The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-06 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

before the rich and poor can effectually meet to-
gether again in the House of God, who can say that
the sacrifice, and the good example, should not be-
gin with the better instructed party.
It has been proposed to buil 1 four churches upon
this entirely free principle within the town of Liver-
pool,—that the poor, in the first instance, may have
their place within the House of God, and that then
whoever will, of whatever other rank. may come
and take their place beside them. The cost of this
scheme is estimated at about £20.000. Of this sum
we understand something more than £lO,OOO have
been raised. Now that the subscription has reached
this amount, we should like to see a completer list
than we have yet chanced to meet with of the subscri-
bers, with their respective contributions. We shall be
somewhat curious, we confess, to see that document.
Having lately seen names down for large sums to
the Cobden testimonial, which we have not been
much accustomed to see upon giving lists before,
we feel curious to know how such persons' religious
sincerity rates with their political. We should like
to know what form thousands and hundreds on the
one list assume upon the other. We hope that the
committee will gratify this curiosity of our,•, as well
as supply to the town at large, the more laudable
gratification of knowing who are its real well-
wishers and benefactors, who come forward first,
and with a liberality best proportioned to their
means, to relieve their fellow-creatures under that
only want where no demand ever stimulates supply.

The condition of Ireland becomes, day by day,
more distressing ; and the remedy, to which the
legislature hastily resorted, appears but too likely to
produce still more extended evils and suffering in
time to come. The agriculturists and the peasantry
of that wretchedly mismanaged country are de-
prived, by the dispensation of Providence, of a large
portion of that crop upon which they have been
accustomed to depend for subsistence. Has this
event never occurred before ? Undoubtedly it has.
Ireland has had periodical visitations of famine for
the last hundred years. Again and again ti e charity
of Great Britain has had to he appealed to, as the
only available resource to snatch the population of
entire districts from the horrors of starvation, and
its concomitants—disease and death. Yet the tem-
porary emergency over, all classes of her population,
from the landlord to the poorest peasant, have gone
on as before; never thinking of preparation for a
return of the visitation—depending solely upon
their crop of potatoes, or, in case of failure of that
crop, upon the extorted generosity of the more
affluent of their own countrymen, and the sympathy
of the British people. And now we have the same
circumstances, and the same temporary remedy re-
sorted to, but upon a larger scale. We are called.
upon now to contribute to the support, not of a
district, but almost of an entire people, whom we
are thus teaching improvidence, and neglect of the
duty of striving to become self-dependant.
It is not a fact, we are assured by numerous au-
thorities upon the spot, that the whole, or any large
portion, of those who have taken part in the recent
disorderly outbreaks, which will be found recorded
in our columns—the robbery of bakers' and pro-
vision shops, and the threats of violence levelled
against landlords and magistrates—are in a state of
absolute want, or even very materially worse in
their condition than in ordinary years. We have
made a political stalking horse, however, of this
alleged famine. We have held out the offer of loans
for the removal of the suffering created by it ; and
whilst many of the farming classes, with the tribe
of surveyors and other rural harpies, are scrambling
for their share, the peasantry nearly to a man are
leaving their usual avocations, abandoning the cul-
tivation of their patches of land, and pressing their
claims to be set to work at the country's expense, or
to he fed. The srabble, who have resorted to acts
of violence, are composed, the bulk of 'hem, of those
who never work—confirmed mendicants, midnight
prowlers, and lawless depredators. But thousands
of those who are profiting by the intimidation thus
created, and procuring relief from the workhouses
for present subsistence, with prospect of employ-
ment at fair wages, considering the country, are
parties not more in need of such aid than small
farmers and cottiers in this country, who have no
such aid held out to them, and little inclination to
seek it. The lesson, therefore, which we are teach-
ing these classes of our lush fellow-countrymen is
ruinously demoralizing ; whilst the labour for which
we are paying them is of little public utility, and
would be more advantageous ultimately, even for
themselves, if bestowed upon the improvetnent•of
their own holdings.
It is clear that we cannot
nand- tO- mourn- ste tll--

lersist