Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-01 00:00:00

Chairman of the Committee to whom the House
referred the bill, has acted in the most partizan
manner, whilst the constitution of the Committee
itself was most unfavourable to the interests of
Liverpool. This was clearly evinced when Mr.
PHILLIPS, on- Monday, objected to the clause
relating to the transference of the Town Dues
from the Corporation to the new Conservancy
Board. He, and he alone, voted against this
iniquitous attempt at public plunder, For the
present, neither the Dock Trustees nor the Cor-
poration of Liverpool will interfere with the bill.
After the Committee have considered the clauses,
and reported to the House, it will be competent
for Mr.HoRsFALL to move the rejection of the
measure on its third reading. This we cannot
expect to see carried, inasmuch as the Govern-
ment are pledged to its support; but, at the
same time, it will give rise to an interesting
discussion as to the legality of the Town Dues,
and the expediency, as well as justice, of allowing
the Dock-ratepayers to control and manage a
property which does not belong to them.

Again, when the Bill reaches the Lords, we
may expect that then will be the last and grand
struggle. To hear such legal luminaries as
Lords BROUGHAM, ST. LEONARDS, WENSLEYDALE,
CAMPBELL, &C., &C,, enunciate their views on
such a question, will be interesting in the
extreme; and cannot fail to satisfy the public at
large as to the tampering, and we mistake the
character of these distinguished noblemen if
they do not efficaciously expose the fallacies
propounded by Mr. HERON and his party.
In discussing the Mersey Conservancy
Bill, the House of Lords have several impor-
tant questions to investigate and determine
—among them are the following : —Are the
trade and commerce of the country impeded by
the Liverpool Town Dues ? Have these been
misappropriated ? And will it promote
commerce and improve the condition of the
industrial class, if they are transferred from the
Corporation of Liverpool to the Mersey Conser-
vancy Board ? They will also require to look
into the advantages to be derived from
a re-construction of the Liverpool Dock
Trust, as proposed by the promoters
of the Bill in question. Now, any
one who has perused the evidence of the
supporters of the Bill, as well as the rebutting
case made in behalf of the Corporation and the
Dock Trustees, cannot fail to give a reply, and
that, too, in the negative. First, as to the
distribution of the Town Dues. Can any one
dispute that they have been legitimately
expended in the erection of a Custom-house, a
Sailors' Home, in the foundation and support of
an Observatory, in the building of St. George's-
hall, the widening and improvement of the
streets and approaches round the Docks, the
building of the great Landing-stages, and such
Like useful works.

From all these, the people of Liverpool are not
the only persons who derive advantage, direct
and indirect. The .people of Manchester, of
Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, Warrington, Stock-
port, Rochdale, Oldham, &c., &c., can and do
enjoy themselves whed they visit Liverpool.
They perambulate on the landing-stage, they
lounge in St. George's Hall ; the Sailors' Home
ana the Custom-house attracts their attention.
In fact, all our public buildings, which have
been constructed out of the Town Dues, afford
pleasure and gratification to our country cousins
from Lancashire and Cheshire ; and it is surely
great public accommodation to have such Law
Courts provided for the southern division of
Lancashire free of cost. We might proceed
much further in the enumeration of positive and
substantial advantage which these Town Dues
have been conferring upon the country at large,
but it is unnecessary, and all we could urge will
not induce the Mersey Conservancy Bill Com-
mittee to undo their decision of Friday last.
There is still another opportunity of defeating
the measure, and surely our Corporate officials
wil give the inhabitants of Liverpool an oppor-
tunity, in a public meeting assembled, of
protesting against a measure so frought with
consequences of a dan;erous character to the
trade and commerce of Liverpool.

WE confess that we have long been amongst
those who inclined to the belief that " There
was no hope for mankind on this side
the grave." That the destiny of the masses was
toil, toil, from morning till night—from week's-
end
,to week's-end—without, it may fairly be
said, i a moment's cessation, except the brief
period absolutely necessary to imbibe the food
'required to keep the human machile in
something like working order. Political
economy and economists have been alike hostile
to the interests of the working classes, and
utterly ignorant of their own. We boast of
our abhorrence of negro slavery; we romance,
we moralise, and we actually weep over the
tales of African suffering, but we cannot afford
a passing thought for the millions of white
slaves who constitute the masses of our labouring
population. What are these in reality but
mere animated machines ?—employed only
because it has not been possible as yet, to
discover others to sup3rsede them. As their
employment has been the result of necessity,
and not of choice, the great object of the
employer has been to tax the physical
endurance of the employed to its utmost
limits, and reduce the rate of remuneration to
the lowest minimum. Unfortunately, the fierce
competition of trade, and the usually over-
crowded state of tbe labour market, combined

to render this state of things apparently

inevitable.

