8 
has been made to England, and the agitation of this very question 
there. What are the facts in the case ? 
England is almost the only country in Europe where the laws 
and customs protect the right to rest on Sunday. The English 
workingman has his Sunday, and also the Saturday half-holiday ; 
- he works fifty-five hours a week, against the French artisan’s seven- 
ty-two hours. With good reason does the English workingman 
jealously guard his Sunday rest. 
For twenty years past efforts have been repeatedly made in 
Parliament to open the British Museum and National Art Galleries 
on Sunday, in the pretended interest of the workingman, but these 
efforts have always been defeated. Among those who have voted 
and spoken against the measure have been such as Beaconsfield, 
Gladstone, Lord Chancellors Cairns and Selborne, Shaftesbury, 
Sir Charles Reed, late Chairman of the London School Board, 
Thomas Hughes, founder of the Co-operative movement among 
workingmen, Mr. Mundella, the well-known advocate of arbitration, 
and Broadhurst, the Trade Unionist, and other advocates of the 
workingmen. 
In the House or Lorps the motion to open the Museums has 
been lost as often as made. During the present year, in the House 
of Lords, a motion to open merely the Natural History Museum, at 
South Kensington, was defeated by a tie vote. 
But as the London Times (March 21st, 1885) says: ‘‘The mat- 
‘* ter is not one on which the House of Lords has any special right 
“to pronounce, or on which its opinion either way can count for 
“much. It is a workingman’s question, and we are inclined to 
‘‘think that the practical result of yesterday’s division has 
‘« been what the majority of workingmen would have wished it 
“ to be. 
In the Housr or Commons, which better represents the popular 
sentiment, the last time the motion to open the British Museum and 
Public Galleries on Sunday came up was in 1882. It was defeated 
by a vote of 208 to 83, a majority of 125. Among those who voted 
against it on this occasion were Mr. Gladstone and his two sons, Mr. 
Mundella, Mr. Broadhurst and others. 
Now what are the reasons which induced such men—men whom 
no one can accuse of narrow-mindedness; men, some of them 
known for their devotion to the rights and interests of the working 
classes—to oppose this motion. Let me quote some of their own 
words : 
4 
md 

