I request your Lordships to look at the state of the savings banks.  A measure was sometime back adopted to prevent the investment of money in these banks beyond a certain amount for each person, in order that the parties not entitled to it should not derive the advantage which is intended for the poorer classes.  Large sums were drawn out of those banks soon after; but they have since revived in some degree.  Whence has the money come?  From the lower classes.  This cannot be considered as a proof of general distress.  Your Lordships ought likewise not to omit from your consideration the increased traffic carried on the railroads and canals in the country.  The noble Earl (Roseberry) has told your Lordships, that I have availed myself of the increased traffic upon the roads and canals by merchants and manufacturers—­in despair seeking a market—­in order to represent the country in a state of prosperity; whereas it is an additional symptom of distress.  My Lords, I said that this traffic had been increasing for years; and that it had, in some cases, doubled in ten years.  In one of the recent discussions in this House, upon the currency, the noble Marquis opposite (the Marquis of Lansdowne) very truly remarked,—­that a large quantity of currency might be found in a country in which there should be little riches and prosperity; and that the facility and rapidity of the circulation of the currency were signs of the prosperity of a country, rather than the quantity of that currency.  I entirely concur in the truth and justice of this observation.  But I would beg to ask the noble Marquis whether it is possible that transactions can increase and multiply as they have done in this country, in the last few years, without giving fresh scope for the circulation of the currency of the country, fresh employment for labour, and occasioning, in some degree, the augmentation of general prosperity.

Feb. 25, 1850.

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Causes of Manufacturing Distress, over which Parliament can have no Control.

There can be no doubt that there has been, of late years, a great increase of manufactures and manufactured produce in this country.  It is true, that this produce has given to the manufacturer but little profit, and that the wages of the manufacturing labourer are low; but, as I will show presently, the circumstance, equally with the cause of the agricultural distress, is beyond legislative control.

My Lords, it is impossible to consider this branch of the subject without adverting likewise to the state of the commerce of the country.  The produce of the manufactures of the country is greater than the country can consume; and, consequently, the price and the reward of the labourer must depend upon the foreign demand, as well as upon the demand at home.

In respect to the distress felt by manufacturing labourers, there can be no doubt that the wages of manual labour have been lowered by the successful application of steam to the movement of machinery for the purpose of manufacture.  Here, my Lords, is a cause of distress over which the Legislature has no practical control.  As I go further in my observations upon the speech of the Noble Earl (Stanhope) who made the motion,[12] I will point out other causes of distress equally beyond the control of the Legislature.