The commons were enclosed in 1801: all cottagers that claimed had

allotments; and one for fuel to the whole; but the cottages did not

belong to the poor; the allotments in general went to the larger

proprietors, and the poor consequently were left, in this respect,

destitute; many cows were kept before, few now. All the poor very much

against the measure.

_Sayham and Ovington._[346] Enclosed 1800.

Poor.--An allotment of not less than 50l. a year, for distributing to

the poor in coals, was ordered by the act; it let for 98l. There were

100 commonable right houses. They used to sell a cottage of 3l. a year,

with a right, for 80l. For each, four acres were allotted: and the

cottage with this allotment would now sell for 160l. And what is very

remarkable, every man who proved to the Commissioners that they had been

in the habit of keeping stock on the common, was considered as

possessing a common-right and had an allotment in lieu of it. Nor was it

an unpopular measure, for there were only two men against it from the

first to the last.

_Gloucestershire_ [_Thomas Rudge, Gloucester_, 1807, _pp._ 92-93].

In all Acts of Inclosure, it might perhaps be proper, as it would

certainly be equitable, to relieve the pressure which weighs on small

proprietors, in a degree not proportioned to the advantages they derive

from them: for it should be remembered, that the expence of fencing a

small allotment is considerable greater than that of a larger one,

according to the quantity; that is, a square piece of land containing

ten acres will cost half as much as forty, though only of one-fourth

value. This disproportion occasions much reluctance in the class of

proprietors before-mentioned; and though it is frequently overcome by

the superior influence of the great landholders, yet the injustice of it

cannot but strike the considerate mind with conviction.[347]

_Leicestershire_ [_William Pitt, Leicester_, 1809, _pp._ 15,16 _and_

166].

The enclosure of this vale[348] has not at all, I believe, hitherto

lessened the number of its inhabitants, as the farms are small, and few

changes of tenantry have taken place. The farmer and his family take a

hand in the business, yet few can do without a male and female servant,

and labourer, who may have a family: these with the necessary

mechanics, blacksmith, wheelwright, tailor, weaver, etc., form a

considerable population in each village, I should suppose about 10 or 12

to every 100 acres.... As the tendency of the country is to pasture and

feeding, the rejected occupier and his family must emigrate into towns,

or elsewhere, for employ.

The management of the Duke of Rutland's property has always been

conducted in the most liberal and benevolent manner; yet I think the

enclosure of a rich district, and converting it to grass, has a natural

tendency to decrease the population of that district; less corn is

certainly now raised in Belvoir than in its open state.

Mr. Ainsworth complains that labourers have not in general sufficient

gardens, nor even cottages, for want of which they are driven into

towns; and that in many cases by enclosures the cottages have been

suffered to go to decay, as the land would let for as much rent without

them to the larger farmers, and by turning it to grass, fewer labourers'

cottages are wanting.

_Northamptonshire_ [_William Pitt, Northampton_, 1809, _p._ 70].

From the observations I have made in this county, I have no doubt but,

if the average produce of common fields be three quarters per acre, the

same land will, after a little rest as grass, and the improvements to be

effected by enclosure, produce, on an average, four quarters per acre;

and I believe that the produce of every common field may be increased in

a like proportion by enclosure and an improved cultivation.

[Footnote 342: p. 82.]

[Footnote 343: p. 86.]

[Footnote 344: p. 94.]

[Footnote 345: p. 135.]

[Footnote 346: p. 156.]

[Footnote 347: The expenses of enclosure of an average amount were

calculated by the Board of Agriculture at 497l. for the Act, 259l. for

the Survey, 344l. for the Commissioners, 550l. 7s. 6d. for fencing, etc.

General Report on Enclosures, 1808.]

[Footnote 348: Belvoir.]

7. ARTHUR YOUNG'S CRITICISM OF ENCLOSURE [_Young, An Inquiry into the

Propriety of Applying Wastes, etc._, 1801, _pp._ 13 _and_ 42], 1801.

Go to an alehouse kitchen of an old enclosed country, and there you will

see the origin of poverty and poor rates. For whom are they to be sober?

For whom are they to save? (Such are their questions.) For the parish?

If I am diligent, shall I have leave to build a cottage? If I am sober,

shall I have land for a cow? If I am frugal, shall I have half an acre

of potatoes? You offer no motives; you have nothing but a parish officer

and a workhouse! Bring me another pot.

* * * * *

Objection VIII. Wastes are as much property as my house.

Will a farmer give up his right of commonage?

I will not dispute their meaning[349]; but the poor look to facts, not

meanings: and the fact is, that by nineteen enclosure bills in twenty

they are injured, in some grossly injured. It may be said that

commissioners are sworn to do justice. What is that to the people who

suffer? It must be generally known that they suffer in their own

opinions, and yet enclosures go on by commissioners, who dissipate the

poor people's cows wherever they come, as well those kept legally as

those which are not. What is it to the poor man to be told that the

Houses of Parliament are extremely tender of property, while the father

of the family is forced to sell his cow and his land because the one is

not competent to the other; and being deprived of the only motive to

industry, squanders the money, contracts bad habits, enlists for a

soldier, and leaves the wife and children to the parish? If enclosures

were beneficial to the poor, rates would not rise as in other parishes

after an act to enclose. The poor in these parishes may say, and with

truth, _Parliament may be tender of property_; _all I know is, I had a

cow, and act of Parliament has taken it from me_. And thousands may make

this speech with truth.

8. ENCLOSURE CONSOLIDATING ACT [_Statutes, Geo. III, 109_], 1801.

An Act for consolidating in one act certain provisions usually inserted

in acts of inclosure; and for facilitating the mode of proving the

several facts usually required on the passing of such acts.

II. No commissioner shall be capable of being a purchaser of any part or

parts of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments within any parish in

which the lands and grounds intended to be inclosed are situate, either

in his own name, or in the name or names of any person or persons, until

five years after the date and execution of the award to be made by any

such commissioner or commissioners.

IV. And be it further enacted, that a true, exact, and particular

survey, admeasurement, plan, and valuation, of all the lands and grounds

to be divided, allotted, and inclosed by any such act, and also of all

the messuages, cottages, orchards, gardens, homesteads, ancient inclosed

lands and grounds, within any such parish or manor, shall be made and

reduced in writing, by such commissioner or commissioners, or by such

other person or persons as he or they shall nominate and appoint, as

soon as conveniently may be, for the purposes of such act.

VI. And be it further enacted, that all persons, and bodies corporate or

politic, who shall have or claim any common or other right to or in any

such lands so to be inclosed, shall deliver or cause to be delivered to

such commissioner or commissioners, or one of them, at some one of such

meetings as the said commissioner or commissioners shall appoint for the

purpose (or within such further time, if any, as the said commissioner

or commissioners shall for some special reason think proper to allow for

that purpose) an account or schedule in writing, signed by them, or

their respective husbands, guardians, trustees, committees, or agents,

of such their respective rights or claims, and therein describe the

lands and grounds, and the respective messuages, lands, tenements, and

hereditaments, in respect whereof they shall respectively claim to be

entitled to any and which of such rights in and upon the same or any

part thereof, with the name or names of the person or persons then in

the actual possession thereof, and the particular computed quantities of

the same respectively, and of what nature and extent such right is, and

also in what rights, and for what estates and interests, they claim the

same respectively, distinguishing the freehold from the copyhold or

leasehold; or on non-compliance therewith, every of them making default

therein shall, as far only as respects any claim so neglected to be

delivered, be totally barred and excluded of and from all right and

title in or upon such lands so to be divided respectively, and of and

from all benefit and advantage in or to any share or allotment thereof.

[All objections must be delivered in writing to the commissioners before

the meeting appointed to consider objections.]

VII. Provided also, and be it further enacted, that nothing herein

contained shall authorise such commissioner or commissioners to hear and

determine any difference or dispute which may arise, touching the right

or title to any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, but such

commissioner or commissioners shall assign and set out the several

allotments directed to be made unto the person or persons, who, at the

time of the division and inclosure, shall have the actual seisin or

possession of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments, in lieu or in

right whereof such allotment shall be respectively made.

[VIII. Commissioners, before making any allotments, to appoint public

carriage roads, and prepare a map thereof to be deposited with their

clerk, and give notice thereof, and appoint a meeting, at which, if any

person shall object, the commissioners, with a justice of the division,

shall determine the matter.]

XII. And be it further enacted, that such commissioner or commissioners

in making the several allotments directed by any such act, shall have

due regard as well to the situation of the respective houses or

homesteads of the proprietors, as to the quantity and quality of the

lands and grounds to be allotted to them respectively, so far as may be

consistent with the general convenience of the said proprietors; and

that such commissioner or commissioners in making the said allotments

shall have particular regard to the convenience of the owners or

proprietors of the smallest estates in the lands and grounds directed to

be allotted and exchanged.

XIV. And be it further enacted, that the several shares of and in any

lands or grounds shall, when so allotted, be and be taken to be in full

bar of and satisfaction and compensation for their several and

respective lands, grounds, rights of common, and all other rights; and

that from and immediately after the making the said division and

allotments, and the execution of the award, all rights whatsoever, by

such act intended to be extinguished, belonging to or claimed by any

person or persons whomsoever, bodies politic or corporate, in, over, or

upon such lands or grounds, shall cease, determine, and be for ever

extinguished.

[XXIV and XXIX. If allotments are not enclosed and fenced within an

appointed time the commissioners may have the work done and charge the

expense to the proprietor or let the allotment and apply the rents till

the expenses are paid. If it has been provided by an act that the

expenses of obtaining and executing it are to be shared among the

proprietors of allotments the commissioners may levy them by distress

and sale of the goods of those who fail to pay at the appointed times.]

XXXII. And be it further enacted, that in case it shall be provided by

any such act, that the expenses attending the same shall be paid by sale

of any part of the land so to be inclosed, the said commissioner or

commissioners shall mark and set out such part or parts of the said

waste or commonable lands, as in his or their opinion will by sale

thereof raise a sum of money sufficient to pay and discharge all such

charges and expenses as may by any such act be directed to be paid and

discharged out of the same; and the said commissioner or commissioners

shall sell such part or parts of the said lands to any person or persons

for the best price or prices that can be gotten for the same.

XXXV. And be it further enacted, that as soon as conveniently may be

after the division and allotment of the said lands and grounds shall be

finished, pursuant to the purport and directions of this or any such

act, the said commissioner or commissioners shall form and draw up, or

cause to be formed and drawn up, an award in writing, which shall

express the quantity of acres, roods, and perches, in statute measure,

contained in the said lands and grounds, and the quantity of each and

every part and parcel thereof which shall be so allotted, assigned, or

exchanged, and the situations and descriptions of the same respectively,

and shall also contain a description of the roads, ways, footpaths,

watercourses, watering places, quarries, bridges, fences, and land

marks, set out and appointed by the said commissioner or commissioners

respectively as aforesaid, and all such other rules, orders, agreements,

regulations, directions, and determinations, as the said commissioner or

commissioners shall think necessary, proper, or beneficial to the

parties; which said award shall be fairly ingrossed or written on

parchment, and shall be read and executed by the commissioner or

commissioners, in the presence of the proprietors who may attend at a

special general meeting called for that purpose, of which ten days'

notice at least shall be given in some paper to be named in such act and

circulating in the county, which execution of such award shall be

proclaimed the next Sunday in the church of the parish in which such

lands shall be, from the time of which proclamation only, and not

before, such award shall be considered as complete.

XL. And be it further enacted and declared that nothing in such act

contained shall lessen, prejudice, or defeat the right, title, or

interest of any lord or lady of any manor or lordship, or reputed manor

or lordship, within the jurisdiction or limits whereof the lands and

grounds thereby directed to be divided and allotted are situate, lying,

and being of, in, or to the seigniories, rights, and royalties incident

or belonging to such manor or lordship, or reputed manor or lordship, or

to the lord or lady thereof, or to any person or persons claiming under

him or her, but the same (other than and except the interest and other

property as is or are meant or intended to be barred by such act) shall

remain, in as full, ample, and beneficial manner, to all intents and

purposes, as he or she might or ought to have held or enjoyed such

rights before the passing of such act, or in case the same had never

been made.

[Footnote 349: _Ibid._ p. 42.]

9. GENERAL ENCLOSURE ACT [_Statutes_, 8 _and_ 9 _Victoria_, 118], 1845.

An act to facilitate the inclosure and improvement of commons and lands

held in common, the exchange of lands, and the division of intermixed

lands; to provide remedies for defective or incomplete executions, and

for the non-execution of the powers of general and local inclosure acts;

and to provide for the revival of such powers in certain cases.

... Be it therefore enacted ... that it shall be lawful for one of her

Majesty's principal secretaries of State to appoint any two fit persons

to be commissioners under this act ... and the commissioners shall, with

the first commissioner of her Majesty's woods, forests, land reserves,

works and buildings for the time being, be the commissioners for

carrying this act into execution.

