No More Learning

Why, is there a single good which in this way I could not prove
to be an evil, or a single evil which I could not prove to be a good?
Take lameness. I will prove that it is the best thing in the world to
be lame: for I can show you men who are lame, and yet much happier than
many men who have the full use of their legs. I will prove health to be
a calamity. For I can easily find you people in excellent health whose
fortunes have been wrecked, whose character has been blasted, and who
are more wretched than many invalids. But is that the way in which any
man of common sense reasons? No; the question is: Would not the lame man
be happier if you restored to him the use of his limbs? Would not the
healthy man be more wretched if he had gout and rheumatism in addition
to all his other calamities? Would not the Englishman be better off
if food were as cheap here as in Poland? Would not the Pole be more
miserable if food were as dear in Poland as here? More miserable indeed
he would not long be: for he would be dead in a month.

It is evident that the true way of determining the question which we
are considering, is to compare the state of a society when food is cheap
with the state of that same society when food is dear; and this is a
comparison which we can very easily make. We have only to recall to our
memory what we have ourselves seen within the last ten years. Take the
year 1835. Food was cheap then; and the capitalist prospered greatly.
But was the labouring man miserable? On the contrary, it is notorious
that work was plentiful, that wages were high, that the common people
were thriving and contented. Then came a change like that in Pharaoh's
dream. The thin ears had blighted the full ears; the lean kine had
devoured the fat kine; the days of plenty were over; and the days of
dearth had arrived. In 1841 the capitalist was doubtless distressed. But
will anybody tell me that the capitalist was the only sufferer, or the
chief sufferer? Have we forgotten what was the condition of the
working people in that unhappy year? So visible was the misery of the
manufacturing towns that a man of sensibility could hardly bear to pass
through them. Everywhere he found filth and nakedness, and plaintive
voices, and wasted forms, and haggard faces. Politicians who had never
been thought alarmists began to tremble for the very foundations of
society. First the mills were put on short time. Then they ceased to
work at all. Then went to pledge the scanty property of the artisan:
first his little luxuries, then his comforts, then his necessaries. The
hovels were stripped till they were as bare as the wigwam of a Dogribbed
Indian. Alone, amidst the general misery, the shop with the three golden
balls prospered, and was crammed from cellar to garret with the clocks,
and the tables, and the kettles, and the blankets, and the bibles of
the poor. I remember well the effect which was produced in London by the
unwonted sight of the huge pieces of cannon which were going northward
to overawe the starving population of Lancashire. These evil days passed
away. Since that time we have again had cheap bread. The capitalist has
been a gainer. It was fit that he should be a gainer. But has he been
the only gainer? Will those who are always telling us that the Polish
labourer is worse off than the English labourer venture to tell us that
the English labourer was worse off in 1844 than in 1841? Have we not
everywhere seen the goods of the poor coming back from the magazine of
the pawnbroker? Have we not seen in the house of the working man, in his
clothing, in his very looks as he passed us in the streets, that he
was a happier being? As to his pleasures, and especially as to the
most innocent, the most salutary, of his pleasures, ask your own most
intelligent and useful fellow citizen Mr Robert Chambers what sale
popular books had in the year 1841, and what sale they had last year.
I am assured that, in one week of 1845, the sums paid in wages within
twenty miles of Manchester exceeded by a million and a half the sums
paid in the corresponding week of 1841.

