<Li> Magistrates had the power to mitigate the penalties specied in the Act . The inspectors reported that magistrates habitually did so, and to an extent which defeated the law; it was more profitable to break the law and pay the occasional fine than to comply with the Act . </Li> <P> "After these representations...by his own inspectors, how could the noble Lord opposite reconcile it with his conscience as an individual, and with his public duty as a Minister of the Crown, during the whole course of his administration, never to have brought forward any measure for the removal of so tremendous an evil?" </P> <Ul> <Li> The education clauses were not observed in one mill in fifty; where they were, the factory inspectors reported, "the schooling given is a mere mockery of instruction"; vice and ignorance, and their natural consequences, misery and suffering, were rife among the population of the manufacturing districts . "Would the noble Lord opposite venture to say that the education of the manufacturing classes was a matter of indifference to the country at large?" </Li> </Ul> <Li> The education clauses were not observed in one mill in fifty; where they were, the factory inspectors reported, "the schooling given is a mere mockery of instruction"; vice and ignorance, and their natural consequences, misery and suffering, were rife among the population of the manufacturing districts . "Would the noble Lord opposite venture to say that the education of the manufacturing classes was a matter of indifference to the country at large?" </Li>

When was the factory act of 1833 passed