of men, called, from their occupation, croppers, shearmen, or clothworkers. The introduction of this machine appears to be opposed with the greater earnestness, because the general establishment of it would be likely to throw a very considerable class of men out of their present employment. With regard to the actual effects on the cloth, of the gig mill, and shearing frame, your committee feel it their duty to declare, that decisive evidence has been adduced before them, by merchants and manufacturers of the highest credit and of the greatest experience, to prove that the above machines, especially the gig mill, the use of which has been longer and more generall v established, when properly regu ated and carefully employed, finish the cloth in the most perfect manner. It has already been stated, that manufacturers residing in parts of the country where, from whatever causes, the gig mill was not used, have often sent their cloths to a distance to be dressed by it; and your committee have learned from the information of one of their own members, that, by an express stipulation, the use of it has been required by the consumers of our cloths in a particular foreign market, where it has enhanced their credit and improved their sale. It has been given in evidence before your committee, and even acknowledged by some of the petitioners themselves, that alarms similar in nature to those which are now conceived of the gig mill and shearing frame, attended the first introduction of several of the machines which are now generally used with acknowledged advantage in different processes, formerly performed by band, of the woollen manufacture. Hitherto these alarms have after a time subsided, and the use of the machines has been gradually established, without, as it appears, impairing the comforts, or lessening the numbers of the workmen and prejudices, however powerful at first, have worn away as time and experience have enabled the opponents of such improvements more justly to appreciate their merit, and anticipate their success.

:

Moreover, it is highly satisfactory to remark, that, in many instances in which it was apprehended that the introduction of particular machines would throw such numbers of people out of employment, as to occasion great distress, the result has been very different, for, to say nothing of the new occupations for which the attendance on such machines has given occasion, a fresh demand for labour to an immense extent has arisen out of the increased sale of the article, consequent on the greater cheapness and superior quality of the manufacture.

Neither is it to be forgotten, that the system of patents, a system by which the inventor of any new machine commonly secures to himself for a time the exclusive benefits of his discovery, while at the end of the term they are thrown open to the public at large, provides in most cases against its too sudden and general establishment, by which a great multitude of workmen might be all at once thrown out of employment.

But your committee would be wanting to the important subject entrusted to their consideration, If they were to forbear remarking, that, if the principles on which the use of these particular machines is objected to were once admitted, it would be impossible to draw the line, or to fore

see the fatal extent of their application. No on will deny, that, if parliament had acted on such principles so years ago, the woollen manufacture would never have attained to half its present size. The rapid and prodigious increase of late years in the manufactures and commerce of this country is universally known, as well as the effects of that increase on our revenue and national strength; and in considering the immediate causes of that augmentation, it will appear that, under the favour of providence, it is principally to be ascribed to the general spirit of enterprise and industry among a free and enlightened people, left to the unrestrained exercise of their talents in the employment of a vast capital; pushing to the utmost the principle of the division of labour; calling in all the resources of scientific research and mechanical ingenuity; and finally, availing themselves of all the benefits to be derived from visiting foreign countries, not only for forming new, and confirming old commercial connections, but for obtaining a personal knowledge of the wants, the taste, the habits, the discoveries and improvements, the productions and fabrics of other civilized nations, and, by thus bringing home facts and suggestions, perfecting our existing manufactures, and adding new ones to our domestic stock; opening at the same time new markets for the product of our manufacturing and commercial industry, and qualifying ourselves for supplying them.

It is by these means alone, and, above all, your committee must repeat it, by the effect of machinery in improving the quality and cheapening the fabrication of our various articles of export, that, with a continually accumulating weight of taxes, and with all the necessaries and comforts of life gradually increasing in price, the effects of which on the wages of labour could not but be very considerable, our commerce and manufactures have been also increasing in such a degree as to surpass the most sanguine calculations of the ablest political writers who had speculated on the improvements of a future age.

It is likewise an important consideration, of which we never should lose sight, that we are at this day surrounded by powerful and civilized nations, who are intent on cultivating their manufactures and pushing their commerce; and who are the more eager to become our competitors in trade, from having witnessed the astonishing effects of our commercial prosperity.

Your committee were therefore not surprized to hear that attempts have been made to carry over to foreign countries our machines and implements, and to tempt our artizans to settle in them; at tempts, of the probability of which the legislature has appeared fully sensible, by passing laws from time to time for preventing their success. Your committee has even received specific evidence of an establishment having been made in Paris for carrying on the wool en manufacture on the most improved plan, with all our machinery (among the rest those very machines, the gig mill and shearing frame) under the direction of a man of approved skill both in constructing and using them. Your committee need not remark how much these attempts would be favoured by, our throwing any obstructions in the way of enterprize and ingenuity, and the free application of capital

