The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-29 00:00:00

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competition which had grown up in consequence of it; and
the fifth was the low profits which rose out of increased cons- .•ti
petition. Now, the remedy which the Committee propOsed J-7
for the distress arising out of these five causes was the fixatioti....l,s:
of a minimum of wages. Now, he would ask any of the H'onsXV
Gentlemen who supported the motion of the Hon. Wilber-IV'
for Lanarkshire, to point out to him how the establishnitnt of
such a minimum could act upon any one of the five causes
which he had just enumerated ?--( Hear, hear.) The object
of the Bill which the Hon. Member asked leave to bring in
was to carry into effect this nostrum of the Committee. Fix
a minimum of wages Was it possible that any intelligent
Government should ever sanction such an absurdity—that Go-
vernment should interfere at all to fix the rate of wages—that
Government should propound the doctrine that labour should
not be free—that Government should say that the capitalist
should no longer be at liberty to make a bargain with the
labourer respecting the remuneration which the one was to
pay and the other to receive—that Government should com-
pel the master manufacturer to come to a board of trade in
London, to ascertain, not what wages he could afford, but
what wages he must pay—that Government should publish
weekly, or monthly, or quarterly, a tariff of prices, which if
the manufacturer declined to pay, the labourer could not be
employed, and must therefore starve ? That would be a species
of legislation which would neither reflect credit on those who
were the authors of it, nor confer benefit on those who were
intended to be relieved by it.—( Hear, hear.) Legislation like
that would be a tyranny, which, if it were not for the benevo-
lent intentions of those who proposed it, would be sufficient to
revolt those very people for whose advantage it was proposed,
and to make them do that which their good conduct hitherto
had shown that they were not inclined to do—he meant to
break the law, and fly in the face of the constituted authorities
of the country. Had the Hon. Member for Lanarkshire, he
would ask, considered the effect of his own measure ? Had he
considered, that if you established this minimum of wages in
One branch of trade, you must be prepared to establish it in
every other ? Now, if you are prepared to do that, you must
also be prepared to do more. You must be prepared to regu-
late by Act of Parliament the price of every article that was
sold in your markets.—(Mr. Maxwell said, " No, no.") Then,
if you won't regulate the price of every article which your
merchants and your traders have to sell, your present measure
will be ten times more oppressive to the man who has labour
to sell, than it will be to the capitalist who has labour to buy.
Talk of this measure, indeed, as a measure of protection and
philanthropy 1 It was no such thing, for its immediate ten-
dency was to rob the poor labourers not only of the reward of
their industry, but also of the market for their industry. For
instance, a certain sum is fixed as the minimum of wages.
The manufacturer makes a calculation, and finds that he
shall have no return for his capital if lie consents to give
it. He makes in consequence a second calculation, and that
calculcation is whether he shall lose more by discontinuing
his works and allowing his capital to lay idle, or by
paying his labourers the minimum of wages fixed by
the board in London. If he discovers that he will lose
more by the latter plan, he immediately discharges his work-
men, who, as they cannot work for less than the minimum of
wages, although very well disposed to do so, are compelled to
remain idle, and ultimately to throw themselves for support on
their respective parishes. He had listened with great atten-
tion to the speeches of the two Hon. Members who preceded
him, and lie was compelled to say, that he had not heard a
single argument fall from their lips to prove that any good
would be derived from passing this measure.
Mr. GILL ON declared himself in favour of the Bill, and
called upon the Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade,
if he would not grant it, to point out some remedy for the
distress of these unfortunate handloom weavers which he
would grant.—( Hear.) Would the Right Hon. Gentleman
give them a grant of public money ? We had given 1,000,000/.
to the relief of the clergy of the state church in Ireland. We
had given 20,000,0001. to ameliorate the condition of the negro
slaves in the West Indies. Would the Right Hon. Gentle-
man give nothing to ameliorate the condition of our fellow-
countrymen at home ?—( Hear.) He called upon the Right
Hon. Gentleman to give these poor weavers 20,000,0001. as a
means of support until they could turn to some better occupa-
tion. If the Right Hon. Gentleman would make such a propo-
sition—(Oh, oh I)—lie would gladly second it.—( Oh, oh !)
This Bill was only intended as a palliative of the distresses
which the handloom weavers now experienced. It could not
prove an effective remedy for those distresses, for the causes of
them lay too deep to be cured by any single measure. To ob-
tain a perfect cure, we must reduce our taxation and diminish
the load of our debt. He supported the Bill because the ob-
ject of it was to take the power of fixing the rate of wages out
of the hands of those who made no scruple to grind the face
of the poor, and to place it in the hands of those who, ac-
knowledging the labourer to be worthy of his hire, were in-
clined to pay a more liberal and at the same time a more rea-
sonable rat* of wages. The Hon. Member then proceeded to
contend that the House was bound to pass this Bill as a pro-
tection for the poor weavers, and to remind Hon. Members
that if Government would not extend protection to so large a
class of the population, it must not be surprised if on some
future occasion allegiance was withheld from it in consequence
of protection being denied.
Mr. CLAY opposed the Bill on the ground that there was
a palpable absurdity in calling upon the House, as this mea-
sure did, to protect men against themselves. The distress of
the handloom weavers arose out of circumstances over which
the House could exercise no control.
