The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-12 00:00:00

ti int

LONDON :
FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 12, 1842.

We shall take advantage of the interest now excited
by the conduct of the workmen in the manufacturing
districts to lay before our readers a few extracts
from Dr. COOKE TA ILOR'S " Notes of a Tour" in
those districts, recently published, which may just
now be peculiarly attractive. We scarcely need
quote any illustrations of the deep misery into which
the workpeople are plunged, as many such have of
➢ate been published ; yet, to strengthen them, and to show
to what the people have been driven, let us add this
piece :

" In all I visited at Colne S 3 dwellings, selected at
hazard. They were destitute of furniture, save with
boxes for tables and stools, and even large stones for
ea-airs. The beds were composed of straw and shavings,
sometimes with torn pieces of carpet or packing canvas
fer a covering., and sometimes without any kind of co-
vering whatever. The food was oatmeal and water for
breakfast, flour and water, with a little skimmed milk,
for dinner, oa,meal and water for a third supply with
those wha went through the form of eating three
meals da.v. I was informed in fifteen families
that their children went without the blue midi,'
cu. from which the cream had been taken,
tr. alternate days. I was an eyewitness to children
appeasing the cravings of the stomach by the refuse of
'decayed vegetables in the root market. I saw a woman
in the very last stage of extenuation suckling. an infant,
which could scarcely draw a tingle drop of nutriment
from her exhausted breast. I inquired the child's age ?
Fifteen months. Why it was not weaned ?—Another
mouth would be added to the number of those
for whom the present supply of oatmeal was insufficient.
I was told that there had been several instances of death
by sheer starvation. On asking why application had
not been made to the parish for relief, • I was informed
that they were persons from the agricultural districts,
who, on committing an act of vagrancy, would be sent
to their parishes, and that they had rather endure any
thing, in the hope of some manufacturing revival, than
return to the condition of farm labourers, from which
they had emerged."
We have seen several other proofs of the fact last
stated, and we doubt not its correctness. A few
labourers in a district having no right to relief, or
having from some cause an invincible repugnance to
receive it, and being at the same time willing and
anxious to work, will suffice, by their importunities
for work when employment is scarce, to beat down
the wages of labour. So the influx of Irish into
England has tended to degrade our population to the
Irish standard of comfort, and so the immigration of
labourers from the agricultural districts has :ton-
tribitted to beat down wages there, though things
are much dearer, to the few shillings per week which
is the reward of farm labourers in the southern
and western counties of England. Such a circum-
stance, now in operation for four years, explains the
terrible state of destitution to which that population
has been reduced, and the patience with which they
have submitted to the reducing process. They have
been consenting, if not willing, parties to their om n
degradation.
Now Comes, however, what appears to be an almost
general attempt to diminish wages still further. It
has been made, almost simultaneously, in the col-
lieries of Scotland and of Staffordshire, and in the
factories of Lancashire. At present, the work people
axe as well informed as we arc of whatever happens
interesting to them.
" intelligence," says Dr. C. Taylor, " seems
to be propagated, in this district, with great rapidity.
The mail, bringing the account of Mr. Ferrand's pro-
postal grant, had arrived that morning. I had not seen
a paper, but I received a very furl account of the debate,
in a bo,bt, at the outskirts of the town, which contained
neither bed, chair, nor table ; and I heard it mentioned
in a score of other places." •
The workmen, therefore, arc well aware of the
general reduction of wages, and are at the same time
convinced that a further reduction would be starva-
tion. They are well aware, too, that in such a case
they can expect nothing from the Government.
They know that Goverturitnt will not interfere, and
they see no_ alternative,. sati and erroneous though it
be, but to Ley and help thelinselves by refusing 'to
warlz any They. are Pht.rialY aware, too, we
believe, that they are very moat depqadent on one
another, au4 must stand by mkt other. • We quote a
baeahin anecdote frozq 4T.:100,13 for the Bake of

