The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

JANUARY 24, 1857. resolution deprecating the recent hostilities against China, expressed an opinion that, like the last war against China, they had arisen out of a contraband trade in opium. He reviewed the history and general condition of China, and, after entering into various details to show the injurious effects of the traffic in opium, quoted the official correspondence from the London Gazette, and expressed an opinion that we bad not a clear ground of quarrel against the Chinese on the present occasion. All the circum stances, he said, proved that the sudden resort to arms could not be justified. The Rev. C. Vence, who seconded the resolution, said that the proceed ings of the British fleet had been hurried and pre cipitate, and that the conflict was as unmanly as it was unjustifiable. This resolution, and one con demning the war against Persia as an unrighteous aggression, were agreed to, and petitions to both Houses of Parliament founded upon them were adopted. AT WAX sets., last week, a meeting of the principal inhabitants was held at the Guildhall to express dis approval of the Chinese war and of the threatened hostilities with Persia. Mr. Jabez Marshall and Mr. Arthur O'Neill both made eloquent speeches, when Mr. Scholey moved the following resolution : That we feel called upon to express regret and indigna tion at the cruel and destructive bombardment of Canton, no sufficient cause baring been shown for such operations. We have also heard with regret of approaching hostilities with Persia, war having been declared without the sanc tion of Parliament, on the pretext of supporting an alliance with a turbulent tribe of Affilians, of the merits of whose position we know nothing. We recommend that a memorial be prepared, praying the Government to stay further proceedings in these disputes, till the nation at large can express its opinion on the meeting of Par- liament. Mr. Davis seconded the motion, whioh was adopted without a single dissentient. rtiropolitan. THE SECOND GREAT MEETING OF UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN was held at Smithfield on Monday. The number of people present, who, with the exception of a few holiday folk, appeared to be bona-fide work ing men, generally connected with the building trades, did not at any time exceed 4,000, or at most 5,000, although it was generally admitted that the meeting was twice as numerous as that of the pre vious Monday. The proceedings were of the most orderly description, and the meeting, with some few exceptions, characterised by moderation of ex pression. A Mr. PIERCE, a cabinetmaker, opened the pro ceedings by calling upon the workmen of England to combine in association. What could not the 20,000,000 of English workmen obtain by combina tion ? The working classes had been taxed with want of unity, and it had been said that if one of them proposed anything the rest of the working population laughed at him ; but they would now combine to procure the repeal of those laws which their conquerors told them had been made for their good. The poor law said that every man had a right to live, and, acting upon that principle, he said that the people had a right to an equal division of property until their wants were satisfied. . . . So, let them impress on the Government that they wanted a living, and that, while they saw grandeur and luxury about them, they meant to have it. But they must appeal to the laws, and not break them, and if any man among them saw another do anything to disturb the public peace, let him arrest him in that endeavour, and so show that the British workman was the true conservator of the peace of the country. Let them all be constables of order. Their only object was the amelioration of their condit►on, and they did nut want the police to come and cudgel them; they would he their own police, and take care at the same time of the publio peace and their own interests. Mr. MACRAY (shoemaker) then moved the follow ing resolution : That this meeting, consisting chiefly of operatives unem ployed (by causes for which we are not responsible), demand of the authorities that the means of existence be extended within our reach by useful and protttable employment in agriculture and manufactures. That, until such employment be afforded, we fall back upon our ancient and indisputable right to paro chial assistance, unaccompanied by the Insulting, debasing, and infamous conditions at present persisted in. The Government (said the speaker) had recently ex• pended millions for the sake of civilising Turkey, and could they not spend one or two millions in civilising this country ? They were just now, too, civilising China, and the money which they were going to expend there would place the unemployed working people of :his country in ease and comfort. The British workman now, when out of work, was absolutely valueless. There was a time when his dead body would fetch IW., but it was not worth that now ; for the ." base, brutal, and bloody Whigs," to whom they owed nothing but their detestation, first sent them to the workhouse, and then gave their bodies to dissection. He wished to see men as they ought to be—not in work to. day and out again to-morrow, but with always sufficient, and of that there was no hope under the present system, nor until they got possession of political power, for those who made the laws would make them to suit themselves, and not for the