[Assistant commissioners may be appointed to whom powers may be

delegated.

Village greens may not be enclosed. Land near towns and land subject to

unlimited rights of pasture, etc., may not be enclosed without special

direction of parliament.]

XXX. And be it enacted, that in the provisional order of the

commissioners concerning the enclosures under the provisions of this

act of any waste land of any manor on which the tenants of such manor

have rights of common, or of any other land subject to rights of common

which may be exercised all times of the year, and which shall not be

limited by number or stints, it shall be lawful for the commissioners to

require ... the appropriation of an allotment for the purpose of

exercise and recreation for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood [10

acres for a population of 10,000; 8 for 5,000 to 10,000, etc.]

XXXI. [In similar cases the commissioners may order the appropriation of

such an allotment for the labouring poor as the commissioners shall

think necessary.]

L. All encroachments and enclosures, other than enclosures duly

authorised by the custom of the manor of which such land shall be parcel

... within twenty years next before the first meeting for the

examination of claims ... shall be deemed parcel of the land subject to

be enclosed; provided always that in case ... it shall appear to the

commissioners just or reasonable that rights or interests in the lands

to be enclosed should be allowed to the persons in possession of such

encroachments, it shall be lawful for the commissioners ... to direct

what rights shall be allowed.

[Encroachments of twenty years standing to be deemed old enclosures.]

SECTION III

GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF WAGES, CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT, AND PUBLIC

HEALTH

1. An Act against Truck, 1701--2. A Wages Assessment at a

Warwickshire Quarter Sessions, 1738--3. Spitalfields Weavers Act,

1773--4. A Middlesex Wages Assessment under the Spitalfields Act,

1773--5. Agricultural Labourers' Proposals for a Sliding Scale of

Wages, 1795--6. Debates on Whitbread's Minimum Wage Bill, 1795-6--7.

Arbitration Act for the Cotton Industry, 1800--8. Amendment of the

Arbitration Act, 1804--9. The First Factory Act, 1802--9A. Minutes of

Committee on Children in Factories--10. Calico Printers' Petition for

Regulation, 1804--11. Report on Calico Printers' Petition, 1806--12.

Cotton Weavers' Petition against the Repeal of 5 Elizabeth c. 4,

1813--13. Debates on the Regulation of Apprentices, 1813-1814--14.

Resolutions of the Watchmakers on Apprenticeship, 1817--15. Report of

Committee on the Ribbon Weavers, 1818--16. The Cotton Factory Act of

1819--17. Oastler's First Letter on Yorkshire Slavery, 1830--18.

Factory Act, 1833--19. Proposals for a Wages Board for Hand-loom

Weavers, 1834--20. Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1842--21. Debate on

Factory Legislation, 1844--22. Factory Act, 1844--23. Recommendations

of the Commission on the Health of Towns, 1845.

The eighteenth century was nearly a blank period in the history of

direct regulation of industrial conditions by the State. There was no

systematic intervention on the scale of Tudor or Victorian times; and

political opinion hardened against the principle and destroyed the

machinery which had been inherited from the sixteenth century. Such

machinery, for the regulation of wages, was still occasionally used in

the early part of the eighteenth century, as is shown by occasional

examples of wages assessments at Quarter Sessions (No. 2). Acts were

passed for individual trades forbidding the practice of paying wages in

truck (No. 1). Local pressure even obtained a special Act providing for

the regulation of London silk-weavers' wages (No. 3, No. 4). This

Spitalfields Act was used as a precedent for the proposals to extend the

policy of regulation, which began to fill the Journals of the House of

Commons during the period when the new machinery and methods and the

French wars dislocated employment and wages. Examples are given of

petitions asking that wages should be regulated and that the limitation

of apprentices should be enforced under the statute 5 Elizabeth c. 4, to

which attention had been called (Nos. 10, 11, 12 and 14). Independent

attempts were made to set up a minimum wage, directly and through

wages-boards (Nos. 5, 6 and 19). All these applications ended in

complete failure. Parliament provided a system of arbitration for the

cotton industry (Nos. 7 and 8), but repealed both the wages and

apprenticeship clauses of the Elizabethan Act. Contemporary opinion in

Parliament relied on the working of free bargaining and economic forces

(Debates on Whitbread's Bill and on Apprenticeship, Nos. 6 and 13).

The history of Factory legislation (Nos. 9, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22)

shows how the policy of non-interference was abandoned in another field.

The employment of children in the new factories was one result of the

eighteenth century system of Poor relief. It produced horrors which the

first Factory Act was designed to remedy (No. 9). But the use of

steam-power and the growth of big industrial districts led to the

wholesale employment of children not under the Poor Law. Public opinion

was at last aroused by the campaigns of Oastler and others, who pointed

to the contrast between the Anti-Slavery agitation and the conditions of

the English mills (No. 17). The successive Acts of 1819, 1833, 1842 and

1844 (Nos. 16, 18, 20, 22) show how legislators were forced to extend

the principle of regulation from children to young persons and women,

and from cotton mills to other textile factories and to mines. In the

debate on the Act of 1844 the respective points of view of the Tory

philanthropist, the political economist, and the manufacturer, were

dramatically contrasted (No. 21). The last extract is from one of a

series of reports on the condition of great industrial towns (No. 23),

by which Chadwick, a disciple of Bentham and a champion of the new

Poor-law, forced Parliament to interfere in the economic control of town

life.

AUTHORITIES

For modern writers on general conditions, see Authorities for Section

I. The history of agitation for Factory legislation is to be found in

Hutchins and Harrison, _History of Factory Legislation_; Von Plener

_Die Englische Fabrikgesetzgebung_; Alfred (S. Kydd), _The Factory

Movement_; Cooke Taylor, _The Factory System and the Factory Acts_;

Keeling, _Child Labour in the United Kingdom_, Part I. Details of the

agitation are given in Hodder, _Life of Shaftesbury_; Podmore, _Life

of Owen_; Hutchins, _The Public Health Agitation_; Greenwood, Richard

Oastler. A general view is given in Dicey, _Law and Opinion in

England_; Kirkman Gray, _Philanthropy and the State_; Held, _Zwei

Bücher zur Sozialen Geschichte Englands_.

Bibliographies are in Hutchins and Harrison, _op. cit._; Cunningham,

_op. cit._; and Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII.

_Contemporary._--See Authorities for Section I. In addition, for

Wages Assessments under the Spitalfields Act in 1784 and 1795, see

collection in British Museum, 1029, p. 4. The Reports of Factory

Inspectors are valuable sources after 1833. See also Hansard

Parliamentary Debates on Wages, and Factory Legislation, 1795,

1813-14, 1816, 1832-3, 1844, 1846.

The chief contemporary literary sources for general conditions are

given under Section I. The Factory legislation movement is described

by some of the actors: Owen, Observations on the Manufacturing

System; Oastler, Yorkshire Slavery, Life and Opinions, Letters from

the Fleet, etc.; Memoir of the Life and Writings of Michael Sadler;

Nassau Senior, Letters on the Factory Act; L. Horner, On the

Employment of Children in Factories.

1. AN ACT AGAINST TRUCK [_Statutes_, 1 _Anne_ 2, 18], 1701.

An act for the more effectual preventing the abuses and frauds of

persons imployed in the working up the woollen, linen, fustian, cotton,

and iron manufactures of this kingdom.

* * * * *

III. And to prevent the oppression of the labourers and workmen imployed

in the woollen, linen, fustian, cotton and iron manufacture, be it

enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all payments and satisfactions

hereafter to be made to any of the same labourers and workmen, for any

work by them done in the same manufacture, shall be by the lawful coin

of this realm, and not by any cloth, victuals, or commodities, in lieu

thereof: and all wool delivered out to be wrought up, shall be so

delivered, with declaration of the true weight thereof, on pain that

every offender, in either of the said cases, shall forfeit and pay to

such labourer or worker, double the value of what shall be due for such

work by him, her, or them done; and if any such labourer or worker shall

be guilty of any such fraud or default in the work by him, her, or them

done, then such labourer or worker shall allow and answer to the owner

of such work double the damages thereby sustained.

[_Cf._ 12 Geo. I. c. 34, sec. iii.--"every clothier, sergemaker or

woollen or worsted stuffmaker, or person concerned in making any woollen

cloths, serges or stuffs, or any wise concerned in employing woolcombers

weavers or other labourers in the woollen manufactory, shall ... pay

unto all persons by them employed ... the full wages or other price

agreed on in good and lawful money of this kingdom; and shall not pay

the said wages ... or any part thereof, in goods or by way of truck."]

2. A WAGES ASSESSMENT AT WARWICKSHIRE QUARTER SESSIONS [_Ashby_, _The

Poor Law in a Warwickshire Village_ (_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal

History_, _Vol. III_, _p._ 175)], 1738.

The particular rate of wages of all manner of artificers, labourers, and

servants, as well by the day with meat and drink as without, as also by

the whole year in gross or by task, made and provided, having a special

regard and consideration to the prices of provisions and all other

circumstances necessary to be considered at this time. April, 1738.

£ s. d.

Every servant in husbandry by the year 5 10 0

Second servant 4 0 0

Servant boy from 14 to 18 years of age 2 10 0

Servant boy from 11 to 14 1 0 0

Every head servant maid by the year 3 0 0

Second maid servant 2 10 0

Labourers from Martinmas to March 25 by the day 0 0 8

From March 25 to harvest and after harvest to

Martinmas 0 0 9

Every mower of grass by the day, with drink 0 1 0

" without drink 0 1 2

Every woman in haymaking, with drink 0 0 5

" without drink 0 0 6

Every woman in corn harvest, with drink 0 0 6

" without drink 0 0 7

Every carpenter by the day, March 25 to St

Michael's, with drink 0 1 0

" without drink 0 1 2

From Michaelmas to Lady Day, with drink 0 0 10

" without drink 0 1 0

Every mason by the day in summer, with drink 0 0 10

" without drink 0 1 0

Every mason by the day in winter, with drink 0 0 10

" without drink 0 1 0

Thatcher by day, summer and winter 0 1 0

Weeders of corn by the day 0 0 4

[This was still in force in 1773.]

3. SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS ACT [_Statutes_, 13 _Geo. III_, 68], 1773.

An Act to impower the magistrates therein mentioned to settle and

regulate the wages of persons employed in the Silk Manufacture within

their respective jurisdictions.

Whereas it would be for the benefit of persons employed in the Silk

Manufacture, if the magistrates were impowered to settle, between the

master weavers and their journeymen, the price of labour in the several

branches of the said manufacture; be it therefore enacted by the King's

most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords

spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament,

assembled and by the authority of the same, that from and after the

first day of July, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, the

wages and prices for work of the journeymen weavers within the city of

London shall be settled, regulated, and declared, by the Lord Mayor,

Recorder and Aldermen, of the said city; and in all places in the county

of Middlesex, by the Justices of the Peace for the said county; and in

all places within the city and liberty of Westminster, at the General

Quarter Sessions of the peace holden in and for the said city and

liberty; and in all places within the liberty of the Tower of London, at

the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace holden in and for the said

liberty, at their General Quarter Sessions of the Peace respectively;

and the Lord Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen of the city of London, and the

said Justices of the Peace, are hereby respectively authorised and

impowered, from time to time, upon application being made to them for

that purpose, to settle, regulate, order, and declare the wages and

prices of work of the journeymen weavers working within their respective

jurisdictions as aforesaid; and shall and may, within the space of

fourteen days next after the making every such order, cause the same to

be printed and published, at the reasonable expense of the person or

persons applying for the same, three times, in any two daily newspapers

published in London or Westminster; which publication shall be deemed

and allowed to be sufficient notice and publication thereof; and from

and after publication thereof, all weavers, and their journeymen, are

hereby strictly required to observe the same.

And be it further enacted, that if after the said first day of July, one

thousand seven hundred and seventy-three, any master weaver, within

either of the aforesaid districts, shall give more or less wages, or pay

larger or less prices, to any of the journeymen weavers aforesaid, for

their work, than shall be settled or allowed as aforesaid, and shall be

convicted of the said offences before any two of His Majesty's Justices

of the Peace, within either of the districts or jurisdictions aforesaid

where the said offence shall be committed, on the oath or oaths of one

or more credible witness or witnesses, he shall forfeit the sum of fifty

pounds; to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods; and

the said penalty, when recovered, shall be paid into the hands of the

Master of the Weavers' Company, first deducting the expense of such

prosecution, to be distributed by him, in conjunction with the Wardens

of the said company, to any distressed journeymen weavers or their

families, who shall have been last employed in either of the aforesaid

jurisdictions, at their discretion.