Strikes we have had in abundance—combi-
nations of workmen against masters, and
masters against workmen—the results generally
being ruinoas to the mass, and far from
profitable to the few, while a spirit of hostility
was displayed on both sides injurious alike to
all. Fortunately, serious strikes have recently
been of rarer occurrence than formerly : and
when they have occurred, the same bitterness of
feeling has not been exhibited on either side as
was formerly the case. Many masters have
discovered that in order to secure the willing
services of their operatives, it became their own
interest to extend many; indulgences which
had formerly been denied them ; and all
experience has shown the results to have been
not only agreeable, bat profitable.
The philanthropist, moralising over, and
deploring the hard fate of the sons of labour,
has ever admitted that nature never destined
them to an eternity of toil—that they were
entitled to partake of at least some of the
bounties of Creation—to inhale occasionally
the free and refreshing breezes of heaven, to
cool their heated brow—to tread the green
sward ; to listen to the songsters of the grove, or
enjoy their evening stroll by the banks of some
purling brook, or otherwise to taste some of the
many charms of nature hitherto denied them; but
then there "was no time to spare for such pur-
poses." The struggle for life demanded that every
hour of their existence should be spew* the vitiated
atmosphere of the factory or workshop,. or in
partaking of that rest necessary to enable them
to perform their daily round of toil ; and hence,
although the hardship of their fate was deplored,
and its injustice admitted, it was pronounced to
be their fate, and beyond•the reach of a rational
remedy. It appeared that the white slave's
destiny was the result of an absolute decree of
Providence—an evil beyon_l the reach of human
amelioration. We have already said that, to a
certain extent, we inherited this belief. A ray of
hope has, however, broken in upon us. We
have just risen from a perusal of the proceedings
of the Liverpool Recreative Company, at their
meeting held on Monday night at the Concert
Hall. A Recreative Company ! What is the
meaning of that ? We think we hear most of
our readers exclaim. Who ever heard of such
a thing ? say the Tommy Noodles and the
Sairy Gamps. But, nevertheless, the thing is
there, and it will, in the hands which have its
direction, ultimately prove a great fact, other-
wise we are mistaken.

The speakers on the occasion were, Messrs.
J. R. JEFFERY, Chairman; W. RATHBONE, Rev.
S. A. STEINTHALL, Mr. SAMUELSON, Rev. 11. S.
BROWN, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. P. 11. RATHBONS,
&c., &c. The speeches were all good, but Mr.
JEFFERY'S was, indeed, a masterpiece. It was
alike eloquent, argumentative, and conclusive.
With such advocates the working daSses have
no need to fear. Mr. JEFFERY'S sentiments
do honour alike to the head and heart of the man
who gave utterance to them, and they will find
a response in the mind of every well-wisher of
the working man. Mr. JEFFERY'S speech has
not only done infinite credit to himself, as a
philanthropist and a moral philosopher,. but it
has conferred a dignity on the order to which he
belongs. Here Ave have no clap-trap oratory—
no appeals to the passions, prejudices, or
fanaticisms of class—no electioneering perora-
tions about the " proud boast of Englishmen"—
" the flag that braved a thousand years," &C.,
or " Britons never shall be slaves"—phrases
resorted to by our popularity-hunters, to secure
" one cheer more," or another round of the
Kentish fire from their ignorant or deluded dupes.
Mr. JEFFERY tells the working men that they
are in reality slaves, and he points out a rational
mode of obtaining rational liberty, if they will
only prove true to themselves. Our own ex-
perience—and it has been considerable—con-
firms us in his statement, that the more leisure in
reason you afford the working classes, the more
will you wean them from habits of intemperance.
But it is a libel on the characters of the vast
majority of British workmen to say that they are
drunkards. Of late years, the ameliOration in
their condition has been considerable, and their
habits have improved amazingly. In many large
establishments a drunkard is even shunned by
his fellow-workmen, when formerly a teeto-
taller would have been pointed at with the finger
of scorn. We do not attribute this vast improve-
ment merely to the agency of temperance prin-
---;
ciptes. It is more the result of that steady
progress which the working- man has recently
been making in his material position. Take the
majority of men in barragan whom you may
chance to meet, even over their pint of beer, and
you will find that drunkenness is: the exception,
not the rule, Listen to their conversation, and
you find that they read, and are capable of
commenting with much shrewdnese and intelli-
gence on the evmts of the day; that profane
language is zarely indulged in
; while, in treating
on details co3nected with their business, they
display a capacity e. id intelligence not possessed
by their superiors. A 1 these men most require
to develope their gcroci qualities to the fullest
extent is, more leisur- and rational recreation.
The Liverpool Recreative Company promise to
provide these. and in their efforts to do so, we
wish them " God speed." The perusal of their
proceedings has led us to the conclusion that,
after all, there is some hope for mankind.

