An order for coarse goods came in from a new foreign market. It was
a large order, giving employment to all the mills engaged in that
species of manufacture; but it was necessary to execute it speedily,
and at as low prices as possible, as the masters had reason to
believe that a duplicate order had been sent to one of the
continental manufacturing towns, where there were no restrictions on
food, no taxes on building or machinery, and where consequently they
dreaded that the goods could be made at a much lower price than they
could afford them for; and that, by so acting and charging, the
rival manufacturers would obtain undivided possession of the market.
It was clearly their interest to buy cotton as cheaply, and to beat
down wages as low as possible. And in the long run the interests of
the workmen would have been thereby benefited. Distrust each other
as they may, the employers and the employed must rise or fall
together. There may be some difference as to chronology, none as to
fact.
But the masters did not choose to make all these circumstances
known.
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