poses as regards children is as follows:--By Clause 20 it prohibits altogether the employment of children under ten in a workshop, and therefore in any dwelling which would come under that definition, i.e., I presume, in their parents' homes, if they worked at their handicraft there. And by Clause 16 children over ten and under fourteen are only to work during such fixed hours in the morning, or in the afternoon, as shall be consistent with the system of half-time schooling in evening or morning sets. There is no new principle here introduced as to children, as compared with the Act of 1867. But the age of total prohibition in the Act of 1867 was eight, and this it is proposed to extend to ten, as under the clause relating to employment in the Education Act of 1876.

Now, I do not want to be too hard upon the framers of this proposed enactment, but the question may surely be asked whether they have considered carefully enough the meaning of this total prohibition of handicraft employments to children under ten in their parents' homes. To enact that children under ten shall not plait or make lace in their own homes would be, I cannot for a moment doubt, a really monstrous interference with the rights of the working classes in these districts. It is well known that skill in these handicrafts is only to be attained by early practice; and if children may not plait under ten it means, for all practical purposes, that they may not learn to plait at all. Can such a prohibition be seriously contemplated? Is it by deliberate intention or by mere carelessness that a responsible Government makes a proposal such as this? In either case the working classes have a right to complain that their interests have not been duly regarded. What are little children to do at home during the long summer holidays, or on wet holiday afternoons and winter evenings, when they cannot be at play out of doors? Is the mother to be prohibited by Act of Parliament from putting their fingers to some useful employment-some handicraft which may be of use to them in after-life-simply because the plait they make may be sold to the dealer with the week's production of the rest of the family, and so help to add a few pence to the family earnings? Yet this is involved in the total prohibition of work under ten contained in the Bill.

If one could believe that all this had been seriously considered and deliberately proposed, it would indeed be a strong additional argument for household suffrage in the counties. It would indeed. show that, whatever the tenderness of Conservative country squires to the interests of agriculture, they but ill represented the interests of their cottage neighbours. And I confess that after every excuse that can be made for the insertion in a Government Bill of such illconsidered proposals, on the ground of carelessness rather than deliberate intention, I am disposed to criticise severely and strongly to condemn the ease with which, in these days of Conservative reac

tion, legislation is allowed to slip back into its ancient ruts, and, as I have before said, thoughtlessly to take it for granted that the working classes are the legitimate subjects of a kind of paternal and petty interference which the classes above them would not submit to for a moment.

It would be inconsistent with due respect for English statesmanship to suggest that modern Conservative statesmen seriously believe in old Tory superstitions and instincts, although it apparently takes as long for political superstitions and instincts to die out as for belief in witchcraft and in the effect of the changes of the moon. But it may be remembered that there always has been a singular Tory superstition against manufactures and handicrafts, as though somehow or other they were infected with a taint of original sin from which the pious pursuits of agriculture are free. At any rate, Conservative statesmen seem to have been haunted by an imagination that manufactures and agriculture stand to each other somehow in the relation of Cain and Abel, and a corresponding instinct to put all sorts of legislative restraints on Cain, while Abel's rustic innocence is spared the infliction.

I do not for one moment deny the legitimacy of legislation protecting women and children engaged in factories and workshops. Sentimental and overstrained as Mrs. Browning's 'cry of the children' may seem to the modern reader, there was need of protection of the weak against the greed of the strong, notwithstanding that what really threw the weak into the thraldom of the factory-its iron routine and ceaseless labour-was a still worse agricultural wretchedness, from which escape was made to the factory. There is need, where vast numbers are employed on a large scale in connection with machinery and under competing masters, to protect not only children, but reasonable and benevolent masters themselves also, from the unfair competition of unreasonable and grasping ones, by laying down uniform lines which all alike must conform to. And perhaps it was more likely that the political party who had the superstitious dread of machinery should bring forward the necessary factory legislation than that the manufacturing interests should put handcuffs on themselves. Mr. Bright cannot even yet reconcile himself to the inevitable in this matter. But be this as it may, factory legislation -and interference with handicrafts-has been for a long time the pet legislative hobby of the Conservative or agricultural party, and therefore, perhaps, it ought not to be considered a strange or unexpected phenomenon that factory legislation should reflect some of the harshness and hostility to handicrafts felt by the political party who stand sponsors to it. But there is one circumstance which takes away some of the force of this excuse as regards the Bill in question. This circumstance is that, since the Act of 1867, an important branch of the subject has been separately and wisely dealt with under the

Education Acts, on lines laid down by a Liberal statesman, and so just in themselves that in the main they have been followed by the present Government in the Education Act of 1876.

It is worth while to compare the spirit of the Education Acts with that of the Factory Acts as regards the points under discussion. Both deal with the labour of children under ten, and insist upon their due education. We have seen that the prohibition of the Factories Bill is peremptory and without exception. The prohibition of the Education Act of 1876 is qualified by a wise exception, when the employment by reason of being during the school holidays or during the hours during which the school is not open or otherwise, does not interfere with the efficient elementary instruction of such child, and that the child obtains such instruction by regular attendance for full time at a certified efficient school, or in some other equally efficient manner.' In the one case the interference with work is limited by the reason and necessity for it, in the other it is needlessly sweeping and unlimited. I can imagine but one real excuse for this distinction in the spirit of the two Acts. Act, it may be said, has to look after the health as well as the education of children. The other regards education alone. But even this excuse seems to fail when the question is asked, whether on grounds of health alone a total prohibition of employment in domestic handicrafts is needful. For the answer is obvious-granted the existence of cases of hardship and excess in connection with some employments, the sweeping interference is still harsh and careless, because it far exceeds the necessity, by making a rule what ought to be dealt with as an exception.

