The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-29 00:00:00

MAJORITY-NOES, 77.

Acland, T. D. Feilden, W. Pakington, John S.
k'Court, Capt. R. Ferrand, W. B. Peel, Jonathan
Allix, J.hn Peter Flower, Sir James Pollington, Viscount
Arkwright, George Fremantle, Sir T. Pringle, Alexander
Bailey, J. Fuller, A. E. Rendlesham, Lord
Bailey, Joseph, jun. Gaskell, J. M. Russell, Charles
Barrington, Viscount G!adstone, Captain Round, John
Baskrrville, T. B. M Gordon, Hon. W. Rushlsrooke, Colonel
Peresford, Major Grimlditch, Thomas Russell, Charles
Blackstone, W. S. Hamilton, W. J. Russell, J. D. W
Borthwick, Peter Herbert, Hon. S. Sandon, Lord
Bramaton, T. W. Hinde, J. H. Shirley, E. J.
Bruges, W. H. L. Hodgson, F. Smith, Abel
Buck, Lewis W. Hodgson, R. Somerset, Lord G.
Buckley, Edmun I Hope, Alexander Stanley, Edward
Buller, Sir J. Y. Hussey, Thomas Taylor, J. A
Carnegie, Captain Jermyn, Earl Waddington, H. a
Chute, W. L. Kemble, Henry Wellesley, Lord C.
Collett, W. R. Knight, Henry Gaily Wodehouse, E.
Cripps, W. Knight, F. W. Wood, Colonel T.
Larby, George Lawson, Andrew Wyndham, Colonel
Davies, D. A. S. Mackenzie, Thomas Yorke, E. T.
Denison, E. Zeckett Maclean, Domld Young, John
Douglas, Sir H. Mainwaring,:T,
Douglas, Sir C. Manners, Lord J. TELLERS.
Duffield, Thomas Marton, George Dugdale, W. S.
Egerton, W. T. Miles, P. W. S. Newdegate ,C. N.

THE FACTORIES BILL.
(FROM THE COUNTRY PAPERS.)
The debate on the hours of work clauses in the
Factory Bill came to a most singular issue on Friday.
The Government were then beat by Lord Ashley, and
Lord Ashley was then and there vanquished in turn
by the Government, on the same subject, in the space
of a few minutes, and without the change, addition,
or substraction of a single man among the voting
parties. Of 369 Members present, 186 voted against
the twelve hours' clause, and 183 for it, leaving an
adverse majority of 3. When the ten hours' pro-
position of Lord Ashley, immediately afterwards, was
put before the same 369 senators, 181 voted for it,
and 188 against it, thus throwing it out by a majority
of 7. What is the meaning of this ? Is it a
clear and simple case of self-stultification on the part
of the House ? Or are we to suppose some Members
to have been present who opposed both propositions
because they disapproved altogether of legislative in-
terference? Though the latter ground has by no
means been taken up openly and strongly, it affords
the only rational mode of explaining these two suc-
cessive divisions. Certainly the motives of Members
on both sides must be heterogeneous. The same rea-
soning, we imagine, could scarcely ever bring SirJas.
Graham, Mr. Labouchere, and Mr. Bright to join
issue on the one hand, and unite on the other Lord
Ashley, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Thomas bun-
combe. Whatever be the causes of the late extraor-
dinary rotes, we heartily wish that the House
would take warning by the unwonted discre-
pancy of opinion among all parties, and leave
the matter where it was left by chance or fortune.
on Friday night—that is to say, adopt no hour-de-
termining legislative proposition whatever, but endea-
vour to improve the condition of the manufacturing
operatives by measures of less doubtful propriety.
Where, we may ask, should interference stop, if so
unequivocally entered upon ? Has Lord Ashley no
sympathy for the multitudes of poor women in Lon-
don, and all our large cities, who " stitch, stitch,
stitch" from dawn to midnight, and sometimes from
midnight to dawn again, for a pittance far smaller
even than that earned in factories ? To be consistent,
he ought to interfere for their relief no less warmly
than for that of factory inmates. In a thousand
other cases, also, the same plea exists for intermed-
dling. It would be dangerous to establish the pre-
cedent, or at least to carry it beyond a mere protec-
tion for the very young who cannot judge for them-
selves.—Scotsman.
