The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-04-22 00:00:00

t.,ORRESPONDENTS

A. number of notices of recent puqications are postponed
until next week.
We do not precisely comprehend the drift of the latter portion
of the note of " P. S. and its publication this week
would be unseasonable and injudicious.

Ebe Ltbtrpoo! `k-lanbarb.

TUESDAY

31ORNING, APRIL 22, 1851.
E are afraid that Mr. Henry Mayhew, talented
and well intentioned as we know him to be, has
taken up the wrong end of the cause, of which he
puts 'imself forward as the advocate. The jour-
neyman tailors—what is there in their grievances
more than in those of many other classes of our
working community ? They complain of what is
called " the sweating sys em." Middlemen, they
lay, step between themselves and their employers;
and reap, in idleness, a portion of their hard earn-
ings. This is no unusual case. The practice per-
vades almost every other trade. Even our railway
works are let and sub-let almost ad infinitum. By
all partiee, from the government to the pettiest
public body, the contract system is adopted. To
" buy in the cheapest market" is the avowed aim of
the present generation; and, to arrive at that
cheapest market, we are continually inviting not
only tne purveyors of our clothing, but every
other class of tradesmen to underbid each other.
Cheapness is the gad which, as a nation, we have
bowed down to worship. Cheap bread—let us
have that by all means! would be the exclamation
of ninety-nine out of a hundred of Mr. Mayhew's
clients. Then, pray, why not cheap tailoring ? We
demand cheap labour from the agricultural classes ;
why not ask for cheap labour from every other
class ? It is inevitable; and, what is more, it is
just. The artisan who is at present enjoying his
cheap loaf, with wages thus far not reduced from

the high standard, may assure himself with as great
certainty that his day is approaching as that he is
living and breathing God's air.
But to the middleman question again—the
" sweating system"—how has it grown up, and
bow would Mr. Mayhew prevent it? It is the
growth of our love of cheapness ; of the tyranny
of capital—we use the term in no inflammatory
sense—over labour, which that love of cheapness
has aggravated. Is there one of the tailors them-
selves who exclaim so loadly against the tyranny
of capital, who does not, on system, resort to the'
capitalist's shop, when he buys his trimmings, or
any other necessary of his trade or his life ? Not ,
one. Yet he knows, when he buys his cheap boots
or shoes, and a dozen articles besides, that he is
encouraging the middleman practice. We cannot
buy a pound of butter, bacon, tea or coffee, but we
find a middleman, and sometimes a score, taking a
slice of profit. To suppose that it is otherwise
would be to suppose that there were no retailers,
no butchers, no bacon factors, and curers. So far
then, Mr. Mayhew's complaint, on behalf of the
tailors, is unphilosophical and absurd. We grant
that there is something peculiar in the tailors' case.
The middleman there appears to do nothing for his
money. We say appears ; because perhaps, if the
truth was fully elicited, it would be found that, for
that money, he places himself under certain respon-
sibilities. He has a character and substance to
pledge for the correct return of work given out
to him to be executed. True, he may be exacting,
in the opinion of the operative tailor, too large a
per centage for his responsibility. But large as
that per centage may be, and low the prices at which
he demands to have work done, we fancy that he
succeeds because there is always a supply of men or

women ready

He adopts

11 the world besides adopts;
its employer, and the operatives themselves not
excepted. The former buys up bankrupts' stocks;
and sells, perhaps a cheap suit of clothes, to the
very man who has lost most largely by the bank-
rupt. The middleman's bankrupt's stock is formed
out of the improvidence and the necessity of the
operative. He buys his labour in the cheapest
market. We have nothing to do with the other
complaint of the tailors that they are not employed
in well ventilated shops, and are compelled to carry

the nrinciule wh

their work to their own wretched cellars or garrets.
It is strictly a matter of price between the two
systems. If the work could be done cheaper in '
large shops, we should have barracks erected for
the purpose. But so long as there are men to be
found who will work for a less price at home, the
system will go on. Home, it seems, is the market
n which labour can be purchased cheapest.
The real enigma which Mr. Mayhew has yet to
s. why there are more men anxious to make
in men able to
of men anxious
to wear them. There is plenty of cloth in the
country, and plenty of looms and weavers to pro-
duce more. What is it that stops the beneficial
interchange of all this dormant industry and capi-
tal ? This is the real question which has to he
grappled with. In the mean time all the ravings
against " tyrasny," either of employers or middle-
men—

waistcoats, and trowsers, tl

a is an a

..acing system"—
hievous into the bar-
Mavbew, and the tailors, may depend

1 the talk about " the sv
rather

A idle wind,
Mr.

_ . ..
upon it that, in the present state of things, they
eannot be made exceptions to the general rule.
The voices of the latter, as a body, have contri-
buted to swell the cry for cheapness ; for a reduc-
tion in the price of labour, and every product of
which they have left
is clearly involved in

labour as measured in mo
dear and limitedinquant

he realization or
how

li-ould greatly

ike to kno%
hey would

ruinous policy,

Id, close its slop shops,
,ndition, without first

and better their own
changing human nature

IMPORTATIONS Of f(

ign grain and flour con-
t a rate, which ought to
'ree trader. In the month,
average price of wheat,
per quarter, our importa-

tinue to pour in upon u:
gladden the heart of ever
ended April

3th, with tt

ittle, if at al

tions were—
Wheat
Other grain
Wheat meal

£850,000
280,000

or flour

r 4~0,:2

360,000

.. £1,490,000
Or, in round ..on and a half ster-
;ing ! 11.1 w have these immense quantities been
paid for? In drafts upon London or Liverpool,
which on their maturity must be satisfied, in the
first instance, in bullion. Surely, we have here
something like a key to that serious drain of the pre-
' which has left the Bank of England
in its coffers, and which is

Total value

irnbers, a mil

4ous me

n the minds of commer-

so much a

ow, how lot

can this process of depletion go

ed by some coun-

; or, before many months are
ui•aelc•ee in the midat of the

s. Either we must