452 PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY, &C. 



It does not appear to us that government can interfere beneficially 

 Tjetween the operatives and the masters, in so far as the hours of 

 labour and the business arrangements of the mill are concerned, 

 beyond limiting the hours of work to one general rule, say twelve 

 hours a day, including meal times. Even a measure so simple as 

 this would be much less facile of adoption than is supposed. If 

 any more complicated and involved enactments be thrust upon the 

 manufacturers, they are sure to be evaded, and that too with im- 

 punity. The rapid extension of the trade itself is the best guarantee 

 for improvement in the condition of those hands which Machinery 

 may require. A law therefore should go no farther; than, 1st, Clas- 

 sification of age and sex; 2nd, Scientific inspection as to the venti- 

 lation ; and 3rd, A standard for the continuance of labour. 



The great curse of the Factory System is to be found, not in its 

 protracted hours of labour, nor in the slight unhealthy influences to 

 which those engaged in it are exposed. It is in the breaking up of 

 all home and social affections : the father, the mother, and the child, 

 are alike occupied, and never meet under their common roof-tree 

 except during the evenings. All the better and more healthy 

 portions of our feelings and affections remain uncultivated ; the boy 

 knows no parental control, the girl no domestic virtues nor domestic 

 economy; the father is but an independent member of his family, 

 and has no command over the time and earnings of his child ; the 

 mother abandons her offspring to hireling hands ; and hence we see 

 that the factory operatives present an immense mass of social dis- 

 organisation, unfettered by those bonds of domestic virtue which 

 are the most powerful agents in making men good citizens. It is a 

 mass rife with danger, and, conceal the truth as we may, the progress 

 of mechanism must ere long bring into active operation the ele- 

 ments of mischief, which are generating throughout it., 



** Objections have been made to our last month's remark, that the manufacturers 

 sought mechanical contrivances to enable them to do without human labourers. An 

 extract from Mr. Baines's work will decide the objection to the parlies making it: 

 " One recommendation of Mr. Roberts's self-acting mule is, that it renders the 

 masters independent of the working spinners," p. 208. 