Gentlemen, both the capitalist and the labourer have been gainers,
as they ought to have been gainers, by the diminution in the price of
bread. But there is a third party, which ought not to have gained by
that diminution, and yet has gained very greatly by it; and that party
is Her Majesty's present Government. It is for the interest of rulers
that those whom they rule should be prosperous. But the prosperity which
we have lately enjoyed was a prosperity for which we were not indebted
to our rulers. It came in spite of them. It was produced by the
cheapness of that which they had laboured to render dear. Under pretence
of making us independent of foreign supply, they have established a
system which makes us dependent in the worst possible way. As my valued
friend, the Lord Provost (Mr Adam Black. ), has justly said, there is
a mutual dependence among nations of which we cannot get rid. That
Providence has assigned different productions to different climates is a
truth with which everybody is familiar. But this is not all. Even in
the same climate different productions belong to different stages of
civilisation. As one latitude is favourable to the vine and another to
the sugar cane, so there is, in the same latitude, a state of society in
which it is desirable that the industry of men should be almost entirely
directed towards the cultivation of the earth, and another state of
society in which it is desirable that a large part of the population
should be employed in manufactures. No dependence can be conceived more
natural, more salutary, more free from everything like degradation
than the mutual dependence which exists between a nation which has a
boundless extent of fertile land, and a nation which has a boundless
command of machinery; between a nation whose business is to turn deserts
into corn fields, and a nation whose business is to increase tenfold by
ingenious processes the value of the fleece and of the rude iron ore.
Even if that dependence were less beneficial than it is, we must
submit to it; for it is inevitable. Make what laws we will, we must be
dependent on other countries for a large part of our food. That point
was decided when England ceased to be an exporting country. For,
gentlemen, it is demonstrable that none but a country which ordinarily
exports food can be independent of foreign supplies. If a manufacturer
determines to produce ten thousand pair of stockings, he will produce
the ten thousand, and neither more nor less. But an agriculturist
cannot determine that he will produce ten thousand quarters of corn,
and neither more nor less. That he may be sure of having ten thousand
quarters in a bad year, he must sow such a quantity of land that he will
have much more than ten thousand in a good year. It is evident that, if
our island does not in ordinary years produce many more quarters than we
want, it will in bad years produce fewer quarters than we want. And it
is equally evident that our cultivators will not produce more quarters
of corn than we want, unless they can export the surplus at a profit.
Nobody ventures to tell us that Great Britain can be ordinarily an
exporting country. It follows that we must be dependent: and the only
question is, Which is the best mode of dependence? That question it is
not difficult to answer. Go to Lancashire; see that multitude of cities,
some of them equal in size to the capitals of large kingdoms. Look at
the warehouses, the machinery, the canals, the railways, the docks.
See the stir of that hive of human beings busily employed in making,
packing, conveying stuffs which are to be worn in Canada and Caffraria,
in Chili and Java. You naturally ask, How is this immense population,
collected on an area which will not yield food for one tenth part of
them, to be nourished? But change the scene. Go beyond the Ohio, and
there you will see another species of industry, equally extensive and
equally flourishing. You will see the wilderness receding fast before
the advancing tide of life and civilisation, vast harvests waving round
the black stumps of what a few months ago was a pathless forest, and
cottages, barns, mills, rising amidst the haunts of the wolf and the
bear. Here is more than enough corn to feed the artisans of our thickly
peopled island; and most gladly would the grower of that corn exchange
it for a Sheffield knife, a Birmingham spoon, a warm coat of Leeds
woollen cloth, a light dress of Manchester cotton. But this exchange our
rulers prohibit. They say to our manufacturing population, "You would
willingly weave clothes for the people of America, and they would gladly
sow wheat for you; but we prohibit this intercourse. We condemn both
your looms and their ploughs to inaction. We will compel you to pay a
high price for a stinted meal. We will compel those who would gladly be
your purveyors and your customers to be your rivals. We will compel them
to turn manufacturers in self-defence; and when, in close imitation of
us, they impose high duties on British goods for the protection of their
own produce, we will, in our speeches and despatches, express wonder and
pity at their strange ignorance of political economy. "

Such has been the policy of Her Majesty's Ministers; but it has not yet
been fairly brought to the trial. Good harvests have prevented bad laws
from producing their full effect. The Government has had a run of luck;
and vulgar observers have mistaken luck for wisdom. But such runs of
luck do not last forever. Providence will not always send the rain and
the sunshine just at such a time and in such a quantity as to save
the reputation of shortsighted statesmen. There is too much reason to
believe that evil days are approaching. On such a subject it is a
sacred duty to avoid exaggeration; and I shall do so. I observe that
the writers,--wretched writers they are,--who defend the present
Administration, assert that there is no probability of a considerable
rise in the price of provisions, and that the Whigs and the
Anti-Corn-Law League are busily engaged in circulating false reports for
the vile purpose of raising a panic. Now, gentlemen, it shall not be
in the power of anybody to throw any such imputation on me; for I shall
describe our prospects in the words of the Ministers themselves. I
hold in my hand a letter in which Sir Thomas Freemantle, Secretary for
Ireland, asks for information touching the potato crop in that country.
His words are these. "Her Majesty's Government is seeking to learn the
opinion of judges and well informed persons in every part of Ireland
regarding the probability of the supply being sufficient for the support
of the people during the ensuing winter and spring, provided care be
taken in preserving the stock, and economy used in its consumption. "
Here, you will observe, it is taken for granted that the supply is
not sufficient for a year's consumption: it is taken for granted that,
without care and economy, the supply will not last to the end of the
spring; and a doubt is expressed whether, with care and economy, the
supply will last even through the winter. In this letter the Ministers
of the Crown tell us that famine is close at hand; and yet, when this
letter was written, the duty on foreign corn was seventeen shillings
a quarter. Is it necessary to say more about the merits of the sliding
scale? We were assured that this wonderful piece of machinery would
secure us against all danger of scarcity. But unhappily we find that
there is a hitch; the sliding scale will not slide; the Ministers are
crying "Famine," while the index which they themselves devised is still
pointing to "Plenty. "

And thus, Sir, I come back to the resolution which I hold in my hand, A
dear year is before us. The price of meal is already, I believe, half as
much again as it was a few months ago. Again, unhappily, we are able
to bring to the test of facts the doctrine, that the dearness of food
benefits the labourer and injures only the capitalist. The price of
food is rising. Are wages rising? On the contrary, they are falling. In
numerous districts the symptoms of distress are already perceptible.
The manufacturers are already beginning to work short time. Warned by
repeated experience, they know well what is coming, and expect that 1846
will be a second 1841.

