The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-13 00:00:00

OUR MANUFACTURING DISTRESS

There is no small degree of indiscretion in the effort, on
the part of the ministerial press, to parade indiscriminately
before the public every commercial failqre which ocenrst
the result of our present system of corn-laws, The gentle,
men of the League may imagine that the virtual mendacity
of the 'paragraphs which emanate from the manufacturing
districts will advance the objects which they have in view—
will induce the growth of an opinion throughout the country
that the imputed causes of manufacturing distress, and of
the individual disasters which attend its progress, are the
real ones ; but they must not be surprised if, ultimately, the
reflecting portion of the people not only refuse to adopt
without inquiry the conclusions which they seek to propa-
gate, but even push that inquiry with a strictness of scru-
tiny, and in a direction, for which they are at present scarcely
prepared.

It is now an established fact, that a great p,..-olion of the
embarrassment experienced by the foreign trader is attrib4s
table directly to the mismanagement and neglect of Our
commercial relations with other nations by the present Whig
government. There is not an export merchant throughout
the kingdom, of any experience and judgment, who will
attempt seriously to maintain the converse of this proposi-
tion. So far, then, the endeavour to impute this embarrass-
ment to the operation of the corn-laws alone, is wilfully and
flagitiously dishonest. It is almost admitted, too, that ano-
ther portion of this embarrassment is attributable solely to
causes connected with our monetary system—to the exten-
sion of manufacturing production, by means of facilities af-
forded by the fictitious capital of joint-stock banks, unat-
tended by a correspondin7, increase of the sources of demand.
In addition to these causes may be urge 4, ;he misdirection
of manufacturing power to the creation of fabrics unitriis?4
for the consumption of those markets which still remain
open to the operation of our merchants ; the cessation of the
home demand arising from the efflos of political agitation ;
the drain of manufacturing capital which has taken place
during the last six years, to the amount of 30 or 40 millions,
for the purposes of the various railway schemes ; and, in
short, to causes for which the commercial and manufacturing
community are themselves mainly responsible. Ought it,
then, we ask, be matter of complaint against the journalist,
if, when he finds that all these elements of commercial dis-
tress are systematically kept out of sight by the agitators of
the commercial body, whilst the existence of that distress
itself is paraded to subserve party ends, and to direct legis-
lation in a channel adverse to the real 'interests
versal people—when he sees not only general effects, bust
even individual cases, dragged forth to observation for the
purpose of exciting popular ferment—he should demand a
scrutin; into the circumstances by which those individual
cases have been attended, before allowing them to be thrust
into the general mass of evidence which is arrayed against
the principles for which he contends, as well as into the per-
tinence and justice of that mass of evidence itself?
We have no wish ourselves to approach this description of
scrutiny, and we have no wish either to see the press gene-
rally erect itself into a court of inquiry into the circumstances
attending individual cases of misfortune. We are quite 1.;17
tisfied, for our own part, to allow such individuals to esteem
themselves as martyrs to our commercial system, rather
than as the victims of their own indiscretion and exorbitant
ambition. But we must protest against the encouragement,
by a party press and for purely party objects, of the growth
of such an opinion on the part of the public, not only as it
tends to the injury of commercial morality, by creating an
undue sympathy with the victim of bankruptcy, by whatever
indiscretion produced, but also as impeding the cause of
truth. Of course our present remarks are pointed at no
particular instance of this growing practice of the anti-corn-
law press, although the occurrence of such an instance
ring the past week, in which the individual sufferer is him-
self a leading member of the League, might almost counte-
nance the supposition. On the contrary, oar l?usinersessisso!
present with the system alone, which, however, if p
will compel us ultimately, as it already challenges us, to
embark in individual inquiries.

