And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful for any two Justices of the Peace, within the limits and jurisdictions aforesaid, on information upon oath made before them by any person or persons whatsoever, that there is reason to suspect that any master or journeyman weaver, within the districts or jurisdictions aforesaid, hath been guilty of any of the offences aforesaid, at request of such informant, to issue their summons, in writing, signed by any such two Justices, requiring any clerk, foreman, apprentice, servant, or other person or persons employed or retained by such person so suspected to have offended, or any other person or persons whatsoever, whose attendance shall appear necessary for the purpose of giving evidence in the premises, to attend and testify concerning the premises: And if any person so summoned shall not attend, and proof shall be made of the service of such summons either personally or by leaving the same at the last or usual place of abode of such person, it shall be lawful for such two Justices, or any other two Justices of the Peace acting for such county or place, and they are hereby required (unless a reasonable excuse be made for such non-attendance to the satisfaction of such justices) to issue their warrant, under their hands and seals, for the apprehending and bringing him or her before them, or some other two or more Justices of the Peace acting for such county or place, to be examined touching the premises; and if any such person so attending or being brought before such Justices, shall refuse to be examined or give their testimony touching the premises, such person shall by the said justices be committed to the House of Correction for one month, there to remain, unless he or she shall sooner submit to be examined and give testimony as the law requires.
And be it further enacted, that if any master weaver residing within the limits aforesaid, shall, directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever, retain or employ any journeyman weaver out of or beyond the limits aforesaid, with intent or design to elude or evade this act, or shall give, allow, or pay, or cause to be given, allowed, or paid, to such journeyman, any more or less wages than shall be settled, as aforesaid, every such person shall, for every such offence, forfeit fifty pounds; to be sued for by action of debt, in any of His Majesty's Courts of Record at Westminster, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager of law, or more than one imparlance, shall be allowed, and wherein the ordinary costs of the suit shall be paid; one moiety of which said forfeiture, when recovered, shall belong and be paid to His Majesty and His successors, and the other moiety to the person who shall sue for the same.
Provided always, and be it further enacted, that nothing in this act contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to fix, control, or regulate, the wages or allowances to be paid to servants in the said business of a weaver, bona fide retained and employed as foreman.
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the passing of this act, no person or persons, being silk weavers, residing within the districts aforesaid, shall have in his or their service at any one time more than two apprentices, upon pain of forfeiting for every offence the sum of twenty pounds; to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods and chattels, upon conviction, on the oath or oaths of one or more credible witness or witnesses, before two Justices of the Peace within either of the jurisdictions aforesaid where the said offence shall be committed, and the said penalty, when recovered, shall be paid into the hands of the Master of the Weavers' Company, to be applied by him, as aforesaid, and the said Justices are hereby authorised and required to discharge every such apprentice or apprentices exceeding the number of two.
4. A Middlesex Wages Assessment under the Spitalfields Act [Public Record Office, H.O. 86, 26], 1773.
Sir John Fielding presents his respects to the Earl of Suffolk and acquaints him that he had the pleasure yesterday of assisting at the general Quarter Sessions for the county of Middlesex to carry into execution the late Act of Parliament for the regulating of the wages of journeymen weavers in Spitalfields, etc., and the wages were then settled by a numerous and unanimous bench to the entire satisfaction of those masters and journeymen weavers who appeared there in behalf of their respective bodies, and I sincerely hope that this step will prove a radical cure for all tumultuous assemblies from that quarter so disrespectful to the King and so disagreeable to Government, as it will amply reward your Lordship's judicious attention to a matter so conducive to peace and good order, for by this statute your Lordship has conveyed contentment to the minds of thousands of his Majesty's subjects. The Act for the appointment of clergymen with proper salaries agreeable to my proposals was also carried into execution to attend the gaols, and this preventive step will, I am persuaded, be attended with very salutary effects; and as the important business of the sessions is over, I hope your Lordship will take the advantage of my Lord North's leisure to settle the affair regarding my general prevention plan which now lies before him for his Majesty's approbation.
I am, with unfeigned truth, my Lord,
Your Lordship's respectful and the public's faithful Servant.
Sir John Fielding,
9th July, 1773.
5. Agricultural Labourers' Proposals for a Sliding Scale of Wages [Annals of Agriculture, Vol. XXV, p. 503[350]], 1795.
At a numerous meeting of the day labourers of the little parishes of Heacham, Snettisham, and Sedgford, this day, 5th November, in the parish church of Heacham, in the county of Norfolk, in order to take into consideration the best and most peaceable mode of obtaining a redress of all the severe and peculiar hardships under which they have for many years so patiently suffered, the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to:—1st, That the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that the mode of lessening his distresses, as hath been lately the fashion, by selling him flour under the market price, and thereby rendering him an object of a parish rate, is not only an indecent insult on his lowly and humble situation (in itself sufficiently mortifying from his degrading dependence on the caprice of his employer) but a fallacious mode of relief, and every way inadequate to a radical redress of the manifold distresses of his calamitous state. 2nd, That the price of labour should, at all times, be proportioned to the price of wheat, which should invariably be regulated by the average price of that necessary article of life; and that the price of labour, as specified in the annexed plan, is not only well calculated to make the labourer happy without being injurious to the farmer, but it appears to us the only rational means of securing the permanent happiness of this valuable and useful class of men, and, if adopted in its full extent, will have an immediate and powerful effect in reducing, if it does not entirely annihilate, that disgraceful and enormous tax on the public—the Poor Rate.
Plan of the Prices of Labour Proportionate to the Price of Wheat.