III. General Illustration. The Cotton Crisis of 1861- 65
Preliminary History. 1845-60
1845. The golden age of cotton industry. Price of cotton very low. L. Horner says on this point:
"For the last eight years I have not known so active a state of trade as has prevailed during the last summer and autumn, particularly in cotton spinning. Throughout the half-year I have been receiving notices every week of new investments of capital in factories, either in the form of new mills being built, of the few that were untenanted finding occupiers, of enlargements of existing mills, of new engines of increased power, and of manufacturing machinery" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1845, p. 13).
1846. The complaints begin:
"For a considerable time past I have heard from the occupiers of cotton mills very general complaints of the depressed state of their trade ... for within the last six weeks several mills have begun to work short time, usually eight hours a day instead of twelve; this appears to be on the increase.... There has been a great advance in the price of the raw material,... there has been not only no advance in the manufactured articles, but ... prices are lower than they were before the rise in cotton began. From the great increase in the number of cotton mills within the last four years, there must have been, on the one hand, a greatly increased demand for the raw material, and, on the other, a greatly increased supply in the market of the manufactured articles; causes that must concurrently have operated against profits, supposing the supply of the raw material and the consumption of the manufactured article to have remained unaltered; but, of course, in the greater ratio by the late short supply of cotton, and the falling off in the demand for the manufactured articles in several markets, both home and foreign" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1846, p. 10).
The rising demand for raw materials naturally went hand in hand with a market flooded with manufactures.— By the way, the expansion of industry at that time and the subsequent stagnation were not confined to the cotton districts. The carded wool district of Bradford had only 318 factories in 1836 and 490 in 1846. These figures do not by any means express the actual growth of production, since the existing factories were also considerably enlarged. This was particularly true of the flax spinning-mills.
"All have contributed more or less, during the last ten years, to the over-stocking of the market, to which a great part of the present stagnation of trade must be attributed.... The depression ... naturally results from such rapid increase of mills and machinery" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1846, p. 30).
1847. In October, a money panic. Discount 8%. This was preceded by the debacle of the railway swindle and the East Indian speculation in accommodation bills. But:
"Mr. Baker enters into very interesting details respecting the increased demand, in the last few years, for cotton, wool, and flax, owing to the great extension of these trades. He considers the increased demand for these raw materials, occurring, as it has, at a period when the produce has fallen much below an average supply, as almost sufficient, even without reference to the monetary derangement, to account for the present state of these branches. This opinion is fully confirmed, by my own observations, and conversation with persons well acquainted with trade. Those several branches were all in a very depressed state, while discounts were readily obtained at and under 5 per cent. The supply of raw silk has, on, the contrary, been abundant, the prices moderate, and the trade, consequently, very active, till ... the last two or three weeks, when there is no doubt the monetary derangement has affected not only the persons actually engaged in the manufacture, but more extensively still, the manufacturers of fancy goods, who were great customers to the throwster. A reference to published returns shows that the cotton trade had increased nearly 27 per cent in the last three years. Cotton has consequently increased, in round numbers, from 4d. to 6d. per lb., while twist, in consequence of the increased supply, is yet only a fraction above its former price. The woollen trade began its increase in 1836, since which Yorkshire has increased its manufacture of this article 40 per cent, but Scotland exhibits a yet greater increase. The increase of the worsted trade l8) is still larger. Calculations give a result of upwards of 74 per cent increase within the same period. The consumption of raw wool has therefore been immense. Flax has increased since 1839 about 25 per cent in England, 22 per cent in Scotland, and nearly 90 per cent in Ireland ">; the consequence of this,
[18] A sharp distinction is made in England between woollen manufacture, which spins carded yarn from short wool and weaves it (main centre Leeds), and worsted manufacture, which makes worsted yarn from long wool and weaves it (main seat Bradford, in Yorkshire).— F.E.
[19] This rapid expansion of output of machine-made linen yarn in Ireland dealt a death-blow to exports of linen made of hand-made yarn in Germany (Silesia, Lusa-tia, and Westphalia).— F.E.
in connexion with bad crops, has been that the raw material has gone up £10 per ton, while the price of yarn has fallen 6d. a bundle" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1847, pp. 30-31).
