loom weavers, that when work had become | large class of the population materially more abundant, wages had not risen in any almost perceptible degree, and that whereas at the present moment there was more than enough of work for every person engaged in that species of labour, their wages continued at the low rate at which he had mentioned, while in other branches of trade, where work was not so plentiful, wages were much higher. Why did a weaver, who had constant work, earn only 5s. or 6s. per week, while a warper, a tailor, or a shoemaker, who had only occasional employment, had a five-times higher rate of wages? The fall of wages was not caused, as was alleged, by over-production, for every weaver could find work to keep him employed from fifteen to sixteen hours a-day. The reason was obvious. The latter classes to whom he had referred were in contact with their employers, from this it was to be supposed that some kindly feeling was generated between them, or in the absence of this, they might combine to effect a rise of wages. This was not the case with the hand-loom weavers, who were scattered in small towns and villages all over the country; most of them never saw their employers, who cared nothing for the condition or sufferings of men with whom they had no intercourse; and they were too much divided by distance, and too much under the pressure of immediate want, to be able to combine in their own defence. Again, it was said that the low rate of wages was caused by foreign competition. So far was it from being true, that these low wages were necessary to enable the manufacturers to compete with those abroad, that the fact was, that the price in most instances fell in the foreign markets from the introduction of British goods. It was home competition which was the root of the evil, which reduced the price of the commodities in the foreign markets, and tended only to enable certain unprincipled speculators to go on by means of the starvation of the weavers. If prices were raised here, they would be raised abroad also, as the system of combinations among workmen was just as well known there as with us; and if the House acceded to the proposition now before them, they would have the prospect of conferring a benefit not only on their own poor starving countrymen, but of improving the condition of a portion of the labouring classes all over the world. Let it also be considered what a favourable effect would be produced on the market were the condition of this

improved, and they were enabled to become larger consumers both of their own produce, and of that of other branches of industry. He did not mean to discuss the propriety of appointing Boards of Trade-though that would, no doubt, be a subject to be discussed in Committee-but he could assure the House that the operatives were far too intelligent a class to desire to interfere in any way with the foreign market, which they knew must necessarily re-act upon themselves. They asked to be permitted to state their case to a Committee of this House, to point out the causes which had produced such a state of things, and the means that might be adopted for its removal, and he was convinced they understood these matters much better than most hon. Members. Were these men to appeal in vain to this House for redress? What deadly sin had they committed, that they were to be put without the pale of the Constitution as outcasts and aliens ? Their distress they had borne with a patience which is not only commendable, but almost incredible. Much had been said of the forbearance exercised by the agricultural classes as entitling them to the consideration of the House. He was far from denying this; he only wished, that the same reasoning should be applied in the present case. Not one outrage had characterized the proceedings of the hand-loom weavers, while borne to the earth by sufferings at which the heart of humanity shuddered. They disavowed all secret associations; they united, as they were not only entitled, but bound to do, for their own protection; but all their proceedings were open and avowed. Why was the labour of these poor men, which was their only property, but the more important as being the source of all other property, to be unprotected? Was the fruit of our commercial system to be the starvation and degradation of our people? If so, better it were for ever banished from our shores. Were these petitioners to be permitted to starve in the midst of a plenty of their own creation? Were these respectable and industrious individuals to be permitted to want, while the money of the country was lavished on pensioners and sinecurists -on a band of titled paupers, the true refuse of society? He was happy to observe, that the case of the hand-loom weavers had been taken up by other classes. Petitions had been presented by the hon. member for Bolton from the Ma

