high places, the vindication of principle, and
exposure of the mischief, must come before
consideration of private feeling." Now,
confessing for a moment our defect of temper,
might we not say, very fairly, that a writer
who believes in his heart that resistance
to a given law dooms large numbers of
men to mutilation, and not few to horrible
deaths, may honestly speak with some
indignation of the resistance by which those
deaths are produced; and that the same
right to be angry is not equally possessed
by an advocate who argues that the deaths
cannot be helped, and that nobody has a
right to meddle specially in any way with a
mill-owner's trade? But if any dispassionate
reader of the articles to which Miss
Martineau refers should pass from them to the
personal invective with which they are met,
he will not fail to perceive that we attacked
only what we held to be an evil course of
opposition to a necessary law, and abided
firmly by the leading features of the case,
apart from any personal consideration. We
spoke plainly, as the case required, and with
the earnest feeling that the case called forth;
but it will be found, on reference, that in not
one of these articles was an attack made
upon any person whomsoever; that the chairman
of the National Association was not
named; that when cases of accident were
necessarily cited, it was enough for us to say
"a certain mill," because we spoke of
principles and not of persons. It will be found,
also, that we took pains to disconnect our
plain speaking upon one shortcoming; from
a general disparagement of mill-owners, and
that we went quite out of our way to occupy
no inconsiderable part of these papers with a
cordial reminder of the excellent enterprises
and fine spirit that belonged to chieftains
of the cotton class. Miss Martineau says for
herself, that "in a matter of political morality
so vital as this, there must be no compromise
and no mistake." We felt so too; but also
felt that it would be a great mistake and a
great compromise of principle, to intrude
personalities on the discussion of it.

The history of the present pamphlet, given
by its author in a letter to the "Association
of Factory Occupiers," is, that wishing to
controvert the views of Mr. Horner, the Factory
Inspector, she mentioned her desire to obtain
the facts on both sides of the question "to
a member of your Association, who visited
me soon after;" and we cannot help feeling,
that for the facts on both sides, which
are so clearly only the statements on one
side, and (we hope for her sake) for the
temper too, the writer is indebted to her
faith in the opinions of her friend. She
thinks also, that the notes of a barrister who
edited the Factory Act show "that it was high
time the passionate advocates of meddling
legislation should be met by opponents of
such legislation who are, by position, likely
to be at once dispassionate and disinterested."
To ensure this desirable result, a pamphlet
written in a passion, is sent to be published
and circulated by the Association directly
engaged in maintaining one side of the matter,
and composed of the persons most distinctly
interested in its issue.

Vexed at the blindness of the barrister-at-
law, who is as blind as ourselves, Miss
Martineau goes on to say, in her prefatory letter,
"What can instigate any lawyer, who
cannot be supposed an interested party, to
write such a preface as Mr. Tapping's, it
is difficult to imagine. On opening it, my
eye falls at once on a false statement,
which ought to destroy all the authority of
the rest." What is the "false statement"
of Mr. Tapping? Mr. Tapping wrote that
the manufacturers have instituted the
National Association of Factory Occupiers, for
the special purpose of raising a fund for
defraying thereout all fines for not fencing,
which may be inflicted upon members ....
"This statement," adds Miss Martineau, "is
dated October second, eighteen hundred and
fifty-five; whereas the Special Report of
your Association, dated July, expressly
declares that the Association will pay no
penalties awarded under Factory Acts."
Miss Martineau's difficulty would have
vanished had she known the truth; which is
this:—It was announced distinctly, by the
founders of the Association, so long ago
as the March previous, that they would
raise money to pay penalties; and it was
only when they were made conscious of
the danger of the ground so taken, that
they forestalled the period of an annual
report, and printed the so-called Special
Report, in which they took pains to fence
themselves off against legal accident. This
report was their own stroke of policy, printed
for themselves, and to be had only from their
office. It was not advertised nor published;
it was sent to members—it was there to use.
As soon as it came into our hands, through a
private source, we made our comments on it;
but the date of its being written, though it
has July on the cover, is the seventh of
August. After it was written, it had to be
printed, and it could then only have been by
some unlikely chance that any tidings of it
could have reached a barrister in London by
the second of October. The public reports of
the proceedings connected with the formation
of the Association had informed him that
there was a proposition to pay penalties
incurred by occupiers who refused to fence.
There was no other source of information
open to him.

This point is of importance to us, and we for
the second time place it beyond question that,
before the appearance of the Special Report,
the Association did combine to pay penalties,
in obedience to the recommendation of a body
of mill-owners who had gone to London with
the hope of getting the Factory Act into
discredit with the government. The