We regret deeply the decision of the Government
with regard to Lord Ashley's motion. However
" inextricable" the "confusion" caused by the two
divisions of Friday last, it is abundantly clear that
the voice of Parliament has decisively pronounced
lagainst the proposition of twelve hours as the limit
for the labour of females and young persons ; and the
responsibility resting thus upon Parliament, it would
be a gracious act on the part of the Ministers to
accede to the opinion so clearly expressed. It must
be quite unnecessary for ourselves to repudiate any
participation in the unfair and unjust censures, which
some even of our Conservative Contemporaries have
cast upon the Government in respect of the course
which in this matter they have felt it their duty to
pursue ; but it is notwithstanding most unfortunate
that last year, when on the educational clauses of
the then Factories Bill the pressure on the Govern-
ment proceeded from the opposite direction, they
should have been induced to gave way, and that this
year, when the pressure is from their own friends,
they should persevere unshrinkinglyand with so much
determination as to produce from the mild and ami-
able Lord Ashley a complaint that they "added insult
to injustice." We are sure that Lord Ashley was
mistaken in this idea; but that such a man—one of
their own firm supporters, one too who by his re-
fusal of office for the sake of this very question
had proved indisputably his earnestness and sin-
cerity, should think himself, owing to the incau-
tious language of the Home Secretary, exposed to
such treatment, is, we repeat, a great misfortune ;
and we fervently hope that the Government may not
hereafter have cause to rue the course which they
have taken. That they themselves believe the in-
terests of the country require them to resist the
proposition of Lord Ashley, we are willing to admit ;
but we believe at the same time with equal sincerity
that they, and not Lord Ashley, are wrong; and
seeing, as Sir Robert Inglis reminded them, that they
are on this occasion supported by their habitual
opponents and opposed by their habitual supporters—
(no less than ninety- three Conservative Members
voted against Ministers last Friday), it ought at
least to awaken so much doubt in the mind of Sir
James Graham as to preserve Lord Ashley and those
Conservatives who act with him from the imputation
of pursuing a " Jack Cade " line of action. But ob-
serve, moreover, the inconsistency of those who pre-
fer such a charge. The Government themselves pro-
pose to limit the hours of labour to twelve : Lord
Ashley seeks a further restriction to ten. Manifestly,
therefore, the question at issue between the two par-
ties is one of degree, not of principle ; and conse-
quently, if the " Jack Cade ' accusation have any
applicability at all, it must apply to the Govern-
ment measure equally with that of Lord Ashley.
how dangerous, then, is it for those who live in glass
houses to cast stones thus around them !—Brighton
Gazette.
As usual, we find the most outrageous misstate-
ments passing current in Parliament, and through the
press, in reference to this measure • and, unfortu-
nately, nobody seems able and willing to disabuse
the public mind on the sub,' ect. What, indeed, can
be more glaring than the repeated assertions of the
Standard, that many mills are now working only ten
hours a day, and that factory labour is at present ex-
ceedingly irregular ? That journal, on Monday last,
says :
" We remember to have heard, and not very long
since, of forty or fifty mills idle in a single town, and of

the rest of the mills in that town working but half time
We know that at present many mills work but tin hours;
and from all we have been able to collect upon the sub-
ject, we are convinced, that instead of working 3,110
hours a year, or ten hours a day for the 311 working
days of the year, the sum total of the mills do not work
two-thirds, or 2,000 hours, if indeed they work quite
half the time, taking the average of periods of five
years."
We wish the Standard would tell us where the
mills working only ten hours a day are to be found.
