Star.
London, England, 1819-08-10 00:00:00

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LONDON.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1819.
THE FUNDS.

TRICK OF STOCKS THIS DAY AT ONR O'CLOCK
Bank Stock 2321
3 per Cent. Reduced 1214
3 per Cent. Consols 71i 721 •
ner Cent. 811 821---1 9er Cent. soi 9111
5 per Cent. Navy 101! 105 1044
Bank Long Annuities 19 3-16
India Stock 222,-India Bonds 11 13 pre.
Exchequer Bills (2J.) 1 3 pre.
Omnium 4(5 4.1 51 re.
Consols for Acct. 71 7:2 713 7211.

We have another letter frOm the " Manchester
Manufacturer" to lay before, our Readets, but 'we
must first notice an observation of The Morning Chro-
nicle of this clay, on the intelligence which we com-
municated yesterday, of the Ileritors (Landholders)
of the Barony Parish, Glasgow, having resolved that
an aid shall be given to the Weavers who now have
work in hand, at vo./ges which do not yield 9s.
weekly, to make up to them that sum, till they have
`finished the work now in their looms ; but that no
work shall be taken in hand by those now out of em-
ployment, or by those who now have work in hand,
after they have finished the same, at prices which
will not yield them 9s. weekly.
The Paper alluded to praises the benevolent feelings
which prompted this Resolution. " But," adds The
Chronicle, " it is impossible to disguise the fact, that
it is a commencement in Scotland of the system of
making .up to the workmen the deficiency of his
wages out of the parish-rates." In this remark our
contemporary shews less attention than he usually
bestows upon the premises from which he draws his
conclusion. The fact is directly the reverse of what
be has stated. In England it has become a regular
system for the masters to pay their workmen only;
part of the remuneration due to them for their labour,
and to send them to the parish for the remainder
and in Scotland some of the masters have been labour-
ing to introduce the same system. But, " No!" say
the Landholders round Glasgow, by the Resolution
they have come to—. No! you shall not be permitted
to establish this pernicious system among us: you
have, it is true, by taking advantage of the distresses
of the workmen, compelled them to undertake work
at wages inadequate for their maintenance; but you
are mistaken if you think we will suffer this to continue.
We know that the people must be maintained when
employment cannot be obtained ; but we know also,
that you would not give work to those wham you do
employ brit from the hope of the profits that you ex-,
pect from the sale of their products; and we have
resolved that no longer, by any artifice of yours, will
we permit you to draw any part of your profits from
our pockets, by making us pay any portion of the
wages of your workmen in the shape of Poors-rates„
You shall either pay your workmen wages adequate
to their maintenance, or you shall not have them to
work for you. Rather than submit to pay them part of
their wages white you get their whole work, we will take
their whole work and pay them their whole wages.
We will not, however, punish those workmen whom
you have bound in an iniquitous contract to finish
certain pieces of goods now in hand at inadequate
prices ; for even to those who you say are in employ-
ment we will up what you ought in justice to
pay them—but only till they shall have fulfilled their
present contracts, and no longer : no, not for a single
day ; for you shall have no more of their labours at
prices inadequate to maintain the workmen." This is
the reasoning or these enlightened men, and we are
surprised that 77,:: Morning Chronicle did not see to
what it must Lead should it be generally adopted
and acted upon.
But let us confine ourselves to the neighbourhood in
which the Resolution has been adopted, and we can-
not mistake the result : in three or four weeks at
farthest all the fabrics now in hand will be got out
of the loom in succession—how then will the wage.'
breaking masters stand? They must stand still, or
agree to give such wages for the work they may
afterwards give out, as will enable the workmen to
live, without the necessity of being a burden to their
neighbours. The conclusion is inevitable.
We will now lay before our Readers the letter from
the " Manchester Manufacturer," alluded to above,
to which we subjoin a letter from a Spitalfields Ma-
nufacturer, controverting some of the opinions ad-
vanced by Mr. lIALEs (see the STAR of Friday last),
but concurring in the perfect conviction that there is
nothing in the trade of the country to preventfair prices
being given to the workmen. This is what we contend
for ; and we maintain that, let this conviction once
become general, and there will then be an end to the
principal sufferings of the mar.ufacturing workmen.
Among our intelligence from the Manufacturing
Districts, we have also given some Resolutions come
to by the Frame-work Knitters at Leicester and at
Nottingham, as bearing directly on the important
question now under discussion:
" MANCHESTER, AUGUST 7.
u Sin—l hope you will excuse my troubling you
to insert in your valuable Paper the following facts:
o a was in-fortned on Thursday, by a very respee-
tac manufacturer near Stand, in Pilkington, that if

something was not done to stay the hand of the op-
pressing manufacturers, he and others would decline
business altogether. For whatever the first rate ma-
nufacturers gave, they had a set of men amongst
them who would hive their' goods wove for Is. per
piece less. Indeed they now only give 21d. per yard
for weaving what they paid 7d. for twenty years ago.
" A similar line of conduct is also pursued in va-
rious other branches of the cotton manufactory in
the surrounding neighbourhood—one of the State:
tinkering sycophants of the ignorant, who lives within
the sound of Prestwich church bells, and who ma-
nufactures checks, &c. gives 6d. to Is. less for weav-
ing 64 yards, than any respectable house in Man-,
tirester does for 58 to 61 yards, which is two to 3i
per cent. less on sale price of the goods. This pesti-
lent fellow is perpetually railing against Ministers,
whilst I.e is the Minister of oppression and distress to

