The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-10 00:00:00

-

works stopped twuor three weeks and their hands idling
about, and because they don't like :tanubniit to n'prs-,--
sure which their neighbours are still able and willing to
bear, if not from that feeling of pride, to a large extent
in many, or of good will to their workmen in ?there, or*
hope that things will be better, or a determination not ~
to be beaten, which I am sorry to say is too :much a
characteristic of Englishmen, even when they are wrongs
many are carrying on business at this Inciment *
days a week, when probably it would ,e far more
rational if they were working only thi'oe day's. •
If you come to the condition of your population,
what is that ? liwo or three years ago every man that
was charitably disposed was like a frozen-out gatelenet ,
—there was. nothing for him to do,'and 'all the' places .
of benefactions, soup-kitchens, and • places ,of )hat:
kind, were shut up for want of paupers. But now,
if 7on go to the Chorlton union, or the Manchester •
union—in fact there is hardly a union in the kingdom_l
believe in which the increase of poor-rntea is not :most
marked. I beard it the other day in conversation, and
no doubt it is truei that in one of these unions an ex.
penditure of 4001. had risen to 7001. a week. In Bit,
mingham you find hundreds of people about the poor
law offices, -mid the magistrates aed Catholic iisieses, and
es erybody who has influence, brought out to- persuade.
the peop'e that relief would be given to them. In some
of the London unions the increase of patiperismNis. ah-
.olutely frightful, and I doubt very much if there be a
single union throughout the country in which -the in- .
crea,se of poor-rates is not very strongly marked during
the past year. I know myself that two or three years
ago you hardly ever saw a beggar, unless it was some
man who was so from long habit, or from actual incapa-
city, and one of those poor men whom everybody allows
to go about and live upon his neighbours. Otherwise
there were no beggars, but now the case is altogether
different. I know thaasinfamr
aansyrepgaarrtdss
ofm
ythheoucosUntanryd;
our works, and our neighbourhood, where I believe we
are much better off than
the beggars are increasing every day, and becoming al-
most
as great a trouble as they were 10 or 15 years-ngo;
and at the same time the applications for employment
from those who certainly do not wish to beg are very
much more numerous than they were two or three years
ago. Now, in our town (Rochdale), I believe it is not
so bad as it is many places ; the flannel tradehas beau :
brisk,; I believethe long frost of the Bealon is faty,o_tit-
~ .
able, and- Government enatiaita hive iaded.l4 the pro-
fits of that particular branch of trade. And there are
some men who fancy, because they have got Govern-
ment contracts, that therefore trade is good, and that
war is good for trade. (Laughter.) Why, it is, in fact,
carrying on the trade of Rochdale or Dewsbury, or any-
where else, by the taxation of the country, and as some-
body has described it, it is like keeping a dog alive by
feeling him with his own tail. (Laughter.) I confess
I think, as a Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures,
we are bound to look a little seriously at this matter.
We have got in Yorkshire and Lancashire three millions
of people dependent for the most part on the prosperity
of those great commercial industries so long settled in
in these district! ; and we know perfectly well that a
long course of high prices in food, markets abroad glut-
ted, home market enfeebled and hampered—we know
perfectly well what all that brings us to in a not very
long time in this district. Whether it be a corn law or
a deficient harvest with no supplies from abroad, or an
abundant harvest here insufficient for us without sup-
plies from abroad, and supplies from abroad not obtain-
able, or from whatever cause it happens, if you have the
supplies of food in this country for any long period at
70s. per quarter, it is not in the changes of cabinets and
prime ministers ; it is not in dreams of glory in foreign
wars ; it is not in any contrivance of human statesman-
ship or human imposture, that the population can be
prevented from sinking deeper and deeper into suffer-
ing, and if into suffering, then into discontent, and if
into discontent, then at length into insubordination.
(Cheers.) My solemn belief is that if these six million
quarters of corn are to be, by the effects of our foreign
policy, kept out of this country, before two years are
over you will shoot your own fellow-citizens in your own
streets. I conclude that, from all that I have seen for
the last five-and-twenty years that I have been inti-
mately connected with the interior consideration of
these questions ; and, therefore, without expressing here,
as I shall not express at all, any opinion on the policy
of the Government, for I think we are ourselves now
rather mere concerned in these facts than in discus-
sing other matters ; without going into any questions
extraneous from the true objects of this meeting—.
(hear, hear)—l am persuaded that we are standing
on the threshold of difficulties such as many of those
who are now loudest in favour of the causes that are
bringing those difficulties upon us, little apprehend ; mid
when those difficulties come, in all probability
they will be just as terrified as I have seen some of them
on former occasions when these disasters haveovertaken
the country. (Hear.) Now, I shall say no more, be-
cause I think these facts, which I believe are not to be
contradicted, are in themselves more eloquent than any
language that I or anybody else could use ; and I think
they only need to be put before the intelligent people
of this district fo bring them seriously to consider the
future, not the distant, but the almost immediate future ;
because now don't we perceive every week that there is
a closer grip upon the means of life ; and that a branch
of business that was not very much injured last week is
less strong this week, and becomes feeble next, and in a
month or two sinks down into that state of lassitude and
depression which has overtaken so many other branches
of trade ? I could point out towns—the towns of Kidder-
minster and Bradford, and many others in the country
--in which business is in a state which has not beers
paralleled f r very many years; and I see no reason in
the world why that et rte of things should not gradually
creep on until it presses with extreme severity upon-every
bench of trade ; upon all those r,rions whose capital is
not superabundant for eitrything they Lave to do, and
e pecially upon all that class of workmen who are those
soonest discharged, soonest plunged into suffering and
ruin from any disaster-, of this kind._ All I rsk is, that
we shou'd endeavour t.) introduce to the minds of all
with whom we come in contact a sense of the vast evils
which are tr,a.lieg close upon us—for their very foot-
steps you may hear now, if you will only harken ; and
Oa', we slioul,l, whenever there be any opportunity, put
no obstacle in the course of any Minister whq shall
endeavour, by any rational or moderate policy, to put
au acid to what I believe is about to be, if
not soon
ended, one of the most disastrous conditions wo have
seen in this country during our life-time. (Cheers.)
The resolution was agreed to, and the meeting termi-
nated with a vote of thanks to the chairman.

