THE DISTRESS IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 1, 12 May 1863, Page 3

THE DISTRESS IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND.

The prospects of the operatives in the cotton manufacturing districts are still of the gloomiest description. An occasional diminution of the distress is reported from week to Week, but that appears to result from merely accidental fluctuations. As time wears on and as hopes fade away, it becomes only two manifest that the calamity is not a mere passing blow, but is to be regarded as a sad position into which a province and an industry have fallen. We know not how long it may last. Trade obstinately refuses to mend. India will not buy, and, what is worse, India will not sow. An increased breadth of cotton in one district only causes an equivalent substitution of grain for cotton in another. Meanwhile, at the open mart of Liverpool, cotton comes and cotton goes. It goes to every protected factory in Europe, and to the still more protected factories of New England. The price of the manufactured goods seems to have reached a maximum, for there is now scarcely a difference between cotton goods and linen. The price of cotton goods must stand there, even though it be overtaken by the price of the raw material. Whatever we do this year for the relief of the operatives, we must reckon on having to do next year, and the next after, unless we can find some permanent resource. As for the civil war, things are now in that pass that peace will hardly repair its ravages or set industry in its old course for many a year to come- Such, on the testimony of all sides, is the prospect before us. We are bound to look forward, not for months but years, and realise the probability of closed mills, small trades and enterprises of all kinds checked, stifled, and crushed ; men who had risen above the operative class pulled back into the common level ; and a very numerous class below now indulged with a scale of relief which must give way to hard work and bhort wages. The utmost we can expect is, that for the next year there will be the material for half-work, but, through the quality of that material, only fcr a third of the wages hitherto given. In a large class of cases that will not be a maintenance. We are then warned that the coming relief will airive in the shape of a very slight reduction in the price of the material, without any rise in the selling price of the manufactured article. The larger mills will be able to resume half-work on such terms — not the smaller. This, ]ike most former disasters, will have the effect of ruining the smaller manufacturers, and throwing wholly Out of work all who depend on them. The distress, it is said, is steadily creeping upwards. Small tradespeople and others have been for more than a twelvemonth living on their capital* and they begin to succumb. What can be done for them? More cotton cannot be obtained ; new markets cannot be found. Mr. VilHers has assented to the suggestion of Lord Stanley and Mr Cobden, and the general wish of the manufacturing districts, to continue the Relief Aid Act only for six months, so as to revise its provisions once more before Parliament separates for the long vaction. Mr Cobden, in his speech on the subject in the House of Commons the other night, pressed very strongly to have some of the limitations in the borrowing power of the unions removed. He said the distressed unions did not wish to come at all upon the rate-in-aid, and would not, if only they could borrow on the security of their large property what would get them through the hour of difficulty. Rochdale, for instance, said Mr. Cobden, has property whose rateable annual value is £225000 ; or which, is worth three millions at least. How should Rochdale act ? How would a individual act, because that was always the best test in such circumstances ? Having three million pounds unencumbered, and wanting £100,000 for the next twelve months to meet an emergency, he would strive to borrow money ; it would be a ! legitimate transaction, and he would get the money on easy terms.' 1 The Legislature, however, will not allow them *to borrow till a rate of 3s in the pound has been paid. " Before you can borrow £5000, you must have paid in poor-rate £9000." The House ought to repeal this absurd restriction, said Mr. Cobden. They might, if they liked, restrict the borrowing power absolutely to 50 per cent, of the annual rateable value ; but the borrowing power should be otherwise free. Mr. Villiers has. extended the time over which the re-

payment of these loans may be extended from seven to 14 years. At a meeting of the Mansion-house Committee held in London on February 20, a letter was read from the Government Emigration Commissioners, stating that the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand, had sent them £5000 (out of .£IO,OOO they had voted), for the purpose of sending out to that colony such of the operatives and their families as were suitable for emigration, and that upwards of 300 persons had been selected. They asked that the committee would supply such of the emigrants as needed the assistance with clothes, and with the means of travel to the seaport. In reply to the letter, the committee stated that they did not feel authorised in spending the money entrusted to them for that purpose. On the 9th February, the George Griswold, the vessel freighted by Northerners with food for Lancashire, arrived in the Mersey. She was received with a salute from the North Fort, the Rock Fort dipped her ensign, all duties were remitted, and the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce have drawn up an eloquent address to the commander. In it the chamber express their hope that as the Irish famine produced free trade, so the terrible calamity under which America is suffering " may issue in some signal national deliverance, the benefits of which are to stretch beyond yourselves to the benefit of our common humanity,'' — Home News.