[Footnote 462: French, _ibid._, p. 166. _Infra_, p. 174.] On this occasion no debate took place, nor evidently on any other until 24th June, when the grant was moved. On the first occasion the petition was referred to a Committee with power to send for persons, papers and records.[463] The next occasion was on 18th March, when the Committee was instructed to submit to the House minutes of evidence concerning the case, and any observations upon it. A striking comment upon the conditions of the time is that on the very same page of the _Journals_ on which this record appears,[464] there is also a petition from Bolton--Crompton’s home--pointing out that the people in that neighbourhood were “so nearly to actual starvation that they think it would be highly imprudent any longer to delay communicating their situation to the House”; that the manufacturers had been reduced to the necessity of working for one-fourth of what they obtained before the commencement of the war with France; and that the necessaries of life had nearly doubled in price. Convinced that the war was the immediate cause of their distress, they asked for parliamentary reform on the ground that “if the house consisted of representatives of the people only, it would not for any doubtful prospect of benefit to our allies consent to expose the people of this country to the certain misery, ruin, and starvation which the continuance of the war must bring upon them.” [Footnote 463: _Journals of the House of Commons_, lxvii., p. 175. Hansard, xxi., p. 1174.] [Footnote 464: _J.H.C._, lxvii., p. 207.] Certainly the Committee did not delay carrying out the order of the House in the matter of Crompton’s petition, as the evidence was taken on the same day as the order was given.[465] Evidently some little “engineering” had taken place as a comparison of the evidence with the series of questions and answers prepared beforehand will show.[466] If the record of the proceedings is a correct account of what took place at the meeting, it is difficult to believe that the chairman and at least one witness had not the evidence already before them. On 24th March the Committee presented its report, when it was ordered to be printed and to lie on the table. Again, during the preceding four days, petitions had been presented from Blackburn and Preston, drawing attention to the parlous state of public affairs, and insisting that the lower classes had difficulty in obtaining a bare subsistence; that the middle classes were rapidly sinking to the position of the lower; and suggesting similar remedies to those of their fellow-petitioners at Bolton.[467] [Footnote 465: _J.H.C._, lxvii., pp. 838-839.] [Footnote 466: _Infra_, pp. 179-182, 189-191.] [Footnote 467: Hansard, xxii. 94.]