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in case of distress, to repair and man their vessels in foreign ports, or with foreign seamen, allowing a more free intercourse in shipping, and defining more clearly what ought and ought not to be considered as British ships or British seamen. Other bills were introduced and adopted for regulating ships carrying passengers, for pilots, and other minor details, for which reference must be made to the acts themselves.

VI. TRADING COMPANIES. Of the measures relating to these, one went to repeal so much of the 6 Geo. I. cap. 18, (commonly styled the Bubble Act,) as related to joint stock companies, and to enable the legislature to grant to those companies acts of parliament for their protection, and thus to bring them within the guardianship of the law; the act not to affect the issue of suits pending during the time that it passed; and to render the members of corporations incorporated by royal charter individually liable.

Another act gave additional power to private bankers in Ireland, and additional security to persons doing business with them, by allowing companies of more than six members to issue promissory notes, provided the same were done at places fifty miles from Dublin; allowing persons resident in Britain to be members of Irish trading companies, making the members liable individually, and regulating the whole of the details. This measure was expected to conduce very much to the prosperity of Ireland, in consequence of the stability it was calculated to give to the private banks, which, under the old system, were always either creating alarm or actually occasioning loss.

A third measure related to partnership societies in Scotland, and provided for their suing and being sued by their active director or manager, much in the same way that joint stock compa

nies in England can sue and be sued by their secretaries.

VII. BONDED GRAIN AND FLOUR,
AND CANADIAN CORN.

An act, passed on the 22d of June, provided for all foreign corn bonded before the 13th of May 1822, and all wheaten flour warehoused under 5 Geo. IV. c. 70, being taken out for home consumption, the one half before the 15th July, and the other half before the 15th August, upon paying a duty of 10s. per quarter on wheat, 6s. 6d. for every quarter of rye, pease, or beans, 3s. 6d. for every quarter of oats, and 2s. 6d. for every hundredweight of flour; but none to be taken out of the warehouses after the 15th of August. On the same day, an act was passed, suspending for one year and to the end of the then next session of Parliament, the prohibition of the importation of wheat from Canada; but prohibiting any wheat from being shipped for Britain from the Canadian ports without oath being previously made that such wheat was bona fide the production of the British colonies in North America.

VIII. REGULATIONS OF COTTON

MILLS AND FACTORIES.

The early age at which children had been admitted to work at those establishments, the number of hours which they had been employed without air or exercise, and the unseasonable hours at which they had been made to work, had long been complained of, and ultimately excited the attention of the legislature. The act provided, that, after the first day of August, 1825, no person under sixteen years of age should be employed in any mill for spinning wool or cotton, or cleaning the same, for a greater number of hours than twelve in the day, and that these hours should be between five in the morning and eight in the evening. That nine hours only should be allowed on Satur

days, to be over by half past four in the afternoon; and that half an hour daily should be allowed for breakfast, and one hour for dinner; but, in case of loss of time, through deficiency of water, or accidents to machinery, the time to be made up by additional labour, not exceeding half an hour per day, and not extending to Saturdays. The act The act farther ordered, that the walls and ceilings should be washed with water and quick lime once a-year; that a copy of the act should be kept in every manufactory to which it applied; that persons convicted of offending against it, upon information laid within two months, should be fined; that books of registry, stating the ages of the children, should be kept; that justices interested should not act; that witnesses should be punished for refusing to give evidence; and that no appeal should be allowed. This act gave rise to some discussion. It was contended, on the one hand, that it was an interference with the liberty of the subject, by restricting the usefulness of the young persons, employed in those mills, both to their employers and to themselves; and it was answered, upon the other hand, that the children were employed an improper length of time, not for any benefit to themselves, but to gratify the cupidity of others.

IX. POSTAGES AND NEWSPAPER
STAMPS.

The regular conveyance of letters to and from Colombia and Mexico was provided for; and the postage between Britain and Colombia and Mexico, fixed at 2s. 2d., 4s. 2d., 6s. 3d., 8s. 4d., for single, double, treble, and ounce letters; and between the ports in the West Indies and the same, at half those sums, abating the pence; the moneys raised by the same to be paid into the Exchequer on behalf of the consolidated fund.

