THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Vol. I.] JUNE, 1826. [No. 6. 



MACIIINERY-DISTESSRES. 



If the deepest misery will not touch our hearts, a very slight alarm, 

 it seems, can rouse our fears. If the softer sympathies of nature be 

 too feeble to impel us to fly to the succoivr of perishint^ thousands, we 

 are prompt enough to emulate the splendors of fashionable munificence. 

 We will not be out-stript in any career of ostentation, though we care 

 little about being distanced in the race of benevolence. Is there undue 

 asperity in these conclusions? Let us glance at the facts. A growing and 

 grinding distress among 150,000 labourers was notorious for months 

 and months, without a soul stirring to alleviate its rigour. Suddenly 

 comes an accession to this distress by the general suspension of credit ; 

 and 50,000 are thrown completely out of employment, and are thus 

 plunged into absolute and immediate misery. What follows ? Instant 

 relief? No ; the public interest is all, for the moment, absorbed in 

 the more striking ruin of the imprudent masters. But soon the 

 very numbers of vagrant and starving labourers force attention on 

 them ; parochial funds become unequal to meet the accumulating 

 demands ; and local contributions are at length tardilj' made by the few 

 who have any thing left to give. No general aid, however, is given ; 

 no spontaneous effort springs up, nor are any vigorous appeals made to 

 other parts of the country. The local contributions, in the meanwhile, 

 are fast exhausting ; and, with them, the exemplary patience of the 

 weavers. Their hopes, fed day by day with assurances of the quick 

 recovery of trade, and the certainty of aid from other quarters — from 

 the good, the generous — from opulent London — our paternal govern- 

 ment — all are disappointed, and the consequence is speedily despair, 

 desperation, violence. The effect is electric ; alarm spreads ; urgent 

 representations are made to the government, and a parliamentary grant 

 is suggested as a measure at once the most immediate, fair, and effective. 

 No ; there is no precedent. An occasion so imperative requires none. 

 But it will itself prove a precedent, and a very bad one. Why no pre- 

 cedent is blindly binding ; you must be guided by existing circumstances ; 

 and posterity must do the same, and take care of themselves. Still we 

 cannot propose it ; the clamour about voting away money is irresistible; 

 Mr. Huskisson — the pictures — we would countenance a private subscrip- 

 tion ; to be sure, we have great demands upon us ; but we will do what 

 we can — Will you attend a public meeting ? Yes. Then follows 

 a prodigious bustle ; letters are despatched here and despatched 



M.M. NexjoSeries.—Vo^. I. No. 6. 4 C 



