Motion for the adjournment of the debate were pressed, he should feel compelled, as a matter of consistency, to vote for it.

regretted extremely that the hon. Member should have used such strong words in reference to a most honourable Profession. He charged them, in fact, with nothing less than obtaining money under false pretences; but he (Mr. Cole) consoled himself with the belief that Gentlemen who made imputations of this kind knew nothing of the Profession, its members, or its practice. At the present moment, the arrangements of the various Courts made the transaction of business extremely difficult, and it did occasionally happen that members of the Bar were unable to attend to the cases for which they had been retained. There was no analogy between the Common Law Division and the Chancery Division; for in the former there were sometimes as many as 15 Courts sitting at one time, 3 Divisional Courts, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, with Nisi Prius Courts sitting both in London and Westminster. With regard to Nisi Prizes cases, there was only one list in which causes were entered for all the Divisions, and from that list the Divisions were supplied each day, and no one could tell in which his case might come on. It might be in one paper to-day, in another to-morrow, and so on. He himself had had cases that had been in as many as five different papers ere they came on. This made practice exceedingly difficult; but the public were much to blame for it. They ran after distinguished advocates, and for the mere chance of obtaining their services, were willing to pay them large retaining fees.

maintained that the Bill provided exactly the machinery necessary for removing the abuses which admittedly existed. It had been said that the Bill was one to per- petuate close corporations or trades' unions. Now, so far from that being its object, it sought to take away from the Inns of Court any aspect or character of the kind they might ever have possessed. If the powers set up by the Bill were insufficient to meet the abuses which existed, it was open to the House to strengthen them in Committee.

supported the adjournment of the debate in the interest not of the lawyers, but of a much more ill-used class—suitors and the public—who should be afforded an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the Bill. In illustration of the abuse of retainers, he mentioned a case which came under his own experience in one of the Committee-rooms of the House. Several learned counsel were engaged by the promoters of a private Bill. At the hour for commencement none of these were present; but the Committee consented to wait until one could be found to open the case. Presently one of the barristers was hunted up and brought to the room, when he requested the Committee to allow him a short time to rest after his fatigues elsewhere. The learned gentleman then sat down, took his lunch, scanned over his brief, and afterwards opened the Bill in a speech of about 15 minutes' duration. After that, he believed, he never showed his face again in the Committee-room whilst the case lasted.

said, that his hon. Colleague (Mr. Norwood) did not desire to impede the progress of the Bill. His object was simply to provide a remedy for a state of things which was as unsatisfactory to the Bar as it was to clients. It was unsatisfactory to the latter, because, by the non-attendance of a leading counsel, a case might be lost, and a man ruined for life. What was the practice? They all knew that clients would go to the fashionable members of the Bar, and those gentlemen had so much work thrown upon them, that it was utterly impossible for thorn to perform all those duties that were almost forced upon them. That was the position. He was quite sure, that if the Attorney General would give assurance that the Committee would have ample to discuss this Motion, his hon. Colleague (Mr. Norwood) would be perfectly satisfied.

for his own part, would suggest that the discussion should take place on the second reading, because that seemed to him the most fitting time to take discussion on the principle of the Bill. The hon. and learned Baronet the Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer) quoted some very weighty reasons against the principle of the Bill; and, no doubt, if hon. and learned Members of the Profession had expected this Bill to come on, many more would have come down to the House, and there would have been a full discussion. He had listened with great interest to what had been said; and, believing that full discussion before second reading was desirable, if the hon. Member persisted in the Motion for adjournment, he should certainly vote with him.

I beg to move the adjournment of the House.

