The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-09 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

bably see less of preserved game, and more of pre-
served morals amongst the labouring classes, whom
the abundance of that game exposes to temptation
and crime. We may perhaps see fewer fox-covers

and rabbit-warrens. With all the devotion for field
sports, ingrained in us by early associations, we can-
not but perceive that, in this hard, cast-iron age,
these things are out of place. The poet Words-
worth's sense of the beautiful was shocked at the
vision of a locomotive careering through the roman-

tic localities of Rydal Mount arid Windermere; and
some Nimrod of the next generation may be doomed
to hear a steam-engine groaning upon the banks of
the quiet stream where " the meet" used to assemble
its hundred red-coats, and the crop of wheat wav-
ing upon the site of the coppice or the furze, from
which many a fox has " gone away" with forty
couple of staunch hounds baying after the scent of
his brush. A few old sportsmen—a few good old
English gentlemen—may, perhaps, make a struggle
for a time to keep up the sports and the habits of
their fathers ; hut, alas ! the field " will be no
more. It will have vanished—red coats, top boots,
and all—with the race of dashing young farmers and
independent squires.
But we are not without a ray of hope for the agri-
culturists as a class, new-modelled as they must be,
both in their social position and their habits. A few
years ago they had to contend with bad roads and
dear conveyances for their crops to market, and
dear transport of the necessaries of cultivation. Did
they want lime, or coals, or manure, they had to
cart them over bad roads, through expensive turn-
pikes, with horses that could ill be spared from the
plough or the harrow. Some of them were as far
from their best market, measured by cost of convey-
ance, as the German, the Swedish, or the Polish
grower is now. They had heavy agency and fac-
tor's charges to pay. They had, in many instances,
to sell to the factor at his own price. We have,
however, of late years, been altering all these things.
The rail has superseded the road. Internal com-
munication is no longer, either in time or in cost,
what it was. Manchester is coming every year
nearer to Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire; Lon-

don has Norfolk within a two or three hours' run ;

and Scotland has no longer to lose a month's feed-
ing of cattle on their way to the English consumer.
Lime, coals, manure, are being brought by the lo-
comotive into districts which never saw them be-
fore, except at almost prohibitory prices ; farming
produce of all kinds, in the most sequestered dis-
tricts, is approximating to the value which the sub-
urban grower alone has hitherto exclusively com-
manded, and even the article of milk is as cheaply
marketed by the grazier living thirty or forty miles
from a large town, as if he brought it half a dozen
miles in his own pony cart.
The increase of railway formation must wonder-
fully increase the means of the farming class. It is
giving to land, many miles from the large marts of
consumption, something approaching to the- value
of land in the immediate vicinity of populous
places. It is changing the whole face of the coun-
try, and imparting to remote localities the advan-
tages of suburban localities. We regard this feature
of the times as one most worthy of the farmer's
consideration.

But, with even this to assist him, it is clear that
he has a terrible struggle before him. He has per-
sonal privation to submit to. He has to school his
pride to no trifling descent in the social scale. He
has—perhaps a harder task still—to bring himself
to sunder ties which have clung to his family for
generations ; to throw from him, into the turmoil of
a new world and a new walk of industry, dependents
whom he has cherished for years; to cheapen on
every side ; to contract the springs of his customary
benevolence to the weary and heavy laden amongst
this world's denizens ; and, yet, is he assured that
all this will be sufficient ? We fear not. We are
not certain that even this painful transition is all
that is meditated as his lot, by those who are impel-
ling him upon it. The British farmer—that bold,
manly race of yeomen, who have been in all past
ages their country's pride and defence—we fear, are
destined, under the operation of our new-fangled
policy, to become the mere "hewers of wood and
drawers of water"—the serfs and drudges—of the
more fortunate commercial classes, who appear just
now to engross the sympathies of our legislature
and—our philosophers !
But we have exhausted our space, and must deal
with the rest of our subject on a future occasion.

