The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-08 00:00:00

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Itlyzrpoot tanbarb+

TUESDAY MORNING, NOV. 8, 1853.

WREN almost the whole population of the Con-
linent of Europe was in a ferment of agitation
from the revolutionary spirit which France had
lighted into a blaze, England took great credit for
its unshaken loyalty to the Throne, and vaunted its
own people as an example to neighbouring nations.
It-is to be feared, however, that it was but a varia-
lion Of constitutional temperament of which history
affords many striking instances. The cool phleg-
matic disposition of the Anglo-Saxon race is not so
easily-mused into action as the fiery rashness of
our continental neighbours.; but when roused, it
is not easily stilled nor brought into order by the
same rough surgery. SoCiety has been in a state
of apparent repose, but there has been an under-
current of discontent which fortuitous circum-
stances :have hitherto prevented from displaying
itself more openly. Labour has felt the oppression
of the 'money-power when the latter was in the
ascendant; but well-fed labour. cares little for more
thanthe present moment, and 60 long, therefore,
as demands were acceded to, .and no immediate
pressure •was felt, all was apparent peace. Now,
however, that labour begins to feel its importance
in the social economy, to experience 'the loss of the
.cheap bread so confidently promised, and 'to meet
iwith a refusal for its still increasing demands for
more wages, the case is altered, ,and the long-
smothered growl of discontent begins to make
itself heard. :No matter how absurd the request,
how fatal the .consequences to those who have no
resources on which to fall back, the attempt at
intimidation has been commenced in apparent
earnestness, and the thousands of operatives
who are now out on strike mingle with their
present alleged grievances the recollection of their
former sufferings, ,amd view the conduct of 'the
masters with feelings akin to hatred. Deaf to the
experience which might have taught them the
certain ruin to themselves, they persist in their
rash folly, and allow their passions to be inflamed
and their ignorance to be deluded by the cunning de-
signs of their self-interested leaders. The dispute is
ostensibly one for wages, bat the men are suffering
the baneful effects of indolence. They have con-
ceived the notion that they are more indispensable
tothe profits of capital thantheemploymentof capital
is to their subsistence, and as they find themselves
the heaviest losers in the conflict, they rush wildly
into the gratification of the base passion of re-
venge by such acts of violence as those of Wigan
were a few days since the scene. This is, however,
but the beginning of suffering; the first breach
which, unless speedily closed, will rapidly widen,
and then when misery and desolation stalk over
the land, which was once the scene of peaceful
industry, it will be found that though the masters
have been heavy losers the misguided operatives
will be the worst off, for they will have lost every-
thing. It is a struggle in which there can be no
victory, for both sides must be defeated, and it is
a question of pressing importance whether those
masters, who have been so presumptuous in their
advocacy of the advantages of arbitration for the
settlement of international disputes, had not far
better try the efficacy of their vaunted doctrines
for the maintenance of peace within their own
borders. There is, however, little time for delay ;
every day is augmenting the mischief, and unless
some arrangement be speedily entered into, men
infuriated from privations on the one side, and
unprotected property on the other, will revive once
more the frightful scenes which threatened the

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