Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/402

394 the outbreak of war commercial credit had almost ceased for the time to exist. No fewer than 872 bankruptcies were recorded between November 1792 and July 1793. The problem of credit currency became acute. The country banks, which had multiplied greatly during the previous decade, had produced an over-issue of notes, some of them for such small amounts as to provoke the derisive issue by a Newcastle cobbler of a note for twopence. But the notes even of the sounder banks were now returned on their hands and many were obliged to close their doors. In the chief business centres various plans were adopted for keeping a credit currency afloat, and so preventing a complete collapse of commerce and industry. Liverpool, with the sanction of parliament, issued municipal notes to the amount of £200,000. A meeting at Manchester resolved that during the emergency it could not be considered disreputable for houses to make payments in their own notes payable in three months with interest. A committee of business men at Newcastle, after examining the books of the leading bankers, assured the public that their circulation was moderate and their security almost without limit, and a guarantee fund of £320,200 was subscribed by 148 local business men. The first of Oldknow's notes that have survived were issued on 13 April 1793, within a few days of the Manchester meeting and of the Newcastle guarantee.

The form taken by the shop-notes was to some extent determined by conditions independent of the commercial crisis. Like other captains of industry who built factories in rural districts, Oldknow had been obliged to organize supplies of the chief necessaries of life for many of his workers. Since the beginning of 1791 he had been providing houses, milk, coals, meat, and even beds for an increasing number of transient or permanent employés, and deducting the cost from their wages. There is no reason to stigmatize this as 'truck'. Most if not all of the necessaries supplied were produced on Oldknow's own estate, and were probably sold more cheaply than they could otherwise have been obtained. Even when he advanced £50 to two brothers in August 1791, for the purpose of stocking a general shop, it is likely that it was the convenience of the new population and not his own profit that he had chiefly in mind. Enlightened self-interest mingled with higher motives led employers like Robert Owen and the Gregs of Styal to organize supplies without exploiting their workers, and the systems they created passed into the hands of co-operative societies.