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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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nation , the Times calls upon said Roman Catholics , the Irish majority , to act with the English majority in resisting that aggression . Now , there cannot be the slightest prospect of any such union—it is only said for the sake of saying—sl transparent pretence to coyer over that ludierous state of confusion into which Pope Innocent of the House of Bedford has brought the conduct of public affairs : the quasi-Ministerial journal must discuss public affairs , but in order to do so with anything like gravity , it must first of all at least pretend to place them m a state capable of grave discussion , and then in that imaginary state , with all due
it proceeds to treat them solemnity . The reason for all this reigning absurdity is the same in England as in France—there is no master principle : instead of positive principles , public men have learned to substitute negative expedients , such as the combination to " keep out the Tories " j old endeavours for the past are placed in lieu of living necessities , and instead of popular freedom , men will even now " go for the Reform Bill "; the vessel has been put for the thing , and Liberal principles are replaced in the affection of Parliament men by " the Liberal Ministry" which has descended to us from the past . More than one doating nurse mistakes the tomb for the cradle , and is nursing the
political corpse of a John Russell in the hope that some day it will grow to be a man . For any present purpose and future movement , our leading and professional politicians are without positive principle . Nor can they be revivified while the public re « mains without . In the public , too , we see many a section advocating its specific-, but no master principle—none large , noble , and exalted enough to be the motive of a nation . The place for a national party is vacant .
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IRISH MANUFACTURES . The Munster Traders' Association , which has just commenced its active work , is both a sign ancf an engine . The address of Mr , Maguire , unless the scheme is to end in smoke , describes one of the most revolutionary projects ever entertained . The plan of action ranges itself under three heads—the founding of Industrial Schools , the establishing of a Commission Warehouse for the sale of exclusively Irish manufactures , and the formation of a Mechanics' Institute . The Mechanics' Institute was opened on the 8 th instant , the schools were to be established a few days later , and the preparations for the commission warehouse advance
rapidly . The schools will instruct children , commencing with girls , in light occupations , such as sewed muslin work . The commission wareroom will be the means of selling such articles , and articles made hy the ticken weaver or web weaver , who now wanders many a long mile to find a market for his wares . But the society , it appears , will labour still more generally to promote the purchase of Irish manufactures , which is at present impeded by two difficulties—the difficulty of discriminating between the genuine Irish manufacture and the English interloper , and the discredit which has been brought upon Irish manufactures , by ill-made importations , which dishonest traders have passed off as native produce . This is Mr . Maguire's injunction : —
" In one word , ask for Irish manufacture , when you want to purchase a coat , a hut , a shirt , a cloak , a gown , a shawl , u cap , a blanket , a piecf of flannel—any article whatever ; and when you can get it , ia the name of common sense and common humanity , buy nothing else . " The plan , therefore , although not ostensibly , and , we presume , not intentionally , is practically a measure of non-consumption against England — as much so as that of the New Engltmders before the revolt of our North American colonies . Practically , it would work as a retribution upon England for that nnsgovernmeut of Ireland , which has wedded hngliah mistake to Irish foible , and has engendered a frightful progeny of disorder , want , disease , and wre tohedncHs . Under the present relations of England and Ireland , the Irishman labours without
receiving eveu that Beauty pittance out of the fruits , which in thrown hack to the English labourer or Ilia hunting hound : the promoters of the Minister scheme are in the right when they endeavour to break off that process ; no theory of old I ohtical ( Econo my or Free . Trade can justify it . ' hey are right to consider the life and well-being of " •¦ no Irishman an of more importance than the trade <> t the country ; they are right in holding by the principle that the primary object in distributing the t'lnplo ymeut and dutipH of a People in to wouro for each a fair chance of subsistence
