The Express.
London, England, 1862-05-05 00:00:00

HIGH_WATIR AT LONDON IIKDOIL

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LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 5.

MR. WILSON PATTEN is to call the attention of
the House of Commons this evening to the distress
unhappily prevailing in the districts of Lancashire
and Cheshire, which constitute the seat of the
Cotton manufacture. A deputation consisting
chiefly of the representatives of these localities
waited the other day on the President of the Poor
Law Commission, to urge the necessity of adopt-
ing more effective means than any hitherto used
for the administration of parochial relief, and to

suggest that the central authorities should under-
take the introduction of the change thus recom-
mended. There can be no doubt that these
gentlemen only acted in accordance with the wishes
of influential and well-meaning persons among
their respective constituencies ; indeed at such a
time it would have been morally impossible for
them to refuse to go to Gwydyr House and hear
what the Commissioner had to say. Still there
must have been more than one member of that
deputation thoroughly aware how little beyond the
formal manifestation of their sympathy any pro-
ceeding of the kind could effect: and respect for
their motives need not restrain an expression of
regret that a number of gentlemen in their position
should seem to lend themselves merely to humour
the exigent feeling of the hour, without apparently
taking any collective or deliberative thought as to
what ought to be done locally, or what aid they
ought to ask from the central power. Neither
Lord HAMTNOTON, Mr. HORNE; nor Mr. Fawn-
suit Pmu are men to trifle with a serious subject;
yet what can be less business-like or to the pur-
pose than making a public parade of importunity
on behalf of the suffering classes, that something
prompt and effectual should be done for their
relief, when the local power of doing the needful
is as palpable as the duty, and when neither the
power nor the duty lies with the Executive Go-
vernment

Distress like that which exists unfortunately in
the cotton•spinniog and cotton-weaving districts
must be met in one or other of two ways, or in
both, namely, by private effort or by public rates.
It is, of course, impossible to gauge with accuracy
how much is actually done in the former way, and
how much is likely to be done. But when in-
dividual generosity proves unequal to the demands
upon, it the public will remember that if there be a
portion of the realm which has of recent years been
peculiarly favoured, and whose means of per-
forming its social obligations have been multiplied
in an unparalleled degree, it is the district the
working hands of which are now temporarily left
without employment. We can hardly believe that
the pride of a district transcendently the most for-
tunate and affluent in the realm will allow its
wants to be made the object of general charity,
or that it has authorised any one to invoke
the aid of the public at large in any shape
or form. The vast wealth accumulated in the
cotton trade of late years is mainly attributable to
the orderly, intelligent, and reliable labour of the
many who are now suddenly thrown out of work
by no fault of their own. We have heard, and
we are most willing to believe, that many em-
ployers have since Christmas kept their
mills at half-time instead of closing them,
from a laudable reluctance to throw hundreds
who have long served them faithfully out of
bread. Others may have been influenced by
more calculating motives ; but with motives we
have little concern while the good is done.
Exceptional employment has also in some cases
been devised by those who could afford it, as a
truer benevolence to the working clauses than
charity ; and there is force in the observation that,
unless more or less of this sort of alleviation had
been casually rendered during the last three months,
the pressure would by this time have become much
harder to bear. But it is growing daily more and
more obvious that these expedients will not suffice
to pull Lancashire through the protracted season
of difficulty.
To an increased rate for extra relief it must
come at last. For this there is no need of in•
fluential deputations to Government or motions in
the House of Commons. The owners of the
rateable property of Lancashire have only to put
their hands a little further into full pockets to
obtain ample means to provide efficiently against
all the worst consequences of the present
exigency. To attempt to attenuate their re-
sponsibility and duty by the suggestion that
out-door relief cannot be given under the
orders of the Poor Law Commission, and
that respectable operatives will not enter
the workhouse, would be a vain and
unworthy pretence. The guardians have the
power to relax the stringency of the rules framed
for ordinary times to any extent they may think
fit. They are bound, indeed, to report each modi-
fication to the Central Board within a certain time ;
and the latter may question the exercise of their
discretion, and ask the reasons of urgency that
have swayed them. But we should be greatly
surprised to learn that any objection of the sort
has been raised by the Commission in any of the
localities where employment is not to be obtained
because of the scarcity of cotton or the glut of
foreign markets. It will be quite time enough to
invoke legislative interposition when the Poor
Law Commission has made so great a blunder.
Meanwhile what are the facts respecting rates
in the manufacturing districts t Though higher
than usual, they are still on an average far less than
those regularly borne by many agricultural unions,
and by many large towns in other parts of the
kingdom. An extra shilling in the pound would
solve for some time to come the existing difficulty