conditions of industrial life in the large cities
continued to transform vast acres of pasture and wheat-land into dreary
slums, which guard the approach of every modern European town.

EMANCIPATION

THE GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY DID NOT BRING ABOUT THE ERA OF
HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY WHICH HAD BEEN PREDICTED BY THE GENERATION
WHICH SAW THE STAGE COACH REPLACED BY THE RAILROAD. SEVERAL REMEDIES
WERE SUGGESTED BUT NONE OF THESE QUITE SOLVED THE PROBLEM

IN the year 1831, just before the passing of the first Reform Bill
Jeremy Bentham, the great English student of legislative methods and the
most practical political reformer of that day, wrote to a friend: "The
way to be comfortable is to make others comfortable. The way to make
others comfortable is to appear to love them. The way to appear to love
them is to love them in reality." Jeremy was an honest man. He said what
he believed to be true. His opinions were shared by thousands of his
countrymen. They felt responsible for the happiness of their less
fortunate neighbours and they tried their very best to help them. And
Heaven knows it was time that something be done!

The ideal of "economic freedom" (the "laissez faire" of Turgot) had
been necessary in the old society where mediaeval restrictions lamed
all industrial effort. But this "liberty of action" which had been
the highest law of the land had led to a terrible, yea, a frightful
condition. The hours in the fac-tory were limited only by the physical
strength of the workers. As long as a woman could sit before her loom,
without fainting from fatigue, she was supposed to work. Children of
five and six were taken to the cotton mills, to save them from the
dangers of the street and a life of idleness. A law had been passed
which forced the children of paupers to go to work or be punished by
being chained to their machines. In return for their services they got
enough bad food to keep them alive and a sort of pigsty in which they
could rest at night. Often they were so tired that they fell asleep at
their job. To keep them awake a foreman with a whip made the rounds and
beat them on the knuckles when it was necessary to bring them back to
their duties. Of course, under these circumstances thousands of little
children died. This was regrettable and the employers, who after all
were human beings and not without a heart, sincerely wished that they
could abolish "child labour." But since man was "free" i