SECTION III

[351] See above. Pt. III, Section III, Nos. 7 and 8. p. 568 and p. 570.

Apprentices.—Mr. Rose adverted to the petition [352] he presented the other day, which was signed by above 800 masters and 13,000 journeymen in London; and by 1,154 masters and 17,517 journeymen in the country; making above 32,000 in all. The policy of the system began in Edward the 3rd. Some had doubted the effects of the law, and deemed all restrictions injurious to commerce: others considered the want of restrictions more dangerous, and contended that the present system had encouraged habits of industry. The courts had, in general, narrowed the spirit and application of the restrictions. He thought that if the existing law was not to be enforced, it ought to be amended or repealed. A petition signed by such a number of tradesmen was deserving the most attentive consideration. He should therefore move that the petition be referred to a committee.

Mr. Serjeant Onslow allowed that the number of signatures to the petition entitled it to a respectful consideration. As to the allegations of the petition, he thought it very extraordinary that the petitioners should really expect that parliament would allow them to bring actions upon this statute, against whom they pleased, well-founded or ill-founded, without being subject to costs in case of failure. From his experience in a certain judicial situation, he could say, and he believed he might appeal to all his professional friends about him for the confirmation of his statement, that he never knew any indictment brought under this statute except against a person of great skill and acquirements. The preamble of the Act stated its object to be "to prevent the introduction of unskilful workmen": and yet no indictments were ever brought against unskilful workmen, but only against very skilful and ingenious men. This shewed pretty clearly the spirit in which such prosecutions were brought.

Mr. D. Giddy said, that he should not vote for the committee, if he did not think it likely that the resolution they would come to would be directly opposite to that which was expected by the petitioners. He certainly did entertain great doubts, whether in the present state of the commercial world there was any use in those apprenticeships, although they might have been necessary in the infancy of commerce. It frequently happened, that a young man had not a talent for that particular business to which he had been bound an apprentice, and was yet possessed of other talents, by the exercise of which he might obtain a most respectable subsistence. It appealed to him a cruel hardship to fetter the minds and limbs of men, so as to prevent their obtaining a subsistence by the fair exercise of their talents and of their limbs. As to what was said of corporate rights, obtained by apprenticeship, he thought that made it the less necessary to add penalties. If those corporate rights, however, were to be considered of real value, he thought it a great hardship that they could not be obtained in any other way than by serving an apprenticeship.

Mr. Butterworth also felt inclined to disapprove of the Act as highly injurious to trade in general, and to rising talent. In illustration of the hardships of the Act, and of the manner in which it was generally enforced, he mentioned a case which had come within his own immediate observation. In an office of which he had the command, there was a young man of great skill, and consequently of great value to his employers; he, however, had not served the regular apprenticeship, and his fellow-workmen therefore combined against him, demanding his discharge. He (Mr. B.) interfered on behalf of the young man, but in vain; for the conspiracy amongst the workmen attained that height that their request was obliged to be complied with. The young man was discharged, and though skilful in that particular trade, he had been compelled to sell the furniture, the produce of his industry, to support a wife and family, who were dependent on him for support. He did not oppose the committee, because he was convinced that the determination would be in favour of the repeal of the 5th of Elizabeth.

Apprentice Laws.—Mr. H. Davis presented a petition from certain master manufacturers of the city of Bristol, praying that so much of the Act of the 5th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, as inflicted penalties on persons exercising trades to which they had not served regular apprenticeships, should be repealed. Ordered to lie on the table.

Mr. P. Moore presented a petition from the manufacturers of Coventry, praying that that part of the 5th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, which inflicted penalties on persons exercising trades to which they had not served regular apprenticeships, should be rendered efficient. He should merely move "that the petition do lie on the table"; but, before he sat down, he wished to enquire of the learned gentleman (Mr. Serjeant Onslow) who had given notice of his intention to introduce a Bill on the subject, whether he meant, in his proposed measure, to confine himself merely to the repeal of that part of the 5th of Elizabeth which sanctioned those penalties, or to do away with the Act altogether? He also wished to know whether the learned gentleman intended to push his Bill through the different stages in the present session; or, having introduced it, to let it lie over till the next? In his opinion a committee ought to be appointed, in the first instance, to examine the whole of the petitions that had been presented relative to the 5th of Elizabeth, and also to look into the provisions of that Act.

