The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-16 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 16, 1846

The news brought by the Britannia mail-steamer
from the seat of war, on the Rio Grande, has, we
dare say, agreeably surprised the friends and ad-
mirers of the American people in this country. Up
to our latest previous ad vices it was clear to the
most unpractised critic in military affairs that the
American troops engaged in the expedition were in
a position of great danger. Menaced by a superior
force

commun
1

ut off, and their stores

.y limits,., it was evident that nothing but the
energy and true courage inherent in their native
Saxon blood, or some fortuitous error of judgment,
or rank cowardice, on the part of the enemy, could
unable them to extricate themselves without serious
The accounts, however, which we give in
another place, show that the American army, under
General Taylor, has not only escaped from its dan-
gerous position, but has defeated the Mexicans in
two engagements, under circumstances which, giving
the usual margin for probable exaggeration, prove
that they possess, in an ample degree, so far at least
as physical courage goes, the material of which the
soldier is composed, whilst it is equally clear that the
Mexicans are, as a race, wanting in this most neces-
sary quality.
It is, however, to the probable results of these
triumphs of the Americans, in what we cannot but
regard as an unjustifiable quarrel, that the British
public will look with the greatest interest. It would
be sheer flattery, which, we should imagine, even an
American would not be capable of swallowing, to
suppose that the raw levies of militia-men, who have
just defeated the Mexican troops, could cope with a
well-officered and well-disciplined European army.
The danger, however, to the peace of the world is,
that Brother Jonathan may get it into his head that
he can thracl-

all the world with as much ease as he
has overthrown the forces of General Paredes, and
may get lofty in his bearing towards ourselves in
particular. Already he has shewn symptoms of con-
siderable excitement, resulting from this fleshing of
his maiden sword. Volunteers, who hung back at
first, are pouring in from all directions to reinforce
the now victorious army of General Taylor; and it
is said, that nothing except a prompt and uncondi-
tional submission, on the part of the enemy, can pre-
vent a march upon the city of Mexico. By the Ist
of July, it is said, an army of 25 to 30,000 bayonets
are to be organised upon the frontier, before whom,
when thoroughly disciplined, no force which the
Mexican Government can bring to oppose them can
stand for a day. In the meantime the American
squadron in the Pacific is ordered forthwith to take
possession of California, which will, no doubt, whilst
in the hands of the United States' Government, as a
security for the payment of the claim which will be
brought against Mexico, be so rapidly peopled by
American settlers, that it will he difficult to bring
that province under the rule of its proper owners.
With such an army ready organized, the coffers
of the American government filled with Mexican

spoil, a fine possession attached to the union, and
the whole people elated with a sense of their newly-
discovered martial prowess, will the present pacific
aspect of the Oregon question continue ? It is true
that the recent excitement of the hulk of the Ameri-
can people, with respect to that question, has evapo-
rated. This Mexican quarrel has been the safety
We hear nothing at present of 54 degrees,

or of 49

the eyes of our Yankee breth-
ren are turned towards their present antagonist, a
prudent effort of statesmanship on the part of both
governments, would set the question at rest for ever.
We are nor-by any means, however, advocates of
precipitancy in this matter. However powerfully
supported we may be with reinforcements, General
Taylor has something to do before consummating
a complete triumph over Mexico. He has to face
the hot weather, already set in, and the fever of the

country, to which his troops are not inured. We
have already hinted, too, that his past success is
probably o' erstated. tipon this subject, the Hali-
fax Morning Post of the 2nd instant, our latest
paper by the Britannia, states, under the heading
" News from Mexico : highly important,"—
" The Mail of yesterday brought nothing of importance
save a contradiction of the abominable fabrications of the
New York Sun. This, as our readers know, we antici-
pated. . .

" We shall not, however,

be Jong without news,

brig Acadian arrived L

We had a boat a

pulled off, but the night was so intensely dark and fogey,
that, after touching several vessels, we were obliged to
give up the pursuit.

dian brings will be published in
--this afternoon, at three

"All the news the Ac
the Morning Post for England

o'clock.'

Our contemporary, however, does not appear to
have been able to realize his promise, or the paper
has, byisome accident, missed the steamer. Should
the contest by any accident be prolonged, the
government of the United States will have to enter
upon financial operations to procure the necessary
funds, which may not Very well suit the palates of
the American people. A war, even "a little war,"
with a weak state like Mexico, they will find an ex-
id may see the prudence of pausing

pensive
before t

game,

ritli Great Britain

In pursuing the inquiry, which we proposed to
ourselves last week,—viz., the question what course
is the most wise to be adopted by the various classes
of the community affected by the coming change
in our national policy,—we approach, next in order,
the position of the labourer. Throughout the agi-
tation of the corn law question, it has been a telling
argument against the agriculturist, that the condi-
tion of the masses, employed by him in cultivaticn,
could not be rendered worse; and, unhappily, there
is too much ground for the reproach. The farm-
labourer is not, in every instance, the prosperous,
contented being that imaginative people have been
in the habit of describing him. On the contrary,
in too many districts, he is a being whose life, from
the cradle to the grave, is spent with only the alter-
natives of half a meal in his wretched cottage, as
the reward of his daily toil, or the coarse fare and
hard discipline of the union workhouse, as the pun-
ishment of unwillingness_ or inability to toil. We

