Mr. Sergeant, is Reginald Bidmead in attendance.

The Sergeant-at-Arms: Yes, Sir.

Bring him up.

"Reginald Bidmead, on Monday last this House resolved that you had fabricated signatures to certain Petitions presented to this House, and that thereby you had been guilty of contempt and a breach of the privileges of this House. A further Resolution was come to by the House that you do attend on this day to be reprimanded by Mr. Speaker. A third Order was made by the House cancelling over thirty Petitions, which were vitiated by forgery, and which the House therefore rejected as an assault upon the dignity of this House.

"A Special Committee appointed 'to inquire into the circumstances under which, and the parties by whom, the names appearing on certain Petitions were thereunto appended,' reported that the case against you, Reginald Bidmead, was complete; that you had forged—and indeed by your own confession in a letter to me you have admitted the forgery—sixteen or seventeen hundred signatures to various Petitions; and that to one Petition, the Petition from Haggerstone, you had forged two hundred names. You have done this with a cynical and reckless disregard to the discredit which by your action you were bringing upon the great right of petitioning the House of Commons. For similar offences to yours, men have been committed to Newgate, not in ancient times only but in quite recent times within the memory of many honourable Members now occupying seats in this House. I must further notice that the Committee have inserted a paragraph in their Report that they 'desire to record their opinion that the right of petitioning the House of Commons has of late years been subjected to serious abuse, and merits the attention of the House.'

"I have now only to deal with the case before me, and can, of course, make no allusion to any further action which this House may take to vindicate those rights and its Privileges. The House, having taken your case into consideration, has taken a lenient view of the punishment which is to be awarded. It has not committed you to prison, but it has directed me, as the Speaker of this House, to reprimand you; and I do accordingly reprimand you. You will leave this House under the censure of this House, and under the stigma of its solemn disapprobation. You will, I trust, bear in mind that you quit this House under that stigma and under that censure. You will, I hope, also reflect on the serious risks which you have incurred by the conduct which has brought you within the notice of the House. I trust that you will endeavour for the future, as far as in you lies, to condone your offence against the dignity and the privileges of this House by a steady determination to abstain from any practices of the kind which has brought you under this severe censure. I trust that you will reflect upon the offence which you have committed, and not dare to repeat an act which will, if repeated, bring upon you a condign and summary punishment. The right of petitioning this House is an ancient and most valuable right, but its value can only be maintained if the Petitions presented to this House are genuine, authentic, and are the free and unfettered expressions of the wishes of the people. You may quit the Bar."

Reginald Bidmead having withdrawn amid cries of "Fowler,"

It is now, Sir, my duty to move—

"That what has been now said by Mr. Speaker in reprimanding Reginald Bidmead, be entered in the Journals of this House."

I am sure it is quite unnecessary to support the Motion by any further observations.

I beg to second the Motion.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered, Nemine Contradicente, That what has been now said by Mr. Speaker in reprimanding Reginald Bidmead, be entered in the Journals of this House.—( Mr. William Henry Smith. )

I was endeavouring at 6 o'clock yesterday, when the debate stood adjourned, to address some remarks to the Committee in favour of the Bill, as it now stands, and in opposition to the Amendment. I hope, therefore, that I may be allowed to continue those observations, and that I shall be favoured with the attention of the Committee while I plead, as far as I can, the cause of those whose confidence has placed me in this House as their advocate. Some remarks were made, on a previous occasion, with reference to a deputation of pit-brow women who waited on the Home Secretary upon this clause. The deputation consisted of women from Lancashire and elsewhere who are engaged in that industry. It has been stated that the women who were represented upon the deputation were a specially seleeted class, and not ordinary specimens of the class to which they belong. Now, I have made an inquiry as to that matter of the highest authorities, and I find that the women who formed the deputation to the Home Office were selected by ballot, and that there was no preference of any kind between one woman and another. Then, again, it has been said that these women were sent up from the country at the instance of their employers; but I received information from the same quarter that the action of the women was entirely voluntary on their part, that their attendance at the Home Office was in accordance with their own proposition, and that so far as the financial point of the question was concerned, every farthing of the expense incurred in their visit to London was defrayed by the women themselves. Some remarks were made on the previous occasion as to the character of the women, and I was sorry to hear those observations, because I am quite certain that they were incorrect, and had not the slightest foundation in truth. I have had an opportunity of making a careful inquiry into this subject, and as the result of that inquiry I am prepared to state to the Committee that, so far as the conduct and character of these women are concerned, they are quite equal to those of any other class of women in the neighbourhood in which they live. I would not venture or presume to stand before the Committee as their advocate if I were not perfectly certain that they have been unjustly subjected to this heavy accusation. These women, whose cause I am pleading here to-day, will be found on Sundays in the Sunday School taking an honourable part in various religious organizations. And if there is any difference of any kind between the conduct of these women and of similar classes in other districts, it is in favour of these women rather than against them. We have been told that the number has decreased. No doubt, there has been some decrease in the number of women employed in the coal industry; but that decrease affords no reason whatever why any restriction should be imposed upon their labour. We must bear in mind, in dealing with this subject, the great difficulty there is in finding employment. At this moment trade is very depressed, and there is all over the country considerable difficulty in finding employment for anybody; but one of the great objects of recent legislation has been to provide employment for women. They have been introduced into the Post Office Department, the Telegraph Department, and various other Public Offices. I believe, indeed I am certain, that, as a great social question, it will be found that where there is a difficulty in finding employment for women, or where there is no occupation for them, you will find the districts where there is a low tone of public morality. If time would allow I could mention case after case, and town after town, where, owing to the employment of women, the morality of the locality has been much improved. I may mention, as an interesting illustration, the town of Barrow, where the occu- pation of the people, up to a certain time, was entirely confined to shipbuilding; but there are now large establishments, in which women are employed, with the result, not only of benefiting the women who get employment, but of improving the moral tone of the town. Let me direct the attention of the Committee to this fact—that these women have no choice in selecting a means of livelihood. Why, then, should they not be allowed to follow this occupation? It is an occupation, as I have shown, which is by no means injurious to morality; and I know that in the district which I represent it has been productive of the greatest advantage. Some women, owing to their physical constitution, are unable to bear the severe labour and the confined atmosphere of a factory. Many women who have endeavoured to gain a livelihood in factory labour have been driven out of it by ill-health, and have then resorted to labour on the pit-brow, where they have regained their health, and have earned an honourable livelihood for themselves and their family. Now, factory women are often compelled to go long distances to the scene of their labours; whereas in the case of women employed on the pit-brow they are able to find abundant means of employment around them. If you impose the restriction which is now proposed, you will not relieve their toil, but will greatly increase it. It has been remarked that these women would be best at home. No one denies that women are best occupied at home; but it is not every home that is so well supplied with the means of support that without contributing to the family purse every member of the family can live at home. The question is not whether members of a particular family are best at home, but whether they are to have a home at all. The statements made to the Home Secretary, when the deputation to which I have referred to waited upon him, went to show that in many instances the women were the sole means of obtaining a livelihood for the family. In some cases there has been a sick mother to provide for, or the labourer herself may be a widow, and by means of her labour on the pit-brow she is able to keep a home together, and keep her family free from the stigma of pauperism. I appeal to the Committee not to interfere with the means these women now possess of gaining a livelihood, and not to reduce to a condition of starvation respectable women who are now gaining an honest living for themselves. In the district I represent there is an entire community of feeling between the employer and the employed; and the representations which I have received are strongly in favour of the Bill as it stands, and in favour of freedom of labour for women. Now, the great point I wish to press upon the Committee is that women should be allowed perfect freedom in gaining their livelihood. I believe that their occupation in this instance is by no means more mischievous in any sense than any other occupation by which women gain a livelihood. No doubt, there are many who will desire that women should be altogether able to maintain themselves, or be maintained without any employment of such a character; but we have to deal with a serious problem; we have to deal with women who find it necessary to gain their own livelihood, and to procure the means of obtaining their daily bread. It is only by finding employment that they are able to preserve a home, and to prevent the family from being broken up and driven into the workhouse. Those are the considerations which I venture to mention to the Committee; and I am glad to have had an opportunity of bringing them under the attention of the Committee. They are arguments which have impressed themselves on my mind, and I hope they will carry weight with the Committee. I am pleading, I believe, in favour of freedom, and in favour of morality; and I am pleading for the liberty of honest women to obtain their bread by honest industry.

An Amendment which stands in my name on the Paper very largely involves the question now under discussion; and as the result of this Amendment will undoubtedly cover my proposal, I think it is as well that the observations which I have to make should be made now. I utterly repudiate the assertion that the Amendment, at any rate so far as I myself and other hon. Members on this side of the House are concerned, has any tendency in the direction of interfering with the labour of women. I think it is only necessary to state what the number who are employed is, in order to dispute altogether that illusion. I believe that in the United Kingdom, or rather in England and Wales, at the present moment there are something like 2,000,000 women employed in the manufactories of the country; at any rate the Census Returns of 1881 gave us the number of 1,240,000, and it may be taken that that number at the present time has been pretty nearly doubled. Now the total number of women employed in connection with coal mines is something under 6,000, and it has been a steadily decreasing number. It is also worthy of notice, and is germane to the consideration of this question, that labour of a particularly marked character has very much decreased so far as women are concerned. Let me refer to agricultural labour, to labour in iron works, and, in fact, every class of labour which requires great manual exertion. With regard to the labour I am dealing with now, I am prepared to admit, and I wish to draw the attention of the Home Secretary to this point, that we are bound to make out a very strong case. We are bound to show that the labour is utterly unsuitable for women to follow; that it does—I will not say morally—but, at any rate, mentally and physically degrade them. I venture to think, then, that if I am able to prove that proposition to the satisfaction of this Committee, I am entitled to have the proposition ruled in my favour. Legislation for the past few years has proceeded on these lines. The result of the legislation of 1846 was to liberate a large number of women who had been employed in coal mines. Subsequent legislation in regard to factories also liberated large numbers of women; and the justification which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary gave to the deputation who waited upon him at the Home Office, for that legislation, was that it had been reported to him by the Inspectors that the work itself was unsuitable for women, and that it had led in numerous instances to serious accidents. I know it will be said that we have got no right whatever to interfere with the labour of women; but my answer to that is this, that arguments of that nature put forward by hon. Members who share that view are arguments which have been adduced with equal force against every legislation for the protection of women and children. With great respect to the Home Secretary, and the care which he has bestowed on this Bill, let me at the same time say that he seems to have treated this question of the labour of women somewhat superficially. It is thought that some hon. Members, including myself, are hard-hearted in seeking to deprive women of this particular means of earning a livelihood. The deputation which waited upon the Home Secretary was a carefully prepared deputation. [An hon. MEMBER: We deny that.] Perhaps I may be allowed to give my reasons for making that statement. It was a deputation which was got up by the coalowners of Cumberland—[ Cries of "No!"] Hon. Members will perhaps allow me to finish my sentence. It was a deputation got up by the coalowners of Cumberland and Lancashire. [ Cries of "No!"] The Cumberland deputation was personally accompanied by Mr. Moore, a viewer employed by the colliery owners of Cumberland. It was also accompanied by a gentleman who is undoubtedly connected with trades unions—a Mr. Oakes who takes very strong views upon these matters. The action of Mr. Oakes was subsequently repudiated by the trades associations with which he is connected; but it is a well-known fact that he came up here with the deputation in order to represent miners who are entirely opposed to the continuance of the employment of women. Does anyone suppose for a moment that the Home Secretary in opposing the Amendment, is properly influenced by a deputation promoted in the manner I have described. What is the nature of this work in which women are employed? The Home Secretary drew a subtle distinction between pushing waggons and pushing a tub. I confess that I am unable to follow him. I know that in the case of pushing a waggon several women must be employed, although in the case of pushing a tub, weighing with its contents 11 or 12 cwt., only one woman may be sufficient. I know also that the women are dressed in uncouth and barbarous garbs, which I should have great reluctance to see made universal in this country. They are engaged in picking and shovelling coal into the trucks, and in pushing the trucks along. They are also engaged in putting the coal into the screens, and after they have performed those various offices they are in a condition such as to be hardly recognizable as human beings. I have seen them myself. I do not wish to enter into so delicate a question as the question of the morality of these women. Of course, one cannot expect a very high standard of morality. [ Cries of "Oh!"] I notice that it is the coalowners who sit on the other side of the House who say "Oh!" and who champion the morality of the working classes in the case of these women whose labour they seek to perpetuate at much smaller wages than would be allowed to men. I say that morality on the part of such women is not to be expected, under the circumstances, to attain a very high standard. There have recently been a number of interesting articles in The Manchester Examiner and Times, written by a special commissioner appointed to inquire into the matter, and his testimony is of a somewhat conflicting character with that of other authorities in regard to the standard of morality. The kind of employment, I think, at any rate, is not calculated to promote or maintain a high standard of morality among them. Another important reason why I think this Amendment should be accepted is, that the women are engaged in a work of a singularly laborious character, and when they return to their homes they are utterly incapable of performing their usual domestic work. The consequence is that their homes become utterly neglected. We have had reports submitted to us which prove conclusively that the condition of the employment followed by these women is entirely inimical to the maintenance of decent domestic relations. I hope the Home Secretary has read the Report of the Royal Commission to the House of Commons in 1866. If he has read it, he will have noticed that there is a large volume of evidence from women of all classes against the employment of women in this manner. Now, I say with the greatest confidence that this Amendment in no way aims at depriving women of their legitimate share of employment. It seeks to prevent women from following occupations which are prejudicial to their health, and the health of their children; and I hope that the Home Secretary and every hon. Member of the House, except those who are deeply pledged to oppose it, will support the Amendment. I sincerely trust that the Home Secretary will reconsider the hasty decision he came to yesterday, and that he will put a stop to the un- satisfactory condition of things which now prevails.

