ments, it is clear from the general consensus of reports that wages of one penny an hour for a seventy hours' week were frequent, and even general. The Commissioner said that it was unwise to tell the whole truth on this point, as it was either discredited or gave the impression that such evils were beyond remedy.[1]
It is not to be supposed that the case of the handloom-weavers was a case of exploitation of industrious and honest men by unscrupulous employers. The reports make it abundantly clear that the trade had become the refuge for cast-offs from other trades. There were, however, cases of real hardship, especially where old weavers were concerned. Their lot was exceedingly hard, as they could remember days of prosperity, and often possessed knowledge and education which only served to embitter those memories. The case of some of the Irish immigrants was also hard, because they had been enticed into England by manufacturers for the purpose of reducing wages and breaking strikes.[2]
Against bad masters these poor men had little protection. Combined action was impossible; there were no funds to support a strike; and the least threat of such proceedings brought into use more power-looms. In the distressful days of 1836–42 labour was a drug in the market, and to transfer to another industry was therefore possible to very few. The reformed Parliament was not unsympathetic;[3] it inquired twice, in 1834 and 1838–40, but could not devise a remedy, though it could and did understand the nature of the evil. To relieve such a body of men out of poor rates in such a way as to raise them in the scale of citizenship was impossible in a generation which applauded the deterrent poor law of 1834. To men who had for years besought Parliament to remedy their ills, the Poor Law Amendment Act must have come as a piece of cruel and calculated tyranny, and have completed the alienation of the weavers and similarly situated classes from the established order of things.
The system under which wages were paid in the weaving trade was a source of immense irritation and oppression. Wages were always subject to deductions. Some of these abatements were payments for the preparation of the beam ready for weaving, which was an operation which no weaver
