17. That the system of apprenticeships, whether considered in a religious, political or moral point of view, is highly beneficial to the State, and from the neglect thereof is to be attributed the great defalcation of public morals, the numerous frauds committed in trade, the increased numbers of juvenile criminals, public trials and executions.
18. That the pretensions to the allowance of universal uncontrolled freedom of action to every individual founded upon the same delusive theoretical principles which fostered the French Revolution, are wholly inapplicable to the insular situation of this Kingdom, and if allowed to prevail, will hasten the destruction of the social system so happily arranged in the existing form and substance of the British constitution, established by law.
19. That the meeting highly approves the proceedings of the 62,875 masters and journeymen, who have already presented petitions, to the House of Commons, praying for leave to bring a Bill into Parliament to amend, extend and make more effectual the statute of apprenticeship, 5 Elizabeth, chap. 4.
21. That the most effectual preventive against and check upon combinations of journeymen, as also of masters in any trade, is for the persons engaged in such trades to take apprentices as required by law.
15. Report of Committee on the Ribbon Weavers [Report of Committee on the Ribbon Weavers, 1818 (IX)], 1818.
Your Committee also report, That it appears by the examination that the silk, and ribbon weavers in particular, are and have been for some time past suffering great privations and distress, arising out of inadequate wages; that such distress has had the effect of reducing thousands of them to seek parochial aid, and have, in consequence, increased the poor-rate, especially in the parishes of Coventry and in the County of Warwick, where the ribbon trade is the staple manufacture, to an extent too burdensome to be much longer borne.
That the low rate of wages complained of by the Petitioners is not in consequence of the want of trade, it having been proved to your committee that there are as many silk goods, particularly ribbons, now making, as at any former time.
That a system of half-pay apprenticeship has been resorted to, which has been attended with ruinous consequences to the morals of such apprentices, and exceedingly injurious to the trade.
That the evils complained of do not exist in London, Westminster, and Middlesex; which your committee believe to be owing to the provisions of the act called the Spitalfields Act, which extend to those places, the effects of which are fully detailed in the evidence.
That the whole of the masters and weavers in the Ribbon Trade concur in the propriety of an extension of the Spitalfields Act.