Even

tain and Ireland, and will see how Mem-
bers pledged themselves at the last elec-
tion to stand by the principles of protec-
tion; and when the question again comes
before this House, I will be in my place to
show up the whole party who have desert-
ed from the cause of protection.
the most democratic Gentlemen may have
to go to their constituents-even the Mem-
ber for Nottingham, though I know it is a
very expensive place; but he must take
care to fight the question on constitutional
grounds. I have narrowly watched the
tone of this debate; and it is a most extra-
ordinary circumstance that, during the
whole of the discussion, the representatives
of the manufacturing body have scarcely
been heard. We are told by hon. Gentle-
men that the population is increasing so
rapidly in this country that it is necessary
to extend our manufactures. But before
we do that, it is our duty to inquire what

the moral and social condition of the work-
ing classes. I could go back for the last
sixty years, and bring before the House
some valuable information on this head;
but I will only read one or two extracts
from a debate that took place on the 3rd
of April, 1816. On that occasion, Mr. R.
Gordon said:-
:-

and honourable by character in their poli- | over all the country papers of Great Britical principles-can you look them in the face at this present moment, and say you are conducting yourselves with common honesty? Do not tell me you were bound to reaccept office, and carry those measures in this House. I tell you you were not bound to do so; but that the moment you found yourselves unable to carry out the principles of protection, you were bound as honourable men at once to appeal to the country, and ask the constituencies of England for their approval of your conduct. Now, I believe if the right hon. Baronet had pursued that course at first, he might have rallied around him a great party in the country; but I must tell him that the people of Great Britain and Ireland view with unmitigated disgust his contemptible apostacy and tergiversation. Let me ask you, how has the right hon. Baronet been supported during this discussion? I know that hon. Gentlemen who are on terms of personal friendship with right hon. Mem-has already been done by this House for bers sitting on the Treasury bench, have almost wept for them when they heard them addressing this House-they felt so much for their degraded position. And well they might. I could see hon. Gentlemen who were also apostates from the principles they held at the last election, and who sat on the benches behind them, endeavouring, night after night, to muster courage enough to address the House; but up to this moment their courage, as well as their consciences, have failed. The hon. Member for Bath addressed the House; but he failed for the first time in this House, and the hon. Member for Bolton said a few words; but the democrat was consistent in his principles, and the Conservative was not. Without following this subject any further, I must remark that no man, whatever party he belongs to, in this House, can contend that the House of Commons has any right whatever, either con"About fifteen years ago, I brought in a Bill stitutionally or in common honesty, to de- for the regulation of apprentices in cotton manucide on this question. It is not at all im-factories. At that time they were the description possible that an Address may be moved in of persons most employed in these manufactories. this House to Her Majesty, that she will necessity of some regulation with respect to them. I myself had a thousand of them, and I felt the be graciously pleased to send us where we should have been long since-before our constituents. If that is the case, I now avow the course which I will then pursue. So soon as this division is over, I will obtain the list, and look out the name of every man on this side of the House who shall vote for the Government measure. I shall then go to Peel's coffee-day saidhouse, in Fleet-street; I will there look

"It appears that overseers of parishes in London are in the habit of contracting with the manufacturers of the north for the disposal of their children; and these manufacturers agree to take this manner, waggon loads of these little creatures one idiot for every nineteen sane children. In are sent down to be at the perfect disposal of their new masters."

On the

This was what was called the apprentice-
ship system, and it has been introduced
again under the New Poor Law.
19th of February, 1818, the late Sir R.
Peel thus expressed himself in the House
of Commons:-

It was notorious that children of a very tender age were dragged from their beds some hours before daylight, and confined in the factories ously the opinion of the faculty, that no children of eight or nine years of age can bear this degree of hardship with impunity to their health and constitution."

not less than fifteen hours; and it is also notori

The present Sir Robert Peel on the same

It is proved that children are employed in

Lancashire fifteen hours a day, and after any stoppage, from five in the morning to ten in the evening, seventeen hours; and this often three weeks at a time. On a Sunday they are employed from six in the morning to twelve in cleaning the machinery."

