The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-25 00:00:00

(From the Leeds Meresry.)

By a strange combination of mistaken friends of humanity with
men who deliberately aim to cripple the manufacturing interest,
Lord Ashley has been enabled to carry his amendment on the Fac-
tories Bill, to restrict the labour of women and young persons
under 21 years of age to 10 hours a day. This extraordinary vote
was given by a majority of 179 to 170, on Monday last, against
the decided and strenuous opposition of the Government, and
against the declared and strong opinion of the Factory Inspectors.
Several of the Members who spoke in favour of Lord Ashley's
amendment seem to forget that the true principle of social eco-
nomy is to leave industry free and unrestrained; and that this is
not a principle of small importance, but one vital to the prospe-
rity of a nation, and connected with the personal liberty, the
dearest rights, and the substantial comforts of the people.
They seem also to forget that factory labour is not compulsory ;
it is purely voluntary. A factory worker, if out of health, or die-
satisfied with his treatment or remuneration, or induced by
any personal or domestic circumstance, or even by caprice,
may quit his work whenever he pleases. He sees men in a
thousand other occupations around him, and he may change his
line of life whenever he thinks fit, if by so doing he could better
himself.

They forget, too, that the high wages of factory workers—for
they art high, comparatively—obtain for them better food, better
clothing, better houses, and more of all the comforts of life, con-
ducive at once to health and to respectability, than could be had
for the lower wages which abridged labour could purchase.
• They forget, when talking of the selfishness of manufacturers—
who, by the way, are no more open to the charge than any other
class of men, and not so much so as that class which produces ha.
bitual scarcity of food in the country, for its own pecuniary advan-
tage—that the profits of the manufacturer are indissolubly con-
nected with the comforts of the labourer. Profits and wages rise
and fall together, and you cannot destroy or reduce the former,
without equally destroying or reducing the latter.
They apparently forget, that though the Legislature may fix a
maximum of labour, it cannot fix a minimum. It cannot provide
that the mills shall work ten hours, •r eight hours, or at all.
The talk about equalising labour is pure nonsense. To diminish
the productiveness of industry, has no tendency whatever to make
the demand for it more steady.
They seem to forget that the grand cause of the superior wealth
and greatness of England is the superior industry and energy of its
inhabitants; and that whatever fetters the latter endangers the
former.

They seem almost 'mahout exception to be ignorant that the
price of manufactured goods cannot be raised or kept up at the
pleasure either of the manufacturers or of the home consumers
(however self.denying the latter might be.) It is governed (so
long as we are an exporting nation) by the price of similar products
in the markets of the world ; and that price is itself governed by
the cost of production in the country where goods can be made the
cheapest. When we cease to manufacture cheaper than other
countries, we must cease to export; but we cannot cease to export
without ruining the country and starving its inhabitants. Would
this be "humanity ?"
Many, who talk of banishing women and children from the
mills, and setting adult men to do their work, forget that this
would be to degrade adult labour both in its character and its re.
-muneration. When men do the work of women and children,
they can only receive the wages of women and children. This
is the sole reason why the hand-loom weavers receive such miser.
able wages—it is work which women and children can do nearly
as well as men. But if the women and children should be driven
out of the mills, and the husbands and fathers should only receive
the wages which women and children received before, what would
be the condition of the families ? Their wages would not be re.
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Ten Hours' Bill, we would support it w'th all our hearts. We
would do it for their own sakes, because they are by far the greater
number, and therefore their interests are more important both in
the eyes of God and of all good men. But we would-do it also
for their masters' sakes; for we know that what was good for the