The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT of th

FROM TIIE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY,

GLOBE.—The defeat sustained by Ministers on Lord
Ashley's proposed limitation of the hours of labour for
women and children employed in factories to ten hours,
has filled the ant-manufacturers with delight. The
Standard pronounces it a "glorious triumph ;" and
"laments that her Majesty's Ministers voted in the mit-
nority" "It is the first time they have so voted ; be-
cause," says the recently-installed organ of the Govern-
ment, " it is the first time they have been wrong !" The
Post absolutely revels in contemplation of the difficulties
in which the adverse vote has involved Sir Robert
Peel, and in the self-stultifying contradictions which Sir
James Graham uttered, in utter obliviousness of for-
mer speeches. The Times, which on Saturday in-
voked heaven and earth t aid Lord Ashley in accom-
plishing his god-like purpose, was yesterday sobered by
the vote of the preceding night, and looked at the ques-
tion with the eye of practical common sense. This
morning there is—no unusual thing with the Times—an
inclination to give the other side a turn. Sir J. Graham
is alternately rated and ridiculed for rigorously adhering
to the 12 hours he originally proposed as the maximum of
labour for females and children employed in factories.
Sir Robert Peel is hit off as a statesman distinguished
for infirmity of purpose ; who sees the right course, but,
is scared from pursuing it by the difficulties which pre-
sent themselves :—" He (Sir IL Peel) sees the future
duties of the British legislator only to shrink from
them. He sees, in the protection of the British
labourer, nothing but a horrible bugbear, pursuing the
unfortunate Minister, session after session, through
town and country, factory and dwelling, through a
labyrinthine intricacy of public and private relations."
The truth of the description given by the Times of
the Premier, and of his man-of-all-work at the Home-
office, we are not disposed to question. But we greatly
doubt whether the prediction that journal ventures
to put forth as to the fate of the Bill, in favour
of which it embarks so much zeal, will be realised
by the vote to which Sir James Graham last evening
announced he intended to appeal on Friday night,
when the Bill will be further considered in Committee.
Mr. Labouchere having inquired of Lord Ashley "what
his int*ntions were as to the amendment on the
Factory Bill, which he succeeded in inducing the House
to adopt on the preceding (Monday) night ?"—Lord
Ashley stated, that "in order to make his amend-
ment as little offensive as possible in quarters which
he wished to conciliate, he intended to submit certain
modifications (which he stated at length) in the clause
as it now stood, and by which he hoped the oppo-
sition with which the ten hours' clause had been
threatened would be diminished, if not wholly with-
drawn." Sir James Graham's reply was at once prompt,
explicit, and—we apprehend—decisive of the fate of the
measure. We have expressed ourselves as doubtful re-
specting the policy of' this legislative interference with
the rights of capital and the interests of industry,
now sought to be more stringently applied.
The humanity which is urged as the basis
of the interference is, we fear, short-sighted,
though sincere. Let us not be mistaken. We
are no advocates for the ceaseless toil to which the la-
bouring classes are subjected, and from which females
and young persons especially ought to be exempt. Un-
remitted labour is debasing to the individual, and dan-
gerous to society. But the severity of labour which
is demanded from the working classes, and the meagre-
ness of the remuneration which most of them receive,
is chargeable—not upon the manufacturers, to whom all
kinds of cruelty have been imputed, but to the
opponents of extended commercial intercourse, and the
partizans of monopoly. To these the charge of cruelty
to the factory women and children is far more justly
applicable than to the master manufacturers ; who
themselves share the disadvantages of the restric-
tive commercial policy, which necessarily falls with
crushing weight upon those in their employ.
