The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-14 00:00:00

TUESDAY

MORNING, SEPTEMBER 14, 1841

It must be a great comfort to the journals of Libe-
ralism to catch any small fish in the shape of a griev-
ance just at the present moment, when the world seems
to frown upon them, and they have clearly lost all fa-
vour at court. A minnow of this kind has just come
to their net in the affair of the parties lined at the
Rochdale Sessions, in this county, for absenting them-
selves from public worship, and committed to prison
in default of paying the fine and costs. This, of
course, is a terrible instance of magisterial oppression—
a lamentable proof of the bigotry which still defornis
our statute law—and an admirable occasion for crying
out intolerance! tyranny ! and repeal ! repeal I Now this
is all very well for Liberal journals—for the. London
Chronicle, the Manchester Guardian, and other organs
of the pious Conference and its non-praying preach-
ers ; and they are, we admit, well matched in having
the Lord Brougham and Vaux to support them in the
House of Lords ; but the mere outcry of such parties
ought not to satisfy any reasonable man that there is a
necessarily, proportionate adequacy and sufficiency of
cause for their complaint.

There is a statute of Elizabeth by which those who
absent themselves from public worship on the Lord's-
day subject themselves to a forfeit of one shilling to
the poor. This statute is rarely resorted to, and in
these liberal times has become almost obsolete ; but it
is, nevertheless,
the law ; and, from its having been
question has been raised,
recently put in force, the
whether it is -iot capable of being made an instrument
of oppression, and should not be immediately re-
pealed. It would be a more practical mode•of pro-
ceeding to inquire whether it has been perverted to any
such use. Mr. George Ashworth, one of the presiding
magistrates at Rochdale Sessions, states that the act
was enforced in the case, or cases referred to, not se
much because the parties complained of, had absented
themselves from public worship on the days specified,

Arbeeauge thee .were 4tpwn to the maglatwates to lk
disorderly chargictero p.od he further " disclaims the
idea of punishittg men for the sole crime of neglecting
public worship." To this the Manchester oracle of the
preachers repliers, that the magistrates had no right to
punish parties nominally for one offence, whilst another
and a different one was the moving cause of their
award.

Now the Manchester Dissenting oracle is not borne
out by the facts in his application of this rule. We
admit that if the act of parliament had not been both
literally and substantially violated, the magistrates
would have done wrong to punish the parties with its
penalty for so he other wrong committed ; this nobody
can deny; but if the act had been clearly violated, in
the first instance, then we see no reason, Mr. Oracle,
why the magistrates might not take other crimes and
misdemeanours done into consideration, and, treating
them as an aggravation of the alleged and proved of-
fence, make them the moving cause of putting the
statute in force. Had there been a mere absenting of
the parties from public worship, as Mr. Ashworth inti-
mates, the magistrates would not have acted upon the
statute of Elizabeth at all ; but when they found this
delinquency aggravated by other misconduct, then they
considered themselves fortunate in having the statute
to resort to, and they availed themselves of it. So far
as the magistrates or parties adjudicated upon are con-
cerned, then, we say that it has yet to be shown that
there has been any injustice or oppression whatever
practised on the one side, or sustained on the other ;
or, in other wards, that no case of grievance whatever
through the operation of the statute, has been made
out. But it is the theoretical much more than the
practical part of the question which constitutes the
grievance in the eye of Liberals; they cannot endure
that there should be a law sanctioning divine worship
on the Sabbath ; and although there is an established

church, and Christianity is part and parcel of the law
of England, they are enraged that a penalty should at-
tach to any man for so venial an offence (in their esti-
mation) as disregarding all religious ordinances on that
day ; they demand, therefore, that this statute of Eli-
%abed' shall be repealed as a mere relict of bigotry and
barbarism. We have no difficulty in saying that our
feelings do not concur with those of such vastly liberal
parties on this head. Of course we have no idea of
any rigid or general enforcement of the statutes of
Elizabeth; but neither, on the other hand, do we see