If these things do not teach us wisdom, we are past all teaching. Twice
in ten years we have seen the price of corn go up; and, as it went up,
the wages of the labouring classes went down. Twice in the same period
we have seen the price of corn go down; and, as it went down, the wages
of the labouring classes went up. Surely such experiments as these would
in any science be considered as decisive.

The prospect, gentlemen, is, doubtless, gloomy. Yet it has its bright
part. I have already congratulated you on the important fact that
Lord John Russell and those who have hitherto acted on this subject in
concert with him, have given up all thoughts of fixed duty. I have to
congratulate you on another fact not less important. I am assured that
the working people of the manufacturing districts have at last come to
understand this question. The sharp discipline which they have undergone
has produced this good effect; that they will never again listen to any
orator who shall have the effrontery to tell them that their wages rise
and fall with the price of the loaf. Thus we shall go into the contest
under such leading and with such a following as we never had before. The
best part of the aristocracy will be at our head. Millions of labouring
men, who had been separated from us by the arts of impostors, will be
in our rear. So led and so followed, we may, I think, look forward to
victory, if not in this, yet in the next Parliament. But, whether our
triumph be near or remote, I assure you that I shall not fail as regards
this question, to prove myself your true representative. I will now, my
Lord, put into your hands this resolution, "That the present corn law
presses with especial severity on the poorer classes. "

*****




THE TEN HOURS BILL. (MAY 22, 1846) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 22D OF MAY 1846.

On the twenty-ninth of April, 1846, Mr Fielden, Member for Oldham, moved
the second reading of a Bill for limiting the labour of young persons
in factories to ten hours a day. The debate was adjourned, and was
repeatedly resumed at long intervals. At length, on the twenty-second of
May the Bill was rejected by 203 votes to 193. On that day the following
Speech was made.

It is impossible, Sir, that I can remain silent after the appeal which
has been made to me in so pointed a manner by my honourable friend, the
Member for Sheffield (Mr Ward. ), and even if that appeal had not been
made to me, I should have been very desirous to have an opportunity of
explaining the grounds on which I shall vote for the second reading of
this bill.

It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to assure my honourable friend that
I utterly disapprove of those aspersions which have, both in this House
and out of it, been thrown on the owners of factories. For that valuable
class of men I have no feeling but respect and good will. I am convinced
that with their interests the interests of the whole community, and
especially of the labouring classes, are inseparably bound up. I can
also with perfect sincerity declare that the vote which I shall give
to-night will not be a factious vote. In no circumstances indeed should
I think that the laws of political hostility warranted me in treating
this question as a party question. But at the present moment I would
much rather strengthen than weaken the hands of Her Majesty's Ministers.
It is by no means pleasant to me to be under the necessity of opposing
them. I assure them, I assure my friends on this side of the House with
whom I am so unfortunate as to differ, and especially my honourable
friend the Member for Sheffield, who spoke, I must say, in rather too
plaintive a tone, that I have no desire to obtain credit for humanity at
their expense. I fully believe that their feeling towards the labouring
people is quite as kind as mine. There is no difference between us as
to ends: there is an honest difference of opinion as to means: and we
surely ought to be able to discuss the points on which we differ without
one angry emotion or one acrimonious word.