Mr. Serjeant Onslow said, most unquestionably he did not mean to go beyond the terms of his notice, in the measure he should introduce. He had stated explicitly the part of the Act that he wished to have repealed, and he had not since altered his determination. With respect to the second point of the hon. gentleman's interrogatory, "Whether he intended to hurry the Bill through the House?" he would answer that he certainly did not. But the hon. gentleman seemed to forget that the present period was virtually almost the commencement of the session, and that very important business was yet to come on. He (Serjeant Onslow) certainly did wish to have the sense of the House taken on the Bill, before the session terminated. And this, he thought, could be done without any imputation of hurry. In the last session the Treasurer of the Navy (Mr. Rose) had presented a petition from a great number of persons who were desirous that the penalties should be continued; and moved for a committee to investigate the allegations of the petitioners. A committee was granted—it sat from day to day—and the evidence adduced before it was printed. He (Serjeant Onslow) enquired of that right hon. gentleman whether he intended to found any motion on this evidence? And, understanding that he did not, he stated, at the close of the last session, that he would himself submit a motion on the subject. Soon after parliament met he gave notice of a motion for the 30th of November; but, in consequence of a number of gentlemen who represented large manufacturing districts (particularly the hon. member for Yorkshire) not being then in town, he postponed it till the 22nd of February, and had finally put it off till the 27th of the present month—knowing that a call of the House would take place before that period, which would ensure a full attendance when the proposed measure came to be discussed. That the country was not unprepared for it, was evident from the numerous petitions which had been presented in favour of it. Petitions of that nature had been received from Leeds, Birmingham, Huddersfield, Bristol, and many other populous neighbourhoods. Several petitions had been presented against it. How they were procured he did not know; but the language in all of them appeared nearly the same. With respect to the principal trade carried on by the constituents of the hon. gentleman, it would not be at all affected by the new Bill, because it was already guarded by a variety of enactments totally independent of the 5th of Elizabeth.

Mr. P. Moore said it was very true that his constituents (the freemen of Coventry) were obliged by Act of Parliament to serve a regular apprenticeship, before they could carry on the business alluded to by the learned gentleman. Now they were alarmed lest by the proposed Bill they should be deprived of a right which they had long enjoyed. They therefore were anxious that the Bill should not be hurried through the House.

Apprenticeship Laws.—Mr. Serjeant Onslow rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal part of an Act, passed in the 5th year of Elizabeth, entitled "An Act containing divers orders for artificers, labourers, servants of husbandry, and apprentices." ... The reign of Queen Elizabeth, though glorious, was not one in which sound principles of commerce were known; and a perusal of the other clauses of the Act, as well as the one creating the penalties for exercising trades contrary to its provisions, would fully confirm that assertion; indeed it did not seem to be the object of that statute to favour manufactures; it rather seemed to be intended to make them subservient to a most mistaken notion of favour to the landed interest. So little was political economy then understood that the idea never seemed to have occurred, that agriculture was best promoted by the prosperity of commerce and manufactures; and that restraints on them defeated the end they aimed at, and discouraged that very employment which they ought to promote.... Apprenticeships had been looked upon as favourable to the morals of youth, and he was very far from wishing to discourage them; but he did not wish them to be an indispensable qualification for legally carrying on trades.... Apprenticeships were as common in trades not within the statute as in those that were within what had been called the protection, but what he thought the curse, of the statute....

Mr. Philips.—The persons most competent to form regulations with respect to trade were the master manufacturers, whose interest it was to have goods of the best fabric; and no legislative enactment could ever effect so much in producing that result, as the merely leaving things to their own course and operation. The proof of this was to be found in the fact that the manufactures for which the country was most famous, were precisely those to which this Act did not apply. If this narrow principle had been carried into every branch of art, the machinery of Sir Richard Arkwright would have been lost to the country—and the genius of Mr. Watt, whose inventions had added more to the productive powers of the empire, than if the population had been increased one half, would have been still unknown. The hon. gentleman then proceeded to point out the evil effects which arose from the system of combination among tradesmen [workmen].