1849. Since late in 1848 business revived.
"The price of flax which has been so low as to almost guarantee a reasonable profit under any future circumstances, has induced the manufacturers to carry on their work very steadily.... The woollen manufacturers were exceedingly busy for a while in the early part of the year.... I fear that consignments of woollen goods often take the place of real demand, and that periods of apparent prosperity, i. e., of full work, are not always periods of legitimate demand. In some months the WORSTED has been exceedingly good, in fact flourishing... At the commencement of the period referred to, wool was exceedingly low; what was bought by the spinners was well bought, and no doubt in considerable quantities. When the price of wool rose with the spring wool sales, the spinner had the advantage, and the demand for manufactured goods becoming considerable and imperative, they kept it" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., [April] 1849, p. 42).
"If we look at the variations in the state of trade, which have occurred in the manufacturing districts ... for a period now of between three and four years, I think we must admit the existence of a great disturbing cause somewhere ... but may not the immensely productive power of increased machinery have added another element to the same cause?" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1849, pp. 42, 43).
In November 1848, and in May and summer of 1849, right up to October, business flourished.
"The worsted stuff trade, of which Bradford and Halifax are the great hives of industry, has been the one most active; this trade has never before reached anything like the extent, to which it has now attained.... Speculation, and uncertainty as to the probable supply of cotton wool, have ever had the effect of causing greater excitement, and more frequent alterations in the state ofthat branch of manufacture, than any other. There is ... at present an accumulation in stock of the coarser kinds of cotton goods, which creates anxiety on the part of the smaller spinners, and is already acting to their detriment, having caused several of them to work their mills short time" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1849, pp. 64-65).
1850. April. Business continued brisk. The exception:
"The great depression in a part of the cotton trade ... attributable to the scarcity in the supply of the raw material more especially adapted to the branch engaged in spinning low numbers of cotton yarns, or manufacturing heavy cotton goods. A fear is entertained that the increased machinery built recently for the WORSTED trade, may be followed with a similar reaction. Mr. Baker computes that in the year 1849 alone the worsted looms have increased their produce 40 per cent, and the spindles 25 or 30 per cent, and they arc still increasing at the same rate" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1850, p. 54).
1850. October.
"The high price of raw cotton continues ... to cause a considerable depression in this branch of manufacture, especially in those descriptions of goods in which the raw material constitutes a considerable part of the cost of production.... The great advance in the price of raw silk has likewise caused a depression in many branches ofthat manufacture" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1850, p. 14).
From the same report we learn that the Committee of the Royal Society for the Promotion and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland predicted that the high price of flax, together with the low level of prices for other agricultural products, ensured a considerable increase in flax production in the ensuing year (p. 33).
1853. April. Great prosperity. L. Horner says in his report:
"At no period during the last seventeen years that I have been officially acquainted with the manufacturing districts in Lancashire have I known such general prosperity; the activity in every branch is extraordinary" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1853, p. 19).
1853. October. Depression in the cotton industry."Over-production" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1853, p. 15).
1854. April.
"The woollen trade, although not brisk, has given full employment to all the factories engaged upon that fabric, and a similar remark applies to the cotton factories. The WORSTED trade generally has been in an uncertain and unsatisfactory condition during the whole of the last half-year.... The manufacture of flax and hemp are ... seriously impeded, by reason of the diminished supplies of the raw materials from Russia due to the Crimean war" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., [April] 1854, p. 37).
1859.
"The trade in the Scottish flax districts still continues depressed — the raw material being scarce, as well as high in price; and the inferior quality of the last year's crop in the Baltic, from whence come our principal supplies, will have an injurious effect on the trade of the district; jute, however, which is gradually superseding flax in many of the coarser fabrics, is neither unusually high in price, nor scarce in quantity ... about one-half of the machinery in Dundee is now employed in jute spinning" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1859, p. 19).— "Owing to the high price of the raw material, flax spinning is still far from remunerating, and while all the other mills are going full time, there are several instances of the stoppage of flax machinery.... Jute spinning is ... in a rather more satisfactory state, owing to -the recent decline in the price of material, which has now fallen to a very moderate point" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1859, p. 20).
