means they shall be enabled to check the fall of rents on the one hand, and to reduce the interest of money on the other, so as to save the great landowners, whose estates are encumbered, from absolute ruin. These men lie now, like fat sheep, beneath the butcher's knife. But they are not to die. find that whatever proportion of this increased taxation is paid by the agricultural classes must necessarily act ultimately in reducing the rents of land below the level of 1791. It is reasonable to assume that this proportion is about one-half of the 40 millions per annum, because the numbers of the agricultural classes are equal to those of It is the intention of Ministers that their all the other classes combined, and in all probability their expenditure is equal. When, therefore, this one-half of the increased taxation since 1791, amounting to 20 millions sterling per annum, comes to be deducted from the rents of 1791, which amounted to 21 millions sterling per annum, it will leave just one million per annum to constitute rent. It is probable that the improved system and increased extent of agriculture, combined with the various mechanical and commercial improvements which have taken place since 1791, will counteract, in some degree, this almost total annihilation of rent, but that a very great reduction below the level of 1791 will necessarily take place, cannot admit of a doubt. In my judgment, the whole rental of England will not amount to ten millions per annum in ten years from this time, if it should be possible for the present system to be persevered in, which it is not. lives shall be spared. They are merely to be shorn of the wool from their backs, and the very skin to be flayed from their bones: they are then to be permitted to wander about the earth, and to hide their miseries in distant lands! This is the reward which the great landowners are to experience for having stood by the side of the Government for thirty years. But nothing at all is to be done for their unhappy tenantry! The reduction of the interest of money will not be nefit them in the least, for they will have no security to give, and no credit whereupon to borrow. They must be deprived of their whole property by slow but sure degrees : they must cry annually for reduction of rents to the mercy of landlords scarcely less distressed than themselves; and, after a while, when their fortunes are destroyed, and their hearts are broken, they must drop into the situation of mere vassals, or bailiffs of the soil. This is what I suppose is alludIt is evident that the Ministers are fully ed to in the Agricultural Report, when the aware, that this reduction of rents from 40 Committee express their "hope, that the millions to under 10 millions per annum, great body of the occupiers of the soil, either must be the inevitable result of their mea- from the savings of more prosperous times, or sure's and that the way in which they are from that credit which punctuality will ge. now endeavouring partially to counteract it, nerally command in this country, possess is by beating down the annual interest of all resources which will enable them to surdebts, including that of the national debt; mount the difficulties under which they now not in an open and manly way, but by con- labour." This is but sad comfort for the cealed and Jew-like operations. Hence the five hundred thousand "occupiers of the soil." reduction of the 5 per cents., which is in- They are first to be deprived of all their own tended to be followed up by that of the 4 capital, and they are then to be compelled per cents. Hence the discount at 4 per to cheat their friends, as far as their friends cent. by the Bank of England, and hence the may have the power and the will to trust five or six other petty measures which have them; and after all this, when they have lately been brought forward in Parliament, lost all that they possess, and all that they for the avowed purpose of increasing the can borrow, they are then to be permitted circulation and reducing the interest of mo- to "hope" to exist! Gracious God! And ney. The Ministers think that by these is this to be the fate of the five hundred tressed state, and the wages, of the handloom weavers of Bolton; observing upon that of Mr. Gardener, who stated that a weaver could make a piece and a half of sixquarter sixty-reed cambric in a week, that Mr. Hitchen contradicts this fact in the plainest and best authenticated terms, and REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE affirms positively from his own knowledge, ON HAND-LOOM WEAVERS. (Continued from page 320, Vol. I.) As a corollary to this, your Committee found that the due and usual attendance at divine worship is generally neglected; that this arose from shame, in the first instance, at appearing at church in rags: that the writings of Carlile and Taylor have obtained a greater spread, and that the witness had seen companies of men