§ Order of the Day for receiving the Report of the Amendments, read.
§ Moved —"That the said Report be now received."
The EARL of CLANCARTYMy Lords, before your Lordships proceed further with this Bill, which, the noble Earl, who introduced it, has pressed through its successive stages with such unusual precipitation, and hitherto without having favoured the House with any explanation of its object and provisions, it will not be unreasonable to ask your Lordships to constitute some inquiry into the causes that have called for 494 its introduction, as well as into its adaptation to its purposes. Considering, my Lords, that, on the one hand, the Bill deals with a subject affecting not alone the convenience but the security from fire of a very large proportion of the householders of the United Kingdom; and, that, on the other hand, it is designed to befriend a class of poor children, known under the name of "climbing boys," whose helpless condition has awakened much public interest, its importance is such as to warrant your Lordships in giving the subject a closer attention than it appears to have received at the hands of the noble Earl. This is the third consecutive sitting day that this Bill has been before the House, each day to be advanced a stage. This precipitancy on the part of the noble Earl is the more unaccountable, as, on the second reading I had suggested the probability that the law he was desirous of enforcing against the employment of boys in the business of chimney sweeping, might have failed, not from any wilful opposition to it, but owing to difficulties which the Legislature could not remove; and, that, therefore, some inquiry should take place, in order properly to discuss the subject The noble Earl, however, seems to have been only desirous to avoid discussion, and assuming that the Act of 1840, called the Act for the Regulation of Chimney Sweepers and Chimneys has failed, in consequence of having been wilfully evaded, his measure is framed solely to enforce the observance of that Act. It is, my Lords, unquestionably very important that the law of the land should be strictly obeyed; but it is, therefore, the more important that only such laws should be enacted as are capable of being obeyed. The Legislature is not infallible, and I have no doubt that your Lordships would find upon inquiry that where the law in question of 1840 had failed, it was in general in those Cases only where it was impossible to comply with it on this account it undoubtedly requires to be amended, and, therefore, the causes of its failure should be carefully inquired into. It is not in the character of the people to set themselves wilfully in opposition to laws framed by their representatives in Parliament for the common good of society, still less is it characteristic of the British nation to disregard the appeal of humanity. Since, therefore, the condition of the climbing boys became a subject of public interest and of legislative regulation, I believe that 495 the spirit of the law has been complied with in the improved treatment of the boys in the employment of chimney sweepers. Having stated to your Lordships on the second reading of this Bill the difficulties that I thought stood in the way of the law it was proposed to have enforced, I took the opportunity of a short visit to Ireland during the recess for making inquiry as to the extent to which the law had been observed, and the reason of its not having been everywhere enforced; and as the result of my inquiries, I am happy to express my conviction, that it has only failed in general where circumstances rendered the employment of climbing boys indispensably necessary. I made inquiries of persons from Dublin, Cork, Galway, Tipperary, Mayo, and Waterford. I made inquiry at the poor-law office respecting the arrangements for cleaning the chimneys in the several union workhouses. I examined the most respectable master sweep I could hear of in Dublin; and I wrote to the heads of nine different corporations of towns and cities in Ireland. I will not trouble your Lordships at present with the details of the information I have received; it may suffice to say that, in general, where coal is burnt it is found, as in this metropolis, that, except where the chimney flues are very tortuous and irregular, it is practicable to dislodge the soot by the use of the whalebone brush commonly used in London; but that where the soot is generated from the combustion of wood or peat, it forms a substance so hard and difficult to dislodge that the flues cannot be effectually cleaned without a strong scraper, which requires the application of manual labour within the flue. There are, moreover, among the old edifices in Ireland flues that could not be altered without pulling down the main buildings: this is the case especially with old castles, in which the mason work is enormously thick and almost impenetrably hard. It would indeed be much to be lamented if the employment of climbing boys in such cases necessarily involved cruelty, but such is by no means the case. By the 4 & 5 Will. IV., c. 35, the Legislature, after full consideration, made provision, not only against the employment of very young children, but for the protection of those who were apprenticed after the prescribed age. The provisions of that Act might undoubtedly be carried further, in limiting the time during which they should be daily employed, and requiring that a certain num- 496 ber of hours should be daily given to instruction in the parish school; but, as far as my observation has gone, I believe it is quite a mistake to suppose