more false statements, and exaggerated and fallacious representations, than any other document of the kind ever laid before the Legislature. The discussions to which this Report, and the proposal that grew out of it, for limiting factory labour to ten hours a-day, gave rise, induced Government to appoint a Commission to enquire on the spot into the actual condition of the labourers, and especially the children employed in factories. This Commission collected a great deal of valuable and authentic information; and much light has since been thrown on the question of factory labour. We do not say, as Dr Ure does, that the statements and representations as to its pernicious influence have been proved to be wholly destitute of foundation; but we believe, with Mr Baines, that they have been grossly exaggerated. That abuses have existed in some factories is certain; but these have been rare instances; and, speaking generally, factory workpeople, including non-adults, are as healthy and contented as any class of the community obliged to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.

We do not, however, know that we should object to the total exclusion of children, from nine to thirteen years of age, from factories, provided we had any reasonable security_that_they would be moderately well attended to and instructed at home. But no such security is to be looked for. The parents of such children frequently want the ability, oftener the opportunity, and sometimes the wish, to keep them at home in any thing like a decent condition ;-to provide them with instruction, or to impress on them the importance of habits of cleanliness, sobriety, and industry. Were they turned out of the factories, few would either go to the country or to school. Four-fifths of them would be thrown loose upon the streets, to acquire a taste for idleness, and to be early initiated in the vicious practices prevalent amongst the dregs of the populace, in Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, and other great towns. Whatever may be the state of society in these towns, we hesitate not to say, that it would have been ten times worse but for the factories. They have been their best and most important academies. Besides taking the children out of harm's way, they have imbued them with regular, orderly, and industrious habits. Their earnings are considerable, and are a material assistance to their parents; at the same time that they make them perform their tasks with a zeal and alacrity that is rarely manifested by apprentices serving without pay, merely that they may learn some art, trade, or mystery. Many factories have also day schools, or Sunday schools, or both attached to them, which the children attend. But, independently of this, the

training they undergo in factories is of inestimable value, and is not more conducive to their own interests than to those of the public.

We subjoin some conclusive extracts as to the state of the adult and non-adult work-people employed in factories, from the valuable report of Mr Tufnell, one of the commissioners who travelled in Lancashire.

Of all the common prejudices that exist with respect to factory labour, there is none more unfounded than that which ascribes to it excessive tedium and irksomeness above other occupations, owing to its being carried on in conjunction with the "unceasing motion of the steam-engine." In an establishment for spinning or weaving cotton, all the hard work is performed by the steam-engine, which leaves for the attendant no manual labour at all, and literally nothing to do in general, but at intervals to perform some delicate operation, such as joining the threads that break, taking the cops off the spindles, &c. And it is so far from being true that the labour in a factory is incessant, because the motion of the steam-engine is incessant, that the fact is, that the labour is not incessant on that very account, because it is performed in conjunction with the steam-engine. Of all manufacturing employments, those are by far the most irksome and incessant in which steam-engines are not employed; and the way to prevent an employment being incessant is to introduce a steam-engine into it. And these remarks, strange as it may appear, apply peculiarly to the labour of children in cotton factories. Three-fourths of the children so employed are engaged in piecing at the mules, which, when they have receded a foot and a-half or two feet from the frame, leave nothing to be done,-not even attention is required either from spinner or piecer, but both stand idle for a time, which, if the spinning is fine, lasts in general three-fourths of a minute or more. Consequently, in these establishments, if a child remains during twelve hours a-day, for nine hours he performs no actual labour. A spinner told me that during these intervals he had read through several books. The scavengers, who have been said to be "constantly in a state of grief, always in terror, and every moment they have to spare stretched all their length upon the floor in a state of perspiration," I have seen idle for four minutes at a time, and certainly could not find that they ever displayed any symptoms of the condition described in this extract from the Report of the Factory Committee.

The objections urged against the factory system, from its collecting a large number of persons together under one roof, are equally unfounded. In truth, so completely erroneous is this notion, that the complaint ought to be just the reverse, that there are not enough large factories, and too many small ones. I invariably found, that the large factories were those in which the health, general comfort, and convenience of the workmen were most attended to, and where they were the

best off in every respect. And it would be an extraordinary circumstance if it were not so. When a large body of workmen are collected

together under one employer, he is enabled to allow them many indulgences, at a comparatively small expense, but which would cause a serious outlay to the proprietor of a small establishment. It is the interest of a master manufacturer to do all that lies in his power to accom modate his men, as he thereby is enabled to attract the best workmen into his employ, owing to the good repute which his factory will bear among them; therefore, a large establishment is certain to be best regulated, as it can be most cheaply well regulated. Accordingly, the greatest mills I always found to be the cleanest, the machinery most securely fenced off, and the hands of the neatest and most respectable appearance. In Messrs Birley and Kirk's mill, the largest in Manchester, the workmen are allowed as much hot water as they please at tea-time without charge, and persons are employed to take it to them. In Messrs Strutt's mill at Belper, each hand is allowed a pint of good tea or coffee, with sugar and milk, for one halfpenny, and medical assistance gratis; a dancingroom is also found for them in this establishment. It could never auswer to put up a copper to heat water for twenty or thirty persons, nor could tea or coffee be sold at this price unless a large number were supplied with it. Mr Ashton can afford to pay for all the surgical assistance that is yearly required by his 1173 workmen, as he can contract for it at six guineas a-year; did he employ only a twelfth part of that number he assuredly could not get a surgeon to take the contract at a twelfth part of six guineas. Mr Bott undertakes to attend to all the ailments of the operatives in Messrs Lichfield's mills, on payment of a halfpenny each weekly; he certainly would refuse to attend twenty persous for eighteen. pence a-week.'

