been made. It was the duty of statesmen at that period (and the right hon. Baronet was one), so to have regulated the currency as to have prevented any increase of taxa

{MAY 16} thus dealt with? The manufactures that he had been speaking of were wove upon hand-looms, and during this period the hand-loom weaver had had his wages reduced from 4s. 6d. to 1s. 3d., and look-tion as measured in things. He would ing further back the result would be worse still. He had limited his retrospective view to the year 1815, because that was the year when the war ceased and the borrowing ended, and from which period no addition to the burthens of the people in consequence of the debt should have

now read to the House what had been the effect upon those engaged in manufacturing upon power-looms, and with the most improved machinery during the same period; and similar results would be manifest. [Here the hon. Member read the three following tables.]

72s. Calico made by Power-Loom.

1824
1831
1832

Value
of

Sum for Labour,
Expenses,
and Profit.

Less per Cent. than in 1815.

He was sorry to see such impatience | suming taxed commodities were also reduced. manifested by the House. He was aware The tables he had read, show a correspondhow unsatisfactory it was to them to hearing decline in four most important branches details of this sort, and in terms they might not clearly understand, but which it was necessary for him to use. He knew the House had not been accustomed to have its time taken up in this way, but he thought a better knowledge of manufactures, and of the state of those engaged in them, was necessary in this House, for it should be borne in mind, that the manufacturers had to pay taxes out of the money they received for their labour; and in the proportion the money value of their labour was reduced, their means of paying taxes and of con

of cotton manufacture, and might be relied on as being a true criterion of what had been the state of the whole of that great business for the last eighteen years, and whether the weaving part had been done by hand-looms or by power-looms. Now, it would appear that great injustice had been done to manufacturers in the cotton trade, and we were not yet arrived at a safe currency. We had still a paper money, consisting of five-pound notes, ten-pound notes and upwards, and what assurance had he, if the right hon. Baronet be continued

Here he had shown that the class of | equitable adjustment between the public. manufacturers to which he belonged had, at the end of 1832, not only paid both interest and principle, if the account between them and the national creditor had been kept in those manufactures: but that they had overpaid the account by eleven pieces and two-thirds of a piece. The Government had had from the cotton manufacturers what this table shows for this account, and, if it be not settled, proof is here given of the wrong done by Government to the manufacturers by raising the standard of value. It was perfectly right to recur to a metallic standard, but wrong to do so without accompanying it with an

and the fundholder, and between all debtors and creditors who would be seriously injured by such a change. But how do the manufacturers now stand with regard to the national creditors? They are told that they now owe not sixty-six pieces and two-thirds for every 601., as they did in 1815, but that they now owe 218 pieces for every 601. Notwithstanding this he declared that, if they be fairly dealt with, they should be considered as having paid off the whole of the debt. Here is crying injustice, and for which somebody ought to be responsible. He would ask, was it right or equitable that his class should be

*No. 1. Shows the number of pounds weight of cotton required to make a piece of third 74s. calico. 2. The average price of cotton per pound.

3. The average cost of cotton for one piece.

4. The average price of such calico in the Manchester market.

5. The average sum the manufacturer had for labour, expenses and profits, in every year from 1815 to 1832 inclusive.

6. The average sum for labour, expenses, and profit, for three periods of six years each.

7. The sum less per cent for labour, expenses, and profit, in each of the six years than in the year 1815, the close of the war.

8. The number of pieces of said calicoes which 601. would purchase the fundholder in 1815.

9. The number of pieces the fundholder was entitled to receive annually, at the rate of 5 pieces per cent.

10. The number of pieces the manufacturer has had to pay annually.

11. The excess of pieces over and above 5 per cent. he has had to pay in the respective years. 12. The simple interest on such excess from the year in which the manufacturer had to pay it to the end of the year 1832.

thus dealt with? The manufactures that he had been speaking of were wove upon hand-looms, and during this period the hand-loom weaver had had his wages reduced from 4s. 6d. to 1s. 3d., and looking further back the result would be worse still. He had limited his retrospective view to the year 1815, because that was the year when the war ceased and the borrowing ended, and from which period no addition to the burthens of the people in consequence of the debt should have

been made. It was the duty of statesmen at that period (and the right hon. Baronet was one), so to have regulated the currency as to have prevented any increase of taxation as measured in things. He would now read to the House what had been the effect upon those engaged in manufacturing upon power-looms, and with the most improved machinery during the same period; and similar results would be manifest. [Here the hon. Member read the three following tables.]

