the cotton industry only, but covered all children, whether apprentices or not. It was seen through Parliament by Sir Robert Peel; it had its origins in a draft prepared by Robert Owen in 1815 but the Act that emerged in 1819 was much watered-down from Owen's draft. It was also effectively unenforceable; enforcement was left to local magistrates, but they could only inspect a mill if two witnesses had given sworn statements that the mill was breaking the Act. An amending Act (60 Geo. III., c. 5) was passed in December 1819. When any accident disabled a factory (as had just happened at New Lanark), night working in the rest of the works by those who had previously worked in the affected factory was permitted until the accident was made good. Cotton Mills Regulation Act 1825 In 1825 John Cam Hobhouse introduced a bill to allow magistrates to act on their own initiative, and to compel witnesses to attend hearings; noting that so far there had been only two prosecutions under the 1819 Act. Opposing the Bill a millowner MP agreed that the 1819 Bill was widely evaded, but went on to remark that this put millowners at the mercy of millhands "The provisions of Sir Robert Peel's act had been evaded in many respects: and it was now in the power of the workmen to ruin many individuals, by enforcing the penalties for children working beyond the hours limited by that act" and that this showed to him that the best course of action was to repeal the 1819 Act. On the other hand, another millowner MP supported Hobhouse's Bill saying that he "agreed that, the bill was loudly called for, and, as the proprietor of a large manufactory, admitted that there was much that required remedy. He doubted whether shortening the hours of work would be injurious even to the interests of the manufacturers; as the children would be able, while they were employed, to pursue their occupation with greater vigour and activity. At the same time, there was nothing to warrant a comparison with the condition of the negroes in the West Indies. Hobhouse's Bill also sought to limit hours worked to eleven a day; the Act as passed (the Cotton Mills Regulation Act: 6 Geo. IV., c. 63) improved the arrangements for enforcement, but kept a twelve-hour day Monday-Friday with a shorter day of nine hours