that, as the trade is at present carried on, the climbing boys are the subjects of ill usage, or that their physical condition is in any degree affected by the nature of their employment. Their moral condition might no doubt be much improved, as might that of the children in general of the humbler classes by more stringent regulations with respect to education; but it is a remarkable fact, that during the many years I have been engaged in the administration of the law, and especially in applying the provisions of the law for the summary punishment of juvenile offenders, I have never had to punish as climbing boy; and that, the only case in which I recollect having had to commit a sweep was upon an indictment for bigamy— a grave offence certainly against morality, but at the same time betokening no physical deficiency. Before I sit down, I must beg, to refer very briefly to a circumstance of a personal nature. When, upon the second reading of this Bill, I ventured to offer some doubts respecting the expediency of your Lordships adopting the present Bill, the noble Earl thought proper to say, my opposition was owing to my not having complied with the law in having the flues of my house altered as the Act required. It was, my Lords, quite unworthy of the noble Earl to make a reflection of the kind, for which he had not, and could not have had, the slightest warrant. I did not, at the time, care to notice it, nor should I do so now, but that, as I have felt it my duty to interpose against the further progress of this Bill, I am desirous that my motives should not be misrepresented. I have no interest in the course I am taking apart from what I believe to be the public interest; and it is only as a Member of your Lordships' House, whose duty it is to advise for the public good, that I call upon your Lordships to inquire into the expediency of the measure proposed by the noble Earl, so that no crude or impracticable law may go forth from this branch of the Legislature. I am very far, my Lords, from undervaluing the services the noble Earl has rendered to the country, in the improvement of the condition of the humbler classes; and it was with sincere pleasure that I this evening concurred in the vote he took for the Bill for the regulation of common lodging houses; but although the noble Earl is 497 justly to be regarded as a very high authority when the cause of humanity is to be promoted, I cannot allow that reason should be overborne by authority, which would be the case if the Bill before the House should proceed further without its merits having been discussed. I therefore beg to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, to report upon the expediency or inexpediency of further proceeding with it.
§ LORD BEAUMONTregretted that the noble Earl had not gone a step further, and moved the rejection of the Bill altogether, as, in his opinion, it was erroneous and dangerous in principle, ineffective and miserable in detail. It was a Bill to prevent young men under the ages of twenty-one from carrying a bag and a brush; it was not even an Act to prevent boys from going up and down chimneys—though to that Act he objected—but simply to prevent their carrying a bag and brush after men following a very harmless and lazy occupation. If they legislated upon this, he did not know where they were to stop; and he must say that, if it were not for the high character of the noble Earl, the originator of the Bill, he should call this Bill a pitiful cant of pseudo philanthropy. As to the former one, its sole effect had been that a few more houses had been burnt, and a few more persons endangered under its operation, than would have been if it had never been passed. With regard to the cruelty of forcing children up small chimneys, that was cruelty, and so far he approved of the Bill, though there were other means as by-laws with regard to the construction of chimneys, and a prohibition in case of those already and wrongly constructed—of getting rid of that evil; but what he objected to was constant interference by the Legislature in matters of this kind.
§ LORD PANMUREmust say one word in reply to the charge of cant made by the noble Lord. With respect to the original Bill, he was a Member of the Government when he introduced it; and he must say, from the consideration which he had given the reports of the various Select Committees on the subject, he had never felt himself more justified in putting his name on the back of any Bill than he had done on the one in question. He did not think it unbecoming the dignity of the House to throw the shield of protection over children unable to protect themselves. In no one trade were infants exposed to so much 498 abuse and hardship—he might almost say unnecessary as well as wanton abuse—as in the trade to which the Bill referred. He knew that the lives of many hundreds of children had been saved by the existing Act; and as that prohibited the master sweeps from taking apprentices under sixteen years of age, the present Bill was intended to guard against the evasion of the law, by preventing children under sixteen years of age being employed in the chimney-sweeping business under the name of assistants, and being then forced into chimneys because the owners of the houses would not incur the trifling expense necessary for rendering the flues adapted to machine-sweeping. He did not regard this as an infringement on the principle of free labour; but he conceived it to be just such a protection as their Lordships were bound to throw round a class of persons who were too helpless to protect themselves.
