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September 16, 1854.] THE LEADER. 877
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THE CRY FROM THE LOOM.* Ouk corresponden...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Building Associations. Why Is It That Me...
It is quite pcssible , however , to mate such . arrangements as will enable the members of a building association to buy a house for some ludicrously small sum at a cost , for example , of ten guineas for a four-roomed house and the land on which it stands . The plan is , to buy a piece of land , and to mortgage that land for a considerable proportion of its value , to devote the money , with the receipts of the subscribers , to the building of a set of houses ; which are finished
successively as fast as possible , the members balloting for their turn oS" occupation . In this manner a member may pay during the first three years at the rate of 171 . 13 s . for a house , the rent of which would usually cost Hm 15 I . 10 s . ; in the next period of three years he will pay at the rate of 1 G ? . 13 s ., and for the remaining four years 11 . less : at the end of the ten years , he will have paid 10 / . 10 s . over and above his ordinary rent , but will be in possession , of a house and land .
" We are not taking an imaginary- case , but are presenting ; only the results of the prospectus issued by " The Albert Investment and Sanitary Building Association , " which has been in operation fox three years . { Some of its houses are finished , and are in possession of the members entitled to them , subject to a mortgage -which " . will be redeemed within the period stated . So far as accounts go , the plan is certified by the Actuary to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt . The Society comprises first-rate names amongst its trustees and directors , and it issues an annual report to the shareholders . The houses are built upon improved plans , especially upo : n the principle illustrated by Prince Albert s houses at the Exposition of 1851 . The scheme is also applicable to leasehold property , such as the new village which
the Society proposes to build at Forest-hill ; and great care is taken to secure salubrity of site as well as sanitary arrangements . It must be understood that the " Albert " specially addresses itself to working men . The same principles , however , are applicable to projects of any dimensions or character . The nature of the association is the
samethat of obtaining a large capital by combined subscriptions and securities . It would of course be necessary to define the limits of choice for members ; but it would be quite possible to do so with some considerable freedom in the selection of p lans . lor example , a society might be established on the principle of giving a variety of plans for the option of the purchaser , some plans being suited to a larger or smaller number of shares ; or the plans might be varied -without any diversity in the cost . In the neighbourhood of
Mancheater there is a piece of ground set out ns a park , in which , we believe , plots may be obtained for building , not in the ordinary form of _ rows or squares . The same principle might be applied of course in the neighbourhood , of IJondlon ; leaving to members , probably , the choice of the exact ? spot , but preventing them from approaching any nearer than certain distances . In this way a great deal of variety might be secured , either for the taste or tlio convenience of the purchaser , with a consequent advantage in accommodation and in picturesque effect .
There is no necessity more grievous to the householder than that of paying for a class of accommodation that ho does not desire . Many a man is living in a larger house thau he wants , because he desires to secure a particular character of neighbourhood . Some have houses of a more ornamental kind , J > eca » 80 with plainer houses you frequently nnd bad situation and worse drainage , if not very indifferent ventilation and building . By a suflicient assortment of plans , those who enter upon the occupation of houses with a view of ultimate ownership , might bo drawn
forth from the apathetic portions of society , and converted into active promoters of these promising schemes . We speak of course without commendation of any one in particular . Those who join them must look sharply after the general character of the leading men and the ability of the acting officers . If they do that , they may rest tolerably confident in the results ; and we know no reason why persons of solvent means should not within a reasonable space of years become houseowners as well as householders and residents .
September 16, 1854.] The Leader. 877
September 16 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 877
The Cry From The Loom.* Ouk Corresponden...
THE CRY FROM THE LOOM . * Ouk correspondence impresses us with the urgency of the pressure of the whole class of hand-loom weavers . At the best of times their condition is barely tolerable ; at other times it is worse than intolerable . The earnings of a hand-loom weaver seldom reach 10 s . a veeek ; in times of depression they are as low as 6 s . ; and we can remember occasions evesa of comparatively favourable times when the lower rate obtained in some places .
