nd fleets. Man, man
is the great instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference
between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling, when compared with the
difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and
mental vigour, and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental
decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not poorer but richer, because
we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven.
That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies
in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from
the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of
nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man,
the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the
contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing
and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with
clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal
vigour. Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger, and
healthier, and wiser, and better, can ultimately make it poorer. You try
to frighten us by telling us, that in some German factories, the young
work seventeen hours in the twenty-four, that they work so hard that
among thousands there is not one who grows to such a stature that he can
be admitted into the army; and you ask whether, if we pass this bill, we
can possibly hold our own against such competition as this? Sir, I laugh
at the thought of such competition. If ever we are forced to yield the
foremost place among commercial nations, we shall yield it, not to a
race of degenerate dwarfs, but to some people pre-eminently vigorous in
body and in mind.

For these reasons, Sir, I approve of the principle of this bill, and
shall, without hesitation, vote for the second reading. To what extent
we ought to reduce the hours of labour is a question of more difficulty.
I think that we are in the situation of a physician who has satisfied
himself that there is a disease, and that there is a specific medicine
for the disease, but who is not certain what quantity of that medicine
the patient's constitution will bear. Such a physician would probably
administer his remedy by small doses, and carefully watch its operation.
I cannot help thinking that, by at once reducing the hours of labour
from twelve to ten, we should hazard too much. The change is great, and
ought to be cautiously and gr