The details of the bill, Sir, will be more conveniently and more
regularly discussed when we consider it in Committee. Our business at
present is with the principle: and the principle, we are told by many
gentlemen of great authority, is unsound. In their opinion, neither
this bill, nor any other bill regulating the hours of labour, can be
defended. This, they say, is one of those matters about which we ought
not to legislate at all; one of those matters which settle themselves
far better than any government can settle them. Now it is most important
that this point should be fully cleared up. We certainly ought not to
usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other
hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to
us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal
government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which
intrudes itself into every part of human life, and which thinks that it
can do everything for everybody better than anybody can do anything for
himself; or a careless, lounging government, which suffers grievances,
such as it could at once remove, to grow and multiply, and which to
all complaint and remonstrance has only one answer: "We must let things
alone: we must let things take their course: we must let things find
their level. " There is no more important problem in politics than to
ascertain the just mean between these two most pernicious extremes, to
draw correctly the line which divides those cases in which it is the
duty of the State to interfere from those cases in which it is the duty
of the State to abstain from interference. In old times the besetting
sin of rulers was undoubtedly an inordinate disposition to meddle. The
lawgiver was always telling people how to keep their shops, how to till
their fields, how to educate their children, how many dishes to have
on their tables, how much a yard to give for the cloth which made their
coats. He was always trying to remedy some evil which did not properly
fall within his province: and the consequence was that he increased
the evils which he attempted to remedy. He was so much shocked by
the distress inseparable from scarcity that he made statutes against
forestalling and regrating, and so turned the scarcity into a famine. He
was so much shocked by the cunning and hardheartedness of money-lenders
that he made laws against usury; and the consequence was that the
borrower, who, if he had been left unprotected, would have got money at
ten per cent. , could hardly, when protected, get it at fifteen per cent.
Some eminent political philosophers of the last century exposed with
great ability the folly of such legislation, and, by doing so, rendered
a great service to mankind. There has been a reaction, a reaction which
has doubtless produced much good, but which like most reactions, has not
been without evils and dangers. Our statesmen cannot now be accused of
being busybodies. But I am afraid that there is, even in some of the
ablest and most upright among them a tendency to the opposite fault.
I will give an instance of what I mean. Fifteen years ago it became
evident that railroads would soon, in every part of the kingdom,
supersede to a great extent the old highways. The tracing of the
new routes which were to join all the chief cities, ports, and naval
arsenals of the island was a matter of the highest national importance.
But, unfortunately, those who should have acted for the nation, refused
to interfere. Consequently, numerous questions which were really public,
questions which concerned the public convenience, the public prosperity,
the public security, were treated as private questions. That the whole
society was interested in having a good system of internal communication
seemed to be forgotten. The speculator who wanted a large dividend
on his shares, the landowner who wanted a large price for his acres,
obtained a full hearing. But nobody applied to be heard on behalf of
the community. The effects of that great error we feel, and we shall not
soon cease to feel. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we are in danger of
committing to-night an error of the same kind. The honourable member for
Montrose (Mr Hume. ) and my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield
think that the question before us is merely a question between the old
and the new theories of commerce. They cannot understand how any
friend of free trade can wish the Legislature to interfere between the
capitalist and the labourer. They say, "You do not make a law to settle
the price of gloves, or the texture of gloves, or the length of credit
which the glover shall give. You leave it to him to determine whether
he will charge high or low prices, whether he will use strong or
flimsy materials, whether he will trust or insist on ready money. You
acknowledge that these are matters which he ought to be left to settle
with his customers, and that we ought not to interfere. It is possible
that he may manage his shop ill. But it is certain that we shall manage
it ill. On the same grounds on which you leave the seller of gloves and
the buyer of gloves to make their own contract, you ought to leave the
seller of labour and the buyer of labour to make their own contract. "

I have a great respect, Sir, for those who reason thus: but I cannot see
this matter in the light in which it appears to them; and, though I may
distrust my own judgment, I must be guided by it. I am, I believe, as
strongly attached as any member of this House to the principle of free
trade, rightly understood. Trade, considered merely as trade, considered
merely with reference to the pecuniary interest of the contracting
parties, can hardly be too free. But there is a great deal of trade
which cannot be considered merely as trade, and which affects higher
than pecuniary interests. And to say that Government never ought to
regulate such trade is a monstrous proposition, a proposition at which
Adam Smith would have stood aghast. We impose some restrictions on trade
for purposes of police. Thus, we do not suffer everybody who has a cab
and a horse to ply for passengers in the streets of London. We do not
leave the fare to be determined by the supply and the demand. We do not
permit a driver to extort a guinea for going half a mile on a rainy day
when there is no other vehicle on the stand. We impose some restrictions
on trade for the sake of revenue. Thus, we forbid a farmer to cultivate
tobacco on his own ground. We impose some restrictions on trade for
the sake of national defence. Thus we compel a man who would rather be
ploughing or weaving to go into the militia; and we fix the amount of
pay which he shall receive without asking his consent. Nor is there in
all this anything inconsistent with the soundest political economy. For
the science of political economy teaches us only that we ought not on
commercial grounds to interfere with the liberty of commerce; and we,
in the cases which I have put, interfere with the liberty of commerce on
higher than commercial grounds.

