The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-14 00:00:00

THE COLLECTION OF RAGS Z _ENGLAND.

The Parliamentary report on the various points connected
with the export duty n rags, which the House of Commons
just before risin: ordered to be printed, has been given to
the world, and contains a great mass of most curious and
valuab evidence respecting the condition of the paper
manufacture. The 20 gentlemen summoned as witnesses
before the committee, who were either eminent paper manu-
facturers, or persons officially connected with the Board of
Trade, or mercantile agents whose special business had fur-
nished them with peculiar opportunities for understanding
the bearings of both the English and foreign paper trade,
or, as in the case of the secretary to the Association for Pro-
moting the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge, long con-
versant with all matters relating to the probable supply of
paper consequent on the repeal, have contributed, by their
joint evidence, the materials for a blue-book greatly exceed •
ing in interest the average of the bulky tomes in which are
embodied the questionings of our senators on the financial
matters brought before them. Many topics directly bearing
on the progress of our civilisation have a strong light shed
upon them from the answers to these Parliamentary in-
quiries. We shall frequently have occasion to return to this
subject, but at present we propose restricting ourselves to a
brief summary of that portion of the evidence which bears
on the collection of rags in England, as compared with the
greater or less completeness of the system of rag collecting
in other countries.

On this point—the collection of rags—Mr. Thomas
Wrigley, of Bury, in Lancashire, a merchant exclusively
engaged in the paper trade, states that, in his opinion
the collection of rags is as complete as, under the circum-
stances, it can be, but he immediately qualifies this avow-
mint by the further statement that, whilst believing that
there exists no lapse or defect as regards the collection, he
thinks it possible that there may be a great deal of rags in
the country which are not saved. The rags actually saved
up are collected, but there is a great loss in people not sav-
ing and preserving them. He considers that there is a very
large quantity of rags lost, wasted, or destroyed ; he de-
clares, in fact, that he knows of the existence, among all
classes, of a great deal of improvidence in the matter,
though he does not see any means of preventing it him-
self. In answer to the question, whether, if a higher
price were offered for rags, much that is now wasted or
destroyed would not be preserved, Mr. Wrigley state I
that he did not think it would have any practical
effect whatever ; and this for the following rea-
sons : —The price which the rag-collector at present gives
to the housekeeper is so very small that any advance which
could be offered, compatible with a reasonable price for
paper, would have no appreciable value with the house-
keeper. He is, therefore, decidedly of opinion that if any-
thing in this direction is to be done, if anything like a
greater tendency to save rags is to be effected, it must be
done rather as a matter of duty than as a matter of pecu-
niary interest by those who save the rags. The rag trade,
as at present constituted, is in its first stage ; a mere barter
trade; a thing carried on between the wives and chil-
dren of the labouring puor and the rag-collector ; a trade
in which toys and toffey, and crockery, and things of that
sort, are bartered for old rags, so that there is no tell-
ing the amount of the price given for them in a great
many cases. In his second examination Mr. Wrigley
again expressed his conviction that the high price
of rags was not owing to the imperfect collection but to the
deficient saving of rags, and that the evil really, or at least
chiefly, lies in the neglect and waste, as regards this mat-
ter, of domestic establishments generally.
The evidence of Mr. Henry Bruce, paper-maker, at Kin-
leath, near Edinburgh, contradicts more in appearance than
in reality Mr. "Wrigley's statement that the collection of rags
in this country is as perfect as it can be. Mr. Bruce, when
asked whether the populations of France and Belgium, in
proportion to their number, did not manufacture more rags
than the population of England, replied that he did not think
so many, but that they were better collected, owing to labour
being so much cheaper abroad than in England. What is a
consideration to a Belgian or a French peasant would be
but a very trifling remuneration to an English labourer.
Mr. Bruce's conclusion deduced from these facts, that there
is at present a waste of rags from which paper could be
manufactured in England owing to the high price of labour,
and the high price that would be incurred by a more com-
plete system of collection—conclusions modified by the
statement that by no means which the papermaker can em-
ploy is he able to save the material from being wasted—
differed, we repeat, little in substance from Mr. Wrigley's
evidence.