We maintain that no fair conclusion is deducible as to the
causes of the distress at present existing in the manufactu-
ring districts ; from the fact of taking place amongst
failures
them, however pertinent may be the evidPO4 r4iph the*
afford of the internal insecurity Of the gigaptip syitpT
erected there—of the rottenness of the timbers of that vast
commercial edifice, to support which we are invited to with-
draw the very pillars which alone hold up the social fabric.
We know from incontrovertible data, that one branch of
manufacture alone—that of cotton, has nearly doubled its
producing power within the last ten years. By a statement
laid by Lord Sandon, in one of his late admirable addresses,
before the mercantile constituency of Liverpool, we find that
the weekly consumption of cotton in British factories, which
in 1831 was 16,513 bags, had reached in 1840 to 30,089 bags,
making an increase of actual manufacture within 10 years
of 82 per cent ; and amidst the vast accumulation of
building, machinery, and capital rApiro to effect this in 7
crease, is it to be wondered at that instances are nnp3pFßP.#l
in which individual members of the manufacturing body
have extended their operations so far beyond their means nf
sustaining even the most trilling check, as to be entirely
Prostrated in a crisis like the present? Imprudent d re-
an p.,
cipitate as has been the course of the entire tnanufacturing
body, is it to be wondered at, if tempted by the facilities
forded by a vicious systepa of banking,—sed,i,tccd by the
prospect of sudden fortune, to be acTiire.d at Ip3
.c9033,e1.17
surate risk--there may have beep giflOdnqs, -PFPritn
perhaps, of some Bank Directory,—allied with its IngaherP
in political principle (for political bias does find its way into
the board room of Joint Stock Banks, as not a few members
of the league could bear witness) or embarked with them in
some scheme of local aggrandizement,—who have gone be-

pond the lithit where more imprudence terminates, and reek-
less madness commences, arid exchanged the character of
an adventurous trader for that of the gambling speculator.
It is not to be wondered at if such should on strict scru-
tiny, be discovered to be the case; nay, we venture, to assert

our conviction, that in nine out of ten recent instances of
failures paraded before our notice by the journalists of the
league, the rasult may, in a very great measure, be traced to

the inordinate eagerness for gain of the unfortunate indi-
viduals, combined of course, with other concurrent causes
the derangement of foreign markets by ministerial incapa-
citipu, and the consequent stoppage of those channels of
demand which were depended upon to absorb our immensely
increased manufacturing production, being amongst the
forthost.

We must then, whilst cautioning the public against being
led to entertain the conclusions endeavoured to be forced
upon them by the ministerial journalists, express our con-
fident., opinion that the intrusive manner in which the re-
verses attendantupon our present manufacturing system are
held 42t0, notice, is far from being calculated to strengthen
the claims of that system to legislative encouragement_ Ex-
perience has shewn that it is one which possesses almost un-
limited powers of extending its producing power; and it is
not becauSe just now it has extended this power more ra-
'pidly than sources of consumption have developed them-
selves, that we are warranted in taking measures to force a
demand, which, in a few years, may be equally unable to
keep pace with its progressive steps. Experience has shewn
us too,—and of late the movements of its anti-corn-law em-
pirica have impressed the fact upon our attention—that it is
capable of being erected into a powerful engine to act upon
the social body ; and that it has little scruple as to its mode
of action : and how know we that after we have conceded to
its present exorbitant demands—after we have prostrated at
its feet the colonial and the agricultural greatness of the
empire, we shall not be called upon to make fresh sacrifices
and 'to venture upon even more hazardous experiments, until
at length we become the slaves of the unwieldy and unruly
Power whose growth we have fed from the vital blood of the
commonweal?

THE APPROACHING "MINISTERIAL
CONVENTION."