any proved or other necessity for its repeal.
Looking at the question in its most abstract form,
the bigotry of the act just amounts to this, that in a
Christian country a man is expected to attend public
worship one day in the week; and the severity of it to
this, that the person who does not so attend, and can
give no good excuse for absence, may be fined one
shilling for the benefit of the poor. How bigoted,
how intolerant, how cruel is all this ! Our ancestors,
to be sure, were not so liberal as we are. Socialism

and blasphemy were not passed over as quite harmless
matters in their days; and in the time of our good
Queen Bess, they thought it a wise provision to make
people attend church on Sundays. Such policy is now
regarded as monstrous and intolerable, but whether
from the religious improvement and superior enlight-
enment in our day, or the reverse, is a question on
which we do not find it easy to pronounce. The secu-
kar power was then enjoined to assist the spiritual; but
now the spiritual,, is left entirely to its own resources.
The church bell m'akring, and the minister may read
and preach, but no maitz,,n4 now be called to account
for wholly neglecting, mit"'cinly the services of the es-
tablished church, but those of any licensed house of
worship of any sort. Does this laxity proceed from
zeal from true religion, or contempt for it ? To us it
appears very like the latter, and, therefore, unwise, im-
politic, and censurable in the extreme. What if every
man in the community were strictly sought out and
subjected, if without excuse, to the one shilling penalty
according to the statute, where would be the bigotry or
the hardship ? The fact is, we have not grown too
good for the system, but the system has grown too
good for us. The Sakne parties who wish to have this
.ancient law abolished, would be glad to sweep away
every enactment which efists for maintaining a due
observance of the Sabbath, and we shall be sorry to
see them gratified in any one particular. We love
movement ourselves in every case where the movement
is in.a right direction; but movements of this sort are
deterioration ; and, taking our stand upon the ancient
ways in all such instances, we oppose them.

The Anti-Corn-Law League is fully determined not
to go out with the Whigs. Inventiveness is probably
a large development on their pericranium, and until
they have brought out the greater number of their
.varions resources, and proved their efficacy, or more
likely their inefficacy, they cannot endure the idea of
withdrawing from public notice. Manchester affords
a fide stage for their exercises. There is a favouring
Mayor ready on all occasions to patronise them—a
favouring populace equally ready to take its cue from
the stage-managers—and there are places of rendezvous
of sufficient capacity and convenience in abundance;
nothing, in short, is wanting to make it a most power-
ful focus for concentrating all the rays of anti;corn-law
light, and giving them out again with extraordinary
force and brilliancy.

We alluded last week to the coercive system to be
put in force against the devoted cotton brokers and
merchants of Liverpool, who have unwittingly given
offence by voting for our present representatives, con-
trary to the law of the Leaguers which altereth not,
and at the same time we had to admire the bold plan
of refusing to pay all taxes till the Parliament submits.
Great men are these anti-corn-law gentry, no doubt ;
from a Premier to a broker—from a cabinet minister to
a cabinet maker—from the peer to the peasant—all
must yield to them. It will be in vain for Mr. Goul-
burn to concoct his budget unless lie takes one of the
league into his councils ; they are your only men for
an equitable adjustment, and they have a very stringent
:sanction to their laws, for they " wont pay" unless they
,he framed to their taste.