Apprentice Laws.—Mr. Serjeant Onslow moved the second reading of the Bill, which was warmly opposed by Sir Fred. Flood, who, though a friend to liberty, disliked licentiousness. The Bill went to abrogate that most salutary law of the 5th of Elizabeth, and to revive the practice which had previously existed from Edward the Third's time. It would be destructive of the interests of persons who served their apprenticeships, and paid for education in their respective trades, and ruinous to the morals of youth. It would be hurtful to commerce, to mechanics, to manufacture and to the Stamp Act. The present law had lasted 220 years. He proposed to postpone the second reading to that day six months.

Mr. Protheroe seconded the motion, as the Bill proceeded on no general comprehensive system, but simply on a repeal without any efficient substitute for what was to be repealed. He objected to the measure in a moral point of view; in which respect he was upheld by the opinions of Lord Coke and Sir Wm. Blackstone. He had heard much of vexatious prosecutions under the Act of Elizabeth; but, on enquiry, he found that at Bristol for the last 20 years, there had not been one such prosecution. If apprenticeships were more encouraged, he was satisfied that combinations among journeymen would almost entirely be put an end to. If the House were to lower its attention down to the humble cottage, they would there see the advantages of this system, in beholding careful masters provided for the youths, who, in addition, were provided with food and clothing, while their morals were protected. He should be happy that the present Bill were withdrawn, and some measure unaccompanied by its disadvantages were introduced.

Mr. Hart Davis could not disguise from himself that the present measure was attended with many difficulties. It would undoubtedly be of great advantage to our manufacturers that the present law should be repealed, and that every restraint should be removed from the rising generation. Supposing a person brought up to a trade for which from his constitution he was not fit, was he to be excluded from pursuing any other pursuit, or occupation whatever? Suppose the trade of button-makers, which was a trade that speedily passed away; or of gun-makers, of whom probably 40,000 might be in a few months thrown out of employment, was it to be held that they could follow no other occupation, but must remain a burden upon the community? The more he considered the present measure, the more he was satisfied of its utility.

Mr. Protheroe explained that he could wish a general review of the whole system.

Mr. Giddy thought if any one measure more than another could be said to involve the general rights of mankind, the present was that measure. What was this but the general right of the inhabitants of this country to employ the energies of their mind and body in the way they themselves pleased? And if a system were to be continued by which men were deprived of this general and undoubted right, it seemed to be incumbent on those who contended for the continuance of such a restriction to shew on what principle it was founded. If gentlemen attended to the time in which the law in question was passed, they would find it was a period in which many ill-advised monopolies had been granted, and one in which remonstrances on that subject had been made by the House of Commons on the impolicy of such a system, which had not been much attended to. Nothing, he was convinced, had contributed so much as the law in question to check the progress in our arts and manufactures.

Sir C. Mordaunt, on the part of his constituents, the manufacturers of Birmingham, was strongly in favour of the present repeal. If the law, as it now stood, were put in force, it would have the effect of imposing the strongest possible fetters upon ingenuity and industry.

Mr. Thompson liked liberty; and doing so, he wished to see every man have the liberty of employing his hands and his genius in the best way he could to his own advantage, and for the benefit of the country. This no man was at liberty to do, so long as the present law remained in force. He wished the law totally repealed, though the Bill did not go so far. The present law was necessarily broken every day. It was clear that the judges always wished to evade it, when they could do so. He knew a case of two men who were prosecuted under the Act for sawing a piece of wood; another, of a good and bad baker in the same town; where the bad one, finding that the good one had not served a regular apprenticeship, had him turned out, and got liberty to poison all his neighbours with his bad bread. Some years ago the printers struck, and there was a difficulty in getting even the parliamentary papers printed. Let those who chose it bind their children as apprentices; but let not others be compelled to do the same. Instances of the absurdity of the law would be innumerable. It was none the better for the age of it, which the worthy baronet had stated. It was, in fact, superannuated; and it was much the kindest way to let it die quietly, and so confer an advantage both on the country and Ireland. Lord Ellenborough once got the coach-makers out of a scrape ingeniously enough. They were attacked as wheelmakers; but his lordship said that coaches could not have been known in Elizabeth's days, as that queen went to parliament on horseback. He perfectly agreed in the opinion which Lord Mansfield had given, in speaking of the Act of Elizabeth, that "it was against the natural rights of man, and contrary to the common law rights of the land."

