The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-03 00:00:00

Earl of Sefton (Lord-Lieutenant), the Earl of Wil-
ton, Lord Skelmeradale, Lord Egerton of Tatton,

Lord Grey de Wilton, M.P., Lord Edward
Howard, M.P., the Hon. A. Egerton, M.P., Mr.

Wilbraham Egerton, M.P., Sir T. Heaketh, M.P.,
Mr. Bazley, M.P., Sir Robert Gerard, the Hon.

G. Cavendish, Mr. W. J. Legh, M.P., Colonel

Gray, M.P., Sir H. de Trafford, Colonel Black-
burne, Sir J. L. Bardaley, Canon Stowell, Colonel
Munn, Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, Mr. H. B. Farnall,
C. Turner, M.P., Sir E. Armitage, Sir T. B. Birch,
the Mvyors of Manchester, Preston, Warrington,
Ashton, Blackburn, and Stockport; Messrs. H.
Ashworth, S. Ashton, N. Eckersley, T. Clegg, J.
Heald, R. Ascroft, L. Heyworth, Entwistle, W. A.

F. Saunders (High Sheriff), &c.
On the motion of the High Sheriff, the Earl of
Sefton, lord-lieutenant of the county, was called to

the chair.
The LORD-LIEUTENANT briefly explained that
he had convened the meeting in consequence of a
requisition he had received from the executive com-
mittee of Manchester, and that its object was to ob-

tain a declaration of the intention of those who were

connected by property, or other ties, with the
county, in case the present alarming distress in the

cotton districts should continue. They had openly

given out that they were desirous of obtaining as-

sistance from all parts of the country, and in answer
to their appeal very large sums of money had been
contributed; but they had been fairly reminded in
the public prints, and by their private friends, that

more was expected from those whose landed pro-

perty, or sources of wealth, were more particularly

_ .
connected with the distressed districts. The noble

.ord called upon the Earl of Derby to move the first

resolution.

The Earl of DERBY, who was received with great
cheering, said—My Lord Sefton, my lords and gentle-
men, we are met together upon an occasion whioh
must call forth the most painful, and at the same
time ought to excite, and I am sure will excite, the
most kindly feelings of our human nature. We
are met to consider the best means of palliating—
would to God I could say removing—a great na-
tional calamity, the like whereof in modern times

has never been witnessed in this favoured land—a

calamity which it was impossible for those who
are the chief sufferers by it to foresee, or if they
had foreseen to take any step to avoid—a cala-
mity which though shared by the nation at
large falls more peculiarly and with the heaviest

weight on this hitherto prosperous and wealthy
district—a calamity which has converted this
teeming hive of industry into a stagnant desert of

compulsory inaction and idleness, and which has
converted that which was the source of our greatest
wealth into the deepest abyss of impoverishment—
a calamity which has impoverished the wealthy,
reduced the man of easy fortunes, brought distress

upon those who have hitherto been somewhat above
the majority of the world, owing to the exercise of
a frugal industry, and which has reduced
honest and struggling poverty to a state of abject,
humiliating destitution. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen,
it is to meet this calamity that we are met together
to-day, to add our means and assistance to those
efforts which have been so nobly made throughout
the country generally, and I am bound to say in
this county also, as I shall prove to you before I
have closed my remarks. (Cheers.) 1 know how
impossible it is by any figures to convey an idea of
the extent of the destitution which now prevails,
and I know hew impatient large assemblies are of
any extensive use of figures at all ; but at the same
4imo it la _;mrinQQ; hla tri lay baftkret jrnn __dux srli n 1 P
state of the case without trespassing on your atten •
tion with a very few statistics which shall show
throughout this district the extent, if not the pres•
sure of the present distress. I think I shall best
give you an idea of the amount of the distress and
destitution if I do so by very shortly comparing the
state of things which existed in the districts
to which I refer in the month of September,
1861, as compared with the month of Sep-
tember, 1862, and that again, which is only about
two mouths ago, with the latest information we
have up to the 22d of last month. Now I find that
in a district comprising in round numbers 2,000,000
of inhabitants, in the fourth week of Sept., 1861,
there were 43,500 persons receiving relief; in
the fourth of Sept., 1862, there were 163,498 per-
sons; and in the short space which has elapsed since
the last week in September and the third week in
November, the number of 163,000 has increased to
259,385 persons. (Hear.) I will now compare the
amount of relief supplied by the parochial funds
during the same periods. In Sept., 1861, the amount
of relief given per week was £2,259; in Sept.,
1862, it had increased to £9,674 ; and in the week
ending Nov. 22 it amounted to £17,681. The pro-
portion of those receiving parochial relief to the
total population was as two and 3-10ths per cent. in
Sept., 1861; as eight and 5-10ths per cent. in Sep-
tember, 1862; and as 13 and 5-10ths per cent. in
Nov., 1862. (Hear.) Here, therefore, we have
more than 13 per cent. of the whole population ac-
tually at the present moment depending for sub-
sistence upon parochial relief alone. Of the 259,000
persons receiving relief there were 36,800 old and
infirm, nearly 98,000 able-bodied adults, and nearly
124,900 under the age of sixteen years. But it
would be very far from giving you an estimate of
the extent of the distress if we were to confine
our observations to those who depend for support
upon parochial relief. We have evidence from the
local committees which we have extensively em-
ployed, and whose services have been invaluable to
us, that of persons not relieved by poor rates, but
relieved by local committees, there are no fewer in
this district than 172,000, making a total of 431,395
persons out of 2,000,000, or 21 7-10ths of the whole
population—that is, more than one in every five—
who are dependent for their daily existence either
upon parochial relief or upon public charity.
(Hear.) Now, I have said that figures will not
show sufficiently the amount of distress, nor I am
happy to say, will figures show the amount of re-
lief contributed for remedying that distress. But
let us take another test, and let us examine what
has been the result, not upon the poor who are de-
pendent for their daily bread upon their daily
labour, and many of whom are upon the verge of
pauperism from day to day, but I will take as a test
what has been the effect upon the well-to-do arti-
san, upon the frugal, industrious, saving man, who
has been hitherto somewhat above the world. I
have but an imperfect test, because I am only able
to obtain the amount of deposits withdrawn from
the savings banks—the best of all possible tests if
we could carry it up to the present day—up to the
middle of June last, when the distress had hardly
begun. I find that from seven banks alone in this
county, in six months, and those too in which the
distress had not reached its present height, or
any-
thing like it, there was an excess in the withdrawal
of deposits over the ordinary average withdrawal to
the amount, of £71,113. (Hear, hear.) Now,
re-
member that this is up to June last,
at,
time it has
when the pres-
sure had hardly begun; and from
been found impossible to obtain tfromh the savings
banks themselves such returnsas would enable us
estimate of the
to present you with any further
existing withdrawals; but
that they must have been
very large must necessarily be inferred from the
great increase of distress which has taken place
since the large sum I have mentioned was with-
drawn in excess of the ordinary withdrawals. Now,
gentlemen, picture to yourselves, I beg of you, what
a state of things this single sum of Z 71,113 in ex-
cess of the average withdrawals from the sayings