half each day; and that they should not be employed in the forenoon and the afternoon of the same day. In the existing law, "young persons" were defined to be persons between the ages of thirteen and eighteen he did not propose any alteration in that part of the Act, but he should propose that such "young persons" should not be employed in any silk, cotton, wool, or flax manufactory, for any portion of the twenty-four hours longer than from half-past five o'clock to seven o'clock in the summer, and from half-past six o'clock to eight o'clock in the winter; thus making thirteen hours and a half each day, of which one hour and a half should be allowed for meals and rest. In respect to females, they should not under any circumstances be required to work more than twelve hours out of the twenty-four. The recovery of 'lost time" leads to great and frequent violation of the law, especially when steam-power and waterpower are both used: by his Bill, the recovery of lost time would not be allowed except where the power used was water-power only; and to that also he would propose a limitation-that no person so employed should be required to work longer than thirteen hours. Inspectors would be empowered to notify to mill-owners whenever they observed that any portion of the machinery was dangerous, and that in their opinion it required to be cased or covered up; and if after such notification any accident should occur injurious to any of the workmen employed, then the inspector would be empowered to institute a suit for recovering compensation for such injury, and the damages awarded should be given to the party in

jured. As to education, all that the proposed Bill would do would be to give to the child from eight to thirteen years old, time to receive instruction; and for that purpose he was not to be employed for more than six hours and a half on any one day: the remaining portions of the day might be devoted to education. He feared that existing enactments as to factory education were almost illusory; the qualifications of the teacher and the quality of the apparatus and books being of the lowest description: but he was aware that those evils were fast giving way under the force of public opinion; and the experience of last year manifested the inexpediency of interfering in the quality of the education.

Mr. Hume objected to this legislation for particular classes; there ought to be one law in the land for the dissemination of education; and the provisions respecting compensation for accidents. might be extended to other trades in which the poor and their dependents suffer-to railway accidents, for instance.

Mr. Stuart Wortley and Mr. Hindley gave their thanks to Sir James Graham for the proposed changes. Mr. Hindley mentioned that on the continent "white slavery was incomparably worse than in England: in France, the working people went on at the rate of fifteen hours a day, with only half an hour's interval.

Leave was given to bring in

the Bill.

The Bill went into committee on the 15th of March, when a discussion of great interest arose. On one of the clauses being proposed which fixed the limitations of the hours of labour, Lord

Ashley addressed the Committee. He disclaimed any hostility to the mill-owners; he had not found that avarice and cruelty were confined to any one set of men; all classes were more or less guilty of it; witness the hardships of the dressmakers, who are oppressed by no manufacturer or landlord, but who suffer in order to meet the suddenly varying caprices of fashion; nay, the demands of the gentler sex. He would assert the right of the State to interpose for the protection of the labourer. He mentioned the general regulations on this subject which are established in several foreign countries; and showed the great increase which has taken place in the numbers of the persons employed in England upon the principal branches of manufacture. In 1818 the cotton factories occupied 57,000 persons; in 1839 their numbers were 419,000. He explained the nature and severity of the labour required by machinery; calculating the length of ground which in some sorts of work each spinner goes over per day of twelve hours, in following the machines called mules-a length amounting often to more than twenty-five, sometimes even more than thirtyfive, miles in a day. He pointed out the ill effects of this excessive labour upon the health and eyesight of the operatives, and fortified his deductions by the opinions of several eminent physicians. The mischief showed itself in the early superannuation of the people, of whom not more than about six per cent. remained fit for full work after forty-five years of age. Their habits were such, that a provision for later life was hardly ever made by them. The exhaustion from early labour was so

great, that they could work at no other occupation when cast off from the factories; and a large proportion of them were thus reduced, in the middle of life, to subsist wholly upon the earnings of their children. He showed from the statistics of other countries, as well as of our own, the disadvantageous effect of manufacturing, as compared with agricultural, labour upon the health of the labourers. He dwelt particularly on the extensive prevalence, in many factories, of the practice of employing women for continuous lengths of time so great, as to preclude, especially in the case of mothers, the possibility of their attending to their natural duties, and thus their children were drugged with laudanum until it became almost a necessary of existence. He adverted still more earnestly to the fearful effect produced upon the morals through the promiscuous way in which males and females are intermingled in their working hours; and through the insubordination produced by the consciousness of the women and children, that their earnings are the chief dependence of their husbands and fathers. These evils had at length produced an impression upon the minds of the mill-owners themselves, who were now found in great numbers desirous to cooperate towards such a limitation of labour, with regard to time and sex, as should apply a remedy to the mischief, and restore

the

and

Women to their conjugal maternal duties. He asked on behalf of the poor, a time to live and a time to die-a time for the duties of life, and a time for its comforts; and he concluded by moving that the night, instead of

being computed from eight o'clock in the evening, should be computed from six o'clock.

