The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-15 00:00:00

the meeting nearly
-My fellow-Christians and fellow-townsmen,
members and friends of the Liverpool Protestant Operative
Association,—As president of your society, I might, under
ordinary circumstances, content myself with briefly re-
minding you of the general objects for which we arc asso-
ciated, and then proceeds to call upon those friends who
have kindly undertaken .to address this great.meeting ; but
we are now assembled under very extraordinary circum-
stances, which I hope will plead my apology if I proceed to
occupy some considerable portion of your time this evening.
(Hear, hear.) We are associated in defence of our Protes-
tant institutions—(cries of " Bear, hear ")—in church and
state. (Cheers.) We are convinced that the integrity of
those institutions is indispensable, under God, in the way of
means, for the preservation of civil and religious liberty in
this world, and for the enjoyment in ourselves, and the effec-
tive propagation among others, of well-grounded, because
Scriptural, hopes of salvation in the world to come. (Hear.
It is a noble enterprise, and calls, in these our days, for the
strenuous co-operation of every faithful son of the Protestant
reformation. (Cheers.) Those institutions have been assailed
and endangered, first by a spurious liberalism, which appear-
ed for a season to pervade and paralize all members and all
parties in the state, and latterly they have been assailed and
endangered especially by the executive government, whose
sworn duty it was to defend those institutions, but who have
1 b-

