AND ON THE CONTINENT.

33

It is extraordinary how long the cottage weavers, in spite oftheir distress, enjoyed tlio favour of many patrons. Thus, SirRobert Peel has depicted them as loyal subjects, as opposed tothe factory operatives. In fact, as the economical foundationsof their existence were only tardily withdrawn from hereditaryrule, so also the ideas accompanying them. But, underthe pressure of high wheat prices and lowering wages, theinevitable revolution or change occurred here also, after the war.Instead of feelings of dependency towards the authorities abovethem, appeared doubt and hatred—hatred against the State aswell as the Church. Blue-Books accuse the cottage weavers ofdisloyalty and atheism. Already, at the riots on the field of“ Peterloo,” in 1819, was tlfis class numerously represented.They fell at that time into the hands of the Chartist leaders, and“would have greeted every upheaval, because it could only bringthem an improvement.” (30).

Similar conditions had just produced in the factory workersmental tendencies similar to those of the cottage toilers. But, where-as economical development led the former onward, it left nothingbut a decline for the cottage toiler. The means were fruitlesswith which it was thought possible to help them, as, for instance,bureaucratic fixing of wages, etc. Especially was there demandeda return to the old trade system whereby, it was pointed out,new life was created for the silk industry by the Spitalfieldsregulations (31).

Indeed, even up to the demand for taxing of machinery,methods were resorted to (32) similar to those of the Frankforthandicrafts, which, in 1848, by forbidding the factory system,thought it possible to keep the world in the old grooves. But noregulation f-ould cause the retreat of the economical developmentwhich had strangled the cottage weavers of Lancashire in theworld’s economy. Wages and profits now put international com-petition in the place of officials. The English silk industry couldwithdraw itself from it, though unprofitably; but not so cottonweaving, which, more than any other industry, was interested in

"0. Committee on Handloom Weavers of 1834 (5,351-6, 7,230-42, 3,821).

31. Loc. cit ., 1834 (7,577-97, 8,015-72, 5,389-5,403, 5,633-4). How wrongthe idea is to lay the blame for the depression of handicrafts and cottageindustry on freedom of trade is shown hy the case of Prussia , where freedom oftrade was introduced as early as 1810, whereas, on the other hand, the attacksmentioned upon it were only made in the middle of the century.

32. ^Baines, p. 501.

D