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

works stopped two or three weeks', and their hands idling
• about, and because they don't like to submit to a pres-
sure which their neighbours are still able and 'willing to
bear, if not from that feeling of pride, to a larie extent
in many, or of good will to their workmen in others, or a
hope that things will be better, or a determination not
to be beaten, which I am sorry to say is too much re
characteristic of Englishmen, even when they are wrong,
many are carrying en business at this moment six
days a week, when probably it would be far more
rational if they were working only three days.
If you come' to the condition of your population,
what is that ?:. Two or three years ago every man that
was charitably disposed was like a frozen-out gardener'
—there was nothing for him to do, and all the places
of benefactions, 'soup: kitchens, and places of that
kind, were shut up for want of paupers. But now,
if you go to the Chorlton union, or the Manchester
union—he fact there is hardly a union in the kingdom I
believe in which the increase of poor-rates is not most
marked. I heard it the other day in conversation, eel ,
no doubt it is true, that in one of these unions an ex.
penditure of 4001. had risen to 7001. a week. In l3ir.
miugham you find hundreds of people about the poor
law offices, and the magistrates and Catholic priests, and
everybody who has influence, brought out to persuade
the people that relief would be given to them. In some
of the London unions the increase of pauperism is ab-
solutely frightful, and I doubt very much if there be a
single union throughout the country in which the in-
crease 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 beegar, 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 hie neighbours. Otherwise
there were no beggars, but now the case is altogether
different. I know that as far as regards my house, and
our work., and our neighbourhood, where I believe we
are much, better off than in many parts of the country,
the beggars are increasing every day, and becoming al-
inest as great a trouble as they were 10 or 15 year.; ago;
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 had as it is many places ; the flannel trade has been
brisk ; I believe the long frost of the season is favour-
able, and Government contracts have added to the pro-
fits of that particular branch of trade. And there are
some men who fancy, because they have got Govern.
meat 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 eescribed it, it is like keeping a dog alive by
fee,line him with his own tail. (Laughter.) I confess
I thisaisseassechamber (4onarxwpAt and Menttract9rasto
we are bound to look a little seriously at this Matter.
We havegot 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 districts ; and we know perfectly well that a.
mg course of high prices in f ,od, 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
abendant 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
70e. 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 amy 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 insuboriination.
(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 ; and ~
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 haveoveriakeis
the country. (Hear.) Now, I shall say no more! .
cause I think these facts, which I believe are netto Aso
contradicted, are in themselves more eloquent than any
language that I or anybody else could use ; think
they only need to be put before the intelligent people • .
of this district to bring them seriously trt, consider they
future, not the distant, but the.nlinqst imniediate future ;
because now don't we perceive every•weisk' tlat,thore is
a closer grip upon the means of life ; and that A branch
of business that was not very much injUred laist teak is
less strong this week, and becomes feeble next, andin
mouth or two sinks down into that state eflassitudo 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 beets
paralleled for very many years; and I see no reason in-
the world why that state of things should not gradually
creep on until it presses with extreme severity upon eve,' ,
branch of trade ; upon all those persons whose capitatuu
not superabundant for everything they have to de, ate
e.pecially upon all that class of workmen who are those,
soonest discharged, soonest plunged into suffering and
ruin from any disasters of this kind. All I ask is, that
we should endeavour to introduce to the minds of all
with whom we come in contact a sense of the vast evils
which are treading close upon us—for their very foot-
steps you may hear now, if you will only hearken ; and
that we should, whenever there be ally opportunity, put
ao obstacle in the course of any Minister who shall
endeavour, by any rational or moderate policy, to put
an end to what I believe is about to be, if not soon
ended, one of the most disastrous conditions we 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 WITII
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 has 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 Millsr, of
the 79th.; Captain Hutton, of the 4th Dragoons ; Cap-
tain Fairclous.Th, of the 631 ; Captain Cockburn, of the
63.1 (in charge of the invalids) ; Lieu;,erant Nevi!, 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, Commissioner's Clerk ; trio 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 vigorous attempt
was to be made on the 2d instant to get her Majesty's
steam sloop Heels off the shore in the neutral passage,
Gibraltar, which it was expected would succeed. On
the 3d, ff 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 Baliklava ;
Captain Fairclough, wounded at Inkerman ; and Cap-
tain Bennett, wounded in the side at Inkerstan. 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 whether the re-
ports and letters in the Times, describing the state of
mismanagement and suffering in the camp and at Bala.
klava, were accurate or overstated. The universal reply
was quite the contrary ; the statements, harrowing and
naked as they have been presented to the publics by the
Times, 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, purpoi ting to be
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 amazement, and the exclamation which fol-
lowed was of the shortest and most perfect in its appli-
cation to such a statement. •They expressed loud 11l
dignation at the treatment of Mr. Russell, of the riMat
whose company they said had cheered many a man in
his last moments, and who was beloved wherever his
society was enjoyed. A gallant and distinguished
the rear at Inker-
officer at Portsmouth, on the arrival of the last ship, in-
formed us that his son, a captain in the Guards, at the
seat of war, knew Mr. Russell well, and the last he saw
of him was, when being carried to
man he saw Mr. Russell "in a hole,employed ban-
dagingWeers. D.
7th Fusiliers. "The offi
to be done with Lord Raglan ? I'
Fitzgerald),
tz g
(adds our correspondent) inquired of me
woofuntdhseofßilly Fitzgerald (Captain
er a thel
d) ,
whether I
sapneyktheing
was
could not pretend to say. They said the sooner he was
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 dis-
placed. I bad almost forgotten to mention that my in•
formants stated they had themselves never once seen
Lord Raglan in the camp." The Orinoco saw nothing
on her way home of the Britannia, St. George, or Tra-
falgar,—Times.