And now, Sir, to come closer to the case with which we have to deal, I
say, first, that where the health of the community is concerned, it may
be the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals;
and to this proposition I am quite sure that Her Majesty's Government
will cordially assent. I have just read a very interesting report signed
by two members of that Government, the Duke of Buccleuch, and the noble
earl who was lately Chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, and
who is now Secretary for Ireland (The Earl of Lincoln. ); and, since that
report was laid before the House, the noble earl himself has, with the
sanction of the Cabinet, brought in a bill for the protection of
the public health. By this bill it is provided that no man shall be
permitted to build a house on his own land in any great town without
giving notice to certain Commissioners. No man is to sink a cellar
without the consent of these Commissioners. The house must not be of
less than a prescribed width. No new house must be built without a
drain.
If an old house has no drain, the Commissioners may order the
owner to make a drain. If he refuses, they make a drain for him, and
send him in the bill. They may order him to whitewash his house. If he
refuses, they may send people with pails and brushes to whitewash it for
him, at his charge. Now, suppose that some proprietor of houses at Leeds
or Manchester were to expostulate with the Government in the language in
which the Government has expostulated with the supporters of this bill
for the regulation of factories. Suppose he were to say to the noble
earl, "Your lordship professes to be a friend to free trade. Your
lordship's doctrine is that everybody ought to be at liberty to buy
cheap and to sell dear. Why then may not I run up a house as cheap as
I can, and let my rooms as dear as I can? Your lordship does not like
houses without drains. Do not take one of mine then. You think my
bedrooms filthy. Nobody forces you to sleep in them. Use your own
liberty: but do not restrain that of your neighbours. I can find many
a family willing to pay a shilling a week for leave to live in what
you call a hovel. And why am not I to take the shilling which they are
willing to give me? And why are not they to have such shelter as, for
that shilling, I can afford them? Why did you send a man without my
consent to clean my house, and then force me to pay for what I never
ordered? My tenants thought the house clean enough for them; or they
would not have been my tenants; and, if they and I were satisfied,
why did you, in direct defiance of all the principles of free trade,
interfere between us? " This reasoning, Sir, is exactly of a piece
with the reasoning of the honourable Member for Montrose, and of my
honourable friend the Member for Sheffield. If the noble earl will
allow me to make a defence for him, I believe that he would answer the
objection thus: "I hold," he would say, "the sound doctrine of free
trade. But your doctrine of free trade is an exaggeration, a caricature
of the sound doctrine; and by exhibiting such a caricature you bring
discredit on the sound doctrine. We should have nothing to do with the
contracts between you and your tenants, if those contracts affected only
pecuniary interests. But higher than pecuniary interests are at stake.
It concerns the commonwealth that the great body of the people should
not live in a way which makes life wretched and short, which enfeebles
the body and pollutes the mind. If, by living in houses which resemble
hogstyes, great numbers of our countrymen have contracted the tastes
of hogs, if they have become so familiar with filth and stench and
contagion, that they burrow without reluctance in holes which would turn
the stomach of any man of cleanly habits, that is only an additional
proof that we have too long neglected our duties, and an additional
reason for our now performing them. "

Secondly, I say that where the public morality is concerned it may be
the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals.
Take the traffic in licentious books and pictures. Will anybody deny
that the State may, with propriety, interdict that traffic? Or take the
case of lotteries. I have, we will suppose, an estate for which I
wish to get twenty thousand pounds. I announce my intention to issue a
thousand tickets at twenty pounds each. The holder of the number which
is first drawn is to have the estate. But the magistrate interferes; the
contract between me and the purchasers of my tickets is annulled; and
I am forced to pay a heavy penalty for having made such a contract. I
appeal to the principle of free trade, as expounded by the honourable
gentlemen the Members for Montrose and Sheffield. I say to you, the
legislators who have restricted my liberty, "What business have you to
interfere between a buyer and a seller? If you think the speculation
a bad one, do not take tickets. But do not interdict other people from
judging for themselves. " Surely you would answer, "You would be right if
this were a mere question of trade: but it is a question of morality.
We prohibit you from disposing of your property in this particular mode,
because it is a mode which tends to encourage a most pernicious habit of
mind, a habit of mind incompatible with all the qualities on which the
well-being of individuals and of nations depends. "

It must then, I think, be admitted that, where health is concerned, and
where morality is concerned, the State is justified in interfering with
the contracts of individuals. And, if this be admitted, it follows that
the case with which we now have to do is a case for interference.

Will it be denied that the health of a large part of the rising
generation may be seriously affected by the contracts which this bill
is intended to regulate? Can any man who has read the evidence which is
before us, can any man who has ever observed young people, can any man
who remembers his own sensations when he was young, doubt that twelve
hours a day of labour in a factory is too much for a lad of thirteen?

Or will it be denied that this is a question in which public morality is
concerned? Can any one doubt,--none, I am sure, of my friends around
me doubts,--that education is a matter of the highest importance to
the virtue and happiness of a people? Now we know that there can be no
education without leisure. It is evident that, after deducting from
the day twelve hours for labour in a factory, and the additional hours
necessary for exercise, refreshment, and repose, there will not remain
time enough for education.

I have now, I think, shown that this bill is not in principle
objectionable; and yet I have not touched the strongest part of our
case. I hold that, where public health is concerned, and where public
morality is concerned, the State may be justified in regulating even the
contracts of adults. But we propose to regulate only the contracts of
infants. Now, was there ever a civilised society in which the contracts
of infants were not under some regulation? Is there a single member of
this House who will say that a wealthy minor of thirteen ought to be at
perfect liberty to execute a conveyance of his estate, or to give a bond
for fifty thousand pounds? If anybody were so absurd as to say, "What
has the Legislature to do with the matter? Why cannot you leave trade
free? Why do you pretend to understand the boy's interest better than he
understands it? "--you would answer; "When he grows up, he may squander
his fortune away if he likes: but at present the State is his guardian;
and he shall not ruin himself till he is old enough to know what he
is about. " The minors whom we wish to protect have not indeed large
property to throw away: but they are not the less our wards. Their only
inheritance, the only fund to which they must look for their subsistence
through life, is the sound mind in the sound body. And is it not our
duty to prevent them from wasting their most precious wealth before they
know its value?

