The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-13 00:00:00

THE FACTORIES BILL.

(From the Times.)
The desperate tenacity with which Ministers stick to their
twelve hours of factory labour, is something
,wbich stands
quite alone in our times. Really there would lie a degree of
heroism about it, but for the utter miserableness of the ob-
ject. Many occasions have there been in Sir Robert Peel's
life when he might have shown himself a groat man. We
will not say that he has entirely thrown them away; but he
has most unhappily reserved the cream and flower of his
strength for an ignoble and inevitably unsuccessful war with
labouring women and children. The only accounfof his ob-
stinacy is to suppose that now, as on some former emergen-
cies, the Premier is not entirely his own master. We do
think better of him than to believe he really does stake the
prosperity of the empire, including that very prosperous cir-
cumstance, his own possession of office, on the• first and the
last hour of the factory woman. And, after all, it is conso-
latory to remember that Sir Robert has not so wholly and
inseparably identified himself with the Government bill as
the Home Secretary.
But with whata singular ill grace does this unwonted tena-
city now show itself, considering how many things great and
sacred have been touched—yes, touched in the strongest
sense, handled, abstracted, mangled, and even destroyed.
But it is capital, capital invested in factories, and, by an in-
direct but probable consequence, capital invested in land,
which is now in danger. Of all things, wealth in every
shape is the most cowardly, suspicious, and touchy. It is the
most thin-skinned of all the children of selfilines.s. The miser
might as well be flayed alive, fur any comfort he has of
his hoard. A hungry mouse stirs behind the wainscot,
and he imagines a dozen robbers ransacking his chests. He
is shipwrecked, and, leaving his wife and children to the
sailors, he instinctively ties his bag of money to his neck, and
dies the natural death of a dog. His house is on fire; he
runs away from his terrified family, and nothing is heard of
him till, when all is over, the firemen find in some hidiug-
place a few calcined bones, and among them a fused lump of
gold and silver. So, after the nation has borne everything,
swallowed everything, sacrificed everything, done every-
thing, laughed at every terror and every scruple, at last it
makes a stand—for whet ? pro anis ac focis No. Fer
twelve hours' labour a day !
The isle is frighted from its propriety. It is terrified by a
vision of bankruptcy. It imagines the whole of its wealth
running out; a universal unproductiveness of capital—a great
blight on money. Who have caused this panic P The factory
women and children. To the disordered senses of the capi-
talist that feeble cry is a voice of thunder,, that small loss a
tremendous defalcation, that hour or two of leisure a univer-
sal stand still of labour and machinery. So it has always
been. Forty years ago the northern manufacturers wrote,
subscribed, published, and published again, the same terrors,
the same exaggerated statements, the same melancholy pre-
dictions of universal ruin, as Sir James Graham now intro-
duces to the House with so much pomp of sympathy from
the Manchester millowners. Of course they had some
truth on their side, otherwise it is not to be supposed that so
many honest men would have published what they did.
The particular custom which they considered the palla-
dium of British prosperity, and in behalf of which they so
strenuously deprecated all legislative interference, was that
of working their apprentices by relays during the whole of
the 24 hours, so that the engine never stopped night or day.
In their fervid and inventive fancies a single hour's stop-
page was utter ruin. Their calculations to prove this point
were elaborate, ingenious, and, of course, quite infallible.
They made quite as much of the twenty-fourth hour as their
degenerate sons, with the assistance of Mr. Senior, have
made out of the eleventh hour. However, Parliament ven-
tured to pass an Act prohibiting the employment of appren-
tices during any of the nine night hours, thus reducing the
daily task to fifteen hours. The manufacturers were not
utterly ruined, but rather the contrary, though they remon-
strated a good deal at first. So thoroughly is it the nature
of the capitalist to exaggerate into mountains the most
trifling impediments to wealth—to dream of the workhouse
and the gaol in the midst of growing heaps and improving
dividends. Exquisitely and painfully susceptible of danger,
he hears the faintest rustle in the leaves, and is ready to
drop with terror—et cords et genibus tremit.
The British people are by nature brave, confiding, and
hopeful. It gets over difficulties by not seeing them, and is
not defeated through being unconscious of defeat. But all
this will be changed if it allows itself to borrow its tone
from the craven spirit of the capitalist, whether that capi-
talist derive his wealth from horses or from horse-powers.
It may as well go to learn greatness in the parlour of the
money-lender, and largeness of mind at the stall of the
huckster. Your monied men are great in their place. Let them
be attended to on currency and revenue. But beware how
you deliver up to the rigorous demands of mercantile con-
venience all the women and young persons in the most po-
pulous districts of the empire. We see in these debates a
something rusty and leprous diffusing itself through the mind
of Parliament. The rust of gold and silver is the worst of all
rusts, because it is invisible. Other corrosions stain the
hands, or the garment ; the secret canker of gold poisons the
soul, and makes it callous to social appeals of the most ap-
palling and sacred urgency.
Certainly it is a day of deterioration and ignominy which
is marked by such portents as the sudden recantations we
have lately witnessed. Mr. Gaily
,Knight with his " time
to get sober," and Mr. Liddell reproaching Ministers for
their inconsiderateness in not having earlier let their sup-
porters know how much they staked on the question, are
prodigies. The Act must mean more than the authors aro
aware of. It is so unnaturally base. We view them scarcely
as conscious agents, but as ordained types of truckling, for
the warning of the age. The sacred nature of the cause—
the monstrous inequality of the compromise—justify the mind
in imparting a little of the preternatural to this .history.
Surely these two persons are meant to be remembered— not
merely as Ministerial dummies, not merely as Parliamentary
men of straw, but as mementos to a selfish and sentimental
age of the dangers attending susceptible feelings, showy
virtues, and weak resolves. Whenever we hear of gratui-
tous professions of kindness, ending in as gratuitous a cut
direct, we shall be reminded of Mr. Liddell and Mr. Gaily

