Flannel Weavers Print E-mail

An address, signed  " The Hand and Power-loom Weavers of Rochdale "  has been issued, calling upon the manufacturers for an advance of wages, as the demand for goods, during these last few weeks, has been extremely good.

They say:

"That the operative woollen weavers of this parish were once comparatively a happy class of people, is a fact well known to thousands;  but, like many of our fellow-operatives in most branches of trade, we are at present, literally speaking, become objects of want and destitution, in consequence of the small pittance we obtain for our labour.

Within a short period of years, the remuneration for our services, in the manufacturing of woollen goods, has been abridged one-half, or 50 per cent., on most kinds of goods, and upon others more than that;  and, whenever a reduction has been made, we have been told that it is absolutely necessity that has compelled the manufacturers to the alternative of either reducing the wages of the weaver, or giving up the business altogether. "

In another part of the address, it is stated that

" wages have been reduced to the starving point, and that hundreds of families have been reduced to want, destitution, and degradation, unparalleled in the annals of Rochdale;  thousands have been driven, though reluctantly, to seek a scanty pittance from a parochial source, and numbers of destitute females have been driven to prostitution;  and that, when a competency cannot be obtained by unremitting industry, it generally tends to drive those deprived of it to acts of dissipation and vice. "

The placard is long, and sets forward numerous grievances of which they complain.  The weavers have waited upon the manufacturers, soliciting an advance of wages;  and the answer received is,

" that more wages might be offered;  and if so and so will raise, we will. "

The address concludes by some remarks upon those

" who are squandering immense sums in attempting to civilize and Christianize the heathen;  while a Christian cannot be found within the limits of several miles of this densely populated district, who evinces the least sympathy for those of his fellow mortals whom he daily witnesses stalking through the streets not half fed, or with sufficient clothing to screen their naked bodies from the pitiless storm. "

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