The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-24 00:00:00

OUR MANUFACTURING SUPREMACY
IN DANGER.

Trrs strike and lock-out, in. which unfortunate and rain-
CMS contest the masters and operatives of Preston 'and
other quarters have been for so long a period engaged,
continues to rage with unabated violence, as yet offering
no sign of capitulation on either side. In such a strife
the evils inflicted on both sides are too important and
Momentous to allow of gratulation on the indomitable
spirit evinced by each party, otherwise the unflinching
resolution displayed might call forth expressions of very
lively commendation. On a recent occasion we showed,
on the authority of one of the most formidable league in-
struments, the nefarious means resorted to by COBDEN',
33BronT, and the other leading stars of the league, for car-
rying the objects of their gigantic conspiracy into effect.
At the annual meeting of the Commercial Association,
held in Manchester, on Tuesday last, the chairman, in al-
luding to the strikes, incidentally showed that the chief
advantages promised by the leaders of that movement had
proved entirely nugatory. He stated that " there is a
close contest between the masters of this country and
those of America, and of Germany, France, and Switzer-
land, and many other countries, for the possession of the
market." We all remember that the League, the " great
fact," as it was called, of the day, told us, in hundreds of
forms, that if we would agree to take our corn, and other
agricultural requirements, from the Americans and from
our continental neighbours, those corn-growing people,
abandoning all desire for so unprofitable an employment
of industry as manufactures, would attend exclusively to
agriculture, in order that they might have sufficient pro-
duce to meet our necessities. Gratitude and interest,
we were also told, would combine in making them willing
customers for our manufactures in exchange for their raw
produce. This operation of reciprocal interests, we were
likewise informed, would secure for us unfailing abund-
ance—cheap food—and a continual demand for manufac-
turing labour ; it was also to defend us against the effects
of any sort of rivalry, but that which would arise among
our continental and transatlantic friends, as to who should
enjoy the privilege of serving us cheapest and best. Alas
for theoretical lore and a priori reciprocity ! Mr. As-
pi:NAL TURNER. tells us that all these excellent customers
are fast arranging themselves into active competitors for
possession of oar markets, and facts bear out his asser-
tions. Food has not been rendered uniformly plenty, nor
permanently cheap—the prices of provisions of all kinds
have risen so much without any corresponding rise in
wages,' that even the usually submissive agricultural la-
bourers have been goaded into a temporary rebellion,
while the more excitable operatives of the manufacturing
districts have entered into such an organization for a com-
pulsory augmentation of wages as threatens to annihilate
the staple manufacture of the kingdom. All this, be it
remembered, has been brought about by those who, seek-
ing only their own aggrandisement, yet assuming the
garb and the language of patriotism, raised the deceptive,
though captivating, cry of free trade, from the operations
of which, however, they carefully guarded their own in-
terests.

This pseudo free trade has been established, and what
have been its results ? Distress and misery have thinned
the ranks of our agricultural population, thousands upon
thousands of whom have become involuntary exiles.
Thousands of those dependant upon the possession of
colonial property have been irretrievably ruined. Manu-
facturing operatives are in a state of open war against
their employers ; agricultural labourers' have been driven
into insurrection from inability to earn bread. Who has
gained by the system which has brought about this wide-
spread anarchy ? The League has obtained the glory of
having brought into practical operation the behests of an
illusory and chimerical theory, at an expense which
threatens its own order with extermination. Foreigners
have been enabled to palm their raw produce upon us for
such an amount of our gold as enables them to rival us
in manufactures, while ruining our agriculturists. One,
and only one, direct and tangible benefit can be traced in
Britain from the confusion and sacrifices by which this
ptate of matters has been brought about—Comma has re-
eeived £70,000 in hard glittering golden sovereigns, as
his share of pickings from the spoil. True, it was called
a national testimonial. What share was taken by a disin-
terested gentleman, named RICHARD COBDEN, in getting
up that testimonial, is clearly enough shown byMr.ALEx-
XIMEs. SOMBBNILLE in his ably-written pamphlet on the
Cobdenic policy.
Averse as we are to placing reliance on free trade
oracles, we cannot disguise from ourselves the unwelcome
fact, that they have successfully earned for themselves the
character of being truthful in their prognostications of
evil—no interest has hitherto been threatened by them
with ruin which has not been visited by at least severe
privation. Let, then, the manufacturers be on their
guard, the evil day must be upon them when they are
menaced in the croackings of these birds of evil omen.