applauding those who have argued against the existence of a God. But your Committee cannot in justice close their observations on these statements without the accompanying remark, that the witness attributes this awful state of things to no innate vices and infidelity of the people themselves, but solely to that recklessness which originates in want and despair. Your Committee heard evidence confirmatory of the above from other persons of the same neighbourhood, and they refer you to that of Mr. Needham and Mr. Halliwell, the former of whom, being himself a weaver and well acquainted with the wants, the condition, and the feelings of his class, spoke with much confidence as to the absence of attachment to the Government now prevalent among the weavers; and he also spoke frankly to your Committee the pervading sentiment of the weavers, that the steam wheel is the ostensible cause of their suffering, and that, in the absence of relief of some kind from that want which at present goads them, they might seek a remedy by a violent destruction of this machine. Your Committee also refer you to the evidence of Mr. Gardener, a manufacturer, and Mr. Hitchen, also a manufacturer, in confirmation of the evidence as to the dis having been a weaver himself, that it is a very good workman who will weave 52 pieces in one year. Your Committee will now advert to the state of the hand-loom weavers of Manchester. From this place also they heard evidence both from manufacturers and weavers. By that of Mr. Ashworth, a woollen manufacturer, they found that he was well acquainted with the weavers personally, having been deputed by a charitable society of ladies and gentlemen, to ascertain by inspection the condition of three or four hundred families of that class, in order to facilitate the distribution of clothes and food to such as appeared the most deserving and the most in need. This witness described their condition in a manner fully corroborative of the former witnesses referred to by your Committee, so much so as to make the narrative little other than a repetition of the same distressing tale; but your Committee, nevertheless, consider it their duty to report to the House from each principal district of hand-loom manufacturing, such of the leading points of evidence as may be best calculated to inform it. Mr. Ashworth, in the course of his examination, declared to your Committee that the weavers whom he had visited do not generally earn a sufficiency to keep them in the common necessaries of life, and that in answer to the inquiry, "What can the best paid weavers now earn?" the answer was the fol lowing: "I will give what I consider to be a sample of those in the best condition, and in a better condition than they are just now. I have not here any remarks upon it in writing; but I will take a man and his wife, with two children, in the gingham weaving, and I suppose them to be able to earn 15s.: take 2s. 3d. for rent; the fire and the light to work by, taking the year round, I should think would not be less than 1s. a week; makes 3s. 3d.; here then is 3s. 3d. to take off the 15s., that will leave 11s. 9d.; that, divided amongst four, would be rather short of 33. a head, for meat, drink, clothing and bedding; but those very families cannot earn above 10s. a week now, not having so good work. Then I come to another class, a class that has five or six children, I will take a man and his wife and six children; two of those children work in a mill, one at 1s. 6d. a week, at least, when I had the account a few months since, and another at 2s. 6d. a week; the father cannot get above 7s. a week for his weaving, that makes 11s.; a lodger gives him 1s., that makes 128.; there is rent and fire to take out of this, which will at least be 38., but I will say 2s. 6d. ; 98. remain for clothing, bedding, and food for eight persons." These things the witness was well acquainted with, and spoke of from his own knowledge; further, he has found, that charity debased the objects of it, and made them "cringing sycophants;" that the morals of the people were greatly influenced by their distresses, and that they have become intemperate, and neglectful of their religious duties; that their homes exhibit no appearance of comfort, being almost totally destitute of furniture, and the inmates frequently lying upon straw. Coming from the same place, Mr. James Brennan stated to your Committee that he was a Marseilles toilet cover Weaver, with a wife and two children; that he was amongst the best paid of his class, who were earning 10s. the week, save an indispensable deduction of 2s. 6d.; and being asked how he laid out his money, he said, "I buy 1 lb. of butter at about 9d., for the week, and about 14 lb. of sugar, to the same extent, 28 lbs. of bread at 14d., and about 3 lbs. or 4 lbs. of potatoes a day, about 21 lbs. of potatoes a week at d. a lb., when I left Manchester; and about 7 lbs. of oatmeal or 74 lbs. at 1s. 