The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-12 00:00:00

cessive legislative tinkering, is acknowledged by all
parties to be lamentably defective. It seems to serve I
no other purpose than to give good places and good
salaries to a few political partizans, who might
otherwise want the means of extravagance, and to
give no inconsiderable quantity of vexation and
trouble to factory owners. It is no protection or

service to factory children.
The numerous abortive attempts to improve it,
demonstrate, we think, rather the unfitness of the
subject for legislation, than the inability of our le-
gislators. Occupations, which, like those of the
soldier of a standing army, or the Registrar
of a Court of Law, wholly originate from
legislation, may, in all their minute details, be regu-
lated by the legislator ; but occupations which
wholly originate from commerce, and division of
labour, like banking and spinning cotton, cannot be
so regulated. An Act of Parliament to settle
whether children shall work 45, or 48, or 60, or any
other number of hours in a week, seems to serve no
other purpose than to give a legal sanction to ex-
tracting as much toil as possible from their little
sinews and bones. To descend to the minutes of

prescribing how many hours they shall play, and
how many they shall be allowed to employ
at meals, how many farthings per week they
shall give the shoolmaster, leaving them so much
less, or more, to give for lollypops, seems
to us something like a farce, and, however bene-
volently intended, to be wholly and completely
beyond the scope of legislation. In fact experience
shows so many more instances of failure than of suc-
cess, in law-making, that we are rather inclined to
circumscribe than enlarge the operation of the law-
maker, and would confine him as much as possible
to protecting life and property against acknow-
ledged crimes, instead of encouraging him to
interfere, after the manner of China, with all the
business of life.

Every day ought to convince every observing
man that the more Government interferes the more
its interference becomes necessary, and that if it
undertake to prevent children being overworked in
factories, it is equally bound, and people call on it
to do so, to take the same care with regard to
adults in all the situations of life. The demands
of the Chartists for less work and more wages, come,
on the principle of interfering with the ordinary busi-
ness of life, within the legitimate scope of le-
gislation, and they are amply justified by the Fac-
tory Act, and the declaration in Parliament that
every person ought to have at least 3001. a year.
On this subject it was well laid down by Lord EL-
LENBOROUGH, in the debate on the Jamaica Bill
of July Ist, as a general principle worthy of atten-
tion—
" It had been said by a high political authority that sla•
very, even if it commenced at the extremities, was incon
ceivably rapid in its progress, and was certain before long
to rerch the heart of the empire. He might add, that it
was the very essence of arbitrary (meddling) Government,
when it was once commenced, to create necessities for its
continuance."
But what Lord ELLENBOROUGII said of the
principles of slavery and of tyranny, is equally true
of the principle of benevolence. If the Legislature
interfere with the people on that principle, though
it begin at the extremities, it will soon reach the
heart. It creates necessities for its continuance
and for its extension. If it interfere with factory
children, why not with boys and girls who work in
coal mines? If it check their labour, protected in
houses, how can it look on unpityingly and see the
children of the peasantry exposed to storms and
rain, watching the mountain flocks, or toiling
through the heavy soil, picking up stones and
weeds, when they should be sporting on the green
or gathering wild wood flowers. In fact, we see
already more benevolent legislation carved out for
the Parliament, carrying its operation into every
part of life, than it could accomplish for several
Sessions if it did nothing else. The Factories Bill
will again be brought forwardnext year. One measure
has just been passed to direct seamen how to load
their ships ; another is demanded to prevent them
blowing themselves up. Mr. WAKLEY has extended
legislative care to boys stealing a ride behind a car-
riage, and some other person has undertaken, by
Act of Parliament, or a clause in the Police Bill,
to teach the owners of dogs humanity Because
all these measures, and all measures of this kind,
lie beyond the province of legislation, such laws are
not likely to be successful, and every year, just as it
is with the Factory Act, some Lord ASHLEY,
some Mr. WAKLEY, or some Sir JOHN REID,
will come down with new measures, and bore the
Government and the Legislature to embody their
sentimentality into new restrictions. Such a pros-
pect should make the Legislature reflect and pause ;
it makes us recur to the wisdom of the last century
and of the beginning of this, which seems now for
a season to be forgotten.
One of the great and leading features of the
work of Dr. SMITH was to deprecate the interfe-
rence of the Government with trade in any of its
branches, which interference he demonstrated was
injurious in all its ramifications. It is of no use
telling us, as excuse for further interference, that
Legislature has already interfered, for that, on Lord
ELLENBOROUGH'S principle, is a proof that the
first interference was injudicious, since it compels
further and continual interference. It has created
its own necessities for going on, till it will extend
to every employment and every domestic relation,—
till men will neither be able to cultivate the ground,
nor bring up their children, except as the State
directs. Dr. Smith's celebrated maxim was—
" The statesman wbo should attempt to direct private
people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals,
would not only load himself with a most unnecessary at-
tention, but assume an authority which could safely be
trusted not only to no single person, but to no council or
senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dan-
gerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and pre-
sumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."
In the same spirit, and with equal truth,
Dr. FRANKLIN said, "if we may judge by
the acts and edicts, all the world over,
for regulating commerce. an assembly of great
men is the greate,:ii Government on earth."
But all the wi.f.oom of these great men is now for-
gotten, and our legislators and would-be legis-
lators are convinced that they cannot by any pos-
sibility interfere injudiciously with the varied and
complicated businesses of life. The hasty, off-
hand conclusions of our unreflecting men of routine,
men of the counter and of the red tape, are allowed
to have far more weight than the deliberate convic-
tions of those great philosophers. The public
mind seems incapable of appreciating them, and
prefers SPRING RICE 10 ADAM SMITH, and Lord
ASHLEY to Dr. FRANKLIN. Those lights of the
last age are but as babes in wisdom and sagacity
compared to Sir JOHN REID or Mr. BRISCOE.
That we shall do any good by now reminding
our readers of the earnestness with which those
great writers deprecated the perpetual interference
of the Legislature with the business of life, and of
the contempt they exhibited for that " greatest Go-
vernment upon earth," we cannot possibly expect,
but in the present disposition of the people and
Parliament it is our duty to try, and therefore we
' have submitted these few observations to our
readers.