Dr. B 0 WRING would oppose the motion, because he be-
lieved that the interests of the working classes would be in-
jured instead of being benefitted by the Bill ; because he
thought the community generally would suffer, and that the
great trading and commercial interests of the country would
be materially hijured by the adoption of the principle which
it involved. The distresses of the handloom weavers, which
he regretted, had been attributed to competition—a matter
that it was impossible to prevent—to the introduction of ma-
chinery, which this Bill did not attempt, and which it was
impossible, to regulate. On the contrary, the effect of
the measure must be to turn the application of capital
from hand-loom to power-loom weaving even more than at
present, with a consequent addition to the distress of the
weavers. It was impossible for the hand-loom to compete
with the power-loom—that must be admitted. Foreign com-
petition necessarily depressed the wages of all artisans, in ad-
dition to which, in the case of hand loom weavers, there ex-
isted peculiar causes of distress, for theirs, was a trade easily
learned, and exposed to the competition arising from an influx •
of Irish labour. He was firmly of opinion that legislation on
this subject would be either pernicious or useless, and it was
because he wished well to the labouring classes that he must
decline lending himself to a delusion, the result of which
would be to work incalculable evil. He was desirous of see-
ing the labouring classes better taught and instructed, with a
view to their being enabled to manufacture more perfect com-
modities and obtain a higher price for their labour. He was
also favourable to the circulation of tables of prices of labour,
which might show the workman where he could obtain the
best wages; and desired to see every possible means adopted
to raise the industrious classes from a state of want and degra-
dation to comfort and respectability.
Mr. RICIIA RD S thought that Government had on this
occasion taken that line of policy which wisdom, justice, and
humanity called upon them to adopt. The speech of the
Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade was perfectly
satisfactory : his reasons were fortified by experience, and
based on the most indisputable principles of political economy.
With respect to the motion, he thought it delusive and mis-
chievous, and, therefore, sincerely hoped that the Hon.
Member for Lanarkshire would not press it to a division.
Mr. H. FLEETWOOD supported the motion, because he
considered that the Legislature was called on to place the
humbler classes on the same footing of protection as the other
interests of society. He asked with what justice could
the House refuse to allow the introduction of a measure
which had received the approbation of a majority of the Com-
mittee appointed to investigate the subject with which it dealt?
If this were his last vote in the House, he should give it, not
only on the principle of benevolence, but of equal justice, in
favour of the Bill.
Mr. W. WILLIAM S said he should vote in favour of the
introduction of the Bill ; and he thought that the House was
called on to adopt some measure for the relief of the large
class of hand-loom weavers, who both in their petitions and in
their evidence before the Committee complained that they
were suffering under severe distress.
Mr. L ABOUC HE RE thought that when any class of in-
dividuals were induced, either by ignorance or distress, to press
upon the Legislature the adoption of measures which were
not conducive to their permanent interests, it became the duty
of an honest Minister and an honest Member of Parliament
manfully and boldly to resist those ill-advised measures, and
solely to consult the true interests of the people. He believed
that the existence of severe distress among the hand-loom
weavers was denied by no one, and that it was lamented by all ;
but, in his opinion, the very introduction of the proposed Bill
would, by exciting delusive hopes, aggravate rather than dimi-
nish the severity of that distress. He should therefore oppose
the motion, and he was the more induced to do so, because he
though that the indirect object of the Bill was to establish a
minimum of wages, than which nothing could be more per-

nicious.
Mr. E. TENNE NT could not but regret the course which
the Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade had adopted
upon this occasion, regretting altogether the introduction of
this Bill. Although he (Mr. Tennent) could not agree in all.
their extent with the opinions expressed by. the Hon. Member
for Lanark, he felt it his bounden duty to give him his support
to the introduction of this Bill. He could bear testimony to
the fact, that the picture drawn by the Hon. Member for La-
nark of the existing distress among the handloom weavers was
even below the reality.—( Hear, hear.) He could well re-
member the once flourishing condition of this most extensive
class in the town and district which he had the honour to re-
present (Belfast,) where their number amounted to somo
thousands. lie remembered when the quarter they inhabited
was remarkable for its neatness and order; he remembered
their whitewashed houses and their littlo flower gardens, and
the decent appearance they made with their families at markets
or at public worship. Those houses were now a mass of
filth and misery, and their families, clad in rags, were ashamed
to appear in public. At the time of which he spoke a weaver
in Belfast could earn from 15s. to 255. a week by eight or ten
/ours' labour, but they could now barely earn from 3s. 10d to
Gs. by the work of a whole family from 14 to 16 hours a day.
—( Hear.) But although they had seen ruin progressively
gathering round them, their conduct had been peaceable, sub-
missive, and resigned ; and in 1826 several hundreds of them,
fathers of families, had actually submitted to break stones for
the public roads at 10d. a day. The only question for the
House was, this evil being provod to exist in all its frightful
enormities, whether it was prepared to try this or any other
remedy for their relief? He wished the question to have
fair discussion, as well with the hope of discovering a case for
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M HUME said that heentirely concurred in the opinions
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