11;e—tieated him in our legislation, of late years,
more as a chattel than as a sentient being. By our
harsh and unchristian poor law, we have practically
called into requisition the feelings and affections of
human nature in his bosom, as a goad to compel
him to accept of the hard terms which we offer him.
We say to the married labourer, " there is your
task, and its remuneration ; if you refuse it, you
cease to be a husband, and hare no longer the pri-
vileges of a father." He possesses one solitary
blessing—the fact that his toil is in the fresh at-
mosphere, and is one, unlike that of the factory
worker or the artizan, productive of health ; but
that very blessing we convert into a curse, by the
limit which we impose upon his appetite. '
How little has legislation done for this class !
Have we given its members increased means of edu-
cation ? Have we conferred upon them any one boon
calculated to ameliorate their physical or moral con-
dition ? If the habits and condition of the agricul-
tural labourer be deteriorated, as we must acknow-

ledge they are—if he has grown a sullen, desperate
being, no longer husbanding his small means, no
longer cultivating his little patch of ground, or
striving to add to the comforts of his poor cottage,
we owe much of the change to that cruel kindness,
which has thrown in his way the temptations of the
ill-regulated beer-house, and the taint of had
company.

vv
What then is to be the position of this class under
our new policy ? He will have his daily food, we
are told, brought more within the reach of his
They are political economists forsoooth
who tell us this ! Why, it is contrary to every rule
of this vaunted science. The cost of labour is a
main ingredient in the price of a quarter of corn;
and if the price is reduced by foreign importations,
even assuming the same quantity as at present to
be grown at home, how is the present cost of labour
to be afforded by the grower? For a time, perhaps,
any great decline may be prevented, by the demand
for labour to carry on the improvements, to which
the farmer is driven; but, ultimately, this source of
employment must fail the labourer. To compete
successfully with his foreign rival, the native grower
must look to morn scientific and cheaper manage-
ment of his land; and, to do this, improved agri-
cultural implements, the adoption of improved fer-
tilizing materials, and the relinquishing of attempts
to raise grain upon soils, where its cultivation will
now have become unprofitable, is far more likely to
be his resource, than a more extensive permanent
employment of the labourer. Besides, we think we
showed successfully in our last that the certain re-
sult of our present policy must be the gradual
abolition of the small farm system, and the reduction
of the small farmer and his family to the level of,
perhaps the superior portion of, the labouring
masses. Here we have the elemen6 .of increased
competition for employment, which must inevitably
drive the least skilled and less active labourers out
of the field.

The manufacturer, however, will assure us that he
is ready to absorb the surplus labour of the agri-
cultural districts, in his factories and his workshops;
and Sir James Graham is preparing an alteration in
the Law of Settlement, to facilitate the absorbing
process. But the manufacturer never makes the
boast before leis own workpeople, to whom, exclu-
sively, he has promised the benefits of that extension
of demand for labour, which is to arise from the
free importation of food; and the inhabitants of
the large towns are not at present very much
enlightened with respect to the operation of the
measure of Sir James. Let us briefly examine the
latter.

Under the existing Law of Settlement, and in the
present state of society in the agricultural districts,
made up as it is of tenants of all classes, from the
mere cottier with his acre or half dozen acres, half
farmer and half labourer, to the farmer of 1000 or
1503 acres, the surplus labourer in rural parishes is
provided for by employment in the inferior opera-
tions of agriculture, in highway work, &c., or is
pad for out of the poor's rate; thus, in either way,
creating a severe drain upon the rate-paying occu-
piers. Of the able-bodied portion of this surplus,
many migrate to other parishes, or to large towns;
but each remains still adscriptum glebce of the parish
where he has a settlement, and is liable to be sent
back in old age, or in periods of commercial stag-
nation, once more to be a burthen upon that parish.
Sir James Graham, however, proposes a new mode
of acquiring a settlement for such migrating
labourer, by a five years' industrial residence in any
parish or large town in which he may be able to
procure employment. The operation of such a
measure, in the changed social position of the
agricultural body, made up, as it shortly must
be, of large occcupiers, it is not difficult to
foresee. The surplus labourer will be encou-
raged, and provided with funds, to transfer his
labour to another market, or he may even be
coerced by the stringent administration of the new
Poor Law; and five years employment in any other
place will rid his place of settlement of their burthen
altogether. In the event of old age, or commercial
or manufacturing stagnation, the burthen of his
support will fall upon the place to which he has
been drawn, perhaps only for temporary purposes,
and without the prospect of permanent profitable
employment for his labour. Apply this Law of
Settlement to such places as Liverpool and Birken-
head. In both we have extensive works going on,
for which the labour of a class of men, different
from our ordinary population, is required. Five
years' employment in those works settles those men
and their families permanently upon the parishes of
Liverpool vld Birkenhead. Under the operation of
such a law of settlement what must have become of
Stockport, Bolton, and other towns during the com-
mercial embarrassment of 1341 and 1842, filled as
those towns were with paupers from the southern
counties, whom the parochial authorities, acting
under the existing law, were enabled to send back
to their original settlement?