gistrates, Clergy, &c., of that town, praying | the state of the other business of the House that the House would take into its con- would permit, that the proposed inquiry sideration the case of the hand-loom wea- should be gone into, but not on the grounds vers; and he had himself presented a anticipated. He wished for the inquiry similar petition from the wrights, masons, because he believed, that it would serve to and slaters, of Airdrie. But it was said it convince the petitioners themselves that the was too late in the Session to go into this relief they sought for could not be obtained investigation. This was not the fault of by a Committee. He had always held the hon. member for Lanarkshire, by whom that wages would regulate themselves the Motion had been brought forward. according to the wants of the public in any He had been prevented from bringing for- trade. To attempt to raise them by any ward his Motion on the day he had origin- other means than the fair increase of the ally fixed, owing to an adjourned debate, demand for labour would be absurd, and and he had not been allowed by the Go- would always fail. He felt for the disvernment a subsequent day on which to tresses of the hand-loom weavers, but he discuss the subject. There was a full did not see how it was possible that the muster to defend the abominations of the Legislature could assist them in the way Pension-list, but when the happiness, nay they sought. Suppose a Bill were brought the very existence, of half a million of in- in to regulate the wages of any particular dustrious fellow-creatures was to be dis- trade, it would have the effect of sending cussed, an attempt was made to stifle the the best men in that trade out of the coun.. inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman, then try. This was fully and fatally experienced Vice-President of the Board of Trade, had in the case of the Spitalfields weavers. said, he would not be indisposed in the Their wages were at one time fixed by next Session that a Committee should be Parliament, by their own desire; and what appointed to consider the subject of wages had become of the trade of that district in general. If he was authorised by the since? The Spitalfields weavers found Government to pledge himself to this, and their error when it was too late, and so that the very inadequate wages of the would any body of men who thought that hand-loom weavers should form a parti- the fixing of a price for their labour by the cular subject of inquiry, long as they had Legislature would assist them. already waited without redress, he would undertake on their part to say, that they would accede to this further delay; but unless the House received from the right hon. Gentleman so distinct a pledge as this, he hoped the hon. member for Lanarkshire would persevere in his Motion; and the time of hon. Members could not be better employed at any season of the year than in investigating a case of distress so unjust as that now before them. If the House refused to listen to the complaints of those men-if it refused to extend to them its protection—as protection ceased on the one part, so must allegiance on the othersociety must resolve itself into its first elements.

Admiral Adam regretted the distress of the hand-loom weavers, and should be glad if a remedy could be discovered, but he had heard nothing as yet which he could look upon in the light of a remedy. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Poulett Thomson) had promised, that an inquiry should take place into the case of the hand-loom weavers next Session, and he thought that, under all circumstances, they should not at present proceed in the matter.

Mr. Hume would be glad, if time and

Sir Daniel Sandford said, it was admitted that the hand-loom weavers had suffered the most unparalleled distress with the most exemplary patience; and no class was less likely to resort to violent measures, or to press their advocates into an extreme course of conduct. He had been amongst them in times both of excitement and tranquillity: but, even when a political canvass had been going on, and other classes had shown themselves ready to impose extreme political doctrines upon candidates, he had never found the handloom weavers, notwithstanding their numbers, and the influence they might in a mass exercise upon an election, otherwise than sober, rational, and constitutional. Their prayer had constantly been for an inquiry, and he had heard them give the most sensible and conclusive answers to objections such as those which had been urged by the hon. member for Middlesex. No one had attempted to impugn the case of distress advanced on the part of these unfortunate persons. No prosperity witness, no prosperity statement, no prosperity doctrines, had been brought forward here, as they were on the recent debate connected with the shipping interest. He was

that such a system was against all the axioms of political economy; but, however much it might prejudice him in the minds of some Gentlemen, he must say, that the mere dictum of any professor of political economy never had any weight with him. But there were, in political economy, some marked exceptions to general rules. Thus the general rule was, that wages would adjust themselves to the demand for labour; but, in the case of the hand-loom weavers, the price of their produce had risen in the market without producing a corresponding rise in their wages. Their case was, therefore, an exception to the rules by which it was proposed to judge it. Their labour had often not been competent to meet the demand, and yet their wages had not risen. That was a fact by which the general doctrines of political economy were combated.

relieved, therefore, from the necessity of experience like that, told more in favour of painting to that House scenes of misery the proposed plan than twenty theoretical more frightful and appalling than any propositions against it. He might be told, which ever fell beneath his notice, and which he could not describe without calling up images and using language that might harrow the feelings of the House. He could assure the House, that words were too feeble to give a fair impression of the wretchedness of this too-long-neglected class. But, the distress being allowed, and the claim to inquiry-at least as far as a modest and constitutional deportment can confer a claim-being admitted, it was said, that the result could lead to no practical measure of relief. To that proposition he demurred. From what he had seen and heard from the sagacious people themselves, he thought, that local Boards of Trade, composed partly of masters and partly of workmen, who should adjust, not a fixed minimum of wages, but who should, from time to time, regulate the price of labour according to the demand in the Nor was it difficult to explain market for its produce, and other circum- the fact. The weavers suffered from the stances necessary to be considered, would want of concert and combination. They tend to the advantage of both parties. In did not congregate together: they lived in the important and populous town he had scattered hamlets, and pursued their labours the honour to represent, in which a great in solitary, noisome, and miserable cottages part of the population consisted of hand--where the father of the family plied his loom weavers, the system had been to a certain extent adopted, and produced the most beneficial effects. It appeared, by a letter which he held in his hand, that the Board at Paisley was established in 1829 to prevent the effects of speculation, caused by the lowness of wages: Some manufacturers,' said the writer, finding that 'this continual reduction hurt the stock on hand, and kept the weavers in misery, 'called a meeting of the manufacturers, when it was agreed, that a minimum price should be named for two or three 'things most generally manufactured, to 'serve as a standard for the rest of the 'work. The signature of every manufacturer was obtained to this arrange'ment, and a Committee appointed so see 'that it was complied with. In the spring ' of 1830, the manufacturers raised the ' minimum. A meeting of the manufac-parts of Scotland, they had already begun; 'turers was called in June, 1833, when it was agreed that the table should be con'tinued for another year; but no signa'ture was asked anew, and consequently 'the table has no existence, except in the 'public mind.' The Paisley Board, then, was a voluntary arrangement; and yet it had turned out to be a humane and beneficent system. One argument, drawn from

