AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL DISTRESS.
GEORGE IV. 1829—1830
England, also, this year presented its scenes of lawlessness. This arose from different causes to those which gave rise to the insurrection in Ireland. These causes were the distress which prevailed among the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial classes. The depression in every branch of trade experienced this year naturally gave rise to a reduction of wages among the artisans. These artisans, however, unreasonably ascribed this reduction, not to the necessities of trade, but to the avarice of their employers; and they still more unreasonably proceeded to their usual correctives—voluntary idleness, and the destruction of property. The example was set by the silk-weavers of Spitalfields and Bethnal-Green, who refused to work except at an increased rate of wages, and made their way by night into the shops of workmen possessed of materials belonging to the refractory masters, and destroyed them. Overawed by the combination, the masters agreed finally to pay the same wages that had been paid in 1824, although its continuation would prove ruinous to them. Similar scenes were exhibited, and the same results followed at Macclesfield, Nuneaton, and Bedworth. Nor did the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire escape the contagion. About the end of May the weavers of Barnsley, like the silk-weavers of Bethnal-Green and Macclesfield, forced upon their employers a list of prices. By August and September, however, the masters found it impossible to keep to these prices; and when they proposed a reduction, the workmen immediately left their work, and commenced a riot. Warehouses were attacked, as were also the houses of such weavers as had taken out work at reduced prices; and it was only by calling in the aid of the military that tranquillity was restored. Yet lawless and mischievous as these proceedings were, it was clear that they originated from the misery of those engaged in them. A report, drawn up at Huddersfield by a committee of masters, stated, “that within the several townships engaged in fancy business, there were 13,000 individuals who had not more than twopence halfpenny per day to live on; and out of this they had to find wear and tear for looms.” This report added, “Whatever be the cause of such distress, it is feared that the agonizing condition of families so circumstanced cannot long be endured. The difficulty of obtaining relief by the ordinary course, and the aggravating circumstances often attending applications for it, have a powerful tendency to drive the applicants ultimately to desperation. In laying these painful statements before the members of his majesty’s government and other influential gentlemen, the master manufacturers wish to do it respectfully, impelled by a sense of duty which they owe to the government and the public, and especially to their workmen, who have hitherto borne their sufferings with extreme patience.” The distress was aggravated by a bad harvest and a severe winter, all of which contributed to bring the productive classes of the community, and especially the lowest orders, into a state of abject misery.