many, so lately and so long impoverished and needy. These capitals have been accumulated chiefly by the golden profits accruing out of the cotton manufacture, through the combined operation of high protecting tariffs, against competition from abroad, and low wages with cheap rates of living at home. With all respect to Mr Greg, for of all respect as a worthy master and friend of his operative labourers, he is worthy, and with all deference to his superiority in practical knowledge, and well-known intelligence besides, we have made use, in these pages, of no more of the information he has published, than what has been acknowledged-valuable as we confess that information appears to us. Unknown to him as we are, he will, we trust, consider it no mark of disrespect that we have preferred to rely upon our own resources rather than be influenced by his authority, weighty as that doubtless is. It has served to incline our minds very seriously to the consideration of the subject in hand. Last year only we gave a guarded adhesion to the Ten Hours' Bill, influenced by the sanguine expectations of various practical men of well-known humanity, and tenderness for the operative classes, that the state of trade and of profits could well support the sacrifice, as then doubtless they could. We are entirely satisfied now of the reverse. The evil that hereafter we have to pray against is, the reduction of wages, without any reduction of time-working. We entertain little doubt that before the end of this year 100,000 operatives will be out of employ within a radius of 20 miles round Manchester inclusive. The question is not, therefore, cannot be, working shorter time for the same wages, but retaining the same wages for the same quantity of work and of hours. In a manufacture depending so largely, one-half, upon export, and one-half the annual value of which is paid in wages alone among the workers, those wages hereafter may chance to become the sole barometer for determining its high or low condition. Our skill and ingenuity may discover new and improve old processes for economizing labour, but we no longer enjoy a monopoly of skill and ingenuity. Step by step other nations accompany us in our progress. At the last year's public exhibition of products and manufactures at Mulhausen, not to speak of splendid machines, embracing all the most recent improvements for spinning yarns, making paper, grinding corn, &c. &c. which were shown, the display of samples of fine yarns, and embroidered and printed muslins, is said to have been extraordinary for execution and splendid for taste. Samples of the highest range of numbers of fine yarns, up to No. 300 French count (340 or 350 British, we believe), were to be seen from the spinneries of Mulhausen, Thann, Guebwiller, Cernay, and Kaizerberg. The No. 300 of M. A. Herzog, of Logelbach, was said to be a specimen of most perfect fabrication. It is asserted, and believed among our neighbours of those parts, that although they cannot yet produce sufficient of these fine yarns for the wants of the manufacturer, still that the qualities are superior to the corresponding counts produced here. The Austrian printed cottons, sent to the same exposition by M. Sparlin, of Vienna, are reported to rival those of Manchester, and to be executed in the same sort of styles. The present Factory Act we believe to be impracticable, and to have been designedly so contrived by the Ministry, in order to render abortive the zeal of the friends of the factory children, and disgust the operatives themselves. The plan of eight hours' labour, with relays, will end, can end, only in the adults being eventually condemned to sixteen hours daily toil, instead of twelve. Two alternatives alone seem to present themselveseither to prohibit the employment of children under twelve years of age altogether, and repeal the eight hours clause for all above it-that is, under thirteen-or to render the system of relays practicable and reconcilable with the twelve hours daily labour of the adult, enact a six hours bill for children.* If practicable, the last plan would, we think, be most advantageous, as well as satisfactory for all parties. But * We first heard this plan suggested by Mr Robert Stuart, a respectable and intelligent master spinner of Manchester. the obstacles appear to be almost insuperable. In towns there would perhaps be little difficulty in procuring a supply of the requisite number of infant hands for the system of relays; but in country districts, and about isolated spinneries, it would scarcely be possible. One or the other proposition, however, must, we think, be entertained, for, maugre the opinion of Mr Greg, the present absurd piece of Whig legislation cannot work without eventual detriment to the adult operative.