The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-06-20 00:00:00

THE LABOURING CLASSES.

We find in the "Labourer's Friend" for the present
month, a full report of the speeches delivered at the fourth
annual meeting of the " Society for the Improvement of
the Labouring Classes," on the IRth ult., at which Prince
Albert presided. The following is a verbatim report of
the admirable address of the Rev. Dr. M`Neile on that
occasion, whilst seconding the resolution which had been
proposed by the Duke of Argyle:—
" To co-operate, under any circumstances, in any of
his labours of Christian benevolence,. with the noble lord
who brought this report before your Royal Highness, I
esteem a very distinguished privilege. (Cheers.) I readily,
therefore, obeyed the call of his lordship three years ago
in this interesting cause. But I must confess, his re-
quest that I would occupy so prominent a position on the
present auspicious occasion has made a demand on my
nervous- system at this moment such as I never before ex-
perienced, and under the influence of which I must throw
myself on your Royal Highness's gracious indulgence. Our
immediate object, after ' reporting progress' for the past
year, is so.to commend the objects and operations of this
society to• the public generally, as that the pecuniary re-
sources and consequent practical usefulness of the insti-
tution may be largely increased. One point connected
with its operations, alluded to by your illustrious presi-
dent, and again by the noble lord, is calculated in an
eminent degree to give us favour in the eyes of really
practical men because it is calculated to show that we
are not engaged in a chimerical enterprise. I mean, that
we are only setting examples, and from the report it ap-
pears that our examples are being followed. The direct
operations of this institution, compared with the work to
be accomplished, are, it must be confessed, on• a very
diminutive scale;. but the passage in the report to
which I have referred shows that the effects produced
are by no means to be confined to our own direct opera-
tions. (Hear.) It is this:—` Such has been the effect
produced by the George-street House upon the public
mind, that already four different cases in which inde-
pendent parties have begun to entertain or carry on
similar undertakings have come to the committee's know-
ledge.' This is hopeful. (Cheers.) English proprietors are
reasonably alive to, their own interests, and if it can be
shown to the proprietors of lodging-houses that it is- to
their interest to improve the accommodations of the
poor, we may be instrumental in extending to an indefi-
nite amount an amelioration of the condition of the
labouring classes, of a most gratifying character. Lam
sorry to perceive that the same difficulty, indeed, the
confessed impracticability, complained of on former occa-
sions in the matter of:loan funds still remains. Perhaps
one cause is, that the object contemplated is of too high
a character, involving sums of money too large for the
working man to deal with. No working man can give
adequate security for a loan of sufficient amount to make
any important improvement in his dwelling-place. (Hear,
hear.) I will take the liberty of briefly describing to this
meeting a very simple operation on behalf of the labour-
ing poor, which, though on a small scale of expenditure,
has been attended with the most gratifying results. No
apology is indeed required for it on account of its little-
ness, since no process on behalf of the labouring poor can
be naturally and permanently beneficial in its results
without being minute in its operations. (Hear, and
cheers.) Arrangements are made for receiving small
weekly instalments, or deposits of money from the work-
ing man. By the hand of his wife or child he sends to our
treasurer, at an appointed and convenient place, his weekly
payment, saved from his weekly wages. To be received on
our list, he must be sent to us by some recommending sub-
scriber, i. e., by some friend who pays for the poor man the
same amount that he pays for himself. He thus obtains in our
book a weekly credit for double the amount of his own
weekly contribution, and that without any charge upon
us. This goes on the year round, and in the month of
October, every gear, a supply of warm clothing, full of
comfort, and of what is of quite as much value, full of
kindness,—(loud cheers,)—is ready for every contributor.
