of the poor laws, said: "We are bound in justice and honour to disclaim the right of the poor to support." The reverend gentleman added: "If parents desert their child, they ought to be made answerable for the crime. The infant is, comparatively speaking, of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place." The conclusions of the old school were, in short, that man is a miserable, helpless creature here below, powerless to change anything, and that Nature would have to take its course, starving, eliminating, and yielding up the hindmost to his Satanic Majesty.

Sec. 3.-The Revolt. The conditions finally became so unbearable that the people, who had no voice in shaping the public policy, expressed their deep-seated resentment at the iniquities of the new order in occasional outbreaks. Rick burning and the destruction of machinery showed the determined spirit of the times. Discontent and unrest were rife throughout the North. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the Six Acts (1819) aimed at the suppression of sedition, revealed the fright of the Government, and virtually declared England to be in a state of anarchy; while the so-called Peterloo Massacre added fuel to the flames of civil unrest. / But it was not by riots and the destruction of property that the people were to secure control over their conditions of life and labour. The work of individualism in striking down and clearing away the old economic, social, and political wreckage had been invaluable; but its failure to secure to the people the barest comforts of life soon became evident.

Sec. 4.-Factory Legislation. When it became a physical impossibility to endure this terrible state of affairs any longer, the agitation for factory legislation

began. However, the problem was approached with "bated breath and whispering humbleness," for fear of trenching upon the sacred rights of freedom of contract. Human life was nothing when measured against the holy obligation of precedent. Factory legislation in England has been brought about by curious forces. Philanthropists, scheming politicians, men with moral and social convictions, have joined with the workers in the struggle for better conditions. The first step in the direction of legislative control of the new industry was made in 1802. Terrible as were the conditions depicted in reports and pamphlets, they seem to have attracted little attention from the general public until the spread of disease created alarm outside the precincts of factories. Long hours, il ventilation, filthy homes, scanty food and clothing, and total lack of decent sanitary arrangements, led to the spread of epidemics in the factory districts, and action on the question could not be delayed longer without seriously involving public health. In 1796, the Manchester Board of Health was appointed, and to this committee, Dr. Percival, President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, submitted a report, in which he said: "In the prosecution of this necessary undertaking, the Board have had their attention particularly directed to large cotton factories established in the town and neighbourhood of Manchester, and they feel it a duty incumbent on them to lay before the public the result of their inquiries: (1) It appears that the children and others who work in the large cotton factories are particularly disposed to be affected by the contagion of fever, and that when the affection is received it is rapidly propagated, not only amongst those who are crowded together in the same apartments, but in the

families and neighbourhoods to which they belong. (2) The large factories are generally injurious to the constitution of those employed in them, even where no particular disease prevails, from the close confinement which is enjoined, from the debilitating effects of hot and impure air, and from the want of active exercises, which are essential in childhood and youth to invigorate the system, and to fit our species for the duties of mankind. (3) The untimely labour of the night, and the protracted labour of the day, with respect to children, not only tend to diminish future expectations as to the general sum of life and industry, by impairing the strength and destroying the vital stamina of the rising generation, but it too often gives encouragement to idleness, extravagance, and profligacy of the parents who, contrary to the order of Nature, subsist by the oppression of their offspring. (4) It appears that the children employed in factories are generally debarred from all opportunity of education, and from moral and religious instruction. (5) From the excellent regulations that subsist in several factories, it appears that many of these evils may, in a considerable degree, be obviated; and we are therefore warranted by experience, and are assured that we shall have the support of the liberal proprietors of these factories, in proposing an application for Parliamentary aid (if other methods appear not likely to effect the purpose) to establish a general system of laws for the wise, humane, and equal government of all such works."

As a result of the agitation on the condition of factory operatives, two years after the opening of the new century a Statute was passed providing for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices

and others employed in the mills. This Act, which was passed largely through the continued effort of Sir Robert Peel, was intended chiefly to protect the little pauper apprentices. It reduced hours of labour for children to seventy-two per week, and regulated night work as well. Children living near the mill in which they were employed were not within the intention of the Act, for they were presumably under the care of their parents. Each apprentice was to secure instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and to be provided one suit of clothes a year Factories were to be white-washed annually and adequately ventilated, and the sleeping apartments of the sexes separated! This half-hearted measure was to be enforced under a penalty of not more than £5, nor less than 40s. ! However, Parliament could not undertake sweeping reforms owing to the selfishness of mill owners and the dense ignorance of operatives, who had been taught to believe that a shortening of hours was inevitably accompanied by a fall in wages. Though the pauper slave market, so far as the cotton mills were concerned, was practically closed by the law, the horrors of child labour were not mitigated. By this Act, Parliament showed no intention of seriously interfering with the "right" of employers and employés to determine their own affairs. So generally accepted was the theory that social warfare was the natural condition of society that a select committee of the House of Commons reported in 1811 that "no interference of the Legislature with the freedom of trade, or with the perfect liberty of every individual to dispose of his time and his labour in the way and on the terms which he may judge most conducive to his interest, can take place without

violating general principles of the first importance to the prosperity and happiness of the community, without establishing the most pernicious precedent, or even without aggravating, after a very short time, the pressure of the general distress, and imposing obstacles against that distress ever being removed." In spite of these profound speculations, people were determined not to be "sweated or stunk to death.” The tide had set in

toward ever stricter control of the conditions of labour. In 1815, Robert Owen, the great and revered friend of the toilers of the world, lifted his voice in public protest against the iniquities of the industrial system. With him, interference was not a question of "economic theory," but one of human life. The manufacturers were anxious enough to use the strong arm of the law in their own interests, and Robert Owen seized an opportunity of presenting the claims of the operatives when the mill owners were considering the policy of applying to the Government for a remission of the tax on raw cotton. At a meeting of manufacturers, Owen's proposition for the abolition of the tax was enthusiastically supported; but he failed to find even a seconder of the motion to improve the condition of the employed. In the interest of the workers, he made an eloquent and passionate plea for factory regulation: "Shall we then go unblushingly and ask the legislators of our country to pass legislative acts to sanction and increase this trade-to sign the death-warrants of the strength, morals, and happiness of thousands of our fellow-creatures, and not attempt to propose correctives for the evils which it creates ? If such shall be your determination, I, for one, will not join in the application ; nay, I will, with all the faculties I possess, oppose every