The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-20 00:00:00

47-11 t

LONDON:
FRIMY, AUGUST 20, 1841.

The distress in'Paisley has reached to such an
extent—the prospect's of the manufacturers are
so utterly hopeless, that a numerous body of the
most valuable operatives of that once flourishing
town are addressing the Crown, the Cabinet, and
the country, for the means of clothing them, pre-
paratory to their expatriation to Port Philip or
Sydney. The misery must be indeed great, and
locally irremediable, which compelS whole fami-
lies to exchange the familiar scenes of childhood,
the pleasant trysts and haunts of youth, the old
hearth hallowed with ancestral foot-prints, and
the old church-yard, rendered sacred to me-
mory and, feeling by ancestral ashes—those
silent but impressive witnesses of the best reso-
lutions and the reciprocation of the holiest affec-
tions—fora chance home in the last resting-place
• of the violators of the laws of GOD and their
country. A tree cannot be uprooted without
suffering. , Without the greatest care in the
transplantation it perishes. The roots of a fa-
mily- strike, far deeper in the native' soil than
. those of the largest tree. They extend over
hills and dells ; they derive life and nurture
- from streams,-moors;mountains, lakes, old ruins,
and older traditions. Poverty inflicts no pain so
great as when it tears up these roots, and' casts
' man forth like a weed upon the waves of the
world, indifferent where he may find a spot into
which Ile roa3-. be transplanted. And yet to this
lainentable pitch of wretchedness have a large
-body of ttie induStrious operatives of Paisley
come. Nor does their misery originate in any
fault of thttrs. lh no part of the 'United King-
dom are the operatives a class more moral, more
'intelligent, and• more industrious than in Paisley:
.If they have taken a more prominent part in past
political movements than their fellow-workmen
in other districts,: it is,.
,because they were
always somewhat in, advance of public opinion.
'Though for the most part .self-taught, they
shattering of
not rest satisfied ,pith a sattering
(1%.* ' libraries,
of political'
knowledge. They established.. trail
prganised courses of lectures,. and encouraged,
tO the utmost of their means, experiments in
science. But' neither their knowledge,
their
Skill, nor their industry, could save them from
the starvation effects of the Corn-laws. The
markets for shawls and, cottons became gradu-
ally More restricted in those countries whose
'corn we refused to purchase, as they, in retalia-
tion, were obliged to manufacture shawls and
'cottons for themgelveS. First, prices declined ;
next, manufacturers were obliged to put their
Men on half time; and at last employment
ceased in a great measure' altogether. The
-wealthier classes in, the vicinity of Paisley, so
long as they believed the distress to be tem-
porary, did all.: in their power to relieve it by
subscriptions, and. employment upon the roads.
;But to.the indastrions self-depending operative,
the bread of charity, in whatever form doled
out, is always bitter, and the poor working peo-
vle of Paisley, finding from: the triumph of
the Tories On the Monopoly Starviitia7law
that hopes of improvement
.in their con-
dition can no longer be entertained, call
upon their country for the means of covering
them with the necessary raiment fora decent
ipld civilized appearance in New .South Wales.
',Weary of dependence, and hopeless of amelio-
rating their condition, at home, these poor people
are eager to seek in., other climes the means of
inning an independent subsistence, and, as they
.well and touchingly express it, " of freeing their
native country.frism the burden of supporting
them, and of contributing to the extension of her,
,AJESTYB Colonial Empire." Their prayer will