not being included in the provisions of the Acts for regulating the employment of children and young persons in mills and factories." In introducing this resolution his lordship made use of the following words :- "I have long been taunted with narrow and exclusive attention to the children in the factories alone; I have been told in language and writing, that there were other cases fully as grievous, and not less numerous; that I was unjust and inconsiderate in my denouncements of the one, and my omission of the other. I have, however, long contemplated this effort which I am now making; I had long resolved that, so soon as I could see the factory children, as it were, safe in harbour I would undertake a new task."

Such was the origin of the first great commission of enquiry into the industries of the country as affected by changed methods of labour, commonly called the "First Children's Employment Commission," from the date of which it was clear that the old basis of factory legislation was shifting, and previous notions of its scope and mission could no longer be considered adequate.

The Commission issued two Reports, the first dealing exclusively with mines, the second with other trades and manufactures. That concerned about mining was acted upon at once; but much further agitation had to occur, and yet another Commission to investigate and report before anything comprehensive was done respecting the other subjects of the enquiry. Of the details then brought to light we shall have something to say hereafter; for the present our concern is with the earlier Report and its influence on legislation and the Factory Controversy. The second part of this (Part II. Trades and Manufactures; Parl. Pap., 1843, XIII.) presented a series of recommendations of the most

exhaustive kind; dealing not only with occupations in which machinery was used, but with many manual ones as well; not merely with industries of the congregated class, but with many forms of isolated labour, and domestic manufacture. It was proved that in nearly all of these, abuses existed in no wise less, in some cases even greater, than what had been proved against factories-that is against textile factories as then defined by law. What was to be done? Exponents and opponents of legislation had alike (with few exceptions) no doubt upon the matter. Those industries must be legislated for too. So argued opponents, that every branch of the new system of production might be subject to a like supervision, and none be more "free" than another; so argued its exponents on the ever broadening ground that circumstances had compelled them to occupy in their constant endeavours to ameliorate the conditions of modern labour. What matter if such places were not really factories, they might easily be called so; or might not the same, or similar laws be extended to them in any case, by whatsoever name they were called? Nay, must they not after such disclosures? Not only sentiment now, but sound reason, seemed on the innovator's side; having gone so far they must to be consistent go farther or go back of what had been already done.

With this general consensus of public opinion in favour of legislation the Factory Controversy, as as originally understood, comes properly to a close. It was no longer a question of kind that the reformers of the next quarter of a century had to deal with but of degree; it is scarcely a question either of kind or degree that reformers are concerned with now, but of application, of administration, and of the ultimate limit of

State interference-in the last resort-with all material labour.

SUMMARY.-The story of the Factory System has thus been traced, from the first application of the word "factory" in its modern sense to a time when a later signification of it had become nearly obsolete too. We have found this term neither fixed by law nor usage in any invariable meaning, but to have had, on the contrary, an extremely variable one, and to have been the occasion of much varied legislation accordingly. This variability it has communicated to the expression Factory System : a mode of labour into which the industrial revolution of modern times has introduced great changes. The Factory Acts are in this view the necessary counterpoise that seeks to restore equilibrium restore equilibrium between the new ethical and economical ideals. On the historical point, we have quoted evidence of the existence of factory systems in very ancient times, and, in particular, under the great ancient civilizations of Rome and Egypt; in connection with which matter the statement has been hazarded that it is a method of industry ever likely to present itself when existing economic circumstances are favourable. On the subject of the development of factory legislation, it has been shown that supervision was applied in the beginning only to very special industries, but afterwards more generally; and in this development the title factory has remained while almost nothing else has done so, till at length an epoch has been reached when Factory Acts are called upon to deal with many kinds of labour and forms of industry other than are popularly associated with this name.

The

process of the development is that of which we have next to treat. To it the next three chapters will be given; the last being concerned with occupations still unincluded, or included only in part, together with such other matter as may seem proper then. In this way, it is hoped, the whole field of investigation will best be covered, and some definite and precise conceptions be conveyed. We have to relate, how a new edifice for freedom's sake, though not at first in freedom's name, was raised upon the ruins of elder systems of productive industry as a refuge from cupidity and tyranny, and to take the place of older barriers which "the wisdom of our ancestors " had provided. And once again, as ever heretofore, the cement to hold its parts in place was law. Let it ever be remembered; and the present is a notable illustration of the truth; that there is no liberty without law. Anarchy there may be, the rule of the strongest, cruellest, cleverest :-freedom never! It is quite possible—it is even probable that the political slavery of ancient times was no whit more heavy than the economic slavery under which English labour groaned previous to the enactment of the Factory Acts. From that slavery, by a long course of constitutional agitation, it has been gradually emancipated up to the point that it has reached to-day; and the process is not over. Be it so. So long as the friends of progress arm themselves only with the same weapons as heretofore there is little cause to fear what further developments are in store, but there is good reason to distrust hasty and ill-considered courses, which have seldom in the history of mankind been successful in the end.

E

CHAPTER III,

THE FACTORY ACTS

(1802 TO 1833).

PREVIOUS LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS-THE FIRST FACTORY ACT-FIRST PARLIAMENTARY ENQUIRY-RESULTING LEGISLATION-THE FACTORY ACT, 1831-SADLER'S COMMITTEE— THE FACTORY ACT, 1833.

PREVIOUS LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS.-Not until a very recent time in the history of mankind did the belief prevail that the relations of men to one another in respect to industrial production should be less a matter for exterior regulation than in regard to any other subject of contract. On the contrary, this had been always held to be one of the first and most obvious relations requiring careful public supervision. In the great slave-holding countries of history, for example, from ancient Egypt and Assyria, to Great Britain in the last, and America in the present century, that obligation had been duly recognised, and in those where slavery did not prevail, the still stronger and more permanent compulsions of custom, tradition, caste, or voluntary association, had usually supplied the place of law.1 In mediæval Europe the form this supervision took commonly was that of 1 See page 36.