The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 15, 1865.

do. (Cheers.) And what is the great social question

whichafter all is at the root of all these assemblies
and of all these industrial exhibitions which have
been held over the different cities of the country
—of .so many of the questions political, social,
and religious which are being discussed at
the present time ? Is it not mainly
the condition of the labouring classes, their
present condition, their past history, and the future
prospects of human labour. (Cheers.) I desire to
direct your attention to-night to a few of the great
agencies which have been and are being brought to

bear upon the condition of labour in this country,
and, namely, these four—first, the agency of legisla-
tion ; next, the agency of voluntary combination
among the working classes themselves ; thirdly, the
agency of municipal government ; and last, but not
least, the agency of individual thought and action.
(Cheers.) Now, with regard to legislation, I often

hear it said, " Oh, how can you make men moral by

Act of Parliament ?" which, indeed, is perfectly true.
Neither can you make men rich by Act of Parlia-

ment—neither can you make men industrious by
Act of Parliament, or wealthy, or anything else, by

mere force of law. That is true. But I take it to be

a truth which entirely depends upon the purpose for
which it is brought forward, and the particular use
which is made of the argument or assertion. If it
be meant that positive institutions have had no effect
upon the progress of mankind, then I hold it to be
the greatest of all possible fallacies. It is uuques-

tionable that positive law and institutions have had
the most powerful effect upon the moral character
and upon the social condition of masses of the
human race ; and I think no better example can be
given of that than the history of our own legisla-
tion, during little more than half a century. If we
look back to a.period which is comparatively recent,

we shall find that not only in this country, but over
almost the whole of Europe, there was one universal
system of restriction, both upon the products of
labour, and upon labour directly itself. lam not

going to say anything to-night of the process by
which the restriction has been relaxed, as regards
the products of labour, in the final establishment of

what has been called free trade. That subject has
been pretty freely handled and pretty fully deve-
loped. You heard but a very few weeks ago, from
this platform, that subject discussed in a most mas-
terly manner by one who of all others was most

entitled to address you upon it—l mean my right
hon. friend and colleague Mr. Gladstone. (Loud
cheers.) But I think less attention has been paid