tedious task fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, and obtained scarcely sufficient to keep his wife and children from starving. They were without the means of co-operation, and could not organize themselves to stand their ground against the natural and inherent power of the owners of capital, who were thus enabled to beat down the wages of labour. Such being their situation, what injury might not be the result of turning a deaf ear to their prayers? They must then contrive some method of mutual concert and assistance; and, when their wants were most pressing, and their passions most inflamed, they might enter upon dangerous designs and practices. They must imitate the example of those trades' combinations which had recently prevailed to so great and alarming an extent. Indeed, in some

and the last advices he had from Dundee informed him, that the hand-loom weavers of that vicinity were beginning to do what the cotton-spinners, the calico-printers, the engineers, and other classes, had already done in other quarters. He did not defend that injurious system of combination, though he believed that the Legislature could do nothing by penal enactments to

ever they were established, let it be under the authority of a legal sanction. He would have them composed partly of masters and partly of men, who from time to time should arrange between themselves the rate of wages, and to counteract any difficulty which might arise from a disagreement between these two parties. He would, also, have upon the Board a certain number of persons not connected with the manufacture, whose voices, in case of a dispute, would go with the master or the man according as justice and reason should dictate. These were the arguments which had struck him in favour of Local Boards, in the establishment of which he hoped that the appointment of this Committee of Inquiry might end. If they went into the Committee, he at least should endeavour to bring about that result.

put an end to them. But there was one mode of mitigating the evils of that injurious contest between labour and capital, which bore a strong analogy to the plan for the regulation of their trade now sought for by these unfortunate weavers. They said, why not meet the mischievous combinations of the present day by calling back into life those ancient guilds-corporate bodies to mediate between the two parties, and determine measures for the advantage of both? He did not know whether this plan could be adopted on a great scale; but he would say, allow the experiment to be tried on a small scale; and, if it succeeded, establish by law throughout the kingdom what had voluntarily been done at Paisley. The hon. member for Middlesex said, that the principle of Boards for the regulation of wages had been tried in the silk trade, and that Mr. Cobbett said, that after the descripit had completely failed. But the principle tion which they had heard of the distress proposed to be acted upon in this Act was of the people of Paisley, he trusted, that he different from that which was adopted in should never again hear the right hon. the Spitalfields' Act, so that the hon. Mem- Gentleman, the President of the Board of ber's argument did not apply to the present Trade, say, that he hoped in God his counproposition. The provisions of that Act try would become the great manufacturing determined that the price of labour should shop of the world. He trusted, too, that be settled from time to time by the Magis- they would no longer hear the hon. memtrates at their option. An arbitrary re- ber for Middlesex eulogise the operation of muneration, then, was decreed by persons the Scotch Poor-laws, as an example for who might be entirely ignorant of the this country to follow in amending its own trade over which they were set in author- system of Poor-laws. That hon. Member ity, and careless whether it prospered or had expressed a fear, that if the House decayed. But the Boards now proposed should interfere in this matter of wages, it would consist of parties conversant with might drive valuable branches of manuevery circumstance affecting the market factures from the country. Drive them aware of the exact state of the trade from the country! Ay, drive them from the alive to the actual condition of the manu- world, he would say; drive them down to facturer as well as of the operative-and the infernal regions, rather than that they seeking to establish, not a fixed and arbi- should produce such misery. He wished trary price, but a fluctuating minimum to not England to become the manufacturing vary from time to time according to the shop of the world; on the contrary, if demand for the produce of labour, and manufactures were to produce such distress other causes affecting the interests of those as had been described, if they were to be engaged in the manufacture. They would followed by such a harvest of misery, he protect the labourer from an unjust depres- should like to see them driven not only sion of his wages; but they would not from this country, but from the earth. interfere with the natural and necessary was not a judge of the measures that might fluctuations of wages. But, it was said, be necessary to relieve the distress of those why not trust to the voluntary principle? suffering manufacturers; but he would cerTrue, a modification of the voluntary sys- tainly vote for a Committee of Inquiry to tem had worked well at Paisley; but it see what could be done for them. They could not be expected that every master had plenty of Committees on other subjects; manufacturer throughout the country why not, then, grant a Committee on this? would be as benevolent and careful of the They had a Committee to inquire into the welfare and interests of those whom they causes of drunkenness, though every human employed, as the master manufacturers of being knew beforehand that it arose from Paisley were. Let the first establishment the use of beer and gin. They had a Comof these Boards be voluntary; but, wher-mittee appointed nevertheless, and sitting,