Whilst we deprecate most strongly the recurrence
of such scenes as that which took place in the Coun-
cil on Wednesday last, there is a dash of the ludi-
crous, mingled with its folly, which is irresistibly
diverting. It is painful to see a gentleman, whom
advanced age ought to have taught the mastery of
his passions, catching at every pretext for the exhi-
bition of his combativeness—butting at imaginary
walls, and bearing palpably upon his brow the
caution, "When I speak, let no dog bark ;" but
such an exhibition resembles the freaks of a
froward child, who has come into school with half a
breakfast, or has been refused sixpence to buy a
peg-top or a hoop, and has put mud in his trousers
pockets for the purpose of flinging at the head of
the first lad who will give him an opportunity of
thus venting his dudgeon.
Mr. Eyre Evans appears to have come to the
Council on Wednesday in somewhat of this un-
happy humour. He had sustained some rebuffs in
his attempts to defeat the Dock Bill in the Lords'
Committee; and was therefore apparently disposed
to be offended with anybody and everybody, but
more particularly so with the Chairman of the
Dock Committee, whose business-like straightfor-
wardness, and extensive acquaintance with the com-
merce of the port, had contributed to prevent their
Lordships being misled by Mr. Evans's statements.
Possibly his cross-examination by Mr. Sergeant
Bellasis, and its result, had not been thoroughly
digested ; and when Mr. Bramley-Moore proceeded
to lay before the Council some of his replies to that
cross-examination, the ex-Alderman hastened to stay
the exposure by an insinuation that the speaker was
not representing the facts as they were elicited in evi-
dence, and appeared in the shorthand writer's notes.
The retort of Mr. Bramley-Moore was only a natural
one that "he was not in the habit of drawing upon his
imagination for facts." Mr. Moore, in proceeding
with his remarks, thus interrupted, reverted to the
opinion of Mr. Evans, that the acreage and tonnage
of the port had gone hand-in-hand, and that he anti-
cipated a decline in the tonnage of the port. A sore
subject, however, this statement appeared to be. Mr.
Evans, apparently, remembered that he had failed
to establish its correctness, and that statistical docu-
ments, produced before the Committee, established
directly the reverse; and he again threw out an in-
sinuation against the veracity of Mr. Moore. He
demurred to any evidence of that sort going for a
fact, unless the documents upon which it was
founded (the short-hand writer's notes) were

duced." The reply of the Speaker was natural, that
he was responsible for what he said. He was re

sponsible, as every gentleman is, for the truth of his
representation of the conversation in Committee.
His character was staked upon its truth ; and Mr.
Evans could have brought the short-hand writer's
notes, if Mr. Moore had misrepresented him, to
prove the facts. But he preferred to take the remark
in a fighting sense. With Mr. Evans the idea of
responsibility in any one, who presumes to differ
from him, seems to suggest at once pistols and
twelve paces ; and of course the gentleman was on
his haunches forthwith, bristling for the coming
fray, and smelling powder. There was something
alarmingly significant in the tone of his " I am glad
to hear it," which provoked the rejoinder, "At your
service."

We do not question the valour of Mr. Evans upon
this or any other occasion; but men who wish to
fight do not usually intimate their wishes before forty
or fifty persons, amongst whom are magistrates. The
result in this case was only what might have been
expected,—an interference by the Mayor and the
Council, for the preservation of peace between the
belligerents. Such interference having taken place,
it was scarcely becoming in a gentleman, who by
his own hasty temper had virtually placed both him-
self and his opponent under something equivalent
to legal restraint, to make such an attack upon him,
as is contained in the following remarks :
" Mr. Evans.—l take great blame to myself for having
allowed some observations of Mr. Moore's to pass on a
former occasion ; but I say now that, so far as I am con-
cerned, I leave the sincerity of the Dock Committee in
the hands of the public. I have no objection to have my
character collated with that of the Dock Committee, or
with the chairman of the Dock Committee. (Uproar.)
Therefore, I treat his remark with the contempt and
scorn it deserves. (Loud cries of :` Order, order ; chair
chair.') It is false ! (Tremendous uproar, and renewed'
cries of ' Order and chair.')"