Except in a period of excessive depression of trade,
such as the one to which allusion is made at the com-
mencement of the preceding extracts, there neither
are nor have been any in this district ; and we feel
confident that there are none elsewhere. It is true,
that Mr. John Fielden tried an experiment of the
kind a few years ago—an experiment which, if we
mistake not, lasted exactly three days !—the honour-
able gentleman having been fully convinced, even in
that short time, that it would be attended with a most
serious loss to himself. The other assertion of the
Standard, that the workpeople employed in facto-
ries do not, on an average of five years,
labour more than half or two-thirds of ten
hours (that is, from five to six-and-a-half
hours) per day, is as monstrous a falsehood as we
recollect to have met with ; and its absurdity is quite
as conspicuous as its want of truth. If the people
employed in factories work so little as the Standard
asserts, it is idle to legislate for the purpose of giving
them additional leisure; for they must have more than
enough of it. But everybody conversant with factory
labour knows that it. isthe nixost regular and constant
employment in existene;.atid that the ;Standard's al-
legations are mere inventions. Yet upon these and
similar inventions are the votes of Members of Par-
liament mainly founded; and honourable gentlemen
set about endangering the prosperity, and almost the
existence, of most important branches of national in-
dastry, in the most complete ignorance of the facts
with respect to which they are legislating. What
will be the result of these things time only can deter •
mine.—Manchester Guardian.
The Ministry having sustained more than one le-
feat in Committee on the Factories Regulation Bill,
have, it seems, made up their minds to abandon it,
a course they have been compelled to adopt by the
heterogeneous and successful opposition which has
encountered them. In the propriety of that course,
though widely differing from them on most other
matters, we entirely concur. Holding the opinions
they so well expressed in the course of the debate,
Sir James Graham and Sir Robert Peel would have
been traitors to their Sovereign and to the nation
had they consented further to pursue a measure,
into which , _ a._4lgulatioir„ ha/ _ been introducel,
whiolf, they considefed well d he - pito.duetitle-,of
disaster, if not ruin, to the greatest manufacturing
interests of the country. We are fully aware that
we are about to take up the unpopular side of the
question, but no consideration of that kind ought to
deter us, or shall deter us, from pointing out what
we consider to be an error, and an error fraught with
fatal consequences to the very class which Lord
Ashley, by his short-sighted legislation, hopes to
benefit. We are aware that the limitation to ten
hours' has the support of large bodies of the opera-
tives employed in the manufactures to which it would
apply, but upon what ground and in what expecta-
tion ? A placard posted at Manchester by torch-
light, and alluded to by Mr. Cardwell in his
pithy and well-reasoned speech on Friday,
will serve for answer to the question. "Less work,
—more wages,—sign for the Ten Hours' Bill !" It is
against this expectation, as dangerous as it is delusive,
that we feel called upon to warn the operative classes.
Would the manufacturers, who have the labour
market at command, owing to the redundancy of
supply, pay the same wars for ten hours' work as
for twelve ? We will leave more wages out of the
question, and ask could they afford to pay an equal
amount of wages ? If they did pay the same wages
for less labour, or its equivalent, a less amount of
production, they must be content with less profit, or
they must increase the price of their goods ' • and then,
closely pressed as they are on all sides, how could
they compete with the foreigner ? And if they cannot
compete with foreign manufacturers, what is to become
of the trade by which the operatives have been accus-
tomed to get their living ? It is worthy of notice,
that 35,000,0001. of our whole exports belong to the
manufactures which would be affected by Lord
Ashley's amendment. Reduce the demand for goods,
by impeding the power of the manufacturers to com-
pete with foreign rivals, and you reduce the demand
for labour, and, by a natural consequence, wages ;
thus inflicting injury on the very persons you desire
to benefit. The evidence given before the Import
Duties Committee clearly proved the intense com-
petition which the English manufacturer had to
encounter from foreign rivals. It showed
that he had been entirely driven out of many
markets, and partially excluded from others,
by the force of that competitisn. The danger,
therefore, of placing him at further disad-
vantage, or, as one of the speakers in the late debate
expressed it, of giving him more weight to carry in
the hard race he has to run, must be too apparent to
need further exposition. And if circumstances will
not permit the manufacturers to increase the price of
their goods, so as to enable them to pay the same
wages for a less quantity produced, can they afford
to pay increased wages by a corresponding diminution
of their profits? Not, if we may judge from the case
of Messrs. Fielden, which has recently been before
the public. This firm, one of the most important in
Lancashire, when required to return their profits on an
average of three years, for the income-tax, returned
—nothing ! and so firmly did they adhere to this
declaration, that they submitted to have a portion of
their effects seized and sold by auction, to defray the
surcharge imposed on them by the Commissioners,
rather than give the slightest ground for suspicion,
by voluntary payment, that they had stated what
was untrue. The Messrs. Fielden then, have no
profits out of which to pay an increase of wages, and
if their case bears any affinity to that of others,
which we may reasonably suppose it does, the manu-
facturers in the North generally, are not in a
condition to submit to any reduction of their profits.
