§ Mr. Hawkesmoved the second reading of the British Manufacturers' Protection Bill. The Bill was one which affected the vital interests of this great empire, and in which the labouring classes were closely identified, and he trusted, that the House would permit him to enter into a brief statement of the grievances that the present bonding system inflicted on the manufacturers of British hardware. Foreigners made a practice or trade of bonding goods, and exporting them as British, manufacture, with the names and 426 marks of our most celebrated manufacturers, not only to their detriment, but to that of the numerous working classes employed by them. He considered it an imperative duty on a British Legislature to protect equally the interests of parties which constituted our national prosperity, and he called on the House to protect the various branches of trade now affected by the present bonding system. Though he did not wish to interfere with the free-trade system on reciprocal and equitable principles, yet he relied on the good sense of the House for the protection of the British manufacturers and distressed operatives, particularly at a crisis when trade was greatly oppressed. The hardware trades of Sheffield, and other places, suffered particularly by these practices, and in those places it would be a felony for a British subject to forge the names or marks of those who were entered at the Cutlers'-hall. Yet such was the fact, that agents were employed in this country for the sale of hardware and cutlery manufactured by the Belgians and Germans, bearing our marks and names, bonded and exported from this country in British bottoms to our colonies as British manufacture, to make the fraud complete. He should reserve himself for further comments for the Committee.
§ Bill read a second time.