The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-19 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 19, 1842

In an article in his last publication, entitled " Dear
Food and Low Wages," the Manchester Guardian has
taken upon himself to read us a lecture with respect
to the tone of our remarks on Friday, upon the sub-
ject of the recent reduction of wages by the league
millocracy. he remarks in question, our contempo-
rary designates as " one of those scurrilous and offen-
sive articles which are the disgrace of the Tory press
of the present day." " 'File statements made or im-
plied" by us " that the reductions of wages taking
place" in the manufacturing districts " are consequent
upon or have any connection with the tariff proposed
by Sir Robert Peel," or are confined to the " league
millocracy," are, in the gentlemanly language of the
Guardian, "gross and impudent falsehoods "; and
our polite contemporary only notices them in order

"to let the manufacturers know with what relentless
hate they are pursued by the low and bitter dregs of
the Tory party"—ourselves, of course, included—and
how infinitely thankful they ought to be for the thick-
and-thin advocacy which he is ever ready to afford
them.

We shall certainly not he driven from the pursuit of
truth or from the expression of our honest convictions
by the hypercritical sensitiveness of the Manchester
Guardian. We care little for his strictures upon our
manner or our language, which we are in the habit of
adapting as closely as we can to the description of sub-
ject which we have in hand. Upon the occasion which
has moved our contemporary's spleen, we felt our-
selves called upon to disabuse the minds of our read-
ers, with respect to the reality of those professions of
sympathising regard for the welfare of the working
classes, which have been vaunted so loudly by the agi
tators of the anti-corn-law party. The cry of " cheap
bread," accompanied as it has been with the attemptto
impress upon the world that its benefits were to be un-
attended by a reduction in the price of labour, we de-
signated as a fraud upon the working man. We were
prepared to prove that it is, on the part of the mill-
owner and manufacturer, all this and more; and, how-
ever much it may offend the sensitive ears of our po-
lite contemporary, we can see no reason why we should
adopt any mincing, honied style of condemnation, when
speaking of a party whose agitators and itinerant
spouters, and whose press, have certainly not been so
very select in their choice of terms, when speaking of
their political opponents, as to deserve any great mea-
sure of forbearance at their or our hands.

Passing over, however, this as a mere question of
taste or propriety, let us see whether we are, or are
not, warranted in maintaining that the agitation of the
Anti-Corn-Law League, for a reduction in the price of
food, was undertaken with a perfect understanding that
with such reduction must come a corresponding reduc-
tion in the price of labour. We restrict ourselves for
the present to the manufacturing districts. We were dis-
tinctly told, indeed, in the House of Commons, by Mr.
Milner Gibson, that the millowners and manufacturers
of Manchester "contemplated no saving of wages as the
result of, or as attendant upon, the repeal of the exist-
ing protection upon provisions." Mr. John Brooks
took upon himself to rebuke the Rev. Hugh M`Neile
for having maintained that the contrary was the fact :
that the manufacturing millocracy did contemplate a
reduction of wages. We have ever Maintained that
such was their expectation ; and we think it will not
be denied that if, with this result of a free trade in
corn in their view, the agitators of the league held out
to their working population that the cheap loaf for
which they clamoured was for the benefit of that work-
ing population and not for their own, they were guilty
of a manifest fraud ; and the cry of " cheap bread for
the working man" was "a juggle—a lying pretence—
a disgraceful and hypocritical swindle" !
We will not for the present, although we are quite
prepared to deal with the fallacy which it contains, be
led aside by the theory of the Guardian, that the wages
of the labourer invariably decline as the price of food
advances. The question before us is simply,—did the
manufacturer contemplate a contrary result ? Did he
contemplate a reduction of wages as the inseparable
consequence of a reduction in the cost of subsistence ?
The constant outcry of the agitators of the league has
been that we could not produce so cheap as the foreign
manufacturer. We could not compete with the untaxed
labour of other countries. Now what is the plain,
common-sense meaning of this? Why, that we can-
not get our goods manufactured for the amount of
wages which the foreign manufacturer pays. An Eng-
lish spinner, weaver, or calico-printer cannot live on
the same wages which sustain the foreigner of the same
class. The human machine requires, in all countries,
a certain quantity of food, as the iron machine requires
grease or oil. The manufacturer must supply that food
or that oil ; and the British manufacturer urges that
he cannot compete with the foreigner unless he can

afford that supply for the same amount of Money as
the foreigner can. He no more requires a redundant
supply
.of food for his sentient machine than of oil for
his iron machine. He seeks the saving of the cost of
production, and that alone.
Did this fact need any proof we could refer for that
proof to the columns of the Manchester Guardian
himself. Our contemporary informed us, no long time
ago, that, to enable the British to compete with the
French calico-printer, the I Ss. a-week paid to the for-
mer must be reduced to the 12s. a-week paid to the
latter. It was distinctly admitted by our contemporary
that the price of labour must be equalised, to enable
us to compete successfully with the foreign calico-

printer. Will he now deny this, we ask ? Will he, or
any man, have the hardihood to go upon the Manches-