working people. There was emigration as one remedy to their present state ; but the Government would do nothing is t4t way ; yugeq. it wag to lot theta T H scuttled. If the Government wanted them to fight their battles they would pay 1001. per man for their passage in the Himalaya, but for their own good they would not give them a hundred pence. The working classes were robbed annually of 300,000,0001. more than they consumed, and therefore their oppressors would not mind spending 100,000,0001., if necessary, to keep them down. The governing classes would care nothing for their meetings if they said they only wanted to be fed, and cared nothing for politics ; they would then feed them as they did their horses—( A Voice : " I wish they would ")—and be glad of such a bargain. In conclusion, God helped those who helped themselves, and let them do the same. Several other speeches were delivered and the resolution carried unanimously ; and an address prepared by the committee was read, the principal object of which was to impress upon the meeting the necessity of regaining possession of the land of their forefathers, and the organisation of a free system of emigration. Mr. KEITH seconded and Mr. FORBES and Mr. BLIGH supported the adoption of the address, which was unanimously agreed to, as was also a resolution declaring the National Association of Unemployed of Great Britain to be deserving of support. In the course of the proceedings it was mentioned that the number of unemployed in London belonging to the principal trades is at present as follows : Carpenters Plasterers Painters Stonemasons • Bricklayers ( with labourers) Smiths, moulders, decorators, cte. Total The committee have abandoned their design of a simultaneous application to the metropolitan parishes for relief, as last week decided upon, advising instead independent action in each parish. THE QUESTION OF THE VALUE OF DOCK WARRANTS so recently brought to issue by the decision of the Court of Error, in the case of " Kingsford and Swin ford v. Merry," gave rise to a public meeting of mer chants at the London Tavern on Monday. Baron Lionel Rothschild presided, and in opening the pro ceedings explained that it was now the opinion that holders of bills of lading, delivery orders, or dock warrants, who had given full value for such docu ments, or advanced money on the same, were not the legal owners of the goods which the warrants represented, unless they could prove that the title of every person through whose hands the documents had passed was perfectly valid. It was, therefore, for the meeting to consider whether it would be best for the law to remain as it was, or whether it was desirable to endeavour to prevail on the Government to propose an alteration. Mr. S. Gregson, M.P., moved the first resolution, viz.:— That the decision of the Court of Error in the case of " Kings ford and Swinford v. Merry," appears to involve a principle which is calculated to render the recognised and well-under stood course and practice of trade insecure and uncertain, and to destroy confidence in delivery orders, warrants, bills of lading, and other mercan:ile documents essential to the safe transaction of business and development of trade, and that immediate action for the remedy of this evil is desirable. The law was, it seemed, in accordance with a declaration of Lord Campbell in a previous case, that a bill of lading did not pass like a bill of exchange or a promissory note ; that if it were stolen or transferred without authority, no advance which bad been made upon it could be recovered. The question to be considered was, therefore, what change should be made in the law? He might observe, that up to 1821 no pledge was good unless it were a pledge by the owner. Up to thit period, if a person residing in India sent a bill of lading to an agent in London, not drawing against it, and he (the agent) obtained an advance upon it, the owner might follow the goods. The law was then alteted, and it was enacted that if the owner intrusted a person in London with a certain document, that document should be quite sufficient authority to the public fur an advance. There was some further relaxation of the law in 1842, and the law was then made what it is at present. As regarded the nature of the alteration required, he thought the meeting would hardly go so far as to say that, under all circumstances whatever, a person making an advance should be justified in retaining the document. Mr. Moffat, M.P., seconded the resolution, which was then put and carried unanimously. Mr. Wegue lin rose to move the next resolution, viz.:— That a committee, consisting of Baron Rothschild, Messrs. Gassiot, Gregson, Hall, Scovell, Hastie, Cook, Corrie, Moffat, Hodgson, Crawford, and Travers, with power to add to their number, b , ..t appointed to confer with the Government, in the view of procuring, by legislative enactment, such a full and final settlement of the state of the law as shall be calculated to afford due security to the negotiations of trade, and to protect the bouti•fide bolder of those commercial docinnents, which, both by the custom of trade and the necessities of commerce, are recognised as obligatory among merchants. Alter a short discussion the committee was appointed and the proceedings terminated. _ _ The circumstances fof the case of " Kingsford v. Merry," were these : A man named Anderson pur chased from Kingsford a certain quantity of tartaric acid lying in a