DISTRESS OF HAND-LOOM WEAVERS 793 
fabrics woven by power at a somewhat dearer rate than the AD Lo 
productions of the hand-loom (taking into consideration the 
cost of machinery, repairs, and the wages of the workers); 
but the power-loom manufacturer, as before explained, can 
execute an order with certainty and despatch, from the 
regularity of his process; while the employer of cottage 
weavers can never tell within a fortnight or three weeks 
when every web sent out to the neighbouring villages will be 
returned. This disadvantage is partly overcome by assembling aud o 
the weavers in factories, and requiring them to work under regularity 
superintendence. The system is also favourable to a large ety, 
manufacturer, in protecting him, to some extent, against the 
embezzlement of yarn. His property is safe in his own 
possession, and he runs no risk of the work being taken out 
of the loom to be sold or pawned by a dishonest weaver. The 
subjects of wrangling and dispute between his foreman and 
the men are also less numerous upon the factory than upon 
the out-door system. The men have not to lose hours and 
days in dancing attendance upon the foreman’s leisure; and 
the daily inspection of the master enables him to see that his 
directions are understood and followed by all parties’” The 
struggle, which attracted such attention in 1840, was the last 
phase of the contest between cottage-industry and factory- 
industry in the staple manufactures of the country? 
As a consequence, the line, between the distressed weavers so that 
and the others, is to be drawn between those who took out oooh 
materials to weave in their own homes, and those who worked ha of 
in factories, whether at hand- or power-looms. Weaving i 
sheds containing hand-looms were coming to be a common 
appendage to spinning-mills, and these factory hand-loom 
weavers had little to complain of®. The rates of wages per 
piece had kept up, at all events in the West of England 
cloth trade; the trade was on the whole developing, and 
the factory hand-weavers were apparently absorbed as the 
power-loom was introduced. The cottage-weavers suffered, 
however, not so much from low rates of pay as from extreme 
Reports, 1840, xx1v. 683. 
* Many of the cottage weavers were small farmers and emigration offered the 
‘est hope of relieving them. 8. J. Chapman, Lancashire Cotton Industry, 45. 
Accounts, ete., 1839, XLII. 522.