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turing to suggest our views of a remedy, Your Petitioners are also unable to dis

your Petitioners would by no means desire the same wages to be given for good work as for inferior in any branch or department; nor do your Petitioners desire any partial legislation, but such as shall be fair both to masters and men, and beneficial to both. But unless the principle of equal competition between power-looms and hand-looms be first put into execution, such a regulation as this might make the last state of the hand-loom masters and men worse than the present.

Your Petitioners having complained of great depreciation of wages may expect to be met with the allegation that provisions are much reduced in price, and it has been declared that your Petitioners have now with their present gross wages (averaging among male adult worsted weavers from 7s. to 98. per week,) a greater command than ever over bread-the staff of life. Your Petitioners need not acquaint your Honourable House that this is a real fallacy, and that if provisions generally have fallen 20 per cent. taking the average of three years next after 1815, and three years before the last year, 1834, the wages of labour have also fallen in a far greater proportion.

Taking the prices of meal and flour as a fair criterion, it has been proved to your Honourable House by sundry witnesses that we have less command than ever over the chief necessaries of life; so that we are already taking rather too freely the prescription of certain Political Economists, to work longer and longer, for less and less, and to live on "" coarser food."

Your Petitioners are often told that great relief would be felt by the FREE IMPORTATION OF CORN, and that cheap as it now is it might be had 20 per cent. cheaper, and that this would admit of 20 per cent. being added to the wages and profits of manufacturers. But the experience of your Petitioners has taught them that many things which might be done, are not done, and we have found that a fall of provisions has been both the signal and excuse for a still greater fall in wages.

cover what advantage it would afford to them to put it still more out of the power of their agricultural fellow-labourers than it now is, to purchase the goods of the manufacturing labourers; and your Petitioners conceive, that to discourage home cultivation, and to cast off our home customer for a far less certain and less profitable foreign customer is neither just nor politic, and is the less agreeable to us, as it is the favourite scheme of THE MONIED INTEREST who are wont to fatten upon the distresses of the industrious of all classes. The distress of the agricultural districts which is declared in the last Speech from the Throne, is not likely to be diminished by exposing that interest to a competition as ruinous to them as that of unrestrained power-looms and machinery is to us.

Your Petitioners have been thus specific because they may have no better opportunity of making their sentiments knownthey disclaim all party feelings and all animosities between men and employers, and are happy on this occasion to see employers and men united in one object.

Convinced that the present system must lead to immense and certain evil-to the annihilation of hand-loom weaving-to the beggary of many happy domestic circles of the present respectable class of hand-loom employers-to increased poor rates-increased vice, immorality, and irreligionand, finally, to NATIONAL RUIN!

Your Petitioners humbly entreat your Honourable House to restrain the mischievous operations of machinery, especially of powerlooms-to provide for the better regulation of wages—to diminish in every possible way and to equalize the burden of taxation-to protect the producers of wealth in every branch-and to encourage every plan which tends to the diffusion of capital, and checks its undue accumulation—by which means contentment, knowledge, religion and loyalty may be promoted, and peace and happiness be extended to future generations.

And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AGRICUL- will carefully and impartially examine them,
TURAL AND INDUSTRIAL MAGA-
ZINE.

SIR,-At a crisis like the present, it is cheering to observe a publication like yours, for the encouragement of domestic industry, patronized by men of weight and influence in the country, whose object appears to be, to prevent the increase of distress amongst the industrious classes, and to devise the best means of alleviating that already existing. With the view of assisting in this laudable undertaking, I send you the following calculations, hoping you will think them worthy a place in your valuable publication.

and if found correct, that they will give the sanction and assistance of your society in applying them to practice, feeling confident that such establishments would furnish an unfailing source of employment for the present unemployed labourers, both agricultural and manufacturing, prove a profitable and safe investment for capital, provide a good tenantry for the landed proprietor, and a certain means of well training and educating the children of the working population, so as to make them useful members of society, and thus supersede the necessity of building coercive workhouses, as contemplated by the poor law amendment act, and demonstrate the absurdity of the Malthusian doctrine of excessive population.

JAMES BRABY.

To these calculations I earnestly invite the attention of the noblemen, gentlemen, landed proprietors and capitalists, who form Chalk Farm Lane, Hampstead Road, part of your society, and intreat that they

April 8th, 1835.

Calculation shewing the result of the industry of 500 persons of the working classes, in the usual proportions, viz.: 110 men, 110 women, and 280 children of different ages, located on 1,000 English acres of land, assisted by manufactures, with the aid of machinery. Shewing the quantity of labour required, the quantity and value of the produce, the cost of building an industrial village for their accommodation, &c. The land to be cultivated principally by the spade

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N. B. The cropping and stocking a farm of 1,000 acres, of course would require to be varied according to the nature and quality of the soil and situation, the above is supposed to be a fair average quantity, from an average quality, of soil, as now produced by the plough.

430 acres will feed annually 500 sheep, 2 sheep per acre, 200. 70 cows, 2 acres each cow, 175. 15 bullocks, 2 acres each, with flax seed, 30. 350 hogs, 7 acres garden, with surplus oats, or barley, bran and pollard, skim milk and refuse from kitchen and dairy 7. 6 horses, 3 acres each, with surplus oats, 18:-Total, 430.

