§ ON PETITION OF SEVERAL WEAVERS, &c.
§ The Committee to whom the Petition of several thousand manufacturers and artizans in the town of Manchester and neighbourhood; and also, the Petition of several weavers and spinners of cotton, handicrafts, artists and labourers, resident in the town of Bolton, in the county of Lancaster, or its vicinity, were referred, to examine the matter thereof, and report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the House;—and to whom the Petitions of persons residing in the town of Paisley and suburbs thereof; and of heritors, manufacturers, merchants, mechanics, and labourers of all denominations, residing in Lancaster, Ayr, and 609 Renfrew shires, and the manufacturing places adjacent,—were referred;—
§ Have carefully and maturely examined the various suggestions submitted to their Consideration; all of which appear to your Committee, to be exposed to insuperable objections; some, as being of a nature too important and too extensive to fall within the limits of enquiry, which the Committee thought it their duty to prescribe to themselves; others, as calculated either to restrict the number of hands when manufactures are flourishing; to confine workmen to a trade in which, by a change of circumstances they may be no longer able to find employ; to arrest the progress of improvement, and of facilities for abridging labour, on grounds which, at former periods, must have been equally strong against the introduction of the loom itself; and to infringe on personal liberty, in that most essential point, the free exercise of industry, of skill, and of talent:—and have especially considered the expedient suggested to them, of administering pecuniary aid out of the public revenue.
§ "While your Committee fully acknowledge, and most deeply lament the great distress of numbers of persons engaged in the cotton manufacture, in various trades connected with it, arising from circumstances which have caused the sale of cotton goods to decline, and consequently the demand for labour in these trades, and in that manufacture, to be reduced;—they are of opinion, that no interference of the legislature with the freedom of trade, or with the perfect liberty of every individual to dispose of his time and of his labour, in the way and on the terms which he may judge most conducive to his own interest, can take place, without violating general principles of the first importance to the prosperity and happiness of the Community; without establishing the most pernicious precedent, or even with out aggravating, after a very short time, the pressure of the general distress, and imposing obstacles against that distress being ever removed: or, if the interference were extended to all trades and occupations, as it manifestly must be, when the system has been acted on in any, without producing great public mischief, and being destructive of the happiness and comfort of individuals.
§ "But above all, your Committee are Boost decidedly of opinion, that grants of 610 pecuniary aid, to any particular class of persons suffering under temporary distress, would be utterly inefficacious as to every good purpose, and most objectionable in all points of view; particularly as they could not fail of exciting expectations unbounded in extent, incapable of being realized, and most likely to destroy the equilibrium of labour and of employment, in the various branches of manufacture, of commerce, and of agriculture."