Now, however, after some three years' hard and unremitting work, the estate was in excellent condition; the "new ways" of the new owners had been well started; and both Maxwell and Marcella had fitting lieutenants who could be left in charge. Moreover, matters were being agitated at the moment in politics which had special significance for the man's idealist and reflective mind. His country friends and neighbours hardly understood why. For it was merely a question of certain further measures of factory reform. A group of labour leaders were pressing upon the public and the Government a proposal to pass a special Factory Act for certain districts and trades of East London. In spite of Commissions, in spite of recent laws, "sweating," so it was urged, was as bad as ever--nay, in certain localities and industries was more frightful and more oppressive than ever. The waste of life and health involved in the great clothing industries of East London, for instance, which had provoked law after law, inquiry after inquiry, still went--so it was maintained--its hideous way. "Have courage!" cried the reformers. "Take, at last, the only effectual step. Make it penal to practise certain trades in the houses of the people--drive them all into factories of a certain size, where alone these degraded industries can be humanised and controlled. Above all, make up your mind to a legal working day for East London men as well as East London women. Try the great experiment first of all in this omnivorous, inarticulate London, this dustbin for the rubbish of all nations. Here the problem is worst--here the victims are weakest and most manageable. London will bear what would stir a riot in Birmingham or Leeds. Make the experiment as partial and as tentative as you please--give the Home Office power to extend or revoke it at will--but _try it_!"