Jeen so situated, that whatever measure of good will may
have remained among them, they have not been in a condi-
tion to have the power to persevere in the performance of
that duty. (Hear, hear.) They have been preserved in
place by popish influence, and they have been exercising
their power under popish dictation. (Tremendous cheers.)
I mean their executive power and patronage ; for, thanks to
a large, watchful, and well-ordered opposition, they have
latterly had little or no legislative power. (Hear, hear.)
Upon these topics you have been receiving information from
time to time, and you have been lending yonr aid to swell
that cry of England, that old Protestant voice, which for a
time has been only whispering through the community, but
which rejoices now to give out a triumphant sound, prclaim-
ing in the city and in the country, in the borough and in the
county, that such anti-English and pro-popish proceedings
are no longer to be endured. (Enthusiastic cheers.) Much
forbearance has been exercised. (Hear, hear.) The con.
servative leaders of England have wished to carry on every
practical improvement in the institutions of their country ;
they have desired to make those institutions suit the temper
of the times we live in, and effective for the permanent pros-
perity of England ; they have honestly desired to see a true
practical carrying out of the great measure of parliamentary
reform—(cheers)—therefore they have refrained from all
factious interference with the proceedings of her majesty's
ministers—nay, not only so, but they have lent them a help-
ing, and in tinny instances a saving hand. (Loud applause.)
They have carried this constitutional feeling so far, that
many of their own party had become dissatisfied, and began
to whisper that this Fabian policy was persevered in too long ;
some went, indeed, so far as to call the forbearance of our
conservative leaders by the name of " compromise," (Hear,
hear.) Enduring still in the exercise of patience under such
imputations these men were not only sheaving magnanimity
as men, and impartiality as Englishmen, but also they were
gathering and condensing strength for the day of action.
(Immense cheering.)
The day of action is come. (Mach applause.) Strong in
the consciousness of enduring patriotism, the right honour-
able baronet, our paliamentary Fabius Maximus, is roused
to retributive operations ; and while he is taking care by well
organized arrangements to dislodge the sworn Hannibals, the
enemies of his country, from the strong entrenchments in
which they have fortified themselves around the British ca-
pital ; we are supplied with a Scipio also ; eager, earnest, ve-
hement, generous, noble, to carry the warfare into the heart
of the enemy's camp—(tremendous cheering) ; and there
with the polished sword of insulted liberty, with the Ithuriel
spear of detecting truth, and, for those whose heads and bides
are too hard to be touched by such weapons, there, with the
scalping knife of indignant sarcasm, to win and to inscribe a
name as enduring as Africanus ou the scroll of the annals
of his country. Need 1 give utterance to the name of Stan-
le3 ? (Tremendous and long continued cheering.)
Yes, the day of action is come. The enemies of England's
constitution are endeavouring to divide, in order that they
may enslave their fellow-countrymen. (Hear, hear.) What
means, I ask, their attempting one measure after another,
day after day, in the face of the division last Monday even-
ing? (Hear, hear.) What means their presuming to go on
with parliamentary business, after the pledge given by her
Majesty's secretary for the colonies that they would lose no
time in dissolving parliament, and calling into being a new
House of Commons? (Hear, hear.)
Connected with their proceedings, I wish to make allusion
to a matter of local occurrence, and of somewhat personal
interest. Many of you know ie position which it was my
privilege to occupy-in the great anti-slavery movement which
took place in this country, and which found a noble expres.
sion in the meetings of this town. I joined cordially against
that detestable traffic the slave trade, and the equally de-
testable practice of colonial slavery. Hear, hear.) I formed
one of what was called " The Anti-Slavery Committee" of
this town ; I received notices of the meetings of that commit-
tee and invitations to attend them. True it is, I did not at-
tend often because the hour for meeting was so early in the
morning as rendered it exceedingly inconvenient to attend
those committees. Still I did not withdraw, circulars invi-
ting me to the committee continued to be sent; and still I
imagined there was an " Anti-Slavery Committee" in this
town. Well, the humanity of some people is kindled and
extinguished by party interest. I do not love such hu-
manity. (Hear, hear.) Upon a late occasion when party
interests threatened a measure that would have immeasura-
bly increased slavery, that would have checked the glorious
experiment England is making in her West Indian colonies
—when this measure came out what did our Anti-Slavery
Committee do ? (Hear, hear.) Ido not know ; I could
not enumerate the gentlemen who belong to that committee;
I do not mean to fasten any personal accusation upon any of
them ; but this Ido know, that a meeting of a part of that
committee was held, and resolutions passed, which I scruple
not to call a disgrace to men professing to be an Anti-Sla-
very Committee. Those resolutions, with but a verbal pro-
test against slavery, are partisan resolutions to strengthen
the hands of- her Majesty ministers. (Hear, and applause.)
I got no invitation to attend that committee; no circular was
left at my house to tell me that the committee was called to-
gether, and the first I knew of it was by a printed paper of
the resolutions alleged to have been passed unanimously " at
a meeting of the committee of the Liverpool Anti-Slavery
Society." This is the first opnortunity I have bad since
the occurrence to bear my indignant testimony against such
disgraceful proceedings. (Cheers.)
You will excuse me, I hope, if I proceed to make a few
observations upon the grand apple of discord which has been
thrown into the country, and upon the confusion arising from
the official production of which her Majesty's ministers
seem to be reposing their forlorn hopes—(hear, hear)—l
mean the proposed repeal of the core laws. (Hear, hear,
and cries of " Go on.")
It is very easy to cry " cheap bread !" It is very easy to
raise a clamour for a change in the present state of things,
and to excite the longing desires of the poor man for a cheap
loaf. (Hear, hear.) That is very easy, I say ;it wants no
argument : there you are, and a cheap loaf is a treasure to
you. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) They who raise this cry
suppose you are such fools as to imagine that in that change
which is so proposed, nothing else would be changed except
the price of bread. (Hear.) Now the people of England
are not so ignorant as some experimental philosophers seem
to imagine; they now know that if the price of bread be
greatly changed, then, that by and bye, not perhaps immedi-
ately, and not equally in every place—for there are different
circumstances in different places, which in a country like
this must be taken into the calculation—circumstances which
interfere with the direct, immediate, and palpable sequence
of effects from their producing causes, and which baffle the
observations of inexperienced observers—l say the people
now know, that by and bye, most assuredly if the price of
bread goes down, the price of labour will go down too.
(Hear, hear, and much cheering.) Upon this subject, as it
refers to the intelligent workmen in our factories, I want to
take the liberty of reading to you a dialogue between a mas-
ter manufacturer and two of his workmen, John Guest and
Benjamin Powell. The scene was a little court-yard in front
of a large mill, and the time about ten days ago. (Hear,
hear.)
Enter a master manufacturer wills two of his workmen,
John Guest and Benjamin Powell.
Master.—Now, my lads, I wish you joy. We shall be
able at last to compete with the continental manufacturer.
Our patriotic government have announced their intention to
do away with the odious bread tax, and allow us to have a
cheaper loaf. But we must agitate for it, or they will not be
able to carry it, they are opposed by such a powerful body of
tory monopolists, headed all through the country by those
hypocritical parsons. Come therefore, my lads, let us all
attend the great demonstration, and show the government
that the country is up, and that they may calculate upon
efficient support in this struggle for cheap bread.
John Guest.—Please let us have a word with you, master.
We want a little more enlightening upon this subject. You
say you will be able at last to hold your own with the conti-
nental manufacturers. Pray what is the reason you have
not been able to do so all along? And why cant you do so
now ?