And be it further enacted, that if any journeyman weaver or weavers

within the districts aforesaid, shall ask, receive, or take more or less

wages, or larger or less prices for their work than shall be settled by

the respective quarter-sessions, as aforesaid; or shall enter into any

combination to raise the wages or prices of the said work, or for this

purpose shall decoy, solicit, or intimidate, any journeyman or

journeymen weavers within the districts aforesaid, so that he or they

quit their masters, for whom they shall then be employed; or shall

assemble themselves in any numbers exceeding the number of ten, in order

to frame or deliver petitions or other representations, touching their

wages or prices of work, except to the said Justices of the Peace, or to

the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen of the city of London, at their

respective Quarter Sessions, and shall be convicted of any of the said

offences, on the oath or oaths of one or more credible witness or

witnesses, before any two or more of His Majesty's Justices of the

Peace, within either of the districts or jurisdictions aforesaid where

the offence shall be committed, [he or they] shall forfeit a sum not

exceeding forty shillings: And if the said forfeiture be not immediately

paid, it shall and may be lawful for the said Justices to commit the

said offender to the House of Correction, to hard labour, for any time

not exceeding three months; the said forfeiture, when recovered, to be

applied in the same manner as the forfeiture of fifty pounds

afore-mentioned.

And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful for any two

Justices of the Peace, within the limits and jurisdictions aforesaid, on

information upon oath made before them by any person or persons

whatsoever, that there is reason to suspect that any master or

journeyman weaver, within the districts or jurisdictions aforesaid, hath

been guilty of any of the offences aforesaid, at request of such

informant, to issue their summons, in writing, signed by any such two

Justices, requiring any clerk, foreman, apprentice, servant, or other

person or persons employed or retained by such person so suspected to

have offended, or any other person or persons whatsoever, whose

attendance shall appear necessary for the purpose of giving evidence in

the premises, to attend and testify concerning the premises: And if any

person so summoned shall not attend, and proof shall be made of the

service of such summons either personally or by leaving the same at the

last or usual place of abode of such person, it shall be lawful for such

two Justices, or any other two Justices of the Peace acting for such

county or place, and they are hereby required (unless a reasonable

excuse be made for such non-attendance to the satisfaction of such

justices) to issue their warrant, under their hands and seals, for the

apprehending and bringing him or her before them, or some other two or

more Justices of the Peace acting for such county or place, to be

examined touching the premises; and if any such person so attending or

being brought before such Justices, shall refuse to be examined or give

their testimony touching the premises, such person shall by the said

justices be committed to the House of Correction for one month, there to

remain, unless he or she shall sooner submit to be examined and give

testimony as the law requires.

And be it further enacted, that if any master weaver residing within the

limits aforesaid, shall, directly or indirectly, in any manner

whatsoever, retain or employ any journeyman weaver out of or beyond the

limits aforesaid, with intent or design to elude or evade this act, or

shall give, allow, or pay, or cause to be given, allowed, or paid, to

such journeyman, any more or less wages than shall be settled, as

aforesaid, every such person shall, for every such offence, forfeit

fifty pounds; to be sued for by action of debt, in any of His Majesty's

Courts of Record at Westminster, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager

of law, or more than one imparlance, shall be allowed, and wherein the

ordinary costs of the suit shall be paid; one moiety of which said

forfeiture, when recovered, shall belong and be paid to His Majesty and

His successors, and the other moiety to the person who shall sue for the

same.

Provided always, and be it further enacted, that nothing in this act

contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to fix, control, or

regulate, the wages or allowances to be paid to servants in the said

business of a weaver, _bona fide_ retained and employed as foreman.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from and

after the passing of this act, no person or persons, being silk weavers,

residing within the districts aforesaid, shall have in his or their

service at any one time more than two apprentices, upon pain of

forfeiting for every offence the sum of twenty pounds; to be levied by

distress and sale of the offender's goods and chattels, upon conviction,

on the oath or oaths of one or more credible witness or witnesses,

before two Justices of the Peace within either of the jurisdictions

aforesaid where the said offence shall be committed, and the said

penalty, when recovered, shall be paid into the hands of the Master of

the Weavers' Company, to be applied by him, as aforesaid, and the said

Justices are hereby authorised and required to discharge every such

apprentice or apprentices exceeding the number of two.

4. A MIDDLESEX WAGES ASSESSMENT UNDER THE SPITALFIELDS ACT [_Public

Record Office_, _H.O._ 86, 26], 1773.

Sir John Fielding presents his respects to the Earl of Suffolk and

acquaints him that he had the pleasure yesterday of assisting at the

general Quarter Sessions for the county of Middlesex to carry into

execution the late Act of Parliament for the regulating of the wages of

journeymen weavers in Spitalfields, etc., and the wages were then

settled by a numerous and unanimous bench to the entire satisfaction of

those masters and journeymen weavers who appeared there in behalf of

their respective bodies, and I sincerely hope that this step will prove

a radical cure for all tumultuous assemblies from that quarter so

disrespectful to the King and so disagreeable to Government, as it will

amply reward your Lordship's judicious attention to a matter so

conducive to peace and good order, for by this statute your Lordship has

conveyed contentment to the minds of thousands of his Majesty's

subjects. The Act for the appointment of clergymen with proper salaries

agreeable to my proposals was also carried into execution to attend the

gaols, and this preventive step will, I am persuaded, be attended with

very salutary effects; and as the important business of the sessions is

over, I hope your Lordship will take the advantage of my Lord North's

leisure to settle the affair regarding my general prevention plan which

now lies before him for his Majesty's approbation.

I am, with unfeigned truth, my Lord,

Your Lordship's respectful and the public's faithful Servant.

Sir John Fielding,

9th July, 1773.

5. AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' PROPOSALS FOR A SLIDING SCALE OF WAGES

[_Annals of Agriculture, Vol. XXV, p. 503_[350]], 1795.

At a numerous meeting of the day labourers of the little parishes of

Heacham, Snettisham, and Sedgford, this day, 5th November, in the parish

church of Heacham, in the county of Norfolk, in order to take into

consideration the best and most peaceable mode of obtaining a redress of

all the severe and peculiar hardships under which they have for many

years so patiently suffered, the following resolutions were unanimously

agreed to:--1st, That _the labourer is worthy of his hire_, and that the

mode of lessening his distresses, as hath been lately the fashion, by

selling him flour under the market price, and thereby rendering him an

object of a parish rate, is not only an indecent insult on his lowly and

humble situation (in itself sufficiently mortifying from his degrading

dependence on the caprice of his employer) but a fallacious mode of

relief, and every way inadequate to a radical redress of the manifold

distresses of his calamitous state. 2nd, That the price of labour

should, at all times, be proportioned to the price of wheat, which

should invariably be regulated by the average price of that necessary

article of life; and that the price of labour, as specified in the

annexed plan, is not only well calculated to make the labourer happy

without being injurious to the farmer, but it appears to us the only

rational means of securing the permanent happiness of this valuable and

useful class of men, and, if adopted in its full extent, will have an

immediate and powerful effect in reducing, if it does not entirely

annihilate, that disgraceful and enormous tax on the public--the Poor

Rate.

_Plan of the Prices of Labour Proportionate to the Price of Wheat._

per last. per day

When wheat shall be 14l. the price of labour shall be 1s. 2d.

" " " 16 " " " 1s. 4d.

" " " 18 " " " 1s. 6d.

" " " 20 " " " 1s. 8d.

" " " 22 " " " 1s. 10d.

" " " 24 " " " 2s. 0d.

" " " 26 " " " 2s. 2d.

When wheat shall be 28l. the price of labour shall be 2s. 4d.

" " " 30 " " " 2s. 6d.

" " " 32 " " " 2s. 8d.

" " " 34 " " " 2s. 10d.

" " " 36 " " " 3s. 0d.

And so on, according to this proportion.

3rd. That a petition to parliament to regulate the price of labour,

conformable to the above plan, be immediately adopted; and that the day

labourers throughout the county be invited to associate and co-operate

in this necessary application to parliament, as a peaceable, legal, and

probable mode of obtaining relief; and, in doing this, no time should be

lost, as the petition must be presented before the 29th January, 1796.

4th. That one shilling shall be paid into the hands of the treasurer by

every labourer, in order to defray the expenses of advertising,

attending on meetings, and paying counsel to support their petition in

parliament.

5th. That as soon as the sense of the day labourers of this county, or a

majority of them, shall be made known to the clerk of the meeting, a

general meeting shall be appointed, in some central town, in order to

agree upon the best and easiest mode of getting the petition signed:

when it will be requested that one labourer, properly instructed, may be

deputed to represent two or three contiguous parishes, and to attend the

above intended meeting with a list of all the labourers in the parishes

he shall represent, and pay their respective subscriptions; and that the

labourer, so deputed, shall be allowed two shillings and sixpence a day

for his time, and two shillings and sixpence a day for his expenses.

6th. That Adam Moore, clerk of the meeting, be directed to have the

above resolutions, with the names of the farmers and labourers who have

subscribed to and approved them, advertised in one Norwich and one

London paper; when it is hoped that the above plan of a petition to

parliament will not only be approved and immediately adopted by the day

labourer of this county, but by the labourers of every county in the

kingdom.

7th. That all letters, _post paid_, addressed to Adam Moore, labourer,

at Heacham, near Lynn, Norfolk, will be duly noticed.

[Footnote 350: Quoted Hammond, _The Village Labourer_, pp. 137-9.]

6. DEBATES ON WHITBREAD'S MINIMUM WAGE BILL [_Parliamentary History,

Vol. XXXIII, cols. 700-15_], 1795-6.

_Debate in the Commons on Mr. Whitbread's Bill to regulate the wages of

Labourers in Husbandry. December 9._ Mr. Whitbread presented to the

House a bill "to explain and amend so much of the act of the 5th of

Elizabeth, intituled: 'An act containing divers orders for artificers,

labourers, servants of husbandry and apprentices,'" as empowers justices

of the peace, at, or within six weeks after, every general quarter

sessions held at Easter, to regulate the wages of labourers in

husbandry. The bill was read a first time. On the motion for the second

reading, Mr. Whitbread said, that he had brought forward this bill under

the idea that it was possible, by adopting its regulations, to give

great relief to a very numerous and useful class of the community. The

act of Elizabeth empowered justices of the peace to fix the maximum of

labour. This bill went only to empower them to fix the minimum. However

the House might decide with respect to his bill, he trusted at least

that the act of Elizabeth would be repealed.

_Mr. Fox_ said, that the bill was undoubtedly a bill of great delicacy

and importance, and with respect to which, he admitted that, to a

considerable extent, there might exist a rational difference of opinion.

The act of Elizabeth, as his hon. friend had truly stated, empowered the

justices to fix the highest price of labour, but it gave them no power

to fix the lowest. It secured the master from a risk that could but

seldom occur, of being charged exorbitantly for the quantity of service;

but it did not authorise the magistrate to protect the poor from the

injustice of a griping and avaricious employer, who might be disposed to

take advantage of their necessities, and undervalue the rate of their

service. If the price of labour was adequate to the support of the poor

at ordinary times, though not equal to the accidental high price of

provisions at the present moment, it might be contended that there was

less necessity for any new legislative regulation. But, taking the

average price of labour for some years past, including that period

during which the scarcity had operated, no man could deny that the price

of labour was greatly disproportionate to the rate of provisions. That

the general price of labour should be adequate to the support of the

general mass of the community was indisputably a right principle. They

all knew that a very extensive tax was exacted from the country, under

the denomination of poor-rates, and that such a tax must be continued.

It was understood that to this fund none could apply, but those few to

whom, from particular circumstances, their labour might not be

sufficiently productive to secure an adequate support. But he feared

that the reverse was the case; that the exception was with respect to

the few who derived sufficient means of subsistence from their labour,

and that the great mass of the labouring part of the community were

under the necessity of applying to this fund for relief. If the House,

as was proposed, were to form an association, in order to pledge

themselves to use only a particular sort of bread, with a view to

diminish the pressure of the scarcity, ought they not at the same time

to form an association in order to raise the price of labour to a rate

proportionate to the price of articles of subsistence? With this view,

he called upon the House to consider the principle of the bill, and its

provisions. He would call upon them also to attend to the subject, in a

constitutional view, though he could not hope, from the complexion of

recent transactions, that this was a view of the subject which would

have great weight. It was not fitting in a free country that the great

body of the people should depend upon the charity of the rich. In the

election of members of Parliament, all those were strictly excluded from

exercising any franchise, with a very few exceptions, who had at any

time received relief from the parish. Was it becoming in a country like

this, that the general mass of the labouring part of the community,

excepting those who derived relief from the bounty and generosity of

individuals, should be excluded from the exercise of their most

important privilege as freemen! He admitted many of the rich to be

humane and charitable; but he could not allow that those who were the

most useful and industrious members of society should depend upon a fund

so precarious and degrading, as the occasional supplies derived from

their bounty. If the price of provisions had for two years been such as

to put every poor man under the necessity of applying for the aid of

parochial charity, and if that circumstance constituted a positive

disqualification with respect to the exercise of a constitutional right,

what, he asked, was the state of a country which first compelled every

poor man to dependence, and then reduced him to servitude? If they were

to go into associations, pledging themselves to use a particular sort of

bread, with a view to alleviate the scarcity, it was surely of more

importance that they should associate in order to redress the more

material grievance, and strike at the fundamental source of the evil.