The " Barebones" Parliament which is about to fasten
itself, in somewhat of an eleemosynary' fashion, upon our
good neighbours of Manchester, has not, like another par-
liament which will shortly sit in another place, the advan-
tage of commencing its proceedings by a Queen's speech. In
the absence of such a document, however, its members have
been furnished, by the Secretary and Committee with which
it has originated, with a synopsis of the information which
they are to be prepared to lay before the public ; and, if this
is faithfully and impartially furnished, a vast number of the
debated points in the science of political economy will be
rendered from henceforth as plain as the noonday.
The points in question, upon which the politico-religious
preachers are to inform themselves for our edification, are
the effect of the price of provisions upon wages, pauperism,
education, morality, and the rest. All these matters the
members are requested to ascertain in their various localities,
—as if Dr. Bowring and the evidence of the Handloom
Weavers' CommisSion had not settled them long ago. The
disastrous operation of the new poor-law system throughout
the manufacturing districts is to be dexterously transferred
to the account of the corn-law. We are to have mills and
M'Cullock, Malthus and Martineau hashed and rehashed;
the political economists done into the Lancashire dialect—
Bolton editions and 'Wigan editions—with the advantage of
being delivered in the true conventicle twang, seasoned with
choice texts of Scripture, and adorned into the bargain with
frontispieces—in lead, copper, or wood—of the various So-
cinians, Independents, Baptists, Ranters, Jumpers, and
Screamers by whom they are collated ; and, if the " mono-
polists" have the hardihood to stand their ground against
all this array of " ministerial" erudition, they are to be
routed utterly by the beating of the " drum ecclesiastic"
which is to follow.
We would, however, humbly suggest to the reverend gen-
tlemen, who are to be actors in the melodrame, that they
should not bound their enquiries within the somewhat nar-
row limits laid down for them by the circular of the commit-
tee, although it may be convenient enough to be required to
know what any influential millowner, who happens to be a
member of their several congregations, can prepare
them with at a single rehearsal ig his private counting-house,
ur, better still, over a bottle of Port after dinner. We would
not, were we a Manchestrian, afford gratuitous meat, drink,
wasting, and lodging to one of these reverend divines, how-
ever moderate his appetite, in exchange for such meagre and
inconsequential information, the whole of which we can pro-
cure in a few recently published " blue books," at the price
of waste paper. The enquiry, we take it, which ought to
occupy .the attention of a convocation of saints, should be of
Pjore cornpfehelWiVP nature than merely the effect of the
corn-laws upon the profit and loss account of a manufacturer's
ledger ; but, with the known regard ever evinced by dissent
and its teachers, far the comforts and the happiness, tem-
poral as well as eternal, of the human race, and especially of
the poorer portion of it, might be fairly expected to bring
into question the comparative tendency of the pursuits of
manufacturing and ugricultute, as at present carried on, to
promote permanently these comforts and this happiness.
As a guide to these philanthropic divines we will enumerate
briefly a few points to which their attention may very advan-
tageously be directed, and upon which authentic information,
such as we know that it is within their power to furnish,
would be extremely valuable,—as tending to shew the state
of Ppipty ariiing opt pf t ie factory system, and the probable
dependence to bp placed upon that system for providing for
the masses of population which it is centralising in the manu-
facturing districts. For the sake of perspicuity we will place
them in separate classes.

Ist.—What proportionate increase of human labour has
been brought into requisition by the increased producing
power applied to manufacturing pursuits within the last ten

years?

2ndly.—What proportio►► of this increase consists in adult
labour, and what in the labour of children ?
3rdly.—To what extent the employment of females in ma-
nufacturing pursuits is superseding that of males ?