The Amendment now before the Committee is simply to exclude the word "girls" from the clause. May I ask if it will be in Order for hon. Members to discuss the general question of the employment of women in connection with coal mines upon that Amendment?

As a point of Order, I consider that upon the present Amendment it will competent for hon. Members to discuss the general question. If the Amendment is rejected and the Committee refuses to disallow the work of girls, it is quite clear that the work of women will not be disallowed, and in that sense the rejection of the Amendment will apply not only to girls but to women also. Of course, if the Amendment were accepted, and the Committee in so doing disallowed the work of girls, it would not necessarily follow that the work of women would be disallowed as well as that of girls.

The Committee will, I presume, be practically deciding the whole question of employment of women upon this Amendment. I rise with some feeling of diffidence to express my opinion, because I know that it is in conflict with the bulk of the hon. Members who are sitting around me. I do not think that fact ought to influence my judgment, except in inducing me to weigh my reasons carefully for the course I may feel disposed to take. I intend to oppose altogether the views which have been urged by the hon. and learned Member for North West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones), who has just sat down. The whole of the question is one of great difficulty, and it really involves the decision of a question which I hope the Committee and other Committees of this House will always be prepared to decide with great clearness—namely, the question of how far the Legislature intends to interfere between individuals in this country. I fear there is a strong tendency, especially among advocates of the democracy, to look to the House of Commons to redress all grievances and to make all people moral, as well as taking care of how they live and what they do. I think that is the most dangerous tendency that can possibly be conceived, and so far as I am concerned I shall always do my best to oppose it. If this Amendment and the consequent Amendments on the Paper are carried, this Committee and other Committees of this House must be prepared to say that whenever, in their judgment, any kind of employment is destructive to the health of the grown individuals engaged in it, they will prevent it, without regard to the feelings of such individuals. I do not know whether hon. Members who propose to support this prohibition have considered where it would land them? I decline to discuss the incidental question as to whether the deputation was arranged, or whether it was voluntary. That is so small a feature, that I cannot help thinking that both sides would waste time in condescending to discuss it. I go the length of admitting with the hon. and learned Member that wherever you have hard, coarse, and dirty employment, either for men or for women—employment in which it is difficult for men or women to cleanse themselves after the day's occupation is over, and coal mining is essentially one of those employments—there is considerable difficulty in keeping the home decent and comfortable. But if you are to legislate upon that ground, how many classes of employment will you have to touch? And if you do it for grown women, why not for grown men as well. You say that the men are able to take care of themselves. Well, but the women are not represented in this House; and do hon. Members claim the right of knowing better than the women themselves how they are to earn their livelihood, not only the 6,000 to whom this clause applies, but the many thousands engaged in other employments. Have you contemplated how you are to provide them with the means of obtaining their livelihood? Are you going to provide them with the means of subsistence? Do you intend to make your legislation entirely of a Socialistic character? Or are you going to affirm the principle that it is the duty of the Legislature to interfere as little as possible between grown individuals? You may take care to sweep away all the unfair and artificial restrictions which prevent them from getting a fair wage for their labour; but, short of that, it is neither your duty nor your right to constitute yourselves the guardians of how they are to do their work. Your real duty is to create a good and self-reliant feeling among the men and women themselves. I believe it is a fact that the constituents of the hon. and learned Member have not generally permitted this kind of employment among women, but have hindered it as far as possible by bringing about a disposition on the part of the population to object to it. I admit that, looking at the matter in the worst sense, that where women are engaged in hard manual labour, even in the fields, although there it is to a less extent, there is a lower level of morality and life. I am speaking from knowledge, for I have mixed during the last 30 years with every class of those workers intimately; I have slept in their cottages, when I have had no other place to go to, and I think it my duty to put to the Committee what I conceive to be the right position to take in the matter. If it is suggested that the husbands take advantage of the earnings of the wives, and do not work themselves as much as they ought to work, if this be true, the proper course is to teach them sobriety, thrift, and economy, and not to make in Parliament legislation which is utterly destructive of all kinds of self-reliance on the part of the people to whom it is to be applied? I was surprised to hear the hon. and learned Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) say that this legislation is only following the precedent that has been established for the protection of women and children. Children unfortunately we must protect, although every step the Legislature takes when the child has begun to approach an age at which it can judge for itself, and has received education enabling it to judge, is dangerous to the Legislature and to the child alike. The only way in which this country can maintain itself and escape is by throwing on the population the responsibility of making their own morality and their own lives, and not in inducing then to think that this House has either the ability or the duty of making their morality and their lives for them.

I cannot help thinking that the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) who has just sat down has not sufficiently considered how far the doctrine of individualism is capable of being carried. If we leave the individual to take his own choice, and decide that the state is not to interfere in any way, I am afraid the hon. Member will find that such a doctrine is calculated to carry him to a very great length. Nor do I think that hon. Members like the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) have sufficiently considered to what extent the freedom they claim for women is likely to be carried in that direction. If they claim absolute freedom of action for the pit-brow women to choose what employment they like, why do they not carry the principle further, and say that they ought to be allowed to go down into the pit, and dig the coal. I do not think any hon. Member would dare to enter a mining constituency and say that women should have absolute freedom in their choice of employment. It is assumed by hon. Members who have taken part in the debate that the subject has not been fully considered by the persons who are most interested in the question of labour. Now, I submit that no question which has come before us for a considerable length of time has had more full and complete consideration than this—full consideration by the fathers of the daughters, and the husbands of the wives, who are engaged in this employment. We have held conference after conference between the Representatives of the whole mining community throughout the United Kingdom, at which this question has been thoroughly and fully debated, and when a Resolution has been submitted to the conference, not a single dissentient voice has been heard even from the districts most largely concerned in the question of female labour. It is contended that we ought to increase the facilities for female labour rather than seek to curtail them. Yes; but why do you seek to exclude women from the Government offices, where the work to be done is more fit and suitable for female hands, and where it is of a lighter character confined to the wielding of the pen rather than to that of the pick and shovel? Why, if you do not by Act of Parliament prohibit women from taking part in Government work, should there be an understanding between all parties to keep them out of Government employment as far as possible? There can be no doubt that this question has been most carefully and most fully considered by the persons who are most interested in it, and their verdict is undoubtedly against it and against the movement which has been set on foot in the Wigan district, and in the surrounding locality, and set on foot, I maintain, by interested persons. The hon. Member for Wigan has referred to the Representatives of the miners who attended the Home Office and accompanied the deputation to the Home Secretary; but I think that the hon. and learned Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) has clearly shown that some of the Representatives at least appeared there at the special request of the coalowners, who are largely interested in the matter; and their statement that they attended the deputation at the instance of the women themselves has been emphatically repudiated. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) has a letter in his possession which gives a clear and distinct denial to the representation which has been made by the hon. Member for Wigan. What we contend is that the work done on the pit-brow by these women is unwomanly—the verdict of the country is against it—and public opinion will undoubtedly soon show itself in favour of the complete abolition of such employment for women. I certainly hope now that the Home Secretary has gone the length of making a limitation in the Bill, that he will also be prepared to accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth, which prohibits altogether the employment of these pit-brow women in such arduous toil, so long as they are not to be employed in the ordinary work of mining itself. The Home Secretary has introduced into the Bill a provision prohibiting them from moving waggons and trucks about the pit. We who have had experience in the matter all know that waggons are moved about by horses and neither by men nor women. There are, however, tubs which the women are compelled to move on the pit-bank, which are little better than waggons, and many of them contain minerals which, when full, make the tubs weigh from 13 to 15 cwt. I need not say that for women to be engaged in such work as that utterly and entirely unfits them for the social duties they ought to perform. There can be no comfort in the home where the mother and the daughter are compelled all the day long, in order to earn sufficient to keep life in, to be out on the pit-brow; and I appeal to the Home Secretary to reconsider his position and accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend.

I am sure that if, as has been averred, public opinion is setting strongly in the direction indicated, the employment of women about the pits will be gradually given up without hardship to the women themselves. I am not at all surprised at the view taken by the hon. Member who brought forward this Amendment, or by hon. Members opposite who support it. When I first saw the occupation myself, I took precisely the same view of it; but it is quite an error to suppose that this is very hard work. I admit that there are sentimental objections to the costume, but the work is not hard. I have received a letter on the subject from Mr. Greener, mining engineer at Pemberton Colliery, who says—

"I see no objection or hardship in women pushing the tubs along on the pit-brow. The average tub weighs about 8 to 10 cwt. when loaded. They are properly greased and run either upon rails or plates The work is quite as healthy and far less fatiguing than that done by nurse girls who carry heavy babies and propel ricketty perambulators along our country roads. This class of work is far away from any machinery, and though constant, is not what you term 'rapid.'"

He says, further—

"If they were all stopped to-morrow, so far as this district is concerned, the result would only be 500 more women competing for work in the mills, or, perhaps, in the nail-makers' forges."

If the Committee will allow me, I will quote another passage from the communication of this gentleman. He tells me that—

"I fail to see why any man should object to these pit-women exercising their muscles in order to gain their daily bread. A few weeks ago, I was through a cotton mill, and was struck with the different conditions under which the women worked there as compared with those on the pit-brow. An atmosphere laden with moisture, and a temperature of about 70 degrees; dust from the cotton, the odour of oil, &c. from the machinery, men and women working in the same room clothed in the scantiest attire; the contrast in favour of the pit-brow could not but strike the most casual observer, and I sincerely trust the labour of the women maybe retained to them."

I sincerely trust that the Secretary of State will not consent to alter the Bill in consequence of the appeal which has been made to him on this matter. Depend upon it, if this labour is wrong, the education which the people are getting at the present day will put a stop to it if it involves real hardship. I believe that the Legislature would commit a great hardship if it were to destroy this labour. The work is not hard, and all that is necessary is that it shall be properly regulated.

I listened with interest to the speech of the junior Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh). It would have been an admirable speech if the Committee had under consideration the question of the hours of labour and the rate of wages of men; but it seemed entirely out of place with reference to the Amendment now before the Committee. Either this is so, or the House has gone a long way in its views on this question in the last few years. The question immediately before the Committee is whether the word "girls" shall stand part of the Question? What does that mean? It means whether girls shall be employed on the pit-brow pushing heavy loads of eight or 10 cwt. and in dealing with great masses of coal quite unfit for persons of tender years to move. Such heavy loads are not at all like the perambulators the hon. and gallant Member opposite has referred to. They are weights altogether beyond the strength of those who are employed to deal with them. [Colonel BLUNDELL: No!] I know what I am talking about, because this is a matter which has been discussed once before in this House. So far back as 1882, when a Mines Bill was before the House, we came very near to the point of excluding women altogether from such work; and now, at last, the time has come when girls of tender years—say, from 13 to 16 years of age—should be excluded from labour of this kind. On what ground can it be justified? In 1871 the late Earl of Shaftesbury moved in the other House an Address to the Crown in regard to the employment of girls in brickfields, on account of the heavy weights they had to deal with. I would recommend hon. Members who have not read that speech to direct their attention to it. I will not weary the House by making quotations from it; but I should like to call the attention of the Home Secretary to the response which that speech received from the Government of the day. Lord Morley, who was then Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the House of Lords, said that no one who had listened to the description which the noble Lord had given could deny that he had made out a case for the interference of the Legislature. He went on to say—"the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Sheffield—meaning myself—not to extend the application of the Act of 1864 to brickfields, but with the view of obviating the necessity of having two measures where one was sufficient," met with the approval of the Government, who proposed to introduce into their own Bill the main provision of that which I proposed—namely, that no female under the age of 16 should be employed in brickfields, on account of the great labour imposed upon them, and the impossibility for girls of that age to perform such work without injury to their health. The hon. Member for Wigan has given a rosy picture of the morality of the women employed at the pit-brow; and I am bound to say that the moral condition of the women is very much to their credit and honour. But I have been in Wigan myself, and visited the pit - brow, and saw what went on there. I admit that it was some 16 or 17 years ago, but I have seen women leave the pit-brow and assemble in the public-houses, and I have seen what went on in those public-houses, and I say that the whole tendency of the employment is to degrade the women. Whether that is so or not may be left an open question; but when appeals are made to the Committee about the liberty of the individual, and the freedom of everyone to choose his own labour, do not let us talk about freedom of choice in reference to tender children of 13 years of age. Let me remark that there is only one other country in Europe where girls of 13 years of age could be so employed in mines—namely, Belgium, and what has happened there? We may well thank God that we in England have regulated the work in mines long ago, or otherwise we might have had here the same state of anarchy and discontent as prevails in that country. We have avoided it by regulating the labour in mines. I feel bound to congratulate the Home Secretary upon the step he has taken in raising the age of boys employed in mines from 10 to 12 years, and I trust the right hon. Gentleman will not resist this reasonable Amendment for excluding girls from 13 to 16 years of age from unsuitable occupation of this kind. When they become women and choose to select such an occupation it may be said that they have freedom of choice; but they have no freedom of choice between 13 and 16 years of age, and it is certainly not an occupation in which young girls ought to be engaged.

