The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-11-01 00:00:00

don Times of Saturday

" 1 dare say that many of those around me have read an
exceedingly interesting book which has been lately published
by Charles Dickens, whose tact is so exquisite, and whose
benevolence and whose sympathies are thrown over so wide
a field of thought and action. Have you read his account of
the factories at Lowell—(hear. hear,)—of the manner in
which they are dressed, associated even with elegance,—of
the piano on which they play--of the libraries which circu-
late among them --ef the periodical in which they write?
(Applause.) I wish the working people of England would
study that affecting picture, and ask themselves whether this
state of felicity is owing to any impediment put upon the im-
provement of machinery—to any " ten hours' factory
to any interference in the question of wage's. Nothing of
the sort is there required. It is perfectly clear, therefore,
that their happiness is not attributable to those delusive pro-
tections which some of our working class are desirous to
possess, but that it grows out of circumstances more inti-
mately associated with the emancipation of trade than would
appear at first sight and on the surface of things."

We say nothing of the truth or falsehood of the
picture, as painted by Mr. Dickens, of the state of
working classes employed in the factories of Lowell—.
of their dress, their piano-fortes, their circulating
libraries, or " the periodical in which they write." A
great portion of it may be true. We know that the
.
contrast between the condition of the factory classes
in America and in Great Britain is decidedly in favour
of the former. But we know as well that neither
Doctor Bowring nor any leading member of the league,
whom he addressed, believed any other than that Mr-
Charles Dickens had been outrageously humbugged
by the Yankee inillowners, when he was induced to
credit all this rubbish which he has so innocently given
to the world. Why, we could spew Charles Dickens
English factories—which, if seen upon a show clay,
when the ill-dressed, the dwarfed, the ragged, the pre-
maturely old, were huddled out of sight—when the
appliances of whitewash and chlorides had been used,
floors neatly swept, and everything unsightly removed
from before the eyes of the visitor—would be just
the kind of places over which a utilitarian philosopher
of the Bowring school would chuckle. Mr. Charles
Dickens is not the first philanthropist who has been
humbugged into a belief in the delights and comforts

of a factory life; and there was not a member present
on Friday who did not laugh in his sleeve at the
" smartness" of the Yankee who had gulled him into
the belief that Lowell was a second Arcadia.

Admitting, however, which we are ready to do, that
the working classes in these factories are infinitely
better circumstanced than in those of Great Britain,
how does that fact advance the arguments of
the Anti-Corn-Law League ? The Doctor says
that the British factory population "should ask them
whether this state of felicity " (!)—which consists
of piano playing and periodical writing—" is owing to
any impediment put upon machinery—to any ten
hours' factory bill'—to any interference in the question
of wages." Perhaps the Doctor would tell us how
the British factory girl or boy, toiling thirteen hours
per day, could find time for either of these felicitous
occupations !--how the broken-hearted and debased
adult could bend himself to the pursuits of polite
literature ! Oh, Doctor, Doctor ! what a forty-horse
power of assurance it must have required to even
touch upon such a subject in the presence of an
asserribly of free-trade cotton lords !

" It is perfectly clear," proceeds this political quacks
" that their happiness"—the happiness of the Lowell
factory operatives—" is not attributable to those pro-
tections which some of our working classes are de-
sirous to possess, but that it grows out of circum-
stances associated with the emancipation of trade."
What ! has the American manufacturer no protections?
Is it the principle of " emancipation of trade" which
protects the American cotton manufacture, by duties
of forty and fifty per cent. on British cottons ?
scarcely know whether the charlatan who gave to the
world such statements is more to be despised than the
body which listened to him without having the honesty
to kick him out of their presence ! .

The American factory population—no one knows
better than Dr. Bowring—is in possession of greater
comforts than the wretched slaves of our own land,
because the domestic labour of America is protected,
whilst that of Great Britain is not. The former need
not the protection of a ten hours' bill, because in the
United States, as yet, neither capital nor machinery are
absolute lords over human labour. The American fae"
tory operative is not, like his English brother, chained
down, by circumstances, to the loom or the spinning
frame. The field of labour in that land is a wide and
an open one; domestic industry is remunerative, and
manufacturing capital must hold out the inducements
of high wages, comforts, and even luxuries, before the
operative will barter the free air of heaven, and the
enjoyment of health and liberty, for the slavish and
unwholesome drudgery of factory labour.
But, we ask, why has this picture been pressed
before the eyes of the manufacturing population of
Great Britain at the present moment ? The reason is
obvious. The sedition-mongers of the League are
busy in their vocation. They aim at inflaming the
passions of starving men by pointing to the condition
of the American operative; and they will not succeed.
The factory population of Great Britain know too well
the character of the Bowrings, the Cobdens, and
other lights of the world of "liberalism," to be caught
by so palpable a trap. They can look back to year!
of bloated prosperity and, say,—what did a "
millocracy do then for the comforts and the health
and welfare of the overtasked workman ? and the
answer of an observant world will be—NOTHING ,
They folded themselves in their selfishness, and
scouted the claims, to the possession of a station in the
world, of the very class whom they now affect t°
patronise and to pity 1

We have been much amused at the subtlety, and at
the same time utterly disgusted with the hypocrisy, of
the Radicals setting themselves up as mentors in re-
ligious matters, and, more especially, on a subject 00
which it has been their wont to bestow the most
unlimited abuse.
Our readers may perceive we allude to some remarks
which fell in Council from Mr. Alderman Bra le
Moore, respecting foreign missions, in the course of