The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-13 00:00:00

th, upon the

, howeve
than the somewhat opposite opinions of the
Chester Guardian, and other anti-corn-law writers, we

.re more honest

shall not offer an opinion. TI

Journal says

" The assertion that the rate of wages follows the price of
food, is one which lies not even the prestige of antiquity, nor
the sanction of a great name. It is a mere modern piece of

country-squirisni. It only astonishes us how any reflecting

Man can repeat it

" If we are asked whether we do not think that to main-
tain, or rather regain, our manufacturing prosperity, we must
have cheaper labour and cheaper food, we are much disposed
to answer the question in the affirmative, though that is no

Part of our argument against the corn-laws, from which we
should expect moderately lowered prices, and greatly in-

creased means of consumption

Though some people Ir

- •
We think very foolishly, it is not from mere cheapening of

corn that we expect prosperity. If that will make us pro-
sperous, we are likely to have it full soon. Under the cld
law, we had corn down in one year (1835) to Us. In the
first year of the present one we have it down to 48s. If we
have an abundant harvest next year, we shall to a certainty
have it down to 365. again. Without a change, to fight
against all the disadvantages of not taking corn and sugar
from foreign nations, and of taxing cotton and wool, wages
of labour and (as a consequence and not as a cause)

prices
of food must be reduced to at least as low a rate as on the

continent; for we are sacrificing all the advantages of our
Position. To maintain those, to avoid such a calamity,—for
the ruin of the agricultural interests, we feel as strongly as
any one, would be a great one,—we would repeal the present
corn-law. We should then calculate on an import never at
a lower rate than 405., rarely higher than 5( .
458• By this, all classes of workmen would be able to buy
themselves plenty of food ; four hundred thousand able-
bodied paupers would be enabled to buy for themselves and
families the two millions of quarters of corn now given to
them for doing nothing ; and the three hundred thousand
added to our population every year, instead of going into the
workhouses, would forge, and spin, and weave, to buy the
food which they now beg or steal, or starve for the want of."
We were never enamoured of those abstract prin-
ciples by which political economists would regulate all
commercial legislation. We do not even subscribe to
the dogma—whether of Sir Robert Peel or of any
other man—that we should always " buy at the cheap-
est market." Carry out this doctrine to its fullest
extent, and all commercial legislation is uncalled for—
nay, even prejudicial. We have no right, then, to have
colonies. The whole principle, and details as well, of
our tariff, are unwise. If we can buy our silks, our
cottons, our hosiery, from other countries as cheaply
as our own, we ought to be permitted to do so. Reci-
procal treaties, even, are so many treaties of injustice
and folly. But what sane man, we ask, would go this
length ? Circumstances must ever guide us in legisla-
tion, and not mere abstract principles ; and these cir-
cumstances will be found to operate upon the realisa•
tion of the doctrine that low wages and cheap provisions
accompany each other. It is the natural state of
things; and wherever it does not occur, depend upon
it there is something artificial in the state of society in
Which such a phenomenon is produced.
We admit that cheap food has not produced cheap
labour, as a general rule, in this country ; and especially
In 1535, the

usually about

amongst our manufacturing population.
Journal reminds us, the price of wheat was, in one
Week, as low as 365. the quarter. Now, what, we ask,
Was the state of wages in that and the following year?
'they rose, in the manufacturing districts, as Mr. Ed-
mund Ashworth, a competent anti-corn-law authority,
assured the Somerset-house Commissioners, ten per
Cent. The demand for labour exceeded the supply ;
and the same gentleman implored the Commissioners
to grant relief to the manufacturing capitalists, from
*e source within their reach—pauper migration. The
Prayer was granted ; and the downward progress of
wages, which had for years been going on, recom-
Menced. Cheap corn then produced,first, good wages
and increased comforts to the labourer; and, NEXT,
migration of the agricultural population to the fountain
of those comforts, with ultimate overstocking of the
labour market. The cheapness here, however, it must
be borne in mind, was produced by abundant harvests.
A good home demand had created employment for the
manufacturing masses. The China and East India
Markets had just been opened. The railway mania
was in its height; and we were in the midst of a ficti-
tious prosperity. Hence, good wages was the tempo-
rary accompaniment of cheapness. But let that cheap-
ness be created by foreign importation, and even the
temporary refutation of the principle that cheapness of
food and cheapness of labour go hand in hand, will not
°ecur. The agricultural labourers, dispossessed of em-
131°Yment upon the poorer soils, will flock to the labour
Market of the manufacturing districts, and will take
employment whenever it will bring them the decreased
amount of wages which will buy them food. Such a
result our contemporary evidently contemplates; and
the more corn we import,—the lower we drive the price
of corn, the more rapidly it will be produced.
But the Journal says, cheap corn is the consequence of
1010 wages, and not vice versd. Why what a fallacy is
here
! Surely wages were low enough last year; hut
Was corn low? Or can wages, however high, make
the price of corn high, with open ports ? But the ab-
surdity is too palpable, and we leave it.