With this view he should be glad to see an association in order to put

the price of labour upon a footing adequate to the rate of provisions.

If the regulations of the present bill should not be adopted, he should

be happy that any other legislative enactments should be brought forward

in order to afford relief and protection to the poor.

The bill was ordered to be read a second time on the 3rd of February,

and to be printed.

_February 12th, 1796._ The order of the day being read for the second

reading of the bill,

_Mr. Whitbread_ said, that ample time had been given for members to

consider maturely its object and regulations, and to collect from their

constituents such information as they might require. For his own part,

every inquiry he had instigated, convinced him of the necessity of

remedying the grievances of the industrious poor by some legislative

provisions. Whether those which he had suggested were the most proper to

be adopted, was a question for the decision of the House? Having

bestowed considerable pains in drawing up the bill, he might have left

it for their consideration upon its merits alone, did not the novelty of

the measure demand a few words in explanation. He felt as much as any

man how greatly it was to be desired that there should be no legislative

interference in matters of this nature, and that the price of labour,

like every other commodity, should be left to find its own level. From

reasonings upon the subject, the result was, that it always would find

its level. But the deductions of reason were confuted by experience; for

he appealed to the sense of the House, whether the situation of the

labouring poor in this country was such as any feeling or liberal mind

would wish? He did not mean that the wages of the labourer were

inadequate for his subsistence and comfort in times of temporary

scarcity, and unusual hardship; but even at the period preceding such

distress, the evil had prevailed. In most parts of the country, the

labourer had long been struggling with increasing misery, till the

pressure had become almost too grievous to be endured, while the

patience of the sufferers under their accumulated distresses had been

conspicuous and exemplary. And did not such distress, supported with so

much fortitude, merit relief from the legislature? Were it necessary to

refer to any authority, he would quote the writings of Dr. Price, in

which he showed that in the course of two centuries, the price of labour

had not increased more than three or at most fourfold; whereas the price

of meat had increased in the proportion of six or seven; and that of

clothing, no less than fourteen or fifteen-fold in the same period. The

poor-rates, too, had increased since the beginning of the century from

£600,000, at which they were then estimated, to upwards of three

millions. Nor was this prodigious increase in the poor rates to be

ascribed to the advance of population; for it was doubtful whether any

such increase had taken place. At the present period the contrary seemed

to be the case. By the pressure of the times, marriage was discouraged;

and among the laborious classes of the community, the birth of a child,

instead of being hailed as a blessing, was considered as a curse. For

this serious evil a remedy was required, and to this the bill was

directed. It was his wish to rescue the labouring poor from a state of

slavish dependence; to enable the husbandman, who dedicated his days to

incessant toil, to feed, to clothe, and to lodge his family with some

degree of comfort; to exempt the youth of the country from the necessity

of entering the army or the navy, and from flocking to great towns for

subsistence; and to put it in the power of him who ploughed and sowed

and threshed the corn, to taste of the fruits of his industry, by giving

him a right to a part of the produce of his labour. Such were the

grounds upon which the bill in question was built. To those who dreaded

everything that wore the aspect of innovation, and reprobated every

measure that was new, he would say that here there was no departure from

established precedents, no introduction of unknown principles. The

statute of the 5th of Elizabeth was enacted expressly for the purpose of

regulating the price of labour. This statute was acted upon for forty

years, when it was afterwards amended by a subsequent one in the reign

of James the 1st, bearing a similar title. He would not be understood as

commending the principle of these statutes: on the contrary, he was of

opinion that they operated as a clog to industry, by permitting justices

to fix the maximum of labour. But so late as the 8th of his majesty,

justices were empowered to regulate the wages of tailors, and even now

the lord mayor and council of London control those of the silk weavers.

To those who were afraid of entrusting justices with power, he should

only say, that he left the power where he found it. At present they were

possessed of the power to oppress the labourer; and this bill only

invested them with the additional power to redress his grievances. By

fixing the minimum of the wages of labour, a comfortable subsistence was

secured to industry, and at the same time greater exertions were

prompted by the hope of greater reward. To some, perhaps, the time of

bringing this subject forward might appear exceptional. There were those

who would say, if the labourers were not distressed, why agitate a

question for which no necessity calls, and awaken desires which are not

felt? Others would maintain, that it was unseasonable to direct the

public attention to such a subject, while the pressure of distress might

excite discontents, or raise improper expectations. To these he could

only answer, that he was not one who could see wise and salutary

measures sacrificed to the pretended inconvenience of the times; and

that he was of opinion that what was proper to be done could scarcely be

done out of season. He then moved, "that the bill be now read a second

time."

_Mr. Pitt_ said, that in the interval which had taken place since the

first reading of the bill, he had paid considerable attention to the

subject, and endeavoured to collect information from the best sources to

which he had access. The evil was certainly of such a nature as to

render it of importance to find out a proper remedy, but the nature of

the remedy involved discussions of such a delicate and intricate nature,

that none should be adopted without being maturely weighed. The present

situation of the labouring poor in this country was certainly not such

as could be wished, upon any principle, either of humanity, or policy.

That class had of late been exposed to hardships which they all

concurred in lamenting, and were equally actuated by a desire to remove.

He would not argue how far the comparison of the state of the labourer,

relieved as it had been by a display of beneficence never surpassed at

any period, with the state of this class of the community in former

times, was just, though he was convinced that the representations were

exaggerated. At any rate, the comparisons were not accurate, because

they did not embrace a comprehensive view of the relative situations. He

gave the hon. gentleman ample credit for his good intentions in bringing

the present bill into parliament, though he was afraid that its

provisions were such as it would be impolitic, upon the whole, to adopt;

and such as, if adopted, would be found to be inadequate to the purposes

proposed. The authority of Dr. Price had been adduced to show the great

advance that had taken place on every article of subsistence, compared

with the slow increase of the wages of labour. But the statement of Dr.

Price was erroneous, as he compared the earnings of the labourer at the

period when the comparison is instituted, with the price of provisions,

and the earnings of the labourer at the present day, with the price of

the same articles, without adverting to the change of circumstances, and

to the difference of provisions. Corn, which was then almost the only

food of the labourer, was now supplied by cheaper substitutions, and it

was unfair to conclude that the wages of labour were so far from keeping

pace with the price of provisions, because they could no longer purchase

the same quantity of an article for which the labourer had no longer the

same demand. The simple question now to be considered was, whether the

remedy for the evil, which was admitted to a certain extent to exist,

was to be obtained by giving to the justices the power to regulate the

price of labour, and by endeavouring to establish by authority, what

would be much better accomplished by the unassisted operation of

principles? It was unnecessary to argue the general expediency of any

legislative interference, as the principles had been perfectly

recognised by the hon. gentleman himself. The most celebrated writers

upon political economy, and the experience of those states where arts

had flourished the most, bore ample testimony of their truth. They had

only to enquire, therefore, whether the present case was strong enough

for the exception, and whether the means proposed were suited to the

object intended? The hon. gentleman imagined that he had on his side of

the question the support of experience in this country, and appealed to

certain laws upon the statute-book, in confirmation of his proposition.

He did not find himself called upon to defend the principle of these

statutes, but they were certainly introduced for purposes widely

different from the object of the present bill. They were enacted to

guard the industry of the country from being checked by a general

combination among labourers; and the bill now under consideration was

introduced solely for the purpose of remedying the inconveniences which

labourers sustain from the disproportion existing between the price of

labour and the price of living. He had the satisfaction to hear the hon.

gentleman acknowledge, that if the price of labour could be made to find

its own level, it would be much more desirable than to assess it by

arbitrary statute, which in the execution was liable to abuse on the one

hand, and inefficacy on the other. If the remedy succeeded according to

the most sanguine expectations, it only established what would have been

better effected by principle; and if it failed, on the one hand it might

produce the severest oppression, and on the other hand encourage the

most profligate idleness and extravagance. Was it not better for the

House, then, to consider the operation of general principles, and rely

upon the effects of their unconfined exercise? Was it not wiser to

reflect what remedy might be adopted, at once more general in its

principles, and more comprehensive in its object, less exceptional in

its example, and less dangerous in its application? They should look to

the instances where interference had shackled industry, and where the

best intentions have often produced the most pernicious effects. It was

indeed the most absurd bigotry, in asserting the general principle, to

exclude the exception; but trade, industry and barter would always find

their own level, and be impeded by regulations which violated their

natural operation, and deranged their proper effect. This being granted,

he appealed to the judgment of the House, whether it was better to refer

the matter entirely to the discretion of a magistrate, or to endeavour

to find out the causes of the evil, and by removing the causes, to apply

a remedy more justifiable in its principle, more easy in the execution,

more effectual in its operations, in fine, more consonant to every sound

and rational policy. The evil, in his opinion, originated in a great

measure in the abuses which had crept into the poor-laws of this

country, and the complicated mode of executing them. The poor-laws of

this country, however wise in their original institution, had

contributed to fetter the circulation of labour, and to substitute a

system of abuses, in room of the evils which they humanely meant to

redress, and by engrafting upon a defective plan defective remedies

produced nothing but confusion and disorder. The laws of settlements

prevented the workman from going to that market where he could dispose

of his industry to the greatest advantage, and the capitalist from

employing the person who was qualified to procure him the best returns

for his advances. These laws had at once increased the burthens of the

poor, and taken from the collective resources of the state to supply

wants which their operation had occasioned, and to alleviate a poverty

which they tended to perpetuate. Such were the institutions which

misguided benevolence had introduced, and, with such warnings to deter,

it would be wise to distrust a similar mode of conduct, and to endeavour

to discover remedies of a different nature. The country had not yet

experienced the full benefit of the laws that had already been passed to

correct the errors which he had explained. From the attention he had

bestowed upon the subject, and from the enquiries he had been able to

make of others, he was disposed to think we had not yet gone far enough,

and to entertain an opinion that many advantages might be derived, and

much of the evil now complained of removed, by an extension of those

reformations in the poor-laws which had been begun. The encouragement of

friendly societies would contribute to alleviate that immense charge

with which the public was loaded in the support of the poor, and provide

by savings of industry for the comfort of distress. Now the parish

officer could not remove the workman, merely because he apprehended he

might be burthensome, but it was necessary that he should be actually

chargeable. But from the pressure of a temporary distress might the

industrious mechanic be transported from the place where his exertions

could be useful to himself and his family, to a quarter where he would

become a burthen without the capacity of even being able to provide for

himself. To remedy such a great striking grievance, the laws of

settlement ought to undergo a radical amendment. He conceived, that to

promote the free circulation of labour, to remove the obstacles by which

industry is prohibited from availing itself of its resources, would go

far to remedy the evils, and diminish the necessity of applying for

relief to the poor-rates. In the course of a few years, this freedom

from the vexatious restraint which the laws imposed would supersede the

object of their institutions. The advantages would be widely diffused,

the wealth of the nation would be increased, the poor man rendered not

only more comfortable, but more virtuous, and the weight of poor-rates,

with which the landed interest is loaded, greatly diminished. He should

wish, therefore, that an opportunity were given of restoring the

original purity of the poor laws, and of removing those corruptions by

which they had been obscured. He was convinced, that the evils which

they had occasioned did not arise out of their original constitution,

but coincided with the opinion of Blackstone, that, in proportion as the

wise regulations that were established in the long and glorious reign of

Queen Elizabeth, have been superseded by subsequent enactments, the

utility of the institution has been impaired, and the benevolence of the

plan rendered fruitless. While he thus had expressed those sentiments

which the discussion naturally prompted, it might not, perhaps, be

improper, on such an occasion, to lay before the House the ideas

floating in his mind, though not digested with sufficient accuracy, nor

arranged with a proper degree of clearness. Neither what the hon.

gentleman proposed, nor what he himself had suggested, were remedies

adequate to the evil it was intended to remove. Supposing, however, the

two modes of remedying the evil were on a par in effect, the preference

in principle was clearly due to that which was least arbitrary in its

nature; but it was not difficult to perceive that the remedy proposed by

the hon. gentleman would either be completely ineffectual, or such as

far to over-reach its mark. As there was a difference in the numbers

which compose the families of the labouring poor, it must necessarily

require less to support a small family. Now by the regulations proposed,

either the man with a small family would have too much wages, or the man

with a large family, who had done most service to his country, would

have too little. So that were the minimum fixed upon the standard of a

large family, it might operate as encouragement to idleness on one part

of the community; and if it were fixed on the standard of a small

family, those would not enjoy the benefit of it for whose relief it was

intended. What measure then could be found to supply the defect? Let us,

said he, make relief in cases where there are a number of children, a

matter of right and an honour, instead of a ground for opprobrium and

contempt. This will make a large family a blessing, and not a curse; and

this will draw a proper line of distinction between those who are able

to provide for themselves by their labour, and those who, after having

enriched their country with a number of children, have a claim upon its

assistance for their support. All this, however, he would confess, was

not enough, if they did not engraft upon it resolutions to discourage

relief where it was not wanted. If such means could be practised as that

of supplying the necessities of those who required assistance by giving

it in labour or affording employment, which is the principle of the act

of Elizabeth, the most important advantages would be gained. They would

thus benefit those to whom they afforded relief, not only by the

assistance bestowed, but by giving habits of industry and frugality,

and, in furnishing a temporary bounty, enable them to make permanent

provision for themselves. By giving effect to the operation of friendly

societies, individuals would be rescued from becoming a burthen upon the

public, and, if necessary, be enabled to subsist upon a fund which their

own industry contributed to raise. These great points of granting relief

according to the number of children, preventing removals at the caprice

of the parish officer, and making them subscribe to friendly societies,

would tend, in a very great degree, to remove every complaint to which

the present partial remedy could be applied. Experience had already

shown how much could be done by the industry of children and the

advantages of early employing them in such branches of manufacture as

they are capable to execute. The extension of schools of industry was

also an object of material importance. If any one would take the trouble

to compute the amount of all the earnings of the children who are

already educated in this manner, he would be surprised, when he came to

consider the weight which their support by their own labours took off

the country, and the addition which, by the fruits of their toil, and

the habits to which they were formed, was made to its internal opulence.

