The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-04 00:00:00

THE SCHOOL QUESTION.

e have made arrangements for giving an accurate and
verbatim Report of the Proceedings in Council on
Wednesday, on the discussion of the SCHOOL QUES-
TION. As considerable anxiety is evinced to ascertain
the most minute particulars of the debate, we intend
to give a mucit more copious Report than usual of
the whole proceedinys.

Ebt Eibrpont &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 4, 1842

The immediate purpose of the interview with Sir
Robert Peel with which the Deputation from the Short
Time Committees of the West Riding of York:--hire
were favoured, would appear to have been simply to
enlist his feelings in support of. a Ten-hours Factory
Bill ; but in the interesting conversation which took
place, our attention is irresistibly drawn to a more ge-
neral and comprehensive question—namely, the exist-
ing unrestricted use of machinery and its ctnse-
quences. The whole of the discussion, so graphi-
cally detailed by the deputation, is soothing and re-
freshing to the mind, in the highest degree, after the
noisy, intemperate, unmeaning, and repetitious brawl-
ing with which the orators of the League vex the dull
ear of a drowsy public continually. We cannot sup-
pose that the members of this deputation feel less for
the sufferings of the working classes than any one of
the great aristocrats of the factory, or than the whole
of the more noisy operators in distress put together;
they exist in an official capacity as men who do sym-
pathise deeply with the operative, whether of mature
or of tender years, and they have volunteered to act as
the organ of persons who are sensibly impressed with
the grievances under which this numerous class are
labouring. It is not their purpose to throw any veil
over the existing distress ; and so far from endeavour-
ing to mitigate some deplorable representations which
have been made on this head, they stand forward ra-
ther as witnesses of the facts perfectly ready to con-
firm them. They called the attention of the Premier
distinctly to the report of the Unemployed Operatives'
Enumeration Committee of Leeds, from which the
appalling summary is deducible, that nearly 20,000
human beings, in the several wards of that town, are
now living upon an average weekly income of 1 lid.
per head ! Such persons then can neither be charged
with ignorance of what exists, or with a disposition to
extenuate it, or, least of all, with indifference to the
important subject of its essential change and improve-
ment. They present themselves in the character of
parties who have made themselves familiar with all its
details, and who would offer to the attention of the
legislature something which they conceive would tend
essentially to its amelioration. And what is this
something ? Is it cheap imported provisions, free
trade, new markets, or anything of that sort, which the
great millowners insist upon as the sine qua non to re-
move ttv: depression ? No ; their remedy is of a pre-
cisely opposite kind ; they speak of contracting, not of
expanding our productive processes; of affixing some
limit, not of giving a further stimulus to manufactur-
ing operations.

First, they advocate a ten-hours bill, or provision
for restricting the working hours of young persons in
factories to ten hours each day ; and, secondly, they
recommend the withdrawal of all females from such
occupations. Nor is this all; they carry their idea's of
what is necessary to be done in order to obviate those
principles of evil which belong to the existing system
much farther, and contend for the necessity of impos-
ing some legislative check upon the march, or, at
least, the use of machinery itself. We can readily
conceive how distasteful such doctrines and proposi-
tions must be to the rnillocrats of the Anti-Corn-Law
League; the road that leads to reform at home is
rarely an inviting one; and this is the one to which,
after all their panting aspirations after foreign scenery,
their visionary pictures of more markets, more machi-
nery, more production, and more everything, is pointed
out to them in all its quaint formality, unromantic
plainness, and Dutch rigidity. We anticipate a burst
of amazingly tragic indignation and contempt from the
entire body at such a suggestion ; but they will have
to moderate their fury. Sir Robert Peel not only
treated the Yorkshire Deputation of which we speak
with the utmost courtesy, but gave his assent to one
very essential part of the theory advanced by them.
The following is a concession on his part to their doc-
trine which cannot fail to be considered of great mo-
ment from its manifestly powerful bearing on the
whole question in dispute. Amongst the last words
which he addressed to the deputation were the follow-
ing :

" I fear that the extension of our manufactures will not
afford the relief desired ; for past experience, I think, shows
that such an extension would only bring into play more ma-
chinery. and not employ manual labour in anything like the
rate of the increase in the machine department."

