The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-04 00:00:00

They;a—re husbanding their strength until. Enland is
treat; until her armies are occupied o* 4. foreign
We have received from a correspondent, " Oxouiensis,"
a note pointing our attention, and that of the authori-
shore, her navy in a distant sea, when the y
an immoral tendency in a shop-window in Manchester-
ell of onset
ties, to the exposure of indecent prints and books of
would be given, the beacon fires be lighted from hill

TO CORRESPONDENTS

.. - ---- to hill, and myriads of drilled and organized rebels
In a recent article, referring to some proceedings of the rush at once to the work of destruction and massa-
visitors of the workhouse, Messrs. Urquhart and Mo-
lyneux, we committed an error which, as we understand ere, for which the spirit of popery in Ireland longs
it has pained the latter gentleman, we hasten to correct with the wild longing of a wolf for blood ! and we
and explain. We alluded to these two gentlemen, erro-
are to wait until this crisis has arrived ! We trust
neously with respect to the latter, as dissenters.
THE EXHIBITION AT THE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTION.— not. We trust that such fatal blindness—such utter
"J. D.," who, in a note, expresses his anxious desire madness—will not be persisted in by the government
for the prosperity of the institution, says:— * *
" I regret extremely to find that the directors, from, of Sir Robert Peel !
perhaps, a well meaning, but certainly mistaken motive, We ask of that government to cast their glance
have fixed the price of admission at one shilling for all
upon the position of the protestants of Ireland at the
classes (excepting children), and for all times of the day ;
and have, in my opinion, prematurely announced that present moment. Let them look within the solitary
no alteration will take place, so that decent artisans and
working men and their families, who can ill spare that hovel or the low farm-house, at nightfall, where some
sum, and who can, moreover, spare only a short time poor protestant family lies down, in ignorance wise-
in an evening to hurry through the rooms, are virtually
ther their waking will be amidst confla,,uration and out-
excluded. I have myself many men and youths in my
employment (and no doubt there are many others in rage. Let them look, even, at the better protected,
large and small establishments throughout the town,
who entertain the same laudable desire), who are because more populated towns of Ireland, where
anxious to see the exhibition, for the purpose of in- protestants are compelled to band thamselves for se-
formation as well as amusement, but who are thus
curity against the malignant hostility by which they
precluded from visiting it. They think the admission
during the day reasonable, and even moderate, from are surrounded on every side- Let them ask, what
what they have heard of the great extent and excellence must be f
of the collection, for parties who move in the higher the feelings o these men, of their wives, of
circles, and have abundance of leisure on their bands; their daughters, when, from some neighbouring hill
but they complain that, as their time would not permit or plain, they hear the howl of five hundred thousand
them to view the whole, even cursorily, in one visit, in
order to obtain a satisfactory inspection, they would voices proclaiming,—swearing,—eternal hostility to
-nd again ; so that, as individuals of their race and their faith, and remember with what
charge would be much greater for
rich, for the same gratification. bloody zeal that hostility has been wreaked upon
the intention of the founders of the their fathers in times of old ! Does the government
.. ..,..,m, he projectors of, or the contributors , ,
.ungland—a conservative government too—owe
to, the exhibition that such a system of partiality, and of
of exclusion of the industrial classes should be adopted. no protection to these men—no gratitude for past
I may add, that I feel convinced that the working
deeds and old and well-tried loyalty ? Are these
classes of Liverpool, if admitted at a lower price after
four or five o'clock in the afternoon (as at the Mechanics' men to be left trembling, beneath their present feel-
institution), would conduct themselves in quite as • of •
in insecurity, because a traitor bullies us or a
orderly a manner, and refrain from wanton damage to
the articles on view, as even the younger branches of coward entreats forbearance ? Such should not be;
wealthy families,—some of whom, lam informed, have such must not be, unless we are prepared to submit
already shown a disposition to do mischief. On con-
sidering the subject in the light in which I have put it, tamely to the utmost and the worst which rebellion,
the committee will, I trust, see that they overlooked armed or unarmed, can accomplish!
the circumstanc , under which the industrial, and even
many of the middle orders, are placed, and be induced If it is, indeed, the resolve of the present cabinet
to make the requisite alteration, which I do not think 1 to maintain the integrity of the empire, the integrity
would amount to any breach of faith ;—the announce-
ment they have put forth having been made at a time of our national church, and the lives and liberties of
when the facts stated were accidently overlooked." our protestant brethren in Ireland, the effort must
[We quite concur in the opinion of our considerate
correspondent, and think his suggestion worthy of the be made firmly, and at once ! We cannot bring our-
serious consideration of the committee, with a view to selves to contemplate, as probable, those fearful re-
some alteration, every day, or on the afternoons and
evenings of certain days of the week, that may conduce suits of such an effort, with which we are threatened.
to the greater popularity of the exhibition, and, con- 1 We believe on the contrary, that a resolved position
sequently, to the advancement of the funds of the
institution ; the prosperity of which, we believe, the on the part of government—a prompt step in the
mass of our townsmen, rich and poor, have warmly at right direction—is all that is wanted to disarm the
heart.—ED. STAND.]
---- ---= ==== - -
Vit. Eiberpool &tanDatt.