Even supposing that they were, is it likely,
in the present state of the labour market,
where the difficulty is not to procure hands
but to
.obtain employment, that the manu-
facturers, who by this circumstance have all the
power on their side, would consent to suffer any such
deduction for the purpose of paying the same wages
for less work, or, which is the same thing, an advance
of wages. Would not the workmen be the first to
suffer ? Would not the loss first fall upon them ? Do
we not always find it thus in the social scale, that the
burden is shifted from those above to those below, so
long as it can be shifted; that distress always begins
at the bottom and makes its way upward, or that, in
familiar phrase the weakest goes to the wall ? As-
suming that it were possible by legislation to reduce the
hours of labour, and yet keep wages at their present
rate, it follows as a natural corollary, that it is
equally within the power of legislation to raise wages
• without increasing the hours of labour, or the quan-
tity to be performed. The very belief in such a
power is fraught with infinite mischief. It must lead
to expectations never destined to be realised, create
dissatisfaction at an assumed preference shown to
particular classes of workmen, and lead to Parlia-
ment being perpetually called upon to legislate for
the regulation of matters, that are in reality governed
by laws which it may thwart but cannot control. If
Lord Ashley believes that Parliament can curtail
the hours of labour without effecting a corresponding
diminution of wages, he must believe that it can
increase wages without a corresponding increase of
labour. Why not turn his attention then to procuring
this much-wanted increase for the wretched agricul-
tural population in his own county ofDorset, where one-
seventh of the labourers are paupers, and the rest even
worse off than they? What need for him to look far
away to find objects on which to expend the fulness
of his benevolent heart, when they are thronging al-
most around his own door? Lord Ashley knows that
it is not in the power of Parliament to raise wages by
direct legislation, and therefore he attempts nothing
so Quixotic. But his legislation can only benefit the
operatives by a similar process, by giving them the
same amount of wages for a less quantity of work.
If it reduce their wages, as it assuredly would do, so
far from being a benefit, it would be a hardship to
them. On this account we regard his efforts as the
offspring of a partial and mistaken humanity which
overlooks consequences, pays no attention to results,
and might produce transient good at the cost of wide-
spread and lasting evil.—Worcestershire Chronicle.
Since our hurried remarks were written last week,
we have seen no argument to induce us to alter our
opinion ; we do not deny for a moment the desirable-
ness of a lower rate of labour being accorded to the
operatives of all classes, but we are convinced that the
compulsion to this by legislative enactment will only
defeat its own purpose by forcing the master to • lower
the rate of wages. Perhaps the simplest way to put
the effect produced by this diminution of labour would
be the following :—A manufacturer, employing 600
hands, is enabled to make a certain quantity of goods in
a week, which he sells in the market for such a price
as will barely enable him to pay his workmen and
get a living profit. Under the operation of Lord
Ashley's clause, the hours of labour would be reduced
one-sixth ; his 600 men would only now do the work
of 500 before ; they would take seven days now to do
what would have been a week's work formerly ; in
fact, the productiveness of his factory is reduced one-
sixth, and his returns are diminished in proportion ;
and as of course it is impossible to get the same
amount of profit out of five-sixths in amount of work,
it is evident that some one must suffer, and it is also
evident that that some one will be the workman him-
self, for the master must either reduce the gross
total of his wages, or increase the gross number
of his hands' and in either case at a reduction of
the wages of his individual workmen. As we said
before, the question is one of A B C; the conse-
quence must follow, despite of all legislative interfe-