DISTRESS OF HAND-LOOM WEAVERS 799
As in the spinning-mills, so in regard to the manufacture of A.D. 1776
. . —1850.
cloth, the wool trade in all its branches appears to have been and suer-
on the whole better conducted than the other trades; but the ed a period
. . : of de-
chief distress was in the West of England’, whence the pression.
migration to Yorkshire was still continuing; in that region
exercise the power of preserving a just remuneration for their labour, there is no
3xcess of hands. The masters everywhere expressed themselves desirous not to
lower wages, fearing that their profits would likewise fall.” See also Jb. 555,
356.
! Mr Austin, one of the assistant commissioners in 1840, reported: Twenty-
three years ago the whole of the preceding great clothing district was in its most
fBourishing condition; the manufacturers were at least twice as numerous as at
the present time, and employment could be had at good wages by all who were
willing to obtain it. About this time the Corn Laws and the Resumption of Cash
Payments Acts were passed; the trade fell off. (One manufacturer states that
25 years ago 200 pieces of cloth were manufactured in a week, and now not above
100. This ruin of the cloth trade following so closely on the heels of the corn
law, was naturally considered as an effect of that law.) Many manufacturers
failed, or gave up business, and the sufferings of the manufacturing labourers, for
want of work, was extreme. The usual measures were resorted to, such as
altering roads and allotments of land (which brought many to permanent out-door
work), charitable donations, ete. Af that time parish relief was also among the
means of subsistence within their reach; the number of weavers gradually
diminished, but there are still one-third more than the trade requires, or is likely
to require. Power-looms are not extensively used in this district, and have not
been the cause directly or indirectly of lowering the wages (which in fact have
remained stationary for many years); but it is to be feared that their intro-
fuction into the neighbouring county (Gloucestershire), and the effect produced
on the wages there, will ere long be felt in this part of the country.” Reports,
1840, xxmrr. 277. In the progress of society the introduction of more powerful
methods of production was inevitable, and cannot be a matter for regret; the
attractive power of capital and the higher wages it offered had broken up the old
system, and the misery which followed was chiefly due to extraneous causes, for
ihe large mill-owners never initiated a decline of wages. ‘A reduction of wages,”
according to Mr Hickson, “is never the act of a prosperous manufacturer trading
to the full extent of his capital. It begins with those whose capital would other.
wise be idle and with the unemployed. A weaver having tried in vain to obtain
work at the old standard of wages offers his labour at a lower rate and thereby
tempts the manufacturer to make up stock for which there is no immediate
demand. When the weaver does not succeed even on these terms in procuring
employment, his next attempt is to manufacture upon a small scale on his own
account. * * * The weaver in Ireland having no capital on which to fall back,
cannot hold his little stock, as a large manufacturer would do, but is obliged to
sell at a sacrifice, and by so doing brings down prices and the value of the labour
more rapidly and to a lower point than ever happens in this country. In England
wages though slow to rise are as slow to fall. The large manufacturer is the first
to gain the advantage of an improvement in trade, but losses on stock upon which
full wages have been paid in the hope of prices which cannot be realized, fall
exclusively upon himself. If is true he then sets about a reduction of wages
but before he can effect it perhaps trade revives and prices show a tendency to
advance. he is induced to go on as before.” (Reports, 1840, xxv. 660.)