This change will undoubtedly operate to raise
slightly the condition of the agricultural labourer in
his own parish; but it cannot have any very exten-
sive operation, for the satisfactory reason that the
towns are not able to absorb any great portion of
agricultural labour, without reducing the value of
the labour of their own population, and thus taking
away the inducement to migrate. The labourer's
next resource it is not easy to arrive at. Emigration
possibly might be attempted ; but the emigrants
must be of the small farmer class, or the superior
labourer's, whose removal from the soil would leave
upon it the melancholy spectacle of a population
consisting only of the moderately wealthy and the
miserably poor and dependent. The dangerous na-
ture of such a state of society history has sufficiently
shewn to the world.

It is clear that the Legislature ought to tell us what
is to be done with this valuable class of our indus-
trious copulation. They must neither be left to the
new-fangled theories of agricultural societies, with
their premiums for voluntary starvation, nor to the
tender mercies of experimentalizing philosophers.
We are told that their condition cannot be worse ;
what is that but telling us that it ought to be better ?
We might extend to their youth the blessings of a
sound system of parochial education. Make it com-
pulsory if you please. There can be no sound rea-
son, except the poverty of their parents, for sending
children, at six or seven years of age, into the fields
to Full turnips, or to weed corn), for a penny a-day.
The State ought to take care that a future generation
of Englishmen and women are not brought up igno-
rant as the beasts they have to drive. We might
close the beer-shop against the parent, and undo
that fatal mistake in our past legislation, which has
so productive of misery and crime. 'We must,
in mercy to the most uuprotected amongst our
po-
pulation, relax the cruel pressure of the New Poor-
Law.

The Oddfellows are perhaps the most numerous
and important body, enrolled together for mutual
assurance, in Great Britain. On the Ist of January,

their members numbered 259,374

The ar

iount of

good within such a body as this, if their affairs were
conducted upon a right principle, is almost incal-
culable. A quarter of a million of families are here
apparently provided for in the contingencies of the
sickness or the death of their heads; and as there
are almost innumerable other societies established
with the same beneficial object, it becomes of incal-
culable importance to ascertain the basis of the
calculation on which the promises held out by many
of these societies are based.

For a yearly payment of El 2s. gd., including
entrance money, the following benefits are promised
to a man aged 32 :

£0 10 0 per week during sickness,
£lO 0 0 at the death of a member,
0 0 at the death of his wife.

To enable any society to fulfil these promises, it is
clear that there ought to he an ample margin ; and
that the contingencies to which the assured are
liable should be estimated rather over than under
the scale, which has been drawn from our experi-
ence of vital statistics. Mr. Neison, in the able
work to which we referred in our last, has laid down
the following table, sheaving the expectation of life
at the same ages amongst the males of three dis-
districts, and for all classes in England and `Vales
Ace

Expectation of Life in
S rural dis. F. S. town dis. F. S. city dis. 1
.45.35
30.... 38.40
40. 30.07
_ _

& Wales
40.69
34.09

27 47
20.84
14.58

From these data a man who has become a mem-
ber of a Benefit Society at the age of 32, may
expect to live 36:1 years, if in a rural district ; 32
if in a town district ; 30:1 if in large cities; and 32
years is the mean for England and Wales. Taking
the latter as the basis of our calculation, such a
member, on his death, will have paid into the funds
of the society £36 Bs., out of which £l5 is to be re-

paid for the funeral expenses of himself and wife,
thus leaving £2l Bs. towards sick allowances. To
determine the sufficiency of this amount we give the
following table, exhibiting the amount of sickness to
which each person is liable at several ages, as calcu-
lated by Mr. Neison from actual facts derived from
the working of Benefit Societies throughout the
kingdom, and also the calculations of the Highland
Society and Mr. Ansell, those chiefly in use amongst

uch socie

Annual amount of sickness to each person in weeks, days,

Highland

Society

and hours

Neison. _ Per cent. above

IV:15:j H. 11;.1). H. w. 1). H. H. So. Ansell.
20.... 4 0 5 10 5 21 31.5 7.G
30.... 4 8 6 1 6 9 31.8 5.4
40.... 5 7 1 0 19 1 1 6 35 8 5.9
50.... 1 2 13 1 4 22 1 6 17 30.5 13 2
G 0.... 2 2 10 3 2 1 4 1 4 43.6 20.9
70.... 10 4 22 11 5 13 14 0 6 23.7 23.0