Newspapers, votes, and proceedings in Parliament, were allowed to be sent to the West India Colonies upon putting them into the post-office upon the day on which they were dated, and paying three-halfpence. Newspapers put into the post-office not upon the day of publication, (except Sunday papers, which might be put in on Monday,) to pay the same as single letters; but if written upon, to be charged as treble letters. Newspapers printed in the Colonies, to pay 3d. upon being received in the mother country. The proceeds of the postage to be paid into the consolidated fund; and compensation to be made to those officers in the postoffice who previously had the privilege of franking newspapers to the Colonies. Persons not obliged to send newspapers by post, and the name of a Member of Parliament upon the cover of newspapers dispensed with.

The regulation limiting the sale of newspapers repealed, and supplements or sheets containing advertisements, and delivered gratis, allowed to be upon a two-penny instead of a four-penny stamp.

Letters were allowed to be sent by the packets between Liverpool and Dublin at the same rates as from Holyhead to the latter place.

X. EQUALIZATION OF CURRENCY.

The current coin of Ireland, which had previously been at the rate of thirteen-pence to one shilling sterling, was assimilated to the British standard; all existing obligations which had been taken in Irish currency, to be paid in sterling at the proper rate; the bank tokens to be called in, and sterling to be the circulating medium and money of exchange for Ireland, from and after the 1st of January, 1826.

CHAPTER VI.

COMBINATION LAWS.

THE measure of the previous session, repealing the combination laws, was founded upon a just principle, but in practice had given rise to the most atrocious disorders. Those laws, directly invaded the equitable rule, that every man has a right to dispose of his labour on such terms as he himself chooses to fix ; and it was no reply to that objection to say, that there was an impropriety in a number combining to do that which either of them singly was entitled to do. Masters, it is well known, can combine with greater facility than can their workmen, and it is quite fair that combination should be opposed to combination. The proceeding, on either side, must, in most instances, be uncalled for and foolish; because it may be presumed, on the one hand, that masters will seldom be indisposed to give for labour its money worth at the time; and, on the other, that by no contrivance of human ingenuity will they be compelled to give more: however, exceptions from this remark may, and do occur; and we shall endeavour to exemplify the advantages in combining which masters have over their workmen. The former can suspend their works for a season, or submit to have them suspended, without incurring any loss

but the negative one proceeding from the non-employment of their capital; but the latter, who, to use a homely expression, live from hand to mouth, would be exposed to starvation, were work withheld from them for the shortest period, and were there no fund upon which they might retreat when out of employment. It is easy to perceive, then, that the masters, in any particular branch of trade, might, by a little dexterous management, succeed, at some particular crisis, in forcing their workmen (supposing there to be no such fund, as that we have adverted to, in existence) into the acceptance of wages which are unequal to the value of their labour. It is true, they could not continue such injustice for any length of time; for the spirit of rivalship between them, and also the transference by the workmen (which would infallibly happen) of their labour from a trade in which they are oppressed, to some more profitable one, would speedily bring about an equitable readjustment of wages to profits. But even temporary injustice is an evil, which the workmen ought to have been entitled peaceably to guard against; and the only means of guarding against it was by combinations, provided with common funds

for the support of those of their number who could not find work at what they considered reasonable wages.

