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mire in his speeches a downrightness and manliness of feeling which leaves no person in ignorance of the speaker's object and purpose. Finally, if I entertained any doubts of his merits, they would have been removed by the high terms in which I have heard his name mentioned by one who is a niggard of praise, and of nothing else, Mr. Thomson, of Primrose, one of the most intelligent and right-minded men in the North of England.

Into

The contributor to the 7th number of the 'Lancashire' has not limited his attack to Sir Robert Peel, but has involved in the same sweeping censure the great majority of the cotton manufacturers. their defence I will not enter. It needs not to dwell upon their intelligence, their industry, and their enterprise, when the results are before my eyes in the most undeniable forms. Monumentum si quæras,

circumspice.

I regret that my time did not allow of my repeating the visit which I paid last year to Haslingden, Accrington, Clitheroe, and the upper valley of the Ribble. But I was informed that distress had extended into these districts, and that Accrington especially was little, if at all, better off than Bolton. This was very painful intelligence to one who had seen the magnificent works erected in a locality which was not many years ago almost a perfect solitude, and had admired the fertility and verdure of fields which within the memory of living men were nothing better than moor

and morass. Wherever I went, and whomsoever I met, the same sad uniformity was in every account I received. Distress was general in its extent, and increasing in its intensity. Among those who had suffered least there was a fearful looking forward to the future; and with those who had suffered long, moral principle was succumbing to the pressure of physical destitution. In the short interval of my tour in Rossendale several additional mills had closed ; more were expected to follow, and have followed; the municipal and parochial authorities in Bolton and Stockport had begun to calculate the period when the complete exhaustion of every resource would compel them to abandon their functions, and hand over the places to the government. No stronger proof can be given of the effect which these tidings have produced than that many moderate men, who have hitherto abstained from taking a prominent part, have discussed the propriety of severing the duchy of Lancaster, in its financial administration, from the realm of England, and placing the palatine county in bond. There is no doubt that they could do so with profit, and even pay to the government more than the present amount of revenue, if they were not obliged to close the doors of their warehouses against their best customers, and declare to the purchasers of their commodities, "We are compelled to refuse the only payment which you have to offer."

LETTER VII.

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The Oaks, Turton, near Bolton,

1842.

Ir is my purpose in this letter to explain, as clearly as I can, what may be called the social economy of a cotton-factory. For this purpose it will not be necessary to give any account of the processes of manufacture but there is one which deserves to be mentioned on account of its connexion with the fiscal regulations respecting the import of corn. It is called "dressing," and consists in the application of a strong flour-paste by the dressing-frame to the warp-yarns, before the process of weaving is commenced.

There are about 100,000 dressing-frames in the three kingdoms, each of which consumes on an average five pounds weight of flour weekly, so that the total amount of flour consumed in power-loom weaving alone exceeds twenty-five millions of pounds, or ninety thousand loads. I have not been able to form any estimate of the amount of flour used by the poor hand loom weavers in dressing their yarn, but I allude to the circumstance for the purpose of showing that the agricultural labourers employed in the production of this flour ought in justice to be added to

the amount of population dependent for support on the cotton manufacture. It is also evident that the high price of corn is injurious, not only in enhancing the cost of food, but also in levying a tax on the materials of production. In the case of the hand-loom weavers this tax is levied on a class already very much depressed, and for which great sympathy is felt, or at least expressed, by zealous advocates of the corn-laws.

In cotton-spinning the amount of effect produced by machinery is out of all proportion greater than that resulting from manual labour. In almost all the processes, save that of mule-spinning, the operatives are rather tenters of machinery than actual labourers, and even in that instance the self-acting mule has greatly diminished the importance of the spinner. I know of no instance in which capital has given so much of its assistance and intrusted so much of its wealth to the hands of industry. But it has not, I think, been observed that the wages of the operative are increased in nearly the same proportion as the aid which he receives from machinery. When I first saw the process of batting,* and witnessed the great expenditure of strength which the incessant wielding of the switch required, I felt that, if labour was to be remunerated according to the fatigue it imposes, the batters ought to be the persons best paid in the factory; but on inquiry I found that they did not receive half the wages of the tenters or superintend

* Cleaning raw cotton by beating it with switches.

ents of the drawing-frame, who had only to watch over the work done for them by machinery. Of course I am aware that trained skill will always bring a higher price than brute strength, but I never before was so forcibly impressed with the importance of the capital which rendered that skill available. I had before me an undeniable proof that machinery increased the wages and lessened the fatigue of the operative. It must, however, be borne in mind that the acquisition of skill in any special occupation has a direct tendency to unfit the operative for every other employment; and thus, while it increases his comfort and strengthens his position so long as there is a demand for his labour, it seriously aggravates his misery in a season of distress.

There are persons who speak of wages as if they could be fixed by some combination of the masters on the one hand or the operatives on the other, and as if the price of labour, like that of every other commodity, did not depend on the relations between demand and supply. I once asked the opinion of an operative on this subject, and his answer was a complete explication of the problem. He replied, "When two masters are looking for one man, wages will be high, but when two men are looking for one master, they will be low; and that's all about the matter." It would be well if the political economy of fustian-jacket could be generally diffused through broad-cloth. There is, however, this difference be

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