Manchester in 1844: its present condition and future prospects; translated from the French, with copious notes by a member of the Manchester Athenaeum

Preface

Amongst the various features developed in the progress of society, there are some which are the direct result of human forethought, and the direct purpose of which is to produce a certain defined change in the social fabric. Of this class of events, was the formation of the American constitution ; and the whole of legislative science may be com prehended under this head. But, there are other features developed in the progress of society which are not, and which, indeed, cannot be foreseen by the mind of man, but which are, nevertheless, the results of human ingenuity. Of such, was the discovery of the art of printing, and also of the steam-engine. Nothing more was necessary to the discovery of these mighty agents, than the ingenuity or the good fortune of the inventors. And yet these agents, which are a VI

PREFACE.

. so comparatively trivial when judged of by the ingenuity necessary for their development, have altered, destroyed, and created a greater number of elements in society, and in a far more permanent degree, than could ever have been effected by the legislative skill of the wisest of our race. It is not more than seventy or eighty years since, that a few humble mechanics, in Lanarkshire, distinguished by scarcely anything more than me chanical ingenuity and perseverance of character, succeeded in forming a few, but important mechanical combinations, the effect of which has been to revolutionize the whole of British society, and to influence, in a marked degree, the progress of civilization in every quarter of the globe. There is something mysterious in the rise anc progress of the manufacturing system.

A few me chanical discoveries, apparently insignificant in them selves, and almost unnoticed at the time of their appearance, form the nucleus of a system which grows steadily, and marches on silently, and yet, with such irresistible influence as to absorb in a

PREFACE.

. VII few years, the olden features of society, developing new features, requiring new institutions in accordance with its new developments, and pointing to some new Destiny, ill-understood, yet instinctively believed in by all. A system, such as this, however anomalous it may appear, cannot be the result of chance. It is equally certain, that it was never planned by human intelligence, for so sudden has been its growth, that we have neither succeeded in fully comprehending it, nor in adapting our social institutions to its new requirements. Moreover, its tendencies are of a marked character. It must, therefore, have a mission. To discover what this mission is, and how it may most speedily and effectively be accomplished, is a task worthy of the intelligent and benevolent .mind. Ages of transition are always painful stages in human progress.

Faith in the old idea is shaken before the New is defined and acknowledged. They are seasons of activity it is true, but a morbid restlessness rather than an harmonious action is their dominant characteristic. Strong minds doubt. weak hearts despond, and time alone reveals the a vhi

PREFACE.

. resolution of the discord in the glories of a sue ceeding age. The same incomprehensible power, which amidst the varying proportion of the sexes in the family, preserves an unvarying proportion in the aggregate, has doubtless, destined this new system to effect some mighty change in the physical condition of the human race, which shall prepare the way for a higher sphere of social and moral development. The writer of these lines, has elsewhere remarked, " The past history of our race proclaims the su premacy of force, the selfishness of empire, and the subjugation of mankind, as the prevailing aspect of society. But the rise and progress of the industrial arts, and the extension of a beneficent commerce, indicate, in terms too plain to be mis understood, the real Destiny of society, and the existence of a new epoch which shall substitute the ploughshare for the sword, and the loom for the battery. The cause of Industry is the cause of humanity. Instead of the subjugation of mankind and the devastation of the earth, let peaceful and

PREFACE.

. IX attractive industry propose as its highest aim, THE ENRICHMENT OF ALL BY THE CIVILIZATION AND EMBELLISHMENT OF THE GLOBE." — Address of the Young Men's Anti-Monopoly Association. Without Commerce, Manufactures can never flourish, and where freedom of exchange is re stricted, production is paralyzed. The progress of science has ever been to throw down the obstacles to a free communication, and to open to the indus try of its votaries, a market, wide as the world, for the exchange of its products. The once impas sible barrier of the ocean, is now the great highway of nations ; and our roads, canals, and railways, are gradually annihilating distance. It has been the unenviable distinction of the statesman of modern times to reverse this beneficent order, and to decree that Commerce, the civilizer of mankind, the nurse of national greatness, and the munificent patron of science, religion, and the arts, shall be fettered with the chains of a restrictive legislation. Strictly speaking, freedom of trade does not so much imply a positive good as the absence of a a X

PREFACE.