ARRIVAL OF THE ORINOCO WITH
MILITARY INVALIDS.

The hired steam transport Orinoco, 1,891 tons, Com-
mander Wilson (one of the Royal Mail Steam Company's
flotilla), arrived at Spithead yesterday noon from the
Black Sea with military invalids. She left Constan-
tinople on the 21st of January, Malta on the 27th, and
Gibraltar on the 2d instant, and hag brought home Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Stratton, Major Cameron, the Rev. Mr.
Halpin, Mr. Stickney, D.C.G., Captain Telford, of the
17th ; Captain Bennett, of the 20th ; Captain Miller, of
the 79th; Captain Hutton, of the 4th Dragoons ; Cap.
tain Fairclough, of the 63d ; Captain Cockburn, of the
63d (in charge of the invalids) ; Lieutenant Nevil, Lieu-
tenant M`Bayne, Lieutenant M'Donald, Assistant.
Surgeon Irwin, of the 28th ; Veterinary Surgeon Poett,
of the let Royal Dragoons ; Mr. Barron, D.A.C.G. ;
Paymaster Alldridge, R.N. ; Mr. and Mrs. Hannah
and Sons ; Mr. Ferguson, Assistant' Engineer, R.N. ;
Mr. Lambert, Cammissioaer's Clerk ; two Assistant
Commissariat storekeepers, seven women nurses, from
Scutari ; 111 sick and wounded soldiers ; and 9 women.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ridley, of the Scots Fusilier Guards,
left the Orinoco at Malta, proceeding to England via
Marseilles. On the 24th ult. the Orinoco passed a screw
steamer, which showed the second distinguishing pennant
No 8,453, steering east ; on the 28th she passed a
French line-of-battle ship steering east ; on the 27th the
General Screw Company's ship Hydaspes, with French
troops, was going into Malta as the Orinoco was leav-
ing, and the Bellerophon, 78, Captain Lord Edward
Russell, arrived off the harbour. A vigorona attempt
was to be made on the 2d instant to get her Majesty's
steam sloop Hecla off the shore in the neutral passage,
Gibraltar, which it was expected would succeed. On
the 3(1, off Cape St. Vincent, she spoke the British
brig Elizabeth Thompson. standing south, and wished
to be reported ; also the steamer Monarch. The
Tagus, with the Alexandria mail, had not arrived at
Malta when the Orinoco left. She will go into Ports-
mouth Harbour this morning to land her invalids.
The only wounded officers by her are Captain Hut-
ton, who was shot through both thighs at Balaklava ;
Captain Fairclough, wounded at Inkermau ; and Cap-
tain Bennett, wounded in the side at Inkerman. The
men are from nearly every regiment in the field, and
many are very severely maimed, amputations having.
been numerous. We interested ourselves in the inquiry
among those from the seat of war as to whetheartthßearl:
ports and letters in the Times describing the state of
mismanagement and suffering in the camp and
klava, were accurate or overstated. The universal reply
was quite the contrary ; the statements, harrowing and
naked as they have been presented to the public by the
Timcs, they say have not half come up to the truth of
the picture of horrors and misery actually apparent
everywhere as the scenes so vividly depicted by indig-
nant sufferers. When we told them that in his place in
the House of Commons Rear-Admiral Berkeley said he
had lately received letters from Balaklava, purporting to ba
the communications from a score of transport masters,
averring that the state of that harbour was almost in its
perfectness a second Liverpool, they lifted up their hands
and eyes in amasement,inaz,nucad.spietthinalieiclioeei.
o;,c,
tlataei
into:
employed
e dawthiniichbkfaonl--
lowed was of the shortest and most perfect in its appli-
cation to such a statement. They expressed loud in-
dignation at the treatment of Mr. Russell, of the Time!,
whose company they said had cheered many nmaniarn
his last moments, and who was beloved wherever
society was enjoyed. A gallant and ieaslrtadi
last he
eipts,hstaieittle.
officer at Portsmouth, on the arrival of the Last
to Inker-
man in-
formed ra
him
moe df
wwu
asa
srt:ll
kamtn,
heehwni s
being
toinrr.,,g
carried
"Fitzgerald (Captain W. D.
Plisiliers."
Fitzgerald), of the 7th "The officers to
md
ins the wounds R Russell
Lilly
xcwvohhuelo td omh enir spokeyth i (adds
aos our
ro
correspondent)
rde pp
nwd ietnht) Lordrinquired
ui
Raglan °f
me
pretend to say. They said the sooner he wait
displaced the better, as there were, when they left the
camp, only 12,500 men left out of the 54,000 boasted of
so lately. Lord Lucan, too, they hoped would be din-
placed. I had almost forgotten to mention that my in.
ferments stated they had themselves sever once seen
Lord Raglan in the camp." The Orinoco saw nothing
on her way home of the Britannia, St. George, or Tra.
_ falgar.— Time&