said, that when he came down that evening, he had no intention of taking part in this debate; but the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) had given rise to a question of considerable interest to the general public, in regard to certain practices of barristers. He did not intend to characterize the Profession as a dishonourable Profession, but he did say that certain members of the Profession were in the habit of taking fees. ["Name, name!"] He did not think the House of Commons was to be made the medium of indicting any individual in particular. Had he been prepared, he should have referred to evidence, and to particular cases on this subject, as the hon. Member for Hull, he believed, was prepared to do. He was aware that there were as honourable members of the Bar as of any other Profession. The object of this Bill, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General told them, was to have a strong body to enforce discipline among mem- bers of the Bar. Therefore, when this proposal was brought up for the increase of discipline, he considered it was a proper time to discuss the general question. Some hon. Members had strongly resented the idea that the Association of the Legal Profession was of the character of a trades' union. He did not see any difference between a trades' union of working men and a corporation of members of the Bar, except that the one was established by legal authority, and the other by private consent. There might be arguments for this corporation, but the same arguments might be used for trades' unions. If they asked a mason the reason for trades' unions, he would say they prevented the employing of men who were not trained masons, and that they would build houses that would tumble down, and great public injury would follow. On the other hand, they would be told that if men not properly qualified acted as barristers, no dependence could be placed on the Judges with whom the decisions ultimately rested. He would like to see whore there was any difference between the Legal Profession and trades' unions, about which so much was heard of in the Press and in that House. He thought the discussion so far showed the necessity for much larger discussion of this question. He did not know much about the Legal Profession; but he had come as much into contact with the Legal Profession as he cared to do, and he knew there was a general feeling of dissatisfaction in regard to the system of retaining barristers, which, if they allowed this Bill to pass, they would be countenancing. It was urged upon all sides that the present system was bad, and he thought such an occasion as the present was a fair opportunity for discussing whether there could not be some improvement. With regard to barristers taking fees in cases which they knew they could not attend to, of course it remained very much with the barrister himself to give an idea whether he would be able to attend to the case or not; but without going so far as saying that a barrister knowingly accepted fees for any ease which he knew he could not attend, he could have no difficulty in referring to instances where fees were accepted when the barrister knew he had already as many briefs as it was morally possible for him to attend to. He said that if he thought it was necessary—[Interruption]—he repeated that if he thought it was necessary, he could prove such cases among barristers where retaining fees had been accepted when the barrister himself must have been aware that they could not all be attended to. Barristers might attain to large practice, but they should not accept a larger number of briefs than it was morally possible for them to attend to. He did not think the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) went beyond what was necessary for him to say. He did not make any general accusation against the legal Profession, but certain members of that Profession. This Bill had been introduced for strengthening the discipline of the Bar, and the fact that this Bill had been introduced for strengthening the discipline of the Bar, justified what had been said on the subject.

said, it was not his intention to detain the House many minutes. When clients engaged eminent legal gentlemen, they were fully aware that they might be disappointed sometimes. As in all Professions, there were some abuses; but the House must not forget that barristers were often retained when they were not required to attend. They were retained to keep them away. No doubt it was often very agreeable to both when the barrister did stay away. He trusted the House would allow the Bill to be read a second time, because e was fully persuaded it would be one of considerable importance.

said, he had known members of the Profession taking fees double and treble, and sometimes four fees on the same day. He had no wish to accuse them of doing this intentionally. He had noticed this, that a client who gave £100 was more likely to have the services of a barrister than one that gave £50, so that there was something in payment after all. He had many times been willing to pay double in these Committee-rooms. He was sorry to say that a great number of his friends had passed away from this world to a better world. At the same time he had paid many thousands of pounds himself for foes, and never had any fees returned to him. He had been accustomed to do work himself, and, if the work was not done, the pay was taken off. He never asked for it; and he only said now that barristers should not take three or four fees for the same day. There were many good fellows in the world, after all; but, when important matters came on, they wore anxious to secure the best. Committees were not so well up in these matters as the Judges were, and, when clients lost counsel, their case was gone, and they often lost their case because their counsel did not appear. As for this Bill, he had not read it, and he had not seen it; but he trusted the Government would give the House fair play to make the best of it.

did not think the Bar were indignant because they were supposed to take double fees, but they were indignant because they were accused of taking briefs when they knew perfectly well they could not attend to them. This was what members of the Bar felt, and felt most acutely. He did not mean to say that there was no case where members of the Bar were prevented from attending to the case of their clients. That must necessarily happen under the present system. If the system could be altered; if there could be greater certainty that a case would come on, and in what Court, matters might be very different. But the present system certainly was in such a state that members of the Bar could not possibly guarantee their attendance, much less attend to every case. They did their best, and he must say that clients were sometimes unreasonable. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken was a gentleman of great experience. He had told the House his counsel deserted him. Had he not a remedy? He might say to the counsel who deserted him—"You shall not have a brief from me again." If he did not do his utmost to attend, the client could tell him that he would not employ him again. There were hundreds of barristers of quite sufficient ability to conduct proceedings and willing to guarantee their attendance in Committee-rooms. He did not know that it could be useful to raise this discussion on this Bill. This Bill furnished means to provide for the discipline of the Bar and for punishing any barrister who might be guilty of any dereliction of duty; and he had no doubt if the Council was constituted as it was proposed to be constituted by this Bill, and if it could be brought home to any member of the Bar that he had deliberately accepted a brief from a client, knowing perfectly well that he would not be able to attend to it, that would be good ground for asking the Council to censure him. If proposals were to be made to introduce machinery more effectual than that proposed by the framers of this Bill, that would be certainly a case for the Committee; and he must appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite to allow this Bill to be read a second time, and he would undertake to do what he said he would do before—that was, to give ample opportunity to discuss the question before going into Committee. He did not think he need say more. As he said before, he could not guarantee that the Bill should be made the first Order of the Day, but he would guarantee that there should be ample Notice given before the Bill went into Committee.

On that understanding, I beg to withdraw the Motion.