. positive evil. It may be quite true, that without free trade, we can not be a happy or a prosperous nation ; but, it is likewise true, that with free trade we shall never attain a desirable position without other measures equally important, but to which freedom of trade is a necessary preliminary. If the uncleanly, improvident, and intemperate habits of the people increased in the same ratio as the remuneration for their labour, it is evident that they would be no gainers by increased employment, except in the immunity from that physical destitution which a restrictive system has hitherto inflicted upon them. Hence, a well digested code of sanatory regulations judiciously enforced, and the adoption of a comprehensive and vigorous system of education, present themselves as primary requisites for our own dense urban population, and as second in importance only to freedom of trade.

Physical destitution must first be banished; for until this be done, the labours of the philanthropist will be a mere waste of energy. The publication of the following work seemed to be a suitable means of again reminding the

PREFACE.

. XI influential and benevolent portion of the public in this town and neighbourhood, of the claim which their fellow townsmen have upon their solicitude. We possess many and munificently supported public charities. But much remains to be done. It is noble to hold out the hand of charity to our suffering fellow townsmen, but would it not be nobler still to raise them above the necessity of imploring it? Is it not better to prevent misery than to console? Is it better to help the poor, or to foster a spirit of independence and self-respect, which shall teach them how to help themselves ? It is to be feared that our public charities are more creditable to the doners than beneficial to the recipients. They have inflicted a heavy blow upon the sentiment of self-respect, and if we have relieved them physically, we have degraded them morally.

We have regarded too exclusively the effect; we have been too indolent in tracing the cause ; and a small proportion of the wealth expended in relieving misery when developed, would, probably, have sufficed to prevent a large amount of it from having existed.

PREFACE.

. XII During the last few years, Manchester has under gone many and important improvements, nearly all of which may be traced to the fostering influence of a corporative municipal body, elected by the burgesses at large, and representing the real wants and opinions of the town. The principal of self government is found to be the only principle upon which a large and dense urban population, like that of Manchester, can be satisfactorily governed. At no previous period in the history of the town, have a greater number of extensive improvements been projected and carried out into successful operation. The New Borough Police Act ; the New Bonding Bill ; the Town's Improvement Bill ; the project for providing Public Parks ; the improved machinery for the cleansing of the streets ; the establishment of a Borough Court for police cases ; and the pro posal for a Borough Civil Court, for recovery of debts under twenty pounds ; the erection of an ex tensive establishment at Swinton, for the moral and industrial training of the juvenile portion of our pauper population ; the bold project for supplying the whole town with abundance of pure water from the Swineshaw Hills, at a distance of ten miles, and

PREFACE.

. XIII from a level four hundred feet above the higher parts of Manchester ; the marked attention and laborious investigation devoted to all questions relating to public health and social economy, and especially as these have reference to the poorer classes ; the shortening of the hours of labour, &c, all attest the healthy state of public opinion in Manchester, and confirm the high eulogium which M. Faucher has passed upon its inhabitants, when he says, "There is no portion of society which struggles with greater avidity for a better Future." If it were asked what are the particular measures which the public mind of Manchester is endeavour ing to realize for the amelioration of its social condition — they might, perhaps, be summed up as follows : — Firstly, the attainment of entire Freedom of Trade, in order to secure to honest industry its just reward, and to prevent the recurrence of those frightful periodical crises, which, like the hurricanes of tropical climes, convert the most smiling prosperity into sudden desolation.

PREFACE.

. Secondly, a comprehensive system of Sanatory Regulations to secure healthfulness, cleanliness, and order in our vast urban population. These two measures would satisfy the physical requirements for health, and would prepare the way for efforts of a still higher, though not more necessary character. And to these we wish we could add — Thirdly, a comprehensive and liberal system of Secular Education, combining moral training with intellectual instruction, and open to all classes without distinction of sect or party. Dogmatic theology to be carefully excluded. The following pages are a translation of two articles from the pen of M. Leon Faucher, an intel ligent French writer. They form a portion of a series of articles inserted under the head of " Studies upon England," in the Revue des deux Mondes.