ave to go again

bumble me

them than for t

NUrely it was ne,
of

TUESDAY 3101INING, JULY 4, 1843

Another of those rebel gatherings—those displays
of physical force—by which the agitator of Ireland
trusts to win, from the fears of England, the conces-
sions which he demands—would be held yesterday
in Dublin. Of the proceedings, of course, we can

know nothing as ye

The thousands of ignorant

beings there assembled, after listening for five or six

hours to the revolutionary appeals of their great apos
tle—after having been wrought up to desperation I)]
vividly drawn pictures of their wrongs, and stimu
lated to a fiercer hatred of the English nation—" tf
SAXON"—by th

ue priesthood, whose avocation seems
to be to point out to their duped flocks the path of
outrage and bloodshed, rather than the path of peace,
way, possibly, have returned to their homes without
precipitating the crises which every man feels is
approaching. No sword may, as yet, have been
drawn; no life may have fallen a sacrifice. An
overruling providence may have prevented a col-
lision between these maddened and inflamed
crowds, and their victims; but it is morally and
physically impossible that, in the absence of po-
sitive information, we can, at any time, now, con-

violent and lying denunciations of

hat deina

:ratulate ourselves upon the a.

ce, that Ireland

insolent ruffian who is now betraying, and beggaring
the suffering and excitable population of his country.
Declare the agitation for the repeal of the union,
TREASON ! Declare those vast gatherings,--by
which loyal and peaceable men are awed into subjec-
tion to the dictation of midnight plunderers and as-
sassins—to constitute armed rebellion Make the
collection of rent for a treasonable purpose illegal !
Put down the seditious assemblages, of repeal war-
dens and other similar fuctionarics, held weekly at
the corn-exchange. Above all, let the government
rally to its side the tried friends of protestantism and
loyalty to the British throne, in Ireland; and they
may laugh at O'Connell's threats, at the blustering
of his priesthood, or at the ribald menaces and insults
of the enemies of the integrity of the empire, whether
they are to be found in the mass-houses of Ireland,
or amongst the bankrupt ruffians, who squirt tobacco
juice and bluster bohadilism in the taverns of
New York or Baltimore !

We have always maintained that the agitation, by
which the effort of government to procure scrip-
tural education for the children of our factory popu-
lation has been defeated, was not so much based

not, from nor

to south

wide sec

assacre and out

A. day may bring it ; th

ccurrence of an hour may tear from befor

upon sectarian grounds—wah not so much a reli-
gious movement—as it was a movement of " libe-
ralism" amongst the manufacturing body. The
measure of Sir James Graham enfranchised the
suffering factory child. It took him from his long
and dreary toil, at the loom or the spinning frame ;
and sought to raise him from the moral darkness
attendant upon his enforced position. And it was
opposed, with all the organised and concentrated
virulence which dissent can bring into antagpnism
to any, measure against which its services are

retained, not s,

offensive to voluntaryism in religion and education,
as because it crippled the power of the manufac-
turing capitalist to overtask his human machinery—
because it added a farthing or a penny to the cost
of a piece of his calico or a pound of his yarn !
Confirmation of this fact was scarcely necessary,
in this part of the empire. However great may
have been the amount of delusion, spread from dis-
senting pulpits and platforms, elsewhere, here, at

animus of the agitation wa

however, that confirmation

us, in tne report of a meeting of dissenting
ministers and others, held in Manchester on
'Wednesday last, with the avowed object of defeat-
ing, not the educational clauses of the Factory Bill,
but the emasculated Bill itself—stript as it is of all
that can by any possibility excite religious, or
quasi-religious, animosity. It is not now the edu•
cational clauses which are attacked, as injurious to
dissenting interests, or oppressive to dissenting
consciences, but the regulation of the hours of
labour of infant children in factories, and the prin-
ciple laid down, that such children shall be edu•

cated !

