311 



employment for your retUindant population, profitable investment for 

 capital, and be the means of renovating trade, and of restoring pros- 

 perity to the city. 



Tiiat individual wealth and enterprise could accomplish this vast 

 good I have no doubt, because many opulent and indefatigable manu- 

 facturers of the North employ, it is said, more hands than could be 

 obtained at the Norwich labour-market — the market to which your own 

 manufacturers resort, and by which they regulate the rate of wages. 

 This Mr. Willett clearly and candidly explained. " The first thing," 

 he observed, " was to have all the people employed, and the natural 

 consequence would follow of a higher rate of wages ; but if there were 

 more operatives than were required, wages would fall." 



It is evident that the present depressed state of Norwich is mainly 

 attributable to the low rate at which the working classes are paid. It 

 is also evident that, until the labour-market is cleared of surplus hands, 

 it will be impossible to remedy the evil. Therefore, it becomes the 

 duty, as well as the interest of every inhabitant, to find employment 

 for the redundant population. 



But, as it cannot be expected that any individual of sufficient wealth, 

 zeal, and devotion, would embark in such an undertaking, I propose, 

 as the only alternative, that a Linen Company, embracing the spinning, 

 weaving, and bleaching departments of the trade, be formed, and sup- 

 ported for three or four years by the voluntary contributions of a 

 philanthropic public. The Company to erect the Spinning-mills, Boil- 

 ing-house, Machinery, &c. &c., and find Capital for purchasing 

 Stock, payment of Wages, &c. The voluntary fund to be appropriated 

 to the defrayment of all expenses consequent upon instruction, altering 

 of hand-looms, inexperience, &c. «Ssc. 



Thus protected from loss through incidental expenses, moneyed parties 

 would come forward, and the Linen Trade be established ; or some 

 opulent spinner might be induced by a guarantee of five hundred a 

 a year, for four years, to open a branch to his business in the city, and 

 thus by the payment of only one shilling each from the 10,000 rate- 

 payers originally assessed, the Norwich operatives may be emancipated 

 from their worse than Egyptian bondage. 



Were I able to state the amount of money required, either to sup- 

 port or to conduct the various branches in question, it would, at pre- 

 sent, be unnecessary ; but my desire is to induce, through the medium 

 of tliis Tract, a searching inquiry, from which, I am confident, the 

 happiest results would flow. 



I will, however, observe, that the number of surplus hands is by no 

 means so great as imagination depicts ; that the sums required to em- 

 ploy them, in the way proposed, are comparatively trifling ; that there 