The suggestion of these schools was originally drawn from Lord Hale and

Mr. Locke, and upon such authority he had no difficulty in recommending

the plan to the encouragement of the legislature. Much might be effected

by a plan of this nature susceptible of constant improvement. Such a

plan would convert the relief granted to the poor into an encouragement

to industry, instead of being, as it is by the present poor laws, a

premium to idleness and a school for sloth. There were also a number of

subordinate circumstances to which it was necessary to attend. The law

which prohibits giving relief where any visible property remains should

be abolished. That degrading condition should be withdrawn. No temporary

occasion should force a British subject to part with the last shilling

of his little capital, and compel him to descend to a state of

wretchedness from which he could never recover, merely that he might be

entitled to a casual supply. Another mode also of materially assisting

the industrious poor was, the advancing of small capitals, which might

be repaid in two or three years, while the person who repaid it would

probably have made an addition to his income. This might put him who

received them in the way of acquiring what might place him in a

situation to make permanent provision for himself. These were the

general ideas which had occurred to him upon the subject; if they should

be approved of by any gentleman in the House, they might perhaps appear

at a future time in a more accurate shape than he could pretend to give

them. He could not, however, let this opportunity slip without throwing

them out. He was aware that they would require to be very maturely

considered. He was aware also of a fundamental difficulty, that of

insuring the diligent execution of any law that should be enacted. This

could only be done by presenting to those who should be entrusted with

the execution motives to emulation, and by a frequent inspection of

their conduct as to diligence and fidelity. Were he to suggest an

outline, it would be this. To provide some new mode of inspection by

parishes, or by hundreds--to report to the magistrates at the petty

sessions, with a liberty of appeal from them to the general quarter

sessions, where the justice should be empowered to take cognizance of

the conduct of the different commissioners, and to remedy whatever

defects should be found to exist. That an annual report should be made

to parliament, and that parliament should impose upon itself the duty of

tracing the effect of its system from year to year, till it should be

fully matured. That there should be a standing order of the House for

this purpose, and in a word, that there should be an annual budget

opened, containing the details of the whole system of poor-laws, by

which the legislature would show that they had a constant and a watchful

eye upon the interests of the poorest and most neglected part of the

community. He was not vain enough to imagine that these ideas were the

result of his own investigations, but he was happy to say that they

arose from a careful examination of the subject, and an extensive survey

of the opinions of others. He would only add that it was a subject of

the utmost importance, and that he would do everything in his power to

bring forward or promote such measures as would conduce to the interest

of the country. He gave the hon. gentleman every possible credit for his

humane and laudable motives, yet seeing the subject in the light in

which he did, he was compelled to give his negative to the motion.

_Mr. Lechmere_ said, that the bill was not only founded in humanity, but

policy also. The late alarming scarcity ought to induce every man who

wished to encourage the industrious poor, to promote every plan of

relief for them at such a crisis. No agricultural labourer could at

present support himself and his family with comfort; for a barley loaf

was at the enormous price of 12-1/2d., while the whole of the labourer's

daily wages amounted to no more than one shilling. _Haud ignara mali,

miseris succurrere disco_, was a noble sentiment; but he would rather

have the labourer enjoy the honest fruits of his industry, than be

obliged to receive his due as an eleemosynary gift. It appeared to him

that the minimum of agricultural labour should be fixed.

_Mr. Buxton_ said, that the bill did not appear likely to be of much

service, for if the price of labour were to be fixed by the justices of

peace, he feared many industrious people would be thrown out of employ,

and become a burthen to their respective parishes. The people he alluded

to were those who by sickness or old age were rendered incapable of

doing so much as a common labourer, and who consequently would be

rejected for persons of more strength and activity. He had consulted

with various well informed farmers and gentlemen in Norfolk who

unanimously concurred in opinions that the bill would be injurious.

_Mr. Vansittart_ commended the hon. gentleman who introduced the bill,

for his humane intentions, but he had no hesitation in voting against

it, because he thought any arbitrary regulations of the justices of the

peace, in the price of labour, would be a greater evil than that already

complained of. The bill appeared to him unnecessary, as the law since

the reign of James I, enabled the magistrate to fix the price of labour.

_Mr. Burdon_ did not think that the industrious poor were in that

wretched situation stated by some gentlemen. The industrious labourer,

in many instances, was able to support his family, and lay up something

for his old age. From the average price of labour for some years, the

House must perceive that the wages of the labourer were considerably

increased. The friendly societies, if they continued to extend, would be

productive of infinite good. As to the bill, he was convinced of its

inadequacy to correct the abuses of which it complained. He recommended

rather to repeal the act of Elizabeth than set it up as a precedent to

act upon.

_Mr. Fox_ said that no man was more against the idea of compulsion as to

the price of labour than he was. The question now was, not on the

general principle, but on that particular state of the law, which

rendered some measure necessary to be adopted for the relief of the

labouring poor, while the law, as it stood, was saddled with so many

restrictions. He approved of the bill proposed by his hon. friend, as

calculated to correct that which was bad in its present operation, and

to secure at least to the labourer the means of partial relief. But if

the House objected to the measure as improper, if they were of the

opinion that it was not the most judicious or desirable that might be

applied, he hoped they would go to the root of the evil, and provide

some remedy adequate to the extent of the grievance. If, therefore, they

should give a negative to the second reading of the bill, he should

consider that by so doing they pledged themselves to take the subject

into their early and most serious consideration. If what his hon. friend

had brought forward should induce the House to go into a full

examination of the subject, and to provide a remedy commensurate to the

evil, he would not only have accomplished his own benevolent intentions,

but would have done a much greater service to the country, than even if

the bill which he had now brought forward were adopted.

_Mr. Whitbread_ said:--"I cannot but congratulate the House on the able

and eloquent speech of the chancellor of the exchequer. At the same

time I must remark that if the poor laws were actually such, as the

right hon. gentleman has stated they ought to be, it would not have been

necessary for me to have brought forward any proposition; but I am

afraid that facts and experience will be found undeniably to confirm my

assertion, that the poor in this country are in a state scarcely

consistent with the character of a civilised country. As to what the

right hon. gentleman has stated about the price of labour finding its

own level, he does not recollect that, till the level be found, the

industrious poor labour under the pressure of immediate suffering. If

the expedients he has proposed should succeed, they are matters of

future regulation, and not calculated to afford relief which the

exigencies of the times so imperiously demand. If it should be possible

to a considerable degree to promote industry among the children of the

poor, and to destroy the oppressive restrictions with respect to

settlements, still it will be a considerable time before the price of

labour will have found its level. Even if more effectual regulations

should afterwards be adopted, still this bill is eligible as a temporary

relief. It does not compel the magistrates to act: it only empowers them

to take measures according to the exigency of the times. It has been

stated as an objection to the bill, that it goes to fix the price of

labour, but gentlemen do not attend to the circumstances, that it does

not go to determine what should be the general price of labour, but only

what should be the least price of labour under particular circumstances.

As to the particular case of labourers, who have to provide for a number

of children, the wisest thing for government, instead of putting the

relief afforded to such on the footing of a charity, supplied, perhaps,

from a precarious fund, and dealt with a reluctant hand, would be at

once to institute a liberal premium for the encouragement of large

families. There is just one circumstance to which I shall advert, before

I conclude, namely, the wretched manner in which the poor are lodged. It

is such as ought not to be suffered in a country like this, proud of its

freedom, and boasting of the equal rights of all its subjects. The

landlord, who lets the ground upon lease to the farmer, does not

consider himself as bound to repair the cottages. The farmer, who has

only a temporary interest in the property, feels no anxiety on the

subject. The cottage, dismantled and mouldering to decay, affords

neither warmth nor shelter to the poor inhabitant, who is left exposed

to the fury of the elements and the inclemency of every season. If a

negative should be put upon the second reading of the bill, I shall then

move for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the statute of Elizabeth,

and afterwards for a committee to take into consideration the state of

the poor laws."

The motion was negatived. After which, the bill was ordered to be read a

second time on that day three months.

7. ARBITRATION ACT FOR THE COTTON INDUSTRY [_Statutes, 39 and 40 Geo.

III, 90_], 1800.

An act for settling disputes that may arise between masters and

workmen engaged in the cotton manufacture in that part of Great

Britain called England.

That, from and after the first day of August in the year of our Lord one

thousand eight hundred, in all cases that shall or may arise within that

part of Great Britain called England, where the masters and workmen

cannot agree respecting the price or prices to be paid for work done, or

to be done, in the said manufacture, whether such dispute shall happen

or arise between them respecting the reduction or advance of wages or

any injury or damage done, or alleged to have been done, by the workmen

to the work, or respecting any delay, or supposed delay, on the part of

the workmen in finishing the work or the not finishing such work in a

good and workmanlike manner; and also in all cases where the workmen are

to be employed to work any new pattern which shall require them to

purchase any new implements of manufacture for the working thereof, and

the masters and workmen cannot agree upon the compensation to be made to

such workmen for or in respect thereof, and also respecting the length

of all pieces of cotton goods, or the wages or compensation to be paid

for all pieces of cotton goods that are made of any great or

extraordinary length, and respecting the manufacture of cravats, shawls,

polycat, romall, and other handkerchiefs, and the number to be contained

in one piece of such handkerchiefs, and the wages to be paid in respect

thereof, and in all cases of dispute or difference arising or happening

by and between the masters and workmen employed in such manufacture, out

of, for, or touching such trade or manufacture, which cannot be

otherwise mutually adjusted and settled by and between them; it shall

and may be lawful, and it is hereby declared to be lawful, for such

masters and workmen, between whom such dispute or difference shall arise

as aforesaid, or either of them, to demand and have an arbitration or

reference of such matter or matters in dispute, and each of them is

hereby authorised and empowered forthwith to nominate and appoint an

arbitrator for and on his respective part and behalf, to arbitrate and

determine such matter or matters in dispute as aforesaid, and such

arbitrators so appointed as aforesaid, after they shall have accepted

and taken upon them the business of the said arbitration, are hereby

authorised and required to summon before them, and examine upon oath the

parties and their witnesses (which oath the said arbitrators are hereby

authorised and required to administer according to the form set forth in

the schedule to this act), and forthwith to proceed to hear and

determine the complaints of the parties and the matter or matters in

dispute between them, and the award to be made by such arbitrators shall

in all cases be final and conclusive between the parties; but in case

such arbitrators so appointed cannot agree to decide such matter or

matters in dispute so to be referred to them as aforesaid, and do not

make and sign their award within the space of three days after the

signing of the said submission, that then they shall forthwith, and

without delay, go before and attend upon one of his Majesty's justices

of the peace acting in and for the county, riding, city, liberty,

division, township, or place, and residing nearest to the place where

such dispute shall happen and be referred, and state to such justice the

points in difference between them the said arbitrators, which points in

difference the said justice shall and he is hereby authorised and

required to hear and determine, which determination of such justice

shall be made and signed within the space of three days after the

expiration of the time hereby allowed the arbitrators to make and sign

their award, and shall be final and conclusive between the parties so

differing as aforesaid.

[In cases of dispute the points of difference shall be stated to a

justice whose award shall be final. Justices who are cotton

manufacturers cannot act.]

8. AMENDMENT OF THE ARBITRATION ACT [_Statutes, 44 Geo. III, 87_], 1804.

An act to amend an act, passed in the thirty-ninth and fortieth years

of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for settling disputes that

may arise between masters and workmen engaged in the cotton

manufacture in that part of Great Britain called England.

