The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-13 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are cornpollNi ,o postpone until next week a report of the
meting the Foreign Aid Society, and several other com-
munications.

Ebe 'lLitrrpool

TUESDAY MORAING, FEB. 13, ISI4.

By a reference to our Irish news, it will be seen
that the trial of O'Connell and his confederates is
at length drawing to a close, if even it has not al-
ready done so at the time at which we write. On
Saturday evening the jury returned a verdict of
guilty upon the third, fourth, fifth, seventh, and
eleventh counts, the purport of which will be found
detailed in the report of the proceedings, which is
admitted by the organs of the traversers themselves
to be equal in its consequences, to a verdict of
guilty upon the whole. The return, however, was
decided by Justice Crampton to be informal, owing
to the jury not having said guilty, or not guilty,
upon the remaining counts ; and the jury were sent
back to fill up this omission. Owing to the late
hour (nearly midnight) at which they retired for this
purpose, it was considered best to adjourn the court
over Sunday; and, nine o'clock yesterday morn-
ing was finally fixed upon for receiving their com-
plete finding. There is no probability that anything
can arise from this course being pursued, to alter
the effect of the decision to which the jury have al-

ready come.
We hope to be able to give the complete verdict,
with anything of importance which has transpired
in Dublin up to a late hour yesterday, in an early
Second Edition, which our subscribers will be fur-
nished with gratis, on application at our office.

Government has at length made a move—we trust
only the first of a series—to wrest the suffering
working classes of England from the domination of
tyrant capital. On Tuesday last Sir James Graham
moved for leave bring in a bill "to amend the
act for regulating the employment of children in
factories," the chief provisions of which we shall
briefly place before our readers, preliminary to a few
observations which we feel bound to offer upon
them.

It is proposed, in the outset, that the term " child"
should be defined to apply to children between the
ages of 9 and 13, instead of 8 and 13, the age pro-
vided for under the existing act; and that no such
child should be employed for a longer time than six
hours and a-half each day—such six and a-half hours
to be either in the morning or the afternoon. The
term " young persons" is to apply, as under the
existing act, to persons between the ages of 13 and
18 years ; and, so far as relates to this class of
workpeople, no material alteration is proposed, be-
yond the extension of the present restrictive clauses
to silk mills, which have hitherto not been under
regulation as to the hours of labour. The time at
which it is proposed that such " young persons "
should work, is from half-past five o'clock in the
morning to seven o'clock in the evening, during the
summer months, and from half-past six o'elock,
a. m., until eight o'clock, p. m., in the winter; thus
making thirteen hours and a half per day, of which
one hour and a half would be allowed for "meals
and rest !"

Under the present law, all persons above the age
el eighteen, without distinction of sex, have been
treated as adults, and no limitation of the hours of
labour imposed. Acting, however, upon the repre-
sentations of the Factory Inspectors, with respect
to the injurious results of the long hours of labour
imposed upon females, Sir James Graham has
decided that no female should, under any circum-
stances, be required to work for more than twelve
hours out of the twenty-four—the inspectors them-
selves recommend ten hours as the extreme ; thus
placing them under the clause which applies to the la-
bour of "young persons," viz :—imposing upon them
attendance for thirteen hours and a half per day, with
an hour and a half for "meals and rest." Regula-
tions are also proposed for restricting the existing
power of making up for short time, for providing
against accidents from machinery, and for other
remedial purposes. The educational clauses, which
last year excited so violent an uproar in the camp of
dissent; are omitted in the present bill, the Govern-
ment contenting itself with providing that a cer-
tificate from some school should be a necessary
condition to a child receiving employment, and
insisting that sufficient time be allowed for school
attendance. Of course the voluntary efforts now
making to provide efficient schools, have had some
share in inducing this determination. _ _ .