1861-64. American Civil War. COTTON FAMINE. The Greatest Example of an Interruption in the Production Process through
Scarcity and Dearness of Raw Material
1860. April.
"With respect to the state of trade, I am happy to be able to inform you that, notwithstanding the high price of raw material, all the textile manufactures, with the exception of silk, have been fairly busy during the past half-year.... In some of the cotton districts hands have been advertised for, and have migrated thither from Norfolk and other rural counties.... There appears to be, in every branch of trade, a great scarcity of raw material. It is ... the want of it alone, which keeps us within bounds. In the cotton trade, the erection of new mills, the formation of new systems of extension, and the demand for hands, can scarcely, I think, have been at any time exceeded. Everywhere there are new movements in search of raw material" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1860 [p.57]).
1860. October.
"The state of trade in the cotton, woollen, and flax districts has been good; indeed in Ireland, it is stated to have been 'very good' for now more than a year; and that it would have been still better, but for the high price of raw material. The flax spinners appear to be looking with more anxiety than ever to the opening out of India by railways, and to the development of its agriculture, for a supply of flax which may be commensurate with their wants" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1860, p. 37).
1861. April.
"The state of trade is at present depressed.... A few cotton mills are running short time, and many silk mills are only partially employed. Raw material is high. In almost every branch of textile manufacture it is above the price at which it can be manufactured for the masses of the consumers" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1861, p. 33).
It had become evident that in 1860 the cotton industry had over-produced. The effect of this made itself felt during the next few years.
"It has taken between two and three years to absorb the overproduction of 1860 in the markets of the world" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., December 1863, p. 127). "The depressed state of the markets for cotton manufactures in the East, early in 1860, had a corresponding effect upon the trade of Blackburn, in which 30,000 power-looms are usually employed almost exclusively in the production of cloth to be consumed in the East. There was consequently but a limited demand for labour for many months prior to the effects of the cotton blockade being felt.... Fortunately this preserved many of the spinners and manufacturers from being involved in the common ruin. Stocks increased in value so long as they were held, and there had been consequently nothing like that alarming depreciation in the value of property which might not unreasonably have been looked for in such a crisis" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1862, pp. 28-29, 30).
1861. October.
"Trade has been for some time in a very depressed state.... It is not improbable indeed that during the winter months many establishments will be found to work very short time. This might, however, have been anticipated ... irrespective of the causes which have interrupted our usual supplies of cotton from America and our exports, short time must have been kept during the ensuing winter in consequence of the great increase of production during the last three years, and the unsettled state of the Indian and Chinese markets" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1861, p. 19).
Cotton Waste. East Indian Cotton (SURAT). Influence on the Wages
of Labourers. Improvement of Machinery. Adding Starch Flour and Mineral Substitutes to Cotton. Effect of Starch Flour Sizing
on Labourers. Manufacturers of Finer Yarn Grades.
Manufacturers' Fraud
"A manufacturer writes to me thus: 'As to estimates of consumption per spindle, I doubt if you take sufficiently into calculation the fact that when cotton is high in price, every spinner of ordinary yarns (say up to 40s.) (principally 12s. to 32s.) will raise his counts as much as he can, that is, will spin 16s. where he used to spin 12s., or 22s.in the place of 16s., and so on; and the manufacturer using these fine yarns will make his cloth the usual weight by the addition of so much more size. The trade is availing itself of this resource at present to an extent which is even discreditable. I have heard on good authority of ordinary export SHIRTING weighing 8 lbs of which Ï— lbs were size.... In cloths of other descriptions as much as 50 per cent size is sometimes added; so that a manufacturer may and does truly boast that he is getting rich by selling cloth for less money per pound than he paid for the mere yarn of which they are composed' " (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1864, p. 27).