There is no loss here—no risk of loss. Our recommend-
ing subscribers keep pace with our poor contributors, so
that our accounts must balance ; while we secure this vast
advantage, that the system operates as a perpetual en-
couragement to the working man to make self-denying,
and therein self-ennobling efforts systematically to save
a portion of his earnings. (Cheers.) Lean speak with,
some confidence of this operation—of its advantage, both
to the working man and to his family ;.because I have
had the happiness of superintending the progress and
result of such an operation for a number of years—for
twelve years, in an agricultural parish in Surrey, and also
for fourteen years in a populous district of the town of
Liverpool. (Cheers.) I have said that this operation is
full of kindness, and this leads me to consider what I
think the most important feature in this whole case—l
mean the manner and tone in which our efforts to benefit
the working poor are conducted. (Hear, hear.)' The re-
presentations commonly made of the state of the
working classes, and the statistics, commonly given in
illustration of their degraded and demoralized con-
dition, however painfully true in themselves, and how-
ever urgent in their appeals to us to do something,
are not encouraging. They are not, I think, the way
best calculated to interest the. public mind. They
present us with a dark picture, which, while it de-
mands interference, does at the same time create re-
pugnance to the effort. (Cheers.) But though true—
alps,.painfully true—such representations do not convey
all.the truth. No class of the community, if viewed only
from a distance, and as a whole, can be viewed aright.
The outline of it may, indeed,.be taken with general accu-
racy, and the length and breadth of it may be correctly
measured ; but this is all superficial. The materials of
which it is composed cannot he known at a distance. The
agreements or disagreements which exist with and from
one another, and with and from a third party—the autho-
rities of the country, these cannot be appreciated ; nor
can the willingness or unwillingness existing among them
to avail themselves of opportunities of self-improvement.
It is such a view—distant, partial, and prejudiced—that
the working classes are taught to take of the aristocracy.
The higher classes of society are seen from, a distance, and
en masse. The soft and lovely materials which go so
largely to the composition of that mass are not known.
The noble generosities quietly and unostentatiously prac-
tised by many are not appreciated while the notorious
vices of a few are wilfully presented b 3 designing agitators
as characteristic of the whole class. (Cheers.) This is
not fair. It is felt to be unfair. Equally unfair is the
parallel view taken of the working classes, when contem-
plated from a distance and as a whole. (Cheers.) The
vices of comparatively few, after all, are cruelly held forth
as characteristic of the whole, and the multitude are de-
cried and suspected as universally the enemies of good
order and good government. It is a libel. (Loud cheers.)
No, in that mass, also, soft and lovely materials are to be
found not a few ; there, also, generosities are practised,
truly noble in principle, though of necessity limited in
amount. (Continued cheers.) There, too, it is our hap-
piness, and will be the happiness of every man who is well
acquainted with them, to meet with friends and cham-
pions of good order, good government, and true religion.
(Cheers.) To be duly appreciated, our working men
must be known in detail, not merely as members of a
class of the community, but as men—as individuals; not
merely as units in a great calculation, but as living beings
and free agents, actuated by a variety of motives, and
exposed to a variety of counteracting influences, vastly
more personal and morepowerfully practical than any ele-
ments which can enter into a general calculation.
(Cheers.) To know the working man aright, you must
have access to him when he snatches a few moments from
his scanty leisUre, (hear, hear,) and beguiles Isis cares and
toils with the sweet converse of his beloved partner in life,
to whom he owes and pays an allegiance of heart as pure
(hear, hear) as loyalty itself. (Loud cheers.) To know
the working man aright, you must have access to him
when he sets upon his brawny arm, and presses to his
manly bosom one of those prattling pledges of domestic
love and peace, dear to him, ay, fondly dear, as a little
prince or princess. (Laughter and cheers.) To know
him aright, you must have access to him, when he cannot,
by honest industry, procure a sufficiency of food for his wife
and children, and when at their scanty meal he practises the
noblest of self-denial, doing violence to the cravings of
his own stimulated appetite, that he may spare the morsel
which ho perceives is required to stay the last cry of hun-
ger at his homely board ; or worse, sometimes, when that
hungry cry cannot be stayed, and he is obliged to turn
away from the distressing scene, hastily to tear himself
