What was most significant of the times was not the flood of misery that swept over the country so much as the spirit of complacent satisfaction with which it was regarded. That the industrial revolution was in the cause of progress, the reform of the Poor Law essential, and the decay of the old apprenticeship system inevitable, men of intelligence could not fail to recognize; but they might also have recognized that the profound transformation of the whole social and industrial structure involved could not take place without widespread suffering and demoralization. Men of the day did see these things, but saw them with unconcern. Progress involved change, and change demanded its toll of pain; but it was not the duty of the State to ease the passage or to yield to the outcry of what they looked on as the silly sentimentalist.
The general view of contemporary opinion finds itself reflected in the Whig and Radical journals. In 1819 the _Edinburgh Review_ declared: "After all, we must own that it was quite right to throw out the Bill for prohibiting the sweeping of chimneys by boys--because humanity is a modern invention; and there are many chimneys in old houses that cannot possibly be swept in any other manner;" while the Radical paper, the _Gorgon_, was also inclined to sneer at the House of Commons for "its ostentatious display of humanity in dealing with trivialities like the slave trade, climbing-boys, and the condition of children in factories." [32] The above represents the orthodox opinion of the time. The age was the age of the triumph of the individualist. His was the gospel that inspired the economist; his were the maxims which guided the legislator; his were the principles that were realized in the practice of the manufacturer. For one brief moment in the history of the world's progress the individualist was supreme; and then the world reeled back in horror from the hell of sin and misery he had created. Even in the early days there were not wanting voices to protest against the theory that in the balance-sheet of the trader was to be found the final test of national righteousness. As far back as the year 1801 Mr. Justice Grose, in sentencing an employer for overworking and maltreating an apprentice, declared: "Should the manufacturers insist that without these children they could not advantageously follow their trade, and the overseers say that without such opportunity they could not get rid of these children, he should say to the one, that trade must not for the thirst of lucre be followed, but at once, for the sake of society, be abandoned; and to the other, it is a crime to put out these children, who have no friend to see justice done, to incur deformity and promote consumption or other disease. This obviously leads to their destruction--not to their support." [33] And in the year 1802 was passed the "Health and Morals of Apprentices Act," an Act important not for its results, which were insignificant, but as a protest against the gospel of individualism, and as the first of the long series of Factory Acts which heralded the dawn of a new age.