raged the public conscience when they became known. In the case of children it was admitted from an early date, it was urged by Cobden himself, that the principle of free contract could not apply. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that the adult could make a better bargain for himself or herself than any one could do for him or her, no one could contend that the pauper child apprenticed by Poor Law guardians to a manufacturer had any say or could have any judgment as to the work which it was set to do. It had to be protected, and experience showed that it had to be protected by law. Free contract did not solve the question of the helpless child. It left it to be “exploited” by the employer in his own interest, and whatever regard might be shown for its health and well-being by individuals was a matter of individual benevolence, not a right secured by the necessary operation of the system of liberty.
But these arguments admitted of great extension. If the child was helpless, was the grown-up person, man or woman, in a much better position? Here was the owner of a mill employing five hundred
