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

banks presents—what an amount of sualing, what
an amount of disappointed hopes, and what a
prospect of future distress, this fact lays before you
for the working and industrious classes. (Hear,
hear.) Why, gentlemen, it represents the blighted
hopes of many a family. It represents the small
sum set by by honest, frugal, persevering industry,
by years of toil and of self-denial in the
hope of its being, as it has been in
many cases before, the foundation of colossal
fortunes. But it also represents the gradual
decay of the hopes for his family of many
an industrious artisan. It is the first step in that
downward progress which has led to destitution and
pauperism. The first step is to withdraw the sav-
ings of honest industry, and that is rcpresenced
by
the withdrawal from the savings banks. Then comes
the sacrifice of some little cherished article of furni-
ture, the cutting off of some little indulgence, the
sacrifice of that which gave to his home an addi-
tional appearance of comfort and of happiness; the
sacrifice gradually, one by one, of the principal
articles of furniture, till at last the well-conducted,
honest, and frugal, saving workman finds himself
on a level with the idle, dissipated, and improvi-
dent—obliged to pawn the very clothes of his family
—nay, the very bedding on which they lie, to ob-
tain the simple means of subsistence from day to
day ; and encountering all that difficult
tering all that distress, with the noble inuti—
which would do anything rather than depend on
public or private charity, and in his own simple
and emphatic language declaring, " Nay, but we'll
Clem' first." (Hear, and cheers.) Now, gentlemen,
this leads me to observe a more gratifying point of
view—that of the noble manner, a manner beyond
all praise, in which this deep destitution has been
borne by the population of this great county. It is
not the case of ordinary labourers who find them-

selves reduced a trifle below even their former means

of subsistence, but it is a reduction of the pecuniary

comfort and almost of the necessities of men who

have been in the habit of living, if not in luxury, at
least in the extreme of comfort. It is a reduction to

two and three shillings a week of sums which have
previously amounted to 255., 308., and 40s.—a cutting
off of all their comforts, of all their hopes of future
additional comforts or rising in life—a feeling—an
honourable, an honest, but at the same time a morbid
feeling of being indebted under these circumstances
to relief of any description or kind. I may say that
among the difficulties which have been encountered
by the local relief committees, no doubt thine has
been many of those not among the most deserving
who have been clamorous for the aid held out to
them, but one of the great difficulties of the local
relief committees has been to find out struggling

and really distressed merit, and to overcome that
feeling of independence which even under such cir-
cumstances like these shrinks from being relieved
_ _

even by private charity. (Hear, hear.) I know
that eases of this kind have happened—that cases

have occurred where it has been necessary to press
on individual persons, themselves on the point of
starvation, the necessity of accepting this relief, and
from this place I take the opportunity of saying—
and I hope it will go far and wide—that in circum-
stances like the present, discreditable as habitual
dependence on local relief may be, it is no degrada-
tion, no possible cause of hhtme that any man, how-
ever great his industry, however high his character
or noble his feeling of self-dependence, should feel
himself obliged to have recourse to that christian
charity which I am sure we are all prepared to give.
(Loud cheers.) Gentlemen, I might here, as far as
the resolution I have to propose is concerned, close
the observations I have to mako to you. The reso-
lution I have to move, indeed, is one which calls
for no extensive argument, and which, with a plain
statement of facts such as I have laid before you,

is sufficient to obtain your unanimous assent. The
resolution is—" That the manufacturing districts of
Lancashire and the adjoining county are suffering
from an extent of destitution hitherto happily un-
known, w hien nas um. bvt LS. th. wnrtring
classes with patient submission and resolution, en-
titling them to the warmest sympathy of their fel-
low-countrymen." (Cheers.) But, gentlemen, I
cannot in the first place lose the opportunity of
asking this great assembly with what feelings this
state of things should be contemplated by us who
are in happier circumstances. Let me say, with all
reverence, that it is a subject for deep national hu-
miliation, and above all for deep humiliation for
this great county. We have been accustomed for
years to look with pride and complacency upon the
enormous growth of that manufacture which has
conferred wealth on so many thousands, and which
has so largely increased the manufacturing in-
dustry and population of this country. We have
seen within the last twelve or fourteen years the
consumption of cotton in Europe extend from
50,000 to 90,000 bales a week. We have
seen the weight of cotton goods exported from thie
country in the shape of yarn and manufactured
goods amount to 983,000,0001b5. in a year. We
have seen this trade constantly and rapidly extend-
ing. We have seen colossal fortunes made, and we
have been proud, and, as a county, perhaps, accus-
tomed to look down on those less fortunate dis-
tricts whose wealth and fortunes have been built on
a less secure foundation. We have reckoned on this
great manufacture as the pride of our country, and
as the best security against the possibility of war
in consequence of mutual interests between us and
the cotton produciug districts, and we have held
that in the cotton manufacture was the pride, the
strength, and the certainty of our future national
prosperity and peace. lam afraid we have looked
to this too much in the spirit of the Assyrian mo-,
narch of old. We have said to ourselves, "Is not
this the great Babylon that I have built for the
house of the kingdom, by the might of my power,
and for the honour of my majesty ?" But in that
hourlin which the monarch used these words, the
word came forth, " Thy kingdom is departing from
thee." That which was his pride became his humi-
liation. That which was our pride has become our
punishment. That which was the source of our
wealth, the sure foundation on which we knelt, has
become itself the instrument of our humiliating po-
verty, which compels us to appeal to the charity of
other counties. The reed on which we leaned has
gone through the hand reposed on it, and has
pierced us to the heart. (Hear.) But we have
happier end more gratifying subjects of contempla-
ymen in the tion. I have pointed to the noble conduct which
must make us proud of our countrymen
pointed to the noble
ma-
nufacturing districts. I have
heroic submission to difficulties they
could never
never expected to be
foresee, and privationsnthweey
have another feeling,
subject to—and
.nobly met, and which, sure
shgaaapsipointed, that this is an oppor-
tunity sympathy
n to those blessed with
Iwahmicthwtihlle
wealth and fortune to show t
give
poorer brethren, and with God's
earnest sympathy—with the suf-
feringsit be a link bind together more closely
than ever the various classes in this great commu-
nity, to satisfy the wealthy that the poor have a
claimtnpractical,nt Y
blessingp oo t nf
oaanncctytohol ytuev providentiallybine
trtordy. their money but their sympathy
—to satisfy the poor also that the rich are not
overbearing, grinding tyrants, but men, like them-
selves, who have a heart to feel for suffering, and
prompt to use the means God has given them for
the relief of that suffering. (Cheers.) Gentlemen,
a few words more, and I will not further trespass
upon your attention ; but I feel myself called on, as
chairman of that executive committee, to which my
noble friend in the chair has paid so Just a compli-
ment, to lay before you some answers to objections
which have been made, and which in other counties
may have a tendency to check the contributions
which have hitherto freely flown in. Before Ido
so allow me to say--and I can du it with more free-
dom because in its early stages I was not a member
of that committee—but it is mere justice to say that
there never was an occasion in which greater and
more earnest effort was made to secure that the dis..