Mr. Blackburnepresented a Petition from the distressed manufacturers of Manchester. He stated that the petition was subscribed by more than forty thousand signatures, the majority of whom were reduced to a state of extreme distress. As he conceived this to be a subject of great public importance, he was willing to give the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House clue notice, to consider of the best and speediest mode of administering relief to so large and valuable a portion of the community. He should upon a future day call the attention of the House to this subject. He then moved that the Petition be brought up.
Sir Robert Peelsaid, that particular circumstances had made him acquainted with the condition of those upon whose behalf the Petition was presented, and never, he believed, was there an instance in which the labourers of this country suffered such distress. He was far from attributing this serious evil to the conduct of his Majesty's ministers; it was owing, he apprehended, altogether to the successful efforts of our great enemy. He hoped, 340 that as Parliament had already come forward to support the inhabitants of Portugal, under the calamities brought upon them by the troops of Buonaparté, they would be no less anxious to protect their own manufacturers from the consequences of his policy. The body soliciting assistance was a most useful one, and had contributed as much as any other to promote the commerce and welfare of the country. It would, he was persuaded, go a great way to alleviate their distresses if the House of Commons were to shew a fellow-feeling upon the occasion, and, therefore, he hoped that government would deem it expedient to administer some relief.
Colonel Stanleysaid he had another Petition of a similar nature, signed by six or seven thousand of the weavers, spinners and labourers of cotton in the town and vicinity of Bolton, in Lancashire, which he should present when this was disposed of. The petitioners were a most industrious class of men, and the distresses to which they were exposed were great and serious.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, he did not doubt that such Petitions would always be received by the House, and disposed of, according to its best judgment. In the present instance, he was anxious that the Petition and all its details should be fully before them, in order that they might come to the consideration of the question with all the information necessary. He thought the motion, of which the hon. gent. who presented the Petition had given notice, a proper one; it was right that he should hereafter fix a day for moving that it should be referred to a Committee, upon which occasion, the House would have to consider all the points embraced in such a motion; it would have to consider the evil, the prayer, and the remedy; it would have to consider whether it would be practicable to afford sufficient relief, and as a necessary branch of that consideration, whether, if sufficient relief could not be afforded, the attempt might not excite expectations which could not be fulfilled, and, by so doing, aggravate instead of alleviating the distresses. The present was not the time for discussing those topics; he should therefore satisfy himself with declaring upon his own part, and he believed he might upon the part of every member of that House, that it was his desire to afford every practical relief; but that he should feel it necessary to guard against encouraging any hope which was not likely to be realized.
341 The Petition from Manchester was then read, setting forth,
"That the Petitioners are reduced to the greatest distress, from the extensive depression of the various manufactures occasioning a deficiency of employment, and from the great reduction of wages, which circumstances, added to the high price of provisions, have subjected them to the most unexampled privations; and that the evils under which they so severely suffer are daily accumulating, and many of their employers, who flattered themselves with enjoying a competence, after many years of toil and industry, now find themselves reduced to complete poverty; and those who are not yet added to the enormous list of bankrupts find their property daily lessening, and cannot, by a continuance in business, in the present state of affairs, promise themselves a better fate; and that the Petitioners humbly submit, and earnestly hope, that some means will be speedily adopted in order to prevent the impending ruin that threatens the country, as great numbers of artists have been compelled, for want of employment, to quit their native land, and to emigrate to foreign countries, in hopes of ameliorating their condition, and to seek for that encouragement which unfortunately has failed them in this their once happy and prosperous country, by which emigrations the trade of the United Kingdom has been much injured and depressed, and must inevitably, in the course of futurity, end in consequences the most disastrous; and that the consequence of this situation of affairs is that the great bulk of the Petitioners are reduced to the most dreadful situation, beyond all former precedent and example, great numbers experiencing the total want of employ, and thousands daily suffering the absolute want of the necessaries of life, for themselves, their wives, and helpless offspring; and that the Petitioners most humbly entreat the House to take into their consideration the distress and situation of the different mechanical branches in general, who are, for want of employment, reduced to want and misery, as the scanty pittance of their earnings is wholly inadequate to procure them the common necessaries of life, the majority of them not being employed more than three days per week; and that a revocation of the Orders in Council would pave the way to a removal of the Non-intercourse and Non-importation Acts lately passed by the Congress and Senate of the United States of Ame- 342 rica, which have already added, and will no doubt still further tend to add, to the distresses of the Petitioners, and would, in the opinion of the Petitioners, by opening a more extended mart for commerce, in a partial degree be the means of restoring them to a more comfortable state; and if such measure could be followed up with a general and permanent peace, (to obtain which desirable end they hope and firmly trust the House will avail itself of every opportunity), the whole of the grievances under which the Petitioners, together with many thousand others of his Majesty's subjects, labour, would then cease, and the Petitioners would be enabled, by the return of trade and commerce, not only to support themselves and families with credit, but with utility to their king and country; and that, if the desirable objects above suggested cannot at present be attained, without sacrificing any of the interests, or compromising the honour and dignity of the country, the petitioners rely with the fullest confidence on the House adopting some such speedy mode as would operate in amelioration of the present distresses of the petitioners."
Colonel Stanleythen presented the Petition from several weavers and spinners of cotton handicrafts artists and labourers, resident in the town of Bolton, in the county of Lancaster, or its vicinity, setting forth,
"That the major part of the petitioners are engaged in or dependent on the cotton manufacture, and that such manufacture hath of late years been subject to great fluctuations, whereby the petitioners have been reduced to frequent necessity, and oft deprived of the necessaries of life; and that at all times the petitioners have borne those sufferings with becoming fortitude, but their present burthen impels them, at this very awful juncture, to lay their distress before the House, in the hope that some means will be devised to afford them relief: and that not more than two-thirds of the looms of the petitioners are employed, and a proportionate number of other industrious artists and handicrafts are also destitute of work: and that those of the petitioners who yet have employ are so much reduced in the price of their labour, that, on a fair average, they cannot earn more than 5s. per week, and that, from these causes the petitioners are absolutely involved in the deepest distress, not being able to procure a sufficiency of even the coarsest food for themselves and 343 families, nor to pay rent for their habitations; their trivial effects and implements of industry are either already or must speedily be sold at one fourth of their cost to satisfy their landlords, and the petitioners are thereby deprived of even a chance in better times; and that the severe privations endured by the industrious poor have introduced a most malignant lever, and want and penury have long since filled the workhouses, but the applicants for relief are too numerous to be supplied with even a scanty allowance; several subscriptions have been made by the friends of humanity, yet these are very inadequate, nor can effectual relief be given, as the distressed objects daily increase, unless the wisdom of the House devise some method to remove or alleviate the general calamity, which now threatens one common ruin to the greater part of the inhabitants of that once happy county; and praying the House to take into its most serious consideration the very alarming state of the cotton manufacture, which, until lately, afforded employ in the various branches connected therewith to not less than five hundred thousand persons, and that they will enact such salutary laws as will give employ and suitable wages to the industrious inhabitants of that exceedingly distressed part of the empire."
§ The said Petitions were ordered to lie apon the table.