But, it is said, this bill, though it directly limits only the labour
of infants, will, by an indirect operation, limit also the labour of
adults. Now, Sir, though I am not prepared to vote for a bill directly
limiting the labour of adults, I will plainly say that I do not think
that the limitation of the labour of adults would necessarily produce
all those frightful consequences which we have heard predicted. You
cheer me in very triumphant tones, as if I had uttered some monstrous
paradox. Pray, does it not occur to any of you that the labour of adults
is now limited in this country? Are you not aware that you are living in
a society in which the labour of adults is limited to six days in seven?
It is you, not I, who maintain a paradox opposed to the opinions and
the practices of all nations and ages. Did you ever hear of a single
civilised State since the beginning of the world in which a certain
portion of time was not set apart for the rest and recreation of adults
by public authority? In general, this arrangement has been sanctioned
by religion. The Egyptians, the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, had their
holidays: the Hindoo has his holidays: the Mussulman has his holidays:
there are holidays in the Greek Church, holidays in the Church of Rome,
holidays in the Church of England. Is it not amusing to hear a gentleman
pronounce with confidence that any legislation which limits the labour
of adults must produce consequences fatal to society, without once
reflecting that in the society in which he lives, and in every
other society that exists, or ever has existed, there has been such
legislation without any evil consequence? It is true that a Puritan
Government in England, and an Atheistical Government in France,
abolished the old holidays as superstitious. But those Governments felt
it to be absolutely necessary to institute new holidays. Civil festivals
were substituted for religious festivals. You will find among the
ordinances of the Long Parliament a law providing that, in exchange for
the days of rest and amusement which the people had been used to enjoy
at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, the second Tuesday in every month
should be given to the working man, and that any apprentice who was
forced to work on the second Tuesday of any month might have his master
up before a magistrate. The French Jacobins decreed that the Sunday
should no longer be a day of rest; but they instituted another day of
rest, the Decade. They swept away the holidays of the Roman Catholic
Church; but they instituted another set of holidays, the Sansculottides,
one sacred to Genius, one to Industry, one to Opinion, and so on. I say,
therefore, that the practice of limiting by law the time of the labour
of adults is so far from being, as some gentlemen seem to think, an
unheard of and monstrous practice, that it is a practice as universal as
cookery, as the wearing of clothes, as the use of domestic animals.

And has this practice been proved by experience to be pernicious? Let us
take the instance with which we are most familiar. Let us inquire what
has been the effect of those laws which, in our own country, limit the
labour of adults to six days in every seven. It is quite unnecessary to
discuss the question whether Christians be or be not bound by a divine
command to observe the Sunday. For it is evident that, whether our
weekly holiday be of divine or of human institution, the effect on the
temporal interests of Society will be exactly the same. Now, is there a
single argument in the whole Speech of my honourable friend the Member
for Sheffield which does not tell just as strongly against the laws
which enjoin the observance of the Sunday as against the bill on our
table? Surely, if his reasoning is good for hours, it must be equally
good for days.

He says, "If this limitation be good for the working people, rely on it
that they will find it out, and that they will themselves establish it
without any law. " Why not reason in the same way about the Sunday? Why
not say, "If it be a good thing for the people of London to shut their
shops one day in seven, they will find it out, and will shut their shops
without a law? " Sir, the answer is obvious. I have no doubt that, if
you were to poll the shopkeepers of London, you would find an immense
majority, probably a hundred to one, in favour of closing shops on the
Sunday; and yet it is absolutely necessary to give to the wish of the
majority the sanction of a law; for, if there were no such law, the
minority, by opening their shops, would soon force the majority to do
the same.

But, says my honourable friend, you cannot limit the labour of adults
unless you fix wages. This proposition he lays down repeatedly,
assures us that it is incontrovertible, and indeed seems to think it
self-evident; for he has not taken the trouble to prove it. Sir, my
answer shall be very short. We have, during many centuries, limited the
labour of adults to six days in seven; and yet we have not fixed the
rate of wages.

But, it is said, you cannot legislate for all trades; and therefore you
had better not legislate for any. Look at the poor sempstress. She works
far longer and harder than the factory child. She sometimes plies her
needle fifteen, sixteen hours in the twenty-four. See how the housemaid
works, up at six every morning, and toiling up stairs and down stairs
till near midnight. You own that you cannot do anything for the
sempstress and the housemaid. Why then trouble yourself about the
factory child? Take care that by protecting one class you do not
aggravate the hardships endured by the classes which you cannot protect.
Why, Sir, might not all this be said, word for word, against the laws
which enjoin the observance of the Sunday? There are classes of people
whom you cannot prevent from working on the Sunday. There are classes of
people whom, if you could, you ought not to prevent from working on the
Sunday. Take the sempstress, of whom so much has been said. You cannot
keep her from sewing and hemming all Sunday in her garret. But you
do not think that a reason for suffering Covent Garden Market, and
Leadenhall Market, and Smithfield Market, and all the shops from Mile
End to Hyde Park to be open all Sunday. Nay, these factories about which
we are debating,--does anybody propose that they shall be allowed to
work all Sunday? See then how inconsistent you are. You think it unjust
to limit the labour of the factory child to ten hours a day, because you
cannot limit the labour of the sempstress. And yet you see no injustice
in limiting the labour of the factory child, aye, and of the factory
man, to six days in the week, though you cannot limit the labour of the
sempstress.