Mr. Rose considered this as a subject of extraordinary difficulty. After all that had been said, he could not help thinking that if the Bill were passed into law, it would put an end to apprenticeships altogether; for no person would subject himself to a seven years' servitude when he knew that having fulfilled his indenture, he would only be on a level with a man who perhaps had not been one year at the business. He was willing to examine and improve the 5th of Elizabeth, but would not agree to this unqualified repeal.

Sir J. Newport was surprised that the hon. baronet (Sir F. Flood) should be so anxious to perpetuate a statute which never was law in Ireland; and yet in that country, where no such penalties as those inflicted by the 5th of Elizabeth existed, the system of apprenticeships was freely and voluntarily adopted. He thought, on every principle of justice, that the subject was entitled to make use of his abilities and industry in those pursuits most beneficial to his interests.

Sir S. Romilly had been applied to on the subject of the present Bill, by the constituents of two hon. gentlemen who had already delivered their sentiments on the measure this night (Messrs. Protheroe and Davis). He felt the highest respect for the gentlemen who had so applied to him on the subject of the present Bill; but his opinion of the measure being decidedly opposite to theirs, he thought he should not be acting a manly part were he either to abstain from voting on the Bill, or were he to content himself with a silent vote on this occasion. He was satisfied that there were reasons sufficiently strong to support the system of apprenticeships in those trades in which a number of years were requisite to the acquiring a knowledge of them, without the assistance of the law as it now stood. This law, which went to prohibit a man from the exercise of that trade for which he was fit, he therefore thought ought to be repealed. For what was it but to take from a poor man the only property he possessed—his genius and industry—and to drive him into a workhouse; or to force him to abandon his country, and to forsake his wife and family. These were the moral consequences which the House was to look for from a perseverance in the law as it now stood.

Alderman Atkins hoped that some clause might be introduced into the Bill when it was in the committee, that would give sufficient encouragement to the apprentice system; while, at the same time, the abuses of it might be remedied.

Sir F. Flood, seeing the sense of the House against him, withdrew his amendment.

Mr. Canning wished the Bill to go into the committee. He was aware that the subject was attended with considerable difficulties. The difficulty would be to find the means of doing away the abuses complained of, without doing away the system altogether, which he was convinced was useful to the perfection of our manufactures, and still more useful as affecting the morality of the lower orders.

Mr. Serjeant Best said that if no other member introduced a clause to that effect, he himself should feel it his duty to propose one. He thought the penal clauses of the Act of Elizabeth should certainly be repealed, but that at the same time it was much better that young people should not be left without some control. He thought that at present the masters had much more advantages from the services of the apprentices, than the apprentices had from the instruction of the master, as most of those trades might be learned in a very short time. He therefore wished that part of the earnings might go to the parents, as an encouragement to the system.

Mr. P. Moore opposed the Bill, because he thought that its enactment would operate seriously to the prejudice of our manufactures both in skill and reputation. Indeed, such had been found the effect of the partial repeal of the statute of Elizabeth with respect to the woollen manufacture.[356] For although the Yorkshire tag had formerly been a sufficient recommendation upon the continent, yet since the repeal alluded to, our pieces of woollen manufactures were examined yard by yard before they were purchased.

Mr. Lockhart expressed his opinion, that this Bill, if enacted, should only operate prospectively; that is, that it should not become effective until a certain period; so that those mechanics who had served apprenticeships upon the faith of the existing law, should not be injured by its operation, by being thrown out of employment at a period of life when they could not devote themselves to any other profession than that to which they had been reared.

