CALICO PRINTERS AND OVERSTOCKING WITH APPRENTICES 641 
one time, and only two journeymen?; it was obvious that ADE 
under such circumstances, the man who had served his time 
had very little hope of obtaining employment. The usual 
contract of apprenticeship in the trade was very one-sided?; 
the masters were careful to safeguard themselves against any 
loss which arose from the unskilfulpess of the boys, and 
retained a right of dismissal; while the boys were compelled 
to work for the full period of seven years, at wages which 
were very much lower than those which journeymen would 
have demanded®. The Elizabethan custom of apprenticeship and over. 
was maintained, but in a form which was very oppressive oy a 
towards the apprentices, and most injurious to the adult Prentice 
workmen. A bill was introduced into Parliament for limiting 
the proportion of apprentices to journeymen, and insisting 
that there should be proper indentures for each apprentices, 
There was an interesting debate on the second reading, when 
Mr Moore® expressed strong views as to the duty of the State 
towards the artisan population, and Sheridan® vigorously 
advocated the cause of the journeymen. But, as might have 
been expected, the principles of laissez faire prevailed; the 
bill was dropped, and no other remedy for the admitted evil 
was attempted. The whole story presents some very curious 
features, and it is difficult to follow the course of the transition?; 
1 This was in 1794; this extraordinary disproportion appears to have been 
due to wholesale dismissals of journeymen in periods of slack trade (Reports, etc., 
Calico Printers, 1803-4, v. 594). At the same mill in 1803 there were 51 journey- 
men to 44 apprentices. Jb. 599. 
$ Report, Calico Printers, 1806, mx. 1130. 
3 A boy in his first year was paid 3s. 6d. a week, and employed on work for 
which a journeyman would have been paid £1. 11s. 6d. Reports, Calico Printers, 
1803-4, v. 596. 
4 Public Bills, 1806-7, 1. 207. Compare also the Report on the Minutes of 
Evidence, in Reports, 1806, mx. 1127. 
& “He conceived it the first duty of the government to see that the subjects of 
he realm had bread.” Parl. Debates (23 April, 1807), 1x. 534. 
¢ “What was their complaint? Why, that after having served seven years 
to a business confessedly injurious to their health, and which rendered them 
unfit for any other occupation, they were to be turned loose upon the world, 
supplanted in their employments by whole legions of apprentices, at 12 or 14 years 
of age, for the wages of 4s., 63., or 8s. per week, instead of 253., the usual average 
of the journeyman, by whose previous skill and ingenuity the operations of the 
manufacture were so amplified that children could do the work as well as 
journeymen.” Ib. 535. 
7 It appears that there were no complaints as to the condition of the trade in 
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