Master.—Why, John, for the simplest reason in the world.
They have untaxed corn and cheap bread, and we have this
confounded bread tax, and dear bread.
John Guest.—Well, sir, that may be a very simple sober
reason to your better understanding, but that is precisely the
point on which we wish to have further instruction. I have
been talking to Benjamin Powel here about it, and he is a
tolerable scholar in a small way, but we cannot make out
how it is that this question bears upon us. Will you tell us,
master, how is it that the cheap bread on the continent, and
the dear bread here in England affects your powers of com-
petition with the foreign manufacturer ?
Master.—lt works in this way, John. The continental
manufacturer can undersell us in all the markets of the world,
because he gets his work done so much cheaper than we can
get our's.

ithe
yam,
ddao cnthzi
an
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slay
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ea
iTur
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workmen
their get
wt hoerhi
kramlfe workna s
don't
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much wages
ahwye aahpgaeel
srf
Benjamin Powell.--Ha! John, did I not tell you where the
ab se pivotciva
eu sogefe
tt l,
fromand thes obe shop,
able in
to orderao pethatte withhe may
tn
those
as much for bread as we do. Don't you see that master wants
from bre
aus,bread
aunsetaopgleat cheap
boor
who get cheap labour on the continent? and don't you see,
therefore, that in order to accomplish master's grand object
of competition, if we could buy to-morrow as much bread for
sixpence as we can now buy for a shilling, we would have to
do as much work for sixpence as we now do for a shilling?
John Guest.—l do see it, and I see now that whatever ad-
vantage such a change might bring to our master, it would
do us no good; it would leave us just where it found us—
buying bread for half price, and working all day for half price!
As Tim MiNamara says, " it would be as broad as it is nar-
row," or rather, it would be as narrow as it is broad.
Benjamin Powell.—No, John, you are wrong there. It
would be narrower. It would not leave us where it found us.
It would put us back ; for, look ye, only about halt our wages
goes in bread. We have a many other things to buy for the
family, as clothes and soap, some butter, and a piece of ba-
con. Now, John, you consider this, and let master tell us
what he thinks of it. We are getting now 18s. a week.
About half of it, as I said, goes for bread : that leaves us 9s.
a week for other things. Now, if the shilling loaf goes down
will
to sixpence, then master be able to compete with the
continental master, by getting his work done for half the pre-
ll give a week's work for 95., in_
sent price; that is, we sha
stead of 18s. Still about half the wages will go fr,r bread
•
but then 4s. 6d. will buy as much bread as Os. will buy now.
Therefore, as far as the one article of bread goes, we shall be
just where we started ; but for all other '
and, there-
articles that we want,
•
we shall have only 4s. 6d. a week,
instead of 9s.
fore, we would be worse off with the cheap bread than we are
with the dear bread; so that, John, I don't see why we
should agitate ,he matter at all, unless it be to prevent the

change