The hon. and learned Member for North West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) stated that he must make out a strong case in order to justify the Amendment, but I think the Committee will agree with me that he failed to do so. When the hon. and learned Member came to the question of the moral and physicial condition of the women employed on the pit-brow he had not a word to say against it, and the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), who introduced a deputation of miners last February to the Home Secretary, said, that although the work of these women was hard and unwomanly he had nothing whatever to say against them on account of their honesty and virtue. If that is the testimony of the hon. Member for Morpeth, I trust the Committee will hear no further remark as to the immorality which arises from this system. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) says that 16 or 18 years ago he saw the Wigan pit-brow women going into the public-houses; but if the right hon. Gentleman will go to Sheffield, or Bradford, or any manufacturing town, in the North of England, I am afraid he will see girls of very tender years leaving the cotton and worsted mills, and going into the public-houses. Having lived there for a number of years I have certainly seen that myself. If no objection can be urged against the employment of women on the pit-brow on the ground of immorality, is the work of a character, as has been urged with some force against this kind of employment, to unfit them for the ordinary duties and relations of life? Even if that were so, which is not proved, I do not think it would be a sufficient ground for preventing them working. Do the men themselves support the Amendment? No doubt there are many of them who do; but I think we ought to consult the feelings of the women themselves in the matter. The hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland (Mr. Fenwick) told the Committee that the fathers and husbands of the women have carefully considered the question, and that they are universally against their employment in this way; but, if so, one would expect them to put on some domestic pressure in order to keep their wives and daughters at home. The hon. Member said that all the persons interested had been consulted. He apparently does not even consider these hard-working women worthy to be called persons, for they are chiefly interested, and are unanimously anxious to be let alone. Are we to pay a total disregard to the feelings of the women in the matter? I think it would be a most mischievous thing for Parliament to impose any further limit on the power of women to obtain employment, especially when they have no votes for Members of this House, and it is a somewhat remarkable thing that in the constituencies of hon. Members who support the Amendment there are no women working at the pit-brow. If they had women constituents I think they would take a different line. They have been enabled by moral force and persuasion, or by pressure of some other kind, to prevent women, in the Divisions they represent, from following this occupation; and, therefore, they maintain that it is a course which ought to be adopted elsewhere. But let me remind those hon. Members that in the constituencies represented by the opponents of the Amendment there are such women. We have been told that the labour of pit women is dying out, and that in the course of time it will probably cease altogether. I find that in 1874 there were 6,900 women working on the pit-brow in connection with coal mines, and 4,000 women employed in reference to metalliferous mines. Now there are only 4,130 employed in connection with the former, and 1,430 in connection with the latter; and, according to a Parliamentary Return, there is only one girl under 13 working about coal mines. Of children between the ages of 13 and 16 there are some 270 working in connection with the coal mines, and about 350 work- ing in connection with the metalliferous mines. The number is not only small, but decreasing rapidly, and I think I may say that the few who are employed are working owing to some special necessity, perhaps to support a widowed mother, or being orphans compelled to work in this way in order to keep a home over their heads. Surely it is far better that girls between 13 and 16 years of age should even be employed in this way than be driven to the workhouse, or to worse places. I was present when the deputation of pit-brow women waited on the Home Secretary, and when the right hon. Gentleman asked them if they were perfectly satisfied with their employment their reply was—"All we want is to be let alone." It is surely strange that when we see many people in this country anxiously looking in vain to this House for legislation, and the redress of grievances, yet we needlessly propose legislative interference with the only people in the country who declare themselves to be satisfied. I might read a number of letters from clergymen and others in the districts where the pit-brow women work, stating that the women are well-behaved, moral, decent, and religious, and that although there was some prejudice at first against women being employed in this way, that prejudice has altogether been removed by the purity of the lives and the character of the women. The work, though hard, is not degrading, and is not such as Parliament ought to interfere with. There are many occupations, I am convinced, which are more degrading to women, and which tend more to demoralize them. Let me instance the work of women in the public-houses of this metropolis. I venture to say that more women, in proportion, are ruined both in health and morals by acting as barmaids in the public-houses of London than those who are employed in working on the pit-brow; and the work of the women employed as chain makers and nail makers is even harder than that of the pit-brow women. It was said by some hon. Members who supported this Amendment that it was not their desire to prevent the employment of women, but that they wished to have women employed in the most suitable occupations possible, and that they were not desirous of interfering with those who were now employed. Well, the only effect of depriving the women of work would be to cause them to starve, or compel them to loathsome occupations. Now, if the Amendment is carried, I am sure that something like this will occur, because all or most of the women at present engaged would be dismissed in a few years by their employers. It is much better that matters should be allowed to remain as they are at present, because the tendency is that the employment of women at the pit bank is gradually dying out; and, as a matter of fact, if this is found to be an unsuitable occupation, it will of itself die a natural death. The average number of years these women work at the pit bank is five, and now there are some 5,500 who work at that average rate. That means that about 1,100 cease to work, and are replaced by others every year. If you pass the Amendment to be moved by the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) in two or three years the number would be reduced to half, and the remainder would soon be dismissed. But if, by passing this Amendment, you drive these to be summarily dismissed by their employers, on the ground that women and men are unfit to work together, and because the work is immoral, as to which the evidence is all to the contrary, I would lay as a warning before you the high authority of Mrs. Josephine Butler, who shows that the tendency of such legislation is to drive women into worse employments. The Houses of Parliament, not long ago, in a mood of philanthropy, interfered in order to stop the work of women in certain occupations—women in rope works, and the like. These women, having followed their careers, had been suddenly excluded from their employment, and the result of this matter was that instead of getting better employment many of these women went to be coal-heavers at the docks, many went into the workhouses to pick oakum, and many went to gain a livelihood on the streets. That is the tendency of such interfering legislation. The women are driven from suitable employment, which, no doubt, may not be the very best work which ought to be at hand for women to do, to occupation which is sadly injurious to their morality and physical health. It is a case of the choice of the better alternative. I insist on my argument, that no objection has been urged against the employment of women on the pit bank that could not be urged with as much force against the whole factory system of this country. It was said that the work of these women at the pit bank unfitted them for domestic life and other occupations. That assertion is not altogether correct; but, even though such was the fact, as soon as these women are turned out of employment they will either have to starve, or perhaps be driven to lead the worst of lives, for they would certainly be unfitted for the finer work of the cotton mills. I trust very sincerely that the Committee will reject this Amendment, although I must say that I believe that hon. Members who support it are actuated by the very best of motives. At the same time, I believe that the Committee would do serious and grave injury to the women themselves; and for that, amongst the other reasons which I have set forth, I do, indeed, hope that there will be no interference with the legislation in this matter as it now stands.

Sir, I must say that I was very much surprised to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) the remark which he made in regard to Lord Shaftesbury. I well recollect that in the year 1872 this question was discussed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) and myself in a Committee of the House; and I think I am able, if I mistake not, to allude to some remarks then made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella). After the Bill on this matter went from this House to the Lords, Lord Shaftesbury took a great interest in the discussion of it so far as it affected the age of the employment of boys and girls; but his Lordship would have nothing at all to do with the amendment of the clause so far as it would have affected the employment of women. Further than that, when discussing the matter in this House before Committee, the right hon. Gentleman quoted Lord Shaftesbury on a particular point, stating, as he has done again to-night, that under the Act of the previous Session girls under 18 years of age were prohibited from working in brickfields. To this I find Mr. Bruce replied that that was so because they were in the habit of carrying heavy weights. However, when the Bill went to the Lords, Lord Shaftesbury, great philanthropist as he was, would have nothing whatever to do with the limitation of the proper employment of women.

I think, Sir, the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Staveley Hill) will recollect—apparently he misunderstands—that what I referred to was Lord Shaftesbury's speech in 1871 upon the Brick-yard Question, and not upon the Coal Mines Question at all. When I mentioned the matter, Lord Shaftesbury said at the time in regard to the provision as to women—"I have no chance of carrying it in the House of Lords."

I hope, Sir, that the Committee will allow me to make a few observations on this subject, because, having a practical acquaintance with it, I can demonstrate the great inadequacy of the case set up by the supporters of the Amendment. With regard to the statements made by the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Fenwick), the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. Pickard), and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Abraham), to the effect that this kind of employment of women was a relic of barbarism, that the work was arduous and straining, entailing the dragging of tubs and trucks, weighing from 15 cwt to 17 cwt, and that the Home Secretary should not have been deceived by a carefully selected sample of pit-brow women, but should see for himself the women at work, and the arrangements or want of arrangements under which they worked, I have to say, having represented my constituency for 22 years, and being well acquainted with the methods of coal working in the district, without the slightest hesitation, that the above allegations, so far as Cumberland is concerned, are absolutely without foundation. The hon. Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) spoke about the laborious character of the work imposed upon these women, who, he said, were compelled for eight or 10 hours a-day to drag trucks of 15 or 17 cwt, and he referred disparagingly to the deputation which had waited upon my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews), hinting that, inasmuch as it had been organized by the coal owners, it would have been of more effect had there been greater care in the selection of the women delegates. Similar observations and implications have fallen from other hon. Members. Now, I am intimately acquainted with the coal working in my district, and I repeat that these statements are not correct. It was also suggested that the women who came to London as a deputation were accompanied by a coal-viewer of the name of Mr. Moore; but this story is also a fabrication, because the deputation was selected at a public meeting of persons of all creeds and classes and shades of political opinions. One resolution was moved by the agent of the so-called Liberal Party in that district, an individual who is always opposed to me in my election contests; and after the meeting was over the women who were to attend as a deputation were freely elected from among themselves. After that the women were asked whom they would like to accompany them to London, and Mr. Moore was selected for that purpose; and I will say that a more proper person to take care of them and their interests could not have been chosen. There is not the slightest foundation whatever for the further insinuation that there was some evil motive on the part of the coal owners in regard to the deputation. Remarks have been made as to the character of the labour which these women have to perform, and the costume in which they appeared before the Home Secretary. Well, as to their attire, the women appeared before the Home Secretary in their ordinary attire, without any pretence to be anything but what they really were. Then, as to the statements of hon. Members in reference to the nature of the work done, I can say this—that in Whitehaven, at all events, the screen women are practically never at work more than six hours a-day, and as only a limited number are employed (when there are vacancies), the number of applications greatly exceeds the demand. It is altogether erroneous to say that this labour is of a sort unfitted for the women. If any hon. Member would allow me to show him the women at work, I am quite sure that he would be satisfied that there was no foundation for the statements as to the arduous and pressing and unseemly nature of the toil. In our part of Cumber- land no woman who has a husband is permitted to be employed at the pit-work. The women employed must be single women, and thus there is no foundation for the objection as to wives being taken away from their husbands. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary agrees as to the desirability of a provision in this Bill which would prohibit women from moving heavy trucks and waggons. But, as a matter of fact, there is no foundation for the allegation that the women move these waggons and tubs of 12 or 15 cwt. That is merely a statement of invention made by persons who are desirous of depriving the pit women of their means of honest livelihood. It is simply a case of taking from women the fruits of their own industry, in order that men may derive the benefit and advantage. I know that the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) and the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) have done all they can to persuade the miners against me; but they have not succeeded in doing so thus far, and I think any future trials will also end in failure. The miners in our part have learned to know their true friends, and they are not going to be drawn into loggerheads with their employers by the advice of these who are interested in making them do so. In our district we have no strikes, and the relations with the masters are of the smoothest sort. The workers know very well that those who profess to be the Representatives of miners in this House are not the Representatives of the miners at all, but the Representatives of organizations which live upon the miners. This employment is popular with the women themselves, and their husbands, fathers, sisters, and brothers; and I venture to advance that these persons are the best judges of their own business, and that when the actual workers complain and say that they do not like the system it is time enough to enter into the matter fully. In regard to the extraordinary speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield, I must say that I am very much, surprised to hear a right hon. Gentleman who was a Member of the Cabinet of the last Government, which brought in a Bill, if my memory does not fail me, with no provision designed to deprive women of the right of labouring, get up to denounce the employment of women. His present attitude is surely a contrast with his attitude when he was on the Front Treasury Bench, speaking all in favour of the women. I should like to impress upon the Committee that throughout the mines of Cumberland the employment of women at the pit-brow is almost unanimously desired. The women who came to the Home Secretary were the honest representatives of their class, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, who saw and spoke with them, is impressed with the reality of their appeal to him. I trust that the Government will abide by and stand to the last by the text of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary's Bill, and that they will accept no Amendment moved by hon. Members in the direction of the one that the Committee is now discussing.

I rise, Sir, simply to remind the Committee that the only question at present under consideration is whether the employment at coal pit-brows of women over 16 years of age is desirable, and whether young girls between 13 and 16 years of age should at all be employed in that occupation. The best way to get clear conceptions and definite ideas of this matter is to review what the House has already done for girls employed in other and similar capacities. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) has shown that in analogous industries, such as those comprised in the Brickfields Act, a good deal of good was done. By the Brickfields Act, the labour of young girls under 16 years of age was prohibited in brickfields. A little later the principle embodied in the Brickfields Act was subsequently extended to what is now the general law on the matter—the Factories Act. Now, you will find that both these kinds of labour hang and fall very much together. I think that we might fairly ask for a prolongation of the same principle now, and appeal to the Government to interfere, in order to prevent women about 15 or 16 years of age working at these things; and, in these circumstances, I do not at all see why this growing principle should not be applied now. The specific question before us is limited to the case of girls under 16 years of age. When that is settled, the Committee will proceed to discuss the other general question of the desirability of this employment for women over 16 years of age. I am sorry and exceedingly regret that these two questions of the employment of women have been so mixed up. I would appeal to the Committee to remember that the question now is the specific one as to whether girls of tender age, or under 16, should be permitted to labour at these pit banks.

I should like, Sir, to be permitted to say how very much I regret that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) should not have abstained, even upon one occasion in his Parliamentary career, from wandering from the subject of discussion in order that he might make remarks and cast aspersions upon the character of some hon. Members of this House, and of misrepresenting their intentions. Of the entire groundlessness of all these efforts, I may safely leave it to the discretion of the Committee to judge. The right hon. and learned Gentleman taunts those who oppose his view of this question with not being the friends of the women, or the friends of the miners. He would seem to make it appear that his opponents are merely seeking to make a livelihood out of the unions of the miners. Well, all I have to say is this—that if my hon. Friends who represent the miners in this House could succeed in making one-tenth as profits for services rendered to the cause of labour as the right hon. and learned Gentleman's family have succeeded in making out of the labour in the mines it would be a pleasing matter, I am sure, to every person who has the honour of the friendship and personal acquaintance of the hon. Members, my Friends behind me. I was in hopes that I could congratulate in a general way the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he told us how, in his neighbourhood, coalmine owners prevented women who were married — that is, those who had domestic duties to perform—from working at the pit-brow. We can understand that their prohibition to work at these collieries is a very proper thing, and, for my own part, I wish it could be carried to a far greater extent by other proprietors; but the fact is that such ameliorations are very exceptional. The privacy and comfort and domesticity of the life of families thus occupied is in the majority of cases destroyed. But, Mr. Courtney, I apologize for venturing to notice the personal insinuations made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I regret that I paid even that attention to them. I should like now to be allowed to say these few words with regard to the main question in this discussion. I do not think it is right that we should be discussing the question as to whether this labour interferes with, or encourages in any way, immorality amongst the women engaged at this pit-brow work. Sir, my own opinion is that there are many customs and habits of society which are far more conducive to immorality than anything connected with the work of the women at the pit bank. I think that we might and ought to dismiss that part of the question altogether from our minds, and apply ourselves directly to the inquiry as to whether there is any desirability or necessity, from a national point of view, that this class of labour should be encouraged. I do not think myself that there is any such need or desire. My hon. Friend the junior Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) is many years too late in the protest he has made against legislative interference. I am greatly surprised that he should have made any protest in the matter at all, or that he should have endeavoured to stem the tide which has covered our whole field of public policy by the legislation of past years. Only a very few years back this House sanctified in accordance with precedent the principle of intervention, and this House unanimously passed a law declaring that it was desirable, for the physical and moral health of women, that they should not work in factories more than 54 hours a-week. This intervention established by the Factories Act is a fact of enormous importance, and I believe that it is a circumstance of very great desirability, for no student of the labour question in this country would propose the repeal of this law, for so many years advocated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) and ultimately passed unanimously by a Conservative Government. But I think that the Committee, in this discussion, should now confine itself to the consideration of the question of the labour of girls under 16 at the pit mouth. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) yesterday, supported by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith), gave universal pleasure to the Committee, and gained universal approval and support from all parts of the country, by pursuing the very wise course he did with regard to the employment of boys under 12 years of age. ["No!"] Well, it was a case of the world against several hon. Gentlemen who, I am reminded by an adjacent Colleague, are coal-mine proprietors. But this is the point. I am strongly of the opinion that if the Government to-night will take the same course with regard to the Amendment which the Committee has under criticism, and agree to prohibit the labour of girls at the pit-bank under 16 years of age, that almost the whole nation will concur in approving of their action, and only a meagre or inconsiderable clique of persons will be found to condemn it. I make my appeal on the ground that it is our duty to have special consideration for the claims of young girls under 16 years of age, remembering the circumstances of the case. I regret that I have no sufficient scientific knowledge—the right hon. Member for the South Division of Leeds (Sir Lyon Playfair) might come to our aid—to impress on the Committee the very critical period of life passed by girls between 12 and 16 years of age. But I feel certain that if we had all the evidence which we could desire to-night on the physical part of the question, that the Members of this Committee would almost unanimously agree that it would be for the highest interest and advantage of this country in general that this tender age of girlhood should be protected by law from this excessive and heavy burden of unsuitable labour. We are all—or we ought to be—interested in making the homes of our working people more attractive in the future than they have been in the past. There is nothing which contributes so much to sobriety and frugality among the working population as to do your utmost in the training up the young women of the country in the habits of domestic labour and domestic economy. Between the ages of 12 and 16 these young girls would have four years of domestic experience, and experience that they would never forget, and which would be invaluable to them in after life, when they come to the position of wives and wives of households. I ask the Government to regard this question with care and sincerity; and if they do I am perfectly certain that the good judgment of the Committee will agree with me in the views which I have laid before them, and that Members will see that it is most desirable that we should do our very best to encourage domestic habits and domestic knowledge, for it is the possession of this knowledge and its practice that will do most for the working classes and their future welfare. This side of the question will, I sincerely trust, receive the immediate attention of the Government; and I venture to believe that solid support may be relied on from both sides of the House. I am sure that outside the House all parties would agree in congratulating the Government in a policy which guided them to such a wise, such a humane, and such a statesmanlike decision as that the physical and moral life of young girls under 16 years of age should be adequately protected.

I feel, Sir, that I ought to place before the Committee some important facts in regard to this matter; but, at the same time, I must say that my own opinion is that questions of this character should rather be left for decision to the judgment of the Committee than be affected by interference on my part. I will not disguise from the Committee for a moment that the opinion which I previously held about this subject I still retain, although I have listened with the utmost attention to the arguments which have been adduced by hon. Members. I must confess that I am aware that in a question of this sort very many Members are more qualified to give scientific information than myself; and though I would like to abstain from comment, there are some observations which have been made which seem to me rather to militate against than to support the position of hon. Members who advocate this Amendment. I have heard the speech of the hon. Gen- tleman the Member for the Western Division of Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst), who has just sat down; and I must say that I listened with some surprise to his statements with regard to the interference of this pit-brow work with the domestic duties of young women. I could not help asking myself whether the hon. Member, on the ground of keeping young women in the bosom of their families, would propose to exclude girls from working in factories for similar reasons? What has happened to make the hon. Member think differently, he who has always been a supporter of the legislation which put girls into factory work as early as 10 years of age? With regard to the provision which the hon. Member thinks so important, I cannot help asking myself what has happened since last year to make him take up this high line of domestic duties in reference to the girls working at the mines? Last year he put a Mines Regulation Bill on the Table of the House, in which the employment of women and girls in mines was left in precisely the same position as that in which it stands in this Bill. I did not accept the provision of the Bill wholly on his authority, although that, of course, had considerable weight with me; but I made the most complete inquiries in my power, and came to the conclusion that it was un-advisable to interfere with the liberty as to employment with this class of Her Majesty's subjects. I trust it will not be supposed that I am adopting the attitude of a doctrinaire with regard to this subject. If you were dealing with such a case as that of the children used by Italian organ-grinders for their own profit—children withdrawn from parental control, and hired for money by taskmasters—or the case, as it was many years ago, of boys employed as chimneysweeps, then I say, if a case were made out to the satisfaction of the House, you might justly interfere. But what facts are there before the Committee from which we can judge that these pit-brow girls will not have their best interests looked after by their parents better than by Members of this House? I have heard no facts adduced to show that any one of these girls between 16 and 18 years of age is not the inmate of a happy home, and I have had no evidence before me to show that any one of them was persuaded or forced into a course of life unfitted for her. As far as I can judge with regard to their physical condition, these girls are healthier and stronger, and in every way better fitted to grow into strong and healthy women, than any girls employed in factories or shops. Their mode of life in that respect is better than that of sempstresses and women similarly engaged in our large towns; and I repeat that I cannot find, with regard to this matter, anything to justify the interference of the Legislature. As to the question of the morality of the girls, some hon. Members, although not all who have spoken on this Amendment, have hinted at some doubts on this subject; but I can only say again that the result of my inquiries tends all the other way. The hon. Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones) has had the courage to refer to the almost forgotten Report of 1856, and asked me to read it. I will read only two lines of that Report—

"Your Committee have come to the following conclusion, which they have agreed to report to the House, viz., that the employment of women on pit-banks does not require legislative prohibition or interference."

The hon. Member opposite asserted that he was going to prove that the labour of the women was degrading to them, both physically and mentally. I listened for the proof that he promised very attentively, and what did it amount to? It was that the girls were employed in picking and screening, which made their hands dirty, and also engaged in pushing the tubs. For my part, I fail to see that there is anything in that inconsistent with the labour of other honest and laborious women who have to earn their living by the work of their hands. As to having to touch grease, I am obliged to say that, if that is degrading, many women in domestic employment must be in a like position. I think we are going on a false tack when we place ourselves in loco parentis with regard to these persons; and I do not think we know or can know what is best suited to the health and interests of the working classes of the country as well as they know themselves, and I would rather trust the girls to the care of their parents in the circumstances of life in which they are necessarily placed than undertake to control them by saying, at this or that age—"You are strong enough, or otherwise, to set about earning your living." Those who are employed in the work in Lancashire are opposed to the principle of this Amendment, although I admit that there is a difference between the case of girls from 13 to 16 years of age and the case of women; but I am afraid that the result of its adoption would be to deprive these girls of the only employment which seems to be open to them in the districts in which they live, and might possibly doom them to other consequences detrimental to their chance of happiness in life. With regard to the deputation, I can only say that my mind was made up before I saw them. My opinion on the subject has been formed on the best evidence I could obtain. I have referred to the Reports of Committees which have sat to consider this subject, and I have made the best inquiries I could from Inspectors in daily communication with these girls; and the conclusion I have come to is that there is nothing to justify this House in interfering with an honest and healthy industry which, as far as I can learn, on the grounds alleged, has done no harm to any human being engaged in it, which has been selected in preference to other occupations by those who are the subject of this Amendment, and which has given satisfaction to their families, as well as the clergy and others amongst whom they live. I have, however, always desired to keep a perfectly open mind on this subject, and stated to the House my opinions with frankness. I desire now that the Division should be taken as between the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottingham (Mr. J. E. Ellis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell), and not as on a question to be decided for or against the Government. I venture to hope that this will not be treated as a Party question, but that we shall all vote as we think best, on the whole, for the interest of a class of the population who are not numerous, but whose needs and welfare certainly demand our attention.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary has been good enough to refer to myself and the Bill which I brought in last year, and I will take the opportunity of saying a few words on the subject. I am bound to say that by the deputation which waited on me from the miners of the country, and brought certain specific proposals before my hon. Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) and myself last year, no mention whatever was made of the employment of women and girls; on the contrary, the subject was expressly left out from the suggestions of the deputation, and it was not until I put it to them whether the changes in the law which they proposed ought to include the non-employment of women and girls that they made any allusion whatever to the subject. Under these circumstances, now that a body of miners appear to have urged on the Home Office what they were silent about last year, I listened with great care to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said. I was much struck with the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in alluding to those two clauses, most carefully referred only to girls between the ages of 13 and 16. Clause 9 goes further, and refers to all girls above 10 years of age; and I assume from the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he is disposed to alter the clause and leave out altogether Sub-section 1, and convert Sub-section 2 into a prohibition of the employment of girls under 13 years of age. Of course, that involves the entire recasting of the clause. The clause now would allow girls to be employed between the ages of 10 and 13; and, therefore, if we were to bring the clause into harmony with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said, we must leave out Sub-section 1, and alter Sub-section 2, so as to prevent girls and boys under the age mentioned being employed at all. For my part I think that is a fair compromise, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirms my view of his proposal I shall be prepared to support it.