The notion so generally entertained that factory labour is unfavourable to health and longevity, has been completely disproved. Mr Rickards, the well-informed inspector for the Lancashire district, states the result of his enquiries, and of those of the surgeons having the charge of factories, to be, that factory labour is decidedly not injurious to health or longevity, compared with other employments.'

The stories as to the vicious morals and profligacy of the persons employed in factories, have also been shown to be without any real foundation whatever. The rectors of St John's and St Paul's, Manchester, the chaplain of the Manchester jail, and va rious dissenting clergymen intimately acquainted with the factory population, were closely examined by Mr Tufnell as to this point; and their evidence goes to show, that the morals of the persons engaged in mills are quite as good as those of any other class of people, and that they have been materially improved by means of Sunday schools and otherwise-during the last twelve years.

But notwithstanding what has now been stated, we incline to think that the Legislature did right in prohibiting altogether the employment of children in mills under nine years of age.

The

limitation of the hours of work in factories is, however, a matter of great nicety and difficulty; and, perhaps, it would be better to arm the inspectors with powers for the prevention of abuse, than to interfere in any other way. It has in most instances been found quite impracticable to act on the clauses in the late act as to education; and the plan for having relays of children has also, for the most part, failed. The less, generally speaking, the cotton trade is tampered with the better. It is not indebted for any part of its rise to legislative encouragement or protection, and we hope no one may ever be able truly to affirm, that when the Legislature did interfere, its progress was retarded.

The wages of the adults engaged in factories are in general high, many of them earning from 3s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. a-day, and some more. Employment in factories is also remarkably steady, not depending, like work carried on out of doors, on the state of the weather or other uncertain contingencies, but is carried on almost without interruption. Hence the superior condition of factory work-people. Such of them as are provident are in decidedly comfortable circumstances. Their money wages have somewhat declined since the peace; but they have not declined to any thing like the degree that the prices of bread, beef, clothes, and almost every necessary and desirable article have fallen; so that the manufacturing part of the population possess at this moment a greater command over the necessaries and conveniencies of life, and are in decidedly more comfortable circumstances, than they have ever been at any former period of our history.

Perhaps the most important and valuable, as well as original information, contained in the Reports of the Factory Commissioners, is embodied in that furnished by Mr Cowell, and in the tables which accompany it. Every one at all familiar with the history of our factory system must be aware, that every now and then statements are put forth of the injury done the work-people by the introduction of improved machinery; and statements without number have been published, contrasting the nearly stationary amount of their wages with the vast increase in the quantity of work they have to perform. Mr Cowell has shown the fallacy of these representations; and has proved, by a careful and elaborate deduction, that neither has been nor can be impeached, that improvements in machinery invariably increase, at one and the same time, the profits of the mill-owner and the wages of the workmen. This might have been established on general grounds, but Mr Cowell, whose diligence cannot be too highly commended, has proved, by comparing and carefully digesting returns, obtained

from 151 mills, employing 48,645 work-people, that such is in all cases the immediate effect of improvements.

Spinners are paid according to a fixed scale of prices, depend ing on the work done, and which decreases when the quantity of yarn they produce in equal spaces of time is increased. But the in ratio of the decrease of price is less than that of the increase of work; so that when a workman is able, by the assistance of improved machinery, to produce, in a given time, a third or a half more yarn than previously, his wages do not fall a third or a half, but in some less proportion; so that he, as well as his master, reaps a direct and immediate advantage from the improvement of the machinery; while, owing to the fall that takes place in the price of the manufactured article, the demand for it is extended, and the manufacture kept on the increase. We shall give an example of this.

In 1833, Mr Cowell tells us, a spinner could produce in two fine spinning mills in Manchester 16 pounds of yarn of the fineness of 200 hanks to the pound, from mules carrying from 300 to 324 spindles, working 69 hours a-week-the quantity that he turned off in 69 hours more frequently exceeding 16 pounds than falling short of it. Now, according to the list of prices, the spinner who produces 16 pounds of yarn of No. 200 on mules of the power of from 300 to 324 spindles, is paid 3s. 6d. per pound. This gives 54s. for his gross receipts, out of which he had to pay 13s. for assistants, leaving 41s. for his nett earnings. But the power of the mules has since been doubled-that is, they now carry 648 spindles instead of from 300 to 324, and the same spinner produces 32 pounds of yarn of the fineness of 200 hanks to the pound in 69 hours: for this he is paid at the rate of 2s. 5d. per pound (instead of 3s. 6d.) His gross receipts are, therefore, immediately raised to 77s. 4d. (32 x 2s. 5d.) He now, however, requires five assistants to help him, and averaging their cost at 5s, each, their labour will cost him 25s., or, to avoid all cavil, say 27s., which, being deducted from his gross receipts, leaves 50s. 4d. for his nett wages-that is, 9s. 4d. more than he received when he only produced half the yarn. (Supplemental Factory Report, D. 1.)

It may be said, perhaps, that even in this instance the spinner 'does more work, for less wages' than before the improvement. But such is not the fact. The machine he is employed to superintend does more work, in the same time, than it did before; while the labour of the spinner remains the same, or is perhaps lessened. And yet, merely because he is employed to attend a more pow erful and efficient machine, he gets 9s. 4d. a-week, or nearly