The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-13 00:00:00

Under the present law, all persons above
of eighteen, without distinction of sex, '
treated as adults, and no limitation of t'

labour imposed. Acting, however, u►

i)on the repre-
.s, with respect
g hours of labour
ames Graham has
under any circurn.
s. for more than twelve
cur—the inspectors them-
sours as the extreme ; thus
.e clause which applies to the la-
,ons," viz :—imposing upon them
:teen hours and a half per day, with
Jail' for " meals and rest." Regula-
J proposed for restricting the existing
,raking up for short time, for providing
accidents from machinery, and for other
tal purposes. The educational clauses, which
year excited so violent an uproar in the camp of
Assent, are omitted in the present bill, the Govern-
ment contenting itself with providing that a cer-
tificate from some school should be a necessary
condition to a child receiving employment, and
insisting that sufficient time be allowed for school
attendance. Of course the voluntary efforts now
making to provide efficient schools, have had some
share in inducing this determinations
We cannot say that we are at all satisfied with
this measure, although we acknowledge the value of
many of it.: provisions. So far as the clause limiting
the hours of labour of children, from nine to thirteen
years of age, is concerned, it has our unqualified
approbation. No child of such tender years ought
to he immured in the factory for more than half the
working day, thus depriving it of the recreation
necessary to its growth and health, and of the
opportunity of mental cultivation. But we should
have been glad to see some provision made, with
respect to the kind of schools empowered to grant
certificates. If we do not insist upon the education
provided being education in the tenets of, and regu-
lated by, the Church of England, still we are bound
to take care that it is sound and wholesome educa-
tion, conducted by competent persons, and not the
mockery of education which has been afforded un-
der the existing measure.

the age
nave been
ne hours of

sentations of the Factory Inspect©►

to the injurious results, of the lon
imposed upon females, Sir J'

decided that no female shoule

stances, ba required to worl

hours out. of the twenty-f&
Selves recommend. ten.

placing them under, ti,

bour of " youngyer

attendance for thi'
an hour and a

tions are als,

power of

against
renlet3

last

With respect to the clauses affecting "young
persons " between the ages of thirteen and eighteen
years, we have strong objections to them. For a
boy of such tender years—for a girl just verging
upon womanhood—who can deny that thirteen
hours and a half's attendance upon the drudgery of
the factory, with but an hour and a half per day for
" meals and rest " (o—for meals which, in five
cases out of nine, must be taken with the factory
floor for a table, and " rest" which cannot be
taken at all—is a slavery alike destructive to health
and to morality ? Such a proposition is disgraceful
to Sir James Graham, and savours far too much of
the heartless utilitarianism of " liberal" philosophy
to be acceptable to the English people. It will be
scouted, we do not hesitate to say, by nine-tenths of
the manufacturing population, who, for this class of
workers at least, must have and will have a TEN
HOURS BILL.
There is one consideration connected with these
and the preceding clauses, which strikes us as a
formidable obstacle to their working advantageously
together. You restrict the labour of children, under
thirteen, to six hours and a half per day, and thus
render necessary a double seta of such hands for
each factory. You have thus a growing population
training up to factory labour, one half of whom may
possibly be surplus hands on reaching the age when
they may be allowed to be plunged into the full
drudgery of factory life. What, we ask, is to be
done with this surplus ? The difficulty of the ques•
tion is great, and we do not pretend to be able to
solve it satisfactorily. It must he met, however;
and we cannot see how, except by further restric-
tions on the hours of labour of the class styled
" young persons," and limitation especially of the
hours of female labour.