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

goad the limit where mere imptudenee terminates, and reck-
less madness commences, and 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 result 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-
cities, and the consequent stoppage of those channels of
demand which were depended upon to absorb our immensely
increased manufacturing production, being amongst the
foremost.

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-
Wdent opinion that the intrusive manner in which the re-
verses attendant upon our present manufacturing system are
held up to 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-
pities 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 hid 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 ha

shed 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 tests of Scripture, and adorned into the bargain with
frontispieces—in lead, copper, or wood—of the various So-
cinians, Independents, Baptists, Ranters, Junipers, 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
leading member of their several congregations, can prepare
them with at a single rehearsal in his private counting-house,
or, better still, over a bottle of Port after dinner. We would
not, were we a yanchestrian, afford gratuitous meat, drink,
washing, 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
a more comprehensive 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, for 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 agricultnre, 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 society arising out of the factory system, -and the probable
dependence to be placed upon that system for providing for
the masses of population which it is centralizing 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 proportion of this increase consists in adult
labour, and what in the labour of children ?

3rdly.—To what extent the employment of females in ma
nufaeturing pursuits is superseding that of males ?

Mthly.—At what age the male and female adult factory
operatives become incapable of sustaining the amount of
labour required of them, and arc, to use a favourite expres-
sion of our American brethren, " used up ?"
sthly.—The proportion of cripples, idiots, and organically
diseased, to the sound and healthy, amongst the children of

the factory population ?
6thly.—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
the approaching " convention " might, with great advan-
tage, extend their enquiries; but we greatly fear that such
enquiries would be regarded as highly mal-apropos by the
gentlettien of the Anti Corn-Law League. The suffering
factory ehild—the worn-out adult factory slave—the count-
less thousands of perishing souls, which tenant the diseased
and 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 self-complacent overlooker—the trim shop-keeper—and
not these wretched victims of a devouring system, who
build chapels, pay pew rents, and have a knife and fork, and
a place at the well-spread 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 disset
has 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 ;—and in behalf of the
0 oadn
things
notgs
oo ff
the poor it is thatits teachers, smellingthe
the world from afar, are about taoog
nst
congregate in such numbers
and in such excellent appetite, amongst our good neighbours
of Manchester.—" Where the carcass is, there will the ravens
be gathered together."
The " convention " will enter into none of the subjects
which we have brought before their notice. They will "search
the scriptures " with no such christian object in view.
well disposed to rejoice at
w"thehichmhoa‘s'epi:
p.utseeAd
the
yet we are
prompted
elegant language of one of its body,
assembling. We have long been aware of the influence which
the preachers of dissent,— the ministers of that multiform
and man-headed body, whose sole bond of union is bitter
and uncompromising hostility to the religion of the church
of England—have exercised unseen upon the movements of
party throughout Great Britain ; and we are glad that over-
weening arrogance and self-seeking, combined, have impelled
them to a step which affords the journalist a justifiable
opportunity of exposing their hollowness, and of testing
their large professions towards society with their practice.
We are glad too, because the " move " in question affords a
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.

THU 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
them as disturbers c,f the peace of the church, and so deci-
decily objected•to their tenets that no favourer of those views
can expect any countenance from him. •

ftliscuL Or A PRISON ER.—Thomas Ratcliffe, a huge in-
dividual, was charged, at the police-court on 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 the 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 had with the lad. The officer
told him that he was a constable, and that he was taking the
boy for picking a pocket. The prisoner rushed at him,
struck him violently, and released the boy from his grasp.
The prisoner was assisted by another man whom the officer
could not find. 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, be is
to be imprisoned one month.