Yesterday was fixed for the nomination at Tamworth,
and a member of the electors having signified to Sir
Robert Peel that they would feel happy if he would
relieve himself of the trouble of soliciting their votes,
the Right Honourable Gentleman, it was understood,
-would avail himself of this considerate suggestion, and
leave the care of his re-election altogether in the hands
of his friends ; but was he aware, when he indulged in
in this easy dream that those sworn foes of his ad-
milnistration, the intractable Leaguers were in the field,
and to send down an emissary to dispute the borough
-with him ? One really does not know how sufficiently
to admire the intrepidity of this project. Mr. Ackland
-was the happy man who had undertaken the mission,
and doubtless, his employers expect great results from
it. We will shew Sir R. Peel, say they, the absolute
necessity of making his salaam to the manufacturing
interest ; we will make Tamworth to hot for him ; we
will beard the lion in his den. Tha Queen may choose
him for her first minister, but we will exclude him from
his seat in Parliament, and render her choice null and
void. For this purpose Mr. Acland received his
commission, and was yesterday to be put in nomination
at Tamworth by the League, in opposition to her
Majesty's first Minister ! It is true that an inflential
member of the Whig party of the borough has declared
that " the idea of opposing Sir Robert Peel was per-
fectly ridiculous, and that Mr. Acland was doing
im-
mense injury to the cause' by thus officiously and
impertinently obtruding himself upon the electors" ;
but the League is composed of men of stern mould,
and we reckon that they will not be so easily devested

from their purpose.
But they have another still greater affair to come off
this week—we allude to the grest meeting convened
upon a requsition to his Worship of Manchester for
Thursday next, for the pretended purpose of taking
into consideration the vast amount and extreme degree
of distress prevailing in that locality which threatens
to become so afflictive in the ensuing winter, but for
an object also in which the requisitionists take a much
more real concern, namely for that of " praying her
Majesty not to prorogue the Parliament until they have
entered upon a full consideration of the corn and pro-
vision laws, which, in the opinion of the requisitionists,
are the main causes of the existing sufferings of the
people." .

The question then is, what is this meeting for ? Is
it for charity or politics—for the relief of poverty, or
the promotion of millocrat policy ? But why do we
-put such a question ? The requisitionists answer it
themselves. Distress is the excuse; foreign-grown

corn, or free trails at the agriculturist's oxpense, is Me

undisguised object. Cant and hypocrisy 4re beautifully
interlaced with selfishness and avarice. The proceed-
ing is exactly that of the hypocrites recorded in Scrip-
ture : the trumpet is sounded, and great preparation is
made that all the world may observe how anxious the
actors are for the relief of the poor—against " the en-
suing winter." But somehow the almsgiving is done
so secretly, or so mystified in the process, that nobody
can discover to what extent the masks and mummers
contribute, or whether they do not continue to shirk
altogether out of the reckoning.

They are to pray that parliament may enter upon a
full consideration of the " corn and provision laws ;"
but is not this putting the cart before the horse ? If
they were primarily or at all concerned for the suffer-
ings of the poor, would they not pray simply that par-
liament might institute an inquiry into that subject,
and leave it to a committee of either house to say to
what cause these sufferings were to be attributed. But
no ; this Ts not the sort of inquiry which the factory
lords and cheap-bread clamourers by any means want :
it might re-act upon themselves, and prove extremely
inconvenient. 'What they seek is the abolition of the
agricultural protecting duties, and the " sufferings of
the poor" are but the sham, under cover of which they
hope to find a safe and plausible way to that object.
Some of the requisitionists for this meeting must very
well know what share they have had themselves in
causing that distress, which they now attribute to the
" corn and protecting duties," and to them the cry for
their abolition would seem to afford a convenient di-
version of the public mind ; but with as much reason
does the ostrich, when he buries his head in the sand,
suppose that his whole body is concealed, as may these
millowners"imagine that an enlightened public can be
deceived on this point. The object of Thursday's
meeting then is a double deception; it is a deception
both as to the cause of the suffering of the people and
the remedy for it; its beginning is hypocrisy—its end
would be the grossest delusion. But the Leaguers are
wise in their generation ; they know where the popular
indignation would fall, if the people were permitted to
think calmly for themselves ; and they endeavour pru-
dently to remove it far as possible from the direction in
which it is due. As to any deliberative consultation,

rational discussion, by or with such parties, it is al-

together out of the question. They are now seeking
to effect their designs by sheer agitation, by popular
commotion, or by brute force, without a particle of in-
telligent argument on their side, and they are to be
treated only as a set of vulgar demagogues whom the
ext►:aordinary lenity of British law permits to disturb
the state with impunity so long as they have the grace

to abstain from the grosser forms of outrage. But in
the same proportion that their violence increases, their
estimate in generrl opinion descends. Out of their
own immediate sphere of influence, they now excite no
other feeling but that of contempt ; and, with all their
rabies, we are clearly of opinion_ that millocracy agita-
tion is at this moment in its last agonies.