warehouse at the Custom-house Quay, receiving what merchants call a delivery order for the same, and at the same time having them trans- 81 ferred to his name in the books at the warehouse. Anderson immediately afterwards borrowed from Merry the sum of 2,0001. on the security of these goods, giving over to the latter the delivery warrant. It then appeared that Anderson had obtained pos session of them by means of falsely representing himself as the agent of another person, and the question simply was which of two innocent parties should lose the money thus advanced to Anderson on security of the delivery order. Both Kingsford, who had transferred the goods into Anderson's name, and Merry, who had advanced the money upon them, had acted in perfect good faith and in strict accordance with mercantile usage, and the Court of Exchequer, before which the point was first discussed, held that the loss should fall on the former. The principle of law was declared by the Lord Chief Baron to be as follows : That when a purchaser obtains possession of a chattel, with the intention by the seller to transfer both the property and the possession, although the purchaser has made a false and fraudulent representation in order to effect a contract or to obtain the possession, the property vests in the purchaser until the seller does some act to disaffirm the transaction ; and the legal consequence is, that if before the disaffirruance the fraudulent purchases has transferred over the whole or any part of thu chattel to an innocent transferee, the title of such transferee is good against the seller. This decision has been reversed on appeal to the Exchequer Chamber, chiefly, if not solely. on the ground that Anderson had obtained possession of the goods by means of fraud, and it is at this latter conclusion that the City merchants have expressed dissatisfaction and alarm. A MEETING OF BOOTMAKERS, presided over by Mr. Medwin, of Regent street, was held at the Free masons' Tavern, on Monday evening, to consider the propriety of advancing the price of boots and shoes, in consequence of the extraordinary and continued rise in the price of leather. From the statement of Mr. Medwin it appeared that during the last eighteen months or two years there had been a rise in some descriptions of leather amounting to from fifty to seventy•fiva per cent.—while the rise in raw hides had been from 211 or 3d. to 10d. or 1011 per lb., which was equal to 400 per cent. Now, there was no prospect of a fall in the price of leather:— Formerly France sent us a great many bides, now she consumed them all herself. Ten years ago perhaps fifteen out of every twenty Frenchmen wore wooden shoes, now he did not believe there were ten in that number who wore sabots. The same sort of thing had happened also in Germany. In Buenos Ayres and other countries in South America there were formerly vast herds of wild or semi wild cattle, which were killed only for the sake of their akin, and nearly the whole of that stock had been de stroyed. Again, a great demand had sprung np in the United States. The Amencan people were not a beef or a mutton eating people. They preferred pork ; but they nevertheless required boots and shoes, and so they were becoming immense customers to France and Germany as well as ourselves. From Liverpool and other ports there were thousands of hides daily sent away. in a word, he did nut see an - , prospect whatever of increasing the supply, and he believed that prices would within twelve months be double their present exorbitant rate. Mr. Moore, of the firm of Burrell and Co., moved the following resolution : That in consequence of the extraordinary and sustained advance in the price of leather, it is necessary that a cor responding advance in the prices of boots and shoes should be made to the public ; and that this meeting adopt and recommend the adoption of such rise in proportion to the rise in the price of leather. The resolution was unanimously agreed to. CRIMINAL REFORMATION was discussed at a nume rous and highly influential meeting of the inhabitants of Chelsea, held on Monday evening, in support of establishing a reformatory at Brixton. The meeting was addressed by the rector of St. George's, South wark, and the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who gave some interesting details, showing bow persons discharged from prisons were suspected and avoided by friends and society, and, without character and the means to obtain food by their labour, were driven to the com mission of fresh crimes to obtain the means to sus tain existence. 'I o remedy this evil the Criminal Reformatory came forward, and, giving a home to the discharged criminal, taught him some industrial occupation, and restored him to society a useful member, instead of a pest. The Rev. Mr. Cohen, chaplain to the City Prison, detailed his prison ex periences, showing that many were driven to the commission of crime from the lack of any alterna tive. Resolutions approving the object and princi ples of the reformatory were adopted, and subscrip tions entered into. THE STATE OF WHITECROSS STREET PRISON was this week brought under the notice of the Court of Aldermen. The existing evils are described as "a want of cleanliness, great laxity of discipline, occa sional disturbances, disregard of the governor's authority, sometimes a display of insulting and vio lent conduct towards solicitors, &c., and a wercori bearing towaidi new-owning ininatea," PRESS.