Have the goodness to explain to the Committee ... what are the boards of trade for which you have sent up petitions to the House?
We have endeavoured upon many occasions to make this system of a board of trade, which we pray for, as well understood as possible.... Now the old Spitalfields Act every one that is not friendly to the present proposed plans of boards of trade never fails to bring forward as an objection, as a thing which has been practically tried and failed. There is, however, nothing more different. The Spitalfields Act carried its own ruin in its constitution; it was framed upon the principle of being local, and confined to one place only. It was impossible that such an act could stand long, for whilst competition went on in the country, other manufacturers who were only at ten miles distance, or anywhere where the act did not extend, were at liberty to set up the same kind of work, and pay for it, without any transgression of the law, at a great reduction. This being the case, the trade of Spitalfields then began to spread to different parts of the country where the act did not extend; the consequence was, that Spitalfields was soon undersold by cheaper goods than it could make itself, and this led to the ruin of the Spitalfields Act. But had the thing been made general, and extended over the whole nation, the towns in the neighbourhood could not have underwrought Spitalfields; they would have been on the same footing. Had that act been made general, it would have been very good for the country at large; not the fixed price that the Spitalfields Act contained, but the minimum, the lowest price; it might rise and fall according to the circumstances of the trade. Now our views of it are exactly and principally founded upon that; a board of trade that shall extend over the whole nation, and that it shall be under one superintending head. We suppose that that superintending head could be nothing short of His Majesty's Board of Trade in London, and that boards of trade in local places in the country, who are only branches, locally established, not to do as themselves pleased, but they are to be all subordinate to one general board: that these boards shall be at all times guided by the circumstances of the times; and that this data, or lowest minimum of price, shall be taken from what the manufacturer or manufacturers of respectability are able and willing to pay, provided that others were obliged to pay the same prices with him, and that he could not be undersold in the market: that the foreign trade shall by no means be excluded from the consideration of the board; they are to be taken into consideration whether it is expedient that the prices shall be brought down a little, or up a little, just as the nature of trade might require....
Have you any parties introduced in these boards of trade consisting of masters and workmen, who would belong to neither party, who would act in conjunction with them in arbitrating where there was a difference of opinion whether the master paid too little or too much wages? Yes, we had conceived that the self-interest of both parties might induce them to differ, supposing an equal number of manufacturers and weavers composed this board; and one party under such circumstances must of course be in the wrong. Now the only arbiter that could be brought forth under such circumstances must be a neutral, that was pretty well versed in the nature of trade, and that arbitrator could be none other than His Majesty's Board of Trade in London.
In Glasgow or anywhere in Scotland, have you a board of trade in operation upon the principles you approve of, that you think would answer all purposes? It is going on just now; it is working at Paisley very finely, and at Glasgow.
Just explain those principles as far as you can? The working of the Paisley board at the present time, and the working of the Glasgow board, are exactly upon the same principles. The principle is this, that for all the species of work made at Paisley, the manufacturers made out a table of prices, and the weavers made out another; they were reciprocally handed to each other for correction, and the result was, they came to a mutual agreement; they entered into a 12 months' agreement, that they would issue no more work out to their workmen below the minimum price fixed, say it was 1s. for a certain fabric.[359]
[359] Cf. Fielden's proposals, as reported by the Committee's Second Report, 1835 (XIII), p. 14.
"The principal feature of Mr. Fielden's Bill is, that returns shall be made every three or six months of the prices of weaving paid by the smallest number of manufacturers, who collectively made one-half of the goods of any description in the parish or township whence the returns are sent, and the average of the highest prices paid by a majority of such manufacturers, shall be the lowest price to be paid in such parish or township during the succeeding three or six months. The effects of the measure would be to withdraw from the worst-paying masters the power which they now possess of regulating wages, and to confer it upon those whose object it is to raise the condition and character of the workpeople."
20. Coal Mines Regulation Act [Statutes 5 and 6, Victoria 99], 1842.
An Act to prohibit the employment of women and girls in mines and collieries, to regulate the employment of boys, and to make other provisions relating to persons working therein.