CARLISLE PATRIOT, Saturday, November 18, 1843 /ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE....PART 3 (to the Editor of the Carlisle Patriot) THE MANUFACTURERS AND THEIR LABOURERS LETTER 1 continued........................................... _____________________________________________________________ At a recent meeting, I repeatedly pressed the question, whether it was just that the child should work, and the parent be forced into idleness ? but I could not get an answer. The fact could not be denied -- the practice could not be defended. Yet I submit to you, and your readers, whether this system alone is not sufficient to condemn the present abuse of machinery, and to warn us against making any further sacrifices for its advancement ? But even the manufacturer is not blind to the mischievous results of his system as regards children. When it suits him, he can bewail the use of children's labour -- and we find a notable instance of this at the time when the "Jacquard" machine was introduced. In those towns of Great Britain where figured work is produced, children had been long - and in many are still - employed as "drawboys"; but when the improvement was introduced from France, it promised to save time as well as labour, and the manufacturers adopted it with avidity. In consequence, the children lost their work. But the manufacturers then found it convenient to become loud in their expressions of concern at the uneducated state of the children of the industrious poor.. Sympathies that had lain dormant for years became suddenly active, and the well-being of the rising generation was apparently the principal aim of the millocrats. The weavers listened, and were, as usual, deceived. They adopted the machine, although very expensive, and fitted up wholly at their own cost, but their wages were the same as before, although their production was greatly increased; and they were further deprived of the small pittance earned by their children. I might mention numerous other cases of a similar kind, but I believe it to be unnecessary. It is pretty well known - at least all the working classes know it - that there is no fabric which machinery does not or cannot be made to produce, or if any such there be, then the castaways from other branches of manufacturers betake themselves to it, and a serious depreciation of wages is the consequence. Take an instance. Twenty years ago the weavers of Bolton were receiving "fifteeen shillings" for weaving twelve yards of 6.4th cambric. Now they get less than "three shillings" ! - and what compensation have they received for this ? Have house-rent, light, food, and fuel been reduced in proportion, or "eighty per cent ? Most assuredly not - and no repeal of the Corn Laws will ever produce the reduction; but the weavers are beggared, and MR. COBDEN sings the praises of machinery !! HE may -- the operatives cannot. Paid, as we are, the task of the Israelites, to make bricks without straw, ceases to excite our pity. Give us a fair remuneration for our labour, and then if the stringency of the Corn Laws were doubled, the operative would have more comforts at his command than now. Granting, for a moment, that the farmers in the far off Utopian climes of the League's creation were "to ship us food for nothing", are our present wages sufficient to clothe and educate our families, as becomes rational and immortal beings " We know they are not, and no Anti-Corn Law Leaguer has yet pretended that our wages will increase when the Corn Laws are abrogated - or if such a pretence were urged, we know the men and the true value of their promises too well to trust them. I have now shown how it is that the working classes suffer, and that the cause of their suffering is wholly unconnected with the Corn Laws. I shall conclude with a supposition grounded on a fact which, I think, proves that, in a national point of view, the reduction of wages incidental to the excessive use of machinery is a public loss. Take the working classes prejudiced by machinery to be not more than four millions - if each of these gets one shilling a week less wages than he would do if his labour were not exposed to a ruinous competition with machinery - the money lost to the nation is not less than £200,000 a week..........or £10,400,000 annually. This, which is full a fourth of entire foreign trade, is lost to the home market, which is the most valuable market of all - and yet the advancement of the foreign trade is the sole professed object of the Anti-Corn Law Agitation ! A trade which is in its very nature fluctuating and temporary, and on which we frequently suffer immense losses. The working classes, at all events, know the difference between an English "sovereign" and a yankee "shin plaster" ** . I am, Sir, yours, &c., JAMES BURNS. Gallabarrow, Cockermouth, November 7, 1843 ______________________ ** a dollar bill - generally of no real value. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::