334 
LAISSEZ FAIRE 
A.D. 1776 
—1850. 
those who have kept to it to a state of starvation.” The 
good times did not last, however; the interruptions caused 
by the war reduced the opportunities for employment. Not 
only was there a danger, which was severely felt during the 
war of 1812, of an interruption of the supplies of material for 
the spinners, and consequent diminution of the demand for 
weaving, but times of peace brought no corresponding advan- 
tage to weavers, though they benefited the spinners. English 
yarn was exported and woven by German manufacturers, so 
that there was little market on the continent for English 
woven cloth®. The wages paid in the overcrowded trade fell 
to lower and lower rates. In 1808 the cotton weavers seem to 
have worked for about a half of the wages they had received 
eight years before’, and the depression continued to get 
worse and worse’. This newly developed and suddenly dis- 
tressed industry was the field on which the battle, between 
the old method of regulating wages and the new system of 
depending on competition, was to be fought out. 
The first attempt at affording any sort of relief was made 
immediately after the tide of prosperity had turned. The 
The arti. Arbitration Act of 1800° was intended to provide a cheap 
ration Act : . 
1800 and summary mode of settling disputes. It empowered the 
weavers and their employers to go before Arbitrators in 
case of any difference as to wages, and arranged that the 
rates thus fixed should be enforced; but this proved in- 
operative; the general uncertainty which affected the trade 
rendered the scheme nugatory. Prices could not be main- 
tained, and the masters again and again lowered wages, with 
disastrous effects. The diminution of wages® only tended to 
. Gaskell, Artisans and Machinery (1836), 84. 
+ Radcliffe, New System of Manufacture, p. 49 fol. 
3 Reports, 1808, mm. 103. It is difficult to calculate precisely, as the length of the 
piece was increased, while the wages decreased and the outgoings were heavier 
proportionally on the lower wages. For the piece (two weeks’ work) in 1797, fifty 
shillings was paid, and in 1808, only eighteen shillings. Ib. 116. 
4 See the figures in Baines, op. cit. 489: * Fluctuation was a greater evil 
perhaps than the lowness of the rate; previous to that period (1811) fluctuations 
to the extent of 30 per cent. took place in the course of a month in the price of 
labour.” Reports (Artisans and Machinery), 1824, v. 60. 
5 40 Geo. IIL. ¢. 90. 
8 It also affected the home demand prejudicially; with starvation wages, 
\abourers could not buy cloth so largely. Brentano, Anfang und Ende der 
englischen Kornzolle, p. 13. 
but were 
s00n 
reduced to 
recerving 
starvation 
rates of 
pay.