He

with its chairman, and all the other rigma- | stitution of an inquiry based on such prinrole, to inquire into that which all knew to ciples, as in his opinion no good, but much be the effect of beer and gin. They had mischief, would be occasioned by the estabalso a Committee appointed to inquire into lishment of local Boards of Trade. He the best mode of educating the people. therefore trusted, that the House would not The complaints made by the people to that go into an inquiry founded on a principle House were, that their bellies were empty, that would only tend to delude the people and that their backs were bare, and a Com- as to the causes of their distress. He had mittee was appointed to see how their heads as much at heart the interests of those mawere furnished, and whether any addition nufactures as any hon. Member, and it was could be made to the lumber already there. for that reason that he would resist such a It was food and raiment that the people of Motion as this. He begged at the same Paisley called for and wanted, and the time to state, that he thought the House House in its wisdom would give them little might, with great propriety, enter upon books to satisfy them. It was food and a future occasion, in the next Session of raiment that the people wanted, and not Parliament, into an inquiry into the subthose little papers which the House was for ject of wages generally, with regard to circulating amongst them. The appoint- which he knew that many Members were ment of the Committee would do no harm, anxious to obtain information. When such and it might possibly do a great deal of a Committee was appointed, the hand-loom good. weavers would then come before it with their case divested of any delusion, such as that of the establishment of local Boards of Trade, for which the petitioners, and those hon. Members who supported the Motion for Inquiry, asked on this occasion.

Sir Daniel Sandford said, that his observations had applied to the distress existing in Glasgow, and not in Paisley.

Mr. Cobbett had been in Paisley, and had seen enough of it to know that great distress existed there also. There were several streets in it in which a knife and fork were not to be found.

Mr. Ewing feared, that the sufferings which had been endured by this patient and deserving body of men were beyond the power of the Legislature to remedy, arising as they did in some degree from foreign competition, and next, from the introduction of power-looms. The only remedy, he believed, for such sufferings, was to proportion the labour to the demand for it in the market. As, however, the hand-loom weavers had suffered so long and so patiently, he was in favour of appointing a Committee of Inquiry on the subject; but he feared that it would be too late to expect any good from such a step this Session. He trusted, however, that, for the satisfaction of the petitioners, the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, would hold out the hope that such a Committee would be appointed next Session.

Mr. Poulett Thomson had formerly stated, that it was too late in the Session to enter into such an inquiry, and that he objected to any inquiry based upon the principles stated in the speech of the hon. Member who had brought forward this Motion. Those principles had been again candidly avowed that night by the hon. member for Paisley; and he (Mr. Poulett Thomson) must therefore decidedly object to the in

Mr. Hesketh Fleetwood said, that as there had already been Committees appointed this Session on individual cases, it was the bounden duty of the House to grant a Committee when 800,000 people were plunged in the greatest distress. He should vote for a Committee, without pledging himself to any ulterior measures whatever.

Colonel Torrens supported the Motion for the appointment of a Committee, and could not concur in the reasons assigned by the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, for refusing the prayer of the petitioners. It was not correct to state, that the petitioners asked for local Boards of Trade. The petitions of the hand-loom weavers of Bolton, and of other parts of Lancashire, prayed for a Parliamentary inquiry into the causes of their distress, and into the means by which that distress might be relieved, whether_by local Boards of Trade or otherwise. The Committee which had been moved for, was a Committee of Inquiry, and as such he should support it. But the right hon. Gentleman contended, that granting this Committee would excite unreasonable expectations. An inquiry, he thought, would have a contrary effect, and would dispel unfounded expectations. The most sanguine expectations were now entertained by the hand-loom weavers, that local Boards of Trade would relieve their distress. If this