could perform for himself. These were sanctioned by custom, but others were not. Wholesale deductions were made for faults in weaving. The weaver had legal aid against unjust abatements of this sort, but as he received no pay till the question had been submitted to arbitration, poverty usually compelled him to submit at once to the extortion.[1] By this means nominal wages could be largely reduced by tyrannical masters. In one case arbitration was precluded by withdrawing a percentage of the market price beforehand, and in another no wages were stated at all when work was given to weavers.[2] No wonder the experience of the weavers seemed to give point to the teachings of writers like Hall and Thompson, to whom wealth represented a power given to the rich to oppress the poor, and capital a means whereby the employer might extract from the labour of his men so much surplus value as would leave them no more than enough to support a precarious and miserable existence.
The situation of those weavers who were employed in the wool trade was much better than that of the unfortunate cotton-weavers. Some of the old conservatism of the trade still remained, and machinery had not yet made any great headway in it.[3] It was still, both in the West Riding and in Gloucestershire, a domestic industry largely in the hands of small masters, but these were themselves in the control of large wholesale houses.[4] The trade of master weaver was in the southern district annihilated by a strike in 1825 which induced the large employers to set up handloom factories and employ the journeymen direct.[5] The master weavers were compelled to accept work in the factories on the same terms as their own journeymen—a situation which was hardly likely to produce amiable feelings amongst them.[6] The manufacturers, being in the power of the London houses, for which they really worked on contract, seem to have sweated their employees. They were men of little capital and eager to acquire profits. They were unable to do this otherwise than by cutting wages. Strikes were frequent, but it was quite impossible for the weavers to compel the masters to stick to the agreed lists. They practised truck on occasion also.[7] The introduction of the hated factory system,[8] combined with the other grievances,
