PAYMENT OF WAGES. the Bill which he proposed to introduce MR. C. FORSTER said, that in moving was founded upon the facts which Mr. Trefor leave to introduce a Bill to alter and menheere's Report had established, and amend the Truck Act, he requested the was in accordance with the recommendakind indulgence of the House while he tions contained in it. The Act was most brought under its notice a subject of great frequently evaded by a system of collusive importance to the mining districts of South payments, which the Report briefly deStaffordshire, and to various other parts of scribed. The workman, or some one in the Kingdom. It was a question which his behalf, ordered at the shop a certain was not now for the first time presented quantity of goods, which were packed up to the consideration of that House. In and put aside for him; and, at the same the year 1831 a special Act of Parliament time, a bill was delivered to him, speciwas passed, popularly known as Littelton's fying the amount of his purchase. With Act, for the purpose of enforcing the pay- this bill, or the memorandum, he went ment of wages in money; and no man to the cashier, who gave him the amount could be more sensible than himself of the in cash; and he immediately returned to great benefits which that Act had con- the shop, paid the money there, and referred on the district in which he lived. The ceived the goods in exchange. Another time, however, had come when it was neces- mode which was resorted to was to make sary to introduce into it some more strin- advances to the workman, ostensibly by gent provisions. The noble Lord who had way of loan, upon the understanding that introduced it (Lord Hatherton), and with a certain proportion-and it was generally whose name it was connected, now a Mem- a large proportion-should be laid out in ber of the other House, was fully sensible goods at the shop. Sometimes goods of this necessity. Previously to the passing were supplied upon the credit of a third of the Statute to which he was referring, party, and the workman gave an order on an employer, in an action for wages, could his employer on the account. The result set off the amount of goods supplied in lieu was that the men never got the full value of wages against his servant's demand; of their wages, being obliged to lay out a but the Act not only provided that no such considerable part of them in goods, which set-off should be allowed, but went on to were not only of inferior quality, but were enact further, that no action brought by charged for at a rate much higher than the an employer against his artificer, to recover market price. The existing Act, while it the value of goods which had been furnished struck at the root of collusive contracts, on account of wages, should be maintained. overlooked the question of collusive payThese provisions established the illegality ments; and, for the purpose of remedying of any but money payments, and paved this defect he proposed in this Bill to enact the way for that further legislation which that anything done to prevent the workman he was now about to ask the House to from having the entire control of his wages sanction. From 1832 to 1842 complaints should be a violation of the third section of evasion were frequent, and in the latter of the Truck Act, and be punishable by year a Select Committee was appointed to the penalties which that Act prescribes. inquire into the truth of these alleged evils. He held in his hand a letter from a correThe Committee did not report, but the spondent at Bilston, containing information existence of the evil was amply proved by as to the working of the present system, the evidence adduced before them. In some of the statements in which he would 1851 a deputation, composed of gentlemen briefly bring before the House. It appeared from the localities in which the truck sys- from that letter that in some cases the worktem prevailed, waited on the right hon. man was expected to lay out at the shop 10s. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir G. out of every" draw," so that if the "draw" Grey), then Secretary of State for the amounted to 12s. he had only 2s. to take Home Department, with respect to these home to his family; if he did not lay out evasions of the Act, and in consequence a the full amount, he was punished at the Commissioner was appointed to inquire next draw by the ordinary payment on into them, and report as to whether they account being withheld from him, and resulted from the state of the law, and as by being told that he must wait for his to what amendments would be necessary. wages until the next general settlement, The Commissioner, Mr. Tremenheere, col- which might not be for two or three weeks, lected a mass of evidence on the subject, If he refused to work he was liable to be which was published two years since, and sent to prison. The goods supplied were charged at from 1d. to 1d. per lb. above the retail price, and the women were often kept waiting about for hours; so that instances had occurred in which children had been burnt to death during these absences of their mothers. He did not object to the masters becoming shopkeepers if they pleased. It was a libel on those who wished to put down the truck system, to say that they had any such objection. If the masters chose to descend to the position of the retail dealer, let them do it by all means. In that case, let them put themselves upon a footing with the other shopkeepers in their neighbourhood. What they wanted was to put an end to a system of collusive payments, under which the workman received his money in one part of the establishment and exchanged it for goods in another. Let him have a bona fide payment in money of the wages he had earned, and let him be free to lay it out where he pleased, so that he might have what was accorded to the rest of the community-the benefit of full and free competition. He proposed to make an alteration also in the amount of the penalty. At present it was not less than 57. nor more than 107. for the first offence-not less than 107. nor more than 