If this be the opinion of Sir Robert Peel's govern-

ttunt, We woftkl gay that the free trade quention, po far

s~ hip administration is concerned,

perfectly ettled

The great question at issue with the anti-home-prote

tine party is, in other words, just this of the extension,
or non-extension of the factory system. The whol

and sole object of the League is to increase it ; the

speak, they dream of nothing else; it is their panacea
for all grievances—the great remedy for all the priva-

tions and distress of the operatives—the certain reno-
vator of all manufacturing or commercial decay in
their estimation; and here, we think, the Premier de-
clares expressly against them, and throws all their
pharmacy to the !logs. With regard to the total ex-
clusion of females from factory labour the Premier de-
murs, and the Deputation exert themselves in vindica-
tion of the fair sex, and its appropriate domestic avo-
cations, with feeling, eloquence, and power. They
argue that the factory is certain degradation of the fe-
male character, and infer, with reason, that a train of
evils innumerable must necessarily attend so fatal a

The Premier adverts to the commercial or mo-
netary inconvenience which would probably result to
the manufacturer from depriving him of this class of
operatives ; the Deputation insinuate that human be-
ings are of a little more consequence than printed ca-
lico or cotton twist, and that their comfort, happiness,
and virtue have a far superior claim upon the conside-
ration of the statesman than the profits of millowners,
or any amount of manufactured goods that they can
produce.

In the first place, the Deputation fairly open their
attack upon machinery itself. We shall give a portion
of what they say on this subject :

" We can show," say they, " by statistical facts and irre-
futable documents, that since the year 1815, there has been
a constant introduction of self-acting machinery, or machi-
nery which imposed greater labour on the smaller number of
adult operatives retained; thus cheapening the cost, and in-
creasing the amount of production. And what has been the
consequence? Why, exactly in proportion as this has taken
place, the profits of the capitalist and the wages of the la-
bourer have regularly decreased, until at length, in 1832, we
received no more money for three times the amount of raw
material manufactured, than we received in 1815 for the one-
third. This result, in our opinion, is clearly traceable to the
unregulated use and extensive introduction of machinery,
which has either superseded adult labour entirely, or replaced
it by the cheaper labour of women and children. What is
now the consequence? Throughout the manufacturing dis-
tricts the mills are nearly closed. The capitalists and middle
classes are in ditliculties--insolvent or bankrupt ; while the
operatives are in a state of destitution which must make every
heart bleed, and which arises from causes over which they
themselves have no control. Now, if this insane course had
been checked—if over-production had been discouraged by
wise laws, arid a prudent system of trade pursued, wages and
profits would have been better, and employment more per-
manent, and more equally diffused over the year. We should
not have had flushes of prosperity, succeeded by long periods
of depression ; a continual recurrence of gluts and panics,
each crisis following the other at shorter intervals, and finding
us less prepared to bear it than its predecessor. For these
reasons we believe that the dictates of sound political wisdom
coincide with the dictates of humanity, morality, and religion,
in calling upon us to retrace our steps; and arrest the progress
of a system which is spreading disease, disorganization, and
disaffection in the factory districts."

They add, in illustration of the position that an ex-
tension of Manufactures would not necessarily afford
increased employment of human hands, the fact—
which appears from the reports of the factory inspect-
ors—that " between the years 1835 and 1839 the
horse power increased • at least one-half, while, so far
from the new machinery calling new manual labour
into exercise, the fact was that the number of spinners
in Manchester required to work the enlarged and in-
creased machinery was not more than one-third of the
number previously employed."

There is nothing plainer from such facts and state-
ments, than that the interests of the millowner and of
the operatives are not identical under the existing or-
der of things. Th e former is clamorous for new mar-
kets and free trade. For what purpose ? Of course
that he may be increased in mills, in goods, and in mo-
ney; but while the master grows rich, is clothed with
broad cloth, and well fed every day, the operative may
starve a beggar at the gate—the Lazarus of the para-
ble. The automaton weaver, spinner, dyer, and every
other sort of manipulator, has taken his place ; the
steam-engine does all; machinery haE sent him adrift.
The poor operative has really nothing whatever to do
with the agitation about which the masters take so
much pains; and the true call in behalf of suffering
humanity is, to lay some restraint upon a system which,
when unchecked, leads, without fail, to such multi-
plied calamities.

But it will be asked, what relief would those im-
provements in the factory system advocated by the
Deputation afford to the distress of the present Mo-
ment ? The answer must certainly be—none what-
ever; such relief must be effected by some other
means. But it was not for the purpose of admims_
ing relief to classes on whom an evil system has en-
tailed misfortune that the Deputation undertook to la-
bour ; it was to propose a correction to that system
itself; and they are right, we do humbly conceive, in
the course which they have taken for the purpose.