There
THE COTTON SUPPLY QUESTION.—There must be two
Bides to everything,
are even opp9site opinions

on such a matter as the condition and prospects of our
Cotton supply. As there is, however, no present opposi-
tion to the common impression that a regular and abun-
dant supply of cotton is a good thing, all opinions as to
our safety or danger in regard to that supply are worth,
attention. It is some time now since the Manchester
Association was organised, for the purpose of obtaining'
the removal of restrictions on the growth and preparation
of cotton, and of spreading information and encouraging
agricultural improvement with regard to a product which
affords employment and subsistence to 3,000,000 cf our
people.: On the 19th ultimo, a great public meeting on
the subject of cotton supply was held at Manchester,
when the speakers displayed a spirit of remeekable
earnestness. The members of the Legislature who spoke
made it distinctly understood that they wished to avoid'
political discussion, in order not to complicate a pressing
practical question with the perplexing relations of the tw o
governments which rule India.. Lord Stanley declared ,
and those who followed hien agreed, that all the in eting
had to say about India was under the two heads of irri-
gation and means of transit—topics which might be
treated without offence to either of the governments .
This meeting was followed by a discussion in the House
on Tuesday evening (adjourned to Tuesday next), on
occasion of petitions from the Manchester Chamber of
Commerce and the Corporation of Stockport, praying the
House to promote the expenditure of capital on reproduc-
tive works in India. Nothing can be stronger than the
representations made on all these occasions on the two,
great points of the insufficiency and the precariousness of
the supply of the raw material of our chief manufacture.
The facts would appear too striking to admit of dissent
from the popular conclusion from them; but there has
been some apathy, even in Manchester itself; there have
been odd incidents in the history of the last year, slowing
an unaccountable officiousness in upholding the reputation
of the American slave system ; and there are now scoffs
put forth here and there, ridiculing the Cotton Panic, and
accompanying some statements of the present and pro-
spective sufficiency of cotton which are worth a moment's
consideration. The truth is disclosing itself at last, or
people believe it is. They now perceive, or think they
do, that the India Company is at the bottom of all th e
opposition to thSt movement for enlarging and seaurin g
our cotton supply, which to the world generally appear s
to be a matter of the commonest prudence—the omission
of which would be a sort of insanity. It was perplexing
to read, nine months ago, the report of an address, deli-
vered by a Mr. Dawson, before the section of Economic
Science, when the British Association held its meeting at
Cheltenham—the subject being Cotton, as the produce of
Slave labour. We remarked at the time on the singular
readiness of the lecturer to entangle himself in false
reasonings from irrelevant facts, for the mere purpose, as
it seemed, of flattering the vanity and soothing the solici-
tude of the Southern sleveholder. The act is now ex
plained. Mr. Da,vson's paper was simply an anticipation
of the pleas now brought forward by the admirers or the
tools of the India Company, who aim at diverting some
of the demand for improvement in India by keeping us
dependent on the United States, or sending us roving ove r
the rest of the world for cotton, on the strength of their
assurance that we shall never get any worth having from
India. Mr. DawSon's last proposition is so similar in
bearing to some which have been put forth within a Week
that it is impossible to doubt his being one of thong oppo-
nents of the new movement, who are doing the work of
the India Company, while apparently consoling the British
public about their supply of cotton. That proposition
was as follows :—" In the present state of the commercial
relations of the two countries the cotton planters of the
United States are interested to the extent of two-thirds
at least of their entire exportable produce in the mainte-
nance of the cottoa manufacture of the United Kingdom,
and reciprocally, the cotton manufacturers of the United
Kingdom, and through them the entire population of the
kingdom, are interested to the extent of more than four-
fifths of the raw material of that manufacture in the
existing arrangements for maintaining the cotton culture of
the United States.." This is the point at which the pro-
moters and,the opponents of the new movement part off.
The promoters see the danger of our being disappointed
of a due supply of cotton from America by many accidents
