d yet it is absolutely necessary to give to the wish of the
majority the sanction of a law; for, if there were no such law, the
minority, by opening their shops, would soon force the majority to do
the same.

But, says my honourable friend, you cannot limit the labour of adults
unless you fix wages. This proposition he lays down repeatedly,
assures us that it is incontrovertible, and indeed seems to think it
self-evident; for he has not taken the trouble to prove it. Sir, my
answer shall be very short. We have, during many centuries, limited the
labour of adults to six days in seven; and yet we have not fixed the
rate of wages.

But, it is said, you cannot legislate for all trades; and therefore you
had better not legislate for any. Look at the poor sempstress. She works
far longer and harder than the factory child. She sometimes plies her
needle fifteen, sixteen hours in the twenty-four. See how the housemaid
works, up at six every morning, and toiling up stairs and down stairs
till near midnight. You own that you cannot do anything for the
sempstress and the housemaid. Why then trouble yourself about the
factory child? Take care that by protecting one class you do not
aggravate the hardships endured by the classes which you cannot protect.
Why, Sir, might not all this be said, word for word, against the laws
which enjoin the observance of the Sunday? There are classes of people
whom you cannot prevent from working on the Sunday. There are classes of
people whom, if you could, you ought not to prevent from working on the
Sunday. Take the sempstress, of whom so much has been said. You cannot
keep her from sewing and hemming all Sunday in her garret. But you
do not think that a reason for suffering Covent Garden Market, and
Leadenhall Market, and Smithfield Market, and all the shops from Mile
End to Hyde Park to be open all Sunday. Nay, these factories about which
we are debating,--does anybody propose that they shall be allowed to
work all Sunday? See then how inconsistent you are. You think it unjust
to limit the labour of the factory child to ten hours a day, because you
cannot limit the labour of the sempstress. And yet you see no injustice
in limiting the labour of the factory child, aye, and of the factory
man, to six days in the week, though you cannot limit the labour of the
sempstress.

But, you say, by protecting one class we shall aggravate the sufferings
of all the classes which we cannot protect. You say