We cannot say that we are at all satisfied with
this measure, although we acknowledge the value of
many of its provisions. So far as the clause limiting
the hours of labour of children, from nine to thirteen
years of age, is concerned, it has our unqualified
approbation. No child of such tender years ought
to be immured in the factory for more than half the
working day, thus depriving it of the recreation
necessary to its growth and health, and of the
opportunity of mental cultivation. But we should
have been glad to see some provision made, with
respect to the kind of schools empowered to grant
certificates. If we do not insist upon the education
provided being education in the tenets of, and regu-
lated by, the Church of England, still we are bound
to take care that it is sound and wholesome educa-
tion, conducted by competent persons, and not the
mockery of education which has been afforded un-
der the existing measure.
With respect to the clauses affecting "young
persons " between the ages of thirteen and eighteen
vears, we have strong objections to them. For a
boy of such tender years—for a girl just verging
upon womanhood—who can deny that thirteen
Lours and a half's attendance upon the drudgery of
the factory, with but an hour and a half per day for
" meals and rest" (!)—for meals which, in five
cases out of nine, must be taken with the factory
door for a table, and "rest" which cannot be
taken at all—is a slavery alike destructive to health
and to morality ? Such a proposition is disgraceful
to Sir James Graham, and savours far too much of
the heartless utilitarianism of " liberal" philosophy
to be acceptable to the English people. It will be
scouted, we do not hesitate to say, by nine-tenths of
the manufacturing population, who, for this class of
workers at least, must have and will have a TEN
Horns BILL.

There is one consideration connected with these
3nd the preceding clauses, which strikes us as a
formidable obstacle to their working advantageously
together. You restrict the labour of children, under
thirteen, to six hours and a half per day, and thus
render necessary a double set: of such hands for
each factory. You have thus a growing population
training up to factory labour, one half of whom may
possibly be surplus hands on reaching the age when
they may be allowed to be plunged into the full
drudgery of factory life. What, we ask, is to be
done with this surplus ? The difficulty of the ques•
tion is great, and we do not pretend to be able to
solve it satisfactorily. It must be met, however;
and we cannot see how, except by further restric-
tions on the hours of labour of the class styled
"young persons," and limitation especially of the
of female lobo-an

We have long deplored—every humane man hat;
long deplored—the substitution, whil has been
going on extensively for years pst, of female for
tnale labour in factories. Sir James Graham
proposes—beneficently (.9 proposes—that no female
shall, under any circumstances, be permitted to
work for more than twelve hours continuously.
The young mother of an infant in the cradle, whose
unemployed husband is tending it at home, if he is
not at the beer-house or the dram-shop, shall not
he permitted to withdraw the maternal breast and
the maternal care, for more than twelve hours in
the day. Exceeding humanity of a Conservative
government! The mother, whose child is, or should
be, attending the factory school, must remain at her
toil until seven o'clock in summer and eight o'clock
in winter, and leave that child to the guiding of his
own inclinations, or of the vicious companions
whom he may meet in the streets. Rare philan-
throphy of a Christian legislature ! We trust that
English fathers and English mothers will not per-
mit, in this age, the recognition by parliament of
such an atrocity. The women of the manufacturing
districts must be dragged from this slavery. It is
revolting and barbarous.
If we must have women toiling in our factories,
give them, at least, some remission of that toil
which the constitution of man is alone fitted to
endure. Give, to the daughters of England and the
mothers of England, protection from the avarice
which would doom them to the body's and the
soul's ruin, to save a farthing in the cost of a bun-
dle of yarn or a piece of calico. Give them the
protection of that restriction of their hours of labour
which will alone tempt the greedy mill-owner to
take the husband and the father from their present
state of compulsory idleness, and restore the
daughter, the wife, and the mother to their
houses and their domestic purity and usefulness.
England requires this from Sir Robert Peel's Go-
vernment; and to her repeatedly urged demands
the measure before us is an INSULT.

Now, indeed, is wanted amongst us the presence
of the factory people's friend—the lately-prisoned
Oastler ! Thank Heaven, his dungeon is unbarred
His voice, impressing upon the hearts of the British
people, already opened to the cause of their suffer-
ing working classes, the iniquities of the system of
our manufacturing districts, will seal the fate of
these iniquitous
.and mocking provisions of Sir
James Graham's measure.

The comments, in our last, upon Mr. Alderman
Evans' apppeal to the publ.c in opposition to the
proposed plans of dock extension, appear to have
flurried that gentleman, if we may judge from the
tone of the reply, with which he has favoured
us in the Mercury of Friday last. We shall not
imitate him. Passion should never enter into the
discussion of such questions as the one which we
have now in hand ; and whilst we propose hei eto
examine the facts and figures put forward by Mr.
Evans, we shall deal with his ill temper in another
place.
In fairness to the Alderman, and to enable our
readers the better to understand the question at
issue, we give his letter entire.

DOCK EXTENSION.

To the MERCHANTS and TRADERS of LIVERPOOL.

