The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-09 00:00:00

twally are adtlea to Ott dock of otw ti aional wealth by
this manufacture of lace---two or three millions distri-
buted in a very few hands, whilst the workers are
pressed down so close to the brink of famine that they
thus become the absolute murderers of their own off-
spring—can we as a Christian people value wealth so
acquired ?—is such a system, we ask, productive of
such results, one into a dependence upon which we
would deliberately plunge an additional portion of our
industrial community ? The answer of every right-
minded man will be an indignant "No !" As the lace
manufacture is at present carried on, such a consum-
mation, it is manifest, cannot for an instant be contem-
plated. This, at least, is not one of those manufac-
turing employments which are capable of absorbing the
surplus labour of the agricultural districts, unless it
can be thought a desirable object to submit the infant
portion of that surplus to a process of speedy and tor-
turing extinction. Rather give us absolute serfdom in
the pure air and the healthful employments of agricul-
ture—rather the worst paid drudgery of the farm or the
highways—rather let our population be sent to dig
holes and fill them up again—than plunge them into
the hovels or the streets of Nottingham and Leicester,
reeking as they are with vice, and stained as their em-
ployments are with the blood of murdered infants.
We are told, indeed, than an ultra free-trade policy
will give prosperity to this and other similar trades ;
that it will give cheap bread and full employment to the
workers. This may or may not be. But granting the
former, for the sake of argument, what is the prospect
offered ? More food it is true for all a time—
until the increased amount of labour attracted to the
market brings down the wretched pittance paid as
wages (and upon which those employed cannot lire
without the extraneous aid of prostitution) to its present
relative proportion to the price of the necessaries of
life ! An increased demand for labour; but what la-
bour? INFA NT LABOUR? More "drawers" to
wear away their infant health and strength in dreary
toil from sunrise to midnight—more " threaders,"
more "winders," to fill the streets of our manufac-
turing towns with juvenile profligacy—more " lace
runners," who cannot subsist upon their unaided earn-
ings—more mothers stained with the revolting crime
of infanticide! This is the state of things which we
are urged to extend in this Christian land, and which
we do extend at every step which we take in the direc-
tion of free trade, without the path being first cleared
of the impurities which deform and defile it.
'We are progressing towards the extension of these
plague spots upon the frame of society. We are pro-
gressing in the extension of our ill-regulated manufac-
turing system ; and it is but too apparent, now, that
we must continue in such progress. But this, we con-
tend, is the imperative duty of a paternal government
before voluntarily taking a step further. A powerful
and caustic curative must he applied to the system it-
self. Infant labour throughout every branch of our
manufactures must be emancipated ; and we see, there-
fore, with pleasure that it is the intention of Sir James
Graham to extend the provisions of his factory bill to
the children employed in the lace manufacture. The
state must do its duty, not only E s an educating power,
but as a parent to its people. And should it even be
as the result of such a policy—over which "liberalism"
(the mammonism of the present age) would doubtless
grieve—that such branches of our manufactures as that
of lace would thereby receive " a heavy blow and great
discouragement"—should no longer be able to exist in
the race of competition with which it would be met by
the foreign manufacturer ;—we can contemplate with
far more equanimity the entire loss of such a manufac-
ture, and the transfer of the capital and labour em-
barked in it to some other branch, by the wages and
profits of which adults can exist aad females be per-
mitted to retain their innocence and purity, than the
further extension, or even the existence, in its present
shape, of a system so unnatural and revolting.

Our good Mercury—more power to him !—has dis-
covered a mare's nest ; nay, a real and astounding case
of grievance ! It appears that, at this particular mo-
ment, there exists in Liverpool a more than ordinary
demand for warehouse accommodation. So, at least,
says our contemporary ; and, for anything that we
know, he may be as well informed upon this as he is
upon all other subjects. Our merchants are actually
puzzled as to the whereabouts to bestow their accumu:
lated commodities; and, if we may credit the moving
pieture presented to us, are in about as pitiable a plight
as a community of laying hens afflicted with a scarcity
of nests. In this emergency, and, as a last resource,
their attention has been directed to those pretty and
most convenient buildings, which ornament the west
side of Prince's Dock, and, if we remember right, were
intended for " transit sheds ;" but, on application for
the use of these commodious premises, it has been dis-
covered that the Dock Committee are empowered to
charge, for the most limited period .of occupancy, a
month's rent, and now comes the mare's nest and the

appalling grievance !
There exists in this town, notwithstanding the pre-
sent deficiency, a considerable amount of warehouse
property; and this, like most other property, has ow-
ners, and is represented in our council. Ergo, it must
be these warehouse owners who have originated the
oppressive clause in the act of parliament, which pro.
vides that the transit sheds shall not be made use of,
as a merely temporary expedient upon terms which
cannot by any possibility be profitable to the public
estate. Such is at least is the conclusion of the Ater_
cure. The warehouse owners (Mr. Birkett being one)
are labouring under the weight of Whig-Radical displea-
sure ; and upon their heads, of course, must be visited all
the opprobium, just or unjust, which Whig-Radical
journalism and mercurial wisdom can foster upon
them !

Of course, we cannot presume to have an opinion in
opposition to such an authority. There are one or two
queries, however, which we should much like to have
answered. We are told that this obnoxious clause was
foisted into the bill by the influence of the warehouse
interest. By what sort of conjuration, we ask, was
this effected ? We always imagined that local bills
were pretty smartly watched ; and we have never heard
that warehouse owners had any peculiar facilities for
mystifying either a Committee cf the House of Com-
mons, or that very keen-sighted nobleman, Lord
Shaftesbury. The most important query, however,
which strikes us is, whether the alleged grievance dis-
covered is a grievance at all ! We are told that it is
hard that merchants are to be charged a month's rent
for a day's occupation. Why, what a forced issue is
this ? What merchant warehouses goods for a day,
or what owner of property would he at the trouble of
opening his warehouse doors for a day's rent ? Under
ordinary circumstances a month may be too long a
time to charge for; but let it be borne in mind that these
sheds were built for a particular purpose,—were in-
tended to be in some respects penal in their operation,
and, however, those parties, for whose use they were
contemplated in their original destination as " transit
sheds," may have cause to complain, most assuredly

men have little such cause who voluntarily seek their

accommodation

In the meantime, however, we must congratulate

our contemporary upon his cleverness. Few men
could make so much out of such small materials.

The sack and sugar so out of all proportion to the
" halfpen'orth of cheese" in Falstaff's tavern bill, or
the " Flourish of trumpets and enter Tom Thumb,"
is nothing compared with our contemporary's achieve-
ment, and the cockcrowing with which he is announced
to the world.