ter Exchange and maintain that such a result is not
sought for ; that reduction of the price of labour is
not universally acknowledged as the thing above all
others which is anticipated from a reduction in the cost
of maintaining the flesh and blood machine which toils
in the factories of the league millocracy ? Oh no !
Such rank hypocrisy may be swallowed with their tea
and cake, by a muster of free-trade ladies in Liverpool
or elsewhere, but the very stones of a manufacturing
town would rise to cry " out upon it !"
Our contemporary, however, is outraged by our al-
lusion to the reduction of wages,—at present going on
in the manufacturing districts, whilst the price of food
is being reduced by Sir Robert Peel's tariff,—as a proof
of the intention of the league millocracy to appropriate
to themselves the saving in the cost of food to the work-
ing man. " Those reductions," he says, " commenced,
and were carried to a very considerable extent, months
before Sir Robert Peel's tariff was published." Com-
menced, we dare say they were. Can any one tell us
when reduction in manufacturing wages did commence,
or when they ceased even for a time ? Did they com-
mence in that year of manufacturing prosperity and
cheap corn, 1835, when Mr. Henry Ashworth, of Bol-
ton, advised the commencement of the migration sys-
tem to check the exorbitant demands of the handloom
weavers, who were luxuriating upon 21d. per day per
head ? We defy the Manchester Guardian to tell us
when manufacturing wages have not been progressively
declining, or when they will cease to decline ; but we
can tell him when the present widely spread reduction
commenced. That step was the last effort of the league
to coerce the working classes of Lancashire into a
frenzied agitation for cheap bread and a belief of the
immaculate purity of their large professions. It would
have been commenced months before but for the selfish
fear that it would have opened the eyes of the few
amongst the working classes who were duped by those
professions ! Is this true, we ask the working classes
of Manchester, or is it not ? We will be judged by
their reply.
But " what (auks the Guardia& could the manufac-
turer do" ur.der his existing difficulties ? He had
no alternative, our contemporary urges, except "to
stop his works or to reduce wages to such an extent as
to meet the market for his goods." But grant that it
was difficult to stop his works, could the manufactu-
rer, even in the event of his having succeeded in the
whole of his free-trade requirements, " meet the mar-
ket" without such a reduction of wages ? If the mar-
ket, which was to be met, was the foreign market, then,
unquestionably, he could not ; and if it was the home
market which was to be increased, we rather imagine
that the ruin of the agriculturist is not the very best
mode of effecting such a consummation.
In strict fact then—aud we defy contradiction upon
this point !—the entire manufacturing interest of Great
Britain at the present moment, irrespective of party,
must and do look forward to a progressive decline in
the remuneration of labour, under any possible policy
which may be adopted by the legislature ! The pro-
gressive improvement of manufacturing machinery;
the progressive substitution of infant and female for
male adult labour; the growth of foreign competition—
all contribute to bring about this result; and it is only
fraudulent jugglery, besotted ignorance, or reckless and
shameless hardihood which can attempt to blind the
world to what is, under any circumstances. inevitable !
In the conclusion of the spiteful and slanderous ar-
ticle which has called from us the above remarks, the
Guardian exclaims—
" So much for this new tory calumny upon the manufac-
turers of this neighbourhood. It was not perhaps worth
much of itself; but it always is worth while to let the ma-
nufacturers know with what relentless hate they are pursued
by the low and bitter dregs of the tory party. When levelled
against them, no falsehood is too monstrous,—no insinuation
too base,—no reviling too coarse and scurrilous, for the
people who advocate toryism and monopoly, in nine out of
ten of the journals that call themselves conservative, and
from whose writings the real spirit and feeling of the party
may be best gathered.
" The manufacturers will do well to bear these facts in
mind, and consider a little what they may portend."

To senseless railing like this we can offer no reply
except by submitting it here for the laughter and con-
tempt of our readers. We can readily afford to pass
by the drivelling absurdities of more respectable and
consistent journalists than the editors of the Manchester
Guardian.

We have pleasure in directing the attention of our
readers to the lecture delivered by the Rev. Hugh
Stowell, on Friday evening, and to the proceedings of
the Church Pastoral Aid Society yesterday, both of
which will be found fully reported in our columns.
With respect to the former some explanation may per-
haps be due to our readers, and to those reverend gen-
tlemen who have preceded Mr. Stowell in the delivery
of this course of lectures, for the space which we have
afforded to it in our columns. The late pressure of
assize and other intelligence has compelled us to cut
down into what, we fear, will have been considered
very meagre sketches the able lectures of the reverend
gentlemen in question. That pressure, however, is
now removed ; and to the remainder of the course we
hope to be able to do greater justice.

We have been induced, however, to make a little
extra concession of our space in favour of the present
lecture, not only in consideration of a request to that
effect from the numerous assembly before whom it was
delivered, but because an intimation had been, above
a week ago, conveyed to us that a copious report in the
columns of the STANDARD would be gratifying to the
friends of Mr. Stowell, in Manchester and Salford.
In this locality, the scene of his valuable labours, the
press is either too much occupied with the bitterness of
the League agitation, or too deeply embued with the
spirit of Tractarianism, to afford to any advocate of
our Protestant faith more than a passing notice; and
we have, therefore, sincere gratification in being en-
abled, on the present occasion, to present to the nu-
merous admirers of the rev. gentleman an opportunity
of appreciating the value of his exertions in the good
cause.

We cannot, whilst offering this explanation, pass by
without comment one circumstance connected with the
lecture of Friday, which we noticed with some regret.
With the exception of the Rev. Dr. Tattershall, not one
of the clergy of our own town was present on Friday
evening ; and Mr. Stowell, a stranger amongst us, was
himself compelled to open the meeting. This, although,
we have no doubt, unintentional, was scarcely consi-
derate and courteous towards that reverend gentleman;
and we should be sorry to see a similar circumstance
occur on future occasions.