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

BILL.

On the Order of the Day for resuming the ad-
journed debate on this Bill being read,
Mr. M. MILNES said, that if he had been aware
that any other Hon. Member wished to adjourn the
debate, he would not have trespassed on the
attention of the House on a question which had
already been sufficiently debated. He desired, how-
ever, to have an opportunity of expressing to her
Majesty's Government his regret for the words which
he had used on a former occasion, in the
heat of debate, and which, upon calm
reflection, he thought were disrespectful.
As far as those words were disrespectful, he begged
to offer to her Majesty's Government, and particu-
larly to the Right Hon. Gentleman the Secretary of
State for the Home Department, the most ample
apology. He was also most anxious to express
to the House his adherence to a phrase which fell
from him on a former occasion, a phrase by
which, grave as it was, he was prepared to
stand to—he meant the phrase, " The national
guilt of the unrestricted factory system." lie would
ask the House to remember the words which were
used by his Right Hon. Friend the late President of
the Board of Trade, the Hon. Member for Taunton,
who told them that, if their principles were just,
they had incurred great national guilt by not en-
forcing them sooner. He would ask any lion. Mem-
ber of that House who was familiar with foreign
countries, whether the English factory system was not
regarded by the whole of Europe as a great evil ?
He would ask whether, in return for all the obloquy
which we cast on America for her slavery, we were
not told to look to our factory system at
home, and to get rid of our white slavery, before
we reproached them for their black slavery.
There might be, in that reproach, much jealousy of
England and spite towards our commercial great--
ness. There was a time when our commer-
cial interests were represented as the factories
system now was. Even the poet Cowper
employed his talents to render our commerce
odious. It was true that the cause of all that obloquy
was our dealings in the slave trade, and did they not
remember that when some of the best men of the
country were labouring to procure the abolition of
that trade, they were met by arguments and sta-
tistics to prove that all the great interests involved
in our commerce would be destroyed. The same
arguments were now used against the abridgment of
children's labour in the factories, but he could not le-
lieve that they would not prove equally unfounded.
Should that House, which voted 20,000,0001. of the mo-
ney of the country to procure the abolition of slavery
in our own colonies, and in doing so risked the
security of the great and important West India in-
terest—should they hesitate to abolish every trace of
slavery at home? 13ut'what was slavery ? It was when
a human being held his life at the will of another.
Now what was life ? It was the living hour—it was
the power of religious instruction and moral educa-
tion; this it was that constituted the difference be-
tween the man and the slave. It became them, there-
fore to remove the evils that were existing in factories
with the same earnestness as they had set about re.
moving slavery. His Noble Friend had brought this
question forward, because it was impossible by any
other means that education could be given to the
young in factories. They might do all they could to
give education and recreation ; but if they continued
the system that existed with respect to young
people in factories they never could derive any
benefit.—(Haar, hear.) It was said that labour
alone was the property of the poor man ; he denied
that—he had a property as well as others in the bless-
ings of education and of life. The Hon. Member,
having adverted to several of the cases which had
been quoted on Friday night by the President
of the Board, observed that he considered
that the Right Honourable Baronet might as
well set up every tenth day as the Sabbath, as
he might speak in favour of this measure. He
considered his Noble Friend had made out an a priori
case, and he believed no one, with the exception of
lion. Baronet, the Member for the Tower Hamlets,
was of opinion that the factories in this country were
an Arcadia. It was a pity they were not so.
Every one had agreed that, supposing wages were
not diminished, there would be an advantage in the
women and children of the working classes having
their two hours each day. They had been met by
the declarations of the unadvised ability of interfering,
but that abstract question had been disposed of for
ever, by the enormous majority of that House. The
principle of protection had been admitted, and
the question was how far it should go. It had
been asked why they should interfere in this
subject and not elsewhere. They were bound to interfere
because they had the power, and with the power in-
curred the responsibility.. A.ll legislation consisted of