1842 | Commerce
Commerce
The Treaty of Nanjing that ends the Opium War has the unintended effect of ending the Hong monopoly on trade, freeing Chinese traders to build up the port cities even as it enforces Western privilege at those ports.
A Chartist petition presented to the House of Commons May 2 by Yorkshire-born Thomas Duncombe, MP, 45, not only demands that the six points of the 1838 Charter be implemented but also complains about the 1834 Poor Law, "cruel wars against liberty," the "unconstitutional police force," factory conditions, and church taxes on Nonconformists. Duncombe is a close friend of William Lovett, who has been imprisoned (see 1839), and his speech draws warm praise from members of both parties. Signed by 3,250,000 people, the petition contrasts Victoria's income of "£164 s. 10d. a day" with that of "the producing millions," but the Commons rejects it by a vote of 287 to 47.
British workers react to Parliament's rejection of the Chartist petition by going on strike in the Midland coalfields (see 1841). The strike spreads in August to Scotland, textile workers in Lancashire and Yorkshire join in the protest, and in some cases they remove the boiler plugs from the steam engines in their plants (the demonstrations will come to be known as the Plug Plot or Plug Riots), and some workers say they will remain on strike until the People's Charter becomes law. A conference of trade-union leaders at Manchester adopts a resolution linking the strikes to demands for universal suffrage (see O'Connor, 1843).
Wales has another outbreak of the so-called Rebecca Riots that were suppressed 3 years ago, and this time there is greater violence, with gates as well as tollhouses being destroyed. The riots will continue into 1844 (see Lord Cawdor's Act, 1844).
Britain's Mines Act takes effect, prohibiting employment in mines of women, girls, and boys under age 10.
Massachusetts enacts a child labor law that limits the working hours of children under 12 to 10 per day (see age limit, 1848; Britain, 1802).
Massachusetts Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, 61, upholds the legality of trade unions in a decision handed down in March (Commonwealth v. Hunt). Reshaping the common law that has held unions to be criminal conspiracies, Shaw reasons that the intention of the Boston Journeyman Bootmakers Society is not "to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose" but rather to persuade "all those engaged in the same occupation to become members," and he rules that a strike for a closed shop is quite legal and that a union is not responsible for illegal acts by individuals.
State-chartered U.S. banks continue to issue their own bank notes (the federal government mints coins but does not print currency), and the value of notes varies from place to place depending on the strength of the issuing banks (see 1792). A $1 note issued by Nashville's Planters Bank fetches only 80¢ at Philadelphia in March; a $1 note from State Bank of Illinois is worth only 50¢, and the differing values make it difficult to transact interstate business. A New York City directory lists 51 exchange offices or money collectors whose chief business is buying and selling bank notes, many of them counterfeit (see 1863).
New York's Curb Exchange has its beginnings as brokers in Broad Street start trading stocks in companies too small to be listed on the Stock & Exchange Board (see 1921).
Scottish-born Hudson's Bay Company fur trader Robert Campbell, 34, establishes the company's first Yukon area factory (trading post) at Frances Lake. He began exploring the region 2 years ago and will remain until 1852, traveling on snowshoes as he deals with local tribes for beaver pelts and other skins.