Mr. B. Shaw deprecated the idea that morality was likely to be endangered, or our manufactures injured, by the enactment of the Bill under consideration; for Scotland, to which the Act of Elizabeth never extended, was never found in any degree inferior in morality or skill in manufacture.

Mr. W. Smith observed, that he never heard of any proposition of reform which was not likely to be inconvenient to some persons; and therefore he was not surprised at the assertion, that the adoption of the Bill before the House would operate to injure the interests of particular persons. The apprehension of such injury was, however, in his judgment, unfounded. But still, those who expressed the apprehension were entitled to attention; and the objections which certain petitioners urged against this Bill, would, he had no doubt, meet all due consideration in the committee. The fact was, as to the statute of Elizabeth, that its existence served to create monopolies; and the effect of those monopolies was, that when the demand for an article was large, the price was enhanced to the public; while, when the demand became small, many workmen were thrown out of employment. Therefore, the repeal of that statute would tend to serve both the public and the workmen. As to the argument advanced in support of the statute of Elizabeth, merely in consequence of its antiquity, he could not admit that it had any force. He declared that his ears were quite tired of the phrase "the wisdom of our ancestors," which phrase was, in fact, calculated only to impose upon the superficial. For, after all, what did this phrase mean? The world was younger in the time of our ancestors, although they were older than us. Time, Lord Bacon said, was the greatest innovator; and if, at this advanced time of the world, after all our experience, we could not improve upon the system of our ancestors, our intellects must be what would hardly be asserted, not only quite unequal to theirs, but infinitely inferior. How, then, could it be pretended, that the same legislative arrangements applied in the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade of the whole British Empire was not equal to that of the port of London at this day, was strictly applicable at present, and suited to our improved situation?

Mr. Serjeant Onslow replied, and, observing upon the petitions on the table against the Bill, expressed his conviction that they were not the unsolicited acts of the petitioners; as indeed appeared from several placards about town, inviting signatures to such petitions; and those petitioners, he meant especially the journeymen mechanics, would find the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth rather materially serviceable, than in any degree injurious to their interests.

[The apprenticeship regulations of the 5 Eliz. c. 4 were abolished by 54 Geo. III. 96, 1814.]

[352] For enforcing the Statute of Apprentices.

[353] Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Cols. 423-25, Vol. XXVII.

[354] Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Cols. 563-74.

[355] Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Cols. 879-884.

[356] The apprenticeship regulations in the woollen industries had been set aside by Acts of Parliament, 1803 and 1809.

2. That it is by apprenticeships, that the practitioners in the arts and manufactures attain the high degree of perfection, whereby British productions have arrived at the great estimation in which they were heretofore held in foreign markets.

8. That the apprenticed artisans have, collectively and individually, an unquestionable right to expect the most extended protection from the Legislature, in the quiet and exclusive use and enjoyment of their several and respective arts and trades, which the law has already conferred upon them as a property, as much as it has secured the property of the stockholder in the public funds; and it is clearly unjust to take the whole of the ancient established property and rights of any one class of the community, unless, at the same time, the rights and property of the whole commonwealth should be dissolved, and parcelled out anew for the public good.

10. That in consequence of too minute a division of labour, injudiciously allowed in several manufactures, the workmen employed are not enabled to make throughout any one article however simple, or even to maintain themselves by their industry.

11. That the unlimited or promiscuous introduction of various descriptions of persons without apprenticeship into the manufactures occasions a surplus of manufacturing poor, and an unnecessary competition, ruinous to the commercial capital and industry of the nation; because the overflow of goods causes all the productions of the manufacturies to fall in price, and be sold to foreigners for less money than they cost in making; which deficiencies are necessarily made up by the ruin of the master manufacturers, bankruptcies, and dividends to creditors; and are the cause of increased parochial and other rates, thus necessarily created, for the support of the poor workmen, who are deprived of the fair price of their honest labour.