We cannot let pass the opportunity, which offers
t°-(lay, of expressing our thanks for the firmness, in
repressing those unseemly exhibitions of ill-temper
Land ill-breeding in the Council, which has thus far
That
exhibited by his worship, the present Mayor.
l'hat the task is a difficult one we well know, and the
more, on that account, we appreciate the effort to per-,
'Grin it. We do not say that it will be entirely suc-
cessful, for you might as well attempt to harness a
Oasshopper, or to extract silence from a green parrot,
as to restrain within any assignablebounds of decorum
ene member of that Council, whom we need not name.
Men who cannot be looked at, even, without breaking
nnt into unseemly buffooneries, are not easily con-
l'ertible into orderly members of any deliberative
assembly : and our only hope, therefore, in this quar-
ter, is, that the constantly recurring admonitions of
his Worship may at length produce that disgust in the
entire body of the Council, which will make itself felt
evenr, by one so impenetrable to ordinary appliances.
`-'1 this we are certain, that a respect for their own
character ought to urge even the " liberal" party to
lend
their best aid to the efforts of Mr. Gladstone to
elevate the character of the assembly over which he
presides. Conduct towards an opponent which would
scouted as impertinent in a tap-room, should not
e countenanced by educated gentlemen in the Conn-

It will be seen by a paragraph in another column,
thatt a system of espionage has recently been intro-
;iced into our police force for the detection of
intro-
;iced and beer-sellers, in breaches of the new local
et affecting them, the fairness of which, as regards
tth 08e whom it is sought to punish, and its policy as
oegards the parties employed to carry it out, appear to
to be highly questionable. We allude to the order-
R of police officers to watch and enter inns and
taverns, in the disguise of sailors, or workmen of pecu-
nar garb, without staff. truncheon of office, or other
4(10 or proof of authority. A female, a Mrs. Chis-
I, who keeps a public-house in the borough, and
1111° was brought before Mr. Rushton on Friday last,
4the merit of being the first to protest, before the
Magistrate, against such a practice, which she consi-
t,Nd (and we think on good grounds,) as unfair to
117 trade, and as vesting the constabulary with a power
at is liable to the grossest abuse. She stated that
her house had been entered by several men, in the
juke of sailors, who produced no authority, nor even
o f°lned her that they were policemen, but whom she
found were the officers who appeared against her.
consindeed, said that they did tell her they were
tables; but admitting that they bad, any sailor, as

she remarked, might say the same thing, and thereby
get into her house after hours, she being liable to a fine
if she refused admittance to the police; and it is obvi-
ous, we may add, that if they were not officers, and got
in by a false personation, it was difficult to get rid of
such customers ; and the probability would be, that if
they were there found by the real " Simon Pures," and
any dregs or ale bottoms were left about, she would be
equally amenable to a fine. Besides, no publican can
have a personal knowledge of every man in a force of
between six and seven hundred men ; and when one
or more of them enter a house in unwonted attire, and
afterwards appear against the keeper, in police uniform,
as witnesses, it may be difficult for the defenaant to re-
cognize them as the same individuals. The defendant's
witnesses, too, may be equally puzzled in this respect,
for difference of dress frequently gives a very different
contour or appearance to persons. Defendants may
thus be put in a doubtful or indefensible position; and

in candid minds the evidence becomes liable to suspi-
cion, which would not arise were the proceedings open
and above board. Mr. Rushton appeared to he f
opinion teat there was some justice in Mrs. Chisnall's
complaint, and properly remarked that be was not him-
self aware of such a practice being adopted, but he
should make inquiry into it.

We know not by whom the system was introduced.
We are informed, however, that it was adopted—
doubtless with good intentions—for the purpose of
detecting certain publicans who employ persons at the
entrances of their houses (after or before legal hours)
to watch the coming of the officers, and who. on a
signal being made, contrive to clear the decks, and get
rid of their company; thus evading what we consider
to be a really salutary law. If this be the reason, we
think it one that is untenable; for it admits that the
very eight of a police-officer is a powerful check to the
evil in question, and that the disguising of such officer
as a sailor, or otherwise, is an aim at detection rather
than at prevention. But, be this as it may, the system
(which may he very well :n some cases for the detection
of felonies, or secret conspiracies) is doubly objection-
able :—first, as regards the trade, on the grounds
stated, as well the pre-supposing their guilt—which is
rather unconstitutional ; and, secondly, as regards the
officers themselves. It casts a stigma upon the former,
unmerited by them as a body, many of their houses
being conducted in an unexceptionable manner; and
it tends to degrade the latter, by lowering them to the
obnoxious character of spies. Lmongst the abuses to
which, if persisted in, it will open the door, not the
least is, that, under its wing, constables in disguise
may obtain admission into public-houses at all hours
of the night, and getting—if they think fit—a glass
here and a glass there, may become intoxicated; for it
is quite clear, that though publicans are liable to fine
for such supply to men on duty, the promise of suffer-
ance in such cases held out, by the officers themselves,
—who can alone become informers—and the fear of
giving offence to these lynx-eyed guardians of the
night,—must generally result in compliance. It would
be unjust to assume that this would be the general
conduct of the officers; but that it would give such
facilities to the less steady amongst them, at hours
when few of the public are abroad, and still fewer to
recognise them in their plain clothing, is, we think,
unquestionable. Surely, the vigilance of the police
as officers, numerous as they are, is quite sufficient to
carry out the purposes of the legislature, without re-
sorting to schemes of mere detection, at once insidious
and abhorrent to English feeling. The secret system
to detect political offenders had its day. It was some-
times available for good, but was found to be beset
with so many concomitant evils, that it was, by almost
common consent, consigned to " the tomb of all the
Capulets." We deprecate its revival, even on a small
scale, in the social relations of life, and trust the
proper authorites will see reason to abandon it. The
police force has need of all the popularity which an
open, undisguised, impartial, and uncompromising ex-
ercise of their legitimate functions can supply; and it
were unwise to subject them to the unenviable notoriety

of occasionally appearing amongst any class of their
fellow-citizens as spies.