your masters can afford to give |I may safely give them full credit this price; and that they do not for a regard to self-interest; and give it. that is quite sufficient to make it The first and last of these pro-impossible, that they should suffer positions I take for granted; but, your looms to stand still, if they not thus the second; which I could gain by the putting of them cannot believe in conjunction in motion. with the other two, and with the However, let us hear what fact of the turn-out. Such a pro-your pretended advocate says in position would, to render it even support of his proposition. Let plausible, require proof as clear us hear his proofs of a thing as day-light; and, in support of which is against reason and nathis proposition I find no proof at ture. He says, that the Hosiers all not one single particle; and, in most extensive business, aver indeed, nothing in the shape of that they can afford the statement proof. That masters should suffer prices. We might treat this as their business to be at a stand; nothing; we might, indeed, calk that they should suffer their stock it a falsehood; because it is against to lie dead; that they should reason, and because the averforego profits that they might ment is not produced and attested. make; and, that they should do We have the bare word of an this voluntarily, of their own anonymous writer for it: that is choice, and that, too, with the all; and that is nothing. circumstance of exposing themselves to the just hatred of their men; that this should take place is contrary to reason, and even in defiance of nature. Yet this must be, if the second proposition of HUMANUS be true. I am giving the masters no credit for humanity. They may, for ought I know, be equal in want of feeling to any of those Cotton Lords, to restrain whose obduracy to

wards poor children Acts of Par

liament have been passed; but,

But, if the price can be afforded, why do not these Hosiers in most extensive business give it? If they aver, that they can afford it, why do they not give it? Mind, it is the Hosiers in most extensive business that aver this; and yet, they do not give the price! And they are praised, too, by this Advocate of your cause! If the Hosiers in most extensive business make the averment, why, again I ask, do they not give the price?

What is the answer to this

of this enigma? Why, here we have it :

question? What is the solution made to rescue them from this state of coercion, at any rate! To see kind and tender souls thus spell-bound is lamentable. I could almost turn knight-errant myself, and sally out to the North for the

"The well-known fact is, that

"there are persons in the trade, calling themselves hosiers, who “have no capital, and therefore deliverance of these kind-hearted "resort to the most unwarrant-and enchanted

“able means of making profit,

men of capital.

"established"

and who, to accomplish this ob- Now, was there ever any thing ject, must be guilty of running so incredible as this ventured down the established and re-upon paper before? Did any spectable manufacturer, and man ever venture his name at the thus sinking the general inte- foot of such an assertion? Hurests of the trade, to make their MANUS did not dare put his name "particular speculations answer. to this, at once malignant and By this ruinous innovation, silly falsehood. We have often "others of the hosiers are obliged, heard of the small tradesman and "in their own defence, to get farmer being under the command "their goods manufactured at an of the rich; but, did any one “inferior price, in order to keep ever before hear of the rich being "the market." under the command of the poor?

And, the devil they are! Poor, Money, in trade especially, is unfortunate" established and rc-power; but, here are men with spectable hosiers!" Poor, un-no money obliging the rich to be fortunate mea of capital! To be hard-hearted, and (which might over-ruled thus by persons" cali-be rather more difficult) obliging ing themselves hosiers, who them to forego the getting of "have no capital!" Poor, profits!

wretched rich men, to be obliged to starve their work-people; and that, too, by rampscallians who only call themselves hosiers, and who have no capital! The state of these" established and re"spectable hosiers" is truly pitiable. Some effort ought to be

In another part of HUMANUS's pamphlet, these small hosiers are called by the nick-name of Bag Hosiers, a name arising, probably, from their carrying their goods to market in a bag on their backs, and given them, doubtless, by the great Hosiers, who wished to keep

down the growth of rivals in [not; whereas the Bag-Hosiers trade. The passage is curious; have no natural advantages, and

and I will insert it, because it opens to us a good deal of the designs of your deluders :

have every other possible disadvantage in a contest with the established and rich Hosiers. That "It cannot be too frequently they, therefore, should be able *insisted upon as a maxim in to snatch any profits from them is "the trade, that low prices to altogether incredible. It is a mon"the workmen, will, if persisted ster even in supposition: and, “in, ruin it, both as to respecta- what is it, then, when gravely bility and profit; and, that suf-stated as a fact?

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"ficient prices alone can cut off But there is something more in "from the respectable body of this account of the Bag-Hosiers, "Hosiers that reptile race, deno- and something too, which, I hope,

"minated Bag Hosiers, who have you have not perceived; for, if

wriggled themselves into the I could believe that you have "business, and who, with a mix-perceived it, and that you ap"ture of cruelty and rapacity, at prove of this passage of the "once snatch the bread from the pamphlet, you would no longer "mouth of the workman, and the be objects of compassion with 'fair profits from the hands of me, but objects of my most. "the regular and honourable ma-hearty contempt.