The Ten Hours' Bill strikes at the root of none of
the evils which affect the poor. The opponents of al-
most every other measure which has been proposed, in
and out of Parliament, for promoting the physical and
moral elevation of the people, are found among the most
noisy clamourers for diminishing by law the hours of
labour in factories, with the certainty of, by so doing,
diminishing the earnings of the labourers, and thus
further curtailing their already insufficient supply of
food. Those who originated this questionable measure
—we speak not of Lord Ashley, who has been induced
to take the lead by the impulse of his heart,
which has, in this instance, refused to be guided by
enlightened judgment in a matter in which his
feelings have become embarked ; .but of the origina-
tors of this Ten Hours' Bill, and those who were most
active in launching it upon the tide of benevolent, but,
as we think, mistaken philanthropy—the originators
of this project are among the number of those who were
content to leave the people uneducated and uninstructed
in domestic economy; they were horror-stricken at
the thought of their being politically enlightened; they
were the indiscriminating defenders of the old vitiat-
ing poor-law system; they are the champions of re-
strictions on trade—and they would add to the bene-
factions of their microscopic benevolence, the paltry
boon of reducing the hours of the labour of the ill-paid
poor, thus making them still poorer ! Surely these re-
collections are sufficient to create suspicions as to the
soundness of the philanthropy whence this scheme has
emanated, and to justify a disinclination to accept from
such quarters, without the fullest evidence to confirm
its claims to confidence, a project which comes recom-
mended from so questionable a source
STANDARD.—Lord Ashley last night declared his
willingness to agree to any terms uponwhich the abridg-
ment of the hours of factory labour, determined upon by
the vote of the House of Commons on Monday, should
be introduced in the most gradual manner. He was ready
to continue twelve hours for six months, then to pass to
eleven hours, and not to make the complete reduction to
ten hours before 1846. This proposition, we lament to
say, was not received as we think it ought to have
been, by the opponents of the reduction, .Sir James
Graham declaring his resolution to adhere permanently
to the twelve hours. This perseverance is to us per-
fectly inexplicable. The limitation to ten hours will be
made final in 1846 as certainly as the year 1846 shall
arrive. The feeling of the whole country commands it,
and that feeling has grown up too gradually, _and
is too much the effect of rational conviction, to
be changed in twenty-four months or twenty-four years.
The Leaguers will no doubt attempt to operate a
diversion in favour of their tyrannical monopoly,
by new and fiercer attacks upon the agricultural
body, but the Leaguers are in truth already dead
beaten—beaten, not solely or principally by the agri-
cultural associations, very properly formed to check
their progress in the rural districts, but beaten in
the first place by the good sense of the population
in the towns and in the manufacturing districts.
It was a consciousness that their fallacies and their
sordid.purpose were seen through by the intelligent
townsmen and manufacturers that drove them into
the country to look for proselytes ; there is, there-
fore, no hope for them unless the representatives of
agricultural districts again throw the town popu-
lation and the manufacturing population into their
hands by opposing the ten hours resolution. Let the agri-
cultural Members look .to this, They have the League
at their mercy ; they may crush it into annihilation by
supporting Lord Ashley ; they may revive it in aug-
mented strength by opposing his Lordship. Last night,
the 19th of March, 1844 (we mark the time exactly, be-
cause, if the agricultural Members now make a mistake,
we may have to recur to the state of public feeling
at this particular time), last night the emissaries of the
League were ignominiously chased from a meeting called
iinsinselves le the metrepolla of nglan4-4roin
meeting, ipt only in the nietrepi44 Nit in its very
centre— and that part of L 044011 where League
notions might be expected to • bp moat popular,
The meeting was held on Cleyhenwell:green, and,
of course composed in much the greater part of
the electors of Finsbury—the constituents of Mr.
Coroner Wackley and Mr, Thomas Slingsby Dtmcombe.
This shows, the estimation in which the League is now
held. The ngrienitlirß) ]Vhillhers of the House of Com-
mons may, by their votes an Lord Ashley's Bill, either
confirm the prostration of their enemies, or revive
and with this assurance, that it is not in their
power. OF ill Ptie pOWPP of 111411111 Man, ultimately to pre-
vent a ifeq Hpqrs' siil, 01A1101 it is lotto competent to
them to sesigeitate the enemy who would ruin them
and their constituents, Tut, expepting snob efforts as
thp Leaguers may make in the interval to divert
pqhlip atknitti,-in from the question, what is there
OW can WOW 01 shake the present universal
POnVietioll that the hours of continued labour for
women and ehillon in factories ought not to exceed
ten ? Arguments will no doubt be offered in favour of
prolonged labour, and we welcome them, fop we never
met one that would stand ten minutes of calm investiga-
tion, harp, indeed, mot few that, properly con-
sidered, di4 not-eqqduep to ff. p#011.1411:M precisely the
opposite to that t 4 which it was 410094 tAI