"I have also received statements that the weavers attribute increased sickness to the size which is used in dressing the warps of Surat cotton, and which is not made of the same material as formerly, viz., flour. This substitute for flour is said, however, to have the very important advantage of increasing greatly the weight of the cloth manufactured, making 15 lbs of the raw material to weigh 20 lbs, when woven into cloth." (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1863, p. 63. This substitute was ground talcum, called CHINA CLAY, or gypsum, called FRENCH CHALK.) — "The earnings of the weavers" (meaning the operatives) "are much reduced from the employment of substitutes for flour as sizing for warps. This sizing, which gives weight to the yarn, renders it hard and brittle. Each thread of the warp in the loom passes through a part of the loom called 'a heald', which consists of strong threads to keep the warp in its proper place, and the hard state of the warp causes the threads of the heald to break frequently; and it is said to take a weaver five minutes to tie up the threads every time they break; and a weaver has to piece these ends at least ten times as often as formerly, thus reducing the productive powers of the loom in the working-hours" (ibid., pp. 42-43).
"In Ashton, Stalybridge, Mossley, Oldham, etc., the reduction of time has been fully one-third, and the hours are lessening every week.... Simultaneously with this diminution of time there is also a reduction of wages in many departments" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1861, pp. 12-13).
Early in 1861 there was a strike among the mechanical weavers in some parts of Lancashire. Several manufacturers had announced a wage reduction of 5 to 7.5%. The operatives insisted that the wage scale remain the same while working hours were reduced. This was not granted, and a strike was called. A month later, the operatives had to give in. But then they got both.
"In addition to the reduction of wages to which the operatives at last consented, many mills are now running short time" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1861, p. 23).
1862. April.
"The sufferings of the operatives since the date of my last report have greatly increased; but at no period of the history of manufactures, have sufferings so sudden and so severe been borne with so much silent resignation and so much patient self-respect" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1862, p. 10). "The proportionate number of operatives wholly out of employment at this date appears not to be much larger than it was in 1848, when there was an ordinary panic of sufficient consequences to excite alarm amongst the manufacturers, so much so as to warrant the collection of similar statistics of the state of the cotton trade as are now issued weekly.... In May 1848, the proportion of cotton operatives out of work in Manchester out of the whole number usually employed was 15 per cent, on short time 12 per cent, whilst 70 per cent were in full work. On the 28th of May of the present year, of the whole number of persons usually employed 15 per cent were out of work, 35 per cent were on short time, and 49 per cent were working full time.... In some other places, Stockport for example, the averages of short time and of non-employment are higher, whilst those of full time are less", because coarser numbers are spun there than in Manchester (p. 16).
1862. October.
"I find by the last return to Parliament that there were 2,887 cotton factories in the United Kingdom in 1861, 2,109 of them being in my district" (Lancashire and Cheshire). "I was aware that a very large proportion of the 2,109 factories in my district were small establishments, giving employment to few persons, but I have been surprised to find how large that proportion is. In 392, or 19 per cent, the steam-engine or water-wheel is under 10 horse-power; in 345, or 16 per cent, the horse-power is above 10 and under 20; and in 1,372 the power is 20 horses and more.... A very large proportion of these small manufacturers — being more than a third of the whole number — were operatives themselves at no distant period; they are men without command of capital.... The brunt of the burden then would have to be borne by the remaining two-thirds" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1862, pp. 18, 19).
According to the same report, 40,146, or 11.3%, of the cotton operatives in Lancashire and Cheshire were then working full time; 134,767, or 38%, were working short time; and 179,721, or 50.7%, were unemployed. After deducting the returns from Manchester and Bolton, where mainly fine grades were spun, a line relatively little affected by the cotton famine, the matter looks still more unfavourable;
namely, fully employed 8.5%, partly employed 38%, and unemployed 53.5% (pp. 19 and 20).
"Working up good or bad cotton makes a material difference to the operatives. In the earlier part of the year, when manufacturers were endeavouring to keep their mills at work by using up all the moderately priced cotton they could obtain, much bad cotton was brought into mills in which good cotton was ordinarily used, and the difference to the operatives in wages was so great that many strikes took place on the ground that they could not make a fair day's wages at the old rates.... In some cases, although working full time, the difference in wages from working bad cotton was as much as one-half (p. 27).