If we are less confident of success for the project than we could wish to be , it is because Mr . Maguire and his friends take up a position of weakness and flinching , instead of resolution and strength ; and they do so , we think , because they do not thoroughly perceive the very simple causes of Ireland ' s poverty . For an illustration of what we say , let them look to our colonies , where the feeble industry , the turbulence , and the lack of enterprize ascribed to the Irishman at home , disappear from the race , and are seen no more . We regret to see Mr . Maguire complaining that " the
manufacture " of articles , once profitably made in Ireland , is now crushed beneath the flood of English enterprise , whereas we believe that the English and the Irish could divide among them the several branches of industry , with profit to both Peoples , if both were placed upon an equal footing . We regret to see Mr . Maguire teaching his countrymen to look to manufactures rather than to agriculture — to the secondary rather than the primary—to the unstable rather than to that which is based upon the land ; the very root of all Irish misery lying in the corrupted state of her land
tenure . We regret to see him expressing a fear of " annihilation from the poor-rate ; " a sound poor-law being the provision by which , if they become corrupted in individual hands , land and industry revert to the state . It is not poor-rates that Ireland has to fear , but land rents . A land that cannot support the People born upon it , ought to pay no rents . The first charge upon the land is the subsistence of the sons of the soil , and until that be satisfied there is nothing for any other
claim . You may note this great distinction between the Irish and the English People—whereas the land of the English has been confiscated , as to a class , in Ireland it may be said to have been confiscated , as to a race . If the Irish People had possession of the land to which the Irish People is born , it would not see produce drained away for rents , and it would learn by the stoppage of that drain that it is the loss of its produce , and not the invasion of English manufactures , which brings ruin .
Then the Irish People would not need to fear , but would invite the cooperation of English enterprise . One article of food , which is shamefully withheld from the English People by a blind reliance on trading agencies , is the fish that abounds off the coasts of our island : experience has thrown great doubt upon the bent of the Irish coasting population , for that spontaneous , steady , and daring cultivation of the sea , which belongs to the more truly maritime English race : were the Union really
consummated , what hosts of Englishmen might find employment on the Irish coasts . If the English Government were forced to restore Irish confidence in England by a more open , as well as diligent , labour for the rescue of Ireland , the jealousy would be annulled . One obstacle which hinders such a compulsion is the want of concert between the English and Irish People ; and that want of concert , again , is hindered by a want of administrative organization for the People .
Meanwhile , such movements as that at Cork are signs of the degree to which society i . s stirred by these fundamental questions ; and it will he a sad neglect of duty in the popular leaders , if they lose the opportunity afforded by that stir , to secure a large stride in the progress of the People .
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ANOMALOUS PRICES OI BREAD . A KBHKLMON in the Bread Basket ! N . C , of Avenue-road , complains in the Times , that " the bakers are now getting enormous profits "; which he infers from the fact that he pays 7 < 1 . for the 4 lb . loaf , while the poor get that quantity for ( id ., and , " according to the assize in the time of George I ., the Hixpenny loaf should weigh , of best bread , 5 lbs . . 'Jo / .., and of seconds , ( ilhs . 15 o / ., wheat being then at the same average as now . Sorrowful Sevenpence appeals to the leading journal ia a more eloquent strain : —¦
" Yon arc coiiHtimily tolling us of t . ho advantages of free trade and of tlu 1 coiiNe ' qtient diminution of the price of bread ; recently , hIno , yon have informed uh that bread in selling in the higlient prie . ml shops in London at Hid . the 41 h . loaf . I think , therefore , yon nhould in jntitico brinut your powerful influence to hour oil tlu < bakorn of Claplmm . Thu price in London i » , you nay , W ^ d . Tho Iii'ntfiio bread in Bold at . Kcnnington for fl . Jd ., }« t here in Clapbam we are charged 7 d . Now , Sir , in 1835 , the average , of wheat wan an nearly us nomtiMc wlmt . it in now , mid bakers then Hold in the , city of Huh , excellent bread ' for a penny a pound , via ., 4 d . the loaf . Yet , horo wo arc nuyinK 7 d . " 1 » this honest ? asks Sorrowful . We do not know ( hut it is , but wo much doubt whethe r th «
