from then to 1841, and the distress in manufacturing districts was heartrending.'
"In 1839-42 Stockport was almost desolate, one-half of the factories were shut up; 3,000 dwellings were unoccupied, artizans were breaking stones on the roads, and the poor rate was 10s. in the pound.
"In Bolton, in 1842, the Poor Protection Society had 6,995 applicants for relief, whose earnings only averaged 13d. per head; 5,305 persons were visited, and they had only 466 blankets amongst them, or about one blanket to every eleven persons.
"In one district in Manchester it was found that there were 2,000 families without a bed. In Glasgow, in 1842, 12,000 people were on the relief funds.
"In Accrington, out of a population of 9,000 people, only 100 were fully employed.
"In 1842, the reports of the factory inspectors showed that 10 per cent, of the cotton mills and 12 per cent, of all the woollen mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire were standing idle, and that of the rest only one-fourth were working full time."
And, in further illustration, I will quote from a speech made in the House of Commons by Cobden, in answer to Sir Robert Peel, as set out in Morley's "Life" of the great Free Trade Apostle:—
"Cobden, in answer to Sir Robert Peel, out of the fulness of his knowledge, showed that the stocking frames of Nottingham were as idle as the looms of Stockport, that the glass-cutters of Stourbridge and the glovers of Yeovil were undergoing the same privation as the potters of Stoke and the miners of Staffordshire, where 25,000 men were destitute of employment. He knew of a place where 100 wedding-rings had been pawned in a single week to provide bread, and of another place where men and women subsisted on boiled nettles, and dug up the decayed carcase of a cow rather than perish of hunger."
Well, gentlemen, it is only necessary to compare the state of affairs when these horrors took place, with that which now exists, to see that in wealth, morals, and intelli-