It is in evidence that children are employed at as early an age as five years. That was the origin of the cotton trade in Lancashire; and what have been the results? We are told by manufacturers in this House that they are enjoying even comfort, and making great wages, and that it is necessary for the agriculturists to send their surplus population for the purpose of being employed in the manufacturing districts. You will hear from the evidence of a manufacturer who was once a Member of this House what were the sufferings of the manufacturing population. This gentleman, in 1831, said

that Mr. Gregg says; and he adds that the people in Manchester are in a state bordering on savage life. Dr. Shuttleworth continues

"The moral check has no influence in prevent

ing the rapid increase of population. The exist-
ence of cheap and redundant labour in the market
has a tendency to reduce its general price."
That is what the League are aiming at.
They want to be be able to beat down
Dr. Cooke Taylor.
wages. I have also another authority,
He says, speaking of
manufacturing population--

been in the huts and hovels of Ireland, when my
"I have seen misery in many forms; I have
native land was visited with the scourge of the
cholera; I have visited the cellars of Liverpool,
where existence assumes an aspect that ceases to
vennels of Glasgow (localities that would try to the
be human; I have penetrated into the wynds and
utmost the hardest of hearts and the strongest of
stomachs); but nowhere have I seen misery which
so agonized my very soul, as that which I have
witnessed in the manufacturing districts of Lan-

"Domestic manufactures were almost extinct, and the population, which was formerly scattered cashire. through the country, was impressed with a distinct And why? Because the extreme of character, besotting themselves, particularly on wretchedness was there, and there only, comSaturday evenings and Sunday, with ale, beer, and bined with a high tone of moral dignity, and a gin. The quantity of gin drank was enormous, marked sense of propriety—a decency, cleanliness, and even children of tender age drank it. Many and order, the elements which produced the vast took large quantities of opium, sometimes lauda-wealth I have described, and which do not merit num in pills, and sometimes an anodyne draught the intense suffering I have witnessed. I was beof the same kind. They were also exposed to holding the gradual immolation of the noblest and severe and unremitting labour. Their work was most valuahle population that ever existed in this most laborious, only exceeded by mowing. They country, or any other under heaven.” worked twelve hours a day, while farm labourers Yes, I say they are murdered by the facworked only ten hours. The children did not re-tory system, in order that a few may grow

ceive that attention from their mothers which was necessary for their welfare."

rich. Are hon. Gentlemen aware that Mr. Gregg has stated before a Committee ["Question!"] The hon. Member for of this House that the Saxon hosiers have Bath cries" Question." Sir, I am speak- uudersold the hosiers of the midland couning to the question. The question is the ties, who are in such a frightful state that increase of manufactures in this country, they have not, for fifteen years past, and the sacrifice of agriculture for that averaged 7s. a week for their labour? purpose; and I am now showing what has And all this, although there is a protecbeen the effect of the manufacturing sys- tion of 20 per cent. The facts which I tem. I do not wonder that the hon. and am able to bring before the House are learned Member for Bath feels uncomfort-worth a thousand statements by three able under the circumstances. [Mr. ROE- months' converts. Sir, in 1843 I preBUCK: Oh, no. I beg your pardon.] Isented a petition to this House, signed by thought the hon. Member was a representative of the people. I will now, with his leave proceed with my quotation:

25,000 frame-work knitters of Nottingham, Leicester, and Derby, in which they prayed the House to prohibit foreign hosiery till foreign States ceased to prohibit English hosiery. After I had presented that petition, the right hon. Gentleman the late President of the Board of Trade,

Now (and I speak to Gentlemen of the League) who is the gentleman I am quot-who cannot find a place in all England to ing? Why, no less a person than Mr. R. Gregg, and one of that party who call on the Legislature to give the death-blow to agriculture, in order that they may be able the better to absorb in manufactures the surplus population of the agricultural districts. Dr. Kay Shuttleworth confirms all

send him to Parliament, and whose absence from this House I deeply regret, though not the cause of it, employed Mr. Muggeridge, as Commissioner, to go down and ascertain the truth of the statements in the petition; and that gentleman made a report, some passages of which I will

read to the House. At page 103 of his Report he says—

"They labour fifteen and eighteen hours a day for 3s. 7d. a week wages. Many women and children are employed. One-third of the women of the manufacturing population are working in trades. The employment of women is reducing wages."