dishonesty is chargeable upon bakers . We doubt whether bakers , as a class , are making fortunes very generally . The fact is , that the baker deals in a plain homely article , which , except to families who live in affluence and luxury , forms an important item of expenditure '; and there is , therefore , a constant pressure to abate the price . In poor neighbourhoods , of course , the pressure is still more intense . The bakers that serve the easier
classes , properly avoid very frequent changes of price , and they will rather continue to lose for a little bit than charge more to a regular customer , making good the loss at a better season . The baker of the poor is pufc to closer shifts : his price goes up and down with every change in the market ; and , if the easier customer pays a little more for his bread , the additional price includes the cost of sending round , of credit and keeping accounts , of changing over-stale bread , and the like . Few men of the middle class
would like to be placed , in all respects , on a footing with the cheap-bread customer . On the other hand , your sevenpenny customer is not always the safest—no offence to Sorrowful , who is , no doubt , as punctual , as he is punctilious in pence . It ia not the dishonesty of the individual baker that creates these mysterious aggravations of price they have a more distant and a wider cause—the excessive division of employments , which
overcrowds every branch of industry with superfluous intermediate agencies . The baker has as hard a time of it as any other tradesman : the difficulty you feel to pay his price is the identical difficulty he fedls to pay your price . If you could get the Times to screw him down by its hyper-hydraulic pressure , it would be most unjust , unless Baker induced the Times to screw you down also ; and it is the same all round . The evil arises from the
disproportionate mass of industry thrown upon secondary employments , which do not afford the necessaries of "life out of themselves , as primary employments do . This looks like that social bugbear , an * ' abstract truth , " which most of us regard as equally horrid and useless ; but it happens to be the reason why Baker calls upon you to pay him sevenpence a loaf , and why you find a difficulty in doing so .
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ARE WE GOING BACKWARD ? Adam Smith remarks that " it is in the progressive state , while society is advancing to the further acquisition , rather than when it lias acquired its full complement of riches , that the condition of the labouring poor , of the great body of the people , seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable . It is hard in the stationary , and miserable in the declining state . " . What a change must have come over society since the Wealth of Nations \ vu . x written , if this was a true state of the case at that period ! Since the world began there never was a time when society was " advancing to the- further acquisition of riches" more rapidly than at present , and yet the condition of the labouring poor is very much inferior to what it was a century ago .
Take the city of Glasgow , for example , which is so frequently quoted as an instance of the rapid progress of wealth and population , under the combined influences of trade and manufactures . People tulk with astonishment of the rapid growth of London , but its progress has been slow compared with that of the western metropolis of Scotland . At the death of Charles the Second , in 1085 , the population of London , according to Sir William Petty , was about 696 , 000 , and in 1850 it had only reached about 2 , 200 , 000 , having little more than trebled the number of its inhabitants in 165 yearn . In 18 OL the population of Glasgow was n : j , 76 <) , and in 1 H 5 1 it is estimated at 450 , 000 , giving an oneresiso
of nearly four hundred and fifty per cent , in fifty years . Supposing it to go on at the same rate for the next half century , Glasgow would contain 2 , O 5 O , OOO inhabitants in 1 J ) O 1 , which \ h nearly its many uh there are in the metropolis at the present ; day . Here , then , we have a city which prcsentN all the outward marks of prosperity ; Jet us enquire whether tho condition of" its labouring poor has improved along with its end-easing numbers . All political economis t * agree that tho quantity of * animal food which a nation consumes may be taken as a tolerably accurate tent of the condition of tlio people . We shall adopt that rest in comparing ( Ik ; present ntate of the working cIu-hh in Gluxgow with what it wan eighty years ago .
1 'he Scotch pune-PH luwo lafoly quoted certain tables of the consumption of provisions in Glasgow , during the Jaut three yours , { or tho purpose of showing 1 thnt , under tho operation of free trade , tho
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Jan . 26 , 1851 . ] «!> * ** && **? 81
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 25, 1851, page 81, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1867/page/9/
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