The Remaining Branches of Industry

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 8 d. a yard for work, for which he now received 1 d. ; 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. Leach gives a list of wages paid in 1827 and in 1843 for various goods, from which it appears that articles paid in 1827 at the rates of 4 d. , 2¼ d. , 2¾ d. , and 1 d. per yard, were paid in 1843 at the rate of 1½ d. , 1 d. , ¾ d. , and ⅜ d. per yard, cutters’ wages. The average weekly wage, according to Leach, was as follows: 1827 , £1 6 s. 6 d. ; £1 2 s. 6 d. ; £1; £1 6 s. 6 d. ; and for the same goods in 1843 , 10 s. 6 d. ; 7 s. 6 d. ; 6 s. 8 d. ; 10 s. ; 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 1821 at the rate of 30 s. , 14 s. , 3½ s. , ¾ s. , 1½ s. , 10 s. , he paid in 1839 but 9 s. , 7¼ s. , 2¼ s. , ⅓ s. , ½ s. , 6¼ s. , 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 1821 , 16½ s. , and, in 1831 , but 6 s. Since that time wages have fallen still further. Goods which brought in 4 d. weavers’ wages in 1831 , bring in but 2½ d. in 1843 (single sarsnets), and a great number of weavers in the country can get work only when they undertake these goods at 1½ d. ⁠–⁠2 d. Moreover,