2d. for 10 lbs.; then the next article is milk, about 1d. worth of milk per day; then as as to flesh meat, I only have it once a week, and that is on a Sunday; I generally buy 16. for my wife and family, that costs 34d., and the other days we have sometimes buttermilk and potatoes, and a bit of bacon, about † lb. a day, that would be 14 d.; some days we have it and some days not; it costs 103d per. week for coal, about 3d. a week for candles in summer, and in winter a considerable deal more, averaging about 8d. a week for candles." This witness, of whose industry, frugality and good repute your Committee were convinced, stated further, that he never bought any malt liquor save two gills, or thereabout, on a Saturday night; that he had never been able to buy any furniture during his life, but was fortunate in having some left to him by his father and mother; that he could not pay his subscription to the Friendly Society, and therefore belonged to none; and that it was a struggle to pay a penny subscription for burial; that he cannot attend the Church because of his insufficiency of decent clothes: and that he knew that many weavers who, feeling inclined to attend the Church Service, neglect to do so, from the same feelings of shame that actuated the witness. Mr. John Scott, also a practical weaver, was selected by a meeting of the weavers of Manchester and Salford on account of his known industry, frugality, probity and knowledge, as a person fit to give information to your Committee. He stated that he was one of the best paid class of silk weavers ; that he had several looms at work; that he had a wife and three children under the age of seven years; that his wife earns 4s. a week by winding at the looms; and that the joint earnings of himself and wife amounted to 8s. 10d. a week, clear of deductions; that to do this it required that the witness should work from 15 to 17 hours per day; and that he frequently worked from six in the morning till 11 at night, allowing himself no more than one hour in the day for meals; that, notwithstanding this incessant labour, the witness was not in a state to provide for his family the ordinary necessaries of life, and that the clothing of the family was necessarily also insufficient; that the weavers do not like to appear at Church because of the insufficiency of their clothing, and that he was obliged to borrow clothes wherein to appear before your Committee; that they have no newly-bought furniture, and that what little they bought in former times is fast wearing out, without any means to renew it; and that, notwithstanding the laborious life he led, the witness was actually then in debt. That intemperate habits are observable among the weavers, which is to be attributed to their desperate condition; that when bread was 24d. a pound, and wages at 208., the weavers were much better off than now that bread is at lid. a pound and wages at 78. or 88.; that when agriculture had flourished, the weavers had done so to; and that the low price of agricultural produce has been of no comparative benefit to them. With respect to the neighbourhood of Huddersfield, your Committee examined Mr. Richard Oastler, of Fixby Hall, the steward to Mr. Thornhill. This witness appeared to your Committee to have taken great pains to make himself acquainted with the condition of the hand-loom weavers in his neighbourhood, and the sum of his evidence is, that a great body of them do not earn more clear money than from 4s. 6d. to 58. per week; that some in the fancy work earn as much as 168., some 148. and some 12s.; but that, from these sums, the deductions are very great for winding, loom-rent, candles, &c.; bringing down the net earnings considerably from that immediately above stated. The witness concluded his answer to the question, "What can a fair weaver earn in a week?" by these words : "I remember one particular circumstance that struck me very forcibly, for it was the very day when I read the speech of the King to this House, in which he said the manufacturing districts were in a state of prosperity; on that very day I met with several of those weavers who were manufacturing operatives, and I questioned them very closely, and found that, on that day, when they were said to be in such a state of prosperity, those men, and women too, were carrying burdens on their backs eight or nine miles to fetch their work, and then had to carry them back again; and they were making from 4s. 6d. tơ 58. 