Mr. Muggeridge examined Dr. Shaw Leicester, who says—

reason why he is absent; but if he had
been here I think he would have said that
nothing which was narrated at Goatacre
could be compared with this.
At page
109, a pawnbroker says—

"They pawn their blankets in the morning, and
fetch them out at night, for a day's subsistence,
which costs each poor person 3d. a week."
Now hear what Mr. Commissioner Mug-
geridge says ;—

"The mortality of children under five years of age is about 49 per cent. of the deaths; that this "The social condition of the frame-work knitarises from the general neglect of the mothers. ters presents unvarying evidence of the distress They are in the stocking frames, and they are not and depression almost inseparable from the low in the habit of hiring their children out to the rate of earnings to which the trade has been subsame extent that they are in many of the manu-jected for many years past. This is especially facturing districts. The children of the poor are observable in the state of their dwellings, which very much neglected. Dr. Shaw speaks of the are, every day, diminishing in comfort and respecphysical debility of the frame-work knitters, as tability; their furniture becoming less and less, as being greater than that of the manufacturers in time destroys or necessity compels them to part the north, and says that it is caused from the de- with it piece by piece-their clothing usually of privation of the necessaries of life. That their the worst kind, and the sacrifices they make to food is bread, cheese, gruel, tea, and a proportion support existence, often greatly aggravating the of meat, but to no great extent; that they got evils attendant on their penury." better wages in former years, and had more regu- He addslar habits, and consequently they were enabled to obtain good sustenance, working at a very fair rate of remuneration with comparatively less

labour."

Now I am going to justify myself for having made the statement a short time ago, that a wholesale system of murder is carried on in the manufacturing districts. He says

pay

"Among the poorer classes it is a common practice of mothers to administer Godfrey's cordial and laudanum to their infants; the object is to keep them quiet while the mother is at work." I ask the hon. Member for Finsbury to attention to what I am now quoting; this is horrible; it proves the poor in such a state of starvation, that they murdered their children by wholesale. An eminent druggist is examined by Mr. Muggeridge; he says

"So far as their moral condition may be judged of by their attendance at places of public worship, the evidence from all quarters tends to establish an almost total disregard of this solemn duty." Such is the statement of the Commissioner appointed by the Government to inquire into the condition of the manufacturing population in the midland counties. If the time of night had allowed me, I would have produced before this House a startling statement with regard to the manufacturing population of the county of Norfolk; but here we have Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the midland counties, pronounced by incontrovertible evidence to be in a state bordering upon savage life, and the working population reduced to such a state of misery and want, that they do not hesitate to murder their offspring. Are we to be told that, with the manufacturing population in such a frightful state as this, we, the agricultural party in this House, are to consent to hand over the agricultural labourers, who have looked up to us and to our ancestors for centuries for suc-, and allow them, in the language of Dr. cour and support, to your tender mercies, Cooke Taylor, to be immolated, that a few cotton lords may get rich? Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, a few nights ago, said that crime was greatly I do ask the House of Commons to get reduced in this country. I tell him that this Report of Mr. Muggeridge's, and to that is not the fact with regard to the read it; I never in my life heard anything manufacturing districts. I entreat his atmore frightful than the whole of this evi- tention to this. Perhaps I may atdence. Hear what a pawnbroker says; tract it when I tell him that the protectionand I am sorry the hon. Member for Dub-ists are 462 ahead in South Notts to-day lin is not in his place. I think I know the up to 1 o'clock. Now, having attracted

"He has known an infant killed with three drops of laudanum; that nothing was said about it; infants go off quietly; they are not like grown people."