We shall give a few specimens of the sayings of
these reverends at the meeting in question ; and
first we notice the following passage from the
speech of the reverend Mr. Massie. This worthy
firebrand, after giving a garbled and grossly unfair,
nay false, edition of the 33d clause of the amended
bill, which defines the powers given to inspectors to
enable them to ascertain that education is given to
the children employed in factories, proceeded to
argue that such clause

sions to be subdued ; and interference by the legis-
lature to regulate their condition, at all, is "a con-
spiracy against the liberty of manufacturers!" Liber-
ty—what to do ? We need not suggest the answer.
But another speaker, the Rev. W. M`Kerrow, was
still more explicit with respect to the motives of hos-
tility to factory legislation. This gentleman, at least,
has in him more of the spirit of a leaguer than of a
christian minister. We give here a portion of his
delirious trash :

" Would any man of sense expect any sound, liberal, or
beneficial mode of education from those now at the head
of public affairs? What did they care for the physical,
intellectual, moral, and religious improvement of the peo-
ple, the men who kept up the sugar monopoly and the
corn monopoly,—(applause)—who extracted from the poor
hard-working classes ten times the amount by their prin-
ciples of unjust legislation that would enable them to edu-
cate their own children?—(Applause.) Yet these men,
forsooth, were weeping and lamenting over the ignorance
and degradation of the millions ! Out upon such cant and
hypocrisy !—(Applause.) They had obstructed the chan-
nels of commerce, paralyzed trade, raised the price of
bread, and yet they professed to be exceedingly desirous
to ameliorate the condition of the poor. They had degra..
ded and pauperised the people, and yet they were so gene-
rous as to offer to provide for them a particular kind of
religious instruction ; they were so kind as to furnish them
with workhouses and prisons, and with schools where the
attention of the children might be directed to any other
world than the the present.—(Hear.)"

Surely, there can be no doubt, after this, with re-
spect to the influences which drive such men as this
M`Kerrow and his coadjutors, to agitation in oppo-
sition of government schemes of education ! Humi-
liating, indeed, is the position, of professing mini-
sters of the gospel, who can thus lend themselves, if
not sell themselves, to the advocacy of any cause,
however unrighteous and dishonest, by which they
can win mob applause or the favour of selfish pa-
trons ! This is the working of "the voluntary prin-
ciple 1"

It has been objected to us, by some of our
readers and friends, that, in the course which we
have pursued, with respect to the movement of the
various mercantile associations to procure the repeal
of those clauses of the dock act which restrict the
power of the trustees to erect warehouses on the
dock quays, we have been acting injuriously to the
interests of the commerce of the port. But what
has, in reality, been our position ? Not, certainly,
one of hostility to any well-considered plan for pro-
moting the security of that commerce. Not, cer-
tainly, one intended to retard the adoption of any
well-considered steps of precaution or regulation, by
which the safety from fire, and the cheap and secure
stowage, of produce warehoused in our port can be
effected. We have placed ourselves in antagonism
only against the headlong resort to measures, which
we conscientiously believe to be prejudicial to the ob-
jects which the mercantile associations have in view.
We have said, and we repeat it now, that in the ex-
tension of the powers of the dock trustees, and the
headlong prosecution of what is at present only an
experiment, of very doubtful success, is not the
remedy, most proper to be applied to the evil which,
as deeply as the mercantile bodies, we deplore.
The argument of the parties, who object to the
course which we have taken, resolves itself into this.
The establishment of warehouses on the dock
quays, to be managed by the dock trustees, will
operate as a spur upon warehouse owners and
warehouse keepers to adopt, in self-defence, the
very best system of warehouse regulation. It is
taken for granted, here, that with warehouse
keepers rest all the faults of the present system
but is this so ? Again, it is taken for granted

that dock warehouse management will be perfect;
but that remains to be proved. The evils of the
present system of stowage and regulation of the
warehouses of the town are not to be attributed
exclusively to warehouse owners. The porterage
in those warehouses is not, in the majority of cases,
conducted by them ; but by the brokers and the
owners of the produce warehoused. The irregulari-
ties which are constantly orciirring aro attributable,
in a great measure, to the fact that warehouse
keepers are actually not allowed to perform the
duties which are obviously a part of their business!
That such is the case is not our supposition only,
but that of other parties as well, is evidenced by the
fact that, where warehouse keepers conduct their
own porterage, the insurance offices are willing to
insure at very materially reduced rates!

