ould resign. The new bill
was exactly the old Twelve Hours' Bill with some changes of form, and the
same House of Commons which had rejected the principal points of this
bill in March, now swallowed it whole. The reason of this was that most
of the supporters of the Ten Hours' Bill were Tories who let fall the
bill rather than the ministry; but be the motives what they may, the
House of Commons by its votes upon this subject, each vote reversing the
last, has brought itself into the greatest contempt among all the
workers, and proved most brilliantly the Chartists' assertion of the
necessity of its reform. Three members, who had formerly voted against
the ministry, afterwards voted for it and rescued it. In all the
divisions, the bulk of the opposition voted _for_ and the bulk of its own
party _against_ the ministry. {176} The foregoing propositions of Graham
touching the employment of children six and one-half and of all other
operatives twelve hours are now legislative provisions, and by them and
by the limitation of overwork for making up time lost through breakdown
of machinery or insufficient water-power by reason of frost or drought, a
working-day of more than twelve hours has been made well-nigh impossible.
There remains, however, no doubt that, in a very short time, the Ten
Hours' Bill will really be adopted. The manufacturers are naturally all
against it, there are perhaps not ten who are for it; they have used
every honourable and dishonourable means against this dreaded measure,
but with no other result than that of drawing down upon them the ever
deepening hatred of the working-men. The bill will pass. What the
working-men will do they can do, and that they will have this bill they
proved last spring. The economic arguments of the manufacturers that a
Ten Hours' Bill would increase the cost of production and incapacitate
the English producers for competition in foreign markets, and that wages
must fall, are all _half_ true; but they prove nothing except this, that
the industrial greatness of England can be maintained only through the
barbarous treatment of the operatives, the destruction of their health,
the social, physical, and mental decay of whole generations. Naturally,
if the Ten Hours' Bill were a final measure, it must ruin England; but
since it must inevitably bring with it other measures which must draw
England into a path wholly different from that hitherto followed, it can
only prove an a