The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-07-28 00:00:00

:0 the matter, t

were abou

Tect wculd increase

And 28 against.

Majority

—I have the honour to be, with much respect,
AN OLD SUBSCRIBER TO TUE LIVERPOOL

STANDARD

London, July 22, 184 G

The agricultural party—the country gentlemen,
are just now in precisely the position which we
have again and again pointed out, as the one they
were doomed to occupy. They fought the battle of
protection, and fought it stoutly; yet they lost.
And wherefore ? Because so many of them had
denuded themselves of their great natural source
of strength—the sympathies of the working classes
and of their own labourers, whose interests, in com-
mon with their own, were bound up in the pros-
perity of a well-rewarded agriculture. " Protection
for native industry," came with an ill grace from
men, too many of whom were aiding the adminis-
trators of an oppressive poor-law to screw down
the wages of their labourers to starvation-pitch—
paring down workhouse dietaries, and shielding
from public indignation delinquent workhouse offi-
cials. That cry came badly from men who were
throwing their influence into the scale of a heartless
liberalism, assisting it to bind down the manufac-
turing labourers, their wives and their infants, to
their long and unnatural hours of factory toil. In
vain they appealed to these classes for support.
They were answered by a reference to the experi-
ence of protection and high prices, and by their
dependents pointing to their wretched dwellings
and their fluttering rags ; and, as they turned from
their natural protectors to fly to th 3 embrace of the
new delusion, exclaiming bitterly " we cannot he

worse off." They had a good cause to work for,
and able and chivalrous leaders presented themselves
to marshal them ; but to no avail. The manly
and straightforward eloquence of a Bentinck, the
genius and the fiery spirit of a Stanley, were borne
Jown, clogged, dragged to defeat. by the stolid
',Tight of the purveyors of bone-crushing, and a
arvation dietary for the labourer who refused to
his sinews for the paltry pittance of

toil and his
sus shillings a week

Will this party, with all the acknowledged talent
of its leaders;be any more successful in the strug-
gle in which theyare.about to engage, in behalf of
the prosperity—nay, the existence—of our sugar-
producing colonies? . 'We fear not. The following

jibing remarks of th 2 London Times, we fear, too
justly point out the difficulties of their position.
After stating what, however, is only our contem-
porary's own assumption, that the battle of protec-
tion to colonial sugar can only be fought on the

ground of humanity towards the negro race, the
Times goes on to state that in fighting it upon this

ground—

In and out of the house they will have to devote them-
selves to the interests of humanity. This is no very great
denial to sentimental persons, who feel very much, and to
that smooth-tongued race which can pretend still more.
But to country gentlemen it will be very hard work in-
deed. They are accustomed, naturally enough, to regard
society as a great establishment, which contributes much
to the dignity and comfort of all its members, but of which
they have the good fortune to occupy the Olympian sum-
mit, while the rest of the race are distributed over the
rugged sides and sloughy base. In fact, they take things
as they are, and have every personal reason for doing so.
They hear daily stories about the toil and penury of the
labourer, and the squalor of the artizan ; nay, more, there
are no people so thoroughly and minutely acquainted with
the condition of the poor, that is of the people, as the
country gentlemen ; they know it to 6d. a week. But it
is not their way to look on it as a strange, anomalous, r
mediable, pitiable thing

They reg

with a sort of

prudent stoicism, merely as so much necessary matter ;
and no more pity the man who has to support his family
op Si. a week, than they pity a fish because he is confined
to the water. They take things for granted, and, as a ge-
neral rule, it is better they should do so. But only fancy
ho hate all humbug, especially
a good deal more than they hate
in or out of this world, suldenly em-

philanthropical humbtiv.

blematical dise-ourage'ment of slaver