What is remarkable in this vast movement in which so many millions were produced, and so many more promised, is, that the great leaders of the financial world took no part in it. The mighty loan-mongers on whose fiat the fate of kings and empires sometimes depended, seemed like men who, witnessing some eccentricity of nature, watch it with mixed feelings of curiosity and alarm. Even Lombard Street, which never was more wanted, was inactive, and it was only by the irresistible pressure of circumstances that a banking firm which had an extensive country connection was ultimately forced to take the leading part that was required, and almost unconsciously lay the foundation of the vast fortunes which it has realised, and organise the varied connection which it now commands. All seemed to come from the provinces, and from unknown people in the provinces.
THE CORN LAWS AND THE MANUFACTURERS (1842).
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 60, col. 420.
[Note.—The speech from which the following extracts are made was delivered in the House of Commons on February 14, 1842, on Sir R. Peel’s Motion for the House to go into Committee on his proposed sliding scale of Corn Duties.]
Mr. Ferrand: Sir, during the recess I thought it my duty to watch the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-Law League, who were agitating the country by the most violent and infamous placards, headed in large letters—“the base, bloody, and brutal landlords keep the bread of life from the poor”; and who were sending forth agitators, uttering falsehoods even more horrible than this, to pay whose expenses they have lately been exposing their wives and daughters at Manchester to the insolence of every coxcomb who chose to pay a shilling for his amusement. I also made inquiries into the truth of their assertions that the Corn Laws were the cause of the depression of trade, and of the misery and starvation of the working classes; and I found that during the operation of the Corn Laws in the last twenty years the Messrs. Marshall, flax-spinners of Leeds, have accumulated two millions in money, and have purchased immense landed estates; but this firm were not satisfied with this enormous wealth; they must carry out by themselves the principle of free trade, and set up mills in Belgium, where there are no Com Laws, and where labour is at a starvation price.... I will add a few more instances of the injurious effects of the Corn Laws on Anti-Corn-Law League manufacturers. I am credibly informed that the credit of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Philips) stands as high as ever on the Exchange in Manchester—that he is still a man of immense wealth, and has purchased extensive landed estates. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) had during these last twelve years accumulated half-a-million of money, and when, night after night during the last Session, he was asserting that the Corn Laws had ruined the trade in Lancashire, he was actually, at that very time, running his mill both day and night; but, Sir, I must admit that the hon. Member for Bolton (Dr. Bowring) has produced the only argument in favour of a repeal of the Corn Laws; for his opposition to them has enabled him to practise his principles of free trade on the public purse to such an extent as very fairly to have entitled him to the character of a freebooter.
Sir, these Anti-Corn-Law agitators assert that great numbers of the manufacturers in the country are insolvent, and that the Corn Laws are the cause of that insolvency. Sir, I have inquired into the truth of this assertion, and I am sorry to say that as far as the insolvency goes, it is but too correct. The Corn Laws, however, are not the cause; the reason is—these men were never solvent in their lives. I will now, Sir, endeavour to explain to the House who are the manufacturers in the north of England in the present day. They are a remnant of that high-minded and honourable class of men who raised the trade of this country to the highest pitch of commercial respectability. There are a few, Sir, who still endeavour to tread in the steps of these men; but they have to contend against men who are gambling speculators in trade, and who know no bounds to their insatiate thirst for wealth, a body of men trading with false capital under the shelter of Joint Stock Banks, many of which are themselves little better than societies formed for the protection of swindling. These men get their names entered in the books of one of these banks, they then wait upon a woolstapler, and offer to purchase a quantity of wool, making use of this Joint Stock Bank as a reference for character and capital—the reply, of course, is, “Oh, they are highly respectable—they have their accounts in our books—you are quite safe.” They then purchase the wool at three months’ credit, have it converted by their power mills into goods, and dispose of it at market during the ensuing week for ready money. The consequence is, that they have to sacrifice a large amount, not only to the merchant, but also to the woolstapler, who is not paid in cash at the end of the three months, but in two months’ bills. These men go on very prosperously so long as there is a brisk demand for the goods in the market, but when there is a stagnation in trade, caused by their recklessly overglutting the market, they inevitably become bankrupts.... I will now, Sir, inform the House what are the ultimate designs of this Anti-Corn-Law League. They commenced their operations three years ago. At first they only attempted an alteration of the Corn Laws; but finding very few supporters in the country, they held