17. That the system of apprenticeships, whether considered in a religious, political or moral point of view, is highly beneficial to the State, and from the neglect thereof is to be attributed the great defalcation of public morals, the numerous frauds committed in trade, the increased numbers of juvenile criminals, public trials and executions.

18. That the pretensions to the allowance of universal uncontrolled freedom of action to every individual founded upon the same delusive theoretical principles which fostered the French Revolution, are wholly inapplicable to the insular situation of this Kingdom, and if allowed to prevail, will hasten the destruction of the social system so happily arranged in the existing form and substance of the British constitution, established by law.

19. That the meeting highly approves the proceedings of the 62,875 masters and journeymen, who have already presented petitions, to the House of Commons, praying for leave to bring a Bill into Parliament to amend, extend and make more effectual the statute of apprenticeship, 5 Elizabeth, chap. 4.

21. That the most effectual preventive against and check upon combinations of journeymen, as also of masters in any trade, is for the persons engaged in such trades to take apprentices as required by law.

That the whole of the masters and weavers in the Ribbon Trade concur in the propriety of an extension of the Spitalfields Act.

Your Committee are, therefore, of opinion, that it is absolutely necessary, for the protection of the weavers in the silk trade, and the ribbon trade in particular, and to enable them to support themselves and families, and also for protecting the parishes in which these trades are carried on, that some legislative interference should take place; and your committee think that a remedy could be found in the extension of the provisions of the Spitalfields and Dublin Acts, or at least a trial of that extension for a period of a few years, by way of experiment.

Your committee cannot but remark, that whilst the Statute of 5th Elizabeth, c. 4, was in force, that the distressing circumstances now complained of, never occurred.

III. And be it further enacted, that there shall be allowed to every such person, in the course of every day, not less than half an hour to breakfast, and not less than one full hour for dinner; such hour for dinner to be between the hours of eleven o'clock in forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon.

IV. Provided nevertheless, and be it further enacted, that if at any time, in any such mill, manufactory or buildings as are situated upon streams of water, time shall be lost in consequence of the want of a due supply, or of an excess of water, then and in every such case, and so often as the same shall happen, it shall be lawful for the proprietors of any such mill, manufactory or building, to extend the before mentioned time of daily labour, after the rate of one additional hour per day, until such lost time shall have been made good, but no longer.

V. And be it further enacted, that the ceilings and interior walls of every such mill, manufactory, or building shall be washed with quick lime and water twice in every year.

Gentlemen,—No heart responded with truer accents to the sounds of liberty which were heard in the Leeds Cloth-hall yard, on the 22nd instant, than did mine, and from none could more sincere and earnest prayers arise to the throne of Heaven, that hereafter Slavery might only be known to Britain in the pages of her history. One shade alone obscured my pleasure, arising not from any difference in principle, but from the want of application of the general principle to the whole Empire. The pious and able champions of Negro liberty and Colonial rights should, if I mistake not, have gone farther than they did; or perhaps, to speak more correctly, before they had travelled so far as the West Indies, should, at least for a few moments, have sojourned in our immediate neighbourhood, and have directed the attention of the meeting to scenes of misery, acts of oppression and victims of Slavery, even on the threshold of our homes!

Let the truth speak out, appalling as the statements may appear. The fact is true. Thousands of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, both male and female, the inhabitants of a Yorkshire-town, (Yorkshire now represented in Parliament by the giant of anti-slavery principles,[358]) are at this very moment existing in a state of slavery more horrid than are the victims of that hellish system—"Colonial Slavery." These innocent creatures drawl out unpitied their short but miserable existence, in a place famed for its profession of religious zeal, whose inhabitants are ever foremost in professing "Temperance" and "Reformation," and are striving to outrun their neighbours in Missionary exertions, and would fain send the Bible to the farthest corner of the Globe—aye in the very place where the anti-slavery fever rages most furiously, her apparent charity is not more admired on earth, than her real cruelty is abhorred in heaven. The very streets which receive the droppings of an "Anti-Slavery Society" are every morning wet with the tears of innocent victims at the accursed shrine of avarice, who are compelled (not by the cart-whip of the negro slave-driver) but by the dread of the equally appalling thong or strap of the overlooker, to hasten half-dressed, but not half-fed, to those magazines of British Infantile Slavery—the Worsted Mills in the town and neighbourhood of Bradford!!!

Thousands of little children, both male and female, but principally female, from SEVEN to fourteen years, are daily compelled to labour from six o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening with only—Britons, blush whilst you read it!—with only thirty minutes allowed for eating and recreation.

The Blacks may be fairly compared to beasts of burden kept for their master's use. The whites to those which others keep and let for hire! If I have succeeded in calling the attention of your readers to the horrid and abominable system on which the worsted mills in and near Bradford are conducted, I have done some good. Why should not children working in them be protected by legislative enactments, as well as those who work in cotton mills. Christians should feel and act for those whom Christ so eminently loved and declared that "of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Your insertion of the above in the Leeds Mercury, at your earliest convenience, will oblige, Gentlemen,

[357] September 22, 1830, an anti-Slavery meeting at the Coloured Cloth Hall, Leeds, addressed by Lord Morpeth, Henry Brougham, etc., in favour of the abolition of Slavery in the British colonies.

[358] Brougham.

VIII. And be it further enacted, that from and after the expiration of six months after the passing of this act, it shall not be lawful for any person whatsoever to employ, keep, or allow to remain in any factory or mill as aforesaid for a longer time than forty-eight hours in any one week, nor for a longer time than nine hours in any one day, except as herein provided, any child who shall not have completed his or her eleventh year of age, or after the expiration of eighteen months from the passing of this act any child who shall not have completed his or her twelfth year of age, or after the expiration of thirty months from the passing of this act any child who shall not have completed his or her thirteenth year of age: Provided nevertheless, that in mills for the manufacture of silk children under the age of thirteen years shall be allowed to work ten hours in any one day.

[XI. No child under thirteen to be employed without a certificate that the child is of normal strength and appearance.]

XVII.... it shall be lawful for His Majesty by Warrant under his Sign Manual to appoint during His Majesty's pleasure four persons to be Inspectors of factories and places where the labour of children and young persons under eighteen years of age is employed, ... and such Inspectors or any of them are hereby empowered to enter any factory or mill, and any school attached or belonging thereto, at all times and seasons by day or by night, when such mills or factories are at work....

XVIII. And be it further enacted, that the said Inspectors or any of them shall have power and are hereby required to make all such rules, regulations, and orders as may be necessary for the due execution of this act, which rules, regulations, and orders shall be binding on all persons subject to the provisions of this act; and such inspectors are also hereby authorised and required to enforce the attendance at school of children employed in factories according to the provisions of this act....

XX. And be it further enacted, that from and after the expiration of six months from the passing of this act, every child hereinbefore restricted to the performance of forty-eight hours of labour in any one week shall, so long as such child shall be within the said restricted age, attend some school....

Have you any parties introduced in these boards of trade consisting of masters and workmen, who would belong to neither party, who would act in conjunction with them in arbitrating where there was a difference of opinion whether the master paid too little or too much wages? Yes, we had conceived that the self-interest of both parties might induce them to differ, supposing an equal number of manufacturers and weavers composed this board; and one party under such circumstances must of course be in the wrong. Now the only arbiter that could be brought forth under such circumstances must be a neutral, that was pretty well versed in the nature of trade, and that arbitrator could be none other than His Majesty's Board of Trade in London.

In Glasgow or anywhere in Scotland, have you a board of trade in operation upon the principles you approve of, that you think would answer all purposes? It is going on just now; it is working at Paisley very finely, and at Glasgow.

Just explain those principles as far as you can? The working of the Paisley board at the present time, and the working of the Glasgow board, are exactly upon the same principles. The principle is this, that for all the species of work made at Paisley, the manufacturers made out a table of prices, and the weavers made out another; they were reciprocally handed to each other for correction, and the result was, they came to a mutual agreement; they entered into a 12 months' agreement, that they would issue no more work out to their workmen below the minimum price fixed, say it was 1s. for a certain fabric.[359]