1863. April.
"During the present year there will not be full employment for much more than one-half of the cotton operatives in the country" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1863, p. 14).
"A very serious objection to the use of Surat cotton, as manufacturers are now compelled to use it, is that the speed of the machinery must be greatly reduced in the processes of manufacture. For some years past every effort has been made to increase the speed of machinery, in order to make the same machinery produce more work; and the reduction of the speed becomes therefore a question which affects the operative as well as the manufacturer; for the chief part of the operatives are paid by the work done; for instance, spinners are paid per lb. for the yarn spun, weavers per piece for the number of pieces woven; and even with the other classes of operatives paid by the week there would be a diminution of wages in consideration of the less amount of goods produced. From inquiries I have made, and statements placed in my hands, of the earnings of cotton operatives during the present year, I find there is a diminution averaging 20 per cent upon their former earnings, in some instances the diminution has been as much as 50 per cent, calculated upon the same rate of wages as prevailed in 1861" (p. 13). "...The sum earned depends upon ... the nature of the material operated upon.... The position of the operatives in regard to the amount of their earnings is very much better now" (October 1863) "than it was this time last year. Machinery has improved, the material is better understood, and the operatives are able better to overcome the difficulties they had to contend with at first. I remember being in a sewing school" (a char-ity institution for unemployed) "at Preston last spring, when two young women, who had been sent to work at a weaving shed the day before, upon the representation of the manufacturer that they could earn 4s. per week, returned to the school to be readmit-ted, complaining that they could not have earned Is. per week. I have been informed of 'SELF-ACTING MINDERS', ... men who manage a pair of self-acting mules, earning at the end of a fortnight's full work 8s. 1 Id., and that from this sum was deducted the rent of the house, the manufacturer, however, returning half the rent as a gift." (How gener-ous!) "The MINDERS took away the sum of 6s. lid. In many places the SELF-ACTING MINDERS ranged from 5s. to 9s. per week, and the weavers from 2s. to 6s. per week in the last months of 1862.... At the present time a much more healthy state of things exists, although there is still a great decrease in the earnings in most districts.... There are several causes which have tended to the reduction of earnings, besides the shorter staple of the Surat cotton and its dirty condition; for instance, it is now the practice to mix 'waste' largely with Surat, which consequently increases the difficulties of the spinner or minder. The threads, from their shortness of fibre, are more liable to break in the drawing out of the mule and in the twisting of the yarn, and the mule cannot be kept so continuously in motion.... Then, from the great attention required in watching the threads in weaving, many weavers can only mind one loom, and very few can mind more than two looms.... There has been a direct reduction of 5, 7— and 10 per cent upon the wages of the operatives.... In the majority of cases the operative has to make the best of his material, and to earn the best wages he can at the ordinary rates.... Another difficulty the weavers have sometimes to contend with is, that they are expected to produce well-finished cloth from inferior materials, and are subject to fine for the flaws in their work" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1863, pp. 41-43).
Wages were miserable, even where work was full time. The cotton workers willingly offered themselves for all public works such as drainage, road-building, stone-breaking and street-paving, in which they were employed, to get their keep from the local authorities (although this practically amounted to assistance to the manufacturer. See Book I, S. 598/589(1)). The whole bourgeoisie stood guard over the labourers. Were the worst dog's wages offered, and a labourer refused to accept them, the Relief Committee [27] would strike him from its lists.It was in a way a golden age for the manufacturers, for the labourers had either to starve or work at a price most profitable for the bourgeois. The Relief Committees acted as watchdogs. At the same time, the manufacturers acted in secret agreement with the government to hinder emigration as much as possible, partly to retain in readiness the capital invested in the flesh and blood of the labourers, and partly to safeguard the house rent squeezed out of the labourers.
"The Relief Committees acted with great strictness upon this point. If work was offered, the operatives to whom it was proposed were struck off the lists, and thus compelled to accept the offer. When they objected to accept work... the cause has been that their earnings would have been merely nominal, and the work exceedingly severe" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct. 1863, p. 97).
The operatives were willing to perform any work given to them under the PUBLIC WORKS ACT.