He was sorry to see such impatience | manifested by the House. He was aware how unsatisfactory it was to them to hear details of this sort, and in terms they might not clearly understand, but which it was necessary for him to use. He knew the House had not been accustomed to have its time taken up in this way, but he thought a better knowledge of manufactures, and of the state of those engaged in them, was necessary in this House, for it should be borne in mind, that the manufacturers had to pay taxes out of the money they received for their labour; and in the proportion the money value of their labour was reduced, their means of paying taxes and of con

681

suming taxed commodities were also reduced. The tables he had read, show a corresponding decline in four most important branches of cotton manufacture, and might be relied on as being a true criterion of what had been the state of the whole of that great business for the last eighteen years, and whether the weaving part had been done by hand-looms or by power-looms. Now, it would appear that great injustice had been done to manufacturers in the cotton trade, and we were not yet arrived at a safe currency. We had still a paper money, consisting of five-pound notes, ten-pound notes and upwards, and what assurance had he, if the right hon. Baronet be continued

ciation in the standard of value, for they could not have raised the supplies within the year, and therefore, it was unjust to resort to an appreciation of the standard of value without accompanying it with a corresponding reduction of taxation. It was said we were in an average state of prosperity. He did not know how hon. Gentlemen made their comparisons. He had shown that we every year went on getting

fits, for the manufactures we produced. It had also been boasted that the hands employed in mills were well off. The hon. member for Buckinghamshire (he believed) said the other night that the hands employed in the cotton-mills near Manchester, could get, on an average, ten shillings per week. If this was so, let them compare that with the average for the same description of hands in America, who get 14s. 11d. on an average for the same sort of work. Why was this mighty difference? Besides, the difference was not only in amount of money, for the American hands could purchase double the quantity of provisions that the same money would purchase in England. The number of persons, too, employed in cotton-mills, was small compared with the number of hand-loom weavers, who were in such deep distress; the number in all the cotton-mills in Great Britain would not, he believed, exceed 170,000; and his opinion was, that there were four persons engaged at hand-loom weaving for one person employed in mills.

one of his Majesty's Privy Council, that a further appreciation of money might not be resorted to? He therefore, thought, on this ground, he was justified in supporting the Motion of his hon. colleague. It might be said, that these manufactures could be made cheaper that cotton was cheaper. The right hon. Baronet asked, the other night, how it was, that cotton had fallen in price. He would tell the right hon. Baronet what perhaps might be worth know-less and less for labour, expenses, and proing, that a standard of value had been observed, which his bill, bad as it was, had not the power to change, and that cotton was not cheaper. The manufacturers, purchased their cotton from the Americans, and they now gave them as many pieces of goods (or pounds of twist) for the same number of pounds of cotton as they did in 1815, notwithstanding the price of cotton here had varied from 194d. to 5ğd. per pound, as measured in the money of this country. For the cotton that would make seventy pieces they gave 24 pieces in 1815; for the same in 1824 they gave 221; in 1831, 22; and in 1832, 26; and the average of the eighteen years had been 233 pieces, for the cotton that was required to produce seventy pieces of third 74s. calico. But it was said, the necessaries of life were lower, that we had had improvements in machinery, and that we could produce goods cheaper. As to the necessaries of life, we had now to give the labour required to make two pieces of calico, for the same quantity of wheat which the labour required to make one piece would purchase, comparing the average price of wheat at 88s. the quarter, which it was in the seven years 1812 and 1818, inclusive, with its present price of 53s. per quarter. And Mr. John Fielden did not know why the admitting there might have been some im- hon. Member should have spoken to order, provements in machinery which, by-the-by, when he (Mr. Fielden) was showing the had been much overstated, he asked what distress which had arisen from the operation right had the fundholder to share with the of the right hon. Baronet's Bill. Did the hon. manufacturers in the fruits of their inge- Member think he should support a motion nuity, and increased labour? He had none. like this, without giving his reasons for doing If the debt had been fairly contracted, so? He could see no necessity for this interwhich it was not, he had no right to any ruption, nor for the repeated cries of " Oh! greater quantity of other men's productions, Oh!" He hoped hon. Members would let than he could purchase at the time with him proceed to the end of what he had to the money he lent. But he denied the right offer. He assured them he would not be of Parliament to impose this debt upon the put down by noise and clamour. He was people, and saddle posterity with the pay- sent there to represent the labouring and ment of it. But, even if they had the manufacturing classes, who expected their right, Parliament was not justified in at case would be attended to in a Reformed tempting to cause it to be paid in money of Parliament differently from the manner in a higher denomination of value than that which it was now received. He and they in which it was borrowed. The war could had hoped that he was sent to a deliberative not have been carried on without a depre-assembly to discuss and determine for the

