COTTON WEAVERS AND WAGES ASSESSMENT 633 
she action of other causes, the weavers sank rapidly from a ADTs 
condition of unusual comfort into one of terrible privation. ’ 
During the peace which preceded the Revolutionary War, the 
manufacture had been rapidly developed, and had been in 
part taken up by speculators who produced recklessly?, As tre cotton 
a consequence the payments for cotton weaving rose to an enjoyed 
unprecedented figure®. The attraction of the rates offered was 
30 great that labour was drawn from other employments; it, temeoranly 
was only by agreeing to raise wages that farmers could obtain 
the necessary hands®. As Dr Gaskell writes, “ Great numbers 
of agricultural labourers deserted their occupations, and a 
new race of hand-loom weavers, which had undergone none of 
the transitions of the primitive manufacturers were the 
product of the existing state of things. This body of men 
was of a still lower grade in the social scale than the original 
weavers, had been earning a much less amount of wages, and 
had been accustomed to be mere labourers, The master 
spinners therefore found them ready to work at an- inferior 
price, and thus discovered an outlet for their extra quantity 
of yarn. This at once led to a great depreciation in the 
price of hand-loom labour, and was the beginning of that 
train of disasters which has finally terminated in reducing 
t “Tt has arisen in this way, that people having very little or no capital, have 
been induced to begin by the prospects held out to them, perhaps by people in 
London, and when they have got the goods into the market, they have been 
sbliged to sell them for less than they cost, or without regard to the first cost, and 
his hag injured the regular trade more than anything else. I think,*** when the 
regular Manufacturer finds that he cannot sell the goods at the price they cost, heis 
sompelled to lower his wages. * * * Perhaps three, four or five (of the new persons) 
may be insolvent every year in the neighbourhood (of Bolton), and when they 
some to be examined before their Creditors, it turns out the cause of their 
insolvency is, the goods being sold for less than they cost” (Mr Ainsworth’s 
svidence, Reports, etc., Journeymen Cotton Weavers, 1808, ir. p. 102). See also 
the Report on Manufactures, Commerce, etc., in 1883. “Trade at present requires 
industry, economy and skill. During the war, profits were made by plunges, by 
peculation.” Reports, 1833, vi. 27, printed pag. 28. 
? Owing to the plentiful supply of cotton yarn, weavers were attracted from 
woollen to cotton. Annals of Agriculture, xvi. 423. 
8 Reports, 1808, 11.119. Mr Atherton said that the wages of agricultural labourers 
near Bolton, which were from 3s. to 8s. 6d. a day in 1808, rose at the time when 
weavers’ wages were high; “they rose up from 2s. 4d. a day when wages were so 
‘hat we (weavers) could get a good living; at that time people would not work out- 
work, if they could get Weaving.” * The pay of agricultural labour is much higher 
than it has been, owing to a great many cotton mannfactories being erected in this 
county’ (Cumberland in 1795). Annals of Agriculture. xxIv. 318.