LAW IN POLITICS. 403 



has checked, and which to a large extent it has 

 remedied — when we recollect the inevitable con- 

 nexion between suffering and political disaffection 

 — when we consider the great moral laws which 

 were being trodden under foot from mere thought- 

 lessness and greediness — we shall be convinced 

 that if, during the last fifty years, it has been 

 given to this country to make any progress in 

 Political Science, that progress has been in no- 

 thing happier than in the Factory Legislation. 

 The names of those who strove for it, and through 

 whose faith and perseverance it was ultimately 

 carried, are, and ever will be, in the history of 

 Politics, immortal names. No Government and 

 no Minister has ever done a greater — perhaps, 

 all things considered, none has ever done so great 

 a service. It was altogether a new era in Legis- 

 lation — the adoption of a new principle — the 

 establishment of a new idea. Nor is that prin- 

 ciple and that idea even now thoroughly under- 

 stood. The promptings of individual self-interest 

 are still relied upon for the accomplishment of 

 good which it does not belong to them even to 

 suggest, and which they can never be trusted to 