4thly.—At what age the male and female adult factory
operatives become incapable of sustaining the amount of
labour required of them, and are, to use a favourite expres-
,..
004 of qtir 4.merican brethren, " used up ?"

sthly.—The proportion of cripples, idiots, and organically
diseased, to the sound and healthy, amongst the children of
the factory population ?
fitbly.—The numberof children and adults annually maimed
and disabled by the machinery in factories ?
ithly.—The progress of socialism, infidelity, and chartism
among the factory population ?
Bthly.—The extent of the resort to stimulants to aid in
supporting the existing long hours of labour required ?
9thly.—The effect of crowded dwellings, and want of
cleanliness and ventilation upon the morals of the inhabitants
of the manufacturing districts?
These are but a few of the points to which the divines of
tP•e approaching " ponvpntion " might, with great advan-
f•aP, extend their enquiries ; but we greatly fear that such
enquiries would he retarded 'as highly mal-apropos by the
I:itlemen of the Anti Corn-Law League. The suffering

factory child—the worn-out adult factory slave—the count-

less thousands of perishing souls, which tenant the diseased
I.ad wasting frames of the'working classes in the manufactu-
ring districts, possess little of the sympathies of the well-fed
teachers of dissent, and do little for the support of the vo-
luntary system in religious matters. It is the factory lord—
the great millionaire—the propped-up of Joint Stock Banks—
the gelf7compl4cm4 ovcrlooker—the trim shop-keeper—and
Rpt these wretched victims of a devouring system, who
build chapels, pay pew rents, and have a knife and fork, and
Ftt place at the well-spre n 1 board for the minister. For these
and such as these it is that agriculture is to be prostrated.
For the wealthy and not for the poor man it is that dissent
Las ever agitated—that it has applauded and upheld an infa-
mous and grinding system of poor laws, and sets its face
against a legislative enactment to limit the hours of labour
in the factory i—and in behalf of the wealthy, and not of
the poor it is that its teachers, smelling the good things of
the world from afar, are about to congregate in such numbers
an 4 excellent appetire, amongst our good neighbours
Ftf'Nfincllester.—" Nyhe.rc the carcass is., there will the ravens
be gathered together.'
The " convention " will enter into none of the subjects
we have brought before their notice. They will "search
the scriptures " with no such christian object in view. And
Yet we are well disposed to rejoice at " the-move "to use the
elegant language of one of its body, which has prompted its
assembling. we have long been aware of the influence which
the preachers of dis.sent,—the ministers of that multiform
d man-headed body, whose sole bond of union is bitter
end uncompromising hostility to the religion of the church
pf England—gaveelerciaed unseen the movements of
• • • - • e are glad that ov
party. throunhout Great Britain dW, s . er-
.ornbined have impelled
weening arrogance and self-seeking,
them to a step affords the
which journalist a justifiable
Opportunity of exposing their hollowness, and of testing
ractice.
their large professions towards society with their practice.
WeWe move in question affords a
are glad too, because the
striking example of the evil working of the much vaunted
voluntary system, and_ at the same time betrays the fact of
its growing weakness amongst us.

THE OXFORD TRACTS.—At the visitation held by the
Bishop of Durham on the 2d instant, his lordship, in his
charge, delivered many severe and pointed remarks upon the
doctrines promulgated by the Oxford divines. He denounced
Yli.46V4illiSturbers of the peace' of the chgrebi and so decl-
dwbcpea'td tlidir tenets 'that'no .faVoUtch 61 thosvlews
can'ex.Pekany COUtiteniinCe frbin'

'RESCUE OF A PRISONER.—thoQs Ratcliffe, a huge in-
dividual, was charged, at the potice-cohrt or Tuesday, by po-
lice-officer, No. 57, with having assaulted him; and rescued
a'Prisoner from him. The officer stated, that he took a boy
in file act of picking the pocket Of a female. He'(the officer)
was 'in plain clothes. The 'prisoner adVanced to him, and
asked' him what business he hid with the lad. The officer
nIFI him that tie was a constable', end that he was 'taking the
oy c9r picii.!fig, 4 poCket. The 'prisoner rushed atihim,
trhck hiin Violently, and released the btiy fiord his gillisp.
Th6'ilrisonte wai'assistdcl by a'n'other*Min' whoin the officer
could not firid; The prisoner was a groom, and he and two
Other officers had apprehended him that morning. The pri-
soner was fined 50s. and costs. In default of payment, he is
to be imprisoned one month.