II. And be it further enacted, that, in all cases where an arbitration

may be demanded by the said recited act, where the party complaining and

the party complained of shall come before or agree, by any writing under

their hands, to abide by the determination of any justice of the peace

or magistrate of any county, city, town, or place, within which the

parties reside, it shall and may be lawful for such justice of the peace

or magistrate to hear and finally determine in a summary manner the

matter in dispute between such parties; but if such parties shall not

come before, or so agree to abide by the determination of such justice

of the peace or magistrate, then it shall be lawful for any such justice

or magistrate, and such justice of the peace or magistrate is hereby

required, on complaint made before him, and proof by the examination of

the party, making such complaint, that application has been made to the

person or persons against whom such cause of complaint has arisen, or

his, her, or their agent or agents, if such dispute has arisen with such

agent or agents, to settle such dispute, and that the same has not been

settled upon such complaint being made, or where the dispute relates to

a bad warp, such cause of complaint shall not be done away within

forty-eight hours after such application, to summon before him such

person or persons, or agent or agents, on some day not exceeding three

days, exclusive of Sunday, before the making such complaint, giving

notice to the person making such complaint of the time and place

appointed in such summons for the attendance of such person or persons,

agent or agents, as aforesaid; and if at such time and place the person

or persons so summoned shall not appear by himself, or send some person

on his, her, or their behalf, to settle such dispute, or appearing shall

not do away such cause of complaint, then and in such case it shall be

lawful for such justice, and he is hereby required, at the request of

either of such parties, to nominate arbitrators or referees for settling

the matters in dispute; and such justice shall then and there at such

meeting propose not less than four nor more than six persons, one-half

of whom shall be master-manufacturers or agents or foremen of some

master-manufacturer, and the other half of whom shall be weavers in such

manufacture (such respective persons residing in or near to the place

where such dispute shall have arisen) out of which master-manufacturers,

agents, or foremen, the master engaged in such dispute, or his agent,

shall choose one, and out of which weavers so proposed, the weaver or

his agent, shall choose another, who shall have full power to hear and

finally determine such dispute; and the said justice shall thereupon

appoint a place of meeting according to the directions of this act, and

also a day for the meeting, notice of which nomination, and of the day

of meeting, shall thereupon be given to the persons so nominated

arbitrators or referees, and to any party to any such dispute, who may

not have attended the meeting before such justice as aforesaid.

[For criticism of the act see Petition of Cotton Weavers, 1813, Pt.

III, Section III, No. 12, page 576.]

9. THE FIRST FACTORY ACT [_Statutes, 42 Geo. III, 87_], 1802.

An act for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices

and others, employed in cotton and other mills, and cotton and other

factories.

... All such mills and factories within _Great Britain and Ireland_,

wherein three or more apprentices, or twenty or more other persons,

shall at any time be employed, shall be subject to the several rules and

regulations contained in this act; ...

II. And be it enacted, that all and every the rooms and apartments in or

belonging to any such mill or factory shall, twice at least in every

year, be well and sufficiently washed with quick lime and water over

every part of the walls and ceiling thereof; and that due care and

attention shall be paid by the master or mistress of such mills or

factories to provide a sufficient number of windows and openings in such

rooms or apartments, to insure a proper supply of fresh air in and

through the same.

III. And be it further enacted, that every such master or mistress shall

constantly supply every apprentice during the term of his or her

apprenticeship with two whole and complete suits of clothing....

IV. And be it further enacted, that no apprentice that now is or

hereafter shall be bound to any such master or mistress shall be

employed or compelled to work for more than twelve hours in any one day

(reckoning from six of the clock in the morning to nine of the clock at

night), exclusive of the time that may be occupied by such apprentice in

eating the necessary meals: Provided always, that, from and after the

first day of June one thousand eight hundred and three, no apprentice

shall be employed or compelled to work upon any occasion whatever

between the hours of nine of the clock at night and six of the clock in

the morning.

VI. And be it further enacted, that every such apprentice shall be

instructed, in some part of every working day, for the first four years

at least of his or her apprenticeship....

VII. And be it further enacted, that the room or apartment in which any

male apprentice shall sleep shall be entirely separate and distinct from

the room or apartment in which any female apprentice shall sleep, and

that not more than two apprentices shall in any case sleep in the same

bed.

VIII. And be it further enacted, that every apprentice, or (in case the

apprentices shall attend in classes) every such class, shall for the

space of one hour at least every Sunday be instructed and examined in

the principles of the Christian religion ... and such master or mistress

shall send all his or her apprentices under the care of some proper

person, once in a month at least, to attend during divine service in the

church of the parish ... or in some licensed place of divine worship;

and in case the apprentices cannot conveniently attend such church or

chapel ... the master or mistress ... shall cause divine service to be

performed in some convenient room or place in or adjoining to the mill

or factory....

IX. And be it further enacted, that the justices of the peace for every

county ... shall ... appoint two persons, not interested in, or in any

way connected with, any such mills or factories, to be visitors ...; one

of whom shall be a justice of peace ... and the other shall be a

clergyman of the Established Church....

9A. MINUTES OF COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN IN FACTORIES, 1816 (III), _p._ 277.

_Examination of Richard Arkwright, June 7, 1816._

_Q._ What is your opinion of the Act known under the name of Sir Robert

Peel's Bill? I could wish to confine myself to facts as much as

possible.

What have you known of that Act? That Act has not been followed up, with

respect to the visiting of magistrates, for these thirteen years. I

think they visited my mills at Cromford twice.

_p._ 278.

Are you of opinion that Sir Robert Peel's Bill, which passed in the year

1802, has accomplished much benefit for the children, for whose

protection it was intended?

I certainly thought that the discussions upon that Bill, and the Bill

itself, did a great deal of good, but that can be only matter of

opinion.

10. CALICO PRINTERS' PETITION FOR REGULATION [_Commons Journals, Vol.

LIX, Feb. 22, 1804_], 1804.

A petition of several journeymen calico printers, and others working in

that trade, in the counties of Lancaster, Derby, Chester, and Stafford,

in England, and in the counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Dumbarton, Stirling,

and Perth in Scotland, was presented to the House, and read; setting

forth that great numbers of the petitioners and other journeymen calico

printers have, for a series of years past, been greatly distressed for

want of work in their trade, and that this distress has chiefly arisen

from a very general, if not universal, practice of the master calico

printers in the counties above enumerated, who systematically carry on

the said trade by employing in it, in many instances, a greater number

of out-door apprentices than of journeymen, and, upon an average, nearly

two of such apprentices to three journeymen, a practice of great injury

to the petitioners, their families, and, ultimately, even to the

apprentices themselves; and that one of the injurious effects, to the

petitioners by this system is, that, in many instances boys are taken as

apprentices to the said trade or business on verbal agreement, whereby

they are at liberty to absent themselves from the service and control of

their masters on any trifling disagreement, and are generally replaced

by others, thereby creating an overstock of hands in the said trade: And

therefore praying, That leave may be given to bring in a bill to

regulate the trade or business of calico printers.

Ordered, that the said petition be referred to the consideration of a

committee.

11. REPORT ON CALICO PRINTERS' PETITION [_Commons Journals, Vol. LXI,

July 17, 1806_], 1806.

Your committee have naturally endeavoured to ascertain the cause of

those discontents, and, as far as they have been able to collect from

the minutes of evidence referred to them, they find it has arisen

principally from the multiplication of apprentices. That this has gone

to an extent, and that the disproportion of apprentices to journeymen

exists to a degree, far beyond that understood to prevail in any other

mechanical profession whatever, appears to your committee in several

instances. In one instance, that of the shop of Berry and Co. of

Lancashire, they find that 55 apprentices were employed, and only two

journeymen; in another, that of the shop of Tod and Co. of Dumbarton,

there were 60 apprentices, and only two journeymen. Such a

disproportion, your committee conceive, must strike as extraordinary any

one in the least degree acquainted with the custom of trade.

The practice of introducing such an increased number of apprentices,

which commenced about the year 1790, does not appear from the minutes of

evidence to have proceeded from any scarcity of hands to supply the

demands of the masters, or make up the work required; on the contrary,

it appears that in the course of the period when this excessive

multiplication of apprentices went on, a number of journeymen were

seeking in vain for employment.

With regard to the multiplication of apprentices, while your committee

declare that they are not friendly to the idea of imposing any

restrictions upon trade, they are ready to state that the inclination of

their minds is this, that either all restrictions ought to be abolished,

and the masters and journeymen left to settle matters between

themselves, or an additional restriction ought to be introduced to

counteract the evils obviously resulting from the restrictions which

already exist. This restriction your committee mean of course to apply

to apprentices; and if a precedent were wanted to justify such a

measure, they would refer to the case of the silk weavers, and that of

other trades, which are to be found on the Statute Book. In the instance

of the silk weavers, no more than two apprentices can be legally taken

by any master, whatever may be the number of his journeymen; and yet,

since the enactment of this law, no scarcity of hands has ever been

complained of in that flourishing branch of trade. Indeed, throughout

all the mechanical professions, it is, as far as has come to the

knowledge of any of the members of your committee, the general rule,

that no master shall have more than two or three apprentices at the

most. This general rule is conceived to be established through an

understanding between the masters and the journeymen.

The salutary effects of leaving the masters and journeymen to settle

their affairs between themselves, is particularly exemplified in the

calico printing business: for, although in Lancashire and Derbyshire,

etc., where there is nearly a proportion of one apprentice to one

journeyman, and between masters and journeymen a consequent jealousy,

productive of perpetual variance and confusion; there is in the

neighbourhood of London, where a different feeling prevails, and where

matters are amicably adjusted between the parties, a very different

proportion of apprentices and journeymen. In 14 shops examined by one of

the witnesses, in 1803, the number of journeymen were 216, the

apprentices only 37.

But to return to the subject of restrictions: your committee are

persuaded that as the Legislature has thought proper to interpose its

authority, to prevent the journeymen from concerting measures among

themselves to settle their affairs with the masters, it would be ready

to remove any complaints which might arise from advantage taken by the

masters of the existence of such restriction. The wisdom and humanity of

Parliament would shrink from sanctioning the Combination Law, if it

appeared to them, at the time of its enactment, likely to operate only

in favour of the strong, and against the weak; if it had any apparent

tendency to secure impunity to oppressors, and to give an undue

advantage to the masters, who can combine with little danger of

detection, and who can carry their projects into execution with little

fear of opposition. The Legislature could never mean to injure the man,

whose only desire is to derive a subsistence from his labour, and that

indeed is all a journeyman calico printer can look to; for, from the

particular nature of his trade, differing much from others, he cannot,

from the capital required, ever calculate upon becoming a master.

12. COTTON WEAVERS' PETITION AGAINST THE REPEAL OF 5 ELIZABETH C. 4

[_Commons Journals, Vol. LXVIII, Feb. 25, 1813_], 1813.

A petition of several cotton weavers resident in the division of Bolton

Le Moors, in the county of Lancaster, was presented and read; setting

forth, that the petitioners are much concerned to learn that a bill has

been brought into the House to repeal so much of the Statute 5

Elizabeth, as empowers and requires the magistrates, in their respective

jurisdictions, to rate and settle the prices to be paid to labourers,

handicrafts, spinners, weavers, etc.; and that the petitioners have

endured almost constant reductions in the prices of their labour for

many years, with sometimes a trifling advance, but during the last

thirty months they have continued, with very little alteration, so low,

that the average wages of cotton weavers do not exceed 5s. per week,

though other trades in general earn from 20s. to 30s. per week; and that

the extravagant prices of provisions of all kinds render it impossible

for the petitioners to procure food for themselves and families, and the

parishes are so burthened that an adequate supply cannot be had from

that quarter; and that, in the 40th year of His present Majesty a law

was made to settle disputes between masters and workmen[351]; which law

having been found capable of evasion, and evaded, became unavailing:

after which, in 1802, 1803, and 1804, applications being made to amend

that of the 40th, another law was made, varying in some points from the

former; but this also is found unavailing, inasmuch as no one conviction

before a magistrate under this law has ever been confirmed at any

Quarter Sessions of the Peace; and that several applications have since

been made to the House to enact such laws as they would judge suitable

to afford relief to the trade, in which masters and workmen joined, but

hitherto without any effect; and that, about twelve months since, it was

found that the Statute of 5 Eliz. (if acted upon) was competent to

afford the desired relief, and it was resorted to in certain cases, but

the want of generality prevented its obtaining at that time, especially

as it can be acted on only at the Easter Quarter Sessions, or six weeks

thereafter; and that, as petitions to the magistrates were almost

general at the last Quarter Sessions, and all graciously received at

each different jurisdiction, much hope was entertained that at the next

Easter sessions the magistrates would settle the wages of the

petitioners, and they obtain food by their industry; and that the

present bill to repeal the aforesaid law has sunk the spirits of the

petitioners beyond description, having no hope left: the former laws

made for their security being unavailing, there is no protection for

their sole property, which is their labour; and that, although the said

law of 5 Eliz. was wisely designed to protect all trades and workmen,

yet none will essentially suffer by its repeal save the cotton weavers:

the silk weavers have law to secure their prices, as have other

artizans; tradesmen generally receive their contracted wages, but cotton

weavers, when their work is done, know not what they shall receive, as

that depends on the goodness of the employer's heart: And that the

petitioners, therefore, most humbly, and earnestly pray, that the House,

for the aforesaid reasons, will not repeal the said Statute of 5 Eliz.,

it being the only law by which they can hope any relief from their

present misery; and the existing laws being evaded, this would afford,

when acted upon, prices somewhat suitable to the prices of provisions in

adverse times; but should the House see it proper to repeal the said

law, the petitioners pray, that in that case it will enact a law to

secure and grant such wages to the petitioners as will enable them to

live by their industry, equally beneficial to masters and workmen.

