while the cutter has lost his freedom of choice of his working-hours, and is brought under the dominion of the factory bell. A cutter of perhaps forty-five years of age told me that he could remember a time when he had received 8d. a yard for work, for which he now received 1d.; true, he can cut the more regular texture more quickly than the old, but he can by no means do twice as much in an hour as formerly, so that his wages have sunk to less than a quarter of what they were. Leach109 gives a list of wages paid in and in for various goods, from which it appears that articles paid in at the rates of 4d., 2¼d., 2¾d., and 1d. per yard, were paid in at the rate of 1½d., 1d., ¾d., and ⅜d. per yard, cutters’ wages. The average weekly wage, according to Leach, was as follows: , £1 6s. 6d.; £1 2s. 6d.; £1; £1 6s. 6d.; and for the same goods in , 10s. 6d.; 7s. 6d.; 6s. 8d.; 10s.; while there are hundreds of workers who cannot find employment even at these last named rates. Of the hand-weavers of the cotton industry we have already spoken; the other woven fabrics are almost exclusively produced on hand-looms. Here most of the workers have suffered as the weavers have done from the crowding in of competitors displaced by machinery, and are, moreover, subject like the factory operatives to a severe fine system for bad work. Take, for instance, the silk weavers. Mr. Brocklehurst, one of the largest silk manufacturers in all England, laid before a committee of members of Parliament lists taken from his books, from which it appears that for goods for which he paid wages in at the rate of 30s., 14s., 3½s., ¾s., 1½s., 10s., he paid in but 9s., 7¼s., 2¼s., ⅓s., ½s., 6¼s., while in this case no improvement in the machinery has taken place. But what Mr. Brocklehurst does may very well be taken as a standard for all. From the same lists it appears that the average weekly wage of his weavers, after all deductions, was, in , 16½s., and, in , but 6s. Since that time wages have fallen still further. Goods which brought in 4d. weavers’ wages in , bring in but 2½d. in (single sarsnets), and a great number of weavers in the country can get work only when they undertake these goods at 1½d.–2d. Moreover, they are subject to arbitrary deductions from their wages. Every weaver who receives materials is given a card, on which is usually to be read that the work is to be returned at a specified hour of the day; that a weaver who cannot work by reason of illness must make the fact known at the office within three days, or sickness will not be regarded as an excuse; that it will not be regarded as a sufficient excuse if the weaver claims to have been obliged to wait for yarn; that for certain faults in the work (if, for example, more weft-threads are found within a given space than are prescribed), not less than half the wages will be deducted; and that if the goods should not be ready at the time specified, one penny will be deducted for every yard returned. The deductions in accordance with these cards are so considerable that, for instance, a man who comes twice a week to Leigh, in Lancashire, to gather up woven goods, brings his employer at least £15 fines every time. He asserts this himself, and he is regarded as one of the most lenient. Such things were formerly settled by arbitration; but as the workers were usually dismissed if they insisted upon that, the custom has been almost wholly abandoned, and the manufacturer acts arbitrarily as prosecutor, witness, judge, lawgiver, and executive in one person. And if the workman goes to a Justice of the Peace, the answer is: “When you accepted your card you entered upon a contract, and you must abide by it.” The case is the same as that of the factory operatives. Besides, the employer obliges the workman to sign a document in which he declares that he agrees to the deductions made. And if a workman rebels, all the manufacturers in the town know at once that he is a man who, as Leach says,110 “resists the lawful order as established by weavers’ cards, and, moreover, has the impudence to doubt the wisdom of those who are, as he ought to know, his superiors in society.”
Naturally, the workers are perfectly free; the manufacturer does not force them to take his materials and his cards, but he says to them what Leach translates into plain English with the words: “If you don’t like to be frizzled in my frying-pan, you can take a walk into the fire.” The silk weavers of London, and especially of Spitalfields, have lived in periodic distress for a long time, and that they still have no cause to be satisfied with their lot is proved by their taking a most active part in English labour movements in general, and in London ones in particular. The distress prevailing among them gave rise to the fever which broke out in East London, and called forth the Commission for Investigating the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Class. But the last report of the London Fever Hospital shows that this disease is still raging.
After the textile fabrics, by far the most important products of English industry are the metal-wares. This trade has its headquarters at Birmingham, where the finer metal goods of all sorts are produced, at Sheffield for cutlery, and in Staffordshire, especially at Wolverhampton, where the coarser articles, locks, nails, etc., are manufactured. In describing the position of the workers employed in these trades, let us begin with Birmingham. The disposition of the work has
