The true line of Liberal action was undoubtedly in the direction of restricting the liberty of the individual to exploit those who were unable to protect themselves. But such a course was contrary to the general individualistic current of the time, and a large section of the Whig party was persistently and bitterly hostile. The best of them eventually came to the same conclusions as {176} Macaulay. "I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal Government, that is to say, a prying, meddlesome Government which intrudes itself into every part of human life, and which thinks that it can do everything for everybody better than anybody can do anything for himself; or a careless, lounging Government which suffers grievances, such as it could at once remove, to grow and multiply, and which to all complaint and remonstrance has only one answer: 'We must let things alone; we must let things find their level.'... I hold that, where public health is concerned, and where public morality is concerned, the State may be justified in regulating even the contracts of adults.... Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger, and healthier, and wiser, and better, can ultimately make it poorer."[216] But there were few of the Whigs who held these wise opinions immediately after their triumph in 1831, and even Macaulay in 1832 defeated a Tory candidate whose views on Factory legislation were at that time far sounder than his own. Those Whigs who belonged to the middle class were generally hostile to the whole movement. Cobden, not yet in Parliament, would have prohibited all employment of children under the age of thirteen.[217] But Brougham, Harriet Martineau, and the type of business man which was best represented by John Bright, were bitter opponents of reform. The utmost which could be got from the middle-class Parliaments which followed the Reform Act was a restriction of the work of children. The protection of adults, even by the regulation of machinery, ventilation, and temperature, was always repugnant to their stubborn belief in the power and the duty of the individual to work out his own salvation.