300

[HAP
LIFE OF COBDEN.

1844. in a Factory Bill, not only regulating the hours of labow:
&r. 40. but proposing a system for the education of the children o
the industrial class in the manufacturing towns. Cobde?
took an early opportunity of saying a friendly word for he
education clauses of the measure, as being a step in he
right direction. Popular education had been the most 1%
portant of all social objects in his mind from the first; and
in spite of drawbacks, which he did not despair of sei’
amended, he saw more good than harm in the new propossl®
These clauses, however, beyond doubt conferred advantzg®
on the Hstablished Church, in which the Dissenters justly and
wisely refused to acquiesce.” It might well seem to be bette
that popular instruction should still be left to voluntay
machinery for some time longer, then that new authority
and new fields of ecclesiastical control should be opened
to the privileged church. The opposition was so vebe”
ment that the education clauses were dropped, and $he
Bill withdrawn,
In 1844 Sir James Graham reintroduced it, without th°
education clanses, simply as a Bill for regulating the labo?
of children and young persons. The definition of a child 3°
extended to mean children between nine and thirteen; a child
was only to be employed half time, that is to say, not mor
than six and a half hours each day. The definition of you?8
persons remained as ib was, covering persons from thirteé”
to eighteen ; their hours in silk, cotton, wool, and flax msn?
factories were not to exceed thirteen and a half in each d2¥/
and of these one hour and a half were to be allowed fF
meals and rest, leaving twelve hours as the limit of actus]
labour. Lord Ashley moved that the hours should be 2
twelve but ten, and on this issue the battle was fought

® The provisions for trustees of the schools were undeniably and il
liberately caloulated to give the clergy of the Established Church 8 UF¢
dominant power on every hoard.