§ Moved, "That the House be put into a Committee on the said Bill."—(The Lord President.)
§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYhoped the Bill was only the precursor of a series of measures the effect of which would be to confer the greatest possible benefits upon the country. The feeling upon the question of the restriction of labour had of late years undergone a remarkable change, and those most affected by the passing of such measures had at length come to perceive the great advantages which would arise from the extension of the half-time system. The result of the present measure would be to relieve 100,000 children and young people, to whom the law had hitherto brought no protection, from the excessive demand which was made upon them for their labour. He would remind their Lordships that the workpeople of the country were well deserving of any protection which Parliament might be the means of affording them. During the late cotton famine in Lancashire there had not been heard a word of sedition or Jacobinism. They felt that they were suffering from a visitation of Providence, and many of them had lately reminded him of their prophecies, that if the Factory Bill passed there would be no more sedition in the manufacturing districts. It had not been necessary to increase the military by a single man in the distressed districts. The people were their own police, and this tranquillity was owing, to a great extent, to the action of 1449 Parliament in removing the grievances under which they had formerly laboured. Mr. Baker, the intelligent Inspector of Factories, stated, in 1859, the advantages which the change had brought about. Mr. Baker said—
I have thus given you not only the result of my own experience but the local testimony of gentlemen who weekly visit mills, which employ in the aggregate upwards of 70,000 persons, of whom upwards of 40,000 are females and 4,500 are children, and who all testify to the same fact, namely, the almost entire disappearance of deformity and the non-appearance of any other disease specific to factory labour. And it is exceedingly gratifying to find that an experiment, which had many opponents when it was about to be tried, has been productive of such great benefit to the working classes, without I believe an atom of either personal, commercial, or national wrong. I venture to make this latter statement on three grounds:—1. Because, although the hours of work have been very much diminished, wages have increased in some cases as much as 10 per cent, and generally about 12 percent, and therefore the means of providing home comforts by the people have been multiplied. 2. Because it has not diminished any kind of textile production, and therefore it has not injured our national prosperity. Our exports of manufactures in 1844 and 1858 show this in a remarkable manner:
| Value of exports in | 1844 | 1858 |
| Total cotton manufactures | £18,814,869 | £33,421,843 |
| Total | 37,767,890 | 51,998,927 |
| Increase | £14,281,037 |
§ 3. Because the people are neither less moral nor less intellectual by the leisure which it has afforded them, In support of this view I appeal to the living and flourishing institutes for intellectual improvement, to the lectures, to the musical meetings, to the allotment gardens, and to all the other sources of pleasure and profit which are now to be found, not only in the towns, but almost in every hamlet of these factory districts; sources of refinement and civilization which only take their date from the possession of the privileges which restricted labour conferred upon the people: I mean the Saturday afternoon, of itself one of the greatest blessings ever conferred upon them, and the certainty of knowing when the master's time ends and their own time begins."
§ He trusted their Lordships would pass the Bill through Committee.
§ THE EARL OF HARROWBYwas understood to suggest that the trades of lucifer match makers and percussion cap makers he struck out of the schedule of the Bill.
§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, these were two of the most horrible trades in the schedule. The operatives employed in making lucifer matches were liable to some hideous forms of jaw disease, and the manufacture of percussion caps was carried on in the majority of cases by women and children of tender age. It made all 1450 the difference to those employed in these trades whether they left work at six or eight o'clock in the evening. The latter was an addition of two hours' toil at the end of the day, and carried on moreover in rooms heated by gas and filled with bad air. He wished the noble Earl would go to these factories and hear from the persons employed the effect of these two hours additional work upon their health and morals. Half the evils to which these young persons were exposed arose from their being detained from home until a late hour in the evening. The only domestic life which persons employed in factory labour could enjoy was in the evening. In the morning they had to hurry over their work, and it was only in the evening that their social enjoyments were obtained, when they met together over the family tea and passed the evening together. There was no one boon obtained by the Factory Act which had produced a more joyous effect upon the hearts of the operatives than the fact of their labours terminating at six o'clock.
§ House in Committee.
§ Bill reported, without Amendment; and to be read 3a To morrow.