Ordered, That the said Petition do lie upon the Table.

[The wages clauses of 5 Eliz. 4 were repealed by 53 Geo. III, 40, 1813.]

[Footnote 351: See above. Pt. III, Section III, Nos. 7 and 8. p. 568 and

p. 570.]

13. DEBATES ON THE REGULATION OF APPRENTICES [_Parl. Debates, Series I,

Vol. XXV, Cols. 1120-1131; XXVII, 423-425, 563-574, 879-884_],

1813-1814.

APPRENTICES.--_Mr. Rose_ adverted to the petition[352] he presented the

other day, which was signed by above 800 masters and 13,000 journeymen

in London; and by 1,154 masters and 17,517 journeymen in the country;

making above 32,000 in all. The policy of the system began in Edward the

3rd. Some had doubted the effects of the law, and deemed all

restrictions injurious to commerce: others considered the want of

restrictions more dangerous, and contended that the present system had

encouraged habits of industry. The courts had, in general, narrowed the

spirit and application of the restrictions. He thought that if the

existing law was not to be enforced, it ought to be amended or repealed.

A petition signed by such a number of tradesmen was deserving the most

attentive consideration. He should therefore move that the petition be

referred to a committee.

_Mr. Serjeant Onslow_ allowed that the number of signatures to the

petition entitled it to a respectful consideration. As to the

allegations of the petition, he thought it very extraordinary that the

petitioners should really expect that parliament would allow them to

bring actions upon this statute, against whom they pleased, well-founded

or ill-founded, without being subject to costs in case of failure. From

his experience in a certain judicial situation, he could say, and he

believed he might appeal to all his professional friends about him for

the confirmation of his statement, that he never knew any indictment

brought under this statute except against a person of great skill and

acquirements. The preamble of the Act stated its object to be "to

prevent the introduction of unskilful workmen": and yet no indictments

were ever brought against unskilful workmen, but only against very

skilful and ingenious men. This shewed pretty clearly the spirit in

which such prosecutions were brought.

_Mr. D. Giddy_ said, that he should not vote for the committee, if he

did not think it likely that the resolution they would come to would be

directly opposite to that which was expected by the petitioners. He

certainly did entertain great doubts, whether in the present state of

the commercial world there was any use in those apprenticeships,

although they might have been necessary in the infancy of commerce. It

frequently happened, that a young man had not a talent for that

particular business to which he had been bound an apprentice, and was

yet possessed of other talents, by the exercise of which he might obtain

a most respectable subsistence. It appealed to him a cruel hardship to

fetter the minds and limbs of men, so as to prevent their obtaining a

subsistence by the fair exercise of their talents and of their limbs. As

to what was said of corporate rights, obtained by apprenticeship, he

thought that made it the less necessary to add penalties. If those

corporate rights, however, were to be considered of real value, he

thought it a great hardship that they could not be obtained in any other

way than by serving an apprenticeship.

_Mr. Butterworth_ also felt inclined to disapprove of the Act as highly

injurious to trade in general, and to rising talent. In illustration of

the hardships of the Act, and of the manner in which it was generally

enforced, he mentioned a case which had come within his own immediate

observation. In an office of which he had the command, there was a young

man of great skill, and consequently of great value to his employers;

he, however, had not served the regular apprenticeship, and his

fellow-workmen therefore combined against him, demanding his discharge.

He (Mr. B.) interfered on behalf of the young man, but in vain; for the

conspiracy amongst the workmen attained that height that their request

was obliged to be complied with. The young man was discharged, and

though skilful in that particular trade, he had been compelled to sell

the furniture, the produce of his industry, to support a wife and

family, who were dependent on him for support. He did not oppose the

committee, because he was convinced that the determination would be in

favour of the repeal of the 5th of Elizabeth.

The petition was then referred to a committee.

_Wednesday, April 6, 1814._[353]

APPRENTICE LAWS.--_Mr. H. Davis_ presented a petition from certain

master manufacturers of the city of Bristol, praying that so much of the

Act of the 5th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, as inflicted penalties on persons

exercising trades to which they had not served regular apprenticeships,

should be repealed. Ordered to lie on the table.

_Mr. P. Moore_ presented a petition from the manufacturers of Coventry,

praying that that part of the 5th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, which inflicted

penalties on persons exercising trades to which they had not served

regular apprenticeships, should be rendered efficient. He should merely

move "that the petition do lie on the table"; but, before he sat down,

he wished to enquire of the learned gentleman (Mr. Serjeant Onslow) who

had given notice of his intention to introduce a Bill on the subject,

whether he meant, in his proposed measure, to confine himself merely to

the repeal of that part of the 5th of Elizabeth which sanctioned those

penalties, or to do away with the Act altogether? He also wished to know

whether the learned gentleman intended to push his Bill through the

different stages in the present session; or, having introduced it, to

let it lie over till the next? In his opinion a committee ought to be

appointed, in the first instance, to examine the whole of the petitions

that had been presented relative to the 5th of Elizabeth, and also to

look into the provisions of that Act.

_Mr. Serjeant Onslow_ said, most unquestionably he did not mean to go

beyond the terms of his notice, in the measure he should introduce. He

had stated explicitly the part of the Act that he wished to have

repealed, and he had not since altered his determination. With respect

to the second point of the hon. gentleman's interrogatory, "Whether he

intended to hurry the Bill through the House?" he would answer that he

certainly did not. But the hon. gentleman seemed to forget that the

present period was virtually almost the commencement of the session, and

that very important business was yet to come on. He (Serjeant Onslow)

certainly did wish to have the sense of the House taken on the Bill,

before the session terminated. And this, he thought, could be done

without any imputation of hurry. In the last session the Treasurer of

the Navy (Mr. Rose) had presented a petition from a great number of

persons who were desirous that the penalties should be continued; and

moved for a committee to investigate the allegations of the petitioners.

A committee was granted--it sat from day to day--and the evidence

adduced before it was printed. He (Serjeant Onslow) enquired of that

right hon. gentleman whether he intended to found any motion on this

evidence? And, understanding that he did not, he stated, at the close of

the last session, that he would himself submit a motion on the subject.

Soon after parliament met he gave notice of a motion for the 30th of

November; but, in consequence of a number of gentlemen who represented

large manufacturing districts (particularly the hon. member for

Yorkshire) not being then in town, he postponed it till the 22nd of

February, and had finally put it off till the 27th of the present

month--knowing that a call of the House would take place before that

period, which would ensure a full attendance when the proposed measure

came to be discussed. That the country was not unprepared for it, was

evident from the numerous petitions which had been presented in favour

of it. Petitions of that nature had been received from Leeds,

Birmingham, Huddersfield, Bristol, and many other populous

neighbourhoods. Several petitions had been presented against it. How

they were procured he did not know; but the language in all of them

appeared nearly the same. With respect to the principal trade carried on

by the constituents of the hon. gentleman, it would not be at all

affected by the new Bill, because it was already guarded by a variety of

enactments totally independent of the 5th of Elizabeth.

_Mr. P. Moore_ said it was very true that his constituents (the freemen

of Coventry) were obliged by Act of Parliament to serve a regular

apprenticeship, before they could carry on the business alluded to by

the learned gentleman. Now they were alarmed lest by the proposed Bill

they should be deprived of a right which they had long enjoyed. They

therefore were anxious that the Bill should not be hurried through the

House.

The petition was ordered to lie on the table.

_Wednesday, April 27, 1814._[354]

APPRENTICESHIP LAWS.--_Mr. Serjeant Onslow_ rose to move for leave to

bring in a Bill to repeal part of an Act, passed in the 5th year of

Elizabeth, entitled "An Act containing divers orders for artificers,

labourers, servants of husbandry, and apprentices." ... The reign of

Queen Elizabeth, though glorious, was not one in which sound principles

of commerce were known; and a perusal of the other clauses of the Act,

as well as the one creating the penalties for exercising trades contrary

to its provisions, would fully confirm that assertion; indeed it did

not seem to be the object of that statute to favour manufactures; it

rather seemed to be intended to make them subservient to a most mistaken

notion of favour to the landed interest. So little was political economy

then understood that the idea never seemed to have occurred, that

agriculture was best promoted by the prosperity of commerce and

manufactures; and that restraints on them defeated the end they aimed

at, and discouraged that very employment which they ought to promote....

Apprenticeships had been looked upon as favourable to the morals of

youth, and he was very far from wishing to discourage them; but he did

not wish them to be an indispensable qualification for legally carrying

on trades.... Apprenticeships were as common in trades not within the

statute as in those that were within what had been called the

protection, but what he thought the curse, of the statute....

_Mr. Philips._--The persons most competent to form regulations with

respect to trade were the master manufacturers, whose interest it was to

have goods of the best fabric; and no legislative enactment could ever

effect so much in producing that result, as the merely leaving things to

their own course and operation. The proof of this was to be found in the

fact that the manufactures for which the country was most famous, were

precisely those to which this Act did not apply. If this narrow

principle had been carried into every branch of art, the machinery of

Sir Richard Arkwright would have been lost to the country--and the

genius of Mr. Watt, whose inventions had added more to the productive

powers of the empire, than if the population had been increased one

half, would have been still unknown. The hon. gentleman then proceeded

to point out the evil effects which arose from the system of combination

among tradesmen [workmen].

Leave was given to bring in the Bill.

_Friday, May 13, 1814._[355]

APPRENTICE LAWS.--_Mr. Serjeant Onslow_ moved the second reading of the

Bill, which was warmly opposed by _Sir Fred. Flood_, who, though a

friend to liberty, disliked licentiousness. The Bill went to abrogate

that most salutary law of the 5th of Elizabeth, and to revive the

practice which had previously existed from Edward the Third's time. It

would be destructive of the interests of persons who served their

apprenticeships, and paid for education in their respective trades, and

ruinous to the morals of youth. It would be hurtful to commerce, to

mechanics, to manufacture and to the Stamp Act. The present law had

lasted 220 years. He proposed to postpone the second reading to that day

six months.

_Mr. Protheroe_ seconded the motion, as the Bill proceeded on no general

comprehensive system, but simply on a repeal without any efficient

substitute for what was to be repealed. He objected to the measure in a

moral point of view; in which respect he was upheld by the opinions of

Lord Coke and Sir Wm. Blackstone. He had heard much of vexatious

prosecutions under the Act of Elizabeth; but, on enquiry, he found that

at Bristol for the last 20 years, there had not been one such

prosecution. If apprenticeships were more encouraged, he was satisfied

that combinations among journeymen would almost entirely be put an end

to. If the House were to lower its attention down to the humble cottage,

they would there see the advantages of this system, in beholding careful

masters provided for the youths, who, in addition, were provided with

food and clothing, while their morals were protected. He should be happy

that the present Bill were withdrawn, and some measure unaccompanied by

its disadvantages were introduced.

_Mr. Hart Davis_ could not disguise from himself that the present

measure was attended with many difficulties. It would undoubtedly be of

great advantage to our manufacturers that the present law should be

repealed, and that every restraint should be removed from the rising

generation. Supposing a person brought up to a trade for which from his

constitution he was not fit, was he to be excluded from pursuing any

other pursuit, or occupation whatever? Suppose the trade of

button-makers, which was a trade that speedily passed away; or of

gun-makers, of whom probably 40,000 might be in a few months thrown out

of employment, was it to be held that they could follow no other

occupation, but must remain a burden upon the community? The more he

considered the present measure, the more he was satisfied of its

utility.

_Mr. Protheroe_ explained that he could wish a general review of the

whole system.

_Mr. Giddy_ thought if any one measure more than another could be said

to involve the general rights of mankind, the present was that measure.

