§ LORD ASHLEYbegged to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department to the recent decision in the Court of Exchequer upon the meaning and power of the Factory Act, and to ask whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a measure declaratory of the meaning and intentions of the Legislature in passing the Act, or to take any other steps to obviate the very evil consequences of that decision?
§ SIR G. GREYreplied, that he had only received the transcript of the shorthand writer's notes of the decision in the Court of Exchequer just as he was entering the House that evening; and he, therefore, had had no opportunity as yet of becoming fully informed as to the grounds upon which the decision was founded. He was anxious last year to introduce an Act to reconcile the differences existing between the various clauses of the Factory Act; but he found that the persons who held extreme opinions on both sides were averse to any such interposition, and that they were anxious to have the decision of a superior court of law upon the interpretation that should be put upon the Act. That decision had at length been obtained; but, as he had already stated, he had not as yet had time to see upon what grounds it rested.