All the leading ministerial appointments being now
mpleted, we must remark, that the government of

its great country has passed into the hands of the
lonservatives with a facility and business-like pro-
riety quite characteristic of Conservatism itself. One
'ould think that this grand act of the political drama

I been for some time in rehearsal—with such

promptitude, such exactness, and such precision did
each performer fall into his place. Nothing was want-
ing--there was nothing out of place—all was gone
through with the regularity of a Court ceremony; the
spirit of the constitution seemed suddenly to revive on
the occasion, and to animate all the high contracting
parties. At the appointments generally the country
seems to be well pleased, and, in fact, could scarcely
be otherwise, for nearly all the new officials are well
known and tried men, and superior to all exception,
either in respect to talents, and station, and capacity
for public business, or to private and personal charac-
ter—a most important circumstance.

From one quarter only has there been the slightest
murmur of dissatisfaction, and even this has now
subsided : we allude to the complaint preferred by the
Dublin Evening Mail, with regard to the exclusion of

Irishmen from the higher offices ; (there is no Irishman,
saving the Duke of Wellington, in the cabinet;) and
the selection of Lord Eliot as the Irish Secretary.
With regard to the first head of grievance, it is not to
be expected that we should sympathise very deeply
with our Dublin contemporary, especially as we are of
those who think the appointments good in themselves
—good not for one part of the united kingdom, or of
the empire only, but for each and for all ; with regard
to the other, we consider his ground of objection a
fair and legitimate one, if not one which we can esteem
permanently valid or insuperable. The objection was,
that Lord Eliot had been, for a Conservative, a vast
deal too forward in promoting the objects of the
Romanists with regard to the Irish Municipal Bill,
and had, in fact, been the means of breaking up the
Conservative party in Parliament, when, but for him,
they would have stood together for the simple aboli-
tion of the Irish corporation without restoration.
When reminded of this fact by the Dublin Mail,
we were, we confess, a good deal amazed and
alarmed, and inclined to coincide with him as to the
unfitness of such a personage to conduct the affairs of

Ireland, in a constitutional and Conservative spirit;
but other considerations have since supervened, and
we feel that we hare in the cabinet of Sir Robert Peel
a sufficient guarantee for a faithful and Conservative
government of Ireland superior to any apprehension
of lapse or of error which might arise from prying too
curiously into the parliamentary votes of the new
Secretary on a particular, a difficult, and much agitated
question. We deprecate, however, the attempt which
has been made by some of our metropolitan broad-
sheets to run down the Dublin Mail for the freedom

iiich he has used on this subject; we admire his in

dependence, and we applaud him for it ; the part
which he has acted is highly honourable and creditable
to him, and we trust he will persevere in the same in-
dependent course throughout ; but we deprecate, and
we dare say in common with him, any division among
the Irish Conservatives, and especially one created

merely by the reminiscence and unnecessary revival of
by-gone transactions. By-goner of this kind, must,
indeed, be " by-Bones ;"' let nothing of the kind be
now imperiously remembered against Lord Eliot. The
burly Repealer, notwithstanding all his old threats of
fire and faggot, if a Conservative government should
ever again attempt to rule his country, has already
begun to sing small, and to the united Protestants of
Ireland, the dawn of a new era already begins to
appear.

It is impossible for us to impart to the Albion the
power of a reasonable belief : we can give him facts ;
we cannot give him faith. He doubts that Lord San-
don voluntarily declined office ; he canuot conceive
such a thing possible. "We are sceptical," he says ;
"it is only sour grapes." Alas ! every bunch of grapes
will soon appear sour to our contemporary, for all are
equally out of his reach. Tempora mutantur. ' The
grapes have got sour to the poor, ejected Whigs—et
nos mutamur cum illis—and their temper has got sour
along with them. But the Albion attempts to reason
the matter. He says our statement cannot be true for
certain causes assigned; and, as these may be thought
material, we shall suffer our contemporary to speak for
himself. He argues as follows :

There is self-contradiction stamped on the very face of this
denial. It comes in contact with the very chief and leading
reasons which the tories have always alleged in favour of
Lord Sandon. They have been perpetually dinning in our
ears, that Liverpool ought to be represented by an influential
public man, such as Huskisson or .Canning, who being in
office, could like them, uphold her interests against every
assailant; and they have invariably clenched this style of
argument by adding, "When our party comes into power,
we shall have such a man in as Lord Sandon. He will take
some high official situation, and then our interests will be
safe." And now, to and behold, their party is in power, but
Lord Sandon is not in office : And why? " For the inte-
rests of his constituents," the Standard informs us.
" Whatever is is right " with his lordship's obsequious
followers. He was to take office " for the interests of his
constituents," and he abstains from office " for the interests
of his constituents." We can only explain this blowing hot
and cold on the same subject, as we said before, upon the
principle that "the grapes are sour."
—• • -

The ratiocination in this -passage may be very clear to
our contemporary, but we confess it is not so to us. Lord
Sandon has not declined office, he contends, because—the
Tories expected otherwise of him !
Now how does that ap-
pear, Mr. Albion ? When the Tories first chose Lord
Sandon, he was neither in office, nor had he any
expecta-
tion of being so. Why, then, did the Tories elect him,
if they were influenced in their choice solely by the
prospect of what he would do for them in official. situa-
tion ? They elected him a second time, in opposition

too to a high and influential placeman. Does this show
anything like an interested and selfish calculation,
founded on the advantages to he gained by choosing
an official personage as their representative ? .We guess
not ; we reckon not. It is certainly very provoking to
an organ of the beaten party that the Tories will not
quarrel with their representatives, nor with each other,
and that they are determined to be pleased with their
choice, whether the member be in office or out of it.
This is most annoying to the poor extruded fellow, and
nothing can he think, or dream of, or cry, but " sour
grapes, sour grapes." Alf ! how acid must be the wa-
ter that runs between his teeth ; how intolerable to his
aching sight those clusters of good things which hang
so temptingly on the walls, but which he may never
hope to taste. Hit high, or hit low, there is no pleas-
ing him. Lord Sandon has, or he has not declined
office : we will give him his choice. He has not de-
clined it. Oh very well. Then, upon your own
sheaving, we have no reason to quarrel with him ; all
1n good time. But, say he has declined it, and declined
it for our sakes ;—then a fortiori, Mr. .4/bion Liberal
we will not be angry with him ; nay, he has a higher
claim than ever to our attachment. You see, then,
what a delightful thing it is to dwell in unity. We
only smile at those who attempt to divide us.

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN AND THE IN-
CREASE OF OUR COTTON MANUFACTURE.

We were prevented at the time, from the pressure of assize
intelligence, from replying to the Manchester Guardian's
last article upon this subject, in which he still affects to
doubt that the consumption of cotton in Great Britain has
sustained the large increase of 82 per cent. within the last
ten years ; and we recur to the subject now, not so much to
satisfy our contemporary (who, if it suited his purpose, could
readily find the means of satisfying himself) of the correct-
ness of Lord Sandon's statement, as to be afforded the
opportunity of offering a few remarks upon it, for which the
present moment appears to us particularly seasonable.
The question which the Guardian requires us to solve is
simply this,—the Liverpool brokers' circular for 1831 gives
the weekly consumption of cotton at 16,496 bags, (we take
the Guardian's own figures,) and the same document gives
the consumption in 1840 at 2-1,721. Lord Sandon's state-
ment gives the consumption in 1831 at 16,513 bags of 300 lbs.
each, and in 1840 at 30,089 similar bags. " What authority,"
asks our contemporary, " had Lord Sandon for assuming
any such difference in weight, between the bags of 1831 and
1840," as would make this large discrepancy between the
consumption in 1810, as shown by the brokers' circular,
computed in "the ordinary bags known in the trade," and
the consumption in bags reduced to a uniform weight? And,
having made this query, he endeavours to lead his readers to
the inference that the question is one of conflicting opinion,
merely, between Lord Sandon and ourselves, on the one
hand, and the Liverpool cotton brokers' circular, on the
other.

