The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-02-19 00:00:00

present,

rier of Saturday last, we
gather nothing save representations of a gloomy
character. The home demand is falling off; and
the houses engaged in that trade are, in conse-
quence, very " chary of purchases" from the
manufacturer. The travellers and collectors of
these houses can tell, on their return from a journey
through the agricultural districts, as truthful a tale
as " our own commissioner," or the clerks of
boards of guardians, upon whose statements the
Government pins its faith. Order books cannot
lie ; and decreasing receipts of cash are most con-
vincing arguments. Of course there are excuses
sufficient adduced for this sad declension ; the
leading one, however, is the high price of the raw
material: cotton has done it all. The Nottingham
lace trade is dull because yarns—a pound weight
of which is sufficient for the manufacture of from
£2 to £5 worth of finished goods—have advanced
about as many pence. Wonderful to relate, it is
the high price of cotton which is keeping the
Greek buyers out of the market. Not a word
about Lord Palmerston's "little war" in that
quarter, and its possible consequences! The Ger-

man houses are inactive for the same reason. Not
a word about the fresh difficulties which have
arisen in the way of a settlement of the quarrel
between Denmark and the Duchies, which may
possibly arrest for a while our commerce in the
Baltic !

The most singularly anomalous feature in the
position of our manufacturers is their conduct, or,
we ought rather to say, the conduct of a portion
of them, with respect to the Ten Hours Bill. A
few days ago, the Manchester Guardian and the
Free Trade millowners were in extasies of delight
at the decision of the Court of Exchequer, by
which the humane provisions of the Legislature in
behalf of the poor factory workers were rendered
inoperative. The relay system was then legalised.
The mill might go on for fourteen or fifteen hours
per day, its poor operatives chained to worse than
African slavery,—to a life of toil and sleep, without
change or intermission, without a single spare hour
for self-improvement or the superintendence of
their own households : and that was an event to
glory over ! " Liberalism " had outwitted philan-
throphy ; the followers of Malthus and the political
economists had triumphed over those who regard
man, "the image of his Maker," as somewhat
better than an insensate machine ! Yet what was

the condition of a portion of our manufacturers at
this very period ? We give, on the subject, a quo-
tation from the able authority referred to above :

" In consequence of the very great disproportion at pre-
sent existing between the prices of some of the lower num-
bers of yarn and the raw material, we hear that notice has
been given to the hands in several of the mills in this town
to work short time, which some have already commenced;
and this is not confined to Manchester, but extends to
Heywood, Rochdale, Shaw, and other quarters. In some
of these places we hear it stated as likely that two or. three
off the mills will be stopped entirely for a season; this
819119 yFticularly to Shaw, where short time has been

ailOptedfor s

"The recourse to short time is not induced by any ac-
cumulation of stocks, but has been adopted to prevent
such accumulation. The coarser numbers of yarns have
been long depressed, and have latterly been still less in
demand ; and, under these circumstances, the only course
open is to reduce the production, as it would be madness
to accumulate stocks with cotton at present prices."

Under the operation of a Ten HOurs Bill, then,
these mills have been able to glut the market with
the lower description of yarns. How much sooner
would they have been able to do this with the
permission which the decision of the Court of
Exchequer gives them to work their hands from
fourteen to fifteen hours a day ? But mark the
guarded and apologetic tone of the second para-
graph of the extract ! " The recourse to short
time is not induced by any accumulation of stocks,".
—or, in other words, Don't think, good easy buyers,
that you are going to have our article any cheaper !
—" but has been adopted to prevent such accumu-
lation." Why, this was precisely the very ground
upon which the factory workers mainly supported
the Ten Hours Bill. It would operate, they urged,
to prevent accumulations of stocks, and place