out a promise to the enemies of the Established Church, that if they would assist them in obtaining a total repeal of those laws, they would then join them in an attack upon that Establishment; a treaty being ratified between these parties, the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. O’Connell) was immediately invited over to take a seat at their first banquet. They there declared that the League was possessed of sufficient capital “to buy up” the landed property of the whole English nobility. But, Sir, I would ask what have the farmers to expect from these cotton lords when they have bought up the landed property of the country? It is their practice when they purchase land to have it immediately re-valued. They carry the principle of the ledger into their rent-roll; the rents are doubled; and I have known many families in my part of the country ruined by the oppression of these men. The manufacturing members of this League also want to increase their profits by reducing the price of wages; they also want to become the corn merchants of England; to convert one floor of their mills into a granary, and employ part of their machinery to grind the corn. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but you cannot deceive the working classes; you have tried to make them believe differently; but all your hired agitators have failed to do so. Yes, the poor of England would have to go down to these men in the manufacturing districts with money in their sacks’ mouths to buy corn, for there would be a great famine in the land. But this was only a part of their designs; now mark what would follow. Have hon. Members never been told of the Truck System? Have they never heard of the labourers’ wages being paid in goods? Lest they should not, I will expose to the House such a system of tyranny, oppression, and plunder, committed on these half-starved operatives, as is a disgrace to any Christian country. Sir, when the poor labourers go to receive their work from these manufacturers they now find that it generally consists of a very inferior article. They find the wool difficult to comb, and the warps full of flaws. On the Saturday evening—that period which ought to be the sweetest hour of the week to the working man—when the reward of his labour ought to be as freely given as it would ever be gratefully received—even this is pilfered from him. He takes his work to the mill, and who do you think receives it? Not the master of the mill—no, but an overlooker, who pretends carefully to examine it, and, of course, finds fault with it. He says to the poor fellow, “You have done this work ill; I must deduct so much from your combing.” And the poor weavers, who are perhaps only receiving three and sixpence or four shillings a week, are constantly mulcted in this manner by these overlookers, who have their own wages paid out of what they can deduct from these plundered wretches, and a percentage on the amount. Then, again, mark what follows: they have not even the small remnant paid in money; it is paid in goods, in rotten corn, in “cheap flour”; and when the poor man carries it home to his wife and family, after in vain endeavouring to induce the master to pay him his wages in money, he finds the flour which he had received as wages in the previous week still unconsumed, the quality being so bad that the stomachs of his sickly children had been unable to retain it. Sir, I assert that all this is true, for I have heard these statements during the course of my life from hundreds of the working classes; and what is more, they say that they have no hope of relief or succour from the Anti-Corn-Law League. Sir, these manufacturers are the men for whom the landed interest of England is to be destroyed!—these are the men for whom the yeomanry of Great Britain are to be driven from their homes!—these are the men who are to become the possessors of the English soil!—men who live and move and have their being for money alone; they care not how they obtain it; what cruelty and oppression they inflict, so long as they amass wealth from the sweat of the poor man’s brow. They refuse him the price of his labour; they look for nothing but enormous profits; they declare that there is no religion in trade; in short, they are, to use the emphatic language of Mr. Burke, a set of men whose ledger is their bible, whose counting-house is their church, and whose money is their God!
IMPRISONMENT FOR ABSENCE FROM CHURCH (1842).
Source.—Hansard, Third Series, vol. 60, col. 309.
Mr. Monckton Milnes said, it might be in the recollection of some Members of that House, that towards the end of last Session he gave notice of his intention to move for leave to bring in a Bill for the repeal of so much of certain acts of Elizabeth and James I. as inflicted penalties for the non-attendance on divine worship. The circumstances to which his motion applied would be found stated in the sixth report of the Inspectors of Prisons, published last year; the case had attracted great attention, and the vigilant eye of the press, to which public justice owed so much, had been directed to it in such a manner as to render it impossible that the case should not come before Parliament in some way or other. He thought, therefore, that it was better that the case should be brought under the notice of the House by one who, as far as he is known at all, is known as a humble and attached member of the Church of England rather than by any one indifferent or even hostile to that sacred institution. The cases to which he particularly wished to advert were stated in page 79 of the report, and are described by the Inspector as follows: