The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-20 00:00:00

lieved that the Potteries were better off than •
other districts, but the distress was not seen by a super-
ficial observer. The people are all neighbours, and they
relieved each other. He wished to impress upon the
meeting that the distress in the Potteries was not brought
about by machinery. They had the potteries wheel;
but that v. as . not turned by steam, but by
females. The great part of the business of the
Potteries was done with America. Every steam-packet
brought letters to the manufacturers. The clerks got
hold of the letters, and they talked about them to the
people, and they found that the Americans did not order
so many goods, as the duty had been increased on our
manufactures, beeause we would not take their produce
in return. Many of the potters were emigrating to Ame-
rica, as in other districts. Those who were opposed to the
Corn-laws were in the habit of throwing papers amongst
the market people giving a list of wages on the Conti-
nent, and saying that if the Corn-laws were repealed the
English labourer would be reduced to the same level,
but they forgot to mention the price of provisions. Ile
recollected being in Geneva, where he purchased a
watch, and the man that made it only got eighteen francs
a-week. lle was astonished at this ; but when he
• (Mr. Abingdon) went to market to buy his pro-
visions he found that a Paul, or fivepenny piece,
was worth an English shilling. When he was in Paris
he saw a quantity of plites just about to be sent to Ger-
many, and invoiced at a large price. He was surprised •
at this, but he afterwards tound that these plates were
sent at a nominal duty, while as the same article of
English manufacture the duty would have been prohi-
bitory. lle (Mr.-- Abingdon) could say, that
he could manufacture the same article, and give
his workpeople double wages, pay double for his coal,
and yet sell the article cheaper than they were sold
in Paris. The present state of the Potteries was
awful. They had two companies of the 12th taken in to
nurse the Yeomanry Cavalry. These were supplied at
an expense of 981. per day. When lie came away,
he saw ninety of them escorting one prisoner—
a glorious victory.—(Loud laughter.) There were 8,000
colliers out of work; these men were principally poachers
and they carried short guns. If they came in contact
with the military, there would be a dreadful scene of
blood. He (Mr. Abingdon) deprecated anything like
physical force, but he was afraid that if there was an out-
break, there would be a great effusion of blood. When
the colliers came out, as a matter of course the potters
were out, as it was but a small manufactory
ii;a3; lid not consume 100 tons of coal. The colliers
were not so Ll:iet as the potters, as the latter could read;
but they all exPieSsetheir surprise that any man could
be mad enough to shoot at 11.: queen. She was very
much respected in the Potteries.—(Cheers.) 116 'be•
lieved that many of the manufacturers were glad of the
turn-out, as it relieved them from paying wages. The
capital was gone, and their stocks were in America.
The Americans were taking to use turned wood, instead
of earthenware.
Mr. SHUTTLEWORTH—What do you think would be
the immediate result of the repeal of the Corn-laws?
Mr. ABINGDON believed the immediate effect would be
relief. Not so much- from the repeal of those laws as
from the confidence it would give to the manufacturers.
Mr. ASPINALL, of Huddersfield, next addressed the
meeting. The majority of the work in Huddersfield was
woollen fancy, and for that work, for which a man in 1824
could obtain sd. a yard, he could only now get 2d. ; and
now, owing to the fineness of the bobbin, which fre-
quently broke, he could only make two yards now where
he used to make three.

ea,
In answer to a question from the CHAIRMAN,
Mr. ASPINALL Said that the competition of foreign
nations rendered the employment of a coarser material
in the manufacture necessary. The people in his dis-
trict were in the most deplorable state of wretchedness,
and but for the benevolence of some of their more
wealthy members thousands of them must pine away and
die of hunger.—(Hear,. hear.) He had attended the
meetings of the Conference only for two days, and the
pain he felt at the appalling amount of suffering, which
he heard was mingled with pleasure at the ability and
good feeling manifested by the advocates of the starving
people.—(Hear, hear.) But these accounts fell far short
of the reality ; and, indeed, a man must be endowed
with the two attributes which belonged exclusively to
God—omniscience and omnipresence—to give a full
picture of the • all-pervading misery.—(Hear, hear.)
He was sure that if Sir Robert Peel could really see for
himself, and judge by his own senses of the awful
amount of suffering which the people were enduring, he
would no longer resist the repeal of the Corn-laws.
Mr. Pautsro:4 said, it seemed to be a general impres-
sion that the distress was chiefly in the large towns which
were the centre of the manufacturing districts. But it
was not so. lie was convinced that privation and want
were the habit and the rule in the agricultural dis-
tricts; whereas such paroxysms of suffering as were wit-
nessed in the manufacturing towns were exceptions to
the rule and habit.--(llear, hear.) In the course of the
last winter he had visited the counties of Devon, Dorset,
Wilts, Gloucester, Berkshire, with Kent and Essex, and
:le found in all of them an indescribable amount of pri-
vation. He (lid not find a man who earned more than Bs.
t-week.—(lfear, hear.) Now, it was to be remembered
that Kent and Essex were two of the most agricultural
counties in the kingdom, and if the Corn-laws were goad
;Iv the agricultural labourers, that class ought to be in
the most flourishing condition in these counties. But
what was the fact ?—(Hear.) According to the report
of the Poor-law Commissioners, there were in 1840,- no
:ess titan 9,700 able-bodied paupers in Kent, and in
Essex 9,500.—(1-lear, hear.) Large as was that number,
it was increased in 1841—that is, in one year—to 12,800
tide-bodied paupers in Kent, and 12,400 in Essex.—
(Hear, hear.) During the last session of Parlitunent
Thomas Dyke Arland, one of the greatest
thampion f the Corn-laws, the great friend and patron
•)f the agricultural labourers—was compelled to admit,
in answer to a question--from Mr, Wukley, that the
average rate of wages was no more than 7s, a week. Mr
&nett, of Wiltshire. also acknowledged that in his
!aunty the rate was no more than Bs. ; and the Duke of
NTorthumberland in the House of Lords affirmed that no
(gricultural labourer had a right to complain if he earned
what the Noble and philanthropic Duke considered the
exorbitant wages of 9s. a week.—(Hear, hear.) In
Gloucestershire the wages were no more than a shilling
a-day, and wet days were deducted. If a man went to
work on Monday and Tuesday he received a shilling for
each day. But if Wednesday was wet, he must go to the
relieving officer on Thursday for that day's food.—
(Hear, hear.) As to the peasantry of Devonshire, he
believed them to be the most miserable beings under the
sun.—(Hear, hear.) Ile believed that the Red savages
of North America had more means of domestic comfort
than the men of Devon.—(Hear, hear.) From Ti-
verton to Great Torrington, the wages did not
exceed one shilling a-day, and the privations
of the labouring people were intolerable. At a lecture
which he delivered in Great Torringten, a number of
agricultural labourers from the surrounding districts at-
tended, and several men of forty years of age declared
that they had never known wages to be above eiaht
shillings a week, and many of them were receiving only
tenpence a day. The diet of the agricultural districts
in every part of the country consisted almost entirely of
potatoes. In North Devon the only luxury the people
have is an article they call " flick,"- which consists of a
little piece of bacon melted down and dropped upon the
potatoes. In the middle of last winter he found that
the people lived aldost entirely without fuel. They
were too poor to buy coals, or even food. They cooked
their potatoes with gorse or furze dried into turf, which
they blew into a flame, and when their humble meal
was cooked it was allowed to subside, and the rest of the
day the family remained without fuel. No wonder
that disease was rife amongst the poor people.—
(Hear.) In every district through which he (Mr.
Paulten) travelled, he endeavoured to obtain an
-interview with the parish doctor. The parish doctor of
Great Torrington told him that throughout North Devon
a fever was prevalent in the winter, which carried off a
great number of their children, and he added that he
could find .no other name for it but " the starvation
fever." Mr. G. Knight stated in the House of Commons
a few nights ago, that this was not a question of dear or
cheap bread, but of cheap or dear labour. They had
now 15,000,003 acres of uncultivated rand in this
*solitary capable of producing good grain, and they had
also a large surplus population of agricultural labourers,
who, by pressing upon the agricultural districts, reduced
the wages of the agricultural labourer to a horrible in-
adequacy. They had now more land than they could
cultivate, they had more labourers than they could em-
ploy, and yet the people had no food. He could trace
the evil to no other source than the Corn laws. The
landowners said that the waste land, if cultivated, would
not realise rent. They would not feed the manufacturers.
Why would they not then allow the manufactures to
work for foreigners, and thus obtain food for themselves
and their families ? He could only see one reason, and
that was indeed sordid and narrow-minded. The fact
was that the landlords profited by the distress of all
classes. They distressed the manufacturers, and at the
same time made them pay dear for their bread—they
starved the operatives, and cheap labour for themselves
was the result.—(Hear.) The Report from which he had
already quoted, that of the Poor-law Commissioners,
stated the number of able-bodied paupers in the wealthy
county of Middlesex to have increased from 49,000 in 1840
to 73,000 in 1841, showing an increase of 24,000 able-
bodied paupers in one year. The total number of able-bo-
died full-grown paupers receiving parish relief throughout
the whole of the country had increased from 297,000 in
1840 to 345,000 in 1841 ; and the total of paupers
had increased from 1,199,000 in 1840 to '1,300,000 in
1841. In his route to London, he passed through Glou-
cestershire, and more pitiable distress than he witnessed
in the south-west district of that county he believed
never fell under the attention of any man. The chief
trade. which was the woollen cloth, had gradually dimi-
nished. The American market, which, a few years ago,
took the whole of the produce of this district, they had
entirely lost, and the population was reduced to a state
of great misery. The following extract of a letter, (laud
Wotton, July 13, 1842, would coney sup e idea of the
distress, and of the sympathy which the lower classes
entertain for one another :—" Our poor are sadly pushed,
and I find that the poor borrow bread from one another.
On Saturday last, a case came under my, notice, where a
poor woman with a family, having neither bread nor
money to buy bread with, went to a neighbour,
who was as poor as herself, to beg a little bread
for her famishing children. The neighbour had
Ito bread to give her, but she took a sheet
from her bed, a piece of flannel from her baby, and a
frock and a pair of trousers, and desired the starving
woman to pledge them, and get food with the many.
The husband of the woman who borrowed the things is
now in gaol for stealing two pockets full of potatoes
ma a Saturday night." In every part of the country they
would find the same distress, and that the poor could
look for no relief but from those who were in the same
condition as themselves. The facts which had come be 7
fore him lately, the humble details of heart-rending dis-
tress and misery that pervaded the land convinced
him (Mr. Paulton) that at no time were they' nearer to
a social disrupture than they were at present ; at no
time were the opinions of dissatisfaction so widely spread;