CHAPTER IV Child, is thy father dead?— Father is gone: Why did they tax his bread?- Mother has sold her bed, Better to die than wed; Where shall she lay her head?— Home she has none. -Ebenezer Elliott. THE UNIVERSAL DISTRESS THE appalling living conditions of the poor was the immediate result of the general unemployment that prevailed in all parts of the country. The hand-loom weavers were the first victims of the depression of trade. As early as April 23, 1837, the Manchester Times recorded that "the distress has now reached the working classes. In this town and its neighborhood, many of the factories are working only four days a week, and some thousands of hand-loom weavers have been discharged ". The investigation made by the government showed that during the winter of 18371838 an almost unprecedented number of looms had been thrown into disuse not only in Manchester, but also in Spitalfields and other manufacturing centers.1 Another commissioner reported that the applicants for relief were mostly able-bodied men with families, and widows with children, all of whom were driven to seek parish assistance 1 Report by Mr. Hickson on the Condition of the Hand-Loom Weavers, Presented to Parliament by Her Majesty's Command, 1840, p. 4. through lack of employment.' Dr. Kay's Report of 1837 on the distress of the Spitalfields weavers stated that out of the 14,000 looms, one-third were not used, while the remaining number were only partially employed. The manufacturers themselves estimated that the decrease in the work executed amounted to one-half the quantity ordinarily produced, and that the aggregate weekly wages of the weavers shrank from £10,000 or £12,000 to £5,000 or £6,000. The effect of this stagnation of trade can be realized when we bear in mind that even at their best, i. e. when employment was constant and regular, the weavers were, according to the report, so destitute of resources that the employers had to advance them money from week to week to defray the current expenses of their families.2 The wages of the luckier weavers who retained their places were reduced from twenty-five to thirty per cent. The annual loss to the poor in nominal wages in Bolton alone was estimated in 1841 at £130,000. The unoccupied houses in Preston numbered 1220, while in Oldham, out of the 7853 houses and shops, 1200 were empty as a result of total or partial unemployment.* 3 The industrial depression spread like a plague from town to town and from industry to industry, tightening its grip on England for more than half a decade. In Birmingham the labor aristocracy, the iron workers began to feel the Report by Edward Gulson, respecting Nottingham, to Poor Law Commissioners, 1837, p. 7. James Ph. Kay, Report, Relative to the Distress Prevalent among the Spitalfields Weavers, to the Poor Law Commissioners, London, 1837, pp. 1-2. On the want of employment of the hand-loom weavers in Scotland, see Assistant Hand-loom Weavers' Commissioners' Report of 1839, pp. 8-9. 3 Hansard, op. cit., vol. lviii, p. 31. 4 Ibid., pp. 593-594. pinch of bad times in the early part of 1837. In March of that year a deputation submitted to Lord Melbourne a memorial, signed by "merchants, manufacturers and other inhabitants" of Birmingham, in which "the serious and immediate attention of His Majesty's Government" was solicited to the "general state of difficulty and embarrassment, threatening the most alarming consequences to all classes of the community". The government was advised that "unless remedial measures be immediately applied, a large proportion of our population will shortly be thrown out of employment ". The laissez-faire policy, however, was not abandoned, and no serious attempt was made to save the situation, with the result that by the end of 1842 there was hardly a single industry which was not in a critical state.2 Archibald Prentice testifies that in 1841 there were 20,936 persons in Leeds, "whose average earnings were only elevenpence three-farthings a week. In Paisley, nearly one-fourth of the population was in a state bordering upon actual starvation. In one district, in Manchester, the Rev. Mr. Beardsall visited 258 families, consisting of 1029 individuals, whose average earnings were only sevenpence halfpenny per head per week.' "3 The agricultural districts could by no means boast of better conditions. The investigation of the state of three typical families of husbandmen in the union of Ampthill revealed that the means of living had been reduced, in money, from Is. 8d. a head per week in 1834 to Is. 21⁄2d. in 1837, notwithstanding the fact that the work of these husbandmen had been increased from an aggregate of 39 weeks 1 Bronterre's National Reformer, March 18, 1837. 2 See Hansard, op. cit., vol. lix, p. 636, and vol. lxiii, p. 1128. 'Archibald Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, London, 1853, vol. i, p. 270. in 1834 to 142 in 1837. Moreover, this does not tell the whole story. The command that money had over bread in these two years must be taken into consideration. The average price of wheat in 1834 was 46s. 2d. per quarter, while in 1837 it reached 55s. 9d. The purchasing power of the earnings of the three families (which in 1834 and 1837 numbered 17 and 21 souls respectively) was 32 quarters of wheat, or 181⁄2 pints per week for each person in 1834; whereas in 1837 their income could purchase only 231⁄2 quarters of wheat, i. e., II pints per week for each person. In other words, the actual wages fell 41 per cent in comparison with the wages in 1834 which even then were far from adequate for a decent livelihood. The investigation of the state of forty-eight families of husbandmen of the Ampthill union whose employment had been irregular, showed, that, notwithstanding the 760 weeks more work done in 1837 than in 1834, they suffered a reduction in their weekly money income per head of from Is. 101⁄2d. during 1834 to Is. 6d. in 1837, or 20 per cent in nominal wages, and in the purchasing power of the latter expressed in wheat, a weekly reduction from 2034 pints per head in 1834 to 1334 pints per head in 1837, or a net reduction of 34 per cent. The survey of thirty families of the same union, whose employment in husbandry had been regular during the years 1834-1837, revealed a similar result. The average weekly reduction in their actual wages, expressed in terms of wheat, fell from 23 1-10 pints to 17 3-10 pints per head, while the reduction of the income of ten of these families reached 32 per 2 1 See Twenty-third Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Law Amendment Act, London, 1838, appendix B, pp. 34-35. See Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Reports from the Select Committee on the Poor Law Amendment Act, London, 1838, appendix A, pp. 44-45. cent, and one family numbering seven persons had to subsist on only 134 d., i. e., 1 3-10 pints of wheat per day.1 The Whigs came into power pledged to reforms which they could hardly accomplish. The campaign for the Reform Bill of 1832 carried with it a promise for the repeal of the Corn Laws which had been condemned as fostering the monopoly of landowners. On his death-bed, Jeremy Bentham rejoiced that the Reform Bill would assure the triumph of free-trade. In spite of their pledges, however, and in spite of the many petitions in favor of the repeal of the Corn Laws, the reform Parliament and the reform ministers put up the "not-the-time" plea and energetically fought such repeal. Instead of ameliorating the condition of the poor, the government continued its laissez-faire policy, and allowed the misery of the working class to be exceedingly aggravated by the relentless rise of prices of wheat. The value of the imported wheat in 1836 was 0.1 per cent of the whole import of Great Britain, whereas in 1839 wheat was twenty per cent of the entire value of imports, reaching 1 Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Reports, op. cit., appendix B, pp. 46-47. Concerning the condition of six laborers in other parishes of the same union, see Twenty-eighth Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Law Amendment Act, London, 1838, appendix, pp. 24-25. The subsequent Reports of the Committee endeavored to weaken the impression produced by the former Reports, and sophisticated methods were employed to discredit not only the conclusions but even the veracity of Mr. Turner, a former member of the Committee. |