The translation was undertaken at the suggestion of a gentleman, who has long been an active labourer in every plan for the improvement of the social and moral condition of this great community, and whose labours in behalf of a more efficient and

PREFACE.

. XV humane system of prison discipline are now attract ing the attention of the jurists and statesmen of Europe and America. The aim of the translator has been, to give to the public, a faithful rendering of the original text, and, also to add in the form of notes, such corrections or remarks as appeared to him advisable. To distinguish these notes from those of M. Faucher, they are enclosed in brackets, and progressively numbered. THE TRANSLATOR Athenæum, Manchester, November 22d, 1844. TO ALEXANDER KAY, ESQ., MAYOR OF MANCHESTER, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE, PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, AS A SMALL TRIBUTE OF RESPECT, FOR THE ZEAL AND ACTIVITY WHICH HE HAS ALWAYS EVINCED IN THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF EVERY MEASURE, HAVING FOR ITS OBJECT THE IMPROVEMENT OF THIS GREAT MANUFACTURING TOWN, AND THE WELLBEING OF ITS INHABITANTS, HIS OBLIGED AND HUMBLE SERVANT, THE TRANSLATOR. MANCHESTER IN 184 4.

Part I. The

early history of Britain informs us that William the Conqueror, after having subdued and laid waste the country north of the river Humber, marched with his army towards Chester, the only district which had not acknowledged his power. It was the depth of winter, and the army, then stationed at York, had to traverse, by roads almost impracticable for their heavy cavalry, the chain of mountains commonly called the back-bone of England, which extends from the north to the south of the island ; and, like the Appenines of Italy, divides the rivers of the country between the east and the west.* This chain of mountains passed, a wild and uneven district presented itself to the view, cut up by numerous torrents, which inundated the valleys, producing marshes and mosses ; covered with impenetrable forests, and inha bited by a race of men which had never yielded to the sword of the invader.

The Norman soldiers, alarmed at the prospect of an expedition so full of peril, and in which success would yield so little glory, mutinied before their departure. During the march, William was often to be seen on foot, sharing the fatigues of the army, and encou raging the common soldiers by paying them with his own hands. f * Histoiredela Conquetede l'AngleterreparlesNormaiids,liv.iv. t Past and Present State of Lancashire, by H. Ashworth. B ■I LANCASHIRE AND ITS RESOURCES. This unknown, this inaccessible region, was the southern portion of Lancashire ; that portion which is now so studded with roads, canals, and railways. This indomi table people was the same which has since given birth to, and developed with such astonishing hardihood, the mighty energies of the manufacturing system. By an arrange ment truly providential, those features of the soil and of the climate, which presented aforetime so many obstacles to the success of the Norman Conqueror, were destined to be, seven centuries later, the handmaids of industry.

It was for Labour to overcome, and to bend to its own purposes these natural obstacles ; and the sturdy independence of its inhabitants no less than the power of its inanimate prime movers, was an element in the success of their manufactures. There is not perhaps a spot in the whole world where nature offers such abundant facilities for manufacturing labour. Look at Normandy. It abounds in water-power, but it has neither iron nor coals. Manufacturing Flan ders has the advantage of coal mines, and of numerous canals, xvhich offer great facilities for speedy transport ; but it is a low and flat country, with few or no falls of water, and is situated at a great distance from the grand entrepots of commerce. Alsace possesses a genius for industrial pursuits, as well as for war ; but it struggles with scarcity of fuel, and with the distance of the ports whence it procures its raw material, and through which it exports its productions.

The same division of natural advantages is to be observed in Switzerland and in Bel gium. Zurich must travel three hundred miles for coal, six hundred miles for its raw material, and the same dis tance for the shipment of its produce. Ghent, the most ancient seat of manufacture in the west of Europe, is alike distant from available water-power, from metallic veins, and from coal mines. NATURAL ADVANTAGES. But, in the space of from forty to fifty square miles, from the Ribble to the Mersey, nothing is wanting which nature and man are able to furnish.* The chain of hills xvhich shelters it from the north and east winds, gives birth to numerous rivers, or rather rivulets, which, descend ing rapidly from the summits, and acquiring increased force by continued descent, yield a water-power which supplies a large number of mills.

