CHAPTER XI.

FEBRUARY-MARCH 1863.

AGAIN, the Speech from the Throne contained an allusion to the cotton-manufacturing districts. Her Majesty expressed heartfelt grief at the severity of the distress, and acknowledged the noble fortitude and exemplary resignation with which it had been borne. She referred with gratification to the abundant generosity with which all classes of her subjects, in all parts of her empire, had contributed to relieve the wants of their suffering fellowcountrymen; and spoke of the liberality with which her colonial subjects had given their aid, as proving that although their dwelling-places were far away, their hearts were still warm with unabated affection for the land of their fathers. The Royal Speech also made well-deserved mention of the relief committees, as having superintended, with constant and laborious attention, the distribution of the funds intrusted to their charge.

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Upon the motion for the Address, Lord Derby spoke at length with regard to the condition and prospects of Lancashire. He said that the cutting off of the material of a manufacture which had risen to such an unparalleled height was, however, expected to produce worse miseries than those which have overwhelmed the manufacturing districts.' And with graceful depreciation of his own exertions, he referred in terms of eulogy to those of the men of business who, 'engaged in transactions on which it was necessary for them to bestow constant attention, gave hours and days and weeks and months of their time, gratuitously and without the slightest recompense, except the consciousness of the good they were doing, to the alleviation of the distress around them.' He pointed out

the hardship, while acknowledging the necessity, of making no distinction in the distribution of relief between those who had been earning 30s.,and 408. a week as wages, and those who had only earned 78. or 88., and the natural consequence, that, while the distress had been severely felt by the higher class of workmen, by the lowest it had scarcely been felt at all. He foretold the increasing difficulties of the small capitalists, and predicted that two or three years must elapse before the cotton trade would revive to an ordinary degree of prosperity. ́

All this tended to confirm the mind of Parliament that the condition of the manufacturing districts was such as would call for their anxious attention throughout the Session. And only a week had passed from its opening, when Mr. Villiers rose to move for leave to introduce a Bill for the continuance of the Union Relief Aid Act. For many reasons the President of the Poor Law Board found his task lighter than it had been at the original introduction of the measure. The Act had been completely

successful. It had removed from the minds of the ratepayers the fear that they would be overwhelmed by the pressure of the rates; it had relieved the boards of guardians from any doubt as to the resources they administered, and as to the ability of the Poor Law to bear the unusual strain. The benefits of an Act of the Legislature are not however to be tested, so much by the extent to which it is made use of, as by its proved capability to meet the case for which it was designed. A poor law is not beneficial in proportion to the number of paupers who avail themselves of its provisions--nor a law establishing rewards for good conduct by the number whom it decorates -nor a flogging law by the number of lashes which are annually received in consequence of its enactment. The Union Relief Aid Act had now an established reputation as a thoroughly workable measure, well adapted to the special wants of the district, and certainly preventive of a disastrous pressure of the poor-rates.

That but only a few of the unions in the cotton district had taken advantage of its provisions, was entirely owing to the liberality with which the public had poured in their donations, and was in every way a fair subject of congratulation both to the country and the Government. But

something more than the success of his measure supported Mr. Villiers upon this occasion. He had proved himself master of the situation, and had won the confidence of Parliament and the public. It was felt that all that was in the power of the Government, or of the department over which he presided, to do for the mitigation of the distress would certainly be attempted, and that whatever measures were introduced would be such as would not compromise the foreign policy of which the nation approved, nor establish a precedent which might lead to future embarrassments. He had had the satisfaction of seeing the principles with which, during his tenure of office, he had laboured to inspire the Poor Law, working efficiently under extraordinary circumstances. He must have known that many of the opponents of his amendment of the Law of Settlement in 1861, were now thankful that that Act had prevented the transportation of thousands of the distressed northern population. Nor could that policy which he had done more than any other statesman to promote of equalising the burden of poor-rates-have received a greater impulse than had been given to it by the unbroken success of the action of the Poor Law in the cotton districts. He was further supported by the knowledge that those proposals for money grants from the national purse-which he had refused to sanction or to second-had through all the unparalleled distress of the now departing winter, grown fainter if they had not entirely died away. Throughout this most trying season the ears of the country had not been shocked by accounts of starvation among the distressed population, nor startled by deeds done in violation of law and order. The peace of the district had remained unbroken, the authority of the law had been supreme, relief in money, food, and clothing had been liberally dispensed to all who had claims upon the public bounty, and even the sufferers themselves joined in the general approval of the policy of the Government.

