The House of Commons during the week has been chiefly
occupied with the Miners' Eight Hours Bill. We have expressed elsewhere the very grave objections which we have to this Protectionist measure, a measure which, in truth, is never defended on grounds of public hygiene—the only grounds on which it might conceivably bear defence—but which is almost openly advocated as a Bill to raise the wages of miners by Act of Parliament. On Thursday night many points of detail were discussed at great length, but the Government made no substantial concessions. Granted, indeed, their determination to limit the hours of labour by law, it was impossible for them to do so. Friday's Times contains an admirable letter by Sir Frederick Banbury. " The Bill," he says, " is a betrayal of the interests of the whole community in order to secure preferential treat- ment for the colliers." That is absolutely true ; but could there be a more astonishing example of political topsy- turvydorn ? Here is Sir Frederick Banbury, a vehement Preferentialist and Protectionist, upbraiding a so-called Free- trade Government for what is undoubtedly a piece of pure Protection,—a piece of Protection which, if Cobden and Bright were alive, they would know how to characterise in its true terms. Yet when we venture, as we have done, to point out that a Government which takes such action cannot be described as being true to anti-Protectionist principles, we are denounced as having abandoned our Free-trade position.
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