The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-11 00:00:00

to prop up an old one, and in courting the alliance
of the Spinner Interest (12 or 13,000, we believe, or
thereabouts), as a new prop to the Landlord Interest,
and outwork against the Anti-Corn-law League. And
those who think the landowner ought to get his 20s.
premium on his quarter of wheat, mar consistently
think the spinners should get whatever Time Bil
delegates ask for. Because the maintenance of such
premium on home-grown wheat is equivalent to a decree
that the spinner shall work for the landowner's benefit.
It is equivalent to a decree that the money the spinner
earns abroad he shall lay out on dear wheat at home.
Well—if the landowner finds the intensity. of com-
petition for his high-priced wheat too painful for his
feelings to witness, he may be consistent in seeking to
moderate it. He may be consistent in saying to his
factory slaves—" Don't work so hard—don't be so eager
in earning your half-rations. You won't get any the
more fcr it; I can telr you that—l keep the key of the
corn-chest." This may be consistent, if not remarkably
sane, in restrictionists. It may also—for what we care
to dispute—be "gracious," as the Times says, and all
the rest of it. It may infinitely strengthen her Ma-
jesty's throne, that her faithful Commons should dis-
pense such " favours" to the working people.. It may
be (and we confess- that it would be) carrying Out
the principle of protection to its due consequences. For
the assumed virtue of protection is to raise all classes to
a privileged elevation. Any class, therefore, which com-
plains protection has not raised it, has a right to its Act
of Parliament. If the landed interest is to be
believed, it is the grand disposer of the fate of
the labouring people—its immense preponderance,
as a purchaser of their products, renders its patron-
age almost exclusively worth looking to. It follows
legitimately enough that this omnipotent patron,
this exclusive customer, may, whenever he chooses,
lighten the toils of his workers, as the Pharaohs might
have lessened the piece of pyramid to be turned out of
hand for the day's pittance of pulse ; or Mehemet
Ali the piece-work he expects from his toilers in
Egyptian bondage. If the landlords hold the
position they pretend to—then the terms of labour are
doubtless a proper object for their regulation. But the
Times, which would strip them of their sham omnipo-
tence—with what sense does it call on them to exert it?
Turn we to the Standard and Herald. The former says,
citing the memorial of- the millowners, that the average
of factory wages "is but 10s. aid. the week for indefi-
nite hours of labour as regards adults, and for four-
teen hours of labour from infants. In mere pecu-
niary receipts, then, the spinners are not in so much
better condition than the agricultural labourer."
Now the returns procured by the respectable heads of
firms whom we mentioned yesterday, were returns
from the Lancashire cotton mills'; and no writer, who
was not as ignorant, or ill-intentioned, as this one,
would have dared to make any such statement as the
above respecting their hours of work. The Standard
had already stated, in the very same leading article, that
of the factory workers 53 per cent. are under the age of'
21. All but the ignorant know, and none but the ill-in-
tentioned would knowingly falsify such a circumstance—.
that the maximum of work allowed in cotton mills to
hands under twenty-one is twelve hours during five days
of the week, and nine hours on Saturdays. Fifty-three
per cent. of the workpeople being, it appears, under
twenty-one, it is impossible that mills should be kept open
longer than the hours we have last mentioned. Under
thirteen years of age the Act of 1833 restricted the hours
of work still farther to eight; and the present Government
measure propose farther restriction. We are not now
discussing the policy of such legislation—it proceeds on
the idea of protecting infants—which is the sole prin-
ciple the Standard lays down, and then, as we have
seen, proceeds to falsify the present state of facts.
We advise the Herald to pause, before it has next
the effrontery to provoke exposures of such treatment of
facts by its evening partner or by itself—by indulging
in such silly and gratuitous insolence as the follow-
ing :—" We must ureservedly declare, that we have
scarcely seen an article in the London press, on the
side of cruelty, which has not borne upon it the most
evident signs of the kindred vice of falsehood." As the
Herald has the cool assurance to name the Globe in, con-
junction with such such language, it would have done
well to adduce, if it could, an instance of the " kindred
vice" in our columns. Really parties, whose lights (or
firebrands) are the Oastlers and Ferrands, should hold
their pens, if possessed of common prudence, respecting
that vice at least.