"The principle upon which industrial employments were organised varied considerably in different towns, but in those places even in which the outdoor work was not absolutely a LABOUR TEST b the manner in which labour was remunerated by its being paid for either at the exact rate of relief, or closely approximating the rate, it became in fact a labour test" (p. 69). "The PUBLIC WORKS ACT of 1863 was intended to remedy this inconvenience, and to enable the operative to earn his day's wages as an independent labourer. The purpose of this Act was three-fold: firstly, to enable local authorities to borrow money of the Exchequer Loan Commissioners" (with consent of the President of the Central Relief Committee); "secondly, to facilitate the improvement of the towns of the cotton districts; thirdly, to provide work and REMUNERATIVE WAGES3 to the unemployed operatives." Loans to the amount of £883,700 had been granted under this Act up to the end of October 1863 (p. 70).
The works undertaken were mainly canalisation, road-building, street-paving, water-works reservoirs, etc.
Mr. Henderson, Chairman of the committee in Blackburn, wrote with reference to this to factory inspector Redgrave:
"Nothing in my experience, during the present period of suffering and distress, has struck me more forcibly or given me more satisfaction, than the cheerful alacrity with which the unemployed operatives of this district have accepted of the work offered to them through the adoption of the Public Works Act, by the Corporation of Blackburn. A greater contrast than that presented between the cotton spinner as a skilled workman in a factory, and as a labourer in a sewer 14 or 18 feet deep, can scarcely be conceived."
(Depending on the size of his family, he earned 4 to 12s. per week, this enormous amount providing sometimes for a family of eight. The townsmen derived a double profit from this. In the first place, they secured money to improve their smoky and neglected cities at exceptionally low interest. In the second place, they paid the labourers far less than the regular wage.)
"Accustomed as he had been to a temperature all but tropical, to work at which agility and delicacy of manipulation availed him infinitely more than muscular strength and to double and sometimes treble the remuneration which it is possible for him now to obtain, his ready acceptance of the proffered employment involved an amount of self-denial and consideration the exercise of which is most creditable. In Blackburn the men have been tested at almost every variety of outdoor work; in ex-cavating a stiff heavy clay soil to a considerable depth, in draining, in stone-breaking, in road-making, and in excavating for street sewers to a depth of 14, 16, and sometimes 20 feet. In many cases while thus employed they are standing in mud and water to the depth of 10 or 12 inches, and in all they are exposed to a climate which, for chilly humidity is not surpassed I suppose, even if it is equalled, by that of any district in England" (pp. 91-92).— "The conduct of the operatives has been almost blameless, and their readiness to accept and make the best of outdoor labour" (p. 69).
1864. April.
"Complaints are occasionally made in different districts of the scarcity of hands, but this deficiency is chiefly felt in particular departments, as, for instance, of weavers.... These complaints have their origin as much from the low rate of wages which the hands can earn owing to the inferior qualities of yarn used, as from any positive scarcity of workpeople even in that particular department. Numerous differences have taken place during the past month between the masters of particular mills and their operatives in respect of the wages. Strikes, I am sorry to say, are but too frequently resorted to. ... The effect of the PUBLIC WORKS ACT is felt as a competition by the mill-owners. The local committee at Bacup has suspended operations, for although all the mills are not running, yet a scarcity of hands has been experienced" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 1864, p. 9).
It was indeed high time for the manufacturers. Due to the PUBLIC WORKS ACT the demand for labour grew so strong that many a factory hand was earning 4 to 5 shillings daily in the quarries of Bacup. And so the public works were gradually suspended — this new edition of the Ateliers nationaux of 1848,(2) but this time instituted in the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Experiments in corpore vili*
"Although I have given the very reduced wages" (of the fully employed), "the actual earnings of the operatives in several mills, it does not follow that they earn the same amount week by week. The operatives are subject to great fluctuation, from the constant experimentalising of the manufacturers upon different kinds and proportions of cotton and waste in the same mill, the 'mixings' as it is called, being frequently changed; and the earnings of the operatives rise and fall with the quality of the cotton mixings; sometimes they have been within 15 per cent of former earnings, and then in a week or two, they have fallen from 50 to 60 per cent."
