ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises the meeting of Spitalfield workers at Bethnal Green on 20 June 1851 where they discussed the ‘present alarming condition of the silk trade’ with ‘nearly half the looms’ being ‘unemployed’. The Spitalfield workers, of course, had been the ground zero of Luddite and Chartist activism in previous decades. For if income and wages are reduced the means to purchase manufactured articles are reduced also. Cheap bread was the universal cry raised by a party who wished to push their goods into every market of the world, at deteriorated prices, regardless of the ruin they were bringing upon millions connected with the soil of England. There is no stability in the government likely to create confidence amongst persons engaged either in commerce or agriculture. Under the present circumstances a high duty on corn would be impracticable.
