The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-12 00:00:00

shelve it under the plea that further inquiry was
necessary." Further inquiry ! When the case
has been made only too painfully clear,—
when even Mr. ROEBUCK was constrained to

declare, that " there was evidence before
the House which showed the misery in-
flicted on many of his poor countrymen to have
been such, that to read it made a man's blood
curdle." Mr. PATTEN, as a representative of
North Lancashire—though happily not one of
the Manchester school—could not bqt
„ett
inte-
rested in the subject, and well-inform upon
it ; and although not, he said, assenting to
all the statements that had been made, as to what
the workpeople had to endure—even he " could
not be a party to any pretended renewal. of the
inquiry that was gone into in the previous
ses-
sion, and for the simple reason that he would not
consent to postpone legislation on, this subject
when he was himself prepared •to legislate on it
at this moment." The fact is, they were all pre-
pared to.do so who ,really wished to see the poor
workpeoplo, for whose good the measure was
• designed protected from the inflictions they have
now to underg6,—inflictions not the less 'severe
that they have to undergO them, according to
. Mr. BAZLEY, at the hands of " gentlemen of
great personal respectability and benevolence of
character."

But for this inaticeuvring of the Marichestig
Liberals, then, we say, the bill might have passed
through Committee on Wednesday, and have
now stood for a third reading. And it is this
protracting of legislation upon subjects affecting
so closely; as such ineasitre as this4oes, the
interests of important bodies of the working
clasSes, that is so alit to 'Make thOse classes, wA
repeat, discentented with the Legislature of the
country, and to conolude that their welfare aid
advantage must be but little cared for there. It
may be that such men as Mr. BRIGHT, and other
members of the Manchester school, have a politi-
cal object in thus dissatisfying, perhaps disgusting,
the working classes,—illustratittg, as in the case
of the poor suffering operatives ill bleaching and
dye works, the ancient adage, that "hope deferred
maketh the heart sick." Certainly the Consetva-
, fives have, almost to a man, opposed all such
procrastination, and invariably voted in the inte-
rest_ of those who have been shown to have. so
strong a claim for that legislatie protection
of which' their Liberal aid Radical " filetids
appear determined to debar them.
Well has it been observed by an eminent writer
on Christian pAities; that' "tabour----the. labour
of human beings—is no* altogether an article
for the market. It is a subject of coinvetition.

It is' open to the same rivalry, and its *ado i
fixed by the same irregular struggle between two
contending selfishnesses, as the price of 'a bale of
cotton, or a loaf of bread. Tho hirer and the

hired have each but a single object: the one to
purchase. as cheap, the other to sell hie tbil as
dear, as possible. But in such a conflict the mas-
ter, must ultimately be the vanquisher. The
servant who withstands his market must starve.
And thni we have seen the price of the labour of
the poor throtiglioul the kingdom, in almost
every department, often reduced to so law a rate,
that life can scarcely be supported. And the
wretched workman is thus frequently left to
stand, throughout the vigour of his life, in a
miserable hoVel, and to die in a poorhouse, while
the master is apparently exempt from all respon-
sibility, as .he is untouched by any compassion,
becatule the relation between himself and his ser-
vant has been stripped of all moral obligation and
religious character, and has been reduced to a
mere act of barter."* As the world goes, the case,
thus only too trttly described, may have become
in a, great measure unavoidable. All idea of any
"moral obligation" subsisting, or of the passibility
•iof there ever being any " religious character," in
sulEh a relation, may now, unfortudately, be quite
oqt of the. question. But, at any rate, the work-
poople are not to be made the victims of that inordi-
mite selfishness which so naturally prevails where
no moral or religious' restraints are recognised or
permitted. They have a right for be pratikied
from its inhuman inflictions in their daily toil.
And this, and this alone, is the humane and
reasonable object of-the measure in question.- -

* Sewell