Page:The Factory Controversy - Martineau (1855).djvu/60

50 on the 7th of last April, was, "That a memorial be presented to Sir George Grey, praying that Mr. Leonard Horner may be dismissed." We have seen that the desire of the manufacturers is that the Inspectors should be residents of the district,—men who have some acquaintance with the character of the population, both employers and employed, and who will not go forth to their daily duty under the idea that there is an opposition of interests between the two, as between a race of tyrants and a race of slaves. Till the constituencies of the kingdom obtain some clear understanding of the objects of government and the province of law in a constitutional country, such palliations may help us through the dangers of the transition period. Our factories may remain at work if the agents of the law are wiser than its framers, and apply its provisions impartially and reasonably. Another step will be gained when the Association obtains, as it cannot fail to do, such amendments in the law as will render it clear and comparatively rational. That done, we may be growing into a fitness to see that the Common Law, if sufficient for the protection of everybody else, must suffice for the needs of the most intelligent, safe, and prosperous industrial class in the kingdom. We are learning, by Sabbatarian experience at home, and by Temperance examples from America, to leave untouched by law men's personal habits and practices, except where they fall under the penalties of the Common Law. When we have learned to leave to workers in factories, as to other workers, the care of their own lives and limbs, with the ordinary remedy against the misdeeds of their employers, we shall be in the way to a better wisdom than we can boast of yet, as to the great question which concerns every citizen,—of the true Sphere and Duties of Government.