It is by means of the swiftness of our
machinery that we are enabled to bring cotton from India, manufacture it
in Manchester, return the manufactured article to the place from which
it was taken, and sell it at a lower price than the native-made calico.
Mr. Chadwick mentions the following case. "A lady, the wife of an
eminent cotton manufacturer, went to him one day rejoicing, with a fine
piece of muslin, as the produce of India, which she had bought in
London, and showing it to him, said, if he produced a fabric like that,
he would really be doing something meritorious in textile art. He
examined it, and found that it was the produce of his own looms, near
Manchester, made for the Indian market exclusively, bought there, and
re-sold in England as rare Indian manufacture!"[1]
[Footnote 1: _Address on Economy and Free Trade_. By Edwin Chadwick,
C.B., at the Association for the Promotion of Social Science at York,
1861.]
An annual report is furnished to the Government, by our foreign consuls,
with reference to the character and condition of the working classes in
most parts of the civilized world. Mr. Walter, M.P., in a recent address
to an assembly of workmen, referred to one of these reports. He said,
"There is one remark, in particular, that occurs with lamentable
frequency throughout the report,--that, with few exceptions, the foreign
workman does not appear 'to take pride in his work,' nor (to use a
significant expression) to 'put his character into it.
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