A terrific explosion this would have seemed, if we
could forget that the piece of ordnance was loaded
with powder only—that, thanks to the interference
and the presence of the Mayor and Council, it was

" warranted to do no mischief." From the moment
of this interference, Mr. Evans' wrath and scolding
irresistibly reminded us of the scene depicted by
that mad Wag, Punch.
" Master WELLINGTON— You daren't hit me.
" Master JOINVILLE— Daren't I ?
" Alaster WELLINGTON—No you daren't.
" Master JOINVILLE—Daren't I ?
" And they did nut fight after all."
The after proceedings appear to us really childish,
and beneath the dignity of the Council. The ques-
tion, as to the course to be taken, was, after the
above explosion of temper, clearly one between the
Council and Mr. Evans himself, and was viewed as
such by that gentleman's friends.

Our contemporary, the London Times, has just
found, and placed a feather in the coronets of the
Peel section of the peerage, which, we much fear,
will not be permitted to remain there. It is in ac-
cordance with a principle of human action, he says,
which will be found influencing the majority of Le-
gislators, to see men leaning towards the advance-
ment of their own interests. "No class of politicians
willingly, and apart from the impulse of fear, give
countenance to a measure fraught with ruin to them-
selves;" and hence we have acquired the habit of
forming a judgment as to the tendency of any par-
ticular measure, from the interest, real or supposed,
of the men whom we see supporting it. The Times
proceeds to remark on his newly-discovered (?) prin-
ciple of human nature, as evinced in the recent di-
vision in favour of the Ministerial measures, thus:—
" The application of the test of self-interest to the recent
vote of the Peers is eminently satisfactory as to the pro-
bable results of the measure on which they voted. We
advert not only to the fact of the majority itself, but also
to the characteristics of those who composed it. In the
list of the majority we find the Dukes of Norfolk, Buc-
clench, Leinster, Bedford, Hamilton, Argyll, Somerset,
Devonshire, Northumberland, and Sutherland; the Mar-
quises of Lansdowne, Abercorn, Hertford, Westminster,
and Northampton ; men whose property rests upon and is
inseprrable from the possession of land; men who are,
prima facie, the most unlikely in the world to support
any scheme which might tend to destroy their influence
or impair their fortunes; and who, as landed proprietors
of every degree, would be withheld by their remonstrances
and reproaches from consenting to a measure pregnant
with ruin to all who had say stake in land."

We do not quarrel with the "principle" of our
contemporary; but we must say that it cuts two
ways. If the measures in question are safe ones for
the landowner and the farmer, because they are sup-
ported by these noblemen, who have a large stake in
the prosperity of native agriculture, they are destruc-
tive of certain of the institutions of the country, be-
cause they are supported by men who hold those
institutions in contempt, and would uproot them to-
morrow if they had the opportunity. They tend to
throw the whole power of the State into the hands
of the manufacturing and commercial classes, because
they are supported by men who have declared that
the people of England are henceforth to be " the
people who live in towns." This is clearly the de-
duction to be drawn from the principle laid down by
the Times, which is, after all, only a refined echo of
the brusque ejaculation of an eminent Leaguer,—
" Bless you we're all for ourselves in this world."
But admitting that it is so—that the noblemen
mentioned are looking solely to the increase of their
rent rolls, as the result of the measure for which
they have just voted—let us see of what such rent
rolls, in their particular cases, are mainly composed.
The whole, or nearly the whole of the noblemen
mentioned, owe their great wealth to the increase of
the large towns in the vicinity of their properties.
The Times says :

" Let no man say that such persons as the Dukes of
Devonshire and Northumberland, the Marquis of West-
minster, and Earl Fiizwilliam are not among the very best
judges in the country of what is advantageous to the land-
ed interest."