2d. a week clear wages." And this witness also stated to your Committee that scores and hundreds of families do not taste flesh meat from year's end to year's end; that their food is porridge and potatoes; that their children run into Hud-: dersfield to beg; that their clothing is scarcely to be described; and that it is "what a convict ought not to have." That the Sunday schools are not so much attended by the children as formerly, the parents being ashamed to attend the Church owing to the state of their clothing, and the question having been put, "Have you marked a visible declension in their circumstances during those years ?". the answer was, "I have marked not only a visible declension in their circumstances, but in their spirits and in their manners altogether. I sometimes ask them, when I am walking with them, if they go to Church or Chapel? and I generally get this answer, 'We have nought to go in ;' and I often ask them, 'Do you know whether you live in a Christian country or not?' and a great many do not know what I mean by the question; and sometimes they say, 'Yes, we do live in a Christian country; they tell us so.'" It was hereon remarked, "Those are the younger class;" to which the witness replied, "No; persons of, perhaps, 20 years old, or 19 or 20." Further, the witness said, "In fact, I was called upon by a member of the Methodist persuasion in Huddersfield to subscribe for a mission in this district. He told me that they did not know what Christianity was. His name is Webb; he is a manufacturer." The witness, moreover, expressed his firm conviction that among the class of which he spoke, there had been of late years a great falling off in that attachment to the Government which was formerly so conspicuous in this country; that, indeed, imminent was the danger to be apprehended from this source, as a people thus affected with just discontent were a ready instrument in the hands of mischievous and designing men. Mr. C. Milner, of Huddersfield, stated to your Committee that he was a manufacturer employing hand-loom weavers, and that he paid them from 13s. to 20s. a week; but having put in a paper extracted from his books, your Committee found that the average of the wages as stated therein did not amount to more than 11s. 4d. per week; that hereupon the witness desired time to write home for more accurate information, and that in a short time after the witness appeared before your Committee again with fuller extract from his books, then just received from Huddersfield, when it appeared that the average wages amounted to 11s. per week, ranging from 7s. 84d. to 14s. 8d.; that this is a statement of the gross earnings, is given for the best paid for, and is subject to deductions of various kinds, as stated above in the evidence of Mr. Oastler. And this witness stated to your Committee that there was another description of manufacture carried on in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield, at which a much greater number of hands were employed, the wages for which were considerably lower; but he had no statement to give to your Committee, and could not say what those weavers earned. Referring now to Ireland, your Committee will first speak of the evidence which they received from the weavers of Belfast. Mr. John Boyd, a weaver, stated to them that there are three classes of weavers in the town and neighbourhood; that the least numerous class obtain in wages an income of 68. to 6s. 6d., and that they work from 14 to 16 or 18 hours a day, inclusive of, perhaps, an hour and a half for meals; that the second class, more numerous, earn 5s. to 5s. 6d. a week, working the same hours; that the third class, who are less able or less dexterous, and work on coarser material, earn from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. a week; and, on being questioned as to the mode of living, the witness supposed a man, with a wife and two children, and gave in to your Committee the following scale of outgoings for the week: 10 stone of coals at 14d. per stone. [This statement does not include stone of oatmeal 1 lb. of candles for shop oz. tea and lb. sugar Bread From Leeds, Your Committee received the Evidence of Mr. Brook, a Cloth-dresser, who confirmed the accounts given by Witnesses from other places as to the main points to which the attention of your Committee was directed; namely, that the hand-loom weavers of Leeds are worse off than they were 14 or 15 years back; that they do not earn a sufficiency to keep them in proper necessa-lb. soap ries; that their clothing and furniture is very much worse; that, instead of applying even their reduced wages to the support of their families, indulgence in dram drinking, as a temporary relief from despair, is much on the increase; and that, from the want of clothes to attend the Church in, and of means for educating their children, they neglect these important moral duties. Moreover, a statement of the earnings of a certain number of the hand-loom weavers of Leeds was put in by Edward Baines, Esq., M.P., a member of your Committee, which will be found below. (To be continued.) s. d. 1 3 1 0 1 3 It is requested that Subscriptions be not paid to unknown individuals; if not into the Bank of M. Attwood, Esq. M. P. then to some Member of the Society. Communications to be sent to the Secretary post paid. PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 51, PALL MALE.” |