In 1839 , for example ^ while the hand-loom weaver at Stockport could earn 9 s ., the rate at Bolton was 4 s- ; and thia rate can only be earned by incessant labour , by toiling as long as human flesh and blood can bear . Nor is there any- promotion ; the nand-Ioom weaver must in these da ys work at that rate from youth till old age . According to the { Economist , therefore , he must not marry ; but according to human nature he does . According to the CEconomist , he ought to rise
from that miserable mode of life , and transfer his labour to another employment . So he will if he is a genius , but if he is an ordinary man he cannot . Should he not educate his children to do so , then ?—he cannot afford it . He might send them to state schools—if sect would let such things exist , Yet no , he cannot afford even , that ; he wants them at lumie to add Is . 6 d . a week , or , perhaps , 2 s . a-piece , to his wretched income . No doubt they must
work as he does , from earliest morning till midnighb- Even childhood kicks against that total sacrifice of life . "When there is any vigour of vitality in the child , it takes some flogging to drag him into the mode of existence . Sickly children give in without the flogging . It is the parent that breaks in the white slave , and the very few facts which , we have stated , with one or two more , will show the totally disorganised state of many a home . The wife also must devote her health and life to
" pirn" winding unless she can take a loom , and although the labour is light , it is mostly beyond the strength and endurance of the female limbs . Ignorant , incessantly toiling , with the instincts not quite deadened , the appetites rendered morbid , the hand-loom weaver sickens for some kind of excitement , especially when , at times of depression , poverty enters the door in a worse form than that of starvation — the dun . And the hand-loom , weaver ' s dun . is a devil of a peculiar combination of horns—he is tho agent , the
middleman , who goes about distributing work and collecting produce . This agent speculates for himself . In times of depression , he makes advances , and buys up goods to sell ; he is also a dealer , a walking tally-shop , making advances ., selling wretched goods on credit , — he is at omco tho mortgagee , the shop creditor , the employer , patron , crimp , sweater , and driver of tho wretched hand-loom weaver , whom ho lias enabled to know a lower level than haud-loom weaving would of itself have found . Sometimes the household is diversified by A Voice from the Loom ; being a . brief alcotoh of the Condition of tho Hand-loom Weaver , with a few otrny thoughts connected ttioruvrith . By a Girvan Weaver . Glasgow . Printed « t tho Sentinel offlco , Antigua-place , Nolaon-stroet . 1851
the admission of a species of lodger or fellowworkman , a tramp who takes a hand in the house as a journeyman , and being too many for the small tenement , he is an intruder in . every sense of the word— -often a corrupter , always a nuisance . While the workingclasses loudly clamour at the middle-classes for sacrificing everything for gain , those very workpeople will sell themselves , their income , their honesty , and the morals of their homes , in order to turn—it can scarcely be said an honest penny—but a filthy and polluted farthing . They must be excused , however , for their choice is only between that mode of life and starvation .
Without any species of margin beyond living from day to day , about as well as the shipwrecked mariner lives , the weaver has no means for insuring against sickness , infirmity , old age , or anything else . How can he " rise ?" Those who tell him to improve the state of his class by not marrying- —that is to obtain an advancement in the peerage of life by having up heirs to his household , —or to transfer his labour to another mode of
industry , might aa well preach agility and free agency to a man . in the stocks . Again 4 the hand-loom weaver complains that capitalistsj consumers , and agents , eonspire to beat him down . ISTow a capitalist makes no more profit by hand-loom weaving trade than he does by any other j rather less , since it is an unthankful and doubtful branch of trade ; and no man who has money or connexion for any more agreeable commerce will undertake it . It is / therefore , essentially a mean trade . The agents are the
creation of the system , not the creators of it . And as to the consumer ! , people do not buy waistcoating or fancy petticoats on principles of philanthropy : they neither see the hand-loom weaver , nor linow anything about him . They buy what' pleases them , best in the shop , if it comes within the means of their purse ; and if a few of them would care , still fewer would be able to send a gratuity to the weaver when they paid the price of the purchase , to say nothing of the chance that the gratuity would be lost or embezzled by the way .
There is , however , one escape , arid that is emigration . " We do not in truth see any other . The hand-loom weaver must continue as he is , or go . If he could only get bodily thrown to some other part of the globe , with , hands and head , he could scratch , a subsistence out of the soil , and being free could rise . It would be salvation to him if he could only attain to the condition of the shipwreck mariner . To be a shepherd in . Australia would be to stand at the bottom no doubt , but still at the bottom of tho mountain , on whoso summit lies wealth , independence — terrestrial paradise . To be a labourer in Michigan , would possibly be to die of some illness in
work too rough for tho enfeebled frame . But even a , sliort life of sickness with some hope in it , would bo better than a life of hereditary mortal sickness without hope . Tho hand-loom weaver has no means individually , and tho emigration commissioners only grant assistance for passages ; but there are such things as subscriptions , such things as Grovornmerit grants ; there are modes of convoying groat numbers to Australia , or to Amorica ; and if the hand-loom weaving class could concentrate its attention and its energy upon this point , it might procure the aid of other cluasos , and succeed in transplanting itself from a soil where it sustains a life of chronic donth to one where it would run its chance of ordinary
mortality . Some ofthoso facts wo havo takon from the pamphlet quotod in tho foot note . It is by a Grirvan weavor , who has practicall y illustrated the moral that wo urge . Ho ia now on hia vray to Australia .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 16, 1854, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16091854/page/13/
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