I would call attention to the fact that we are getting rather muddled in this matter of girls and women. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) proposes to prohibit girls under 13 being employed. I see on the Return there is but one who would come under his most proper suggestion. There is, to my mind, a great difference between the employment of girls between 13 and 16 and the employment of women who are able to take care of themselves. When I look to the fact that in most mines neither girls nor women are employed, and that those mines are the best worked, and when I consider that the girls who are employed in mining are not their own masters, but are sent to the mines by their parents and guardians, and, it may be, even the Poor Law Guardians, then I think that this matter is one in which the State ought to interfere. The question is whether these girls are to be kept by our legislation from the education which they ought to have. In my opinion, the time has come when we may raise the standard existing among these girls by prohibiting the employment at mines of girls under 16 years of age. The case of women is very different. There are 4,000 women dependent on this work for their daily bread, and to deal with their case would be a much more serious and complicated matter; but on this I do not at this moment express an opinion. I hope the Committee will agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottinghamshire.

I am not surprised at the attitude of hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to this Amendment, because those who have opposed it up to the present have been the Representatives of the wealthier classes, most of them, I believe, being coalowners. So far as we have been oble to judge of this matter, the democracy of the country take an opposite view to that of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and are opposed to the employment both of women and girls at the pit-brow. Our experience as trade-unionists is that the employment of women and girls inevitably tends to the reduction of wages in respect to the whole community. That fact is borne out not only by our experience in this country, but by that of trade unions throughout Europe. Only yesterday a learned man who has largely interested himself in the condition of the working classes of Sweden stated to a Press interviewer, in answer to a question as to the effect of the employment of women on industry and trade, that—

"The number of girls employed in factories and shops is constantly increasing, and the result is to lower the rate of wages earned by the entire working community."

If that be the fact, it would be perfectly natural if those of us who are connected with the wage-earning class were to oppose the employment of women altogether. But we do not take that view of the matter, and are in favour of the employment of women on reasonable conditions. It is said by those who support the employment of women at the pit-brow that these have to provide for others as well as themselves. In a few instances that may be the case; but in the majority of instances it is not so. Every woman so employed supplants a man in the work; if women were not employed at the pit-brow men would be employed, and in the majority of instances the man is the bread-winner of the family, and has to provide apparel for other backs than his own; whereas, for the most part, women have to support only themselves. We may be asked what is to become of the women who are not to be employed? The complaint of late years has been that there are no good domestic servants to be had; there is a great demand for them, and it seems to me that the women in question might properly find employment in the direction I have indicated. But the result of their being employed at the pit-brow is to unfit them altogether from domestic employment. With regard to the deputation which waited on the right hon. and learned Gentleman, it is reported that at least one member of that deputation interrupted him in the speech which he made on the occasion. One woman said that she had some time since taken a situation as housekeeper at double the wages she could earn at the pit-brow; but that, after she had accepted the situation, she found the duties so irksome that she had returned to her former labour. It seems to me that this woman was unwittingly supplying us with a strong argument against the employment of women at the pit-brow. She had lost all liking for domestic duties, and would not be a suitable mate for any man, because she would probably make his home uncomfortable, and drive him to the public-house. The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) has told us that he is in favour of perfect freedom of contract; but we find that the freedom for which the hon. Member sighs is not enjoyed, at any rate, by the mining population in Cumberland, for we are told by the right hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) that the employment of married women is absolutely prohibited at the pit-brow. If you permit one class of women, I ask why you do not permit the other class to be employed? It is clear that there is a difference among hon. Members opposite even with regard to freedom of contract. Hon. Gentlemen who have a vested interest in perpetuating the existing state of things are naturally anxious to get a Division that will settle this question for a few years; but there are nine of us on these Benches who will go into the Lobby to vote against its continuance. I would, in conclusion, ask whether, if any hon. Member opposite were going to seek a female companion, he would go to the pit-brow for the purpose of finding one, and I ask hon. Gentlemen opposed to this Amendment whether they would like their wives, daughters, or sisters to be engaged in this brutalizing occupation at the pit-mouth? I say that what they would object to in the case of members of their own families they ought not to encourage in the families of our mining population. I shall no longer interpose between the Committee and the Division for which they are so anxious; and, for my own part, I will say that no vote of mine in this House has been more cordially given than that which I am about to record in favour of an Amendment to prevent the employment of women and girls at the pit-brow.

I dislike nothing so much as an attempt to pass an Act of Parliament that would have the effect of taking employment away from the people. I have listened to this discussion, and, without speaking disrespectfully, I must say I have not heard anything in the shape of good argument in support of this proposition. Before I could pass this clause, I should require to hear arguments fifty times stronger than those which have been introduced into this discussion, and I very much agree with what has been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary. Then, with regard to the employment of children of the ages now under discussion, there are thousands of children employed throughout the country, and Lancashire, with its millions of population, would certainly be against any change of the kind proposed; and when my hon. Friend on my left says that the opinion of the country is in favour of taking away this employment from women, I must say that, so far as Lancashire is concerned, public opinion is in favour of the proposal of the Government.

I rise at the instance of some hon. Friends on these Benches to state some of the facts relating to the employment of women in Cornwall. There are 1,300 women who are employed in Cornwall, in work analogous to that which we are now considering. It is, perhaps, not so hard or so dirty; but these women are employed in very much the same way as the mining women are employed in other parts of the country—they have to wheel barrows full of material, use the shovel, and lift various weights. I am bound to say, however, that the universal feeling among the women is that they would infinitely prefer working in this way than going into domestic service. This appears to me to be a fact bearing on the question we are discussing; and without entering into any of the arguments which have been advanced of one kind or another, I merely rise to testify to the views of women in my own constituency.

It is with great reluctance that I am compelled to vote against what is the general tendency of my opinion on the subject of complete freedom of labour. I sympathize with the opinion of the hon. Member for South-West Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright) on the subject of freedom of labour. I quite admit, also, the force of the arguments used by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) against interference with the freedom of individuals in selecting the labour to which they address themselves, and by which they are to be supported; but I would ask the hon. Member whether he would allow women to enlist in the Army, simply because they wanted to exist? I put that, of course, as an extreme illustration; because all proposals if they are good will bear an extreme test, and every question of this kind must be argued on its own merits. I do not feel myself sufficiently qualified to pronounce an opinion as to whether this pit-brow work is suitable or not for women; but I am assisted by a more authoritative opinion than my own, and an opinion by which, on general political grounds, I am always ready to abide. I give my vote for the Amendment simply because I have learnt, from the discussion which has taken place, that the mining community in this country has with practical unanimity decided against the employment of women in mining work. We have heard the Representatives of 600,000 miners oppose the employment of women. I cannot expect hon. Gentlemen opposite to agree with me; but I am one of those who accept the views of the great masses of the people in questions on which they are best informed and in which they are most deeply interested. If they say that they would rather sacrifice what they would gain by having their women so employed than lose the chance of a certain amount of elevation and refinement for their families, I, for one, conceive myself bound by the political principles which I hold to acquiesce in the judgment which they pronounce. I have no knowledge of the circumstances, as I have said, affecting this social question; but having heard the Representatives of the whole mining community speak with practical unanimity on this question, I feel that I am no more at liberty to fly in the face of their opinion than I would be to go against the opinion of Irish Members on the question of Home Rule, and for that reason, and no other, I shall give my vote in favour of the Amendment before the Committee.

I am here to represent the men of a mining division of Yorkshire, and I say that those men are against the employment of women in mines. We have heard something to-day about the Lancashire miners having no Representatives here to speak and vote on this question; but I beg to point out that if they had Representatives in this House they would have spoken and voted in exactly the same way as I am about to speak. There is only one association, out of 18 in that county, which has passed any resolution in favour of this part of the Bill. It is a significant fact that the members of the deputation did not pay their own expenses, and I ask the right hon. Member for Whitehaven to tell us who it was that called the meeting he has referred to, and who paid the expenses; and why it was that the fathers of the girls did not come with them to London? We do not want to mix up the question of wages with this question. This is a matter affecting colliery owners and not workmen. It is a question which must be determined by owners and not workmen. The wage question does not in any way affect the workman. We know that employers can get woman-labour cheaper than they can man-labour; but that does not affect us at all, and we desire to repudiate the suggestion that it has, in our minds, any connection with the question. I can tell the Committee that Scotland, as well as Lancashire, is generally opposed to woman-labour and girl-labour.

The expenses were paid by a subscription, after a public meeting composed of persons of all classes and shades of opinion.

I rise to endorse emphatically what has been been said with regard to the opposition in Scotland to the continuance of female labour in mines.

I think we have had an exceedingly useful discussion, and I have been very much struck with the fact that the arguments which have been used in support of the existing system bear an extraordinary similarity to those used in 1842 for the maintenance of female labour under ground. This system seems to me to be a survival of the barbarous system of that time, and it is notably the fact that in the districts where females were then employed under ground they are now employed, to a large extent, at the pit-mouth. With reference to the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) on the Miners' Conference, I wish respectfully to inform him that that Conference was convened to deal with other than the wages question, and that, so far as we are concerned, we have never considered that point, as regards the miners, in the slightest degree in this matter; and I think it would conduce to the better tone of our debate if there were an absence of any such imputations as have been made. It would be quite as true, and possibly more so, to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite care nothing for the moral condition of the women, and that all their desires were fixed upon getting cheap labour. I do not, however, believe that any of these charges are true, but that we are, on both sides, guided by higher considerations. I listened, with great satisfaction in some respects, to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), and we quite admit that it is incumbent on us to make out a good case against the existing system. With regard to the labour being degrading, I do not believe that there is degradation in any useful labour. Idleness is degrading, but useful labour never is. I maintain, nevertheless, that there is something in connection with this special work which makes it very unfitting for girls and women. A portion of the labour is of a very arduous kind, Such as the moving of trucks and the pushing of tubs; and there is no exaggeration in saying that, in many cases, the girls have to push tubs containing from 10 to 15 cwt. Another portion of the work is less arduous, such as cleaning the coals; but regard must be had to the effect of the whole occupation on the domestic condition of the mining population, and especially as regards the women themselves, and I have come to the conclusion that it is very desirable that this system should be abolished. When the deputation waited on the Home Secretary, there was one impulsive lady who could not wait until the right hon. and learned Gentleman had finished his statement. She declared that she had left pit work and gone into domestic service, and that as she could not stand the monotony of that kind of service she had gone back to the pit-head. This is a typical instance of the effect of the work in spoiling women for domestic life. If that woman should marry, she will find it very difficult to adapt herself to the restraints which it imposes and become a model wife. There is another point to which I ask the attention of the Committee, and which I shall state in a single sentence. It is difficult to put it without putting it offensively; but, in connection with the majority of our pits, there is an absence of arrangements for securing the decencies of life, and it is exceedingly unfitting that women, men, and youths of all ages should be mixed up together. Under the circumstances, I do trust, if the Committee should sanction the existing system, that it will say that something shall be done to abolish the arrangements I have alluded to. I should be glad if we were to take this as a test Division on the whole question, and, for my part, I shall be perfectly satisfied to forego my claim to move the Amendment in my name. I understand that we take a Division on the question of the girls under 16, because there is a great difference between the case of those below and above that age.