Though the system which has been just described be that which has been generally established in the West Riding of Yorkshire, yet there have long been a few factories in the neighbourhood of Halifax and Huddersfield; and four or five more, one however of which has been since discontinued, have been set on foot not many years ago in the neighbourhood of Leeds. These have for some time been objects of great jealousy to the domestic clothiers The most serious apprehensions have been stated, by witnesses who bave given their evidence before your committee in behalf of the domestic manufacturers, lest the factory system should gradually root out the domestic; and lest the independent little master manufacturer, who works on his own account, should sink into a journeyman working for hire. It is for the purpose of counteracting this supposed tendency of the factory system to increase, that a camerous class of petition: rs wish, instead of repealing, to amend and enforce the act of Philip and Mary, for restricting the number of looms to be worked in any one tenement; and with a similar view they wish to retain in force the 5th of Elizabeth, which enacts the system of apprenticeship. On this latter head your committee will have occasion to say more hereafter; but it seemed right just to notice the circumstance in this place.

Your committee cannot wonder that the domestic clothiers of Yorkshire are warmly attached to their accustomed mode of carrying on the manufacture: It is not merely that they are accustened to it-it obviously possesses many eminent advantages seldom found in a great manufac

It is one peculiar recommendation of the domestic system of manufacture, that, as it has been expressly stated to your committee, a young man of good character can always obtain credit for as much wool as will enable him to set up as a little master manufacturer, and the public mills, which are now established in all parts of the clothing district, and which work for hire at an easy rate, enable him to command the use of very expensive and complicated machines, the construction and necessary repairs of which would require a considerable capital. Thus, in tances not unfrequently occur, wherein men rise from low beginnings, if not to excessive wealth, yet to a situation of comfort and independence.

It is another advantage of the domestic system of manufacture, and an advantage which is obviously not confined to the individuals who are engaged in it, but which, as well as other parts of this system, extends its benefits to the landholder, that any sudden stoppage of a foreign market, any failure of a great house, or any other of those adverse shocks to which our foreign trade especially is liable, in its present extended state, has not the effect of throwing a great number of workmen out of employ, as it often does, when the stroke falls on the capital of a single individual. In the domestic system, the loss is spread over a large superficies; it affects the whole body of the manufacturers; and, though each little master be a sufferer, yet few if any feel the blow so severely as to be altogether ruined. Moreover, it appears in evidence, that, in such cases as these, they seldoma turn off any of their standing set of journey

men, but keep them at work in hopes of better

times.

On the whole, your committee feel no little sa tisfaction in bearing their testimony to the merits of the domestic system of manufacture; to the facilities it affords to men of steadiness and industry to establish themselves as little master manufacturers, and maintain their families in comfort by their own industry and frugality; and to the encouragement which it thus holds out to demestic habits and virtues. Neither can they omit to notice its favourable tendencies on the health and morals of a large and important class of the community.

But while your committee thus freely recognize the merits and value of the domestic system, they at the same time feel it their duty to declare it as their decided opinion, that the apprehensions entertained of its being rooted out by the factory system, are, at present at least, wholly without

foundation.

For, happily, the merchant no less than the domestic manufacturer finds his interest and convenience promoted by the domestic system-while it continues, he is able to carry on his trade with far less capital than if he were to be the manufacturer of his own cloth. Large sums must then be irrecoverably invested in extensive buildings and costly machinery; and, which perhaps is a consideration of even still more force, he must submit to the constant trouble and solicitude of watching over a numerous body of workmen. He might then often incur the expence of manufacturing articles, which, from some disappointment in the market, must either be kept on hand, or be sold to a loss. As it is, he can agree with his customer, at home or abroad, for any quantity of goods; and whether on a long expected or a sudden demand, he can repair at once to the market, and most probably purchase to the precise extent of his known wants; or, if the market happen not to furnish what he wishes to purchase, he can give out his sample, and have his order executed immediately.

While these and various other considerations, which might be stated, interest the merchant, as well as the manufacturer, in the continuance of the domestic system; and when it is remembered that this mode of conducting the trade greatly multiplies the merchants, by enabling men to carry on business with a comparatively small capital, your committee cannot participate in the apprehensions which are entertained by the domestic clothiers. In fact, there are many merchants, of very large capitals and of the highest credit, who for several generations have gone on purchasing in the halls, and some of this very description of persons state to your committee that they not only had no thoughts of setting up factories themselves, but that they believed many of those who had established them, were not greatly atta hed to that system, but only persisted in it because their buildings and machinery must otherwise lie a dead weight upon their hands. Under these circumstances, the lively fears, of the decline of the domestic, and the general estab ishment of the factory system, may reasonably excite surprize It may have been in part occasioned by the decrease of the master manufacturers in the

immediate neighbourhood of the large towns, es

pecially in two or three populous hamlets adjoining to Leeds, whence they have migrated to a greater distance in the country, where they might enjoy a little land, and other conveniencies and comforts. It may have strengthened the impression, that, as your committee have already stated, three or four factories have, within no very long period of time, been established in Leeds, or its vicinity.

