§ Mr. John Fielden moved for a "Return of all communications addressed to the Central Board of Poor-Law Commissioners, from the Manufacturing Districts of the United Kingdom, representing that there are frequent demands for the labour of whole families in those districts, in addition to those already to be found there; together with a return of ail communications to the same Board, from the southern coun- 358 ties of England, representing that the demand for the labour of such families is at present comparatively inadequate. Also, return of all answers or communications directed to be made by the Central Board of Poor-Law Commissioners to such correspondence or communications respectively."
Mr. Secretary Goulburnhad just read the Motion which had been put into his hands. There must have been a good deal of correspondence between the Poor-Law Commissioners and different parts of the country, and it would not be to the public advantage to have that laid before the House. As the Motion called for all the correspondence of that body, there must be much stronger arguments adduced than any he had heard, to induce him to consent to it.
§ Mr. Hindleysupported the Motion. The issuing of the circular by the Central Board of Poor-Law Commissioners, went to create an impression that a systematic attempt was making to draft the unemployed labourers from the agricultural parishes into the manufacturing districts, on the ground of there being an actual deficiency of labour in the latter. Before, the Central Board had resorted to such a measure, they should have ascertained whether such deficiency of hands really existed; and, if they had consulted the volume which lay on the Table of the House, (the Report of the Select Committee on the Petitions of the Hand-loom Weavers) they would have found that in the Borough of Bolton, to which some of the agricultural paupers had already been sent, there were not less than 24,000 individuals entirely dependant upon hand-loom weaving for their support, and who were represented to be in a state of considerable distress. The same document showed that in other districts in Lancashire there were large numbers of this distressed body of operatives, whose labour could only be rendered productive by its being engrossed in the power-loom manufactures. The facts elicited by this Report, therefore, established a primâ facie testimony against the proposed scheme of emigration; for it was evident that the low rate of wages which prevails amongst thousands of workmen, whose services could be made available in the staple manufactures of Lancashire and Yorkshire, afforded the strongest presumption that there was a redundancy of labour in 359 those counties. Under these circumstances, the transportation of agricultural labourers into the manufacturing districts, would aggravate the privations of the hand-loom weavers, and engender very serious discontent, without improving the condition of the agricultural labourers.
§ The House divided: Ayes 3; Noes 121—Majority 118.