The Irwell alone has nine hundred feet of descent, and of which eight hundred feet are available. Mr. Baines has enumerated three hundred spinning-mills, or dye-works on the banks of this river. A large and rich coal district extends throughout the hundreds of Salford and Blackburn. Iron is abundant in the neighbouring counties of York and Stafford, and also in Wales ; and Manchester, the manufacturing metropolis, is only a day's journey from London, and an hour's ride from Liverpool. Add to this, an incomparable race of men, rude, but not gross, reflective and persevering, inventive, enterpris ing and indefatigable; appropriating to itself the inventions of others, given to the practical side of things ; such a race, in short, as is necessary to forge the weapons of industry. From this richly endowed population have sprung with equal superiority, the artisan, the engineer, the manufacturer, and the merchant.

The birth of the manufacturing system, like that of Minerva, was sudden and complete ; and in less than a century, its colossal, if not harmonious, proportions were fully developed. The states of Europe, which have • " The district where these advantages are combined in tbe most favourable degree, is the southern portion of Lancashire, as well a* the south west of Yorkshire. Similar advantages are possessed (though not in so great a degree) by the counties of Chester, Derby, and Nottingham, in England ; and by Renfrewshire and Lanark shire, in Scotland."— Baines' History of the Cotton Manufacture. B INVENTIVE GENIUS. transplanted' this system into their own dominions, should not forget that Lancashire was its cradle. In 1.738, a mechanic of Bury, John Kay, invents the fly-shuttle. In 1764, a blackburn weaver, Hargreaves, contrives the jenny.

In 1779, another weaver, in a village near Bolton, constructs the mule, which has been substituted for the less perfect jenny. The self-acting mule jenny, invented in 1790, by Mr. Strutt, the partner of Arkwright, is perfected in 1825, by Mr. Roberts, a Manchester machinist. Power-loom weaving discovered in 1785, by Dr. Cartwright, is reduced to practice in 1803, by Mr. Horrocks, a manufacturer at Stockport. The manufacturer Radcliffe, and the artisan Johnson, natives of the same town, succeed, after two years of laborious toil, in constructing the dressing machine, which has rendered practicable the application of steam-power to weaving. At length, a barber from Preston, Arkwright, pre-eminently a man of genius, collects into one focus these scattered inventions, gives to them form and sub stance; and, in the year 1782, gives birth to the cotton manufacture.

In 1792, he applies the splendid discovery of Watt to one of his cotton-mills, and for water-power, substitutes the novel agency of steam, a power which knows no limits. From this period, (as Mr. Baines, his biographer, has remarked,) he effected a revolution in the manufacturing world, furnishing a parallel in its results to the influence of the discovery of printing in the domain of the arts and sciences. England is often said to be the most distant corner of the world. Industry has accompanied civilization in its west ward progress, and has marked its route by emporiums, each of which has secured a name in history. Tyre, Venice, the Low Countries, and then the France of Col bert; Great Britain at length received the precious deposit, swollen by the contributions of every age and nation.

FLEMISH IMMIGRANTS. 5 Under its fostering care, it has increased to an extent almost miraculous ; and the heroic efforts of two or three generations have equalled t-he progress effected in the preceding two thousand years. Now, what England has done for civilized Europe, Lancashire has done for Eng land. In proportion as the industrial arts penetrated England, so did they converge towards Manchester as their centre. Manchester spun and *ivove their wool before the rise of the cotton manufacture ; and, under one form or other, this town has been, since the fifteenth cen tury, the manufacturing metropolis of the United King dom. The first manufacturing tutors of the English, were the Flemish. These artisans, though living amongst the splen dours of Ghent and Bruges, are described as " rising early and going to bed late, toiling the whole of the day, sub sisting upon herrings and mouldy cheese.' * Edward III. invited a large number of them to settle in England.