and less notice has been taken of the processes by
which restrictions upon labour itself, not upon the
products of labour, have been brought about in
the history of the legislation of this country,
and to that I wish to address myself upon
the present occasion. If we go -back to a period
which is comparatively recent, we shall find
that labour was restricted mainly in two ways—first,
by a law which was called the law of apprentice-
ships, passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; and,
secondly, by the monopoly of corporate bodies.
The Act of Apprenticeships, as many of you may
probably remember, although it has perhaps passed
out of the memory of the present generation,was a
law which enacted that no man should labour at
any bade to which he had not served a full seven
years' apprenticeship. The law of corporate mon-
opoly was one which prevented any person from
trading in a particular town unless he was born a
freeman of the town, or had had the freedom of that
town given to him. These two laws taken together,
or rather the system represented by these laws,
restricted labour in two ways. First, they restricted
a man from passing from one trade to another when
he wished to do so—when, for example, his own
trade failed, and another was prosperous. The
other restricted a man from passing from one place
to another even in his own trade —two direct re-
strictions upon the freedom of human labour. It
may remind you of one branch at least of the sys-
tem of restriction when I recall to you the ceremony
performed on this platform not many weeks ago.
Upon that occasion, as you will still remember,
your Lord Provost had the honour to present the
freedom of the city as a compliment to my right hon.
friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perhaps few
of you recollected then the original meaning of that
ceremony. It was the giving of that freedom which
alone enabled a man to be a citizen of the city
and to exercise any trade within it, so that,
in fact., the privilege given to Mr. Gladstone on that
occasion was in its original meaning a privilege to
set up a shop in the Trongate. (Laughter.) I have
no doubt that if other trades fail, and if it comes to
that, my right hon. friend will make a very large
fortune indeed. (Laughter and cheers.) It is a
very curious illustration of the restrictions that sys-
tem put upon labour what I am going to tell you.
I happened to be looking at the interesting life of
the celebrated James Watt, just published by Mr.
Smiles, the historian of the engineers. When James
Watt removed from Greenock and came to this city,
he was not allowed to set up a shop in Glasgow be-
cause he was not a freeman, and he was compelled
to come in by a side-wind. The professors of the
University had peculiar privileges at that time, and
they gave to James Watt the liberty which the
magistracy and the workmen—for not merely the
magistracy, but the workmen, kept up the restriction
—that liberty which was denied him by others, and
it was through the licence given by the professors
that James Watt was enabled to set up shop and
conduct business in Glasgow, where he conducted
those experiments which led to the invention of the
condensing steam engine. (Cheers.) But this is to
be said in regard to the law of apprenticeships, that
the spirit of English and of Scotch legislation was
in the main against restrictions upon human
labour. By the common law of this country
a man might labour at what he liked, and it
was only the peculiar statute of Queen Elizabeth
that was an impediment in his way. The con-
sequence was that whenever a case came before
the courts, that statute was very narrowly con-
structed, as is the case with all statutes of a penal
kind. It was held that the law of apprenticeships
applied to no trade which did not exist at the time
of Queen Elizabeth; and secondly, not to any labour
which was not conducted in towns and cities. Such
was the state of the law when there came that great
press of mechanical invention in the latter quarter
of the eighteenth century, which gave its origin to
what is called the factory system. There is nothing
more curious in the history of mankind than the
way in which long centuries of silence and apparent
total inaction are brought to a close and broken up
as it were by periods of extraordinary, it may almost
be said of preternatural, activity. Such in respect
to general knowledge was the period which is called
the revival of learning—such in respect to general
religious knowledge was the.period of the Reforma-
tion—such in respect to abstract science was the
wonderful period of Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo,
going on to our own Sir Isaac Newton. Such in
regard to mechanical invention was the short period
between the years about 1767 and 1787, a period
of not more than twenty years. Really it is won-
derful to remember that at that time there were
living together, not only as contemporary men living
at the same time, but working together—without
the knowledge of each other's work, yet directly
these mentawnad t
has ne contemporaries—allogdievrefnulrisemt
acnoeury these men were
working almost during the same years at different
partsi
bol ef ,
h Now, it is very curious to observe the whiche parallel
factory
s yrendereds
mtcoursee
possible,
of invention and legislation in regard to restrictions
on human labour which was the consequence of these
inventions. Thefirstcottonmills erectedbyArkwright
were erected before James Watt had completed his
mechanical invention of the steam engine. And what
was the consequence of that? Why, that all the
first factories were moved by water power and not
by steam power. Another consequence of that was
this, that the first factories were not erected in
towns and cities, but were erected along the course
of mountain streams, in the hills of Lancashire and
Yorkshire, and in some parts of Wales. What was
the consequence of that again ? The mills were
erected away from the centres of population ; 2dly,
away from the constant and uniform supply of
labour. The consequence of that was that the mill-
owners employed, not free labour, as it was called,