TEE RECORDER OF HULL AND

JUVENILE CRIME.

Fob some •time past SAMUEL. WARREN, Esq., Q.C.,
Recorder for the borough of Hull, has been subjected to
the penalty inflicted upon great minds by little ones, and
has expiated the offence of daring to think and act in-
dependently of coteries by sustaining an amount of per-
sonal misrepresentation, such as has seldom fallen to the
lot of one so distinguished in the profession which he
adorns. At the autumn sessions for the borough of Hull,
it became the unwelcome duty of Mr. WARREN to pass
sentence upon a juvenile culprit, and that sentence, we
are bound by all that is known of his public and private
character, to believe was, in his judgment, suitably appor-
tioned to the gravity of the offence it was meant to punish.
14ome parties—well-meaning men they might no doubt be,
although it would be a stretch of credulity towards them to
suppose they were equally acquainted with the case, in all
its bearings, as was the judge who tried it—entertained a
different view, and used every means to represent Mr.
WARREN'S judgment as harsh and overstrained. So
active, indeed, was their zeal in this line of operation,
that, by one means or another, they succeeded in inducing
the HOME SECRETARY greatly to abridge the allotted
term of imprisonment, and also to abate one of the sternest
features of the punishment. A course of proceeding so
unusual was felt by his friends to be an act of grave im-
putation against the learned Recorder, which their know-
ledge of his humane feeling forbade them to acquiesce in ;
while his enemies saw in it sufficient ground for very un-
seemly rejoicing. A much more extensive section of the
public, however, saw only in that implied censure the in-
terference of authority with the administration of criminal
law, such as nothing but the most unquestionable perver-
sion of justice could call' for, and the clearest evidence
warrant: Somehow, few people appeared to consider that
these two conffitions of interference had been fully com-
plied with, and hence a very unpleasant state of matters
was felt .to exist. A judge, whose personal humanity was
not more undoubted than it was and is =impeached, was
held up to the community as having, in his judicial capa-
city,
acted with such undue severity as to call for a practical
reproof of painful and damaging pungency, while no step
was taken to remove him from that office, or to restrict him
in the exercise of those powers which, by implication, he
was thus declared to have abused. Such was the ano-
malous and cruel position in which Mr. WARREN was
placed, 01 the opening of the Hull Epiphany sessions,
when he embraced the opportunity of vindicating his per-
sonal and judicial character, and, at the same time, of
unfolding the philosophical and philanthropic reasonings
by which he had been actuated on the occasion in ques-
tion. In his address to the grand jury, he, with much
feeling, as well as delicacy and dignity, discussed the ques-
tion of punishments, and their relations to crime, and
defended the course of action he had followed. From a
lengthened and very temperate address we give the fol-
lowing abbreviated remarks

" Since I last sat here, circumstances with which you are
familiar bare arisen, in my opinion not only justifying but
'requiring some observations from me on this occasion : for
my acts and opinions, as your Recorder, have been suddenly
and widely challenged, and those imputed to me which I
deliberately disclaim: The administration of justice in
this place requires great care and circumspection. The
reason is, that the inhabitants of Hull are characterised by
a lively and watchful interest in the administration of
justice, and I honour them for being so, frankly avowing
that in my opinion the sterner the scrutiny the more salu-
tary for the judge, and consequently for the public. The
only condition I would impose is, that of candour, and
carefully ascertaining facts. lam one of those who, while
utterly unmoved by any amount of popular clamour, yet
"11 a cordial allegiance to public opinion—especially to
I think it right
that of a great Christian community.
then, especially as the public mind is at this moment wor-
..y and anxiously addressed to the great subject of crimes
and punishment,—andquency— especially to that of juvenile delin-
, , jurisprudence
brieflwhat the fixed principles y are of
criminal junsprudence on which I act, and have hitherto
acted, in this court, with reference especially to youthful
criminals. lam anxious Publicly to state them, from this
place, that henceforth you and I, at least, should not mis-
understand each other.
The root of the whole matter
with which we have now
to deal lies in the word puntsh-
rant ; a word representing a visible and ordinary reality,