I am proud to inform the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) that I am sent here by the miners of the district I represent, and that I am paid by them for being here. There are many constituencies who are obliged to be represented by Gentlemen who can pay their own expenses; probably there are few which would care to pay their Members. Allow me, then, to state the opinion of the men whom I represent. That opinion is distinctly against the employment of girls and women about the mines. It has been said here that the work is not hard. In order to understand this thoroughly, it might, perhaps, be necessary to go and see the work done, and probably the hardness of the work depends on the district in which, the women and girls are employed. My experience is that when an employer of labour goes to see his factory or pit-head, some extra preparations are made, Hon. Gentlemen have probably not seen the last of this evil. We have heard of young girls pushing tubs of seven and eight cwt.; but I say that they are fortunate in the districts where they have only to push that weight. Hon. Members should go to other parts and see young women and young men pushing together, quadruped fashion, trams of far heavier weights, and then let them say whether they would like to see their daughters and sisters doing the work. Then there is the question of sanitary arrangements, the delicacy of which is probably the reason why several hon. Members have not treated this as a question of morality. But let hon. Members go to the pit tops of some parts of the country and see young men and young women going together, for the want of proper conveniences, to the side of the hedge or the brook, to serve the needs of nature, and then say whether they would like to see their sisters or daughters having to do the same thing. Allow me to say that women labour at the tubs on pit banks is degrading and immoral, and I make that statement without fear of contradiction. Of course, it does not matter much who paid for the deputation which came to London, although, perhaps, it would be interesting to know who paid for the photographs which have been sent to hon. Members. If it was worth the while of hon. Gentlemen to have these distributed, they might at least have made the picture complete. A few objects are necessary to make it a true representation of the pit-bank—there is no tram here, and the oil can, the grease pot, and coal dust are not here. However this Amendment is treated here to-day, the system of employment of women is doomed and will have to go. It is only a question of time, In North Staffordshire, in 1883, there where 1,142 women employed about the mines, and now there are only 320. In South Staffordshire there were 1,243, and that number has been largely reduced. The number has fallen very low in South Wales also; there were 820 females employed about the collieries in South Wales 12 years ago, now there only 437. The total number of women employed 12 years ago was 6,899, and that number has been reduced to 4,131. This, as I have said, shows that public opinion is against the system, and that it will have to be abandoned.

I shall certainly vote against this Amendment. The women who work upon the pit-brows do not, as a matter of fact, suffer in health or morals in consequence, and their dress is well adapted for the work they have to perform. They are among the most moral people of the mining districts. When I was visiting collieries with which I am connected in South Wales a few weeks ago I made particular inquiry on the subject, and I was told that if these women were deprived of this employment, it would be at far more risk to their morals than their continuance in such employment.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 188; Noes 112: Majority 76.—(Div. List, No. 255.) [8.5 P.M.]

I now rise to move to leave out "ten" in page 2, line 32, and insert "twelve."

I agree to this Amendment, which follows upon what we carried yesterday.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 32, to leave out the word "ten," and insert the word "twelve."—( Mr. J. E. Ellis. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'ten' stand part of the Clause."

Before you put the Amendment, Mr. Courtney, I should like to ask the Home Secretary whether he cannot raise the age at which girls may be employed? I certainly do think that the labour of these girls of 12 years of age is really in excess of the demand we ought to make upon them. This work is performed equally by boys and girls, and I appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make a distinction in the case of girls by raising the age at which they can be employed. He has a precedent for that in the Brickfields Act, in which the age of girls is fixed at 16. I think he might raise the age of girls in this case to 14, and I would suggest that as a compromise.

That may be considered on Report; but I think the result of the last Division prevents any distinction being made at this point between boys and girls.

The clause contemplates similar regulations for boys and girls, and to accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion would involve the re-modelling of the clause. I will, however, consider the point between now and the Report.

I trust the Government will re-model the clause; it would certainly be worth the trouble to do so.

The Government cannot, as the Chairman has already stated, make the alteration now; but between this and Report the question shall be considered.

Question put, and negatived.

Question, "That the word 'twelve' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

I think the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary was called yesterday to the anomaly which is intended to be met by the Amendment of which I have given Notice. I propose to omit the word "boy" in line 4. There is absolutely no restriction in the Bill as to the employment of boys under ground during the night. I propose that boys shall be allowed to be employed above ground during night shifts as during day shifts. It is well known that they may be very usefully and very properly employed in labour that is quite suitable and not heavy, such as looking after safety lamps and driving horses and that kind of thing above ground. I think, from what I gathered from the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Matthews), he admits there is an anomaly in the Bill in respect to the labour of boys under ground and above ground.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 4, to leave out the word "boy."—( Mr. Woodall. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'boy' stand part of the Clause."

I do earnestly hope the Government will not accept this Amendment. This system of juvenile labour during the night is very much to be deprecated. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Woodall) has said that boys might be employed in looking to the safety lamps; but surely safety lamps are just the very things that boys should not be allowed to meddle with.

The principle upon which I have proceeded in the Bill is to disturb the existing law as little as possible, unless some strong reasons for disturbing the existing law can be shown. This clause prohibiting boys, girls, and women from being employed at night has now been in operation for very many years, and no complaint has been made against it. I really ask the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Woodall) whether it is worth while to disturb clauses which have been accepted generally by the trade, and by the working classes themselves without objection?

Am I right in understanding that boys can be em- ployed under ground during night shifts, and are precluded from being employed on the bank?

That is an anomaly which arises from the nature of the duties of boys under ground. Boys under ground are there to aid the men; and, therefore, it is found convenient that they should not be tied down in respect to the time at which they may work.

I have merely pointed out what appeared to me to be an absurdity in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Courtney, I trust the Home Secretary will accept this small Amendment, which is to leave out the word "two," in line 6, and insert "four." The object of this Amendment is to enlarge the hours within which work may be done on the Saturday, without increasing by a single moment the hours of labour. In some districts great inconvenience has been felt in consequence of the necessity of closing, under all circumstances, the labour of the mines at 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and this proposal is intended to give the masters and men the power of extending the time of labour on Saturday from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock. The work must begin at a later hour that is to be continued till 4 o'clock, so that the hours of labour will not really be increased. The circumstances of all collieries are not alike, and it has been found in some districts a great inconvenience to be obliged to close a pit at 2 o'clock on Saturdays. I, therefore, beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 6, leave out "two," and insert "four."—( Mr. J. C. Bolton. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'two' stand part of the Clause."

I understand the object of the Home Secretary, in inserting "two," is to give miners a short holiday on the Saturday, and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will abide by the Bill in this respect.

As I have an Amendment on the Paper, not going quite so far, but going in the same direction as the one now under consideration, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word on the subject. I hope it will not be supposed that in putting down my Amendment I was in any way desirous of increasing unduly, or without real cause, the time to which work may be continued on Saturdays. There is no suggestion to increase the aggregate hours of labour during the week; it is only to give elasticity in the distribution of these hours. My hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Bolton) spoke of the inconvenience which arises from such a system as the present one. If the Committee will allow me, I will state to the Committee what the inconvenience, which is an increasing inconvenience, is. Inconvenience arises very frequently where the coal has to be shipped. Since 1872 the coal trade has been transferred from sailing vessels to steam vessels, which are becoming daily of larger size. It is necessary that no delay should take place in the loading of vessels, because if the loading of a vessel is not completed on a Saturday, the vessel has to remain on demurrage until the Monday. In mining districts from which coals are sent to ports, the present law compelling the closing of mines at 2 o'clock is felt to be a serious inconvenience. I would not urge the alteration of the hours unless the inconvenience were seriously felt. I do entreat hon. Members who desire, as I think we all do, that the coal trade should prosper, to give us fair consideration; if they cannot support 4 o'clock, let us have the elasticity of an extra hour. Where shipping is not in question, there is no disposition whatever to prolong Saturday labour; where shipping is not in question, collieries very frequently close on the Saturday about 12 o'clock. It is really in the interests of the trade that we ask the Committee to allow us a little more elasticity in the distribution of the hours of labour at collieries.

I only rise to ask the Home Secretary to stand by his Bill. I think that in this instance he would do well to do so, and it will be greatly to the convenience of the working classes even in the district which the hon. Member (Mr. Tomlinson) himself represents. The families of the working classes generally have a half-holiday on Saturday; it is the only time in the week when the working classes make excursions and have an opportunity of enjoyment. Take Lancashire, for instance. The Lancashire factories close at 12 or half-past 12 o'clock on Saturdays. I think that there is scarcely any factory open after half-past 12 o'clock on a Saturday. The object is, as stated, to give the miner a half-holiday, or as near to a half-holiday as possible, so that he may enjoy himself with his family. Many of his children work in the mills, and if the provisions of the Bill in this respect are allowed to stand, families will be able to enjoy the half-holiday together. I hope the Home Secretary will not agree to change the hour of closing to either 3 or 4 o'clock.

Many collieries in Derbyshire close at half-past 12 o'clock on a Saturday. I know many men who like to work five full days and to have a complete holiday on the sixth. I trust that nothing will be done to prevent the Saturday half-holiday, which I consider very conducive to the good health of the men.

Does the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson) wish the Committee to understand that the employment of boys between 2 and 3 o'clock on a Saturday can really make such a difference in the loading of a ship some distance from the colliery as to avoid demurrage on the Sunday? I will not venture to put my experience against that of the hon. Gentleman, but I greatly doubt whether—

I know that the compulsory closing of collieries at 2 o'clock on Saturday does very often cause inconvenience and loss. With regard to the holiday question, I can assure the Committee that colliers in Lancashire very frequently have the whole of Monday to themselves.

May I appeal to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling (Mr. Bolton) not to press this Amendment? I know he has no intention whatever of increasing the number of hours worked in the week; he only wishes to extend liberty of action on Saturday; but I am certain that the power proposed to be given would be viewed with the gravest suspicion by the whole of the mining population. I ask him to withdraw the Amendment, as he will see, I think, that the evident sense of the Committee is adverse to it. I do not think there is much in the argument of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson). I do not see that the employment of a few boys and girls for an extra hour on the Saturday can influence the loading of a ship some distance away with coals in the slightest degree.

I do not think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson) meant that these people should be engaged in loading ships, but engaged in a series of operations connected with the loading of ships. I think, however, that if the miners know that work must stop at 2 o'clock on Saturday they will endeavour to forward it as much as possible. Much as I should like to do anything agreeable to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bolton) I think I must oppose this Amendment.

It is evident that the opinion of the Committee is against the Amendment I propose, and in asking leave to withdraw it I will merely explain that I did not propose it on my own judgment, but that I proposed it at the request of those interested in it, of those miners and masters who, in some districts, find inconvenience has arisen from the present arrangement.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move the omission of the word "boy" in line 21. Reasons have been given to the satisfaction of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) why girls and women should be precluded from pushing railway waggons and from like work. Surely the arguments which weighed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman in their case can hardly be held to apply to boys. At any rate, one would like to be assured that boys are to be permitted to look after horses and points, and assist in the work of moving waggons.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 21, to leave out the word "boy."—( Mr. Woodall. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'boy' stand part of the Clause."

To be frank with the House, I must say I put in this sub-section with the greatest reluctance. I dislike, as I have already said, to fetter any species of labour, and I put in this sub-section only at the suggestion, strongly expressed, of the Inspectors. On the other hand, I wish I could get a little light upon this point. Many of the friends of the women say that this sort of thing occurs when women are employed in screening and in packing coal in railway waggons. A woman will pack or arrange coal in the front part of a waggon, and then she, by means of a lever, moves the waggon to bring the back part of it under the shoot. If you insist on calling in a man for that occupation, you will have to keep a man for this occupation solely. He will only be employed every now and then, and will be a great expense to the owner. The employment of this man would therefore be an undesirable adjunct to the colliery, and an unnecessary expense to the coal owner. I do not know that the loading of waggons is extensively carried on by women. This is a new clause to which I am by no means wedded, and I should like to have the assistance of Members who have had experience in the working of collieries. I am told by Inspectors that they consider that the employment of these people should be prohibited, because it leads to accidents and to injuries; but I put it to the Committee whether the prohibition will not do more harm than good? As far as I am concerned, I cannot discover that the masters have such power over the men that they can impose on them conditions of undue severity. I doubt whether a boy, or girl, or woman can be compelled to work under conditions that they do not like. They can refuse to do work if it does not suit them; but I should be grateful to receive information from those who are personally acquainted with the subject, and who have legal knowledge.