but apprentices. They collected a great number of
young persons, women and children, from where
they could, and brought them to their mills. They
lodged in the mills, and worked the whole time it
was necessary to make up for the occasional loss of
water from dry weather, and from other interrup-
tions which might take place in their machinery.
This was abottt-the year 1787. Now so early as the
year 1796 or 1797, public attention was called, in
consequence of the beginning of the factory system,
to the tremendous consequences which were arising
from unrestricted competition in human labour. It
was brought before Parliament some years later by
the first Sir R. Peel, who, though himself a manufac-
turer, and deeply interested in the success of
mills, came forward to declare in Parliament that
the effects of the factory system, from the
long hours to which young persons and children
were subjected, was becoming an intolerable evil,
and desired Parliament to interfere to regulate and
limit the hours of labour. (Cheers.) That was in
the year 1802. That occasioned very considerable
debate. It is a curious example how slowly the
English Parliament and English people proceed in
matters of this kind—how careful they are not so
much to act upon abstract principle as upon prece-
dent ; for the Act of 1802 was granted mainly on
the ground that it referred to apprentices, and not
to what was called free labour. They said, and said
very naturally, " We have no right to interfere
with free labour, with free artisans or their wives
or children ; but apprentices are already under the
guardianship and protection of the law—therefore,
if it is proved that they are working for excessive
hours, we stand to them in some degree in loco
parentis, and have a right to interfere with their
labour, and are willing to restrict the hours of
their labour, and accordingly the first of the Fac-
tory Acts was passed in 1802, upon the ground I
have mentioned, and at the instance of the first Sir
Robert Peel. (Cheers.) Now, observe the effect
which was produced by the change in the form of
labour, which was caused by the progress of inven-
tion. James Watt's inventions, upon the steam-
engine were nearly completed in the year 1785, and
I believe most of his patterns bad been taken out at
that time, but it was some time before steam super-
seded water power. It was, however, found cheaper,
and not subject to interruption ; and in the course
of a considerable number of years the mills began
to be built, so to speak, in the great centres of
population, where they had ready access to free
labour, and where they had a cheaper
supply also of fuel. Now came the proof of
the results which might be brought about by
unrestricted competition in human labour. Fifteen
or sixteen years after Sir R. Peel had got the act of
1802, he was obliged to come back and state, " You
have granted me this act, you have allowed that
apprentices shall be limited in the factories, but I
am now to tell you that that act has become use-
less ; the mills are no longer in the country, they
are no longer worked by apprentices at all, no
longer worked by water ; they are worked by steam
in the great centres of our population, by free ar-
tisans, by women and children whose labour is not
under the law of apprenticeship, and, notwithstand-
ing, the evils are worse than before. The overwork
of the women and children is dreadful." So Sir 11.
Peel came in 1816 and distinctly said, although he
was himself a manufacturer, " It is a question whe-
ther the invention of machinery shall be a curse or
a blessing to this country. If you do not put some
restriction upon this competition in human labour,
the consequences will be that all these magnificent
mechanical inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright,
and Watt, will rather be curses than blessings to the
people." It was several years before Parliament
would venture upon the step of interfering with
what was called free labour. They said, " Oh, we
have given you a statute to regulate the labour of
apprentices, and we are not willing to interfere with
the labour of free men. They are the best judges
of the number of hours their women and children
can work ; we do not mean to interfere." It was
not until 1819 that the first Sir R. Peel procured an
act of Parliament which limited the hours of labour
in factories to young persons whether apprentices or
not. That was really the first of the true Factory
Acts—the first of Factory Acts which involved the
principle of placing by legislation a restriction
upon the labours of the children and wives of
free artisans. The truth was that although the
principle was now assented to by Parliament,
the act which-was passed in 1819 became also practi-
cally useless from defect in the machinery of the act.
Several Subsequent endeavours were made to amend
that act, but it was not until the subject was taken
ftensbobulrenfrtiheialtd,
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adopted by Parliament in an effective way. Lord
Ashley took it up in that spirit of philanthropy
which belongs to his noble heart, and I believe that
no man with a heart less warm, and no man with a
disposition more inclined to see difficulties in the
way of a right and just course, would have brought
that to a successful termination ; but by his exer-
tions mainly, not only was the principle adopted,
but adopted in a really stringent and effective act
of Parliament, which was enacted that the women
and children of this country, under the pressure of
competition should not be allowed, even if willing,
to act beyond a certain number of hours per day,
and not at all at night, on the ground that such work
was injurious to the welfare of the community at
large. (Cheers.) Several statutes have been passed
since that time, carrying further the same principle,
until at last, in 1844, Parliament for the first time
interfered not only with the labour of children and
young persons, but also with the labour of adult
women ; and as you are aware, the Factory Acts
now apply not only to children, but limit the hours
of labour also of the women of the artisan class.
Now, what is the light in which we are to regard
these statutes? This I may say I think without fear
of contradiction, that it is quite certain that the prin-
ciple of these statutes will yet have to be applied to
other kinds of labour which are at present exempt
from its restrictions. (Cheers.) It is impossible to
read the evidence which has lately been produced by
parliamentary inquiry into the labour of women, chil-
dren, and young persons in the trades which are still
unrestricted, without seeing that all the evils from un-
restricted competition which arose in factories in 1833
are rife at the present moment, and are inflicting the
most grievous evils upon society. (Cheers.) What,
then, is the light in which we ought to regard these
statutes ? I have often heard them spoken of as
exceptions to all rule, as violations--necessary, per-
haps, but to be regretted—as violations of all natural
law and of all rightful principle. Now, I frankly
confess I look upon that from a very different point
of view. I look upon the Factory Acts as marking
as great an epoch in the history of our legislation,
as regards artisans, as any of those that marked the
history of Free-trade. I look upon it as a discovery
and an acknowledgment of a great fact and of a
great principle. The fact is this, that whilst unre-
stricted competition in the products of labour has
conferred nothing but blessings on the community,
unrestricted competition in human labour may pro-
duce, and has frequently produced, most frightful
evils. And the principle is, that these evils come
within the legitimate scope of positive institutions,
and of enactments of Parliamentary law. (Cheers.)
Now, as regards the fact. I have already referred
to the evidence given it blue-books recently as to
the prevalence of similar evils in trades which are
at the present moment unrestricted. I will read a
short extract from the last report of the Factory
Inspector —that especially of Mr. Baker, one of the
oldest and most experienced of the factory inspectors.
He says—" Free labour, even in this country, re-
quires the strong arm of the law to protect it from
the cupidity and ignortnce of parents." He further
says—,.' Most of the workshops of this great manu-
facturing country arc sound to have fallen into the
inevitable trap of competitive industry when unre-
stricted by law—namdy, to cheapen prices by the
employment of women and children in the first
instance, and then to increase production by pro-
tracted hours of work; without much regard to age,
sex, physical capability, or even of social require-
ments." And as regarls the principle, I never could
understand how it is that man could toil so that
these tremendous evil: are the result of natural law.
Our efforts to put al end to these evils are in no
respect contrary to ltw. It is, indeed, true that
we are all naturally inclined to be selfish and iguo-