He promised them plenty of beef and mutton, good beds and pretty wives, and assured them, that the yeomen would dispute amongst themselves for the honour of marrying their daughters to them. They accepted the offer, and the event proved that they enriched themselves at the same time that they brought into England a fresh source of national wealth. The same historian adds, " The yeomen who received the artisans into their houses, soon grew more wealthy than the gentry; they acquired large pos sessions and emblazoned their estates." At the present day, likewise, the manufacturers of Great Britain acquire great fortunes, and when they have purchased an estate, they obtain without much difficulty, the title of baronet; but their workmen would esteem themselves fortunate if they could always secure the * Fuller's Church History.

B COTTON MANUFACTURE. meagre pittance of the Flemish of the fourteenth century ; and ere they can find the paradise of beef and mutton which Edward III. promised, they must cross the Atlan tic, and establish themselves at the outposts of civilization ; in the Canadas, the United States, New Zealand, or Australia. The English had learnt from the Flemish the modes of preparing, dyeing, and weaving wool. In the seventeenth century, they were taught silk-weaving, and the art of printing woven stuffs, by the French refugees. In the eighteenth century, having extended their conquests in India, they began to manufacture cotton. Strange to say, the inhabitants of Manchester, destined hereafter to cul tivate the manufacture of cotton with such unprecedented success, were for a time alarmed at its extraordinary growth, and seemed desirous of checking it in the bud.

About 1740, John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle, was driven from his home by persecution, and settled in Paris. In 1768, Hargreaves, disconraged by the indif ference of his friends, transferred his invention to Notting ham. In 1779, the workmen paraded the streets and environs of Blackburn, and destroyed the jennies, carding machines, and every machine driven by . horse or water power. And even the manufacturers, ignorant of the utility of these great inventions, looked favourably upon the rabble, and protected the more violent ones against the rigours of the law. Mr. Peel, (the grandfather of Sir Robert Peel,) having not only suffered the entire demolition of his machines, but having also incurred per sonal danger, removed to Burton-on-the-Trent, Stafford shire, where he erected a mill ; and for many years after this period, there was not a spinning-mill in Blackburn.

But what is still more strange is, that after Arkwright had succeeded by a marvellous combination of the various discoveries made in this creative period of the cotton SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. manufacture, in producing yarns superior to any previously known in the markets, the manufacturers of Lancashire combined together to obstruct the sale of them. Ark wright and his partners were thus compelled to extend the sphere of their operations. From spinners they became also weavers. Bat let Arkwright speak for himself. " Their first trial was weaving it into stockings, which succeeded ; and they soon, established the manufacture of calicoes, which promises to be one of the first manufactures in the kingdom. Another still more formidable difficulty arose; the orders for goods which they had received being considerable, were unexpectedly countermanded, the officers of excise refusing to let them pass at the usual duty of threepence per yard, insisting upon the additional duty of threepence per yard as being (Indian) calicoes, though manufactured in England ; besides, these calicoes, when printed, were prohibited.

By this unforseen obstruction, a very considerable and very valuable stock of calicoes accumulated. An application to the commissioners of excise was attended with no success ; the proprietors therefore had no recourse but to ask relief of the Legis lature, which, after much money expended, and against a strong opposition of the manufacturers of Lancashire, they obtained." — Arkwright' s " Case." A few years elapsed, and the same manufacturers, in structed by experience, disputed with this man (who was no longer the barber of Preston, but whom England saluted by the title of Baronet) the property, and also the use of those inventions which had enriched him ; and the force of circumstances fixed in Lancashire a manufacture, which the folly of men had exiled. In every struggle between an individual and a population, the former must necessarily succumb.

The men of Manchester eventually gained the victory. After the author of these inventions had enjoyed the exclusive privilege of them for fifteen years, they were, after complicated legal proceedings, made the common property of the public. And justice wills it thus ; men of genius SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. are the product of the country, and of the age in which they live, as much as of their individual efforts, and it is not for their exclusive advantage that Providence has endowed them with those splendid faculties with which they give an impulse to society. And yet on the other hand, we must deplore the ingratitude of public opinion towards Arkwright. He was neither loved nor honoured in the county of Lancaster, and to revenge himself, he gave birth to the competition of Lanarkshire, saying, in allusion to his former state, " that he would find a razor in Scotland, which should shave Manchester."

