population, skilful in the management of the Loom and long trained to its labours, each individual of which usually subsists upon wages of three-pence per day.* From the best accounts that can be obtained, the annual Consumption of Cotton in India is eight hundred thousand bags, while that in Great Britain is only six hundred thousand. There being no machinery used in India, it is manifest, that the spinning and manufacturing of such a vast quantity of cotton must give employment and support to immense numbers of people, and if English spun Twist and Weft is conveyed to them in a state ready for being woven into cloth, all those employed in the protracted and tedious process of spinning by the Distaff and Spindle, will be gradually thrown out of employment, the consequence of which must be that the hands and time employed in this process will be applied to the labours of the Loom, and the Indian population will become Weavers for the whole world. *The following Statement of the prices of Spinning and Weaving in Hindostan, are taken from Mr. Lee's calculations, printed about the year 1811. .. Weaving a square yard of Cloth, containing thirteen hanks, of one hundred hanks Yarn........... 0 0 Spinning the thirteen hanks of Yarn....... 1 7 Cost of the Cloth manufactured in India, from Indian spun Yarn........ 1 7 The Weaving of a similar yard of Cloth in England, at the present rate of wages....... 0 7 0 74 1 24 Cost of the Cloth manufactured in England........... If the Indian Manufacturer was supplied with English Yarn, he would be enabled to manufacture the same Cloth for eight-pence half-penny. The Yarn....... 8. d. Whenever the great current of English Twist flows unrestrictedly into the Indian market, all the exertions to improve the Steam Loom will have become futile, and all the capital and machinery employed in working it, a ruinous speculation. The Indian Weaver will obtain our Twist, Weave it into Cloth, return it to England, and with all our boasted Machinery, all our Steam Looms and their subordinate preparatory machines, undersell us in our own Markets. The Indian Weaver can support himself as just mentioned, with wages of three-pence per day, and when those vast hordes of population which the Asiatic countries alone exhibit, apply themselves to weaving Yarn spun by machinery, it is perfectly demonstrable, that the Weavers of Europe, whose wages are so disproportionate to those of India, must turn to some other employment, or starve, and which ever is the case the greatest distress and misery must ensue. Alarming as this prospect is, it does not admit of the alleviation of being a distant one, at this very time, perhaps, the first step to the innumerable evils which must fall upon the Weavers of England and of Europe has been made. A QUANTITY OF TWIST WAS SHIPPED LAST YEAR TO INDIA FROM THE PORT OF LIVERPOOL, AND THE ADVENTURE HAS PROVED A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL ONE. The arguments which have been used to shew the impolicy of the exportation of Cotton Twist from England to the Continent of Europe, will no doubt be answered by an assertion that, were it now to be put a stop to, all that Twist which is exported and gives employment to the Continental Weavers, would stagnate in our own Markets, to the ruin and destruction of the whole spinning interest of England, and of the capital employed in it; but no such argument can be used on the subject of the exportation to India, because the practice is now first originating, and probably the shipment just alluded to is the first that ever sailed to India from the British shores. The distress and misery to which it may give rise by bringing the Indian into competition with the British Weaver appears so great, so pregnant with destruction to the latter, that, as one interested in the welfare of my country, and feeling an anxious and tender solicitude for the well being and prosperity of that industrious and intelligent population, the operative Weavers of this kingdom, I call earnestly upon that Legislature and those Statesmen, whose sacred trust it is to watch over and protect the interests of the people, to turn their most serious attention to a question so vitally important to their countrymen. An account of the quantity (in lbs. net) of Cotton Wool imported into Great Britain from the year 1791, and at different intervals prior to that time. (Parliamentary returns, except the years 1813, 1820, 1821 and 1822):- 59,682,406 58,176,283 74,925,306 43,605,982 1804 1806 1807 1808 1809 Arkwright's patent repealed. 1810 92,812,282 · 136,488,935 91,576,535 APPENDIX. No. 1. The Statement of Thomas Leather. Thomas Leather, of Leigh, Weaver, aged sixty-nine, says, that when about eight years of age he came with his father Richard Leather, and his mother Betty Leather, from Padgate, to live in a house situated on the west side of a street in Leigh, called the Walk; that the said street is in the Township of Pennington, and Parish and Town of Leigh; that his father was a wheelwright; that when they had lived one year at the said house they removed to another house, a public-house, situated on the east side of the Walk; that the last-mentioned house is now occupied by Molly Aspinwall; that he lived with his father three years in this last-mentioned house, in the first of which years his mother died; that at the end of the three years his father and he quitted the house and never afterwards resided in it. That whilst he lived the three years with his father, in the house on the east side of the Walk, their next door neighbour on the south side was James Smetham, Glass-maker, and their next but one on the south side was Thomas Highs, Reed-maker; that their next door neighbour on the north side was John Kay, Clock-maker. That whilst he lived the three years with his father, in the house on the east side of the Walk, there was much talk amongst the neighbours about a Spinning Machine, that Highs and Kay were making in Highs' garret; that Highs and Kay worked at this machine during over hours, sometimes working until late at night; that after they had worked at it some months, they one Sunday Evening threw or carried it into the back yard and broke it. That on the Monday morning, he, this deponent, took a wheel or pully for a trundle bowl from the broken machine as it lay in the yard; that when the neighbours heard that Highs and Kay had broken the machine they laughed at them; that Kay said he would have no more to do with Spinning machines; that Highs, however, was not satisfied, but took the broken machine |