The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-26 00:00:00

THEATRk44OYAL; LIVER POOL

Under the Management of Mr. CLARKE, Sole Lenee

Squeers

The Lady

As originally perfoi:na.ed by them in London.
End of which,
A Polish Pas de Deux, in Character, by Master and
Miss C. Webster.
To conclude with the Farce, called
£lOO NOTE.

THEATRE-ROYAL

FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR

Peregrine
Job Thoruberry
Tom Shuifieton

Mr. Stuart
Mr. Baker.

Mary .. Mrs. Baker.
DANCING, by Master and Miss WEBSTER
The laughable Interlude, called
WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM?
Gregory Mr. Baker.
Fanchette Miss E. Honner.
To conclude with the Farce of
ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
La Fleur Mr. W. J. Hammond.
Doctor Mr. Baker.
Lisette Mrs. Clarke.
Tickets to be had of Mr. BAKER, 3, Cases-street.

ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE,
GREAT CHARLOTTE-STREET, LIVERPOOL

Elm Eibtrpool gPtanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 26, 1841

When it has been objected to the advocates of a free
trade in corn that the withdrawal of all protection from
the agriculture of the country must inevitably throw
a large portion of our corn lands out of cultivation,
and vast numbers of our agricultural population out
of employment, the objection has always been met, by
the organs of the manufacturing interest, with the
confident assurence that the increase of trade and con-
sequent demand for labour in the manufacturing dis-
tricts would at once provide employment for those
whom the pursuits of agriculture could no longer
support. We have ever strongly denied this conclusion.
We have doubted, in the first place, whether the adop-
tion of the proposed measures of free trade will give
any permanent increase to our existing commerce;
and we have doubted still more, and we have additional
reason now to doubt, whether, supposing such increase
to arise, it would be to such an extent as to provide
employment for more than the population at present
embarked in manufacturing and trading pursuits.
For the means of arriving at a solution of this
question, we have looked anxiously for the publication
of the population returns. The large increase which,
under our existing commercial policy, has for years
past been taking place in the population of the manu-
facturing districts has been pointed to, not only as
showing the importance of adapting that policy, ex-
clusively or principally, to the maintenance of this
mass of industry in comfort and security, but also as
proving the capability of those districts to absorb the
surplus labour of the remainder of the kingdom. But
so long as the amount of this increase and its propor-
tion to the increase of the manufactured commodities
produced was unascertained, no conclusive and safe
argument could be founded upon it. Production had
increased, and the labouring population employed in
manufacturing pursuits had increased also; but the
census alone could show whether this increase of pro-
duction and of population went hand in hand, or
whether there was not another instrument—the powers
of machinery—whose advance was fast outstripping,
and was destined ultimately to arrest altogether, the
progress of the demand for human labour.
The census, however, is now before us, and we shall
endeavour briefly to apply the data, with which it fur-
nishes us, to the elucidation of this important question.
And first let us examine the evidence which the returns
afford us with respect to the comparative growth of
the trade and the population of Lancashire, which may
fairly be considered a purely manufacturing county, as
being the seat of almost the whole of our cotton
manufacture. In 1831, the population of this county
was 1,336,854; and at the census of the present year
it had grown to 1,667,064, showing an increase of 244
per cent., whilst that of the entire kingdom was only
144. The additional increase must, of course, be attri-
buted to the migration which is constantly taking
place from the agricultural into the manufacturing
districts; and amounts to 10 per cent,—the difference
between 244, the increase in Lancashire, and 144, the
increase throughout the kingdom,—which the popula-
tion of this county has sustained during the past ten
years by absorbing the surplus labour of other parts
of the empire