Probably they may be good judges of what is
advantageous to the landed interest; and we mean
not to say that any one of them was influenced by
considerations of self interest, but it is rather singu-
lar that they are all greatly dependent upon com-
merce for their incomes. The Duke of Devonshire
we fancy draws a great portion of his fortune from
minerals and from his property in buildings and
building land ; the Duke of Northumberland is an
extensive owner of coals. The Marquis of West-
minster probably draws as much of his vast revenue
from the squares and streets of our metropolis as
all his other property put together, and Earl Fitz-
william would not be a very rich man, were it not
for the proximity of a portion of his estates to
Sheffield and Leeds, and the existence upon it of
great mineral deposits. The whole of the Peers,
mentioned by the Times, would, we have no doubt,
grow in income though the agriculture of the
country were to be ruined by the ministerial policy,
if only they could be assured that, concurrent with
its ruin, the commercial activity of the country, and
the growth and extent in population of the large
manufacturing towns and of the metropolis, would
go on.

It is a striking fact, which we are obliged to the
Times for affording us an opportunity of noticing,
that the bulk of the landowners in both Houses,
who have declared in favour of free trade, are more
or less independent of the prosperity of mere agri-
culture. Lord Francis Egerton, in our own locality,
derives no inconsiderable portion of his income
from the Bridgewater canal, and is, of course, inte-
rested in the extension of the trade between Man-
chester and Liverpool. He is an extensive coal-
owner besides. Lord Ducie has building-land in
the neighbourhood of Manchester, which is increased
a hundred-fold in value by every new street that is
erected upon it. The Duke of Norfolk is similarly
situated at Sheffield and at Glossop ; and, besides,
supplies the former town with a large portion of its
coal. The Duke of Bedford would shrink into small
dimensions without his property in the West End
of London, as would a host of noble and honour-
able metnbera whose support of Sir Robert Peel the
Times assumes to he an argument in favour of the
innocuous operation of his measures upon native
agriculture. We can, indeed, point to a few in-
stances in which noble Lords have, upon this ques-
tion, pursued a course diametrical!), opposed to
their apparent interests. Lord Stanley is heir to a
magnificent income, derived from lands in this
vicinity, some already occupied by buildings, &c.,
and others being rapidly absorbed by the growth of
the town, the extension of its docks, &c. The Earl
of Wilton is similarly situated in the neighbourhood
of Manchester, his property at Heaton Park having
quadrupled in value within the last few years, and
being now rapidly increasing. Both these noble
lords would be injured by any thing which would
check manufacturing and commercial prosperity.
Yet both we find ranged in opposition to the Go-
vernment measures. Upon the principle of the
Times, therefore, either Lords Stanley and Wilton
are less selfish than the rest of their order, or they do
not anticipate that commercial and manufacturing
prosperity will flow from free trade in corn. It is
immaterial which horn of the dilemma the Times,
snd those who think with him, choose here to adopt.

There is no subject, connected with the social
condition of our working population, to which we
are inclined to attach a greater importance, than the
promotion in them of habits of saving, by which
they may be enabled to lay by, in security, a pro-
vision for the exigencies of sickness and old age.
The more wealthy have the means of effecting this
by our numerous and well-managed insurance com-
panies. For those a little lower in their worldly
circumstances, the savings bank affords a safe and
an advantageous place of deposit for their surplus
earnings. But the savings bank fails to provide
allowances for temporary sickness, and it allows the
money deposited to be withdrawn in a moment of
improvidence, and the careful hoarding of years to
be squandered or lost. To provide the desidera-
tum, a class of institutions have sprung up, of late
years, ur 0-, r 1 name of Mutual Benefit Societies,
from whicil, cortain stated payments, their mem-
bers are promised pecuniary assistance in sickness,
the attendance of a medical man, and the expenses
of interment after death ; and it is to the composi-
tion and operation of these societies that we propose
is draw the attention of our readers.