Now, with all due deference to the Guardian, neither Lord
Sandon, nor ourselves in making use of his statement, are
in any way at issue with the brokers' circular ; and more-
over we cannot find that we ever " sneered at the authority "
of that document as we are said to have done. The brokers
who yearly issue it are possibly quite correct in confining
themselves to a statement of the number of bags consumed ;
and yet the statesman who desires to know the actual quantity
of cotton consumed, may, without the charge of presumption,
carry his inquiries a little further than " the trade " thinks
it necessary to do. It is well known that no accurate com-
parative statement, as to either importation or consumption,
can be found without first reducing the bags of each year to
a uniform weight. Lord Sandon, therefore, reduced the
bags of each year to bags of 300 lbs., and the result, as we
have already placed it before the public, is that the weekly
consumption of cotton in Great Britain has increased 82 per
cent. within the ten years!

The data upon which the calculation was made can be no
great mystery. We presume any leading cotton broker in
Liverpool, of sufficient standing, could supply from his books
and invoices the necessary information, derived from an
undoubted source, Lord Sandon's statement was carefully
and accurately drawn up; and, however startling to our
contemporary may be the extent of increased consumption
which it discloses, we can assure him that it is strictly and
impartially correct.
The Guardian admits that " there may have been some

increase in the average weight of bags of cotton between
1831 and 1840, because the proportion of American cotton
consumed was larger in the latter than in the former year :"
and our contemporary might well have said that the propor-

ion was very much larger, when he considered that the
,inerican crop of 1839-40 was just double that of 1830-31

actual ordinary bags, and that the importation was pro-
The growth of other descriptions, too, which
are imported in lighter package's, was short in 1840, and has
been on the decline for some seasons. It is not, however,
only because of the increased proportion of American, that
the average bag of the present day is heavier than was a bag
ten years ago ; but 'because bags of all descriptions have
been made heavier every year, as any importer or spinner

,ortionate

an satisfy him ; and perhaps a little reflection will suffice to
inform our contemporary why they are so.
We are not at all certain whether our explanation will be

satisfactory to the Guardian; but we can assure him that
here, in Liverpool, where " parties ought to know something
of the cotton trade," . it will be deemed almost superfluous.
The fact we regard as quite established, that our consump-

tion of cotton has sustained this outrageously large increase
of 82 per cent. within the brief period of ten years; and we
are not singular in our opinion that, with a fact before our
eyes so strongly illustrating the recklessness of consequences
which has of late actuated the conduct of the manufacturing
body, we are quite justified in withholding from them our,
credence when they point to other circumstances—to the
existence of the corn-laws for instance—as the sole, or even
the main, cause of their present suffering. Our contempo-
rary and his fellow-townsmen may depend upon it that, rave
and threaten as they will—hold borough meetings to address
the Throne as they willno ministry will be held justified

by the British nation in pulling down one branch of our pro-
tective system, merely to appease the demands of a body
who have shown that if these demands were conceded to-
morrow, and increased prosperity should be the result of
their concession, the lapse of another year would be suffi-
cient to enable them to overrun that prosperity, and to
plunge themselves, and the country along with them, into a
crisis similar to that whose pressure they are now enduring.
We trust that the measures of a Conservative ministry, and
time and patience, will do much to relieve the manufacturing
body ; but it will be scarcely safe to adopt the nostrums of
the manufacturers themselves for this object—(or rather of
the pert and noisy clique who assume to speak in their name)
—until we have better assurance than we possess at present
of their perfect sanity, evinced in the prudent conducting of
their own affairs.