But your committee are happy in being able to adduce one irrefragable fact, in corroboration of the sentiments they have already expressed on this question: This is, that the quantity of cloth manufactured by the domestic system has increased mmensely of late years. not only in itself, but as compared with the quantity made in factories.

Several factories, it has been observed, had long been established near Halifax and Huddersfield, but the principal progress of the factory system, and that which chiefly created the alarm, is stated to have been, within about the last fourteen years, in the town and neighbourhood of Leeds.-Your committee succeeded in their endeavours to discover the quantity of cloth annually manufactured in all these factories, and it was found not to exceed 8,000 pieces. According to the provisions of the acts commonly called the Stamping Acts, 11 Geo. II. and 5 and 6 G. o. III. Returns are made every Easter to the justices at Pontefract sessions, of the quantity of cloth which has been made in the preceding year; the account being kept at the fulling mills by officers appointed for that purpose. These returns your committee carefully examined for the last 14 years, and find that in the year 1792, being by far the greatest year of export then known, there were manufactured 190,332 pieces of broad, and 150,666 pieces of narrow cloth: Yet the quantity of cloth manufactured in 1805 was 300,237 pieces broad, and 165,847 pieces of narrow cloth, giving an increase, in favour of 1805, of 109,905 pieces broad, and 15,181 pieces narrow; from which increase deducting the cloth manufactured in factories, there remains an increase of about 100,000 broad, and 15,181 narrow pieces, to be placed to the account of the domestic system. The comparatively small quantity of cloth manufactured by the factories will excite less surprise, when it is considered that they are better adapted to the manufacturing of fancy goods, of which immense quantities and great varieties have been invented aud sold, chiefly for a foreign market, of late years.

Your committee have the satisfaction of seeing, that the apprehensions entertained of factories are not only vicious in principle, but that they are practically erroneous; to such a degree, that even the very opposite dispositions might be reasonably entertained; nor would it be difficult to prove, that the factories, to a certain extent at least, and in the present day, seem absolutely necessary to the well-being of the domestic system; supplying those very particulars wherein the domestic system must be acknowledged to be inherently de. fective: for, it is obvious, that the little master manufacturers cannot afford, like the man who possesses considerable capital, to try the experiments which are requisite, and incur the risks, and even losses, which almost always occur, in inventing and perfecting new articles of manufac

ture, or in carrying to a state of greater perfection articles already established. He cannot learn, by personal inspection, the wants and habits, the arts, manufactures, and improvements of foreign countries; diligence, economy, and prudence are the requisites of his character, not invention, taste, and enterprize; nor would he be warranted in hazarding the loss of any part of his small capital. He walks in a sure road as long as he treads in the beaten track; but he must not deviate into the paths of speculation. The owner of a factory, on the contrary, being common y possessed of a large capital and having all his workmen employed under his own immediate superintendance, may make experiments, hazard speculations, invent shorter or better modes of performing old processes, may introduce new articles, and improve and perfect old ones, thus giving the range to his taste and fancy, and, thereby alone, enabling our manufacturers to stand the competition with their commercial rivals in other countries Meanwhile as is well worthy of remark and experience abundantly warrants the assertion), many of these new fabrics and inventions, when their success is once established, become general among the whole body of manufacturers: the domestic manufacturers themselves thus benefiting, in the end, from those very factories which had been at first the objects of their jealousy. The history of almost all our other manufactures, in which great improvements have been made of late years, in some cases at an immense expence, and after numbers of unsuccessful experiments, strikingly illustrates and enforces the above remarks. besides an acknowledged fact, that the owners of factories are often among the most extensive purchasers at the halls, where they buy from the domestic clothier the established articles of manufacture, or are able at once to answer a great and sudden order; while at home, and under their own superintendance, they make their fancy goods, and any articles of a newer, more costly, or more delicate quality, to which they are enabled by the domestic system to apply a much larger proportion of their capital. Thus, the two systems, instead of rivalling, are mutual aids to each other; each supplying the other's defects, and promoting the other's prosperity.

It is

The committee, therefore, feel it to be their duty to recommend the repeal of the 2d and 3d of Phil. and Mary, or the Weavers' Act.

The 5th of Eliz. c. 4, may be said to controul the manufacturer in the making of his cloth, inasmuch as it prescribes the peculiar description of persons who shall alone be suffered to employ either themselves or others in the woollen manufacture; by prohibiting the engaging or working in it to all who have not served a regular apprenticeship under indentures, or as apprentices (for the acts make this distinction) for the term of seven years.

The system of apprenticeship is obviously more congenial with the domestic than the factory system; and therefore your committee were not surprised to find that it has maintained its ground more generally in the North than in the West of England, where, however, a practice of a similar kind and under a peculiar name (that of colting) has pretty generally prevailed; but rather, as your committee understand, from custom, than from a