§ Mr. E. Davenportpresented a Petition from the operative Silk-weavers of Spitalfields, praying for relief from the greatest grievance under which any portion of the community could labour; namely, inadequate remuneration for their labour. They prayed, that an inquiry might be instituted into the cause of their distress. It might be that it was not in the power of that House to relieve them: but as persons who were drowning caught at the slightest things to save them, so the petitioners were anxious to seize every possible means of remedying the evils under which they laboured. They admitted that there was an improvement in the trade generally; but expressed their doubts of its continuance, and their conviction of the little benefit which that improvement would occasion to the working classes, while the masters, by combination, had the power of diminishing the rate of wages. They solicited parliament to enact a law, making agreements with respect to wages between the masters and the journeymen duly convened, imperative on both parties. For his own part, he thought that any measure of that kind would be a palliative, and not a corrective of the evil; which, in his opinion, principally resided in the state of the currency. He could never understand how it was possible to withdraw a considerable portion of the currency in the manner in which it had been withdrawn, without paralysing all the industry of the country. The act providing for the abolition of one-pound notes had already produced the greatest distress; and eighteen months were still to elapse, before the whole of the evil which it was calculated to create would be rendered manifest. If that evil were not neutralized by some measure of a counteracting tendency, he was persuaded that it would arrive at a most alarming height. It was 1242 extraordinary to hear the contradictory opinions on this important subject. While in the memorable debate which three years ago took place respecting it, one of the ministers of the Crown asserted that the question of the currency was settled; a Bank director, a man of great ability and experience, declared that so far was the question from being settled, that the manner in which it was left was fraught with the utmost danger, and would speedily require some alteration in the law. Was it not incumbent on the House to sift to the bottom such opposite opinions on a subject of such vital importance? By what strange fatality was it, that so few persons were disposed to listen to the discussion of a topic so generally interesting? It appeared as if some apprehension existed, lest the real facts of the case should be made manifest. Various reasons had been pressed upon him, but in vain, to induce him to withdraw his notice of a motion on Thursday next, for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the causes of the severe distress which had afflicted the commercial and industrious classes of the community during the last and present years. However unwillingly in some respects, he was determined to do his duty by persevering in that motion; leaving to parliament all the honour or all the shame that would result from adopting it on the one hand, or letting it die on the other.
Ordered to lie on the table.