778 
LAISSEZ FATRE 
A.D. 1776 
national evil; and hence the points, which demanded atten- 
tion, were the influence of the Factory system on the children 
who would grow up to be workers, men and women, of the 
next generation. If there was physical and moral taint at 
these sources, the future of the English race was imperilled™. 
The overworking of children, resulting as it often did in 
physical deformity, occurred -very generally, but there were 
different degrees in which the evil existed in different 
branches of the textile trades, and it is necessary to consider 
them separately. 
into the i. With regard to the woollen trade, it appears that 
yn "8 there were considerable differences between the conditions in 
ployment the West of England and those which existed in Yorkshire, 
woollen, The Medical Commissioners, after visiting the Stroud Valley, 
gave exceedingly favourable testimony in regard to the con- 
ditions of work in that district? and indeed, throughout the 
West of England district; though the trade was declining? 
and several mills had been shut up. The Commissioners 
particularly testified to the kindly interest which the em- 
ployers in this district took in their hands*; and though there 
were many matters in which amelioration was possible, they 
found that the employers were, on the whole, ready to make 
any improvements, the desirability of which was pointed out; 
they could find no evidence that seemed to them to justify 
legislative interference. The employers in Yorkshire were 
equally sure of their position; the trustees of the White 
Cloth Hall at Leeds met the Commissioners with a petition 
for exemption from any proposed legislation, on the ground 
that there were no abuses in their trade which called for it, 
but they failed to establish their case. Parts of the work 
were very dirty, though Mr Power, the District Commissioner, 
appears to have been satisfied, after his enquiries, that these 
operations were not deleterious’. From his remarks, it seems, 
that the one point on which he was thoroughly dissatisfied 
was the early age at which children went to work in these 
mills’. “The grand evil,” which offered the supreme ground 
1 Reports, efc., 1833, xx. 39, 51. 
8 Reports, efc., 1833, Xx. 951, 960. 
i Reports. 1333, xx. 601, 
2 Jb. 1833, xx1. 16. 
4 [b. 1006. 
8 15. 602, 604.