201. for the second-and it was only a third breach of the law that was liable to be treated as a misdemeanor. He proposed to make the penalty not less than 107. nor more than 20. for the first offence, and to constitute the second a misdemeanor, for it was evident that, while the profits of the "tommy shops" amounted to hundreds, and sometimes to thousands a year, penalties so light as those which now existed would have no effect in putting an end to the system. The knowledge that he would have to answer the charge before a jury of his countrymen, would probably have more influence upon the master in preventing him from persisting in it than anything else that could be devised. As regarded the time for laying the information, taking into consideration the difficulty of getting men to come forward to give evidence, he proposed to enlarge the time within which informations might be laid from three months to six, and instead of leaving it to the discretion of the magistrates to dispose of the penalty-a discretion which had been sometimes exercised by awarding to the informer no more than 40s., he proposed that the informer should be entitled to one-half the penalty absolutely. He knew that this was an arrangement which was generally looked on with some jealousy; but, considering the enormous expenses which were incurred in prosecuting to conviction-in one case they had amounted to as much as 801.-and considering that the funds for the payment of these expenses had to be provided principally by the workmen and small shopkeepers-he hoped the House would not object to carry out in this case the principle which had been recognised in reference to officers of the revenue; and, instead of leaving the local associations to fight the battle unassisted, would give them some portion of the penalty to assist them in enforcing the law. He knew it had been said that the increased value of labour rendered all legislation superfluous, and that there was no pressure from those on whose behalf they were called upon to legislate. He could only refer to the petitions which he had presented, and state the fact that not only from his own constituents, but from other parts of the country, he had received communications representing that the evil was one of urgency, and one that called for the immediate interference of Parliament. He would admit that there was not the same pressure, the same agitation, that there had been in other cases; but he thought they ought to take advantage of that circumstance to deal with the difficulty while they could do it calmly and with deliberation, and before it had assumed that formidable shape which other differences between masters and their workmen unhappily now presented. They had here an opportunity of applying a practicable remedy to an admitted evil, and of promoting thereby the interests of social order, of the honest employer, whom these "truck" masters or tommy" shopkeepers, by reason of the large profits which they derived from the present system, were enabled to undersell, and of the labouring poor. A Bill had been introduced last year by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which was withdrawn on account of the approaching termination of the Session; the noble Lord proposed to refer that Bill to a Select Committee, and he (Mr. Forster) was prepared to adopt that course with the present measure; and-although he knew the disadvantage of its depending upon his feeble advocacy instead of being introduced by the noble Lord, so distinguished for administrative talent-by doing so, they would give a proof to the working man that, amid more exciting topics, they were not neglectful of his interest, and convince him 66 that the protection of his rights was not to be found in trade-unions or strikes, but by stating his grievance, which, when proved, stringent legislation should prevent his being deprived of his right to receive a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, the payment for which should be in the lawful coin of the realm. MR. PETO said, that in supporting the hon. Gentleman's motion, he would beg to suggest that there was no necessity for the Bill being referred to a Select Committee. A great deal of attention had been given to this question and many inquiries made, and he (Mr. Peto) could not conceive any circumstances under which the payment of a man's wages should be withheld, or that for such payment anything else should be substituted for money. When first he became connected with public works the payment of money was the exception and not the rule; but, from twenty-five years' experience, he could conceive no reason why there should be a departure from the rule, that a man's wages should be paid in the current coin of the realm. The firm with which he was connected had employed in England, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and various parts of the Continent, 30,000 men, and they never paid wages otherwise than in money, and always took care the men had it in sufficient time to derive the full benefit from it for their families. He asked the hon. Gentleman and the Government not to refer the matter to a Select Committee, but to a Committee of the whole House, and he was certain there was no hon. Member but would say that the proposed measure sought to secure to the workman his simple and inalienable right. Let them make the Act as stringent as they might, they could not be doing an injustice, as it was but right that an obligation should be discharged in the spirit in which it was incurred-by a proper payment at the proper time. MR. HUME said, no man could be more anxious than he was that the workman should receive the fullest and best remuneration for his labour; but it was only deluding the workman if they thought a Bill of pains and penalties like this would prevent the master and workman from making whatever bargain they thought proper. Such Bills as this always had been, and always would be, evaded; but it was never evaded except when it was for the interest of both parties; and therefore the hopes which these Bills served to hold