LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WOOLLEN WEAVERS 659
that, when employment was scarce, the fully trained weavers A.D. 1776
. . —1850.
should endeavour to take a stand upon their legal rights, and >
insist that only duly qualified men should be set to work,
The clothiers, on the other hand, would have been unwilling to
dismiss good workmen in order to take on men, who had served
an apprenticeship, but who were not better workmen than
the others. The complaints of the weavers received very full
consideration from Parliament, but it was not possible in the
then state of public opinion to comply with their demands,
The House of Commons decided to set aside the necessity of eg
i . . . aside tem-
apprenticeship, first tentatively®, and then permanently, in the porarily
clothing trades®. There were somewhat similar difficulties
in other trades, from the manner in which the apprenticeship
system was carried out‘; and Parliament was petitioned to
render the old system more effectual ; but when the question
had been once raised, it became clear that the House of
Commons was in favour of settling it in another fashion.
Still, no immediate action was taken; a Select Committee
was appointed to take evidence, with the result that the
chairman's view of the case was entirely altered; he had
been in favour of sweeping away the legal enforcement of the
apprenticeship system, but he was convinced by what he
heard, that this would be a serious wrong in all sorts of trade,
that it would tend to a deterioration in the quality of goods,
necessary ; a Youth from Sixteen to Eighteen Years of Age would learn the Art
of Weaving in Twelve Months. That he has some persons now in his Employ-
ment that have been actually engaged for Seven Years, but does not by any means
consider them as more competent workmen than others who have not been
apprenticed for so long a Time; the Consequence of being obliged to employ
none but legally apprenticed Weavers must reduce the Business to One-tenth of
its present Extent; That he knows of no legal Weavers now out of Employment,
in consequence of others who have not been legally apprenticed being employed ;
on the contrary Weavers are wanted: That he apprehends Nine tenths of the
present workmen would be thrown out of employ if the Statute of the Fifth of
Elizabeth, Chapter Four, should be enforced.” Reports, 1802-8, v. 305.
1 The weavers of Yorkshire, who regarded apprenticeship as the bulwark of
the domestic system and desired to maintain it against the encroachments of the
factory system, hed not really adhered to the Statute of Elizabeth, as the Trustees
of the Cloth Halls at Leeds had allowed the custom of five years’ apprenticeship
“0 spring up, in place of the seven years demanded by law. Reports (Woollen
Yanufacture), 1806, mx. 581, printed pagination 13.
% 43 Geo. IIL. ¢. 136 and continuing Acts. 8 49 Geo. IIL. ec. 109.
+ See above on the calico printers, p. 641, also Reports (Committee on Ap-
prentice Laws), 1812-13. rv. 991.
AY