Inspector Redgrave, who makes this report, then proceeds to cite wage figures taken from actual practice, of which the following examples may suffice:
A, weaver, family of 6, employed 4 days a week, 6s. 8.5d.; B, TWTS-TER, employed 4.5 days a week, 6s.; C, weaver, family of 4, employed 5 days a week, 5s. Id.; D, SLUBBER, family of 6, employed 4 days a week, 7s. 10d.; E, weaver, family of 7, employed 3 days a week, 5s., etc. Redgrave continues:
"The above returns are deserving of consideration, for they show that work would become a misfortune in many a family, as it not merely reduces the income, but brings it so low as to be utterly insufficient to provide more than a small portion of the absolute wants, were it not that supplemental relief is granted to operatives when the wages of the family do not reach the sum that would be given to them as relief, if they were all unemployed" (Reports of Insp. of Fact., Oct.1863, pp. 50, 53).
"In no week since the 5th of June last was there more than two days seven hours and a few minutes employment for all the workers" (ibid., p. 121).
From the beginning of the crisis to March 25, 1863, nearly three million pounds sterling were expended by the guardians, the Central Relief Committee, and the London Mansion House Committee
(ibid., p. 13).
"In a district in which the finest yarn is spun ... the spinners suffer an indirect reduction of 15 per cent in consequence of the change from South SEA ISLAND to Egyptian cotton.... In an extensive district, in many parts of which waste is largely used as a mixture with Sural ... the spinners have had a reduction of 5 per cent, and have lost from 20 to 30 per cent in addition, through working SURAT and waste. The weavers are reduced from 4 looms to 2 looms. In 1860, they averaged 5s. 7d. per loom, in 1863, only 3s. 4d. The fines, which formerly varied from 3d. to 6d." (for the weaver) "on American, now run up to from Is. to 3s. 6d."
In one district, where Egyptian cotton was used with an admixture of East Indian
"the average of the MULE SPINNERS, which was in 1860 18s. to 25s., now averages from 10s. to 18s. per week, caused, in addition to inferior cotton, by the reduction of the speed of the mule to put an extra amount of twist in the yarn, which in ordinary times would be paid for according to list" (pp. 43, 44). "Although the Indian cotton may have been worked to profit by the manufacturer, it will be seen" (see the wage list on pp. 51-52) "that the operatives are sufferers compared with 1861, and if the use of SURAT be confirmed, the operatives will want to earn the wages of 1861, which would seriously affect the profits of the manufacturer, unless he obtain compensation either in the price of the raw cotton or of his products" (p. 105).
House Rent.
"The rent is frequently deducted from the wages of operatives, even when working short time, by the manufacturers whose COTTAGES they may be occupying. Nevertheless the value of this class of property has diminished, and houses may be obtained at a reduction of from 25 to 50 per cent upon the rent of the houses in ordinary times; for instance, a COTTAGE which would have cost 3s. 6d. per week can now be had for 2s. 4d. per week, and sometimes even for less" (p. 57).
Emigration. The manufacturers were naturally opposed to emigration of labourers, because, on the one hand,
"looking forward to the recovery of the cotton trade from its present depression, they keep within their reach the means whereby their mills can be worked in the most advantageous manner". On the other hand, "many manufacturers are owners of the houses in which operatives employed in their mills reside, and some unquestionably expect to obtain a portion of the back rent owing" (p. 96).
Mr. Bernall Osborne said in a speech to his parliamentary constituents on October 22, 1864, that the labourers of Lancashire had behaved like the ancient philosophers (Stoics)." Not like sheep?
Endnotes
[18] 1 " Marx took the quotation from a review of this Report in The Westminster Review, Vol. 38, 1842, p. 102.—91
[19] Killing No Murder was the title of a pamphlet that appeared in England in 1657. Its author, Edward Sexby, stated that it was a patriotic duty that Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, a hated and cruel tyrant, be assassinated.—93
[27] On the Relief Committees see K.Marx, "Workers' Distress in England" (present edition, Vol. 19, pp. 239-42).—133