Sir J. Graham felt much pain in opposing the motion of the noble lord. The real point now raised, was whether the working day for women and young persons should consist of twelve hours or of ten; and that was a question rather of degree than of principle. He questioned Lord Ashley's details of the spinner's mileage, which appeared to him to be impossible. Those details had been calculated at a certain reasonable rate of velocity in the machinery; but if the hours should be shortened, the velocity was sure to be so accelerated as to compensate the deficiency. He would not examine into the question of comparative salubrity as between agricultural and manufacturing industry, for both employments were essential to the prosperity of this great country. He denied that economy was unknown among the operatives, and adduced some striking examples of it which had come to his knowledge on that very day. The sympathies of all men must be with the noble lord's object; but he believed that the manufacturing labourers themselves would not be gainers by the concession of this particular proposal; and the masters had acquiesced in the other limitations which the present Bill contained, on the express understanding that the Government would support that main clause which allows young persons and women to be employed for twelve hours. It was now proposed to abridge by one-sixth the whole period allowed for the replacement of capital and the production of profit. But what would be the consequence of

that abridgment? Why, that a proportionate abridgment would immediately be made in the wages of the workpeople; and the workpeople themselves were all aware of that inevitable consequence.

Mr. M. Gibson said that the operatives themselves objected to a compulsory abridgment of their working time, as an interference with their only property-their labour. If the labour of the women and young persons were stopped by the law after a certain number of hours, the law in effect stopped at the end of those hours the working of the whole factory. The first ten or eleven hours were necessary to replace the capital, the profit was wholly produced by the last hour or two. Now, the profit was essential to the existence of the manufacturer, and the exist ence of the manufacturer was essential to the existence of the operative. The true policy was to enlarge, not to contract, the field of employment. If gentlemen were so anxious to benefit the labourer, let them enable him to take care of himself, let them cheapen his bread by repealing their Corn-laws; at present they were only proposing to exercise their humanity at other people's expense. Much had been said about the miseries of the operatives; but in this there was great exaggeration. Mr. Senior's testimony showed that the factory population was in no such wretched plight. He believed there was no country in Europe whose factories did not work thirteen or fourteen hours; and if those of England were to be limited to ten, England could no longer compete with her rivals.

Mr. S. Wortley was favourable to the limitation of labour, and

deprecated the introduction of party topics. He was understood as concurring in the views of Lord Ashley.

Mr. Ward said, that Lord Ashley's argument, if good for anything, was good to abrogate the whole system. A mere reduction of two hours would not restore the women to their domestic duties, nor stop the degradation of the race. He could not submit to be told that the Corn-law must be excluded from this debate, as a party topic; for surely it was fair to consider the primary causes of the wants which drove the operatives to their present severe toils. It was absurd to make one law inflicting poverty, and then to propose another, forbidding the consequences which poverty necessarily involved.

Lord F. Egerton observed, that Mr. Ward's argument would go the length of total non-interference-a principle which the Legislature had long since rejected. It did not follow, because a total exemption of the female sex from labour was unattainable, that therefore there should be no mitigation of their toil. The women were wearied and invalided by the very length of time for which they were kept on their feet, and the reduction of an hour or two at the end of their day's work might be a most important alleviation.

Lord Howick believed that the stoppage of the labour of women and young persons at the end of the ten hours, would have the effect of stopping the labour of male adults also. Indeed, a deputation who had called on him to request his support of Lord Ashley's motion, had avowed that this effect would follow, and that it was actually one of their reasons for desiring the abridgment. He con

curred in this view, for he thought ten hours a period quite long enough for any man to be employed in continuous labour; and Sir J. Graham's argument against a reduction from twelve hours to ten, would have been equally valid against the reduction from fourteen to twelve. The experience of late years had much shaken the old maxim, that men may be safely let alone to do the best for themselves: when pressure had become extreme, this kind of selfprotection had failed. And though he felt that the subject was one with which this House was very competent to deal, yet he inclined to think that something might be done by the Government in the way of regulation as between the masters and the workpeople, perhaps through the intervention of bodies to be constituted from among the parties themselves.

Lord Sandon felt that this measure was experimental, but thought there was good ground to expect its success. It had succeeded on a large scale in factories where it had been voluntarily adopted.

Mr. Bright saw no need for a new Factory Bill. There was hardly a complaint made by Lord Ashley against the manufacturing towns of the north which might not be equally well alleged against London or Birmingham. He then went into details, for the purpose of contradicting what Lord Ashley had said of the unhealthiness and other miseries of the manufacturing districts. The labour of the London milliners and dress-makers, during the season, was much worse than the severest toil in any of the factories. In the factory districts, though the population had generally multiplied, there had been a greater proportionate increase