The repeal of the combination laws, therefore, was imperiously demanded as a concession due to natural justice; but owing to the ignorance and perverseness of the workmen, that which was designed by the legislature as a boon to them, was converted into a curse to themselves and the country. The period of their emancipation they seemed to regard as a Saturnalia, during which they were entitled, like the Roman slaves of old, while that season lasted, to indulge in all sorts of freedom with impunity; and many of them rushed into the most hideous excesses. They construed the liberty they had acquired into a power to dictate to, and oppress their masters; and confederacies were everywhere formed, extremely well organized, at the head of which generally were turbulent individuals, who acted the part of tribunes of the workmen taking it upon them to denounce masters who had become obnoxious to them, and single them out as objects of vengeance. But this was not all; for, trampling under foot the very principle themselves had so justly contended for, viz. that every man has a right to dispose of his labour upon his own terms, these confederacies presumed to prescribe to the whole members of their respective trades the wages they were to work for, and the masers whom they were not to work to; and disobedience of their mandates was sure to be punished by personal violence, and not unfrequently, in Glasgow especially, by assassination! In this way many extensive establishments, which had been laid under the ban of the confederacies, were obliged to suspend work; nay, the capital invested in some of them was transferred to Ireland, as being there better protected; thousands of workmen who did not share in the conspiracy, had to work

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at the risk of their lives; and many others, acted upon by intimidation, unwillingly abstained from working at all. The conduct of the jacquerie workmen became, at length, as insane as it was atrocious;-their folly resembled that of the Indian who cuts down the tree to get at the fruit; for it was evident that their proceedings, if persisted in, would have terminated in banishing manufactures from the country.

The disorders, caused by the conduct of those worthless individuals, became so multiplied over the whole kingdom, and the mischiefs to be apprehended from them were so serious, that it was the opinion of every one unconnected with the infatuated mob, excepting Mr Hume, the author of the repeal, that a revision of that measure had become indispensably necessary. Mr Huskisson, accordingly, in the House of Commons, moved, on the 29th of March, for the appointment of a select committee to consider the effect of the act of last session, and to report as to the necessity of repealing or amending its provisions.

After a violent and lengthened debate between Mr Huskisson, Mr Peel, Mr Hume, and others, in which the latter gentleman contended that the conduct of the masters had been equally faulty with that of the men, and that the law, as it presently stood, was perfectly sufficient to repress all improper combination, a Committee was appointed, which, after a tedious (and, as was afterwards alleged, an unfair and partial) examination of witnesses, reported to the House, that, in their opinion, the act of last session ought to be repealed, and new and more efficient provisions introduced in its stead. A Bill, the same in principle as the act of the former session, was accordingly passed through its different stages, repealing the act of 1824, but renewing its provisions in so far as it repealed all former enactments on the subject, and per

nitted workmen to combine or unite in a peaceable and orderly manner, for the purpose of obtaining an increase of

wages.

The act then proceeded to detail various things, to the number of eighteen, which it shall not be lawful to do. Its provisions differed, however, in so trifling a degree from those of the act of the former session, that it is scarcely necessary to notice them further than by stating, that by the present law every workman or other person, or any number of persons, are liable to be punished by summary process for forcing, endeavouring to force, threatening, molesting, obstructing, or compelling by any means whatever, any person or persons, either to leave his or their work, or to join any combination or union of workmen. Witnesses refusing to give evidence are also liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months, or until such time as they may consent to give such evidence; it being left to the option of the magistrate to receive the evidence, when once refused, or to confine the person, who has so refused, for that period. The two points, in fact, on which it mainly differs from the act of last session, are, that under the former law, no master manufacturer or son of a master manufacturer, being a justice of the peace, could act in any case of com

bination, while under the present law, such justices are permitted to act; and that an appeal is now allowed from the decision of the justice or magistrate to the quarter sessions.

The Bill, after having passed a first and second reading without any opposition, became, on the motion for considering it, and bringing up the report, the subject of one of the warmest and most violent discussions which occurred in the course of the session. The cause of this opposition was the insertion of the words "insult, molestation, and obstruction," which, the opponents of the Bill contended, were too vague and indefinite; and the permission which it gave to justices being manufacturers, or the sons of manufacturers, to enforce its provisions, by passing sentence on those who might be found guilty of violating them. Divisions took place on all these points, when there appeared large majorities in favour of the words, which, with the exception of "insult,” stand part of the act. A motion was also made, in the course of the debate, to permit trial by jury of persons offending against its provisions, which, after some discussion and a division, was rejected by a considerable majority. The Bill passed the House of Commons on the 24th of June, and received the Royal Assent on the 5th of July.

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