Another eminent druggist

"Had heard of four children in the same family who had died in the same way; the infants who

die in a more insidious manner, become pale, and emaciated, and tremulous, and at last seem to sink from emaciation or decline. The system has considerably increased since witness has been in the business, which he attributes to the abject poverty of the people,"

his attention, let me state to the House | England, and that the mean increase from what Mr. Justice Coleridge declared in his 1781 to 1841 was from that quantity to charge to the grand jury on the 29th of 528,000,0000 lb.; the trade increased 101 November, 1844-a winter assize, mark, times, or, in other words, where we manuin a manufacturing district :factured 1 lb. of cotton in 1781, we manu“Another cause for a winter assize, he lament-factured 101 lb. in 1841. This working man goes on to say

ed to say, must be considered to be the steady increase of crime throughout the country, and in their own county; that increase, too, being not so much observable in crimes of a petty nature, as in those of a more serious character. Within the last eight years the number of prisoners had nearly doubled in their own county; and though it was true that the population had increased that the police were more efficient than formerly-and that capital punishment had in a great measure been removed, yet he did not think that it was possible, by the application of those facts, satisfactorily to explain away the great incubus which seemed to hang over them."

Now, hear the effect

upon the wages:"During the periods included in the above table, it will be seen, however that the hand-loom weaver was reduced from 33s. 3d. for weaving 20 yards of a 60 reed, down to 3s. 9d. for 24 yards. Now, if the hand-loom weaver of 1841 was paid for weaving 24 yards at the same rate as the weaver of 1790 for weaving 20 yards, he should receive 39s. 10 d., instead of which he only received 3s. 9d.; that is, he received 1s. where he used to receive 108."

your

increased manufactures upon the hand-loom weavers in the cotton districte. Can anything be more frightful than the sufferings which increased trade has brought upon those poor people? But this working man goes on and shows the price of calico; and, speaking of the amount of money expended for clothes, he says—

"In 1815, when the weaver was paid 28s. for the same work which he now performs for 5s., he had to pay 18. per yard for calico; in 1843, he might purchase it for 4d."

That is the statement in relation to the
manufacturing county of York; and, in
contradiction to the statement of the right
hon. Baronet the Home Secretary, I tell
him that the West Riding gaol at Wake-
field was never known so full of prisoners
as at this moment. When I was in the
north of England attending the West Rid-Such is the effect of
ing election, I came in contact with large
bodies of the working population, and they
instructed me to bring their case before
this House; and they said that their battle
was the battle of labour against capital,
and that so far from an extension of trade
in this country being of the slightest bene-
fit to them, it had been the bitterest curse.
They produced statements of the greatest
importance to prove to me that this was
the fact; which statements I have to thank
my hon. Friend the Member for East
Cornwall, for having at his expense pub-
lished to the world; and let me tell this
House, that it would be well if hon. Mem-
bers would purchase the book, and in a
few pages read the history of a working
man in the manufacturing districts of the
north of England during the last few
years; it is written by a working man, but
a man who has shown ability far above his
order. He traces all the sufferings which
the working classes have endured, not to a
restrictive policy in your manufactures and
commerce, but to overtrading, and the
glutting of the markets. He proves in
these pages, that the more your manufac-
tured goods have increased, the more dread-
ful have been the sufferings of the working
population; and with the permission of the
House I should just like to read some fif-
teen or twenty lines. He says that, in
1781, 5,198,000 lb. of cotton were used in
the manufactories of the cotton districts of

And he shows that this, and the cheapening of silk, linen, and woollen, give him a a total saving of 57. in the year; but then "the loss in his wages amounts to 581. 10s." But the power-loom weavers have even suffered more extensively in a shorter time, than has been the lot of the hand-loom weavers. The working man says that

"In 1824, the power-loom weavers at Sidebottom's mill, Waterside, had for weaving 24 yards,