It is neither my taste nor my necessity, in defence of
my statements as to dock accounts, to bandy scurrilities
with " editors" who assume, in the way of trade, the re-
sponsibility of articles which, from the knowledge they
evince of details, are, if not penned, probably prompted
by some member of the Dock Committee, an advocate of
those measures which I oppose.
The scurrilous epithets applied to my letter in the
Albion by a mercenary scribe, or his recondite prompter,
being the expected consequence of my advocacy of the
public interests, can give me no concern. The state-
ments which I have given of dock finances are, with one
exception, (a correction I felt justified in making,) based
upon the printed and written documents furnished to me
from the Dock-office. The correction consisted of sums
to the amount of about £14,000, which, after close inves-
tigation, appeared to me, and to another gentleman of
the committee particularly skilled in dock accounts, to
have been incorrectly placed to the debit of " New
Works," instead of being, as this should have been,
placed to the account of " Repai:s, &c." For this trans-
fer I consider I have the virtual authority of the surveyor,

in his declaration to me that the lowest allowance that
shot be made for " Repairs and Casualties" was
4:35,000 per annum. This so far exceeds the sum
£25,828, stated in the dock accounts, under the head of
" Repairs." as to show the latter to be a manifest error.

A wore extended classification, and a wore accurate
distribution of disbursements under the respective heads,
is wanted for the purpose of ascertaining the real surplus
or deficit of dock revenue. If a sum is pieced errone-
ously to the account of " New Works," it does not enter
into the statement of annual expenditure, and so far im-
pairs the correctness of the statements, making the ba-
lance, or, in this instance, the surplus income, appear to
be larger than it truly is.
I will not again go into the details of my former state-
ments. They were drawn out with the intention of being
correct, and I believe they will be found, in any case, a
sufficient approximation to facts to support the general
tenor of all that I have urged in respect to the impro-
priety and danger of accomplishing the projected new
works. _ _

We are told that only a portion of these new works is
to he constructed " at once," " some of them not at all."
I know of co authority for this dictum, or this mode of
carrying out or partially evading the act which goes to
the full extent of the surveyor's project, and which ac;,
once got, may, and probably will, be forced by interested
parties into full operation.
The promise of not laying out the whole sum to be
raised is truly seductive, but it unfortunately happens that
the quantity of laud to be purchased north and south will,
in litnine, dispose of a large portion of the contemplated,
to be borrowed, capital.
The agreement with the Leeds canal will doubtless
make some small abatement of the estimates, but the spare
unmade land at the extreme north, which bad escaped my
memory, may well be set off against remote future con-
tingencies.

I freely admit that the Albert Dock warehouses, when
permitted to be built, will produce a far greater return
than interest of money expended in their construction,
but for the Albert or other new docks no claim for addi.•
tional revenue can be allowed, unless the trade of the port
increases to the extent of thQ work they do, otherwise new
docks will only take business from the older ones. In
this case, the expense of new as well as old docks will fall
upon an income which can be kept up only by very much
increased dock rates. But whether trade increases or not,
I am well assured that unless warehouses be constructed
to a considerable extent round the docks on this side, not
only new but old trade will find other domiciles than the
open docks of Liverpool.

EYRE EVANS.

In its main points, then, the Alderman adheres to
his statement of last week, in which he sheaved a
deficit of £70,000, per annum, as the result of the
execution of the plans at present before the Dock
Committee, provided that the revenue of the Dock
Estate remains at its present amount. We must
see, therefore, by what kind of logic and arithmetic
he has arrived at that statement. Here are his
original figures :
".The interest on £1,798,000, the present debt,
as it stands
Interest upon £175,000, to be still raised for
Albert Dock
Interest upon cost of land and proposed new
docks, £1,300,000..
Lighthouse, telegraph, lifeboats, &c.
Management, police, dock-gatemen, &c., for the
old docks and Albert Dock .
Lamps and miscellaneous expenses for existing
Docks and Albert Dock 12,893
Annual repairs and casualties on existing docks
and Albert Dock
Proportion of repairs, casualties, and other ex-
penses which accompany dock extension, on
Proposed new docks. ..........

£288,093

Deduct interest on Albert Dock ware-
houses ............................ £12,000
Balance of rents to be acquired from
yards, &c., north and south, less
£7,000 to he lost on Messrs. E. Chat-
loner and Duncan's yards
-------- 14,000

£274,093

" If to this," he continues, " we add any expense which
may, however absurdly, be imposed for disposing of the
mud taken from the docks, we may, possibly, have an
annual outlay of somewhere about £290,000 ; from which
deduct the present revenue of £216,000, and a deficit ap-
pears of above £70,000 per annum, which, unless trade
increases, must be provided for by increased dock-rates.

For the present we pass by the qtrestion whether