out were purely delusive. Far better would it be for the House, instead of wasting time upon such measures as this, to instruct the workman upon the law of political economy, and remove from his mind everything like an idea of injustice in a system which could be made to work as much, nay more, for the advan tage of the employed as for that of the employer. For instance, when Mr. Dale established his mills in Lanarkshire, he supplied his workpeople with provisions much better, and at a far cheaper rate, than they could have got them in the market; and he had no doubt there were numerous other cases where the same principle of reciprocity had proved advantageous to the workman. An experience of thirty-five years had taught him that these Bills did more harm than good, and he hoped the House would not sanction the present measure. MR. H. A. BRUCE said, that as he lived on a borderland, just between two parts of the country, in one of which the truck system prevailed, and in the other it did not, he could give the clearest evidence as to the effect that system had on the workpeople. As there were but few savings banks in his part of the country, the people of the populous district near Merthyr Tydvil, where the truck system did not prevail, invested their money in building cottages, a large proportion of which were built by them out of their savings. On the other side of the mountains, where the truck system prevailed, where their circumstances were in other respects precisely similar, not one-tenth of the cottages were built by the workmen. This, he thought, was conclusive evidence that the surplus, after ordinary expenditure, did not reach them in such fulness as it did those whose wages suffered no diminution from the truck system, and who were free to purchase as other people were. The result of his observations upon the working of the truck system was, that it had a mischievous and baneful effect upon those habits of economy which it was most desirable they should encourage, and which formed the surest basis of the present well-being and future progress of the working classes. Whatever might be the opinion of the House upon the truck system, he thought it was clear that the present law ought to be seriously considered, and, if necessary, amended. The working classes saw the law violated daily by the rich and powerful, and the natural conclusion to which they came through the cotton as well as the iron was, that the rich and powerful were districts, since he had been in that House, allowed to break the law, while the poor a period of ten years, he had never heard were not permitted to do so. They con- any complaint of the existence of the truck stantly saw rich men brought before the system in the cotton districts of Lancashire magistrates; they witnessed a failure of and Cheshire. He thought it would be justice; and it was natural that they worth while to consider whether there was should attribute the circumstance not, as any reason why they had such complaints was really the case, to the imperfection of from the iron districts and none from the the law, but to the leaning of the magis- cotton districts, although the law with retrate towards the course of the rich and gard to both was the same. What could powerful. He could himself vouch for the be more easy than to establish the truck existence of such feelings, having, unfor- system in the cotton districts? The cotton tunately, had to hear charges brought manufacturers employed as large a number under the Truck Acts, and occasionally to of persons as were employed by the majo inflict penalties, and he had had frequent rity of masters in the iron and coal districts, occasion for remarking how difficult it and yet they did not find it to their intewas, under the existing Act, to administer rest-or, if they did, they did not avail the law in the spirit in which it was in- themselves of the opportunities taken in tended to be administered by the Legis- the iron districts-to establish this system. lature. He had little doubt, however, They certainly had every motive to adopt that if the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. it so far as profit was concerned, but yet C. Forster) succeeded in carrying this they had not adopted it. He did not know Bill, which had been very carefully drawn, whether the employers and work people in many of the existing difficulties would be the cotton districts were a superior class to removed, and that a deathblow would be the employers and workpeople in the iron given to a system which, in his conscience, districts, but, at all events, they obeyed he believed had been one of the greatest the law; and, if this system was bad for causes of the degradation of the working the workmen, he did not think that, in the classes in the mineral districts of England long run, it could be good for the employand Wales. ers. He understood that, both in the iron MR. BRIGHT said, he was not disposed and coal districts, there was at this moment to offer any opposition to the introduction a great dearth of labour, and that wages of the Bill, though he had not the smallest were extremely high. Indeed, they had faith that any benefit would arise from it. seen in the newspapers accounts of strikes He believed it to be one of that numerous among the workpeople in those districts. class of measures introduced every Session If men were striking who received 6s., 7s., which the House received with a great deal or 8s. a day-men whose incomes rendered of amiable feeling, and which they allowed them liable to the income tax, why should to go on two or three stages, because, Parliament be called on to legislate for though they were satisfied that such mea- them? Would Parliament legislate for sures would do no good, they believed they men who received 100l. a year wages for would do no harm. The hon. Member for eight or nine hours' daily work, and who Montrose had referred to the various mea- yet complained that they were forced to sures that had been passed upon this sub-go to particular shops to get their goods? ject in the course of his