has occurred within our recollection so calculated
to destroy the sympathy and confidence of the people, as
the whole discussion of this question. How can the people,
already scarcely aware of any benefits received, respect a
body which seems so loth to help them at any risk, and
which is so ready to rescind its decisions in their favour ?
It already suspects Parliament to he a mere function of the
Governmt nt. The rejection of Lord Ashley's measure would
certainly go some way to countenance that impression. Yet
how dangerous just now to efface from the popular mind all •
trust in Parliament, and refer the people to themselves for
legislation and deliverance ! Such, however, is the advice,
not of Chartists, not of Whigs, not of Mr. Ferrand or Mr.
11.1untz, but of Ministers themselves. They remand all
ameliorations, even those of the most unquestionable and de-
sirable kind, even the protection of women and minors, to the
internal and spontaneous workings of the labour market.
"The law cannot help you ; help yourselves. You have
heretofore struck for more wages, and got them. Why do you
not strike for less time?"

Very well. This is not our way of effecting great social
improvements ; we would rather have them done by the
nation. But if the Government will not do them, and leaves
the matter in the hands of the people, we have nothing to
do but to 'acquiesce.

_
(From the Herald.)
No one, 'WO suppose, even of the wannest advocates of the
long hour system, will attempt to deny, that the adherence
of the Government to that system, however conscientious,
has inflicted the most serious injury on the Conservative
cause that it has sustained since the last grand mistake in
1829. That injury, too, is wide-spread, and consists of many
parts. One of these, and by no means a slight one, is the
deterioration of the character of the House of Commons.
This is too often the forerunner of some hazardous organic
change. In 1828, one-half of the House of Commons reso-
lutely opposed the Rornish claims. In 1829, on the word of
command being given, nearly one hundred members were sud-
denly converted, and simultaneously discovered that to be
just and necessary, which, only twelve months before, they
had declared to be unjust and dangerous. From that instant
a deep resolve was taken in hundreds of thousands of British
bosoms to reform, i. e., to punish, to break up, and utterly to
remodel an assembly, the conscience and principle of which
were seen to be a mere pretence. And the people, having
so resolved, did not long want an opportunity or
an instrument. The dissolution of 1831 remitted the
question to their decision, and wherever there was any real
constituency, in nineteen cases out of twenty, the re-
sponse was, " Away with the borough system, which pro-
duced the disgusting exhibition of 1829, and let us have
almost any change, almost any system, rather than that."
There were two features in the calamity of 1829 which are
most painfully recalled to mind by some of the events now
passing. One of these is the incongruous mixture of parties
will
g te:
i.
than
h a Infinitely
venture
fiot
which took place at that period, as now. The Conservatives
effected their own destruction by casting themselves into the
hands of the Liberals ; and these latter were only too happy
to greet with the greatest warmth the conversion of their
opponents to their own views, assured that the common sense
of the nation would soon adjudge that if the country was to
be governed on liberal principles, it ought to be governed by
liberal men. The nation did so decide, and it took only a few
months to carry that judgment into execution. Another uit-
pleasant feature is the occurrence every now and then of
in-
dividual conversions, as we saw them in 1827-1828 (the