rant of that which we ought to know, and careless
about that which ought to give us the greatest pos-
sible concern ; but then it is also natural that, when
by the natural law of God we have experienced the
terrible effects of these evils, we should take mea-
sures to put them right and remedy them, and that,
I apprehend, is the higher law itself. It is the law of
conscience and reason asserting itself over the lower
instincts of our nature. At the same time, Ido not
mean for a moment to deny that, as regards the
effect of legislation upon industry in this country,
there are certain limits beyond which it certainly
ought never to go, and probably never will go. I
think the country will be jealous of any law which
would interfere with the labour of adult men. They
are able for the most part to protect themselves, al-
though we must always remember that there always
is a great fallacy in what is called free labour, be-
cause after all in a certain sense the labour of these
women and children was perfectly free—that is to
say, it was unrestrained by any positive statute.
But then it was placed under restrictions, under
such overpowering motives, that practically it was
not easy for those parents who wished to see after
the education and improvement of their children, and
who would have been willing to sacrifice a large por-
tion of their children's time to prevent their being
overworked, to carry out their desires. These parents
were dragged down to the level of the selfish and
improvident, because if they refused to allow their
children to work on these conditions, they would
have been dismissed from labour, and probably have
been reduced to starvation. Though practically by
law they were free, yet by the force of overwhelm-
ing circumstances they were placed under such in-
ducements that practically they were not free. And
now I pass from this topic, which brings me natu-
rally tothe second question I proposed to consider—
viz., the effect of combinations among workmen
themselves.
The D UKE mentioned a number of cases in which
combinations among workmen without strikes had
done good, as among bakers in Glasgow and Edin-
burgh, who had succeeded in getting their hours of
labour reduced. He had no doubt that unions often
attempted that which was impossible. He had no
general rule or advice •to give, except that those
who entered a combination should be sure that the
objects aimed at were in themselves just, and pur-
sued by just means, not by intimidation, but by
force of that moral opinion which was most power-
ful among all combinations of men, and which he
believed would always be found adequate to pro-
duce just and reasonable results. The remainder
of the address was of a local character.

