regarded
as Peel's opportunism and subservience to party policy. The one had an
instinct for what was practical and knew exactly how far he could
combine interests to carry a measure; the other was all on fire for the
cause and ready to push it forward against all obstacles, at all costs.
Ashley, it is true, had to work through Parliament to attain his chief
ends, and many a bitter moment he had to endure in striving towards the
goal. But if he was not an adroit or successful politician, he
gradually, as the struggle went on, by earnestness and force of
character, made for himself in the House a place apart, a place of rare
dignity and influence; and with the force of public opinion behind him
he was able to triumph over ministers and parties.

It was in 1832 that he first had his attention drawn to the conditions
of labour in factories. He never claimed to be the pioneer of the
movement, but he was early in the field. The inventions of the latter
part of the eighteenth century had transformed the north of England. The
demand for labour had given rise to appalling abuses, especially in the
matter of child labour. From London workhouses and elsewhere children
were poured into the labour market, and by the 'Apprentice System' were
bound to serve their masters for long periods and for long hours
together. A pretence of voluntary contract was kept up, but fraud and
deception were rife in the system and its results were tragic. Mrs.
Browning's famous poem, 'The Cry of the Children,' gives a more vivid
picture of the children's sufferings than many pages of prose. At the
same time we have plenty of first-hand evidence from the great towns of
the misery which went along with the wonderful development of national
wealth. Speaking in 1873 Lord Shaftesbury said, 'Well can I recollect in
the earlier periods of the Factory movement waiting at the factory gates
to see the children come out, and a set of dejected cadaverous creatures
they were. In Bradford especially the proofs of long and cruel toil were
most remarkable. The cripples and distorted forms might be numbered by
hundreds perhaps by thousands. A friend of mine collected together a
vast number for me; the sight was most piteous, the deformities
incredible.' And an eye-witness in Bolton reports in 1792: 'Anything
like the squalid misery, the slow, mouldering, putrefying death by which
the weak and feeble are perishing here, it never befell my eyes to
behold, nor my imagina