the truth which is deduced from it. Speaking of
Marsden, he says :
"I must add a noble trait. I went into the house of a
widow, who had three children ; she was one of the
moat intelligent, naturallypolite, persons I ever saw. She
told me that the earnings of herself and two of her chil-
dren amounted, together, to about eleven shillings per
week ; and, that though they had once been better off,
they felt themselves comparatively happy whea they
contrasted their condition with that of their neighbours.
I remained with her for some time, and, on parting, of-
fered her a shilling for the trouble I had given. No,
Sir,' she replied, I cannot take your money_ while
there are many so much worse off around me. Al-
low me to send it to a family suffering from
sickness as well as want,' and forthwith she sent
her daughter with the shilling to the house whose mi-
sery she had been describing. Throughout the entire
of the district, I found the most distressed dwell inva-
riably on the assistance which they received from their
neighbours. We must have penshed, but for the cla-
rity of our neighbours,' was a phrase whieh met us
everywhere, and invariably I found on inquiry that their
neighbours were very little better off than themselves."

All the working classes, then, have a community of
interest and of feeling, and though their manners
be rude, they are sensible of it. In Ashton and
Manchester they know what has been done in
Staffordshire and Scotland; they see, when a similar
rule is applied to themselves, the proof of a. gene-
ral design to crush them, and, already reduced to
the last extremity of want, they stand out to
resist it. If the feeling amongst them was not
general, it would have bee 4 impossible for a few
to have turned out tt
ie hands of almost every mill
in Manchester, A few Chartists, Socialists, and
others, have heretofore endeavoured to rouse them
with(Vdt effect ; nay, with so little effect that we
have heard mill-owners well acquainted with the ma-
nufacturing districts, assert that, were the masters
not to interfere, the orderly, well-disposed workmen
would of themselves instantly put down every at-
tempt to provoke disorder. Now, however, a further
general reduction of wages is apprehended, and the
bulk of the workmen offer no resistance to the
turn-outs.

We cannot attribute the reduction of wages, on
which undoubtedly the turn-out has begun, to any
other cause than sheer necessity.
"It is pretty well known," says the Manchester
Guardian, "to most parties at all conversant with the
trade of this district, that the manufacturers by power,
and especially those who were engaged in the fabrica-
tion of printed cloths have been for some time past
carrying on an exceedingly unprofitable business. In
fact they have generally sustained serious losses ; and
many of the looms have been entirely stopped."
" When capital," says Dr. C. Taylor, "is involved,
and the cotton manufacture demands a vast amount of
investment, it must be worked or must be destroyed." " The
wealth invested in a factory is utterly inapplicable to any
other purpose ; it must be worked for the special manu-
facture for which it was originally devoted or be wholly
lost. The machinery of a cotton mill cannot be applied
to grinding corn, cutting nails, or sawing timber ; it
will spin yarn, and it will do nothing else. The manu-
facturers must continue to produce, or cease to exist ;
they will go on to the very last, hoping against hope,
forcing a sale here, and making a sacrifice there, till
their capitals are exhausted."
Thus the factory owner is clearly and palpably de-
pendent on his workmen, and he will rarely or never
run the risk of stopping his mill by any reduction of
wages which is not forced on him. \Ve look, there-
fore, on the proposed reduction as the consequence of
a necessity ; business has lately been unprofitable, the
Income-tax will make it still worse, and, therefore,
the masters try to save themselves by reducing wages.
That the reduction of wages is not the result of the
machinations of the Anti-Corn-law League, as has
been wantonly asserted, is clear, for it was begun by
the coal-owners, over whom the League has no influ-
ence, and was first carried into effect by those who are
closely connected with the landed interest. The sup-
position in truth is absurd, as well as wanton, for the
mill-owners of the League would lose 10/ by a
quarrel with their workmen for every 1/. they could
gain by the total abolition of the Corn-laws.

‘;‘,7.
c"
'F3 ...frot-N7/00,41Tja.v0ic..74-1",