experience. He Surely, men who could get up strikes (Mr. Bright) presumed that the argument in favour of any legislation on this question was, not that workmen were supplied with food, but that they were supplied with food at shops to which they were forced to go, and where the price charged was higher than they would have to pay if they were to go to other shops, and if what was called "unrestricted competition" was allowed. It had often struck him that though the truck law was the same all over the Kingdomexcept with regard to farmers, who, he believed, were excepted altogether from its operationalthough that law extended against the owners of ironworks and collieries, who could maintain those strikes for weeks and months, who could organise trades' unions and fight contests before the courts of law-surely, if these men felt the truck system a real grievance they would put down such a tyranny as this was represented to be. He believed that in the cotton districts the working population would not submit to be forced to a shop to which they were unwilling to go. Would it not be as well if his hon. Friends the Members for Walsall and Merthyr Tydvil would recommend to those whom they represented in this matter, that, by interest of masters and work people to conan improvement in the moral feeling and tinue it. A Bill on this subject was introthe moral views of capitalists and employ-duced last Session, and he formed one of a ers, this evil might be put down altogether, deputation which waited upon the noble as it was, he believed without exception, in Lord the Home Secretary, and made reLancashire? He believed that Acts of presentations to the noble Lord that resultParliament would not have the slightest ed in the withdrawal of that measure. That influence in repressing the practice. He deputation brought facts under the noble believed that no law, however carefully Lord's notice which showed that, so far framed, would effect that object. He would from the establishment of shops in connexundertake to say, that if the 109 lawyers ion with mines and collieries being in all in that House, and those who were to be cases obnoxious to workmen, in some of added by the Reform Bill, were to lay their the large iron districts such shops had been heads together and draw a Bill on the sub- specially established at the unanimous reject, unless some much more powerful in- quest of the workmen themselves. One case fluence operated both upon masters and was mentioned where extensive works were workmen, the truck system, if it was pro- situated in a large valley, Coalbrook-dale, fitable, would still be continued in spite of eight or nine miles distant from any town Acts of Parliament. He did not object to to which the workmen could go to purchase the introduction of the measure; it was not the articles they required. It was found worth while, for that House always favour- that all the trade in that valley was in the ed the bringing in of these little peddling hands of small hucksters, who had a commeasures of legislation. He admitted that plete monopoly, who combined together, his hon. Friend the Member for Walsall who sold bad goods at high prices, and (Mr. C. Forster) was actuated by the best who also used false weights. The masters motives in bringing this subject forward. established shops themselves; there was His hon. Friend might think that he (Mr. on complaint on the part of the workmen of Bright) was mistaken as to the probable the manner in which those shops were conoperation of the measure. He might be ducted; and it appeared to him that this mistaken, but he concurred entirely with Bill was an attempt to legislate against a his hon. Friend as to the result he desired system which, under the care of fair and to attain, and he wished that the districts honest employers, might be a benefit, raof Staffordshire were in the same position ther than a disadvantage to their workas Lancashire with regard to this system. people. He considered that the laws reHe (Mr. Bright) could only say that if the lating to masters and workmen were in truck system was established in his dis- so complicated a state, that a full intrict and was prospering there, he would quiry into that question ought to take place do all in his power to dissuade the work- before any further legislation was attemptmen from submitting to it, and the masters ed. This Bill was introduced upon the from carrying it on. He believed that the assumption that a Truck Act was the only reasons which had induced its disconti- means of preventing the abuse of the nuance in Lancashire would be sufficient truck system. Now, he held that a Truck to prevent its continuance in other dis- Act was not only utterly useless, but actricts; and he was satisfied that such a tually mischievous, and he thought there Bill as that of his hon. Friend, which were other means by which they should warred against the interest and customs seek to benefit the workmen, and to break of a district, would only share the fate of down the overbearing influence of capital those measures which had preceded it on in this country. He would suggest whethe same subject. It would hold out delu- ther the establishment of the principle of sive hopes to the workmen that something limited liability would not be more likely to would be done for them, and in the end bring about the independence of the workthey would be disappointed. ing classes than any interference of this kind. The subject was, however, so beset with difficulties, that he thought the best course would be to appoint a Committee of the House to investigate the whole question. He was happy to understand that the Commission appointed to consolidate the Statute Laws were at this moment engaged in drawing up a report on the whole MR. CRAUFURD said, as one of the 109 lawyers to whom his hon. Friend had referred, he rose to say how much he agreed with him in the view which he took of this subject. He believed that no law, however stringently drawn and carefully carried out, would be successful in putting a stop to the truck system while it was the |