from all he loves best upon earth, lest his rising, madden-
ing emotion should add terror to the cup, already too full,
of his poor afflicted wife. (Loud cheers.) He is then a
fit subject for the instigations of the lawless agitator, and
to know him aright you must have access to him when
those instigations are calmly resisted ; and you must see
the mine which can be opened in him when, through
some kind intervention (often that of his pastor, or the
agent, male or female, deputed by his pastor,) he is again
so employed and remunerated as to be able fully to sup-
ply his family ; you should see him when with a full
heart he beholds his wife and children satisfied, and bread
to spare. Oh, yes, you should see and hear him, when,
with a voice broken by the struggling emotion and the
starting tear of gratitude, he utters his short, his eloquent,
his truly acceptable grace, "Wife, thank God we have enough
this week." (Loud and continued cheers). lam well per-
suaded that to do such men good—really to befriend them,
and add to their number in the country, the tone in which
our kindness is administered deserves our care as much as
the material of the kindness itself. Our working men
should be contemplated, not merely as subjects of law,
creatures possessing rights and addicted to crime, so that
they require to be protected from one another—the rights
of each guarded by the strong arm of power against the
violence of the rest. It is indeed unhappily true, we must
admit, that towards some it is necessary to present this

June 20, 184 g,

aspect of severity and coercion. It is too true that neither
allotments of land, nor improvements in lodging houses,
nor advantageous opportunities offered for hus)anding
their little resources, can, in their present state of mind,
do such persons any real or permanent service. But their
numbers are comparatively few. (Hear, hear.) Surely
this is so. Our criminal law, however majestic, and rightly
so, in its awful solemnities, and negatively useful, on a
national scale, by its deterring penalties, operates posi-
tively on but a fraction, and a small one, of our popula-
tion. (Hear, hear.) We capoplain of the number of
criminals, and the weight of 'the calendars at our various
gaol deliveries,—and it is indeed distressing that there
should be so many ;—but what, after all, are they, com-
pared with the mass of the population ? The proportions
were made strikingly manifest on a recent occasion in this
metropolis, when it was deemed advisable that an appeal
should be made to the inhabitants as the defenders of
order. The result was what might have been anticipated.
On the one side, not only all the violent and disorderly,
but all who in the excitement were disposed to aid and
and abet the disorderly : on the other side, the population;
and the effect—perfect tranquility without the necessity
for a single stroke. (Cheers:) If we would do our
people goad, we must think generously of them ; since
coercion, however indespensable for national defence, is
inoperative for individual reformation. (Hear, hear.)
Our working men must be contemplated as subjects
of religion, creatures possessing immortality, responsi-
bility, conscience, feeling; creatures capable of virtues,
but exposed to diverse, distresses, and wants, so that
they require to be assisted. It is with a smile that we
should approach them, not with a frown ;' it is with
promise, not a threat ; not with the rod or sword, but
with the hand of sympathy to lighten the burden of un-
avoidable misery with which they are afflicted. (Chexs.)
The heart of tha working-man must be won. (Cheers.)
The heart is the seat of love, and love is labour made
easy. (Renewed cheers.) This is the peculiar province
of religion, and in true religion we have all that is needful
for winning the heart of man. Love is not to be pro-
duced by command, nor by reason, nor by recompense
held out. These are all important in their places, and
they each have a place in true religion (hear) ;• but the
turning point of the heart, which is the regulator of the
whole man, is not in any of these. Love can be pro-
duced only by love. • We love Mar who first loved us,
and because HE first loved us. The great fact of the
Christian religion is the great manifestation of love to-
wards man; and its legitimate produce wherever it is
received, is love in man—pardoning love from heaven
awakening grateful love on earth. (Hear, hear and cheers.):
This is wat wins the heart ; this is what reclaims the
prodigal ; this has power to bring back the wanderer from
all the eccentricities of an irregular—it may be—of s
criminal orbit, and restore him to that system, the centre
of which is the Sun of Righteousness. (Cheers.) Only
establish love in the heart, and you have the man.
(Renewed cheers.) T met a young working-man going
into a provincial town, nearly four miles from his resk
dance, between eight and nine o'clock on a fine summer'
evening. In the afternoon of the same day I had seen.
him in the field of a neighbouring farmer, finishing a diy's•
work, quite sufficient to exhaust the energies of any man.
