by law, greatly reduced the time of
labour in factories. Thirty years ago, the late Sir Robert Peel told the
House that it was a common practice to make children of eight years of
age toil in mills fifteen hours a day. A law has since been made which
prohibits persons under eighteen years of age from working in mills
more than twelve hours a day. That law was opposed on exactly the same
grounds on which the bill before us is opposed. Parliament was told
then, as it is told now, that with the time of labour the quantity of
production would decrease, that with the quantity of production the
wages would decrease, that our manufacturers would be unable to contend
with foreign manufacturers, and that the condition of the labouring
population instead of being made better by the interference of the
Legislature would be made worse. Read over those debates; and you may
imagine that you are reading the debate of this evening. Parliament
disregarded these prophecies. The time of labour was limited. Have wages
fallen? Has the cotton trade left Manchester for France or Germany? Has
the condition of the working people become more miserable? Is it not
universally acknowledged that the evils which were so confidently
predicted have not come to pass? Let me be understood. I am not arguing
that, because a law which reduced the hours of daily labour from fifteen
to twelve did not reduce wages, a law reducing those hours from twelve
to ten or eleven cannot possibly reduce wages. That would be very
inconclusive reasoning. What I say is this, that, since a law which
reduced the hours of daily labour from fifteen to twelve has not reduced
wages, the proposition that every reduction of the hours of labour must
necessarily reduce wages is a false proposition. There is evidently
some flaw in that demonstration which my honourable friend thinks so
complete; and what the flaw is we may perhaps discover if we look at the
analogous case to which I have so often referred.

Sir, exactly three hundred years ago, great religious changes were
taking place in England. Much was said and written, in that inquiring
and innovating age, about the question whether Christians were under a
religious obligation to rest from labour on one day in the week; and it
is well known that the chief Reformers, both here and on the Continent,
denied the existence of any such obligation. Suppose then that, in 1546,
Parliament had made a law that they should thenceforth be no