The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-18 00:00:00

!purpose of disparaging manufacturing improve-
ments, or discouraging manufacturing enterprise,
that we represent our factories, whose ma-
chinery is worked by children of tender age, in
the same light as West India plantations cul-
tivated by negro slaves. The similarity is esta-
blished in almost every point—the parallel is
drawn in the broadest lines ; and his only because
the same element enters into both,—it is only be-
cause domestic, white, English slavery is row
proved " by a cloud of witnesses" to exist, that
we call upon the Legislature to interfere, and to
abate the rank offence. Children of from six
to twelve years of age, who are driven from their
scarcely warmed beds to the mills before day-
break, and are wrought till they can no longer
stand, or who can only be kept awake at their
task by the application of blows and stripes,—
who have sometimes their bodies maimed, or
their lives endangered, by a cruel taskmaster,
when invincible fatigue overpowers the strength
of their feeble nature,—who struggle with scanty
and insufficient food against the effects of an un-
wholesome atmosphere and a torturing position,
—who contract diseases, stunt their growth, and
acquire deformities, by an over exertion of their
frames,—who are deprived of all the opportuni-
ties of healthy exercise, and all the means of
moral instruction, so beneficial or necessary for
their time of life,—children in this situation, we
say, though sold to the factory by the necessities
of their own parents, as the African chiefs sold
their subjects or captives, are no more free agents
than a West Indian gang, and therefore, for the
same reason, ought to be placed under the spe-
cial protection of the law. Instances may occur
in the agricultural districts where the young are
equally exposed to physical suffering and moral
degradation ; cruel parents, in towns and vilages
which never saw the smoke of a steam-engine
or herd of a cotton factory, may keep their in-
fants in misery and bondage. These cases the
law cannot reach without probably the greater
evil of domiciliary visits, but where great masses
of children, as in our manufacturing districts,
are collected into a particular place, and follow
a common occupation, beyond the care of their
parents, general rules can be enforced, and a
kind of labour police established. We beg that
this principle of absolute undeniable slavery of
factory children, and this distinction between
them and other children not congregated by the
nature of their employment into masses, may be
kept in mind in all notions of legislating on this
question, as otherwise we must attempt an im-
possible task, or effect a mischievous result.
The masters themselves, if their feelings de-
served to be consulted on such a subject, could
not object to this interference with the age at
which children can be allowed to enter their
establishments, or the number of hours which
they may be permitted to work. They cannot
pretend, like the West Indian planter, that the
children are their " property," and if they de-
rive no benefit from their work, they will not be
required to pay their wages. The parent or the
parish must supply the funds for their sustenance
till they can support themselves ; but, from
whatever quarter these funds come, English hu-
manity must not be further outraged by a conti-
nuance of the present system of infant bondage.
Dr. Chalmers, as we see in the excellent and in-
structive evidence of the Rev. Mr. Gordon, one of
the ministers of Aberdeen, told the Glasgow
manufacturers, from the pulpit, several years ago,
" that they regarded human beings as so many
pieces of machinery, and the living principle
within them as the power which set the machi-
nery in motion, and that their sole object was to
get out of the machines as much work as poss
sible at the least expense." There could
not be a more undeniable or a more
melancholy statement. This infant " ma-
chinery," must now be regulated by those
who " regard the living principle within it" as
something different from a mere mechanical
power. There are duties more important than
those of accumulating wealth by whatever means;
and even the commercial wealth of a nation is
bought at two high a price, if that price be the
degradation, the depravity, the suffering, of those
who produce it. Law must interfere to check
the reckless inhumanity of the avaricious, as it
does to control or punish any other bad or
selfish passion which seeks its own gratification
at the expense of others.—Times.

The Times, in their article of 'Wednesday,
have returned to the charge against the ballot,
and have strengthened their own forces by a
communication from without, of surpassing merit
in their eyes. They inform us that a re-action
has commenced against the ballot. As far as
regards the Times, and various other Ministerial
organs, this is undoubtedly true : as far as re-
gards any one else, we deny it altogether. The
ally of the Times tells us, that the question of
the ballot lies in a nut-shell. It lies, indeed, in
so small a space, that he has entirely overlooked
it. In recompence, he gives us a long series of
observations upon something which is not the
question. He tell us that a man cannot, if he
would, conceal his political opinions ; for it' the
ballot conceals his vote, there are other way
besides the ballot through which his political
sentiments will become known. Moreover (he
adds), even if it were possible for voters to con-
ceal their political sentiments, it is not desirable
that they should do so. Here is precisely the
same confusion which we remarked last week in
the article of the Times themselves. The senti-
ments of a voter are one thing : his vote is another.
The ballot does not either oblige or enable him to
conceal his sentiments, nor have we ever said that
it did. It keeps his vote concealed, whether he will
or not; and it does not, by its direct effect, accom-
plish any thing more. We stated, in our article of
last week, that if any landlord—the Marquis of
Exeter, for example—chose to establish an In-
quisition in the town of Stamford, and to ad-
mit as tenants no persons who did not conform
to a certain ritual, and make certain professions,
the ballot would not prevent him from doing so.
He may, if he pleases, admit none but bigoted
Tories as his tenants, and he may exact such
evidences of Toryism as he thinks sufficient.
He may expel every tenant who does not con-
form to the observances and declarations which
he dictates. If he carries this expurgation to
its extreme limit, the town of Stamford will re-
main tenanted by none but Tories of the purest
water. Nevertheless, though all this be con-
ceded, the efficacy of the ballot for its own pur-
pose will still remain unimpaired. What it
professes to insure is, that no voter shall be
constrained to vote except according to his own
free will and preference. Now if the tenants at
Stamford are all high Tories, they will vote with
the Marquis of Exeter as a matter of course
and by preference, whether voting be open or
secret. The case will be similar throughout
the whole country, if we suppose all other land.
lords to have done the same—if we imagine
every Whig landlord, anti every Tory land-
lord, to have already carried political per-
secution to the same length as the Protestant