Now, we humbly suggest to the admirers of our
manufacturing system, that there is little in this amount
o warrant the anticipations which have been so pro-
minently and loudly put forward with respect to the
capabilities of that system to provide employment for
our increasing population. Nay, there is little to
assure us that it will even continue to support the
population already dependent upon it. During ten
years of vastly increased production—ten years of
stimulation—the manufactures of Lancashire have only
been enabled to extend the means of employment
beyond its native population, at the rate of one per
cent. per annum; and we think the wildest dreamer
amongst the anti-corn-law leaguers will scarcely con-
template, as the result of his favourite specific, a
greater increased production of manufactured goods
than has taken place since 1831.
When we come, however, to the comparison of
figures, the fallacy of these anticipations must be still
more obvious. In 1831, as we have shown in former
articles, the quantity of cotton consumed throughout
the kingdom, computed in bags of an average weight
of 3001b5., was 16,583 weekly. In 1840 the quantity
had risen to 30,089, the increased production being
thus 82 per cent., or in a ratio, upwards of three times
that of the population employed in it in Lancashire ! In
addition to this increase in the cotton manufacture, how-
ever, we must bear in mind that several branches in which
the labouring population of the county is employed has
sustained a similar, although not perhaps a proportion-
ate increase, by becoming concentrated, from other
localities, to this, the heart and market of the manufac-
turing industry of the empire. The linen and silk
manufactures are now extensively introduced into Lan-
cashire ; the dying and printing of mixed fabrics of
woollen and cotton have also become important trades,
and employ large numbers of the operative classes
File manufacture of machinery of every description,
forexport and for use in other parts of England and
Scotland, has sustained a large increase and afforded
new sources of employment to a numerous body of
mechanics, and when these and others are taken into
consideration, and the proportion of labour which they
have absorbed is deducted from the general increase of
the population throughout the county, we are pretty
confident that they will fully account for all the increase
which it has derived from extrinsic sources, by the
Inigration of labourers, and establish the fact that the

For the BENEFIT of Mr. and Mrs. KEEL EY,
And the Last Night of their engagement, on which occasion.
Mr. W. J. HAMMOND,
Who is engaged for a limited period, will make his first
appearance at this Theatre these eleven years.
THIS present FRIDAY, November 26, will be performed
the Local Barletta called

,
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY; /
OR, DOINGS AT DO-THE-BOYS HALL.
Smike (an orphan) Mrs. Keeley.
John Browdie .... Mr. W. J. Hammond.
Monsieur Mantilini
Nicholas Nickleby Mr. H. I 011.
Mr. Baker I Mrs. Squeers.. s. Clarke.
After which, the Interlude of e
INNKEEPER'S BRIDE.
Mr. W. J. Hammond,
Ellen Miss E. Honner.
To which will be added, the petit Drama, called
A LADY AND GENTLEMAN IN A PECULIARLI

PE It PL EXING PREDICAMENT. --
... Mrs. Keeley. I The Gentleman.. Mr. Keeley

Billy 81ack.... (the Coiner of Conundrums).... Mr. Keeley,
As originally performed by him at the Theatre Royal,
Covent-Garden.
- _

Montmorency.. Mr. H. Miss Arlington.. Mrs. Keeley

AND MRS. BAKER.

ON MONDAY next, the 29th instant, will be presented
Colman's Comedy of
JOHN BUJL.

Mr. H. Hon

Second Night of the highly-popular Domestic Drama, enti-
tled SUSAN HOPLY.
An entire NEW BALLET; with nelr 'SCENES IN THE
ARENA.
Last Three Nights of THE DEATI/GRASP.
THIS present FRIDAY EVENING, the 26th, and TO-
-1 MORROW, (Saturday,) the 27th, will be acted an en-
tirely new Drama, entitled
SUSAN HOPLEY ;
OR, THE VICISSITUDES OF A SERVANT GIRL.
Mr. Simpson Mr. H. Beverley.
Susan Hopley Mrs. Emery.
After which, a new Comic Ballet, called
ELECTRICITY!
OR, THE DOCTOR OUTWITTED.
Doctor Bolus Mr. Lennox.
Clodpole (the Simpkin) Mr. M`Gregor.
NEW SCENES IN THE ARENA.
The whole to conclude with the
DEATH GRASP!
OR, A FATHER'S CURSE.
Adolphe de Floriville Mr. Howard.
Caleb Winton Mr. H. Beverley.