The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-05-26 00:00:00

with re

country—unsettling in-
.
lustry and paralysing commerce? It tells us em-
phatically that it has not been to advantage the poor
man— to add a Denny to his store, a loaf to his table,

which is ilow

zitating ti

.o his scanty wardrobe—

that agricul7

or a garme

lustry is to be strip
he British husbandman
wale. It is 11
has dictated t

t of its protection, and
owered in the social
an overflowing philanthropy which
but the sordid consider-

measure

ations of political economy alon

It is the manu-

Mist, for whose interest the ministry
seem so careful. It is for a stimulated commerce,
more mills, more factory slaves, and mere exports
and imports, that they are legislating. Let no poor
man lift up_ his heart in gratitude to them for the
apparent boon of a cheap loaf. It was not intended
for him, and it will not be permitted to be enjoyed
by him

facturing

Whilst Conservatism is thus throwing away from it
popular sympathy, giving increased
stringency to an already intolerable poor-law, and
perpetuating the long hours of toil inflicted upon
the young and helpless children of our working po-
pulation, mark the different conduct of its oppo-
nents, the party of which Lord John Russell is the
leader! Wise in their generation are the Whigs
Sir Robert Peel answers the appeal for help, of half
a million of his fellow-countrymen, with scraps and
saws from the musty pages of political economists.

every thing Ii

We have no right, lie says, to interfere with the right
of every man to sell his labour at his own price, and
on his own terms. The Whig leaders, on the other
hand, assert boldly that there is a point beyond
which we cannot be guided by the cold abstractions

;cal philosophy—that a

P. B. Macaulay,
_n one of the most admirable speeches ever delivered
in the House of Commons, thus demolishes, by

cannot with

analogy, the argument that governments cannot in-
t3rfere with the wages or the contracts of individual•.
Speaking of the interference of government with the
regulation and construction of buildings, he says :
" We should have nothing to do with the matter if it
were a purely commercial affair; but other and higher
interests than mere commercial interests are concerned.
It concerns the public weal that the great mass of the
people should not live in a way the effect of which is to
abridge life, making it wretched and feeble while it lasts,
and to send to untimely graves the population, who leave
behind them a more miserable progeny than themselves.
(Hear, hear.) If it be the fact that a great mass of our
population is familiar with misery—if it be the fact' that
horten life, to taint the health, and
accustomed to more cleanly
se who dwell in them,—
vernment of this country
that they have tolerated
gstyes, until there is
ng like hogs. (Hear,
with respect to a ques-
are'concerned, that we

habits, are not noxious to t

he existence of hot

danger oft}

hi.) Who woul

ion where morality and burner
must adhere •to this pr

pie of non-interference

(Cheers.)
And, in direct reference to the faitory question, he

" Is not the public health concerned in a question re-
lating to the time of labour ? Does any one who has
examined the evidence, or opened his eyes in the world,
or examined his own feelings, doubt that twelve hours a
day of factory labour are more than are desirable for
youths of thirteen ? (Hear, hear.) If so much labour be
not desirable, then I say every argument on which inter-
ference can be justified calls on me tb keep those youths
from ti:junng their health by means of immoderate toil.
(Hear, hear.) Is this, or is it not, a question in which
morality is concerned? Can any one doubt—certainly
my friends around me do not doubt—that education is a
matter of the highest importance as regards the virtue and
happiness of the common veople ? For education we know
that leisure Is necessary. Do we believe that, after twelve
boars have been taken from? the day for factory labour,
and after so much time as is necessary for refreshm