HOSIERY MANUFACTURE BILL. (Hansard, 13 May 1847)

§ SIR H. HALFORD
stated, that he would not press the Bill at that late hour of the evening (12 o'clock); but he thought the House would agree with him that a full consideration of the subject to which it referred could not be evaded.

§ MR. W. ELLIS
observed, that this Bill had occasioned great excitement in the counties of Leicester and Nottingham, where the price of food was very high, and trade was in a most depressed condition. If the House should determine to send the Bill before a Committee, its adoption or rejection would probably not be decided upon until the meeting of a new Parliament, and the manufacturers would, in the meantime, be kept in a state of suspense. He considered that this was a most unfortunate time for the proposal of such a measure, when there was great probability that the hosiery trade in this country might be still further depressed by the introduction of foreign manufactures. He gave the hon. Gentleman who had 792 brought in the Bill the fullest credit for humane and disinterested motives; but he was convinced that if the Bill were kept hanging over the trade, it would have a most prejudicial effect upon the interests of the operatives. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman would consent to abandon the measure.

§ SIR J. C. HOBHOUSE
concurred in the suggestion of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. W. Ellis). He had received a petition signed by all the master hosiers of Nottingham against this Bill; and the more he had looked into the subject, the more he was convinced that the mode of legislation proposed by the hon. Member for Leicester would involve him in difficulties of which he had little idea, and would be injurious to the very parties whom he intended to benefit. He would mention one fact of importance. There were 40,000 frames employed in this trade in the three counties, 10,000 of which were independent frames; and the immediate effect of the operation of the Bill would be to confiscate the whole of the latter, as well as the property embarked in them. There was one parish about three miles from the town of Nottingham, in which there were 1,700 of these frames; and there was not a single person connected with those frames who would not be utterly destitute to-morrow if the Bill passed. He had spoken to several parties, who were inclined to allow the hon. Gentleman to go into Committee with his Bill, though they were not disposed to support a single clause of it in Committee; all they wished being inquiry. They thought that there was a sort of case made out as to the distress of these operatives, and they wished to see any way in which that distress could possibly be alleviated. But the Bill of the hon. Gentleman was really a Bill to raise wages by Act of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman himself would confess that.

§ SIR H. HALFORD
No; its object is to prevent them from being unfairly lowered.

§ SIR J. HOBHOUSE
Did not that amount to the same thing? The Bill was, in reality, a Bill to raise wages, and that was a principle which was not supported in these days.

§ MR. PACKE
was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should have entered into any argument on this Bill, when it was postponed to a future day. He did not think that the Bill would be injurious to the operatives, which was framed in ac- 793 cordance with the report of the Commissioner appointed in 1844.

§ MR. T. DUNCOMBE
said, that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Hobhouse) might have presented petitions against the Bill from the manufacturers of Nottingham, and perhaps from Leicester also. He had likewise presented petitions signed by several thousands of operatives, who had great reason to complain of those very hosiery manufacturers, in whose behalf the right hon. Gentleman had presented petitions. This was a question, the discussion of which could not be avoided, though it might be very convenient to endeavour to get rid of it by throwing the Bill over till another Parliament. He hoped that the hon. Gentleman would go on with his Bill, and that it would be submitted to a Committee up stairs. He did approve of all the provisions of the Bill; but the details were subjects for consideration in Committee, and he would be ready to prove, when the discussion came on, that the labour and wages of the working classes were confiscated, and that they were subject to gross robbery. He believed that it was impossible that their condition could be worse than it was at present, and he was informed that 500 of the framework-knitters were now in the workhouse at Hinckley. There was not a more ill-used class than the framework-knitters in the three counties.