—by bad seasons, by a war, civil or foreign, but especially
through the precarious condition of the institution of
Slavery there. The foes of the movement, on the other
hand, assert that as in the past we have got our cotton
from America, so we must in the future; and that our
prosperity, therefore, depends on every possible support
being given to the existing labour system in the Slav e
States, Perhaps the points of the controversy may be
best given thus, the onus of the argument being necessarily
thrown on the objectors to the movement :—The objectors
say this—For seventy years we have derived our cotton
from America; we now derive thence six-tenths of our
supply. Cotton is the product of slave labour exclusively ;
it is constantly and largely on the increase. For seventy
years no total failure of the crop has occurred, and it is
not likely that it ever will. If the slaves are freed, still
they must labour to live ; •and no other sort of labourer
can invade their monopoly, since none but negroes can
cultivate cotton. If a war between the two countries
should happen, we can punish the Americans by refusing
to buy their commodity, quite as fatally as they can
injure us by refusing to sell it. Finally, if the slaves
should rise, they will be put down again at once, as
21,000,00:) of masters must be too much far 4,000,000 of
slaves. The movers for cotton supply reply thus—That
during the seventy years of our recourse to America for
cotton, our supply has increased from one-third to six-
sevenths thence derived; and that a dependence which
involves the occupation and maintenance of 3,000,000 of
our people is too dangerous, and ought to be relieved by
being divided aud spread over a larger area; that cotton
is no longer thrphduct of slave labour exclusively, but
of immigrant labour also.; and that the Germans have so
greatly the advaliii74-the slaveholders in cheapness of
production and thihuality of the produce, an to render
50111.3 radical social Jtages in ;the highest degree pro-
bable ; that such Partial -failures of the cotton crop as
have occurred have cosrus so dear, as to suggest the
necessity of providing ourselves airainst all future risk of
the kind ; that if a war broke out, it would be no comfort
to us for the failure of our raw material, that the Ameri-
cans were suffering equally from being unable to sell it,
even if the case were true ; and, finally, that the slaves
have not 21,000,000 of masters, 'but only 350,000, while
every day disposes the 20,000,000 of non-slaveholders
more and more to range themselves on the side of free
labour against slavery. So much for the American part
of the case. As for the Indiare%the opponents of the
movement say this :—That Indian cotton is the worst ire
the world, and that the great increase of quantity
within a few years is unaccompanied by any improve-
ment in quality; that it is only one-seventh in value,
and less than one-fourth in quantity of the American
supply; that, while the whole area of India produces it,
only the scantily-peopled districts have any for exporta-
tion ; and that, indeed, the increase of population in the
valley of the Ganges prevents the exportation even of
rice, its staple product ;'so,' that when this increase of
population spreads, the inhabitants will have to import
cotton ; that, dirty and bad as the native cotton is, other
products—sugar, silk, indigo, &c.—were quite as bad till
European capital and skill were applied to their produc-
tion ; that the value of these latter articles tieing now
15,000,0001., it is clear that cotton would have been taken
in hand in like manner, if it could have been made to
answer; that the products which have increased largely
since trade with India was thrown open are of a rune
character, requiring no ability or skill ; and that though
the Chinese can produce tea and silk without the aid of
European enterprise and capital, the Flindooe are quite
incapable of any effort of the kind ; and finally, that if by
thanc
o oribgerera raised,
s e d thatand cropscot t
oonf
greater
value
irrigation or other methods, waste lands are restored to
fertility, that fertility
twouldt b
woulde so
would be grown only as a second crop within the year.
The movers for cotton supply answer thus:--:hat the very
object of the movement is to abolish the mischiefs by
which Indian cotton is r
rendered so bad as it is—the bad-
ness being involved in the preparation of the wool, and
not in the growth of the plant; that the growers of mall quantities cannot prepare the wool for want of capita!, ,
and are tempted to increase the weight of their com-
modity :by admixture of dirt ,and damp--evils which
would be obviated by the establishment of the proper
aPP4r4tijo 414 convenient centres, and by the opening of