THE DISTRESS IN THE MANU. FACTORING DISTRICTS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 7, 2 December 1862, Page 3

THE DISTRESS IN THE MANU. FACTORING DISTRICTS.

"The Cotton Famine Committee," (says |he (times) "has organised its executive and commenced operations, ' and there is every hope. that distress will be allayed for the present ; .buf notwithstanding the generosity of' a first impulse^wd 'doubt whether these gentlemen have fully Teiliaed:the probable duration .of this; distyess, and what - will nave to be done before it is over. They must prepare for something serious— more serious than they have to meet at present. One subscription fund is soon spent. If the American struggle goes on — and it is impossible to tell how long it will go on — more money will be wanted, and people will begin to talk of appealing to the Exchequer and of more appeals to the public ; but before either of these appeals is listened to, all eyes will be fixed on Lancashire itself, to see what cotton riches will give to relieve a cotton famine. We shall not let the poor people starve before our eyes, that is quite certain ; whoever has to keep them, they are safe ; but Before we go to the- public, or the national Exchequer, we have a right to expect * good deal more from local capital than it has yet given. If Lancashire has not an exceedingly wealthy class of landowners and millowners, the idea of wealth has been all along a great mistake in the world, and people have been in a dream upon this subject, indulging an Oriental fancy and using words to which there was no corresponding reality. We will, however, gladly allow all the Lancashire landowners and manufacturers to talk of themselves and »hink of themselves as poor men, provided they will — when it is wanted, as it probably soon will be — give very large round sums to the Cotton Famine Kelief Fund. They have not yet given those sums, though some have given respectable instalments. But it cannot' be said that we liave hitherto anything like a proportion between the sums contributed to the relief of distressed labor and the enormous gain which has been made of that labor."

A correspondent from Preston gives tbe following pictuie of the external aspect ot the town : — „ A casual visitor wouid be slightly puzzled, on first entering this district, to realise the correctness of the statements now so continuously made about the intensity of the distress which prevails ; and if nothing beyond a mere fleeting, external view were obtained, it is probable that the only strong impression made would be, that the picture had been over-colored — that tbe state of affairs had been exaggerated — that keen-eyed penny-a-liners had distorted the truth — and that scribes with a passion for " piling the agony " had been indulging in gross hyperbole. And the casual visitor, if he went no further than this, would have nothing to disturb the equanimity and strength of his convictions. Certainly the dark columns ot smoke, which ordinarily even dim the light of noonday are not perceptible, and to the trained eye their absence is demonstrative of some commercial catastrophe; but in other respects there vs nothing directly and peculiarly ostensible to arrest the attention of the superficial or convince the mind oi the wonder-seeker. At daytime the streets are alive as usual; the leading thoroughfares are thronged as of old ; the squares are redolent of aristocracy ; and the walks and public promenades are freighted with afternoon beauties and old-fashioned loungers. But all this is a mere delusion, and one of the cleanest of " white-washed sepulchres." Far away in the town — deep down in the back alleys and fie dark cour is , and the foul reeking passages — there is something more terrible, and people who live in them are slowly passing through a fierce, bitter baptism of poverty too deep and too strong for human words. The outside may flaunt, and wheel, and grow rotund with content, but the inside, the great heart ot life, is beating up heavily against the sides of misery, and anguish, and want. And yet, after all, the people are confronting their trials and afflictions «rith a coolness and self-possession alike astonishing and commendable. ~ Mr. Farnall's report to the Manchester Central Relief Committee for the week ending September 20 of the state of the distressed operatives in the 24 unions affected by the cotton famine shows that in them 149,612 persous are receiving parochial relief, while in 18 of the districts 110,0C3 are relieved by local committees. This shows an increase of 107,588 persons receiving relief over the number in the corresponding week of last year, and of 4810 over the number of the previous week. The total weekly cost of out-door relief in the 24 districts is £8,532.