On conversing with, him, I found it was not authority ex-.
ercised, nor recompence promised, that had induced hitn-
to add a walk of eight miles to a long day's work/ No !I
it was something vastly more practical, giving a lightness.
to his step, and a brightness to his countenance, which
must ever be looked for in vain, till the heart is touched.
(Cheers.) Who can• estimate the practical power of a'
cultivated heart, and above all of a heart captivated with
the love of Iltm who died to save? This is the true.
government practically a sinecure. The magistrates and
police have no trouble really with Christian men. (Loud
cheers.) The law is not made for the righteous, but for"
the lawless and the disobedient. (Cheers.) It is the
happiness and the glory,-of the Gospel we delight in, that
it raises man above the necessity of law. (Cheers.) It is
this that makes the rich man kindly liberal and the poor'
man patiently contented. (Cheers.) It is this that makes
duty pleasure, and the man who performs it the true free-
man. It is that, withoutinterfering in the slightest de-
gree with those distinctions which it has pleased Almighty
God to establish in society, exalts the brother of lov,
degree in the ennobling consciousness that he has the
character of being sincere in his affections, and brings'
d)wn the brother of high degree, to the exercise
of a flank and friendly condescension. (Cheers.)
Here we have true brotherhood as well as true liberty.
This, I am bold to say, is the only genuine liberty that
fallen man can enjoy; this the only equality that can be
maintained.in a chequered scene like this fallen world;
this the true fraternity which, based and guaranteed in
the love of Him who is every man's brother, shall survive
the blight of an uncongenial clime, and flourish in unfad-
ing lustre in the paradise of his Father and our Father,
his God and our God. (Loud cheers.) Only let Chris-
tian men carry out consistently their own principles, not
only in the matter, but also in the manner of bearing the
infirmities of the weak, pointed out in the Bible; let them
bear in practical remembrance that the poor have hearts
as well as pockets, moral feelings as well as physical
wants ; let scriptural, in happy harmony with social and
industrial appliances, be multiplied, and we shall soon
see in many places, what it is our happiness already to see
in some; we shall see amongst the most apparently
zhope-
less of our population, transformations of charact!rreait
ing what one of our poets has sweetly sung as the resiu
of a Moravian mission :
And sucked in dizzy madness with the draught,
Has wept a silent flood, reversed his via) 8,
Is sober, meek, benevolent, and prays ;
The wretch who once sang wildly, danced, and laughed,
Feeds sparingly, communicates bis stole,
Abhors the craft be glaried in before,
And he who stole has learned to steal no more.'
(Cheers.) In seeking to benefit the poor, let the Bible,
the poor man's book, be honoured. In the honour done
to the Bible lies the true strength of this happy land.
(Hear, hear and cheers.) Looking around this hall, lam
reminded of the personal co-operation, in the great work
of circulating the Bible, given by a Royal Duke whose_
portrait smiles upon us from the wall. (The Duke of,
Kent.) I am reminded of the fart, that for a series of
years, during the infant struggles of our noble Bible .
ciety, his Royal Highness devoted his unwearied attennora: -
his time, and the weight of his influence, to the delibe•
tions of the committee. (Hear, hear.) And 100k10-be
again towards the chair, I am reminded, in the Diyvn
dealings with the family of that Royal Duke, that lb '-
~
written in the Bible, Them that honour me, I will lin—
nour.' (Loud and continued cheering.) This is the
golden sceptre of our illustrious Sovereign, our beloved
Queen. This is the true stability of the throne—(hear''
hear) ;—the true security of the liberty of the subject:
(Cheers.) Tbis, like the constitution of England, based
upon it, is at once the assertor of freedom, and the guar:
dian of order—(renewed cheers) ;—freedom never abused
into license, and order never degenerating into servility-
(Continued cheers.) Let the Bible be honoured as in the
case referred to, ,and the protection of God will surround'
not children only., but children's children, and give
peace upon our Israel.' " (Prolonged cheering.)