But, you say, by protecting one class we shall aggravate the sufferings
of all the classes which we cannot protect. You say this; but you do not
prove it; and all experience proves the contrary. We interfere on the
Sunday to close the shops. We do not interfere with the labour of the
housemaid. But are the housemaids of London more severely worked on the
Sunday than on other days? The fact notoriously is the reverse. For your
legislation keeps the public feeling in a right state, and thus protects
indirectly those whom it cannot protect directly.

Will my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield maintain that the
law which limits the number of working days has been injurious to the
working population? I am certain that he will not. How then can he
expect me to believe that a law which limits the number of working hours
must necessarily be injurious to the working population? Yet he and
those who agree with him seem to wonder at our dulness because we do
not at once admit the truth of the doctrine which they propound on
this subject. They reason thus. We cannot reduce the number of hours of
labour in factories without reducing the amount of production. We cannot
reduce the amount of production without reducing the remuneration of the
labourer. Meanwhile, foreigners, who are at liberty to work till they
drop down dead at their looms, will soon beat us out of all the markets
of the world. Wages will go down fast. The condition of our working
people will be far worse than it is; and our unwise interference will,
like the unwise interference of our ancestors with the dealings of the
corn factor and the money lender, increase the distress of the very
class which we wish to relieve.

Now, Sir, I fully admit that there might be such a limitation of the
hours of labour as would produce the evil consequences with which we are
threatened; and this, no doubt, is a very good reason for legislating
with great caution, for feeling our way, for looking well to all the
details of this bill. But it is certainly not true that every limitation
of the hours of labour must produce these consequences. And I am, I must
say, surprised when I hear men of eminent ability and knowledge lay down
the proposition that a diminution of the time of labour must be followed
by diminution of the wages of labour, as a proposition universally
true, as a proposition capable of being strictly demonstrated, as
a proposition about which there can be no more doubt than about any
theorem in Euclid. Sir, I deny the truth of the proposition; and for
this plain reason. We have already, by law, greatly reduced the time of
labour in factories. Thirty years ago, the late Sir Robert Peel told the
House that it was a common practice to make children of eight years of
age toil in mills fifteen hours a day. A law has since been made which
prohibits persons under eighteen years of age from working in mills
more than twelve hours a day. That law was opposed on exactly the same
grounds on which the bill before us is opposed. Parliament was told
then, as it is told now, that with the time of labour the quantity of
production would decrease, that with the quantity of production the
wages would decrease, that our manufacturers would be unable to contend
with foreign manufacturers, and that the condition of the labouring
population instead of being made better by the interference of the
Legislature would be made worse. Read over those debates; and you may
imagine that you are reading the debate of this evening. Parliament
disregarded these prophecies. The time of labour was limited. Have wages
fallen? Has the cotton trade left Manchester for France or Germany? Has
the condition of the working people become more miserable? Is it not
universally acknowledged that the evils which were so confidently
predicted have not come to pass? Let me be understood. I am not arguing
that, because a law which reduced the hours of daily labour from fifteen
to twelve did not reduce wages, a law reducing those hours from twelve
to ten or eleven cannot possibly reduce wages. That would be very
inconclusive reasoning. What I say is this, that, since a law which
reduced the hours of daily labour from fifteen to twelve has not reduced
wages, the proposition that every reduction of the hours of labour must
necessarily reduce wages is a false proposition. There is evidently
some flaw in that demonstration which my honourable friend thinks so
complete; and what the flaw is we may perhaps discover if we look at the
analogous case to which I have so often referred.

Sir, exactly three hundred years ago, great religious changes were
taking place in England. Much was said and written, in that inquiring
and innovating age, about the question whether Christians were under a
religious obligation to rest from labour on one day in the week; and it
is well known that the chief Reformers, both here and on the Continent,
denied the existence of any such obligation. Suppose then that, in 1546,
Parliament had made a law that they should thenceforth be no distinction
between the Sunday and any other day. Now, Sir, our opponents, if they
are consistent with themselves, must hold that such a law would have
immensely increased the wealth of the country and the remuneration of
the working man. What an effect, if their principles be sound, must have
been produced by the addition of one sixth to the time of labour! What
an increase of production! What a rise of wages! How utterly unable must
the foreign artisan, who still had his days of festivity and of repose,
have found himself to maintain a competition with a people whose shops
were open, whose markets were crowded, whose spades and axes, and
planes, and hods, and anvils, and looms were at work from morning till
night on three hundred and sixty-five days a year! The Sundays of three
hundred years make up fifty years of our working days. We know what the
industry of fifty years can do. We know what marvels the industry of
the last fifty years has wrought. The arguments of my honourable friend
irresistibly lead us to this conclusion, that if, during the last three
centuries, the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest, we should
have been a far richer, a far more highly civilised people than we
now are, and that the labouring classes especially would have been far
better off than at present. But does he, does any Member of the House,
seriously believe that this would have been the case? For my own part,
I have not the smallest doubt that, if we and our ancestors had, during
the last three centuries, worked just as hard on the Sunday as on the
week days, we should have been at this moment a poorer people and a less
civilised people than we are; that there would have been less production
than there has been, that the wages of the labourer would have been
lower than they are, and that some other nation would have been now
making cotton stuffs and woollen stuffs and cutlery for the whole world.