It is clear that societies, which adopt either the
calculations of the Highland Society or of Ansell,
are very far below the result of actual experience,
and must eventually be brought into difficulties.
Taking the sick allowance during the 32 years of
life, laid down in this scale as the expectation of life
for such a member, we find that up to the period of
his death he will have received, at various times, as
sick allowance, 1.25, round numbers, towards
which amount, without taking into consideration
any expenses of management, which will undoubtedly
absorb the accruing interest, there will only be left
a balance from his contributions of £2l Ss.
Every effort should be made to add to the pros-
perity and permanence of institutions which, well
managed, are calculated so materially to ameliorate
the social condition of the people. Mr. Neison
shews, in the following table, and his comments upon
it, that the establishment of Friendly Societies has
actually contributed to lengthen the duration of life
amongst those contributing to them :
Expectation in Difference in favour of
Age. Friendly England and Friendly Societies.
Societies. Wales. In Years. Per Cent.
20.. ~.. 43.77..
30..
40..

20.84...

"A very important distinction is here found to prevail
between the value of lite in the two tables. The circum-
stances in which the bumble and working population of
the country is placod have generally been thought adverse
to a prolonged duration of life; but the healthiest life ta-
bles hither to formed have not shown anything so favour-
aUle as the present results, even among what are generally
considered the select classes of society."

And he entinues:—

"Tae blessing thus bestowed on the frugal and indus-
trious workmen of the country, composing Friendly Soci-
eties, in having' granted them, as appears by the present
inquiry, a prolonged duration of life, must really be re-
garded as a true and distinctive feature of that class of
persons, and is, no doubt, the result of their simple and
uniform habits of life, and the more regular and natural
physical exercises to which they are habituated."
There can be no doubt the habits of saving and
of temperance induced by the necessity imposed
upon the working classes to keep up their contri•
butions, tend materially to the preservation of health;
and the gratuitous attendance of the club doctor, in
cases of sickness, is an important boon to the poor
man, who might otherwise be led to neglect incipient
disease, or driven to the employment of unskilful
quacks. The ease of mind, too, arising from the
reflection that comparative comfort in old age is se-
cured, tends greatly to retard the necessity of resort-
ing to the Benefit Societies for temporary aid, and
to prolong the life of the member.
One important fact arrived at by Mr. Neison we
cannot refrain from bringing before the attention of
this great commercial community, in the hope of
urging forward an attempt to provide a remedy :
"• The rural labourer of thirty years of age," he says,
" may expect to enjoy forty more years of life ; but the
miner of the same age can look forward only to thirty-
three years of life, the baker thirty-two years, the plum-
ber or painter thirty years, and last and lowest, the poor
clerk twenty-seven years—tbe latter period being thirteen
years below the expectation of life of the rural labourer,
seven years below that of the community in general, nine
years below that of the general body of the members of
Friendly Societies. We trust this appalling condition of
the clerks will stimulate themselves, those who are exert-
ing themselves in their behalf, and those who have power
to aid them, to renewed efforts to improve their condition,
and rescue them from that early grave to which the class
has hitherto been consigned." _ _ _

Tile fact here disclosed is truly a melancholy one.
The class whose dull and dreary labours regulate
the wheels of the great commercial machine--who
are doomed, from year's end to year's end, to count
the wealth that flows in to increase the already
abundant store of the capitalist, and who seldom
dares even to hope for a better lot as the reward of
his attention and fidelity; possessed, from the ne-
cessity of his position, of an education which lea's
to the acquirement of tastes above those of the mere
mechanic, by our cruel parsimony, and the exaction
of an amount of sedentary labour above their power
to bear, we are dooming to penury in life, and a
premature old age and death. This unhappy class,
we fear, have seldom the opportunity, enjoyed by
other more fortunate classes, of making use of the
means afforded by Benefit Societies of providing for
the approach of sickness, or for interment after
death. Their whole career is one of toilsome
struggle—that worst of all struggles, the attempt to
make appearances belie the actual poverty of their
lot. Were it for this class alone, it would well be.
come the mercantile body in Liverpool to originate
and aid the establishment of some society upon a
safe and substantial basis, by tneans of which they
might he drawn to make a provision for the future.
The poor clerk is not to be allured into habits of
saving by gaudy frippery. He might, however, be
encouraged by receiving the countenance of his su-
periors in wealth; and could he even be brought a
little nearer to them in the exchange of the ordinary
amenities of life, he would be rendered a happier
man, and none the less valuable and faithful ser-
vant.