Again, we are told, or it is to be taken for granted,
that the warehouses erecting upon our dock quays
are, from their position and construction, to possess
an immunity from calamity by fire, which does not
belong to similar erections in other localities. We
have said, on the contrary, that the principle, upon
which those warehouses are being erected, is so
radically bad, that the produce warehoused in them
will not be insured except at extravagantly high
rates of premium; and we are at length borne out
in our assertions, by the admission of the chairman
of those mercantile associations, whose views we
have been warned to regard as those of absolute
wisdom. Upon this point we take leave to quote
the following remarks of Mr. Wm. Brown, delivered
at a meeting of the commercial associations on
Monday the 26th ult. :

Mr. Brown stated that "he that morning met a gentle-
man belonging to one of the offices, who told him that six
of the principal offices in London had declined altogether
to insure goods in the St. Katherine's warehouses, except
to the extent of £lOOO each, and this on condition that
the goods were placed in their vaults. As to two other
offices, he could not speak officially ; but, if the merchants
here wished for private information, he had no doubt that
they might obtain it by writing up to London. He (the
Chairman) thought it was very desirable to consider the
way in which warehouses were about to be erected in this
town, inasmuch as, after the receipt of the information
which he had communicated, this subject became very
important. By the Act of Parliament, the Dock Com-
mittee were empowered to erect warehouses round the
Albert Dock, and, unfortunately, on the verge of the quay,
where, it was said, they would not be insured. He fear-
ed that, as considerable expense had already been incurred
in sinking the foundations, it might now be too late for
the committee to make any alteration in the site, so as to
throw the warehouses further back. This, however, was
the case with only about two-thirds, and it was for the
meeting to consider whether it was necessary for them to
address any communication on the subject to the Dock
Committee."

" Brought to bear all the arbitrary principles of
Prussian despotism, and all the violent intrusion of in-
justice, caprice, and arbitrary government, not upon our
factories merely, but upon the schools where our children
were to be e.luestact , anti witch ware to bia tauglit an alavest 1
to crouch before the lash, or to bear the yoke in their These are precisely the views which we have ad-
youth to despotism. He held that this clause in the vanced with respect to the warehouses in question,
present bill was as objectionable as any thing that ap-
peared in the previous editions of it. But Sir James and which have been met with denial the most
Graham had placed in this bill, after telling you that he positive from the advocates of the dominant body in
had withdrawn the educational clauses, 12 clauses upon
the education of factory children ; the first of which re. the dock management ; and we need not say how
quires that no child shall be employed in a factory without flattering to us is their confirmation by such an
a certificate of attending a school. He then proceeded to
direct, that, if a school did not please an inspector, the
authority as Mr. Brown.
inspector reporting upon it, that schoolmaster should not Our impression has been that, in their anxiety to
be able to give a certificate; and if any child should be advance the favourite project of dock warehouses,
employed in a school not having such a certificate, he or
his parents should be subject to penalty, the child for not the commercial associations have rushed to the
attending, or his parents for not sending him,—the penalty adoption of most hasty and ill-considered resolu-
being ss. and from that to a pound; while the master of
the mill should be subject to a penalty of from £5 to £lO tions. For example, at a recent meeting it was
for such employment of the child. There was something resolved to press the erection of a pile of ware-
like despotism in requiring school attendance from chil-
dren, while the bill intended to provide schools; but here houses, on the land at the west side of the Prince's
they don't provide schools, and yet require attendance, Dock, at present occupied by the transit sheds.
and the certificate may be withdrawn at the caprice of the
inspector, and the child working at a milli after :that is Let us see how decisively this plan is now scouted
subject to a penalty, and the master also for employing as impracticable by their chairman. At the meeting
him. If this bill were not a conspiracy against the
liberty of manufacturers, a combination of oppressors above referred to, Mr. Brown remarked that
against the feelings, wishes, and enterprise of the people, "He went that morning to look at the sheds at the
he (Mr. Massie)
nor what a combination knew
of neitheroppressors could be. what a conspiracy was, Prince's Dock, and he must confess that lie was astonished
"
at the position in which they were placed. The sheds had
Now what is the meaning of this furious raving, a continuous roof from one end to the other, not fire-
proof ; and they were at such a short distance from the
if it be not hostility to education, as a condition of the dock, and were of such a height, that if one of them took
employment of children in factories ? It is not hos- fire, it woufildebelofutit)eof
wane
yrehbillatn
powerher
tt ;31es afivaenitehsemi chip.
tility to this bill, for any particular defect or fault in apsincendo;mbutre.ven then the rigging of the vessels wouldgbe
it capable of being remedied, but a deliberate desire likely to be ignited, and the danger not at all lessened."
to sacrifice the minds and the morals of the rising ye- With respect to the same project, another speaker,
neration of Englishmen upon the shrine of mamffac- Mr. T. S. Gladstone, remarked that
luring cupidity ! It is "despotism" to compel chil- "In the resolution which was passed at their previous
eetin
should be not the opedinioninto fir expe-ressed, that the transit
sheds convertproof warehouses "
dren to attend school—despotism to place the Bible
in their hands—despotism to teach them that they Mr. TODD—Decidedly.
have souls to be saved, minds to be cultivated, pas- 1 The CHAIRMAN said that that resolution placed them