§ LORD ST. LEONARDSconcurred in the original Act; but the noble Lord had rather forgotten it, though it was his own. The noble Lord seemed to have forgotten that there was a distinct provision in his Act that no person under twenty-one should, go up or down a chimney. Persons were rational at twenty-one, and would not go; virtually, therefore, that amounted to a prohibition. Their Lordships should remember that if they were not careful they would destroy the trade, whilst they were only endeavouring to prevent its abuses. At the present moment, although boys were taken at sixteen as well as under sixteen, he believed they were remarkably well used, and that the existing law had, on the whole, produced a very good effect, for it had not only prevented indiscriminate chimney-sweeping by boys, but it had prevented cruelty to them. The noble Lord, therefore, who had introduced the measure, had thus the satisfaction of having done a very great social good. But he was told that in houses where there were flues to enter from one chimney into another, and the instrument used was broken, it was impossible to extricate the machine without sending somebody up; and if a man was too large, a boy was employed—not for the purpose of sweeping the chimney, but for extricating the machine. Now, in his opinion, it was the law at this moment that a boy might be sent up a chimney for the purpose of extricating the machine, though not for that of sweeping. But his noble Friend proposed that nobody under sixteen should be 499 allowed to "assist" in the trade. The boy might go up to the door of the house, but he must not enter into the house. The provisions of the Bill, for these reasons, seemed to him to be embarrassing the trade without doing any real good; and he hoped his noble Friend would take further time for the consideration of these points.
The EARL of WICKLOWsaid, the noble and learned Lord who had just sat down appeared to have changed his mind in respect to the nature of this Bill. He had now spoken against it; but when the subject was last discussed, his views were the other way, for he spoke in its favour.
§ LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, he had done no such thing. A mistake had been made as to the state of the law, and it was to correct that mistake that he had addressed their Lordships. He had in no respect entered upon the general question.
The EARL of WICKLOWwas glad to find that both himself and the House had been deceived as to the course taken by the noble and learned Lord. It was that course, as he understood it, which had prevented him (the Earl of Wicklow) from moving that the Bill he rejected. The noble and learned Lord, however, now found that the measure did not effect the object for which it was intended, at least in its present form His (the Earl of Wicklow's) own feelings were still in favour of rejecting the Bill altogether. The noble Lord who supported the Bill (Lord Panmure) appeared to him to be inconsistent in his reply to his noble Friend (Lord Beaumont), for he contended that the existing Act was inefficient, whilst he asserted it had been the means of saving life.
§ LORD PANMUREwas not aware of having fallen into any inconsistency at all. What he said was, that the former Bill applied to apprentices; and that the result had been that, as the masters could not employ apprentices in this dangerous occupation, they employed other people, not apprentices.
The EARL of WICKLOWThen, how did that agree with the noble Lord's assertion, that the lives of these people had been saved by the Bill? His opposition to the present measure, however, arose from the fact that there was no reason for it. It was said that the law was evaded in the country where the penalties were not known, but not in London where they were known. If this were the case, he ventured 500 to say that if the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) would only circulate a few handbills in the country, informing the people what the penalties were for breaking the law, he would effect his object without the present Bill. The present Bill he regarded as a piece of useless legislation. It was always mischievous to accumulate statutes, without some real and substantial necessity for them; and here was a case in point. He admitted that the law interfered for the protection of children working in factories, but the present Bill absolutely prohibited them from entering into the trade at all. Under all the circumstances, he hoped, if the Bill were not rejected, that at least further time would be taken for its consideration.
The DUKE of ARGYLLsaid, the chief argument in favour of this Bill was the fact that the former Act to prevent children being employed in chimney sweeping was evaded. It was notorious that such evasion took place; and, therefore, they were called upon to prevent it. Of course, if any noble Lords were of opinion that the former Act was a bad Act, he could understand their opposition to the present Bill; but those who approved of the first Act ought to approve of the present also. The noble Earl (the Earl of Wicklow) said that the Legislature, in interfering in the case of children, never prevented their entering a trade; but, to make his observation applicable to the present case, everything depended upon what he meant as the trade of chimney sweeping. The Bill before their Lordships prevented young persons being employed "within any house"— these words having been added to the Bill by the noble Earl. It was plain, therefore, that children might be employed out of doors.
§ LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, the present Bill was quite in harmony with the purposes and objects of the whole life of the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury). But the question was, would this Bill prove beneficial—would it effect the objects for which it was brought forward? The Bill prevented any person under sixteen years of age from being the trade of a chimney sweeper within any house. Now, by a Standing Order of their Lordships, it was provided that no Bill for "regulating the conduct of any trade," or "altering the laws of apprenticeship," should be read a second time till a Select Committee should have considered and reported on the expediency or inexpediency of the House pro- 501 ceeding to take the matter into consideration. The object of this order was clearly to prevent hasty legislation on these matters, and he believed it was impossible for any Bill to come more distinctly under its provisions than the present. He, therefore, called upon their Lordships to enforce their Standing Order in this case.