those who work for him.
" Some of the Bolton knowing ones have 'trotted'
too fast on the same road, and have nearly run the
weavers off the way of life, but the Ashton Youths'
infancy and fine work, have out-stripped all who
have run in the same way ; they now give 6s. for fine
fancy weaving, and when it first came out it was
421., and so late as nine months ago they gave 24.5.
A highly respectable house here, has long given 9s.
per dozen for 6.4 shawls, and before they would re.
duce the price of weaving, have given up the article
altogether, while the Ashton gentry have secured the
II trade by paying ls. 9d. per dozen only, for weaving:
just enough for pin-winding, dressing, kc. and 3d.
per week to spare for white sand and ling bosoms.
"Your numerous readers must excuse my warmth:
" On such a theme, 'tis impious to be calm,
" Passion is reason, transport temper here !"
66 Some calico manufacturers have been so exorbi-
tant in their expectations, that they have asked 3s.
advance on prices obtained the second Tuesday in
July—want 3s.—and kindly give the weaver '3d.!—
a striking contrast between self-interest and sympa-
thizing acts of kindness to weavers.—Alas, poor
weaver! nothing can give thee security for future
subsistence but Legislative enactment !!!
" The oppressing manufacturer knows what he is
doing—sees the extreme want and the depth of rni•
sery to which he has reduced those by which he lives.
And yet in act he says—oppression of the poor be
thou my good—let individuals be ground to dust—
let other manufacturers sink to rise no more—let the
pallid-cheeked weavers become a mass of paupers—
let devastation spread on every hand—let nations
and empires fall—if Imy ends obtain ! !—Stop, stop
thou monster of oppression►—what ultimate good
canst thou derive from thy nefarious practices—what
good can result to these districts, or tothe nation, in
suffering such a man, or such men as thee to proceed
your own way ? Good—no good, bat evil in all
its odious forms, whether of a commercial, political,
civil, moral, or'religious nature !

" A MANUFACTURER:

" TO TIIE EDITOR OF THE STAR.
" August 6. 1319.

" Sta—Although I cannot expect the valuable ctlumns of
your I'aper to be appropriated to a controversy on the policy of
the present Regulations of the Spit Afield' Manufacture, yet as
the latter of Mr. Max, Insetted in your Paper of to-day, is
likely to attract notice, I trust you will permit an attempt to
remove some false impressions which may be made on the pub-
lic mind by its perusal: and as the existing distress among large
bodies of the manufacturing poor of other districts, and the cora-

parative ease of the Spitalfieccis weavers, give great present ad-
vantage to the views of legislative intelfercnce which that Gen-
tleman is well known to entertain, and might lead to a belief
that a similar remedy Is the only one for the unjust and unne-
cessary reduction of wages in other manufactures, it becomes of
more importance that the arguments and facts he adduces should

be correctly understood.
" I cannot look upon the Act which regulates weaving in

Spitalfields as securing to the industrious journeyman what
may be considered R fair price for his labour,' so much as a
measure of very unequal and injurious operation, securing the
same wages alike to bad and good workmen, to the youth of 15
or 20, and to the experienced journeyman, often occasioning the
discharge of workmen, when a temporary reduction of wages
would enable their masters to continue them in employment,
being instrumental in destroying our foreign trade, and as tend-
ing to repress all improvements and ingenuity.
" Mr. Hale states the average amount of the earnings of his
journeymen to be from Iss. to 16s. per week; and I have no
doubt he is accurate. But the statement, in the form he has
given it, is calculated to mislead your• Readers into an opinion
that whatever may be said against regulation of prices by law, it
cannot in this instance be alleged that high wages are the conse-
quence. In fact, it is not the whole truth. He does not say
bow many of his hands are children and apprentices, working
for the account of their parents and masters.
. .

The average earnings of the hands employed by the estab-
lishment to which I belong I find to be 15s. 6d. per week; and
as a large proportion of the goods we manufacture are of a low
description, nearly one-half of them are made by women and
children, many of whose husbands or masters are at the tame
time employed by us or other manufacturers on richer and bet-
ter paid articles. Such as average will, therefore, at once ap-
pear a very unfair criterion of a poor family's means of support.
Of our workpeople, eighty-eight are single hands ; forty-nine fa-
milies have two looms each, twenty-four have three looms, five
have four looms, and two have five looms. Taking, therefore,
the above average, the gains of our Weavers will stand thus:
2,ighty hands gain each, per week £0 15 6

Forty-eine families, ditto ......... ............ 1 11 0
Twenty-four ditto, ditto 2 6 6
Five ditto, ditto 3 I 0
Two ditto, ditto
" Comparati►ely, ►ery few families depend upon the produce
of one loom; wages In the Silk-manufacture do not therefore
staid exactly in the same place u those of most other trades.
" I will not trouble you on the general question of the policy
or intpolisy of wages being settled by public aut►ority, after the
unanimous opinion expressed on this subject by thebest-informed
Wyatt., of the House of Commons, when a Bill was last
Session presented for esti:adios to Weer places the Spitalfteds