The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-03-16 00:00:00

fJnfortunately for the el

State do(

fere with the prerogative of

correc

when the paren
their children to trim

rod and driven
itches them from too

have spared ti

;five. power

,ong a period of incarc

C 1 1
shut them out from coil

ration in factories. It has
our, and from other
h and morals. On

lences destructive 0:

very education question it has already-inter-
fered. It insists that every child working in fac-
tories, and under a certain age, must devote a cer-
tain number of hours daily to tuition in a (awl,

the inspection of which is entrusted to the State.
What the gentleman means by the furnishing of
aid by the State for the advancement of education

being " an interference with the in

decrees

of liuman nature and Divine Providence's we are
at a loss to know, unless downright blasphemy is in-
tended. It is surely no " inscrutable decree of
Divine Providence" that the young should be left
absolutely uncared for—that the children of our
poor should be allowed to grow up like the beasts
of the field, or the weeds on the common, deprived
of all opportunity of learning to read either the
Word of God or any ordinary lessons of religion
or morality. An interference with the inscrutable
decrees of human nature ! Why human nature is
fallen ; and the human nature of
we have to do with, as regards this measure, is in
too many instances, unfit to be entrusted with the
decision of the question whether or not their off-
spring are to be brought up in intelligence or in
gross ignorance and darkness.
It is urged by these parties that the voluntary
principle can provide for the education of the
people, and that it is rapidly overtaking in its effi-
ciency the wants of our population. Perhaps an
extract from an admirable speech, delivered at
another meeting in Leeds, by a gentleman (J. G.
Marshall, Esq.) who, although a Liberal in politics,
and a friend of the voluntary principle in religion,
is not so unreasonably hostile to the Government
scheme as the zealots to whom we' have referred,
*ill afford a satisfactory reply to this argument.
After referring to the recognized statistics of the
number of our young in course of education, and
requiring further means to procure it, Mr. Marshall
says :

such parents as

We have 2,957,575 as the number requiring accom-
modation, and as the number educated is 2,176,947, the
actual present deficiency is 780,628. Now let us look to
our future prospects, If the same great exertions are con-
tinued for the next 13 years that we have had during the
last 13, and schools be provided for 600,000 (or 46,000 per
annum) more children, yet taking into account the an-
nual increase of schools from the growth of population,
which is about 40,000 annually, we shall find that at the
end of the 13 years, or 1859, we shall have made a very
inconsiderable progress in reducing the present deficiency.
Nearly two school generations will have passed, and more
than a million of children will have been thrown on the
world uneducated. More than half a million boys and
girls will, during those 13 years, have arrived uneducated
at the age of 23, will perhaps have become fathers and
mothers„ at all events will be men and women, with the
ignorance and recklessness of childhood, with the respon-
sibilities, the powers and temptations, of maturer age.
(Hear, hear.) Are we in this civilized and Christian
country prepared to take the responsibility of resting
satisfied with a prospect such as this ? We dare not and
cannot do so, if the case were not worse than the showing
of these figures. But our case is unfortunately worse than
this. We obtain but an imperfect and deceitful estimate
of the present wants of the country by comparing the
numbers outside the so called schools with the numbers
within their doors. We must take into account the qua-
lity as well as quantity of the schooling given ;—if the
food, the nourishment of a people, is to be weighed, we
must cast out of the balance the husks with which some
are fain to fill their bellies. (Hear, hear.) What is that
education which leaves one-third of those children whom
it is reckoned on providing for, unable to read their bible
so that a listener could understand them ; and which
leaves a large portion of the remaining two-thirds scarcely
able to understand one sentence that they read ? If our
roads, and streets, and lanes, are too often full of children
who are learning and practising all sorts of evil, it is for
want of school houses to receive them ; if so many of the
schools we have are full of children. who have learnt no
good it is for want of schoolmasters to teach them.

It is, indeed, a fearful responsibility which these
presuming schismatics urge upon the nation to
undertake, merely for the gratification of a dog-
matic opinion, combined with bitter hostility to
the Established Church. Happily, however, we
know that their efforts will be futile. The legis-
lature and the world must see now the amount of
sincerity which has prompted their past vaunts of
exclusive regard for the spread of education, when
at last it is so clearly established that the main
result which they hope for from the working of
their favourite voluntary system, is the spread of
dissenting influence ; and that, to effect this, they
are prepared to see two entire generations of school
children cast adrift into a world of temptation and
vice without the saving knowledge of the gospel,
or of ordinary cultivation of their faculties, to keep
them from the workhouse, the prison, or the gal-
lows. Happily we know at last the stuff of which
such liberal philosophers are made! -

THE cotton manufacturing districts in this county
begin to exhibit a lamentable amount of want of
employment and consequent destitution. Thus
much for the operation of free trade. We were to
have had, as the result of the corn-law repeal, a
cheap loaf. The seasons perhaps have prevented
that consummation. A large amount of our im-
ports of foreign grain has gone to fill up the void
created by the loss of the potatoe crop; and, from
the competition to which we have been exposed in
foreign markets, we have bought dearly.. Our
freights tod have been excessive.
It is not so easy, however, to reconcile the pre-
sent state of our foreign demand with the flattering
prognostication of free traders, as to the prospe-
rity which was to flow from the adoption of their
favourite specific. By the advanced prices created
by our demand in foreign countries, the agricul-
tural population of those countries were to be
enabled to buy more of our products. They are
buying less. The increased cost of food to the
manufacturer was to have raised the cost of the
article which he is bringing into competition with
our own. We are deriving, however, no sensible
benefit from this source. In nearly every foreign
market, we meet with stagnation and commercial
distrust; and, at the present moment, the very
men, who have been subscribing their hundreds to
subsidize the promoters of the league agitation,
find themselves, if not as the result of their suc-
cess, at least following such success, either sus-
pending their business altogether, or carrying it
on at a most ruinous sacrifice of their own capital
and the comfort of the operative classes.
In Manchester alone, an enquiry which we made
upon the spot last week gives us the following list
of concerns which are stopped altogether :—Fac-
tories stopped.—Guest, Wood, Wood,' Threlfall,
Rigg, Pooley, Stirling (employing 1090 hands),
Burton, Burton, Guest, Bullock and Gray, Beatson,
Pooley, Thompson, Fernley, Parnell, Brown, H.
Marsland, Morris, Higginson, Weston, Massey.

The bulk of the above are spinners of coarse or
middle numbers, and many of them carry on
power-loom weaving. The number of hands
thrown out of employment, including spinners,
piecers, weavers, and scavengers, is estimated at
about 11,000. Averaging their wages at los. a
week, we have here £5,500, weekly spent amongst
the shopkeepers, totally drawn out of circulation.
The following is a statement of the number
working short time, and the hours of Working, viz.:
—Birley's, 4 days per week; Oxford Twist Com-