§ The EARL of SHAFTESBURYsaid, he might not have been sufficiently acquainted with the orders of their Lordships' House; but as to the merits of this question, nothing should ever induce him to recede from the position which he had taken up. With regard to the observations of the noble Baron opposite (Lord Beaumont), who had spoken with so much force against legislation upon this matter, he could only say that he trusted in God he should ever fall under his censure, and under the censure of all those who, with him, could apply to the course he had taken a charge of cant and miserable legislation. He rejoiced in the observation the noble Lord had made, and he rejoiced that the noble Lord had nothing more tangible to bring against the measure which he had introduced to their Lordships' notice. The noble Lord said no good had been done by the existing Act with regard to chimney sweeping. Now he (the Earl of Shaftesbury) had great reason to complain that he and other noble Lords made statements in that House without any knowledge of the class to which the Bill referred, without having given themselves the trouble of inquiring into their condition or their feelings—without having perambulated the streets wherein they lived, and seen the misery in which they existed. He knew, however, from this class themselves, that the existing law had produced beneficial effects upon them; and he totally and entirely denied the statement of the noble Lord to the contrary. He had most extensive testimony to show that very considerable benefits had arisen from the law; that hundreds and thousands of children, who would otherwise have been employed in these dangerous and disgusting operations, were now either at school or engaged in other occupations suitable to the dignity of free men and the character of a Christian people. It seemed to be thought by his noble and learned Friend that machines could not be applied except by destruction of some of the more decorative parts of his dwelling-house. But it so happened that in almost every house in London chimney doors had been constructed at a very moderate expense, by means of which the 502 chimneys had been effectually swept without destroying a single decoration. If the occupation of climbing boys were entirely prohibited, chimney doors would be universal; and there was not a house in the kingdom, ancient or modern, where the machine could not be rendered available. But it was said that fires had increased. Did the noble Lord who made that assertion mean to say that in consequence of the operation of the Act of 1840 fires had increased in the metropolis? If he did, the noble Lord had, in his place in Parliament, with the view of exciting a feeling against the Act, and of inducing their Lordships to reject the present measure, made a very wide statement. Had he any facts to support it—
§ LORD BEAUMONT,in the first place, had not said "in the metropolis." He said a few more houses had been burnt down, and more persons exposed to be burnt. He repeated that assertion; and he had to tell the noble Earl that in doing so he spoke from a knowledge of the facts. He knew of one or two houses, not in the metropolis, that had been burnt down, where it was assertained the fires arose from the soot in the chimney not having been removed. He could mention other cases.
§ The EARL of SHAFTESBURYsaid, the original assertion was now brought down to this—that instead of a great many fires there had been only a few, in which the houses had been burnt from accumulations of soot. He should like to know whether any attempt had been made in those houses to introduce the use of the chimney door, so as to pass the machine into the chimney. He suspected nothing of the sort had been done. But all the cases that the noble Lord could cite were not sufficient, even if they were multiplied by 5,000, to justify the continuance of a system that was in every respect most degrading, and accomplished by a great amount of physical suffering.
§ The EARL of ABERDEENentered entirely into the feelings of his noble Friend upon the subject of this Bill; but he thought it desirable, considering the effect of the Standing Order, that the measure should be referred to a Select Committee. The reference could not occupy very much time, whilst it would sanction the customary proceedings of the House by recognising the principle involved in the Standing Order. His noble Friend, therefore, would do well to accede to the proposal.
The EARL of WICKLOWexpressed a 503 hope that if the Bill were referred to a Select Committee, the investigation would be bonâ fide.
§ LORD PANMUREsaid, there might be some difficulty in the reference. The Bill had already passed through a Committee of the whole House, and it appeared to him objectionable to send it, after that stage, to a Select Committee.
§ LORD REDESDALEsaid, a reference might be made, even after the third reading.
§
Amendment moved—
To leave out from ('That') to the end of the Motion, for the purpose of inserting ('the said Bill be referred to a Select Committee, to inquire into the expediency or inexpediency of the Regulations contained in the said Bill, and to report upon the expediency or inexpediency of this House proceeding to take the Bill into further consideration.')
§ On Question, Motion as amended agreed to.
§ House adjourned to Thursday next.