* To conclude, for we have already trespassed beyond our limits, we take leave to add our strenuous recommendation of Mr Greg's advice to the master spinners, of the "propriety of cultivating a better understanding with their people." There has been too much of distance, of neglect, shall we add of disdain almost, exhibited towards them. These are not times for the manifestation, for the perpetuation, of unfriendly dispositions, even in the worldly sense; the Christian obligation is imperative in all times and under all circumstances. Let the bonds of good understanding, of amity, of confidence, be drawn closer, and cultivated more and more. The welfare of the operatives may be promoted by a kindly interest and superintendence, as much as by the payment of weekly wages. Let the masters, imitating the meritorious examples of Messrs Ashton, Greg, and many other meritorious manufacturers, attend to the comforts and the education of the infant labourers, so that they may early be trained in the path of religion and morality as well as of industry. In the mean time, we counsel the Legislature to lose no time in repealing and consigning to the tomb of eternal ignominy the execrable workhouse system,† forged for the oppression of the working classes of England, and as if to chastise them for their protest against the crying abuses of the Factory System, and their invocation in behalf of the helpless progeny which seemed born only to inherit and perpetuate bondage, disease, and misery. Until the advent of that day, which sooner or later will arrive, we trust that Mr Oastler, the devoted friend of the operative orders, will not relax in his determined but peaceful agitation, and that the Member for Berks, honourably-how can a man be more honourably-distinguished in his own county as "the poor's man magistrate," will not be discouraged in the same noble cause, by the host of foes by whom he is now thwarted at every step, and maligned on every occasion. We exhort the property classes, more especially the middle orders, to advance boldly to the res cue. Now is the time to promote union, and cement harmony among and between all denominations of society; strike down the monster Poor Law Abolition Act-it will be accepted as a peace offering-the security of home and property will be fortifiedthe "flood of mutiny" will be dammed up and dried at its source-contentment and concord will revisit the land. If not, worse may betide-we are yet only in the beginning of the end. Mr Greg unjustly charges the friends of the operatives with agitating for the purpose of undoing their own work. In the first from them. place, the Factory Bill was not their In the second, the masters, or Mr P. agitation by moving the repeal of the clause relating to the 13th year of age, before even it had been tried. work, but passed under protest The old law was sufficiently stringent. The mere substitution of paid for gratuitous and interested overseers, to be appointed by the Magistrates in Quarter Sessions, or by any other local independent authority, would have been efficient for the correction of all abuses. But there would have been no Whig jobs! Before concluding, let us not omit the confession of our obligations for much ready information and easy reference to " Wheeler's History of Manchester "—a work as full of facts almost as of words, and a complete compendium of every thing relating to that important town and its various branches of industry unparalleled. INDEX TO VOLUME XLI. Affairs of Rome, by M. de la Menais, 251. Baird, Sir David, inscription to his me- Birth-day, a poem, by Caroline Bowles, Bonaparte, Lucien, his Memoirs reviewed, Book of Baudoyn, an ancient chronicle of Chapman, Mr, his translation of the Church of England, lines addressed to it, Church Music and other Parochials in a Conservatives of Scotland, a word in Peel from office consists of Irish and Scotch mem- Delta, Echoes of Antiquity, second series, Democracy, 71-much as has been written Protestant Church, oppress the poor, - Domett, Alfred, his songs, portrait of the Dyer's specimen of British Poetesses, no- Echoes of antiquity, second series, by English Church Rates, and the Scotch Church Establishment, 682-abolition- the abolition of church-rates would Factor System and the ten hours bill, con- Fearn, Mr John, his letter expressive of Foreign Policy, 276-French non-inter- French Classics, Modern, No. I. Madame Grabbe, Christian, his dramatic tale of 258. Griselda, the Clerke's tale, remade from Metyphysician, the, No. VIII, reasoning, Hall, Basil, his remarks on Mr Crans- Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Hero and Leander, a poem, translated from Historical Painting, report from the select with manufactures, considered, 183, 343. Spanish Conspiracy against Venice, con- Hymn concerning Venus, translated from Irish Corporation Bill, a speech which John Bull, Fragments from the History of, Part II. Chap. I. of the fight about the Landor, Mr, his imaginary conversations, Legends and Superstitions, sources of Leila, a story, 312. Letter to Lord Brougham and Vaux, dis- Literary Criticisms by a Lawyer, 788. Macnaughten, Sir Francis, his observa- Malthus, Mr, his fundamental propositions Menais, M. de la, his book on the affairs Ministry and the people, the workhouse Modern French classics, No. I.—Madame - Mont Blanc, lines addressed to it, 274. Napoleon in Council, Review of Pelet's Obelisk of Luxor, the, 354. Page, the, a Story of one in the reign Pegsworth: a Pressroom Sketch, by an Pericles and Aspasia, No. I., 289, No. Picture Gallery, 795. Poor, Parochial Sketches among them, Price, F. T., his translations of Hero and - Prospects of the session, 301-condition - |