difference between us as
to ends: there is an honest difference of opinion as to means: and we
surely ought to be able to discuss the points on which we differ without
one angry emotion or one acrimonious word.

The details of the bill, Sir, will be more conveniently and more
regularly discussed when we consider it in Committee. Our business at
present is with the principle: and the principle, we are told by many
gentlemen of great authority, is unsound. In their opinion, neither
this bill, nor any other bill regulating the hours of labour, can be
defended. This, they say, is one of those matters about which we ought
not to legislate at all; one of those matters which settle themselves
far better than any government can settle them. Now it is most important
that this point should be fully cleared up. We certainly ought not to
usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other
hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to
us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal
government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which
intrudes itself into every part of human life, and which thinks that it
can do everything for everybody better than anybody can do anything for
himself; or a careless, lounging government, which suffers grievances,
such as it could at once remove, to grow and multiply, and which to
all complaint and remonstrance has only one answer: "We must let things
alone: we must let things take their course: we must let things find
their level." There is no more important problem in politics than to
ascertain the just mean between these two most pernicious extremes, to
draw correctly the line which divides those cases in which it is the
duty of the State to interfere from those cases in which it is the duty
of the State to abstain from interference. In old times the besetting
sin of rulers was undoubtedly an inordinate disposition to meddle. The
lawgiver was always telling people how to keep their shops, how to till
their fields, how to educate their children, how many dishes to have
on their tables, how much a yard to give for the cloth which made their
coats. He was always trying to remedy some evil which did not properly
fall within his province: and the consequence was that he increased
the evils which he attempted to remedy. He was so much shocked by
the distress inseparable from scarcity that he made statutes against
forestalling and re