The whole annual produce will be as under.

5,000 Bushels of wheat,

8,000 Do. of oats, or barley,

36,000 Do. of Potatoes,

500 Sheep, producing (with lambs, 3,500lbs. of wool) 5,000 stone* of mutton,

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70 Cows, producing 455,000 pints of milk, até per pint (or }

18,200lbs. of butter, or 50,555lbs. of Cheese)

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15 Bullocks slaughtered, producing 1,500 stones of beef, 350 Hogs, of 30 stone each, producing 10,500 stones of pork, Eggs, poultry, &c.

3,500 Pounds of wool manufactured by 7 persons into 1,682
yards of cloth, averaging per yard,
50 Acres of flax, producing 19,444lbs. of Scotch flax, manufactured
by 20 persons into 28,264 yards of linen, averaging 1s. 2d.
per yard,

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The establishment will have the following surplus to dispose of.

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113 Surplus hands, employed in 'manufacturing what might be considered saleable in the neighbourhood or in the general market, 1469 0 0 will earn for the establishment 5s. per week each,

Value of surplus, after feeding and clothing 500 persons,

£5651 7 11

N. B. The hides and skins from the bullocks and sheep slaughtered would nearly purchase leather for shoes for 500 persons: the fat and tallow from the same, and the hogs, would find candles and soap; and some part of what is called the offal from the same would be an article of food for the adults, in addition to the six ounces of meat daily, before stated.

dation of 500 persons would be dwellings for the married, either separate or together, dormitories for the single adults and children, public kitchen, dining-room, lectureroom or chapel, gymnasium, and play-grounds for amusement and exercise, &c. the expence of which may be estimated at about fifteen

It may be presumed, that on every 1000 acres of land in England now under cultivation, barns, graneries, and other farm buildings sufficient to preserve the crops, and for the piggeries, dairy, &c. and perhaps to be converted into manufactories, are already erected. The buildings, therefore, that would be required to be erected for the accommo- thousand pounds. The establishment would require to borrow

£.

15,000 For building dwellings, &c. which would be kept in

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17,980

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themselves; but say per annum,

For seeds of all sorts, annually,

3,000 For labour in cultivating the land the first year,

400 For implements for spade husbandry, &c.

Rent of 1000 acres, including tithes, at 20s. per acre,

To purchase articles not produced, as tea, coffee, sugar, fuel, and
other incidentals, per annum,

21,380, Debt,

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The account will stand thus:

Produce to dispose of after feeding, and clothing, and educating 500 persons, 5651
Yearly charge for rent, &c. &c.

711

3619 0 0

Yearly profit, £2032 7 11

As the whole of the produce of the 1000 the whole of which should be carefully preacres appears to be about £10,000, including labour from surplus hands, and the quantities being calculated as now produced by the plough, it may be presumed that by spade cultivation judiciously managed, and nearly the whole of the produce consumed on the spot, and returned on the land in manure,

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Gentlemen who have kindly notified their intention to subscribe are requested to forward the amount to the Banking House of Spooner, Attwood, and Co., Gracechurch Street, London.

Mr. Branfil's concise and lucid exposition of the Malt tax has been received his request shall be attended to.

The reply of the Worsted Hand-Loom Weavers of Bradford to G. Poulett Scrope, Esq. M. P. has come to hand; it is one of the many gratifying evidences of the spread of sound principles among the working classes as to the real cause of their distress, namely, "want of money to go to market with."

The Secretary in the name of the Committee, begs to thank Mr. Massey for the prices of Bullion, &c. which shall appear.

Mr. Eames' request shall be considered: -every Agricultural Association should petition Parliament respecting the necessity of a reform in the Currency, the leading point being the restoration of the ancient Silver Standard; the continuation of an attempt to uphold a costly and impracticable Gold

served, the cattle being kept principally in stall or yard, that the produce in two or three years would be much increased, say to the amount of £1000, per ann. which would enable the establishment to pay off the money borrowed in eight or ten years, allowing two years to put it in full operation.

Standard will ruin the country, and pull down every Institution.

We are obliged to Mr. Brown for the information that the Highland and Agricul tural Society of Scotland has offered a Premium of £200. for a Steam Plough, to which the East Lothian Agricultural Society has added £100., and the Border Union £100.

The Secretary has received the following information relative to the Agricultural Associations, and as additional facts come in they will be published in the succeeding numbers of the Magazine. It is suggested that the names of the President and Chairman be furnished together with that of the Secretary, and the number of members embraced in the Association.

East Kent Agricultural Association.-President the Earl of Winchelsea, Eastwell Park, Ashford. Chairman of the Committee, Sir B. W. Bridges, Bart., Goodwistone Park, near Wingham. Secretary, Mr. J. C. Abbot, Canterbury. The Committee meet regularly at Canterbury the last Saturday in each month.

Ashby de la Zouch Agricultural Associa tion, consists of nearly 150 Members. J. Eames, Esq. Treasurer; W. Dewes, Esq. Secretary.

PRINTED BY W. NICOL, 51, PALL MALI.

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