LAISSEZ FAIRE 
56 
A.D. 1778 
=1850. 
Henry VIII and James I had arisen in connection with 
weaving, and the remedy adopted had been that of putting 
pressure on the capitalists to give employment. But this 
principle could not be applied in the wool famine at the close 
of the eighteenth century. The failure of spinning was a 
more widely diffused and serious evil than the distress among 
tn 1798 the the weavers had been. The art had been very successfully 
orien. introduced into most parts of the country, and offered a by- 
ranted occupation for women and children, which was an essential 
rom the part of the domestic economy. Spinning had been the main- 
stay of many households, and when it declined, numbers of 
families, which had hitherto been independent, were unable 
bo support themselves without help from the rates’. The 
Berkshire justices, whose example in dealing with the difficulty 
was widely followed, did not see their way to set higher rates 
for agricultural labour or artisan employments, but tried to 
grant allowances in lieu of the receipts from spinning, and 
thus supplemented the wages of the labourers. This ex- 
pedient might have answered if the depression had been 
merely temporary ; but it could not stay the course of progress 
which was making itself felt. Indeed, the allowance system 
probably accelerated the changes. By relieving distress and 
preventing agitation it smoothed the way for the introduction 
of jennies and power spinning. The idler part of the women 
were quite content to receive parochial relief as a regular 
thing, and even destroyed their wheels”. 
Hand-jennies did the work well, and they were not 
very costly, as they did not involve the use of water or 
to spinning Steam power; employers could have the spinning done under 
by emet supervision on their own premises, and the new implements 
steadily superseded the immemorial methods of work in 
cottages. This was the most important step, so far as its 
social effects were concerned, in the introduction of machinery 
in the cloth manufacture. So long as the spindle, or the 
wheel, was in vogue, spinning was practised as a by-occupation 
1 The occasional dependence of spinners on aid from the rates had heen 
noticed in 1766 at Chippenham and Calne, Arthur Young (Annals, vo. 66). He 
also remarks that spinning was regarded as a manufacture which brought ‘ the 
burthen of enormous poor charges.” Ib. v. 221, also 420, and see above, p. 638. 
3 Annals of Agriculture, 3Xv. 635.