It cannot have escaped the notice of those who
have paid any attention to the daily proceedings of
our police courts, that very glaring malversations
have constantly been occurring in the management
of these societies, and that, in many instances, they
have utterly failed in affording to the poor man, in
his emergency, the relief for which he has paid dur-
ing his years of health and strength. Some, which
have been the n-mst improvidently conducted, have
broken down under the first serious pressure upon
their resources. Others have lingered on, until,
from the insufficiency of their means to meet the
claims, for the liquidation of which they contracted,
they have expired of inanition, or have been dis-
solved, at a great loss, by their own members. Not
a few, we fear, would have been shown, on rigid ex-
amination of their affairs, to have been swindles
from their commencement. Viewed generally, these

societies have been failures; and the fact is not sur-
prising, when we look at their composition, and the
character of the men in whom their management has
been principally vested. It is not an ordinarily
educated man by whom a scheme of mutual assur-
ance, embracing numerous contingencies, can be
satisfactorily devised. Obviously, no general system
can be laid down to suit all localities. A scale of
payment, which may be abundant in an agricultural
district, where the duration of life is the maximum,
and the scale of sickness is a low one, cannot be
made to apply to the densely populated towns,
where the duration of life is a minimum one, and
sickness is more than usually prevalent, and de-
pressing in its influence upon the capability to
labour. Hence, without the additional evil of mis-
management, it is not to be wondered at that socie-
ties in large towns, and amongst populations pur-
suing unhealthy avocations, are continually experi-
encing their inability to fulfil their engagements to
their members, and see their funds melt away be-
fore their eyes, without the mea s of saving them-
selves from the dilemma into which they are thereby
brought. The fact is palpable, that the original
projectors, basing their scale of contributions upon
some general formula, have ignorantly contracted
for more than they have allowed themselves ate
means of performing. They have aimed at good ;
but the issue is serious and lamentable evil.
More than the mere loss to the members is that'
evil—more than the mere loss of the nine or ten
shillings a week during sickness, or the five or ten
pounds to the poor family in the event of death. A
feeling of distrust has been created, which tends to
repress all attempts to provide for a day of neces-
sity. The working man will no longer tax himself,
even sixpence a week, for a promised benefit of
which he does not feel secure of receiving the ulti-
mate benefit. He gets into the habit of saying to
himself—let the future provide for its own emer-
gency.

We have no wish to particularise any one society
as being liable to the objections we have detailed ;
all, we suspect, or with an exception or two, are de-
ficient in their construction and their regulation.
They have not the elements of permanence in their
constitution, and must gradually sink under the
weight of their obligations, and their deficient means
to bear them. A young society, composed of young
and healthy members, may fancy that they are in
flourishing circumstances—that their strong box or
their balance at the bank is in a condition of ple-
thoric prosperity. They have had few drains upon
them; and perhaps they begin to indulge a little in
decorations and banners, •r in that mysterious item
of the expenses of a joint stock company—" ex-
penses of management. But the fact remains an
enduring one, that the scale of payments is too low
for the ultimate object contemplated, and the disas-
trous finale will come, as soon as the claims upon
them arrive at maturity.
_ _

What we should recommend to the whole of these
benefit societies is, to in'titute forthwith a searching
exmination into their p esent financial position,
and an inquiry, by competent authority, whether
the principle upon which their affairs are regulated
will bear them through. No man can make two
and two into five ; and if an experienced actuary
skews them, as we think he will, that their rate of
contribution is insufficient to preserve them from
ultimate insolvency, it is the duty of the committees
of such societies—a duty which they owe to their
members, who place faith in their ability and ho-
nesty, and to their own characters—to look their
position boldly in the face, and to make an effort to
retrieve past errors.

To place this most vital matter, however, upon a
still better footing, we observe that it is proposed to
organise in Liverpool a nnv and comprehensive so-
ciety, upon safe and equitable principles, with such
a management as the industrious classes may look
up to with confidence in their savings being hus-
banded properly, and rendered available in the time
of emergency. This society is to form connexions
with other saf societies, existing or to be formed,
throughout the country, by which means persons
contributing here may, in case of removal, be able
to transfer their claims to, and continue their mem-
bership in, whatever district of the country they
may be driven to take up their residence—a deside-
ratum which has long existed, and from which seri-

ous inconveniences have been felt. We know of no
object to the carrying out of which the philanthro-
pist can, more advantageously to his fellow-men,
direct his energies ; and we trust that it will be fully
and spiritedly carried out.
As respects the general view of the subject, we
shall have next week some important statistical facts
to bring forward.