The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-08-18 00:00:00

sing some btigM'a to the It

/ falsehoods. The Editor
of the Mercury knows perfectly well that what he has
said and insinuated, and allowed his correspondent
to say and insinuate through his pages, against Mr.

repeat, deliber

tie dares not to say that
it true. In this he has happily betrayed
himself. For, by a sneaking note to his corres-
pondent's letter, he endeavours to scape the odium,
whilst, by giving insertion to the letter itself, he is
odiously guilty of the offence. The stale trick is seen
through. The viper has gnawed the file with sui-
cidal earnestness ; the creature's teeth have become
harmless, whilst its venom, instead of following its
bite, has recoiled into its own bowels. On every
side, and from gentlemen of every variety of politi-
cal opinion, we hear of the disgust excited by the
infamous conduct of the Mercury ; whilst the manly
dignity, the Christian forbearance, and the graceful
eloquence of Mr. N'Neile are more than ever the
theme of general eulogy in the town. ,

[e, ]s U

1 The great boon which has been so long clamoured
for by the manufacturing interest—the measure
which was to set ever,' loom, every spindle, every
forge and every instrument of trade and industry in
active operation—the repeal of the corn laws is a
fact accomplished. We have had an extensive intro-
duction of foreign grain into our markets ; a gene-
ral cheapening of food, along with the prospect of
something more than an average harvest. We cast
about, therefore, in search of the promised pros-
perity which was to result from our new policy.
What do we find ? Last week our columns recorded
a general resolve of the spinners and manufacturers
of the Blackburn district to work their mills four,
instead of six, days a week. How is this ? We
have not heard that our exports have of late mate-
rially diminished. Our colonies, indeed—those
despised consumers of our goods—have had their
confidence shaken, and have ordered less freely than
-if old ; but what are British America, the West
Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and other such
markets, compared in importance with those coun-
tries, whose favours we have purchasedby our free
trade policy ? Nothing, we were told. The falling
off is to he accounted for from som . other quarter;
and we fear that, at length, it will have to be ac-
knowledged that the consumption of. our own coun-
try—the consumption of our farmers and of our
yeomen—is some little ingredient in the country's
prosperity. People who recognise Cocker as an
authority, although an old fashioned one, in matters
of finance, conceive that the agriculturist, receiving
475. instead of 565. per quarter for his wheat, has
less to spend in broad cloths, hardware, crockery,
and calico. Travellers for houses in Leeds and
Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield, find cus-
tomers shy in buying, and still more shy in paying.
There is an evident hitch. Farmers and farmers'
wives cannot be made to comprehend the abstract
beauties, much less to feel the advantages, of free
trade. Obtuse, we dare say, these classes are—
unlearned in the doctrines of Adam Smith—igno-
rant of the very existence of M culloch and Mal-
thus, Ricardo, and Deacon Hume. The League
should really not have dissolved until they had
enlightened these misguided people, and taught them
how to feed and clothe themselves with half their
accustomed income—how to make two and two,
which to their poor understandings make four, into
a dozen or fourteen.
If the farmers, however, are falling off as con-
sumers, at least the manufacturing labourers are
getting fat upon our cheap corn. No reduction of
wages going on ! Oh, no. They were wicked pro-
phets who prophesied such selfishness on the part
of the manufacturer. We were to see increasel in-
stead of reduced wages. We were to take the un-
sophisticated agricultural labourer from the hard
duty of " following his plough along the mountain
side," and place himself and his family in the easy
i enjoyment of the gin, and smoke, and odours of our
manufacturing towns, and villages. Alas, the
wicked prophet has proved too true a prophet.
The adoption of short time is no proof of the ability
of the mauufacturing interest to absorb the dispos-
sessed labour of the agricultural community; whilst
1 the following announcement proclaims but too
plainly the fact, that the cry for cheap food was but
the forerunner of a cry for cheaper labour. We

give it from a contemporary

" Ashlon-under-Lyrae, August, 11.
"The master roller turners of Stockport, Park Bridge,
Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Dukinfield, and other
places, have given notice to their workmen, that at the
expiration of the next fortnight they will reduce their
wages to the amount of five per cent. This announce-
ment at the present time has naturally enough crewed
considerable excitement amongst the operatives, many of
whom complain bitterly of corn-law repeal as the cause
of this reduction. In some instances the work-hands
have waited upon the masters to ask the cause why an
abatement in their wages should take place so soon after
they have accomplished their pet object, viz., a repeal of
the corn-laws, and while they are still calling upon them
to rejoice at the downfall of monopoly, &c. The men
state that the answers received have been, Food is now
cheaper, and you can therefore afford to work for less.'
A delegate meeting of the trade was held at the house of
Mr. Thomas Moss, the Grapes Inn, Ashton, on Monday,
relative to this subject, when the following resolution was
agreed to :—` That we unanimously agree to work four
days a week should circumstances in connection with the
trade require it: but on no account will we submit to the
proposed reduction.'

`Several other branches of mill workers are threatened
with a reduction, and they are at the present time form-
ing themselves into unions to resist it. Unfortunately
for the repeaters, in every case of which we have yet heard,
the reductions have been proposed by parties connected in

loom weavers of Stalybridge are holding a public meeting
of their body this evening, for the purpose of carrying out

principles of r

Pore over this evidence, working men of England 1
You were to have more food, more work, more
wages, and more surplus to store up for want in af-
ter days, as the result of Free Trade measures. You
are told, however, now that you can live for less, and
i hat you must workfor less. You, who have thrown
op your caps at Anti-Corn Law celebrations—who
have been flattered and elated to see broadcloth hob-

nobbing with your humble tustians, at free trade
dinners and soirees—who have huzzaed the clap-
traps of the Thompsons and the Aclands, and the
teetotal drivel of the Heyworths and other worship-
pers of sloppy beverages, too thin for your own

Stornachs, which are not strengthened by turtle,

ess to sweeten wit
_
less work, and little hope for the future

zar, and

I it; less wages,

You were

to De aavancea in tne social scale. .tou arc auout
to be degraded, and you have been betrayed into
the weakness of being the instrument of your own
fall.

The woes of provisional committee-men—the
voluntary exile of some, the mysterious disappear-
ance of others, and the foi cible plucking of the
few, who have manfully stood their ground, or
trusted to quibbles and technicalities for their pro-
tection—have ceased to move the hearts even of the
most sympathetic. Like the eels, they have got
used to the legal gridiron. The host of specula-
tors in scrip have by this time almost ceased to

grieve over the fortunes which have melted away
in their fingers ; and are singing to each other, in
resigned cadences, a parody of the old song,

" Sigh no u

Iles, sigh no more ;