I may inform the Committee that in the North of England we have no boys moving waggons; invariably men are kept for that purpose. It must be remembered that one waggon generally pushes another out, and that the banksman arranges the tips in such a way that two waggons are generally filled at one time, so that a man may be kept to remove the waggons without any undue expense to the employer.

The object of all this legislation is to bring the bad collieries up to the mark of the good collieries. In no good colliery is a boy employed to remove waggons. It would be dangerous to put a boy under 16 years of age to move waggons; it would be only in badly arranged collieries that a boy would be told off to attend to the moving of waggons.

I must protest against the idea that these Amendments of mine are suggested in the interests of badly-managed collieries. They have been most carefully thought out by men who have certainly as good a character for their care for their people and the management of their property as any men to be found in the North of England or elsewhere.

All good railway shunts are now constructed with a gradient, and it would be dangerous to employ a boy or a woman to manage them.

I am surprised to hear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary has any doubt about this sub-section. I can hardly conceive it possible that he should entertain any doubt if he has read the reports of Mr. Hall and other Inspectors. Mr. Hall in his Report points out that there have been several fatal accidents caused by the moving of railway waggons, and he also points out that in some cases women and young boys are asked or allowed to help in this dangerous work. I sincerely hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary will adhere to the provision which has been inserted in the Bill.

I will not trouble the Committee for more than a moment in appealing to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Woodall) to withdraw his Amendment. I am in the habit of being consulted by poor folk in reference to accidents of this kind, and I have had more cases of accidents brought before me in connection with waggons running down gradients than of any other kind connected with such work. Great personal injury and loss of property have resulted from inattention in the moving of waggons on pit banks, and I trust that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary will adhere to the sub-section prohibiting boys and women engaging in this most dangerous and arduous work.

I desire to add my appeal to the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Amendment. I think it would be better that the clause should be allowed to stand as at present.

I shall most readily accept the suggestion that has been so courteously made, provided that the drafting of the clause shall not preclude the employment of boys in such work as is admittedly unobjectionable — such work, for instance, as attending to horses on the pit bank.

I think the words of the clause effectually guard against any possibility of that kind. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will certainly see that the prohibition does not extend to such matters as the hon. Gentleman has in view. The clear meaning of these words is that no boy, girl, or woman shall be employed in moving railway waggons.

On that understanding, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

I certainly think that no boy ought to be allowed to drive a horse which moves railway waggons. In consequence of boys being left in charge of horses engaged in less arduous work than this accidents frequently arise.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I now beg to move to insert after the word "waggons," in line 22, "pit tubs, trams, or skips." My only object in moving this Amendment is to extend the valuable provisions of this sub-section a little further.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 22, after the word "waggons" to insert the words "pit tubs, trams, or skips."—( Mr. Burt. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

I think the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) must feel that it is impossible to accept this Amendment. As I under- stand, the hon. Member wants boys, girls, and women to be prohibited from moving a pit tub, or tram, or skip, however light or easy the moving of one of these articles may be, or however well within the strength of a boy, girl, or woman. This sub-section is really limited to dangerous employment.

The object of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) in moving this Amendment is to secure that women and boys shall not be employed in what is obviously hard labour, and the moving of tubs laden with mineral would undoubtedly be arduous employment for any woman to be engaged in. The object of the Amendment is to secure that women shall not be compelled to perform this very hard duty.

The attending to cages or to tubs or trams is a very dangerous piece of work, in which, I think, no woman or girl ought to engage. In our opinion, if women are to be employed on pit banks, they should do the light work, leaving the heavy, arduous, and dangerous work to the men. I trust the right hon. and learned Home Secretary will accept this Amendment.

Collieries have been worked sufficiently long in this country for us to take the occurrence of accidents as a test of danger. The absence of such accidents shows that women may safely be entrusted with the work of moving tubs and the like. Accidents from the moving of tubs about pit banks are of very rare occurrence, and therefore I trust the right hon. and learned Home Secretary will not accept this Amendment.

The Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) will practically prevent a woman from moving a tub, whether it is full or empty. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary will allow the clause to stand as it is.

The hon. Member for Morpeth would perhaps not object to insert the word "loaded." If he will do that, I will very gladly support the Amendment.

Certainly, the insertion of the word "loaded" would meet my view of the case. It is with the object of leaving the hardest work to the men that I have proposed this Amendment.

The Amendment virtually revives a question already decided. It is not really the case that the pushing of these tubs is hard labour, because they are only pushed on a perfectly smooth surface. It is not right that a tub should be taken from the cage by women; but the pushing of the tubs on the smooth surface at the pit top is not too hard labour to be entrusted to women.

Question put,

The Committee divided: —Ayes 71; Noes 124: Majority 53.—(Div. List, No. 256.) [10.15 P.M.]

Question proposed, "That Clause 8, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Before the clause is agreed to, I should like to make an appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) in reference to some provisions which I think ought to be made. We have already decided, or we are about to decide, that girls and women shall be employed about mines, and I take it that there will be no desire on the part of the Committee, after the opinion which has been expressed, to alter that decision; but I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman must feel that the provisions which are made in respect to women employed in the factories and workshops all over the kingdom ought to be made also in respect to women employed about mines. I think he will agree with me that there should be those conveniences for decency which are provided in connection with all other branches of labour, and that the Mining Inspector should satisfy himself that proper and decent provision in this respect is made. I have not prepared an Amendment, but I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman at some future stage of the Bill to endeavour, as I am sure he can very readily, from the provisions of the Factory and Workshops Acts, to frame some clause which shall ensure the common decencies of life.

I am really surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) should have made these remarks, because in all the collieries with which I am acquainted there is complete and ample provision for decency. If there is not in all cases, I quite agree that there ought to be.

There can be no objection to the insertion of a clause providing that the Inspector shall satisfy himself that provision such as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned is made.

I will undertake to consider the matter.

This clause, Mr. Courtney, is intended to protect boys, girls, and women as regards the conditions of their occupation. But, unfortunately, though every consideration seems to be given to the boys, girls, and women engaged about mines in this country, the last four lines of the clause go to deprive boys, girls, and women in Ireland of the advantage of the Saturday half-holidays. As a matter of fact, there are no longer any women or girls employed on the coal-pit banks in Ireland. I am acquainted with a good many collieries. A large number of the Leinster coal pits are situated in the constituency which I had the honour to represent in the last Parliament but one, and lean answer from personal observation that there are no women employed on the pit banks in that part of the country. I believe there are no women employed on the pit banks in any portion of Ireland, so that this reservation is altogether without effect so far as females in Ireland are concerned. Now, with, regard to the boys there is, so far as I can see, no reason whatsoever why boys in Ireland who happen to be employed about coal pits should be deprived of the advantage of the Saturday half-holiday. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson) in urging that mines might be kept open on a Saturday for an extra hour did so to prevent any delay in the loading of vessels. Possibly the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman may hold good, so far as Great Britain is concerned; but there are no coal mines on the coast of Ireland, with one exception in County Antrim; and, therefore, I ask the Committee to expunge the last four lines of this clause.

The Question is, "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

With submission to you, Sir, I should like to say, I rose before you put the Question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) stood between me and you, otherwise I should have called your attention to this matter at the time.

In that case the hon. Member should have risen to Order. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield spoke to the clause.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 9 (Register to be kept of boys, girls, and women above ground).

I hope the Government will have no objection to the very small Amendment I now propose. It would be a satisfaction and a convenience to the workmen if these words are inserted. I feel confident the Government can urge no reasons against the acceptance of the words, and therefore I will not waste the time of the Committee by enlarging upon the advantage of their adoption.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 36, after "situate" insert "and to any workman employed in the mine."—( Mr. Paulton. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

Much as I admire the anxiety of the hon. Member to give the workmen every possible opportunity of checking the administration of the law in this respect, I feel it is hardly fair to compel an owner to make public so much of his private affairs as this Amendment would entail. So far as the Government can learn there is no grievance to justify the proposed interference with the management of mines.

I may point out that we have been legislating with respect to the age boys may be employed in mines, and that it may occasionally happen that parents may not quite correctly represent the age of boys. In the interest of the workmen it is desir- able that matters of this kind should be investigated. I can see no possible way in which the interest of the employers can be injuriously affected by the addition of these words. If a workman desires to obtain the information he can do so by personal inquiry, which may entail considerable trouble and loss of time. This would be saved if he were at liberty to examine the register.

This is not a very important Amendment, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop's Auckland (Mr. Paulton) has himself stated; but I cannot see the slightest objection to the insertion of these words. The giving of this information cannot do any harm. It is certainly reasonable that if a workman inquires at the office he should be allowed to see the register.

In this Amendment a very wide provision is involved. The only person who can be interested in seeing the register are the parents or the guardians of the boys employed, and if the Amendment were limited in that sense it might well be accepted. But it certainly is too wide in its application as it at present stands.

I shall be very glad if the Government will accept the Amendment, subject to the modification suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Perhaps the most convenient course would be for the hon. Member to withdraw the present Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 36, after "situate," insert "and to the parent or guardian of any boy or girl employed in the mine."—( Mr. Paulton. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

This Amendment has been rather sprung upon us. I think it would be better if the hon. Gentleman were to withdraw the Amendment altogether, and by Report we will consider the matter.

I have no desire to occupy the time of the Committee upon the matter; but I must confess I cannot see any reason why the proposal should not be accepted.

While I suggested the new form of words, I am not prepared to say it will be found altogether satisfactory.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 10 (Penalty for employment of persons in contravention of Act); and Cluse 11 (Payment of school fees out of wages), severally agreed to.

Wages.

Clause 12 (Prohibition of payment of wages at public-houses, &c.), agreed to.

Clause 13 (Payment of persons employed in mines by weight).

I beg to omit the words in line 1, page 5, "unless the mine is exempted by order of a Secretary of State." My object in moving this Amendment is to remove as far as can be the possibility of miners whose wages are determined by the amount of their produce having their wages determined by anything like what may be termed a system of guess-work. The words "unless the mine is exempted by order of a Secretary of State" make it possible for the Home Secretary to exempt any mine or to give the owners power to pay the wages of the miners by a system other than by that of the amount of mineral gotten. I wish it to be clear to a man whose wages are determined by the amount of mineral gotten, that the amount of his pay shall not be arrived at by a mere system of guess-work.

Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 43, and page 5, line 1, to leave out the words, "unless the mine is exempted, by order of a Secretary of State."—( Mr. Fenwick. )

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

This power, as the hon. Member is aware, given to the Home Secretary to grant exemptions to the absolute enactment requiring the payment of persons employed in mines to be made by weight, is contained in the existing Act. It is intended to apply to the case of certain mines where the universal practice is to ascertain the amount to be paid to the miners by measure and not by weight. There are many cases which require the application of this exemption. There are many cases in Cornwall, in connection with the tin mines, for instance, in which the men are paid by measurement. The reason is that the corves are very small, some times not more than 2 or 3 cwt., and that rapid weighing, which would be necessary to show what the men have got would be impracticable. As a matter of convenience in these cases, payment by measure is resorted to. Then when a mine is situated close to a canal, the practice has grown up of discharging the corves directly into the boats, and of paying the men by the boat-load instead of by weight. If a boat-load is properly gauged there is no reason why that practice should not be a fair one. That system has been adopted, for the mutual convenience of masters and men, in many collieries throughout the country. I have had applications made to me in two or three cases of that kind, and I have granted exemptions, so as to enable the system of measurement to be adopted where it is thought, by those interested, to be the most convenient method. The hon. Member will observe that these are altogether exceptional cases. The words which the hon. Member seeks to strike out of the clause have reference only to Sub-section 2, and are intended to prevent any idea that the first sub-section requires payment to be made by weight in every case. The first sub-section provides that where the men are paid by weight, that weight shall be truly ascertained. But if, on the other hand, it is found convenient that the men should be paid by measure, and it is proved to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that that would be the best method, he has power to permit it—he is made the arbiter between the parties—and in cases where the necessity for it is proved to his satisfaction, and the parties concur, I do not see why the practice should be objected to.

I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that objection to payment by measure has been taken by miners themselves. The men do not desire to be paid by measure, and a mere system of guessing what the amount of mineral is upon which they are to be paid. That is the reason I insisted upon the Amendment being put down upon the Paper. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see his way to accepting the proposal. I may inform him that we have collieries drawing tens of thousands of tons per day, and that every ton of coal is weighed, no difficulty being experienced, and no work being in any way impeded. It is said here that the payment of persons employed in mines is to be made by weight; and I, therefore, think it only right and fair that this provision should be confined to seeing that a fair and just weight is ascertained.

