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.