very bad now; he does not eat his breakfast sometimes for two or three days together. The little girl bears it well; she is healthy. I would prefer their coming home at seven, without additional wages. The practice of working overhours has been constantly pursued at Milnes's factory. Beginning in 1802, measure after measure was passed regulating factories and mines. In 1847 a bill was enacted by Parliament limiting the hours of work for women and children to ten per day. It was championed especially by the landowners and bitterly opposed by a large number of manufacturers, who found their spokesman in John Bright, who argued that the manufacturers, if left to themselves, would do much for their employees. No one [the speaker said] would accuse him of a want of 303. John sympathy with the working classes; but this he would tell the Bright's opposition House, that if they went on, at the bidding of the working the tenclasses, to legislate against the capitalists, they would find a hour bill very different feeling engendered among the latter towards the operatives, from that which they now exhibited. . . . [In his own factory] they had a large infant school, together with a reading room and news room, and a school for adults, where the workmen, attended after working hours. They had also a person employed, at a very considerable expense, who devoted his whole time to investigating the concerns of the workmen, and who was a kind of missionary among them. Not a few hundreds of pounds per annum were expended in promoting in this manner the interests of the workmen, and that, too, wholly independent of any act of the legislature. This was the case at many other wealthy factories; but he would warn the House that if they now armed the workmen against the capitalists by fixing by law ten hours, or any other number of hours for the duration of labor, and thus interfered with the established custom of the kingdom, he believed it would be impossible that the feeling which hitherto existed on The bill a delusion practiced on working classes House they could fix the time of work and the amoun wages. He thought, if such a result took place, that it w be the duty of the manufacturers — nay, that it would be a lutely necessary for them—to take such steps as would vent the ruin from coming upon them which must result fr the passing of this measure. He would not detain the House farther; but believing, he did in his heart, that the proposition was most injurious a destructive to the best interests of the country; believing th it was contrary to all principles of sound legislation, that was a delusion practiced upon the working classes, that it wa advocated by those who had no knowledge of the economy o manufactures; believing that it was one of the worst measure ever passed in the shape of an act of the legislature, and that if it were now made the law, the necessities of trade and the demands alike of the workmen and of the masters would compel them to retrace the steps they had taken; believing this, he felt compelled to give the motion for the second reading of this bill his most strenuous opposition. Section 85. Free Trade It had long been the policy of England to protect her farmers, manufacturers, and shippers from foreign competition by high duties on grain and manufactured goods, and by navigation laws restricting the carrying trade to English ships. After the Industrial Revolution, when English manufacturers in possession of the new and marvelous machines had nothing to fear from the competition of continental hand workers, they began to denounce all forms of protective tariffs, and especially those on grain, which, they argued, raised the price of the bread of the workingman. In 1838 the manufacturers, under the leadership of Cobden and Bright, formed the Anti-Corn Law League, which carried on an extensive campaign for With all sincerity I declare that I am for the total repeal 304. Co of those taxes which affect the price of bread and provisions of denunc every description, and I will not allow it to be said without Laws denying it, that the three millions of people who have petitioned the House for the total repeal of those taxes are not sincere in their prayer. What are those taxes upon food? They are taxes levied upon the great body of the people, and the honorable gentlemen opposite, who show such sympathy for the working classes after they have made them paupers, cannot deny my right to claim on their behalf that those taxes should be a primary consideration. a bread I have heard them called protections; but taxes they are, The Co and taxes they shall be in my mouth, as long as I have the Laws in honor of a seat in this House. The bread tax is a tax primarily on the levied upon the poorer classes; it is a tax, at the lowest estimate, of 40 per cent above the price we should pay if there were a free trade in corn [i.e. grain]. The report upon the hand-loom weavers puts down 10s. as the estimated weekly earnings of a family, and states that in all parts of the United Kingdom that will be found to be not an unfair estimate of the earnings of every laborer's family. It moreover states, that out of 10s. each family expends 5s. on bread. The tax of 40 per cent is therefore a tax of 25. upon every laboring man's family earning 10s. a week, or 20 per cent upon their earnings. How does it operate as we proceed upwards in society? The man with 40s. a week pays an income tax of 5 per cent; the man of £250 a year pays but I per cent; and the nobleman or millionaire with an income of £200,000 a year, and whose family consumes no more bread than that of the agricultural laborer, pays less than one halfpenny in every £100.... I will state generally, that, from both the manufacturing and agricultural districts there was the most unimpeachable testi Condition of laboring subjects had deteriorated woefully within the last ten the working years, and more especially so within the three years last past; deteriorating and furthermore, that in proportion as the price of the food classes 305. The Anti-Corn ee of the people had increased, just so had their comforts been diminished. When they who sit in high places are oppressive and unjust to the poor, I am glad to see that there are men amongst us who, like Nathan of old, can be found to come forward and exclaim, Thou art the man!" The religious people of the country have revolted against the infamous injustice of that bread tax, which is condemned by the immutable morality of the Scriptures. They have prepared and signed a petition to this House, in which they declare that these laws are a violation of the will of the Supreme Being, whose providence watches over his famishing children. In the following speech Mr. Cobden shows how the Anti-Corn Law League carried on its agitation for free trade. - We propose, we, the League, propose a plan. And don't suppose that means a few men from Manchester. The League is composed, I hope, of this meeting to begin with. It contains a great majority of the electors in the great towns and cities of education" I have mentioned. This is the League, and before long I hope ९९ campaign it will comprise every man in the country, unless he either believes that he has an interest in monopoly, or because the marks of stupidity are so strongly imprinted on his countenance as to hold out a continual running invitation, "Come, rob me.” We propose to provide a copy of every registration list for every borough and county in the United Kingdom, as soon as the present registration shall have been completed. We intend to bring these registers to a central office in London. We then propose to open a correspondence the most extensive that ever was contemplated, and that ever, I am sure, was undertaken. Those electors amount to 800,000; but I will take 300,000, excluding those in the already safe boroughs, as forming the number necessary to constitute the returns of a majority in the House of Commons. informed of We propose to correspond with these 300,000 to begin with. The public We propose to keep people well informed as to the progress of to be kept our question by means of the penny postage (which has not yet the progress been sufficiently used), inclosing the useful information con- of events nected with the question, and tracts bearing the most recent illustrations of it together. What could be more desirable than to-morrow to send to those 300,000 electors copies of the newspapers containing the best reports of this meeting? But we propose to send them one letter a week, and that will cost twopence for the stamp and the inclosure. That will be £2500. I mention this by way of illustration and preface to what I am going to tell you before I conclude. we know visited and organized Besides this correspondence we intend to visit every borough The voters in the kingdom; not by agents, we will go ourselves, because will be we want the thing well done. We will specially invite the electors to meet such deputations without distinction of party,nothing of party in this agitation, — and having met the electors we shall have a little business to transact with them. In the first place we shall urge upon our friends to organize themselves, and to commence a canvass of their boroughs to ascertain the number of free traders, and, in every case where it is possible, to obtain a majority of the electors in favor of free trade,—that majority to memorialize their members in Parliament where they have not voted rightly. Besides that, the deputation will urge the electors to have a free-trade candidate ready to supplant every monopolist who still retains a seat for a borough; and the League will pledge itself, where a borough constituency finds itself at a loss for a candidate, to furnish it with one. Section 86. Educational Reform By slow steps England has been gradually working toward a free and secular educational system, supported at public expense but in some cases under control of the clergy. Until 1833 education had been entirely left to private associations, but in that year the government |