A memorial lately presented by the subscribed lay
inhabitants of Cheltenham, to his Grace the Archbi-
shop of Canterbury, is evidence that the interest felt
on the subject of the Oxford Tracts is not confined
alone to members of the sacred profession. The Ob-
ject of the memorialists in addressing his Grace is to
procure through him, as principal official guardian of
the Church in this kingdom, an authoritative condem-
nation of the Tracts by the united episcopal bench.
For themselves, they declare that though devoted epist
copalians, they regard " with dismay the recent deve-
lopment of views inculcated by the authors of the
Tracts for the Times," and that they are persuaded
that many of their meetings are " utterly repugnant to
the word of God, at variance with the plain meaning
of the articles, liturgy, and homilies of the Church of
England, and contain the essence of many of the most
fatal errors of the Church of Rome." The Lord Pri-
mate has promised to give his most serious considera-
tion to the purport of this address, and should his
lordship agree in the propriety of the suggestion which
it contains, we anticipate that he will find no great dif-
ficulty in inducing the bishops in a body, and without
perhaps a single exception, to pronounce such an offi-
cial and authoritative judgment on the papistical he-
resy sought.to be established by the Tractarians, as
may place the party in its proper point of view before
the world. Several of the bishops have already con-
demned this mischievous perversion of truth, speaking
authoritatively but individually within their.own dio-
ceses. The Bishop of London, at his last ordination,
we are informed, put several questions to the candi-
dates for orders to ascertain that their minds were free
from all tractarian taint in the interpretation of church
articles, and significantly told them that those who
could not interpret these articles in their plain and ob-
vious meaning, had no business entering the church.
Other prelates are perhaps no less decided in their
sentiments, and only await some suitable occasion for
divulging them—such an occasion as they would have,
if called upon by the Lord Primate to join in that high
and important official declaration, for which he has
been solicited by the memorialists alluded to.
So far as the tractarian writers themselves, or those
who have imbibed their superstitious notions are con-
cerned, we should not, of course, expect that any es-
sential change would be made in their minds by this
procedure; but we do think that it would neverthe-
less be a most happy event to have their errors for-
mally condemned by the united prelacy of the king-
dom.

We talk of extending the ministrations, as well as
of enlarging the borders, of the Church; and certainly
a more important object, whether it be viewed in a
political or a religious light, cannot be contemplated ;
but if that " principle of limitation" which Tractarian-
ism would introduce were to spread among us, it would
be to little purpose that we should build churches, or
endow ministrations, or in any other way extend the
outward services of religion : the dryrot of Tractarian-
isin would mar all these instrumentalities, and the
church—the Church of England, we mean, in all its
doctrinal purity and :apostolic simplicity, would die of
inanition.

We cannot deny but that, at times, we are tempted
to regard the solemn trifling of the Puseyites as some-
thing more worthy of contempt and ridicule than of
serious refutation. In a contemporary of Saturday
last, a writer, who subscribes himself " Clericus, "
gravely brings forward the following charges against
what he calls the "evangelical system" in this town.
He says,—
" By drawing an outline of the evangelical system, it must
he plain to every unprejudiced person how utterly regardless
it is of church discipline. In its mode of worship, it is too
evident there is a total disregard of the holy liturgy of our
apostolical church, the majority of persons assembling for
no other reason but to listen to some " extemporaneous ha-
rargue ", and return to their homes in a highly excited
fro .me of mind, totally unlike the quiet and peace characte-
ristic of the gospel. The new and old version of the " in-
spired psalmody " are entirely set at nought, and uninspired

hymns eking in their stead—the moat part thq production of
dissenters or apostates from the church. Au "extemporane-
-0211 prayer" before and after the extemporaneous sermon,
is now quite general. The outward demeanour of these mi-
nisters seems, in a great measure, borrowed from their dis-
senting brethren. We see them walking indiscriminately
with each other, and going in
.a body to the opening of uncon-
secrated and vnhallowed places of worship, thus giving an
open and daring countenance to dissent. Under these cir-
cum:lances, what true churchman will deny that the Oxford
divines were not justified in the course they pursued I
With regard to this rebutting case, it will be re-
marked, that the first accusation of a " total disregard
to the liturgy" rests solely upon the writer's opinion of
what is passing in the mind of the congregation ; that
the others amount to the use of hymns (or prayer) not
those of the inspired psalmist; to the use of extempo-
rary prayer; to ministers "walking with each other" (!)
and going " in a body to unconsecrated and unhallowed
places of worship, thus giving an open and daring
countenance to dissent." No wonder that the Oxford
divines came forth to break a lance with the authors of
such impiety—the leaders in such " open and daring
countenance" to dissent ! One must laugh at such
weak puerility and paltriness as this, and especially
when it is assigned as a sufficient justification of a
series of publications which seem to have had no other
object than to reduce the Church of England once
snore under the dominion of the Pope. It would be
easy to refute seriously and in detail these and many
other such allegations and pretences set up by the
Puseyite party, as an excuse and cover for their own
reserve in preaching," and their thousand and one
devices to reduce the, world once more to darkness;
but we are not going into the controversy just now.
• We have said that there is a puerility in tiMny-, of
their conceits that provokes one to laughter, and might
at first sight induce us rather to leave their- vain
janglings altogether Unnoticed than to take any trouble
about them; hut the safer course is, we now think, in
a different mode of proceeding.