The one

Compare the spirit of the two parallel lines of legislation on another point. The Education Acts wisely recognise that education may be obtained by children, not only in public elementary and certified efficient schools, but also privately and at home. It is sufficient for the Education Acts that the child shall be educated at school or in some other equally efficient manner.' The Education Acts are thus saved from being in principle class legislation. If a rich man's child is not educated at school, or otherwise efficiently educated, the compulsory clauses apply. There may be few children of the poorer classes who come under this exception, but still the exception is there for those who may come under it; and at least its presence is valuable as a proof of care lest the Act should become class legislation on the one hand, or needlessly interfere with the habits and wishes of poor or rich on the other. The Factory and Workshops Bill, though brought forward immediately after the Education Act of 1876, like its predecessors rides rough-shod over all such exceptions. The children must attend some recognised efficient school, and obtain their half-time schooling in that particular way, or they may not work. The child of an educated mother, educated at home, may not

assist her mother in any handicraft at home, however great the care of the mother may be herself to give her a good education. There may be but few such cases in the poorer walks of life. Where they exist they may not be found out. The objection may be almost an objection on paper alone. It may seem to be a mere straw, but it is a straw in the wind. It shows from which direction it blows. It suggests at least that this legislation comes from a quarter more conservative of the rich man's rights, habits, and conveniences than of those of the poor, and evidently not over-anxious to avoid the appearance of class legislation.

It is much to be regretted that the present Conservative Government have not been able to lift themselves out of the old ruts and prejudices of factory legislation on to the wider and wiser lines which they themselves had accepted in a previous session, when they passed the Education Act of 1876. They no doubt fell easily into those lines in that particular instance, because the prohibitory clauses of their Education Act, they knew very well, would apply not only to handicrafts but also to those pet agricultural employments towards which they have always exhibited an hereditary tenderness. Is it too much to ask that some of the same tenderness be extended to those fireside employments of the poor which are unlucky enough to come under the definition of handicrafts ?

What, then, is the sum of the whole matter as regards these domestic handicrafts? (1) There seems to be every reason why the work of women by their own firesides should be free from interference. (2) There seems to be hardly any reason why the similar labour of young persons over fourteen should be interfered with. (3) The education of children under fourteen is already provided for under the Education Acts of 1870 and 1876, without interfering unduly with these employments when they do not unduly interfere with the children's education. Why should not the factory legislation follow the same lines as to children engaged in domestic handicrafts, while giving them the additional advantage of the half-time system?

I should have been glad if, now that the Education Acts have been passed, the whole question of the education of children engaged in domestic handicrafts could have been handed over to the Education Department. If power were given to Attendance Committees and School Boards to deal with these children, independently of by-laws -to allow their work when arrangements satisfactory to them had been made for the continuance of the children's schooling on a halftime system along with their work-then I believe it would be by far the wisest course to leave domestic handicrafts under the care of the Education Department, and to except them altogether from the Factory Acts, with perhaps some simple precautionary provision giving power for the Courts to interfere in cases where the local educational authority reports that the capacity of a child to receive

instruction is injured by excessive work at home. I believe that cases of real hardship would be more likely to be brought to notice, and checked by such a provision, than by the spasmodic presence of inspectors. I believe that the remedy could thus be applied without half the irritation which the old mode of procedure must involve. It would at least have a chance of success. It would carry public

opinion with it. It would be free from the objections which are involved in needless interference with the privacy of cottage homes. It would liberate the amended Factory and Workshops Bill from objections which, if unremoved, must both risk its popularity and mar its usefulness.

One other point remains. If I have made out a good case for the exemption of the two domestic handicrafts specially mentioned— straw-plaiting and lace-making-from legislative interference of the kind proposed by the Bill, it would be very easy to introduce into it a clause making them the subjects of a special exemption. So far so good. But would this be a wise procedure? Would it not be far better to take a broader view of the whole question? Instead of making these two employments favoured exceptions to an obnoxious rule, would it not be better, on broad grounds of principle, to exclude the cottage fireside altogether from the artificial definition of a 'workshop,' and then to deal specially with any domestic employments (if there be any) which require regulation as exceptions? It surely is better to call a spade a spade. A cottage fireside is not a workshop in any proper sense of the word. And the attempt, by a sweeping definition, to include the fireside among workshops,' is in itself objectionable. Acts of Farliament are not meant to be intelligible to lawyers only; they ought to be couched in language which is English, and intelligible and reasonable to the common mind. Artificial and unnatural use of words is surely slovenly draughting. And, to make an end of this unpleasant criticism, if there be anything in the sacredness of home and hearth which is worth preserving, why indeed should a Conservative draughtsman be allowed to make the State use words in an Act of Parliament which seem at least to ignore it? Surely it is not for the State to suggest to the working classes that it regards the privacy of the cottage home as any less sacred than the privacy of the home of the rich.

FREDERIC SEEBOHM.