On its second entry into Parliament, the Union Relief Aid Bill derived material support from all these circumstances. The operation of the Act had been such as to prove its utility, with at the same time a minimum of pressure upon those who, though within the sphere of its incidence, were not within the immediate neighbourhood

of the cotton manufacture. The total amount which had been borrowed in or charged upon the three counties was but 63,6751. The rate-in-aid contributed by Derbyshire had not exceeded one farthing, nor that by Cheshire one halfpenny in the pound on the net rateable value of these counties. The charge thus imposed upon Lancashire had not been greater than one penny in the pound. Seven unions had availed themselves of the provisions of the Act, five of which had borrowed money, while four out of the seven had borrowed and had also charged a portion of their expenditure upon the counties. For the Michaelmas quarter, Preston and Blackburn had borrowed respectively 3,800l. and 3,500l. For the Christmas quarter, Ashton had borrowed 8,000l., Blackburn 10,000l., Glossop 1,000l., Haslingden 1,000l., Preston 7,000l, Rochdale 8,000l., and Todmorden 1,000l, making a total of 43,400l. borrowed. There had been charged upon the counties-by Ashton 8,000l., by Glossop 1,700l., by Haslingden 2,000l., and by Preston 7,000l.; so that the total of the rates-in-aid had amounted to 19,750l. The anticipated strain upon the ratepayers had not been felt in its expected severity, and an additional charge of 9d. in the pound upon the rateable value of the property within the district would have met all the extraordinary requirement of the three months during which the distress occasioned by the Cotton Famine had been deepest. But for the assistance afforded by this measure the burden upon the chief centres of the distress would have been very grievous, and perhaps intolerable.

In the course of the debate which followed the reintroduction of the Bill, it was mentioned that as many as four thousand persons in Oldham had in one fortnight changed their condition from ratepayers to rate-receivers. But, if the inference from this statement was that they were pauperised by the pressure of the poor-rates, it was entirely fallacious, because these persons would under any circumstances have found no difficulty in getting excused, or at least in being allowed to take indefinite time for the payment. Most, if not all of them, were operatives living in houses of about 61. rateable value, who were destitute of accumulated resources, who had been thrown out of employment by the stoppage of the factories of which they were ordinarily employed, and whose pauperisation was pro

bably not even hastened by the pressure of the poor-rates. During its passage through the House of Commons, the Bill was voluntarily amended by Mr. Villiers, in two valuable respects. The time for the repayment of loans was extended from seven to fourteen years, and the Bill was so altered as to prevent the possibility of the misconstruction which had presumed that the charges made upon unions under this Act, were not to be accounted as part of their expenditure, in and about the relief of the poor.' With these amendments, the Bill passed through committee, and was accepted by the House of Lords.

Two days after he had obtained leave to bring in this Continuance Bill, Mr. Villiers moved for and obtained returns of the average rate of weekly earnings of agricultural labourers in the unions of England and Wales. His object was to facilitate migration from the cotton districts, and to direct the emigrants to the best markets for their labour. The returns exhibited a material rise in the wages of agricultural labour as compared with those of a few years back, indeed the average wages earned for task-work in the agricultural districts, appear to equal the average of men's wages in the cotton factories; but the operative is as strauge to outdoor work as the rustic would be to factory labour, and while the rate of outdoor relief given to men with families was quite equal to the wages they would have earned in agricultural districts, where children's labour is in very small demand, it was not to be expected that they would be disposed to wander into southern England.

The Central Executive Committee continued their good work, and the number of local committees dependent on their funds were steadily increasing. Though nearly 40,000 persons had been removed from the lists of poorlaw relief since the last week in December, Mr. Maclure's voluminous return for the corresponding week in January, had shown that the numbers solely maintained by the relief committees was not lessened by a single thousand. The guardians were in fact being relieved by the formation of additional relief committees. Of the 235,741 persons now receiving relief exclusively from the committees, there were no more than 84,155 who worked or were engaged in educational or sewing-schools in consideration of this