What was this but the general right of the inhabitants of this country

to employ the energies of their mind and body in the way they themselves

pleased? And if a system were to be continued by which men were deprived

of this general and undoubted right, it seemed to be incumbent on those

who contended for the continuance of such a restriction to shew on what

principle it was founded. If gentlemen attended to the time in which the

law in question was passed, they would find it was a period in which

many ill-advised monopolies had been granted, and one in which

remonstrances on that subject had been made by the House of Commons on

the impolicy of such a system, which had not been much attended to.

Nothing, he was convinced, had contributed so much as the law in

question to check the progress in our arts and manufactures.

_Sir C. Mordaunt_, on the part of his constituents, the manufacturers of

Birmingham, was strongly in favour of the present repeal. If the law, as

it now stood, were put in force, it would have the effect of imposing

the strongest possible fetters upon ingenuity and industry.

_Mr. Thompson_ liked liberty; and doing so, he wished to see every man

have the liberty of employing his hands and his genius in the best way

he could to his own advantage, and for the benefit of the country. This

no man was at liberty to do, so long as the present law remained in

force. He wished the law totally repealed, though the Bill did not go so

far. The present law was necessarily broken every day. It was clear that

the judges always wished to evade it, when they could do so. He knew a

case of two men who were prosecuted under the Act for sawing a piece of

wood; another, of a good and bad baker in the same town; where the bad

one, finding that the good one had not served a regular apprenticeship,

had him turned out, and got liberty to poison all his neighbours with

his bad bread. Some years ago the printers struck, and there was a

difficulty in getting even the parliamentary papers printed. Let those

who chose it bind their children as apprentices; but let not others be

compelled to do the same. Instances of the absurdity of the law would

be innumerable. It was none the better for the age of it, which the

worthy baronet had stated. It was, in fact, superannuated; and it was

much the kindest way to let it die quietly, and so confer an advantage

both on the country and Ireland. Lord Ellenborough once got the

coach-makers out of a scrape ingeniously enough. They were attacked as

wheelmakers; but his lordship said that coaches could not have been

known in Elizabeth's days, as that queen went to parliament on

horseback. He perfectly agreed in the opinion which Lord Mansfield had

given, in speaking of the Act of Elizabeth, that "it was against the

natural rights of man, and contrary to the common law rights of the

land."

_Mr. Rose_ considered this as a subject of extraordinary difficulty.

After all that had been said, he could not help thinking that if the

Bill were passed into law, it would put an end to apprenticeships

altogether; for no person would subject himself to a seven years'

servitude when he knew that having fulfilled his indenture, he would

only be on a level with a man who perhaps had not been one year at the

business. He was willing to examine and improve the 5th of Elizabeth,

but would not agree to this unqualified repeal.

_Sir J. Newport_ was surprised that the hon. baronet (Sir F. Flood)

should be so anxious to perpetuate a statute which never was law in

Ireland; and yet in that country, where no such penalties as those

inflicted by the 5th of Elizabeth existed, the system of apprenticeships

was freely and voluntarily adopted. He thought, on every principle of

justice, that the subject was entitled to make use of his abilities and

industry in those pursuits most beneficial to his interests.

_Sir S. Romilly_ had been applied to on the subject of the present Bill,

by the constituents of two hon. gentlemen who had already delivered

their sentiments on the measure this night (Messrs. Protheroe and

Davis). He felt the highest respect for the gentlemen who had so applied

to him on the subject of the present Bill; but his opinion of the

measure being decidedly opposite to theirs, he thought he should not be

acting a manly part were he either to abstain from voting on the Bill,

or were he to content himself with a silent vote on this occasion. He

was satisfied that there were reasons sufficiently strong to support the

system of apprenticeships in those trades in which a number of years

were requisite to the acquiring a knowledge of them, without the

assistance of the law as it now stood. This law, which went to prohibit

a man from the exercise of that trade for which he was fit, he therefore

thought ought to be repealed. For what was it but to take from a poor

man the only property he possessed--his genius and industry--and to

drive him into a workhouse; or to force him to abandon his country, and

to forsake his wife and family. These were the moral consequences which

the House was to look for from a perseverance in the law as it now

stood.

_Alderman Atkins_ hoped that some clause might be introduced into the

Bill when it was in the committee, that would give sufficient

encouragement to the apprentice system; while, at the same time, the

abuses of it might be remedied.

_Sir F. Flood_, seeing the sense of the House against him, withdrew his

amendment.

_Mr. Canning_ wished the Bill to go into the committee. He was aware

that the subject was attended with considerable difficulties. The

difficulty would be to find the means of doing away the abuses

complained of, without doing away the system altogether, which he was

convinced was useful to the perfection of our manufactures, and still

more useful as affecting the morality of the lower orders.

_Mr. Serjeant Best_ said that if no other member introduced a clause to

that effect, he himself should feel it his duty to propose one. He

thought the penal clauses of the Act of Elizabeth should certainly be

repealed, but that at the same time it was much better that young people

should not be left without some control. He thought that at present the

masters had much more advantages from the services of the apprentices,

than the apprentices had from the instruction of the master, as most of

those trades might be learned in a very short time. He therefore wished

that part of the earnings might go to the parents, as an encouragement

to the system.

_Mr. P. Moore_ opposed the Bill, because he thought that its enactment

would operate seriously to the prejudice of our manufactures both in

skill and reputation. Indeed, such had been found the effect of the

partial repeal of the statute of Elizabeth with respect to the woollen

manufacture.[356] For although the Yorkshire tag had formerly been a

sufficient recommendation upon the continent, yet since the repeal

alluded to, our pieces of woollen manufactures were examined yard by

yard before they were purchased.

_Mr. Lockhart_ expressed his opinion, that this Bill, if enacted, should

only operate prospectively; that is, that it should not become effective

until a certain period; so that those mechanics who had served

apprenticeships upon the faith of the existing law, should not be

injured by its operation, by being thrown out of employment at a period

of life when they could not devote themselves to any other profession

than that to which they had been reared.

_Mr. B. Shaw_ deprecated the idea that morality was likely to be

endangered, or our manufactures injured, by the enactment of the Bill

under consideration; for Scotland, to which the Act of Elizabeth never

extended, was never found in any degree inferior in morality or skill in

manufacture.

_Mr. W. Smith_ observed, that he never heard of any proposition of

reform which was not likely to be inconvenient to some persons; and

therefore he was not surprised at the assertion, that the adoption of

the Bill before the House would operate to injure the interests of

particular persons. The apprehension of such injury was, however, in his

judgment, unfounded. But still, those who expressed the apprehension

were entitled to attention; and the objections which certain petitioners

urged against this Bill, would, he had no doubt, meet all due

consideration in the committee. The fact was, as to the statute of

Elizabeth, that its existence served to create monopolies; and the

effect of those monopolies was, that when the demand for an article was

large, the price was enhanced to the public; while, when the demand

became small, many workmen were thrown out of employment. Therefore, the

repeal of that statute would tend to serve both the public and the

workmen. As to the argument advanced in support of the statute of

Elizabeth, merely in consequence of its antiquity, he could not admit

that it had any force. He declared that his ears were quite tired of the

phrase "the wisdom of our ancestors," which phrase was, in fact,

calculated only to impose upon the superficial. For, after all, what

did this phrase mean? The world was younger in the time of our

ancestors, although they were older than us. Time, Lord Bacon said, was

the greatest innovator; and if, at this advanced time of the world,

after all our experience, we could not improve upon the system of our

ancestors, our intellects must be what would hardly be asserted, not

only quite unequal to theirs, but infinitely inferior. How, then, could

it be pretended, that the same legislative arrangements applied in the

reign of Elizabeth, when the trade of the whole British Empire was not

equal to that of the port of London at this day, was strictly applicable

at present, and suited to our improved situation?

_Mr. Serjeant Onslow_ replied, and, observing upon the petitions on the

table against the Bill, expressed his conviction that they were not the

unsolicited acts of the petitioners; as indeed appeared from several

placards about town, inviting signatures to such petitions; and those

petitioners, he meant especially the journeymen mechanics, would find

the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth rather materially serviceable, than

in any degree injurious to their interests.

The Bill was read a second time, and ordered to be committed on Tuesday.

[The apprenticeship regulations of the 5 Eliz. c. 4 were abolished by 54

Geo. III. 96, 1814.]

[Footnote 352: For enforcing the Statute of Apprentices.]

[Footnote 353: Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Cols. 423-25, Vol.

XXVII.]

[Footnote 354: Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Cols.

563-74.]

[Footnote 355: Parliamentary Debates, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Cols.

879-884.]

[Footnote 356: The apprenticeship regulations in the woollen industries

had been set aside by Acts of Parliament, 1803 and 1809.]

14. RESOLUTIONS OF THE WATCHMAKERS ON APPRENTICESHIP [_Report of

Committee on Petitions of the Watchmakers, 1817 (VI)_], 1817.

1. That the obvious intention of our ancestors, in enacting the statute

of the 5 Elizabeth, cap. 4, was to produce and maintain a competent

number and perpetual succession of masters and journeymen, of practical

experience, to promote, secure, and render permanent the prosperity of

the national arts and manufactures, honestly wrought by their ability

and talents, inculcated by a mechanical education, called a seven years'

apprenticeship; whereby according to the memorable words of the statute

itself "it will come to pass, that the same law (being duly executed)

should banish idleness, advance husbandry, and yield unto the hired

person, both in time of scarcity and in time of plenty, a convenient

proportion of wages."

2. That it is by apprenticeships, that the practitioners in the arts and

manufactures attain the high degree of perfection, whereby British

productions have arrived at the great estimation in which they were

heretofore held in foreign markets.

8. That the apprenticed artisans have, collectively and individually, an

unquestionable right to expect the most extended protection from the

Legislature, in the quiet and exclusive use and enjoyment of their

several and respective arts and trades, which the law has already

conferred upon them as a property, as much as it has secured the

property of the stockholder in the public funds; and it is clearly

unjust to take the whole of the ancient established property and rights

of any one class of the community, unless, at the same time, the rights

and property of the whole commonwealth should be dissolved, and

parcelled out anew for the public good.

10. That in consequence of too minute a division of labour,

injudiciously allowed in several manufactures, the workmen employed are

not enabled to make throughout any one article however simple, or even

to maintain themselves by their industry.

11. That the unlimited or promiscuous introduction of various

descriptions of persons without apprenticeship into the manufactures

occasions a surplus of manufacturing poor, and an unnecessary

competition, ruinous to the commercial capital and industry of the

nation; because the overflow of goods causes all the productions of the

manufacturies to fall in price, and be sold to foreigners for less money

than they cost in making; which deficiencies are necessarily made up by

the ruin of the master manufacturers, bankruptcies, and dividends to

creditors; and are the cause of increased parochial and other rates,

thus necessarily created, for the support of the poor workmen, who are

deprived of the fair price of their honest labour.

17. That the system of apprenticeships, whether considered in a

religious, political or moral point of view, is highly beneficial to the

State, and from the neglect thereof is to be attributed the great

defalcation of public morals, the numerous frauds committed in trade,

the increased numbers of juvenile criminals, public trials and

executions.

18. That the pretensions to the allowance of universal uncontrolled

freedom of action to every individual founded upon the same delusive

theoretical principles which fostered the French Revolution, are wholly

inapplicable to the insular situation of this Kingdom, and if allowed to

prevail, will hasten the destruction of the social system so happily

arranged in the existing form and substance of the British constitution,

established by law.

19. That the meeting highly approves the proceedings of the 62,875

masters and journeymen, who have already presented petitions, to the

House of Commons, praying for leave to bring a Bill into Parliament to

amend, extend and make more effectual the statute of apprenticeship, 5

Elizabeth, chap. 4.

21. That the most effectual preventive against and check upon

combinations of journeymen, as also of masters in any trade, is for the

persons engaged in such trades to take apprentices as required by law.

15. REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON THE RIBBON WEAVERS [_Report of Committee on

the Ribbon Weavers, 1818 (IX)_], 1818.

Your Committee also report, That it appears by the examination that the

silk, and ribbon weavers in particular, are and have been for some time

past suffering great privations and distress, arising out of inadequate

wages; that such distress has had the effect of reducing thousands of

them to seek parochial aid, and have, in consequence, increased the

poor-rate, especially in the parishes of Coventry and in the County of

Warwick, where the ribbon trade is the staple manufacture, to an extent

too burdensome to be much longer borne.

That the low rate of wages complained of by the Petitioners is not in

consequence of the want of trade, it having been proved to your

committee that there are as many silk goods, particularly ribbons, now

making, as at any former time.

That a system of half-pay apprenticeship has been resorted to, which has

been attended with ruinous consequences to the morals of such

apprentices, and exceedingly injurious to the trade.

That the evils complained of do not exist in London, Westminster, and

Middlesex; which your committee believe to be owing to the provisions

of the act called the Spitalfields Act, which extend to those places,

the effects of which are fully detailed in the evidence.

That the whole of the masters and weavers in the Ribbon Trade concur in

the propriety of an extension of the Spitalfields Act.