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"nufacturer."

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Pray, what is meant by men

"

We had before to express our wriggling themselves into busiastonishment at the cruelty of" ness?" Do not all young bethese Bag Hosiers in obliging the ginners; all those, who, from men of capital to be hard hearted being journeymen, become masto their workmen; but, what are ters; all those, who, from being we to think of their ferocity in labourers, become farmers; all "snatching the fair profits from those, who, from being clerks, "the hands of the regular and “honourable manufacturer !" Why, they are imps of the Devil to be sure! It is said, that three hornets will kill a horse: but, then, hornets have wings and stings, which the poor horse has on by degrees.

become merchants: do not all these wriggle themselves on, pray? And, can there be any thing more 'desirable than this in a community? What is wriggling, in an affair like this?

Why, getting Rising by slow

degrees, by trying every opening, However, let me hope, that by keeping the ground, inch by these are not your sentiments. inch, when gained, by steady Let me hope, that you are not so and tenacious industry and care. lost to all sense of just pride, to This is "wriggling into business." all feelings of independence, as And, did not I wriggle myself to be willing to see your children from a private soldier to a serjeant deprived of all hope of wriggling major, and, if I had remained, upwards, merely for the sake of with all my military notions, flattering the present Lords of should I not have wriggled myself the Loom, and coaxing them into an augmentation of your wages! Le me hope that this is not the case; and, in that hope, let me proceed in my endeavours to show you the absurdity of ascrib

up to a general, in spite of all the birth and rank in the kingdom? Many persons censure the Lord High Chancellor for many of his acts, and, perhaps, they censure him justly in all cases; but, iting your low wages to the inflüs never yet came into the head of ence of the Bag-Hosiers.

any one to revile him on account

According to the showing of

of his being the son of a coal- your pretended advocate, the merchant. great Hosiers are all for the high

Yours (if you adopt the lan-prices. Now, is it not impossi guage of your Advocate) is a ble, that this can be true? If pretty set of principles indeed! they were to give the high prices, You are for an aristocracy in would the small Hosiers get any trade; you are for Lords of the body to work for them? MustLoom; you are for shutting out not these latter, therefore be your own brother workmen, your ruined? It is not true, then, that own kindred and children; and, those whom he calls established as for yourselves, you, if you and respectable Hosiers," are adopt these sentiments, are guilty willing to give the high prices. of an abandonment of the chance It is not true, and it cannot be of advancement in life. You are true, that even a considerable part for cutting off the chain of con-of them are; because, if they nection between the rich and the were, they would give them, and poor. You are for demolishing let the rest remain with looms unall small tradesmen. You are

for reducing the community to employed. two classes: Masters and Staves.

And, what, after all, is the

true cause of this reduction in stockings has not fallen off. "The your wages? Why, a reduction". Hosiers," says he, "who enin the quantity of money, which "tered into an agreement, in the public, that is to say, the" Leicestershire, to pay the high stocking-wearers, have to expend" prices, found no difficulty in in stockings. They want as many" disposing of their goods, notstockings, and as good stockings" withstanding the increased price as ever; but, if they have them" they had paid for the manuat all, they must have them for "facturing of them,-how should less money; and, as things are "they? The difference of price now, going, for less and less" to the public is a trifle; and money every year, in spite of ail" the public never complained, that HUMANUS can say, in spite nor could complain of a burof all that the " established "den which they did not feel. men can aver, and in spite of all" The public even reaped advanthat can be done in order to run "tage from the increased price; down the Bag-Hosiers. "for the Framework-knitters and

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Why, have you been living in" their families constitute the England without knowing, that" most numerous class of consuPeel's Bill has worked wonders?" mers in the country, and the Without knowing, that it has" quantity of their consumption brought down wheat from 15s. to" must be proportioned to the 6s. 6d. a bushel? Now, the far-"extent of their earnings. The mers and their people wear stock-" circulation of money depends ings; and, can a farmer give 15s. as much on the wages of la now for stockings as easily as he" bour, as on the profits of could when wheat was fifteen" stock; and if thirty thousand shillings a bushel? There is less" persons rise from abject pomoney, less nominal amount of" verty to a capacity of commoney, and, of course, the price" manding a larger share of the of stockings must be less, and, a "necessaries, and many of the necessary consequence of that is," comforts of life, the money that the wages for making them" which procures them will flow must be less. "into every channel, so as to HUMANUS (who ought to have" benefit alike the tradesman, called himself fool or hypocrite) "the agriculturist, and the landtells you, that the demand for" ed proprietor."

1