21 picks to the quarter-inch, 28.; they now receive

1s. for the same length, with one pick more to the
quarter, which ought to be 1d. extra."
Another master paid 2s. 8d. in 1825 for
twenty-four yards, and in 1836 only 1s. 2d.,
and the wages have fallen still lower since.
I could quote many other statements
equally startling from this book; and, late
as it is, there is one statement made by
Mr. Muggeridge, the Commissioner for in-
quiring into the state of the manufacturing
population in the midland counties, which
I must not overlook. It shows that what

brought 21. 3s. in 1829, brought only 19s. | the foreign. Then he asked the other party in 1839, while the trade of Rochdale had how men were to compete with the foreign doubled. A weaver of Bolton, who was labourer? He remarked that what the examined before the Select Committee of working people of this country considered the House, being asked whether he would the necessaries of life were not considered be as well off if the Corn Laws were re- so on the Continent; and that was one pealed, replied that he should not if he got reason why the price of food must be reall his food for nothing; and when further duced. He was asked, from his practical asked why he thought so, his answer was, knowledge of cotton-spinning, whether he because a reduction had taken place in his was a competent judge of the mills he had wages amounting to more than the price seen on the Continent; and his answer was, of all the food he needed, and the clothes Yes, I looked upon them with a somehe wore. The same volume also contained what uncomfortable eye." And, in answer evidence of a startling character, as to the to a question relative to the machinery effects which the introduction of machinery used in the foreign mills, he said, “They to so large an extent in manufactures, had had all the newest inventions. Even in produced on the condition of the labouring the remotest part of Germany they obtain classes. The other evening I was accused them as soon as we do in England." It by the hon. Member for Stroud of being has been said that foreign manufactures opposed to all machinery. That charge is are equal or superior to ours. Why, it was totally unfounded. I am in favour of ma- not so before the right hon. Gentleman chinery so long as it is subservient to legalized the exportation of machinery. manual labour; but the moment it super- We have been committing a suicidal act, sedes manual labour, I think with the late not only in allowing our working classes Sir R. Peel, that it becomes the bitterest to be starved to death under the system curse of this country. It has been asserted which has been introduced, but in ad that the price of food does not regulate mitting the foreigner to compete with us wages. Does the hon. Member for Bolton by the exportation of our own machinery. (Dr. Bowring) assert that the price of food Another charge made by hon. Gentlemen does not regulate wages? That hon. Gen- opposite is, that the proposition on the tleman, on the 26th of June, 1835, said in part of the manufacturers of the north of this HouseEngland to absorb and use up their labourers, originated with the agriculturists. Will any hon. Gentleman opposite, connected with the Anti-Corn-Law League (and I see the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in his place), dare to repeat that statement now? He will not make that statement; he will not, because he has always conducted the Corn-Law question in this House with the most gentlemanlike feeling; and he never made a statement against the agricultural party except one, and that one he could not prove. The agricultural party in this House, the gentry of England, never heard of that proposal to absorb and use up the surplus population of the south of England till the attempt was made to carry it into effect; and as soon as they heard of it, they caused placards to be put forth, warning the people not to go. I proceed on the authority of this letter, from a Quaker, in my statement as to what I here call the traffic in white slaves, as I shall prove it to be :

"We export 50,000,000l. sterling of manufactures. Does anybody imagine that they are not affected in foreign markets by the price of foreign corn? Does any one suppose that they have not to suffer in value from the fact of their having to meet, as rivals, with goods produced in countries where the price of corn is lower, and the average of wages less, than in England?"

Does the hon. Gentleman admit that now? Then he admits that the price of food regulates the rate of wages. The hon. and learned Member for the county of Cork, in the very lucid statement which he made a few days ago, also recognised the principle. Mr. Ricardo has very often been quoted. Will any hon. Gentleman deny that Mr. Ricardo was of that opinion? I can also refer to the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz). Then it is admitted that the price of food regulates wages. If that position had been denied, I should have called into court Mr. Rathbone Gregg, who, after remarking that foreigners were able to compete with us successfully from the low price of food in their own countries, went on to say that we must ultimately come to the repeal of the Corn Laws; and, referring to the effect on the home demand, observed that it was but trifling compared with