A vote of thanks to the Duke, moved by Captain
Speirs, M.P., was passed with loud cheers.

Railway and other Companies.
CRYSTAL PALACE.
The ordinary general meeting of this company
was held on Wednesday, at the London Tavern ;
Mr. T. N. Farquhar in the chair.
• The report, au abstract of which has appeared in
The Sun, was taken as read.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving its adoption, said the
directors considered the report as one of the most
satisfactory that they had ever been able to present
to the shareholders. The total amount of receipts
for the past year, excluding those from the Handel
Festival, came as near as possible to the amount of
the previous year. They were £121,452, or about
£2OO in excess of those from the ordinary sources
of revenue in the preceding year. The receipts
from season tickets showed an increase of £3,500,
which he thought very satisfactory. The receipts
of the preceding year had been augmented by the
Garibaldi Festival, which during two days resulted
in the attendance of a large number of persons and a
highly remunerative return to the company. In the
comparison they had excluded the Handel Festival
days from the past year's account, which, if included,
would have furtherincreased the receipts. The charge
for maintenance and repairs was £2OO in excess
this year over the charge for last year, but the pro-
perty was improved by the outlay. There was a
large increase in the rates and taxes this year, but
that was a matter not within the control of the di-
rectors. There has been considerable outlay on the
two principal dining-rooms in the refreshment de-
partment, which was absolutely necessary. The
result of the Handel Festival had been, on the whcle,
satisfactory, although it did not come up to the ex-
pectations of the directors. The 21 per cent. divi-
dend which the directors recommended shouldbe de-
clared for the past year bad been honestly earned
out of the year's operations. They had made no ad-
I dition to the capital account during the past year,
and he had always maintained that the only safety
for the company was to use the utmost caution in
regard to adding to the capital. He congratulated
the shareholders that the debenture debt of the com-
pany had been extinguished, and that everything
now stood on a firm and sure basis. The property
of the Rockhills had reverted to the company by the
lamented death of their esteemed friend Sir Joseph
Paxton. The cost of the repairs and improvements
of that property had been limited to £2,500, and
the valuers, Mr. Norton and Mr. Hunt, had met to
determine what amount the company would have to
pay on that account. The directors had offers for
that property, but he thought the wisest coursewould
be to let the house on the best terms they could for a
period of five or seven years to a highly respectable
tenant, and allow him to keep it in repair. The com-
pany had years ago expended about £12,000 on
stables for the accommodation of the public, but it
was the worst speculation they ever embarked in, the
return being only about £145 a year. The high-
level station had been. opened for traffic, but it had
not been available to any great extentin consequence
of the access to it from the city being as yet totally
unavailable. The Brighton Company proposed to
erect a high level station close to the present station,
and the Loudon, Chatham, and Dover Company
proposed to extend their line to Croydon, which
would be very important to the Crystal Palace Com-
pany.
Dr. Read seconded the motion for the adoption
of the report.
After various suggestions for the improvement of
the accommodation in the Palace by Mr. Billings,
Mr. Ellis, Mr. Haythorne, Mr. Puncher, and other
shareholders, the report was adopted, and the divi-
dend declared.
The motion of Lieutenant-Colonel Young, for
the discontinuance of the gratuitous admission of
shareholders to the Palace on Sundays,was rejected
by the adoption of an amendment by Mr. Hay-
thorne, requesting the directors to adopt such mea-
sures as would have the effect of repealing the
special enactment that closed the Crystal Palace on
Sundays.
The proceedings concluded with a vote 01 thanks
to the chairman and directors.