The Express.
London, England, 1862-12-29 00:00:00

ON THE LANCASHIRE
LAMMAS.

Mr. Gladstone presided on Saturday evening at
one of the weekly entalainmente at the Kure Hall, Charon
on which °evasion he availed himself of the opportunity to
refer to the distress in Lancashire. He said that the bulk
of the cotton manufacture was carried on in a region com-
pered within 27 unions, their population being soinewhat be-
yond two millions, and the rated value of that portion of their
property which was subject to rates was above five million
sod a half. Certain portions of the manufacture woe,
however, oanisd ois beyond the limit. of this area, the mast

coesidereble probably being in Glasgow ; but the distress
generally would be less severe in proportion as the district
was less exclusively dependent on the cotton industry.
Yet evea in these plans much hid been suffered and much
had been dene,l and as an Instance of the liberality of some
ed the millownen, he might mention that in Glasgow a
single Arm had been supporting its own workpeople at •
"barge represeeling il,ooor. • year. Upon the whole he
might probably net lie wrong in adding to the greet lama
shire and Cheshire districts one-tenth of the outlying
districts so far as oattractioa and less of wages wore eon-
earned, and from 1-10th to 1-20th so far as regarded actual
ward and necessity for special aid. The number of persona
employed in cotton nnaufactnr• in the whole county ap-
pealed to be little, if at all, short of 400,000. Of three
ere-half were wholly unemployed, 3-Bthe, or thereabouts,
were on short time, and less than 1-Bth were fully
employed. The loss of weekly wages of this population was
about 150,0001., or at the rate of nearly 8,000,0001. a year ;
gad with the loss of wages in trades directly subsidiary to
the folks manufacture, and depending upon its extent, it
err imp oulais to be estimated at lees than 12,000,0001. a
Saar—prehably a good deal more. Such • loss told in a
endbis degree upon the revenue of the state, for it might
he roughly estimated that each man in this country oar-
leibuted one-eighth of his income town& thripublie revenue.
Upse the whole, he thought the present annual rate of
less to the revenue in consequence of the cotton famine
vas 1 million or thereabouts, and that the actual loss for
the current financial quarter, during which the distress had
been growing to what, as he fondly trusted, was the maxi-
mum, would be more than one million. He had spoken of
the numbers out of employment, but of coons the numbers
in want of aid were considerably greater. Some of the
worker" were members of families where some other mem-
ber or members of the family bad other sources of support ;
but against any deduction on this account a much
larger deduction had to be made on account of those
poetical belonging to the families of the working people
themselves by whom no wages were earned—the very
meg, the old, and those engaged in the cares of the house-
bold. Acoordingly ha found that in the 27 unions the
ember receiving poor-law relief was about 250,000, end the
weber who, without receiving say poor-law relief, received
rebid from charitable funds, was 190,000, making together
440,000. To this number additions were to be made of
workpeople supported by their employers themselves, sad
of onUying districts, and taking these additions into acoonet,
he thought they might place the total of persons thrown
tato destitution by the cotton famine at half-a-million per-
sees. So much for the numbers of the &dressed. Now
Ist them consider what had been and what was being done
for them. When in the summer and early autumn every
week added rapidly to the number of mills in part or entirely
eland, and want creme to be extensively and severely felt,
there were two, or indeed three, temporary obstacles whisk
might have unduly kept down the measure of relief. Owe
was the difficulty of organising at short notice • mesideiny
equal to the task of regularly supplying the ender 4ir
mends of thousands and tens of thousands, without milkman
time incurring enormous waste, and giving direct ennessegia
meat to fraud. The second was Abe noble indepoodesse
of the people themselves—(applause)—nod the third was an
excusable timidity which seemed here and there to have
affected the admientraton of relief, boards of guardian' ad
always learning in a morient that au extraordisary calamity
required an unusual freedom in the measures for reborn(
it, and some managers of charitable funds being alarmed at
comparing the amount of the voluntary auhsoriptiser es
it then stood with the demands of the ooming winter, end
not having faith sooner in the will and ablifity
of the nation to administer by spontabeous badly
to this great distress. And this was to be
expected, and could not be blamed. But from
such causes the pressure of suffering was it might be
feared in some ones sharpened for a time ; sad • lady,
blessed with large mesas, and more largely blessed in diepo.
sitioa —he meant Min Burdett Coutta—having forwarded
a munificent oontribution, wisely expressed her wish that
the whole of it might be laid out at once. They moat all,
at all times, meet the real and essential wants of the pre
sent before reserving myth* for the future. At that
time, in one moot distressed mum, the rate of weekly relief
was not in all more they la. ld. par head for man,
woman, and child. InteUlgeot bennolance bad, how-
ever, supplied both the ma&intery lead the means, and the
average rate of oat-door poor relief, which before the distress
was ls. 24d. per week, was erne nearly is. 6d. The hinds.
of the pose law were expended is the Lanessi&a. and
Cheshire district at • weekly rate equal to sere are a
million per:annum, or at a rate of ss. per pound on rateable
property, after deducting that portion of it from which at
present rates could not be collected. The total weekly ex-
penditure by guardians and by committees of charity in the
27 unions was 43,5471., yielding to each recipient within •
fraction of 2a. per head. In addition to We the executive
committee had distributed 4,734 bales of clothing; nor
were they to forget that, bends this great river of bounty,
many little streams were flowing through private channels,
each and all of them bearing consolation with them as they
flowed. Though for the sake of their noble-minded fellow-
countrymen, they might
.all wish that the relief afforded
was much more; yet, looking to the nature of the case, and
the serenity of preserving a dee relation between the suite
of the independent labourer and that of the reoeiverof relief,
the present rate ought to be regarded as sufficient and anis.
factory ; and they had the pleasure of hearing from the
report of Mr. Parnell that " neither himself nor the execu-
tive committee had received any complaints from the poor
of insufficiency of relief or charitable aid." So much
for the amount of the relief. The prospect was certainly
no worse as to its duration. The charitable committee.s in
the different neighbourhoods were expending 25,000/. a week,
but the executive committee was receiving from the 6th to the
20th of this month above 7,0001. a day. The public and
general subscriptions, it would appear, amounted to more
than 1,200,0001., nod they might eddy aroma that the
machinery in operation would raise this to 1,300,0001..
whereas the sum hitherto expended must fall short of half
the amount actually raised, so that they might look for-
ward with cheerfulness, in the shwas, of any new and great
calamity, to the remainder of the winter. Should the
dreadful and sanguinary war which desolated America and
throw the surplus of its curses upon Europe be brought to
a ekes, a greet and early relief might be expected, but in
any case the administrators of the public bounty would, it
might be trusted, meet the spring with some considerable
funds in hand. After passing an encomium upon the
suffering operatives for the mason in which they had bore*
their afflictions, he acid that as they had begun aid con-
tinued he hoped they would so persevere to the end. They
had new forms of trial before them. They had mewl from
the condition of highly paid labourers to that of receivers d ,
relief, arid this they had dons with no diminution but with
an Massie of respect and honour. They would, he hoped,
soon pass back again from the coeditors of receivers of relief
to that of highly paid labourers. But this they could not do
at once. A state of things was pretty certain to arrive in
which the range of prices, on which wages must depend, would
be such as to enable their employers, or such of them as
only bent but did not break before the storm, to offer low
wages, but not such as to enable them to offer high ones.
To accept there low wages—to commence agate the work.'
marr's career ou • reduced and contracted footieg—would be
a new form of trial. Might they meet it as duty, and not
as pride, would prompt them, end might it be their