Brownlows, &c.), in which men, after voting consistently and
steadily for one view of the question, suddenly became
assigning reasons (as they were
con-
vinced of their error, and passed
eoevileerdt)o,etteehoptpoe seitteherrannklesn;
seemed the most miserable apologies for changing sides, and
forced the hearers to suspect, by their very weakness, that
hade()in einotrhec
a,rlictyau,,sev,
rvi•
ehdicthhoi
those
ewcaosn
conversions
i soon
s which,convenient
uponto t.h
eexplain,fe es
of them, seemed utterly inexplicable. We were grieved to
the very heart to behold this dry-rot again infecting the
Conservative body, and especially so when the two speeches
of the new converts of Friday night, Mr. Liddell and Mr.
Gaily Knight, reminded us so forcibly of those droppings be-
fore the storm of 1629 to which we have already alluded. No
such
we
heoe lutn
reasonings,
two speeches
making
:ola.niki which
ocnohfgf
tstha
nuheceyhp
public
pbemellacak brevity,treokrs
ever before fraught with so much loss and damage to the
rnot . iohrt eaas 1
tavyhyee, betterreawereslul e
would it have been to have calmly and quietly changed sides,
reasoning,'restP'ht'aiigrettrthuaYetotteuttsetetnofdorthaon
thase these.foniaer Oneocca occasion, Ministers
emgiennitslterrsenhacdhienfloyt
more frankly declared the firmness of their determi-
nation, inasmuch as he quite believed that if they had
so done, many Members who had voted against them would
have voted for them ! He himself, as well as others, had
imagined, in the former debate, that they were allowed the
exercise of their own judgment. He now, however, found
that it was " made a point of" by the Government; and be-
lieving that the Government knew best, and were actuated
by the most conscientious motives, he would leave the matter
in their hands, and would restore to them his support. The
dnft of all this is, that however Mr. Liddell may like a little
liberty at times, yet that, whenever the Government chooses
to be positive and peremptory, he is prepared to fall into the
ranks, and do as he is bid. Upon this principle of " confi-
dence in Ministers"—even in a question of working a poor
factory girl more hours than her constitution will bear—it is
evident that Mr. Lidell might vote for making the girls work
20 hours out of the 24, as well as for 12 ; for, in truth, he
surrenders his own judgment the moment the Govern-
ment becomes resolute; and merely leaves it to them
to say for what measure be shall vote. But is this
the proper and dignified course for an English county
Member? Still more intolerable, if that be possible, is the
plea of the other convert, Mr. Gaily Knight. The question
of a ten hour clause has now been before Parliament for more
than a dozen years. It has been often argued in Mr. Knight's
hearing. Only last month it was discussed in three or fbnr
long debates, spread over a period of ten days. After listen-
ing to all this discussion, after hearing even the able speeches
of Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham--speeches which
left nothing to be said on that side of the question, Mr. Gaily
Knight, on three several divisions, voted for the ten hour
clause ! He is now going to vote against it ; and he very
naturally asks himself " What has occurred to justify such
a change of opinion ?" And he answers, "Nothing, except
time for inquiry, time to get sober I" He adds, that " since
the Bill was last under discussion, he had paid great attention
to the subject."• That is, he first votes three times on a
question, having the liberty of going away without voting if
he pleases, and then " he pays great attention to the subject.'
Say we not truly, that such exhibitions as these, ifcontinued
and followed up, _must, ruin- the House of- Commons,---in
fact, would ruin the character of any assembly as a reason-
able and safe tribunal?