MONEY PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL— THE TRUCK SYSTEM. (Hansard, 12 April 1831)

Mr. Hume
held the principle of this Bill to be erroneous. He had before declared his sentiments on the subject, and would not, therefore,discuss its clauses, but move that the Chairman do now leave the Chair.

Sir R. Bateson
inquired whether this Bill was to be extended to Ireland?

§ Mr. Littleton
replied, that it was not; but he should have no objection to extend its provisions to that country.

Sir R. Bateson
contended, that it was important that the provisions of the Bill should extend to Ireland.

§ Mr. Littleton
begged to observe, in explanation, that the title of the Bill contained the words "to certain parts of Great Britain;" and that he was therefore afraid that it could not be extended to Ireland. By another Bill, however, the enactments of the measure might be extended to Ireland.

Mr. Warburton
would not now go into the discussion of the merits of this Bill, to which he had before expressed his decided opposition. He was glad, however, to find that the Bill had been so materially altered from the form in which it had originally been laid before them. He felt it the more unnecessary to discuss the measure, as, in his opinion, it would be found totally inoperative, even if it should be passed into a law.

§ Mr. Western
said, that however highly he might appreciate the motives of the hon. member for Staffordshire, in bringing forward this Bill, yet, believing the principle of it to be most pernicious, he must decidedly oppose it. It was impossible to tell how far such a principle might be carried, or what extent of mischief might result from the adoption of the principle. He believed the House had never interfered between the master and the man, except to the detriment of the latter.

§ Mr. Tennant
said, he was opposed to the Bill, and thought that the only effect of it would be, to prevent the poor man from obtaining the best market he could for the only thing he had to sell, namely, his labour. It was not always that laws which originated in good motives were the best laws, or the laws most calculated to effect the object towards which they were directed. Thus the Usury Laws were intended to benefit the borrowers of money; but they were in effect most disadvantageous to the borrowers, as many of the Gentlemen he was now addressing might have experienced. According to the definition of "wages" in this Bill, the clauses of the Bill would not touch any contract which was partly in money and partly in goods.

§ Mr. James Morison
believed, that the Bill would be found in practice an interference between master and man, which was never advisable, without the possibility of effecting that which was the professed object of the interference. If, however, the Bill did operate at all, he was sure that it would do the labourers no good, and that it was very likely to do them much harm. In some parts of the country it would throw hundreds out of employment.

§ Mr. W. Whitmore
said, that if he thought the bargains in question were matters of pure competition between the masters and the labourers, he should agree with the hon. member for Middlesex, and the other Members opposite; but as he considered the Truck System to be a system of positive compulsion upon the labourers, he believed that that would be a wholesome and beneficial law, which should require that all such contracts be carried into effect by means of money. Under this system, the man who was employed by the Truck-master constantly fell into debt with the shop, and then it was impossible for him to leave that particular employment. Being in the master's debt, the man was altogether in the master's power. None of the Gentlemen opposite had ventured to say, that the Truck System was one which it would be advisable to allow generally; but then if it were not a good general system, why should it be allowed to prevail in particular districts of the country?

Mr. O'Connell
said, that the best feature in this Bill was, that it would be totally inoperative. He was quite opposed to a 1258 measure which went, like this Bill, to interfere with the freedom of labour. The Truck System was the result and the proof of the existence of poverty and distress in the country; and this was not the way to remedy such a state of things. The way to do that was, to increase the market for labour, and to increase the competition amongst the masters.

§ Mr. Maberly
said, that this Bill was contrary to all the general principles of political economy. But if it was an expedient and good Bill, why was it confined to England? The whole agricultural wages in Scotland consisted in barter, and yet this Bill was not extended to Scotland. He, for one, was for leaving manufactures and trade alone. In his opinion, the grand principle was, not to legislate at all for such matters, but to let every thing find its proper level in the open market.

§ Mr. Littleton
said, that all he wanted in bringing forward this Bill was, to carry into effect the existing laws on the subject. It appeared to him that Parliament should either repeal those laws altogether, or not allow them to be evaded. He maintained that the measure in its present shape would be perfectly effective for the object which it had in view. There was a general call throughout the country, amongst those who were most interested in the matter, for such a measure, and he hoped the House would at length consent to its adoption.

Mr. R. Gordon
said, that his impression was, that this Bill would be wholly ineffectual. He should certainly oppose it, for it appeared to him to be a perfectly useless and very absurd measure. Indeed, of all the absurd pieces of legislation that had ever been introduced into the British Legislature, this was, in his opinion, the greatest. He would only ask, for instance, why were Lincolnshire and several other counties exempted from the operation of this Bill? Why was such an absurd exemption introduced into it?

Mr. Alderman Wood
had the same objection to urge against the Bill, for he could not understand why Cornwall should have been exempted from its operation. As, however, the hon. member for Staffordshire thought that the Bill was calculated to prevent the Truck System, he would support it.

§ Mr. Littleton
said, that the reason why certain counties had been exempted from the operation of the Bill was, that it had 1259 not been proved that the Truck System existed in those counties.

§ Mr. Hunt
said, that although there might be some difficulty in carrying the Act into effect, yet he hoped, that for the sake of the labouring poor, who suffered great hardships, the Bill would pass.

§ Lord Althorp
observed, that those hon. Members who had opposed this Bill had argued upon a false foundation. They had assumed, that the labourers were always competent to make contracts, whereas they were in every Case in debt to their masters, and therefore it was impossible for them to resist the control of their masters, and they were obliged to take goods from them at any rate. All that this Bill did was, to enable the labourers to know what were the bargains they did make. When this measure first came before him, he had had some doubts of its policy; but after a full consideration of the facts, he felt it to be his duty to support it.

Lord Granville Somerset
opposed the Bill, and supported, though with reluctance, the Motion of the hon. member for Middlesex.

§ Mr. Poulett Thomson
did not expect that such a law could be made perfect at once; but it was less likely to be evaded, and was, therefore, a better law than the present.

§ Lord Sandon
said, that the labourers felt the slavery in which they were entangled; and they came to that House for relief. In his belief, it was their duty to listen to the demand, and to pass the Bill. It was said, that political economists had an exception to their principles of free-trade; and he thought that it was much to their credit that they had. No one had more agreed in the principles of Mr. Huskisson than he had; but he well knew that that lamented gentleman also felt that there ought to be a limit to the principles of free trade. In his opinion, the present case came within this description.