The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-13 00:00:00

THE CHILDREN'S EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION.

This morning was issued the fifth and concluding
report of the Children's Employment Commissioners in
reference to trades and manufacturer. The branches dealt I
with include printers, bookbinders, wholesale stationers,
paper-box and card-board makers, miscellaneous metal
trades, silk manufacture, rope and twine manufacture,
the ribbon trade at Coventry, brickmaking, Ite. The
inquiry into these, say the commissioners, have furnished
strong evidence of the necessity of applying to them the
same measures of protection for juvenile and female labour
and for the sanitary inspection and regulation of the places
of work as have been recommended by the commissioners in
other cases. The last report of the Inspectors of Factories,
they say, supplies conclusive evidence of the great benefits
already derived by the pottery and all the other
manufactures which were placed under the Factories Acts
Extension Act two years ago. One remark of the com-
missioners in the course of their report is that it is ti-
happily " to a painful degree apparent throughout the
whole of the evidence that against no persons do the
children of both sexes so much require protection as against
their own parents." Since 1840, however, the commis-
sioners recognise improvements. "The age," they observe,
" at which the youngest children are sent to work, or put
to work by and with the"' parents, is now a little ad-
vanced. At that One instances occurred in which chil-
dren began work ` as early as three and four years of age
not 'infrequently five, and between five and six.' Instances
of chili'-en he;eg employed below six appear now to be
comparatively rare, except in the straw-plait schools, where
children of three and three and a half years old were
found at work for many hours together. The treatment
of the children is improved ; iustances of cruelty or
severity appear to be few. Apparent suffering from in-
sufficient food and clothing has diminished. Complaints
arising out of the system of apprenticeship have become
rare. The sense of responsibility on the part of employers
towards those under them has been greatly raised. Efforts
for the moral and intellectual improvement of the work-
, people, and an active interest in what will contribute to
their comfort and well-being—described in the former
inquiry as ' very uncommon'—are now happily widely
, diffused, and attended with the best results. The means
of secular and religious instruction are immensely in-
creased, and greatly more efficient. But in the many
other important respects, enumerated by the oommisrionert
of 1840, and again dealt with in our reports, a great deal
i remains to be effected to which the action of the legisla-
ture may largely contribute. We were not called upon by
the terms of our commission to suggest the legis-
lative remedies which might seem suitable to
the circumstances which came before us. But we
were of opinion that we should not act in the spirit of
our commission, or adequately perform our duty, unless—
having bad our attention so long and so closely fixed
upon all the leading facts, and upon the peculiarities of
each branch of manufacture—we endeavoured to form
and to express to the best of our power a judgment upon
the mode of dealing satisfactorily with each particular
case, and submitted it to the consideration of your
.Majesty's government and the legislature. We heartily
trust that we may have thus in some degree contributed
to bring the time nearer when so many hundreds of
thousands of your Majesty's poorer subjects of the work-
' ing classes—especially the very young and those of the
tenderer sex—will be relieved from the totally unneces-
sary burden and oppression of overtime and night-work -
will be confined to the reasonable and natural limits of
the factory hours, with the established periods for meals
and for rest and recreation ; will perform their
daily labour under more favourable sanitary con-
ditions, breathing purer air, amidst greater cleanliness,
and protected against causes specially injurious to health
and tending to depress their vigour and shorten their
lives ; and, finally, will be under the obligation while
between the years of 8 and 13 of combining a certain
and very useful amount of school instruction with wages—
yielding employment, and thus benefiting themselves
and their country by mashing, as may be hoped, when
they grow up, a higher standard of morals and intelli-
gence. Should it be found practicable to extend the prin-
ciples of the Factory Acta so as to embrace the large
' numbers which have come under review in these reports,
the blessings which will follow—if at all equal to those
which have attended that series of acts since their com-
mencement in 1802—will largely add to the store that has
been accumulated by the beneficent legislation of your
Majesty s reign."