Mr. Thomas Harris Saunders, papermaker, at Dartford,
in Kent, in answer to the general question, Whether there
is any raw material wasted in this country, so that rags are
not sufficiently collected, is inclined to say, Certainly not ;
as a rule, the rags are always better collected in large towns
and cities, for the obvious reason that in sparsely populated
districts the picking up of rags in small quantities does not
pay. Mr. Saunders mentions that in his district the mode
of collection is the same as that referred to by Mr. Wrigley,
that the rags are collected generally by people who go about
from house to house, and that they are then taken to the
marine-store dealers.

On the question whether the paper manufacturers in
France and other continental countries are in a better posi-
tion with respect to the collection of rags than paper-makers
in England, the evidence of Mr. John Evans, a partner in the
firm of John Dickinson and Co., of Nash Mills, Hemel
Hampstead, Herts, is directly opposed to that already
given, which attributes a greater superiority in the conti-
nental system of collecting rags, owing to the low price of
labour. Mr. Evans states that, both from what he has seen
in France, and from what he has gathered from Frenchmen,
he is led to believe that the alleged superiority does not
exist. The prices paid by Frenchmen for the collection are
small, and therefore there is not the same encouragement
to collect them ; and, in the second place, the system of
chiffonniers, of which so much has been said by the praisers
of the French system, is only carried out in two or three
arge towns, the consequence being that a large quantity of
rags remains uncollected in country places.
Mt. Collet Dobson Collet takes, as might be expected
from the secretary to the Association for the repeal of the
Taxes on Knowledge, a much brighter view than most of
the other witnesses of the prospects of the rag supply in con-
nection with the paper trade. He considers that the supply
of rags to be obtained in this country is capable of very im-
portant increase, and quotes for this opinion the authority
of Mr. Baldwin, of Birmingham, who on ene occasion made
a special inquiry into the number of families who saved
their rags for the paper-makers, and who found that out of
100 families there were only 40 who did so. He maintains,
in consequence, that the quantity of rags to be obtained
in England is a mere question of trouble and of price—
of price, as determining the interest which people have in
collecting rags. At the present time, Mr. Collet remarks,
when the working classes of this country are very badly
off, their children look to the rag-collector to supply them
with toys. If the working classes were well off, the chil-
dren would look to their parents instead. With reference
to the statement made on Mr. Baldwin's authority that 60
per cent. of the rags produced it. this country are alto-
gether lost for paper-making purposes, Mr. Collet was re-
quested by the committee to suggest some means for econo-
mising the collection of rags, and for saving this great waste.
He thought, however, that it would be rather an imperti-
nence on his part to suggest any such means, having no
doubt that if the paper trade wanted rags they would get
them ; if they really were suffering from a scarcity means
would be taken to obtain them ; if the means were not taken
there could be no great scarcity in rags.
If implicit reliance might be placed upon Mr. Collet's
statement, that at present only 40 per cent. of the rags in
the country are saved for mercantile purposes, the question
of our dependence on foreign rags would be very easily
settled. We are told by Mr. Wrigley that the deficiency of
material required for the consumption of paper. makers in
this country amounts to about 22 or 23 per cent. ; that last
year we purchased abroad 16,000 tons of rags, our consump-
tion being about 70,000 tons of standard material, which
we consume for white paper ; the deficiency is therefore
nearly 23 per cent. It ought to be borne in mind that in
speaking of 70,000 tons of " standard material," Mr.
Wrigley felt the necessity of having some standard in his
own mind, from the great varieties in quality, and he there-
fore put the standard material as one of the higher classes,
requiring one ton and a third of rags to make one out of
paper. The coot of other materials is valued in reference
to this standard. But taking this valuation it still appears
that whilst the actual deficiency to be supplied by foreign
rags amounts to 23 per cent., the quantity of available
native rags might, assuming the accuracy of Mr. Collet's
evidence, be more than doubled.