"I am instructed by the Master Spinners and Manufacturers in this Township to forward you the inclosed copy of a Memorial, the original of which has this day been forwarded to John Frederick Lees, Esq., one of the Members for this Borough, for presentation to the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council for Trade, and to solicit your assistance and influence in obtaining an alteration of the present Factory Regulation Act. "I am, Sir, "Your obedient Servant, "KAY CLEGG. "John Fielden, Esq., M.P. "House of Commons, London." "_To the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council for Trade, etc., etc._ "The Memorial of the Undersigned Mill-owners, Occupiers of Mills, Master-Spinners, and Manufacturers of the Township of Oldham, in the County of Lancaster. "Showeth, "That an Act of Parliament was made and passed in the third and fourth years of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled 'An Act to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom.' "That the eighth section of the said Act enacts 'That after the expiration of thirty months from the passing of such Act it shall not be lawful for any person whatsoever to employ, keep, or allow to remain, in any factory or mill for a longer period than forty-eight hours in any one week, any child who shall not have completed his or her thirteenth year of age.' "That the said Act has prohibited the employment of children under twelve years of age for more than nine hours in any one day since the first day of March one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, and such prohibition has tended greatly to injure the interests both of your Memorialists and the parents of such children, without any advantage resulting to the children themselves. "That your Memorialists are looking forward with great anxiety and alarm to the situation in which they will be placed on the first day of March next, by the working of children under thirteen years of age being restricted to forty-eight hours in one week, for that such restriction will have the effect of throwing all children under thirteen years of age wholly out of employment, and will render it impossible for your Memorialists to work their respective mills with advantage, in proof whereof your Memorialists confidently appeal to the Factory Inspectors of this district for the truth of their assertion. "That your Memorialists are far from wishing a total repeal of the provisions of the said Factory Act, but humbly submit that it is absolutely necessary to the carrying on of the cotton trade with advantage, to allow the employment of children of eleven years of age for sixty-nine hours a week. "That your Memorialists approve of the principle of appointing responsible superintendents over the mills and factories of the United Kingdom, and are favourable to a restriction of the employment of young persons under twenty-one years of age to sixty-nine hours in the week.