I am not surprised at the remark of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, when he said that tens of thousands of tons are turned out by some collieries, and no difficulty is experienced in weighing them. Where there are tens of thousands of tons turned out, I believe there is no difficulty in paying by weight. In those cases it is never deemed expedient to test the work done otherwise than by weight; but the case laid before the hon. Member is that of very small pits, working thin seams of coal. I am told that in the case of many of these pits it would not pay the workmen to employ a check-weighman. I am assured that that is the case, and that the mines the Government have in view in proposing this clause, as it stands, differ very much in character from those rich mines of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, and elsewhere that the hon. Member has in view. We want to give this relaxation of the clause to enable the work done to be tested by measure rather than by weight in the interests of the men themselves—in those cases where the weight test would be a heavy and an unnecessary expense.

I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) will be surprised to hear that in Yorkshire we have thousands of men working our thin seams and sending up corves averaging from 2 to 2½ and 3½ cwt., and that these men are invariably paid by weight. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Genleman will be surprised to learn that at small collieries, where there are not more than 26 men employed, they are content to incur the expense of employing a check-weigh- man—are content to pay 1 s. 6 d. per man—rather than have the coal gauged as formerly. Under the present Act—under this very clause in the present Act—we have actually seen exemptions obtained in Yorkshire. Somehow or other the masters succeeded in going behind the men, and to this day the men have never had an opportunity of having their coal weighed. They consider that a grievance. I, therefore, strongly support the Amendment; and I think that if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary knew the circumstances of the case, he would not oppose that Amendment. In Yorkshire, in many of our thin seams—where the coal is not more than 11 inches thick—the men believe that they ought to have their coal weighed, and are willing to pay for the check-weighman. I think a statement of that kind ought to meet the objection of the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell). I feel certain that he will agree with me, knowing as much as he does about colliery matters in Yorkshire. He will know that in the case of certain large collieries in his district a compromise was suggested by the men. This compromise the owners would not accept. The coal is taken four or five miles away, and the men wanted to have the nominal weight taken before it was removed; but the masters would not agree to that. We are strongly of opinion that the Home Secretary should not have the power of exercising a discretion, and of allowing exemptions to the system of payment by weight without the men having a fair opportunity of determining whether the coal should be weighed or not. We contend that the men themselves should be the judges as to whether the coal they get should be weighed or gauged, and we are further of opinion that a precise law should be laid down by this House, and that the Home Secretary should have no power of overriding it.

I myself have put down an Amendment similar to that we are now discussing upon the Paper; and I must express my regret that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary has not given us a little more information upon this matter. I very much regret that, in stating that there are collieries where it is considered by both masters and men expedient that the work done should be tested by measure, he did not give us some detailed information with regard to these collieries—that he did not tell us where they are situated, the amount of coal that is drawn, the number of men employed, and so on. I am convinced that it is only a trifling percentage of the colleries of England in which exemption is claimed under this clause. There is no point upon which the workmen are more keenly alive or more reasonably jealous than upon this. The right hon. and learned Gentleman — if he has witnessed the manner in which small corves are dealt with by the improved weighing machinery we have at many of our mines—must know that now-a-days there is no difficulty in weighing any number of corves whether they contain no more than 2 cwt. or 20 cwt.—he must know that the thing can be done very readily, however small the corves. He imagines that it is necessary to grant exemptions in the case of Cornwall, and that where these exemptions are permitted it is with the universal consent of masters and men. I should like to know how he has assured himself that the consent of the workmen has been obtained in a proper and regular manner. I should like to know whether the request has been obtained by the authorities at the mines separately from each man, or whether it has come from anyone representing the whole body of men. I must say that to my mind there is not the slightest difficulty in weighing every ton of coal which can be produced at a colliery. I maintain that it is to the interest of the owners to prevent any lurking feeling on the part of the men that they are not being treated fairly and that injustice is being done and therefore heartily support the Amendment.

The provision to which exception is now taken by my hon. Friend is contained in the Act of 1872. I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary that there is amongst the miners of this country a great deal of dissatisfaction with the working of that provision—the almost unanimous feeling is that coal ought in all cases to be got by weight. I have no doubt in the world that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in the exercise of his discretion, when asked to grant an exemption, acts with impartiality. I have no doubt that he is not likely to be biased on one side or the other; but I would point out to him that generally speaking the application conies to him from one quarter alone—namely, from the owners, and that the owners are in a better position than the men for presenting their side of the case to him. I trust the right hon. and learned Gentleman will consent to the elimination of these words.

I think I have only had two cases of applications made to me for exemption from the operation of this clause. In both cases, preliminary to my giving any answer at all, I have taken pains to satisfy myself about the matter by sending inspectors to the collieries to make inquiries. Where the men have desired that the exemption should be granted, and that the payment for the coal got should be by weight, I have exercised my power and granted that exemption. I cannot possibly conceive, therefore, what objection there can be to this power remaining in the clause. I should have no objection whatever to strengthening the provision by declaring that this power should only be exercised by the Secretary of State in case of all parties agreeing. But I do think that where both masters and men wish, for the convenience of all parties concerned, that the test of the amount of work done should be by measure and not by weight—I think it would be absurd to insist on enforcing both parties to a bargain which they do not desire. If it be for the convenience of all parties in some cases that the coal should go from the tubs not into the weighing machine, but straight into a barge, it seems to me most desirable to refrain from making the system so rigid and cast iron as the hon. Member proposes.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman seems to have embodied in that statement the whole gist of the dispute. That is just the point—the agreement of the parties; but the parties are not agreed. Of course, if the master and workmen agree, there can be no objection to this different mode of payment being adopted; but the question is whether the masters and men are agreed. Hon. Members on this side say that that is not the case. They say that the masters take one view on the question and that the men take another. Though I should have confidence in the Home Secretary acting judicially and deciding fairly, I have not the same absolute confidence in the Home Secretary's Inspectors, for in their hands the balance might rather incline towards the side of the masters as against workmen. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman gives me the illustration of the canal boat in our district, I would tell him that he could not point to a more fallacious instance. We have boats holding from 25 to 27, and even 30 tons. They vary to this extent; and are the men only to be paid for 20 tons, when they have got 30? I am prepared to agree to the Home Secretary having the power of dispensation contained in this clause where the men as well as the masters agree to it. Where, however, the men dissent, I would not insist on that power. It is not fair to men, without their consent, to have words in the clause to enable their work to be gauged by measure which may result in their being paid for a certain amount when, as a matter of fact, they have got a great deal more.

I have already said, about a quarter of an hour ago, that I would accept that qualification.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton has, I think, been labouring under a misapprehension. He seems to think that the masters have a great objection to the payment by weight. I can speak for the opinion of the masters in the Wigan district, and I can assure him that they have no such objection.

No; I did not say that. My contention was that the desire of the masters is to pay as little wage as they can, and that the desire of the men is to get as much wage as they can.

I will take it that way, then, that in the opinion of the right hon. Member the masters desire to pay as little wage as they possibly can. I do not find any desire on the part of the masters to take any unfair advantage of the colliers in their employment; indeed I do not find any desire on either side to take advantage of the other side, nor do I believe that any such desire exists. Both parties, to the best of my belief, desire to have a fair bargain. The hon. Member on the other side made allusion to the Wigan coal and iron works; but I do not think he understood my point. Such firms as the Lowmoor firm, although their output is considerable, work some very small pits; and the point is whether the men engaged in these small pits would care to be saddled with the expense of a check-weighman. I contend, therefore, for the sake of the workmen as well as the masters it is desirable that the Home Secretary should have a discretionary power of granting exceptions to the system of payment by weight.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) offers to my hon. Friend the Member for the Wansbeck Division of North Cumberland (Mr. Fenwick) to insert words to the effect that this power of exemption should only be exercised by the Secretary of State in cases where the assent of both employers and employed is given. I should like to know whether words to that effect are to be brought up on the Report. I think they would meet the view of my hon. Friend.

That would not meet my point at all, and I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary must see that the cases which are likely to come under this clause would be so very few that it is hardly worth while adopting this exemption. In dealing with a large subject like this, the right hon. and learned Gentleman must agree that it is most undesirable to legislate in favour of circumstances that are likely to occur very infrequently. I may remind the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) that this is not a question of check-weighmen — the check-weighman has nothing to do with the matter. It is a question entirely outside of the check-weighmen. If the men desire to appoint a check-weighman in their own interests, well and good; and, on the other hand, if they are willing to trust themselves to the weighman employed by the owner, well and good. The question is altogether outside that—as to whether a man's coal should be weighed or measured. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see his way clear to accepting this Amendment without forcing us to take a Division upon it. Unless he does see his way to accepting the Amendment, I must press it to a Division.

Everyone agrees that it is better to have coal weighed than measured; but in cases of small, expiring collieries, where it is not worth while to put up a weighing machine, where the men are agreed with the masters that they can obtain fair play by having their tubs measured, I do not see why the system should not be allowed. The men employed in a small mine may not be able to afford to employ a check-weighman; and if they are able to test the number of tubs they send up, although they cannot check their weight, there is, therefore, no reason why they may not hold that they will be as fairly treated by measure as by weight. I think, therefore, that the Secretary of State should have the power embodied in the clause, but that he should exercise it with great discrimination.

I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) will accept the Amendment. It is almost impossible for any outsider to ascertain what the opinion of the workmen may be. From my knowledge of colliers, I believe that the only satisfactory method of dealing with this class of goods is to weigh it. The Government have adopted the principle of weight years ago in the case of bread. The principle of allowing a baker to sell a 6 d. loaf, or a 4 d. one, has been objected to, because it is believed that in all cases the public would not get the right weight. It is the same in the case of colliers. They require protection in order to ensure their getting fair weight. It seems to me that it is precisely those cases in which the owners of the mine would come to the Home Secretary and ask to be relieved of the ordinary system of paying their men by weight, that the men most require protection. It is in the case of small collieries, and collieries situated upon canals, that under-weight is most likely to be given to the men. In such cases the owners are far more likely to cheat the workmen, than in the case of large collieries that can afford to pay good managers and fair wages.

We are desirous of pressing upon the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) that there is no question upon which the miners feel so deeply as the question of having their minerals weighed. We do not desire to throw a stigma upon the hon. body of Gentlemen who own mines; yet we want to see a principle adopted which we believe to be the only sound and safe principle. I know collieries where there are only four coal cutters employed, and where, nevertheless, there is a weighing machine used. The men employed at the weighing machine need not of necessity be kept entirely to that work, but there are other things that they can do. The question before us is one of getting the consent of the men to this exemption; and I would point out to the Committee that it is not safe always to place reliance upon statements which we hear about exemptions having been granted with the consent of both parties. Some very questionable modes are used in order to obtain the consent of the men to exemptions from the ordinary method of payment; and I must say I am glad to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary say that he is prepared to introduce a modification in the clause, in order to provide that the consent of the men shall be necessary before exemptions can be granted. I know that at present the "consent of the men" is, in some cases, ascertained by sending an over-man round with a sheet amongst the colliers, to get their opinion independently, one by one, without giving the men a chance of conferring together, and saying collectively what they prefer. They are questioned separately, and they act under the influence of the over-man, or manager. In this case one man is got to yield consent to the view of the masters; and then the fact that he has given in is used as a reason why the next man should give in; and in this way an opinion may be obtained from a large body of men which is really not reliable as indicating their real frame of mind. We do trust that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see his way to accept this Amendment.

It really is surprising to me to hear so many hon. Members declare that it is impossible to obtain the real opinion of the men on this matter. For my own part, I should have thought nothing would have been more easy. Certainly, collieries must be very different in the parts of the country spoken of by hon. Gentlemen opposite to those with which I am acquainted. I would point out to hon. Members that in some districts canals are driven from levels into the heart of the hills where coal is taken from the seams, and put straight upon the boats to places where there are no possible means of introducing weighing machines. In such cases, I am informed, it is absolutely essential that there should be some relaxation in the system of checking the amount of coal got by weight allowed. Where it can be shown conclusively that weighing is impracticable, I think there can be no reason for refusing to pass the clause as it at present stands. Then, it is asked if the Home Secretary ascertains the real wishes of the men in regard to the system of paying for work done? Really, Sir, it is too late in the day, looking at the advance made by the system of trades unions, to raise a question of doubt as to knowledge of the wishes of the men.

I do hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary will agree to this Amendment. There is a strong feeling in the constituency I have the honour to represent, in favour of the system of paying for coal got by weight. Canal boats are largely used in the carriage of the coal, and owners have adopted the custom, which the men are unable to refuse, of paying by the boat load. The men object to this, and desire to be paid for the coal they put in the boats by weight. As I say, however, the present system has grown up in the course of years, and the men are incapable of resisting it. The men believe that nothing can be more straightforward than the system of payment by weight, and they are anxious to have it adopted in their case.