440 PROGRESS OF THE SMALL ARMS MANUFACTURE. 
of the French workmen were 3 f rs. to 3 frs. 50 cents per day, or 14s. 3d. 
to 16s. 7d. per week. The same witnesses stated that in Liege the 
average earnings were 2 frs. 50 cents per day, or 12s. per week, but they 
included the earnings of women and children ; and as they were seeking 
protection from their own industry, were probably disposed to under- 
rate the wages paid by their Liege competitors. 
The low price of labour gives our Belgian rivals a great advantage ; 
on the other hand, the better paid and better fed English workmen can 
accomplish an amount of work considerably in advance of his Belgian 
workfellow ; and the English manufacturers possess a further advantage 
in the more extended application of machinery, the use of which in Liege 
is discouraged by the cheap rate at which hand labour can be obtained. 
The Birmingham gunmakers have long been aware that a more ex- 
tensive use must be made of the advantages which they do possess, and 
this has led to the erection in Birmingham of an establishment for the 
manufacture of guns by machinery, on the interchangeable principle. 
We must give America credit for the introduction of this system. It 
was from thence that it was brought into this country. The attention of 
the English Government was first called to the subject by a commission, 
of which Mr. Whitworth and Mr. George Willis, late head master of the 
Birmingham School of Art,. were members. They visited the United 
States in the summer of 1853 for the purpose of inspecting the New 
York Exhibition, and while there, they extended their inquiries by 
visiting several establishments, among others the Government Arms 
manufactory at Springfield. Their report induced the Government to 
determine on the establishment of a manufactory at Enfield on the same 
system as that pursued at Springfield. 
Before this resolution was carried out, the subject was warmly de- 
bated in the House of Commons. Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Muntz, Mr. 
Geach, Lord Seymour, and other members, strongly insisted on the 
impolicy of Government entering into competition as manufacturers 
with the private trade of the country, and it was agreed that a com- 
mittee should be appointed " to consider the cheapest, most expeditious, 
and most efficient mode of providing small arms for Her Majesty's 
service." An opportunity was afforded to the gunmakers to give 
evidence. The result was that the committee recommended that the 
factory should be carried out only on a modified scale. The breaking 
out of the Crimean War shortly afterwards, however, led to this recom- 
mendation being disregarded, and the factory at Enfield was erected on 
a scale even larger than that originally contemplated. A second com- 
mission was sent over to the United States, with instructions to inspect 
the different gun factories in that country, and to purchase such 
machinery and models a? might . be found necessary for the proposed 
factory at Enfield. 
The manufacture of small arms by machinery, owes its origin 