An Hon. Member rose to order, and complained that the hon. Member's speech had reference to a scale of prices unconnected with the Motion.

tolerably correct view of the general state of the trade, and of the population throughout the whole district.

people's good; but, when he went back to his constituents and told them that when he recapitulated the fatal effects of the That the result of these returns shows that, right hon. Baronet's measures, and the inin the seven townships of Colne, Foulbridge, stances in which their interests were sacriTramden, Marsden, Barrowford, Higham, ficed, to their utter ruin, he was only Goldshard, and Roughler, containing, in the laughed at by hon. Members, could they whole, a population of 19,869 individuals, think that such conduct would give satis- there are 5,137 persons (approaching to onefaction? Such conduct was very unbe-third of the whole), whose weekly income, coming, and ought not to be practised in the House. The best way to cause him to sit down would be to listen to him patiently until he had concluded what he had to say. He had other matter to state to the House as a reason for the vote he should give on this question. In 1829, during a period of severe distress, he and a number of other manufacturers met at Burnley, to represent the distress that prevailed in that district to the right hon. Baronet, then Secretary for the Home Department, and he would read the memorial which was sent up on that occasion to their county Member, Lord Stanley, and the answer of the right hon. Baronet. But before doing so, he would just observe, that this distress was so great in the manufacturing districts, that the boroughreeve of the loyal town of Manchester, for the first time in his (Mr. Fielden's) experience, called a public meeting in that town to petition Parliament or to memorialize the King upon the subject. The memorial he had mentioned, was as follows:

To the Right Honourable Robert Peel, his
Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home
Department.

Sheweth, That your petitioners, deeply impressed with a sense of the increasing distress of the manufacturing and labouring population within the hundred of Blackburn (which hundred contains, according to the last census, 148,704 individuals), have taken measures for the assembling of a few of the cotton manufacturers of that district, preparatory to which they had caused to be made accurate surveys of the poor in about half-adozen townships in which they might expect immediate co-operation in their object, and that such surveys being completed, they had intended to have prosecuted the inquiry upon a more extensive scale. But your petitioners being now assembled at the Bull Inn in Burnley, on the first day of May, 1829, and being furnished with the several returns from townships hereafter alluded to, feel themselves so alarmed with the result, that they are impelled at once to submit it to you without losing the time which must be consumed in obtaining

more numerous returns.

That they feel themselves the more justified in this course, because they believe that the few returns already furnished, will exhibit a

arising from labour, varying from 18d. to 28., presents an average weekly income per head of 19d.; and there are 1,743 persons (being income, from the like source, varying from 28. one-eleventh part of the whole) whose weekly to 2s. 6d., presents an average weekly income per head of 2s. 3d.; thus showing that better than one-half of the whole population do not earn, on an average, more than 15 d. per head per week, from which there are considerable outgoings, leaving a clear income applicable for food, clothing, and rent, and other necessaries, of less than 2d. a-head per day. That, income of so large a population, it may be notwithstanding this small pittance is the full safely stated that they are, at least at present, in full employment; but your petitioners are afraid that such full employment cannot long be continued, as even, according to the present state of wages, the manufacturers cannot dispose of their commodities at a remunerating price.

That the property within the above townwith public charges that it does not at present ship liable to the poor-rate is so overwhelmed afford more assistance in the shape of parochial relief than about 12d. per head per week in addition to the earnings-thus showing that, even including parochial relief, the weekly income of more than one-half of the population does not exceed, on an average, 17d. per head per week.

That

your petitioners ascribe this miserable state of the poor to the present very low state of wages, which are already under the lowest state which they fell to in the distressed times of 1825-26, whilst the price of provisions in general is considerably higher than at that period.

That your petitioners do not venture to give any opinion on the cause producing this low state of wages, nor to suggest any remedies for the same; but they content themselves with this simple statement of facts, to which they respectfully, but earnestly, entreat your immediate attention.