The competition of Scotland soon manifested itself, although the intervention of Arkwright only accelerated what would otherwise have occurred in the natural course of events. Glasgow had, no less than Manchester, entered into the spirit of this industrial revolution. The county of Lanark had produced a Watt and an Adam Smith, during the period that Lancashire had given birth to Hargreaves, Crompton, and Arkwright, or in other words, whilst the latter county had devised the mechanism for these prodigious results, the former county had supplied the power which should put the mechanism in motion. What then could be more just than that Scotland should receive the spinning-manufacture from Lancashire, in return for the moving power which it had so wonderfully developed ? The unpopularity of Arkwright was not merely of that species which attaches to the career of inventors in general.

The men of Lancashire detested in him the excess of those qualities and defects which distinguished their own character in the industrial world. Arkwright was the most complete and absolute type of that race of upstarts who unite to an activity without repose, an ambition without bounds. And it was this character which made him in the estimation of the manufacturers, HIS CHARACTER. of his rivals, and of his countrymen, a sort of public enemy. " The most marked traits in the character of Arkwright, were his wonderful ardour, energy, and perseverance. He commonly la boured in bis multifarious concerns from five in the morning till nine at night ; and when considerably more than fifty years of age, feeling that the defects of his education placed him under great difficulty and inconvenience, in conducting his correspondence, and in the general management of his business, he encroached upon his sleep, in order to gain an hour each day to learn English grammar, and another hour to improve his writing and orthography !

He was impatient of what interfered with his favourite pursuits ; and the fact is too strikingly characteristic not to be mentioned, that he separated from his wife not many years after his marriage, because she, convinced that he would starve his family by scheming, when he should have been shaving, broke some of his experimental models of machinery. Arkwright was a severe economist of time; and that he might not waste a moment, he generally travelled with four horses, and at a very rapid speed. His concerns in Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Scotland, were so extensive and numerous, as to show at once his astonishing power of transacting business, and his all-grasping spirit. In many of these he had partners, but he generally managed in such a way, that whoever lost, he was a gainer. So unbounded was his confidence in the success of his machinery, and in the national wealth to be produced by it, that he would make light of discussions on taxation, and say that he would pay the national debt !

His speculative schemes were vast and daring ; he contemplated entering into the most extensive mercantile trans actions, and buying up all the cotton in the world, in order to make an enormous profit by the monopoly." — Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 196. It was in 1792 that Arkwright1 formed these projects, which seemed to authorize the greatness and rapidity of 1 [Richard Arkwright, it would seem, was not a beautiful man ; no romance hero, with haughty eyes, Apollo lip, and gesture like the herald Mercury ; a plain, almost gross, pot-bellied, Lancashire man, with an air of painful reflection, yet also of copius free digestion ; a man stationed by the community to shave certain dusty beards, in the northern parts of England, at a halfpenny each. To ARKWRIGHT'S AMBITION. his fortune, and at that period, England did not import annually more than from thirty to forty millions of pounds weight of cotton wool2; the products of the manufacturer were estimated at from £3,200,000 to £4,000,000, and occupied less than 100,000 hands.

His schemes were then considered ambitious, but they certainly did not exceed the bounds of possibility. At the present day, Arkwright would be considered a timid speculator, iu presence of the Liverpool capitalists, who operate annually upon more than five hundred millions of pounds, and against whom the manufacturers of Manchester combine, to prevent the artificial rise of cotton. The men of Manchester conduct operations upon the most gigantic scale, such as the imagination can scarcely embrace. I know a spinning-mill in Manchester, which employs 1500 such end we say by forethought, oversight, accident, and arrangement, had Richard Arkwright been, by the community of England and his own consent, set apart. Nevertheless, in strapping of razors, in shaving of dusty beards, and the contradictions and confusions attendant thereon, the man had notions in that rough head of his ! spindles, shuttles, wheels and contrivances, plying ideally within the same ; rather hopeless looking, which however, he did at last bring to bear.