Of course, Sir, I do not mean to say that a man will not produce more in
a week by working seven days than by working six days. But I very much
doubt whether, at the end of a year, he will generally have produced
more by working seven days a week than by working six days a week; and
I firmly believe that, at the end of twenty years, he will have produced
much less by working seven days a week than by working six days a week.
In the same manner I do not deny that a factory child will produce more,
in a single day, by working twelve hours than by working ten hours, and
by working fifteen hours than by working twelve hours. But I do deny
that a great society in which children work fifteen, or even twelve
hours a day will, in the lifetime of a generation, produce as much as
if those children had worked less. If we consider man merely in a
commercial point of view, if we consider him merely as a machine for
the production of worsted and calico, let us not forget what a piece of
mechanism he is, how fearfully and wonderfully made. We do not treat a
fine horse or a sagacious dog exactly as we treat a spinning jenny. Nor
will any slaveholder, who has sense enough to know his own interest,
treat his human chattels exactly as he treats his horses and his dogs.
And would you treat the free labourer of England like a mere wheel or
pulley? Rely on it that intense labour, beginning too early in life,
continued too long every day, stunting the growth of the body, stunting
the growth of the mind, leaving no time for healthful exercise, leaving
no time for intellectual culture, must impair all those high qualities
which have made our country great. Your overworked boys will become a
feeble and ignoble race of men, the parents of a more feeble and more
ignoble progeny; nor will it be long before the deterioration of the
labourer will injuriously affect those very interests to which his
physical and moral energies have been sacrificed. On the other hand,
a day of rest recurring in every week, two or three hours of leisure,
exercise, innocent amusement or useful study, recurring every day, must
improve the whole man, physically, morally, intellectually; and the
improvement of the man will improve all that the man produces. Why is
it, Sir, that the Hindoo cotton manufacturer, close to whose door
the cotton grows, cannot, in the bazaar of his own town, maintain
a competition with the English cotton manufacturer, who has to send
thousands of miles for the raw material, and who has then to send the
wrought material thousands of miles to market? You will say that it is
owing to the excellence of our machinery. And to what is the excellence
of our machinery owing? How many of the improvements which have been
made in our machinery do we owe to the ingenuity and patient thought of
working men? Adam Smith tells us in the first chapter of his great work,
that you can hardly go to a factory without seeing some very pretty
machine,--that is his expression,--devised by some labouring man.
Hargraves, the inventor of the spinning jenny, was a common artisan.
Crompton, the inventor of the mule jenny, was a working man. How many
hours of the labour of children would do so much for our manufactures as
one of these improvements has done? And in what sort of society are such
improvements most likely to be made? Surely in a society in which the
faculties of the working people are developed by education. How long
will you wait before any negro, working under the lash in Louisiana,
will contrive a better machinery for squeezing the sugar canes?
My honourable friend seems to me, in all his reasonings about the
commercial prosperity of nations, to overlook entirely the chief cause
on which that prosperity depends. What is it, Sir, that makes the great
difference between country and country? Not the exuberance of soil; not
the mildness of climate; not mines, nor havens, nor rivers. These things
are indeed valuable when put to their proper use by human intelligence:
but human intelligence can do much without them; and they without human
intelligence can do nothing. They exist in the highest degree in regions
of which the inhabitants are few, and squalid, and barbarous, and naked,
and starving; while on sterile rocks, amidst unwholesome marshes, and
under inclement skies, may be found immense populations, well fed, well
lodged, well clad, well governed. Nature meant Egypt and Sicily to be
the gardens of the world. They once were so. Is it anything in the earth
or in the air that makes Scotland more prosperous than Egypt, that makes
Holland more prosperous than Sicily? No; it was the Scotchman that made
Scotland; it was the Dutchman that made Holland. Look at North America.
Two centuries ago the sites on which now arise mills, and hotels, and
banks, and colleges, and churches, and the Senate Houses of flourishing
commonwealths, were deserts abandoned to the panther and the bear. What
has made the change? Was it the rich mould, or the redundant rivers? No:
the prairies were as fertile, the Ohio and the Hudson were as broad
and as full then as now. Was the improvement the effect of some great
transfer of capital from the old world to the new? No, the emigrants
generally carried out with them no more than a pittance; but they
carried out the English heart, and head, and arm; and the English heart
and head and arm turned the wilderness into cornfield and orchard, and
the huge trees of the primeval forest into cities and fleets. Man, man
is the great instrument that produces wealth.