The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-26 00:00:00

FRIDAY 110RAING, MAY 26, 1843.

When we look at the fact that, up to this time, be-
tween fourteen and fifteen thousand (!) petitions against

the education clauses of the proposed factory bill have

been presented to Parliament by the dissenting bodies:

when we consider, too, the promptitude with which
the wishes of those bodies are made known at the pre-
cise moment when their expression is calculated to be

most effective ; what a contrast is presented to us be-
tween all this energy and the organisation which directs

its working, and the total want of energy and organisa-
tion which characterises the movements of the Church-

of-England majority of the people ! Dissenters, by
by means of their "congregational unions," " Sunday
school unions," " committees," and other similar
bodies, can, in the space of a few days, agitate their
whole mass, and pour in petition upon petition to the
legislature ; whilst Churchmen can only, after repeated
urging, accomplish a few isolated demonstrations, and
those, generally, when the object sought to be achieved
has already passed beyond their reach, or the attack
from which they seek to defend themselves has already
been too successfully accomplished!

Surely, such a woful and suicidal sacrifice of their
real strength--such a voluntary abandonment of the
means at their disposal for the assertion of their legi-
timate claims upon the legislature, and their proper
influence in the direction of the public mind—ought
not to be permitted by Churchmen to continue. As-
sailed as is the fabric of their revered establishment ;

maligned as are its doctrines, by an unscrupulous and
restless faction; surely there ought to be amongst
their defenders a spirit and policy widely different from
this coldness and want of preparation. In the case of
this very question of scriptural education for the work-
ing classes, it is but too evident that we are about to
ace the boon which was within our reach snatched
from our expectant lips. Upon every question in
which the interests of religion and, the cause of huma-
nity are involved, the voice of the great mass of the
people is heard but as a whisper, whilst sectarianism
can speak trumpet-tongued, and does speak, therefore,
efficaciously. Sunk in a dream of fancied security—
content with a merely nominal supremacy—we submit
to see the foundations of our strength sapped stone by
stone, the landmarks of our privileges removed step by
step ; and we only awake to the necessity of an effort
when the enemy is already master of our position, and
nothing is left us except the opportunity of compound-
ing for the little which his mercy or moderation has
permitted us to retain in our keeping !
Such blindness and folly, we repeat, ought not to
be ! We owe it as well to ourselves, to our country,
and to after generations of Englishmen to stand man-
fully in front of our noble institutions, and to battle
for their entireness. To do this, effectually, we must
adopt the means by which alone success can be en-
sured. We must use the same organisation, the same
watchfulness, the same zeal, which are put forth by
the opponents of the institutions which we are called
upon to protect. We must meet petition with peti-
tion, remonstrance with remonstrance, demonstration
with demonstration. We must not only be :irony, but
must make our strength known and felt
This—we say it emphatically, and with sorrow for
the consequences—has not been the course pursued
by Conservatives of late. In adversity they fought,
and fought well, for victory over their opponents ; but
in success, they laid aside the means which had
achieved it for them. Our Conservative associations—
where are they now ? Their voice is silent ! The
faithful press which rallied to the support of our insti-
tutions, menaced by the open assaults of our inveterate
' enemies, is no longer the object of anxious care and
support of those whose battles it fought! The hour
which gave to Conservatism the ascendancy in govern-
ment—the house which prostrated liberalism, and
doomed it to crows to the achievement of its designs,
where it once trod openly and unchecked to their ac-
complishment—witnessed the abandonment of the very
weapons which had most powerfully conduced to vic-
tory. We laid down our arms and threw off our ar-
mour, when we had won the breach, forgetful that the
same care, the same watchfulness, the same zeal, to
enable ua to defend our position in prosperity which
had gained it for us in adversity.
The enemy with which we have to deal commits no
such errors as this. " Liberalism" is not thus suicidal.
It takes care, in prosperity, as well as in reverse, of the
materials which conduce to success ; and Conservatism,

if it means to maintain its present eminence, in the
state, or in our local community, must adopt a similar
policy. We have rights to protect; we have privileges
to guard ; we have institutions to defend : and we
must use, to do this effectually, the same weapons by
which they are assailed. We must revive our associa-
tions, strengthen our press, and reiterate our demon-
strations of strength and resolvedness, unless we wish
to see the mean and malignant factions, by which we
are surrounded, and which are recklessly mining the
ground beneath our feet, restored to that position in
which we so lately felt so severely their galling and
humiliating domination. At this bout we require even
more energy, more watchfulnesslmore determination,
more unceasing defensive efforts to protect the great
interests and the noble institutions which we revere
and love, from the insidious approaches of our oppo-
nents than when they were in a position to stand be-
fore us, face to face, in more daring defiance !

We are really obliged to our contemporary (the
Manchester Guardian) for aiding us in the develope-
ment of a fact which we are at all times most anxious
to place strongly before our readers and the public.
The fact in question is that CHEAP BREAD is sought
for by the gentlemen of the Anti-Corn-lawLeague, as
the means of securing for themselves cuSAP LABOUR.
We stated in our last that the admission that any
manufacturing nation could compete, upon even terms,
with Great Britain, was " a new feature in the Anti-
Corn-law controversy," We were somewhat un-
guarded in our cxpresmi,.n cortainly, though) in fart, it
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