Lord Ashburton goes out on a special mission to
the United States, in the hope of entirely removing all
grounds of quarrel between us and them. This is a
judicious proceeding on the part of Sir Robert Peel,
and, we trust, will prove as auspicious in its results
as it is wise in its inception. Why should the Ameri-
cans wish for a war with England ? It is certainly not
their interest; and if they have no sufficient cause for
it, neither is it their duty. On the part of England
they have received, and, through the instrumentality
of this extraordinary mission, will still further receive,
assurances which ought to satisfy them that there is
the most profound desire in this country to maintain
with them relations of the most entire and unreserved
amity. Such assurances, so devoid of all suspicion,
and so conveyed, must make an impression on the
American people,—and then, if there be the will, what
obstacle is there in the way to such a settlement of all
differences as will leave us no other than a cheering
prospect of lasting friendship and alliance ? The
Caroline affair! why it is mere nonsense; there is no
material for quarrel in that. The boundary line; there
is room enough, truly, for the people of both nations,
however the line may be drawn—and with ample scope
and verge enough for defining, it is not conceivable
that with a conciliatory dispostion on both sides, the
line may not he definitely laid down without any other
aid than that of civil engineers. The right of search
question is one in which we are interested, and honor-
ably so, for the sake, alone, of suffering humanity—
and America will not, we should hope, disgrace herself
be seeking a dishonourable quarrel with us on that
score. It is most desirable that the smouldering flame
which has been for some time manifesting its existence
by petty bickerings should at last be extinguished,—
and all must approve so laudable an attempt as that
now about to he made for the purpose. It is univer-
sally conceded that the choice of an ambassador could
not have fallen upon a more suitable person than Lord
Ashburton.

There is a controversy of great interest pending at
this moment, with respect to travelling on the Lord's
Day on the railway between Edinburgh and Glasgow,
and as the question is to be decided by the share-
holders, we would just put this question to them,—
would they, if shopkeepers or merchants, open their
shops or counting-houses on the Sabbath ? If they
would not, upon what principle, or with what excuse
can they vote for carrying on their railway traffie OR
that day ? It is easy to make out a plausible case of
expediency; but the query we suggest comes home to
the point, and it is the only one with which, as a
matter of conscience, the shareholder has any con-
cern. It is not for him to inquire about other men's
convenience, or inconvenience, but simply what it is
his own duty to do in the case. If his conscience tells
him that he would be violating a divine command by
transacting ordinary business on the day of sacred
rest, then it is his bounden duty to vote against traffic
on a railway in which he has a share on that holy day.

" To-morrow," says the Albion, " will see the tri-
umph of bigotry and intolerance in Liverpool." And
in what will this triumph consist ? Why, in simply.
establishing prayer and scripture reading as the system
of the Corporation schools ! That it will be a great, a
glorious consummation, we admit; but wherein con-
sists the bigotry or the intolerance, we do not perceive.
Save us from that toleration or that liberality which
requires us to give up all in this world that is really
worth adhering to ! If it be intolerance and bigotry to
maintain the truth of God, then long live these much
calumniated principles ; we never knew before exactly
what they were ; but thanks to our new whig diction-
ary, we are now enlightened on the subject. To teach
children to pray, and to read the Bible, is to be a
" bigot ;" how intolerant such conduct towards the
tares and the weeds—and all the seedling vices that
the enemy of souls would blunt in the youthful
bosom ! It is easy to see who the first whig

was.

STATE OF TRADE, MANUFACTURES, &c

We have little to report upon the state of commercial
affairs since our last. On Friday the annual circular of the
cotton trade (some remarks on which will be found else-
where) was published, and its discussion occupied the atten-
tion of a great portion of our men of business. The feeling
with which it has been received, although not one of a very
animating character, is yet on the whole cheerful with respect
to future prospects. The sales on Friday amounted to 5,000
bags at full prices. Saturday being partially kept as a holi.
day, but little was done—the sales only amounting to 2,000
bags, and prices unmoved. The sales yesterday were 4,006
bales at the full rates of the past week. The same want of
transactions may be noticed with respect to the trade of the
manufacturing districts.

The accounts from the United States brought out by the
Acadia are of a satisfactory character. A good feeling as to
future business is generally entertained by commercial men.
The principal part of the goods required for the spring trade,
however, have already gone out, to arrive at as early a period
as possible after the Ist January, when a reduction of the
tariff was to come into operation. Some additional orders
have arrived, however, by the Acadia ; and it is expected
will continue to arrive, although not to any great extent, for
another month or six weeks.