MR. GLADSTONE ON THE LANCASHIRE DISTRESS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 35, 10 March 1863, Page 3

MR. GLADSTONE ON THE LANCASHIRE DISTRESS.

(From the TfrH. Dec. 29.) Mr Gladstone presided on Saturday at one of the weekly entertainments at the Music-hall, Chester, on which occasion he availed himself of the opportunity to refer to the distress in Lancashire. He snid that the bulk of the cotton manufacture was carried on in a region comprised within 27 Unions, their population being somewhat beyond 2,000,000 and the rated value of that portion of the property which was subject tt> rates was above £5,-')00,000. Certain portions of the manufacture AVere, however, carried on, beyond the limits of this area, the mo3t considerable probably being in Glasgow, but the distress, generally, would be less severe in proportion as the district was less exclusively dependent on the cotton industry ; yet even in these places much had been suffered and much had been done, and, as an instance of the liberality of some of the millowners, he might mention that in Glasgow a single firm had been supporting its workpeople at a charge representing £12,000 a year. Upon the whole he migbt, probably, not be wrong in adding to the great Lancashire and Cheshire district l-10th of the outlj ing districts as far as contraction and loss of wages were concerned, and from l-10th to l-20th as far as regards actual want and necessity for special aid. The number of persons employed in cotton manufacture in the whole country appeared to be little, if at all, short of 400,000. Of these one half were wholly unemployed, 3-Sths or thereabouts were on short time, and less than 1-StJi were fully employed. The loss of weekly wages of this population was about £1<30,000 or at the rate of nearly £5,000,000 a year, and with the loss of wases in trades directly subsidiary to the cotton manufacture and depending upon its extent, it was impossible to be estimated at less than £12,000,000 a year— probably a good deal more. Such a loss told, in a sensible degree, upon the revenue of the state, for it must he roughly estimated that each man in this country contributed an eighth of his income towards public revenue. Upon the whole he thought the present annual rate of loss to the revenue in consequence of the cofoil famine was IA million or thereabouts, and that the actual loss for the current financial year, during which the distress had been growing to what, as he fondly trusted, was its maximum, would be more than one million. He had spoken of the numbers out of employment, but, of course, the numbers in want of aid were considerably greater. Some ofthe workers were members of families where sonic other member or members of the family had other sources of support, but against any deduction on this account a much larger addition had to be made on account of those portions belonging to the families of the workpeople themselves, by whom no wages were earned — the very young, the old, and those engaged in the cares of the household; Accordingly, he found thnt in the 27 Unions the number receiving Poor Law relief was about 2-50,000; and the number who, without receiving any Poor Law relief, received relief from charitable funds was 190,000. making together 410,000. To this number additions were to be made of workpeople supported by their employers themselves and from the outlying districts; and, taking these additions into account, he thought they might place the total of persons thrown into destitution by the cotton famine at half-a---million persons. So much for the numbers of the distress ; now let them consider what ' ad been and what was being done for them. When in the summer ard early autumn every week added rapidly to the number of mills in part or entirely closed, and want came to be extensively and severely felt, there were two, or, indeed, three temporary obstacles which might have unduly kept down the measure of relief. One wr.s t'iie difficulty of organising, at short notice, a machinery eqml to the task of regularly supplying the sudden demand of thousands and tens of thousands without at the same time incurring enormous waste, and giving direct encouragement to fraud. The second was the nnble indcpend°nce of the people themselves (applause), and the third was an excusable timidity which seemed here and there to have affected the administration of relief, Boards of Guardians not always learning in a moment that an extraordinary calamity required an unusual freedom in the measures for relieving it, and some managers of charitable funds being alarmed at comparing the amount of the voluntary subscriptions as it then stood with the demands of the coming; winter and not having faith enough in the will and ability of the nation to administer by spontaneous bounty to this gre.it distress. And this was to be expected and could not be blamed. But from such causes the pressure and suffering was, it might be feared, in some cases sharpened for a time, and a lady, blessed with large means and more largely blessed in disposition — he meant Miss Burdett Coutts — having forwarded a munificent contribution, wisely expressed her wish that the whole of it might be lnid out at once. They must all at all -times meet the real and essential wants of the present before reserving anything -for the future. At that time in one most distressed L'nion the rate of weekly relief was not in all more than ls Id per head for man, woman, and child. Intelligent benevolence had, however, snpplied both the machinery and the means, and the average rate of out-door Poor Law relief, whieh before tlie distress was | ls 2£d. per week, was now nearly Is Od. The funds of the Poor Law were expended in the Lancashire and Cheshire district at a weekly rate equal to more than a mil-lion per annum, or at the rate of Os per pound on rateable property, after deducting that portion of it from which at present rates could not be collected. The total weekly expenditure by guardians and by committees of charity in the 27 Unions was *£13,047. yielding to each recipient within a fraction of 2s per head. In addition to this the executive committee had distributed 4731 bales of clothing; nor were they to forget that besides this great river of bounty many little streams were flowing through private channels, each and all of them bearing consolation as they flowed. Though for the sake of their noble-minded fellow countrymen they might all wish the relief afforded was much more, yet looking to the nature of the case and the necessity of preserving a due relation between the state of independent labor and that of the receiver of relief, the present rate ought to be reg3rded as sufficient and satisfactory, and they had the pleasure of hearing from the report of Mr Farnall that " neither himself nor the executive committee had received any com- ' plaints from the poor of insufficiency of relief or charitable aidV' So much for the amount of relief. The prospect was certainly no worse as to its duration. The charitable committees in | the different neighborhoods were expending .£20,000 a week, but the executive committee was'receiving from the Gth to the 20th oi this month above £7000 a day, The public and general subscriptions it would appear amounted to more than £1,200,000, and they might safely assume that the machinery in operation would raise this to £1,500,000 ; whereas the sum hitherto expended must fall short of one-half the amount actually raised, so that they might look forward with cheerfulness to the absence of any new and -great calamity to the remainder of the winter. Should the dreadful and sanguinary war which desolatd America and threw the surplus of its curves upon Europe be brought to a close, a great and early relief might be expected; but, in any case, the administrators erf public bounty would, it might be trusted, meet the spring with some considerable funds in hand. After paying an encomium to the suffering operatives for the manner in which they had borne tbeir affliction, he said that as they had begun and continued, he hoped they would so persevere to the end. They had new forms of trial before them. They had passed from the condition of h ighly paid laborers to that of receivers of relipf, and this they had done with no diminution but with an increase of respect and honor. They would, lie hoped, soon pass back again from the condition of receivers of relief to that of highly paid laborers. But this they could not do at once.. A state of things was pretty certain to arise in

which the range of prices, on which wages must depend, would be such as to enable employers, or such of them as only bent but did not break before the st'ortn, to offer low wages, but not such as to -enable them to offer high ones. To accept these low wages> to commence again the workman's career on a reduced and contracted footing, would be a new form of trial. Might they meet it as duty, and not as pride would prompt them, and. might it be their last. Cheers.)