earning sums varying from 5s. to 8s. or 10s. He had inquired into the cases of 2,156 families, amounting to upwards of 10,000 individuals, whose wages had of late declined, and who were suffering under the pressure of severe distress. It should be observed that the decline in the trade of Sheffield was not owing to the introduction of machinery, because the manufacturers there employed very little machinery now, which had not been in use fifty years ago. In fact, the only important article of machinery in use in Sheffield was the steam engine, which drove their wheels, and which had been in use for nearly half a century.The distress in Sheffield could not, therefore, be in any way traced to the introduction of new machinery throwing various hands out of employment, as was alleged to be the case in other districts. The decline of wages was, of course, felt by the shopkeepers, because so much floating capital ceased to circulate among them. He had ascertained that in a number of cases into which he had inquired, there were £6,000 a week less paid in wages during the present year than in former periods and that would give a yearly diminution of £300,000. All that money was withdrawn from the shopkeepers; and that accounted for the change in their condition. The poor did not in general attribute their distress to the Corn Laws, but to the influence of class legislation; and thousands of them looked to the charter as the only remedy for the evils, under which they suffered. (Hear.) Machinery, as they had already said, was not the source of the evil; and there could be no doubt but that a repeal of the Corn Laws would tend greatly to diminish it. A gentleman in the room, Mr. Ibbotson, a man well known in Yorkshire and in Lancashire, had told him if the Corn Laws were repealed,he should be able to-morrow to find employment for 500 fresh hands."
Mr. Ibbotson, of Sheffield, corroborated Mr. Bailey's statement. Mr. Bonner, of Bilston, said that in the Wolverhampton district there were 134 blast furnaces; of these 62 were at the present moment idle each of those employed 160 persons, and thus were 10,000 persons at present out of employment. There were a number of iron mills in that neighbourhood, which employed about from 200 to 300 hands each. The majority of these were now idle. The japan trade was in a dreadful state. One master was now working for 50 per cent, less than he had done three years ago of course he could not employ the same number of hands, and destitution would consequently be increased. In that town there were at the present mo-
