Vtuuiurto.
Mr. Fenand is strenuously endeavouring to gain agricultural adherents to his " Wool League." Since the initiative meeting at Pontefract, he has, held a meeting at Doncaster ; and last Saturday he drew together, in the spacious Corn Exchange at York, a large audience of "farmers from the Wolds," and Protectionist tradesmen having sympathetic interests.
Mr. Ferrand much insisted on the "practicability" of the Wool League; a point on which he seemed to apprehend the prevalence of doubt.
" They say to me, Oh you can't make everything of wool.' I never said you could. When I first addressed the people of Pontefract, I told them they must bring into cultivation flax and hemp ; and now I will show you a mine of wealth. Great Britain and Ireland, a few years ago, paid annually to foreigners for flax, oil-cake, and linseed, 27,000,0001. This sum has been reduced, by home cultivation, to 18,000,0001. In 1848, the Irish Constabu- lary returns of breadth of flax in Ireland were 53,863 acres. The breadth of land in England under flax cultivation was never properly ascertained, but it is increasing rapidly. The quantity of flax now consumed in Great Britain and Ireland would • • uire 400,000 acres. The extra land required to pro- vide the extra 200,111 bales would amount to 200,000 acres. Total acres re- quired for growth of flax, 600,000. In two years, Great Britain, Ire- land, and the Colonies,would provide wool sufficient for the home market, and the present exports of woollens; and in six years also sufficient wool and flax to supply the place of the 1,600,000 bales of cotton now used in the ex- port slave-grown cotton trade." From this statistical deduction he turned to moral international considera- tions. "We have been told by the Government that there is no occasion to- grow flax, wool, or hemp, as foreign countries 'will supply us ; and they say, 'As to Ferrand's wool scheme, it is impossible to carry it out.' I will put a plain question to these men. What would you do if America won't let you have cotton ? What would you say if America were to issue an edict to- morrow, and say their population was increasing so rapidly that they must keep their cotton at home ? And what would you say if Russia, Hol- land, and Belgium should do the same thing ?" How long is it since we- had to eat dirt on the Boundary question ? We were browbeaten then be- cause our cotton-lords wanted cotton and Government durst not do its duty. "If America were to seize the Canadas tomorrow, England would have to stomach it, and express the hope and earnest prayer that they would not take the Indies from us also." What happened the other day ? "Think- what has occurred ! Nay, it is heart-rending—it is sickening—it is disgust- ing! The other day, at Charleston, which is a slave-growing cotton town, the Sheriff went on board a British ship whilst floating on the seas, and tore from beneath the British flag a British subject, hurried him to gaol, and kept him there for two months. Had Mr. Pitt—the immortal Pitt—been alive, and been asked the question which was put by Mr. Cockburn, he would have sprung to the floor of the House of Commons and said, 'Sir, the ques- tion which has been put by the honourable Member is too true ; the insult has been offered—the outrage has been committed on a British subject: but the instant I received the communication, I despatched twenty sail of the line, with instructions to the Admiral to point his guns on the town, and, if redress is not given to this imprisoned man, and an ample apology not given. for the insult to our flag, level it with the ground.' (Applause.) But hear the language of a Minister with a cotton soul. (Laughter.) Hear what Lord Palmerston said—' It did not appear to the Government that there- would be any advantage in further pressing the matter.' There was no sil- ver and gold to be made by it ; so England is again to eat dirt. Farmers, I believe there is no instance on record to be compared with this disgraceful and humbling conduct, except that of Sir Robert Walpole in the reign of George the Second—one of the most corrupt Whig Ministers that ever dis- graced this country. It appears now, so far as the Government is concerned; that the protection of the British flag is to be left to British merchant sea- men ; and as I am a living man, if I were the captain of a merchant-ship, and the authorities of Charleston came on board my vessel and tore one of my crew away, I would thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder and blow them to the Devil and myself to glory." (Laughter, and great cheer- ing.)
Of course resolutions in favour of the " Farmer's Wool League" were• passed by acclamation,
The salaries of all the officers of the Dorchester Poor-law Union, with the' exception of the Believing-officers and the Master of the Workhouse, have been reduced by the Board of Guardians 15 per cent —Dorset CountyChro- nick.
The milers of the Dudley district are "on strike" in consequence of a reduction of ten per cent in their wages. It is said that only a few masters announced the reduction whereupon a general strike followed. The trade generally was not in a depressed state warranting a decrease of pay. The workpeople meet and discuss their grievances, and then travel about seeking. assistance : they have behaved peaceably, and public sympathy goes with them as a hardly-used class.
At an inquest held on Saturday, before Mr. Herford, the Coroner for the borough of Manchester, a verdict of " manslaughter " was returned against Joseph Wheeler, a reheving-officer employed by the Manchester Union, for neglecting to relieve an unfortunate Irishman named Hannon.
At the inquest on Pengelly and Truseott, the two men killed by the ex- plosion near Liskeard, no evidence could be adduced to prove the cause of the disaster. A few minutes before the explosion, the men parted with the manager's son ; they had a candle in a lantern, and went to the drying- house; the conjecture is, that the lantern was opened to inspect a thermo-: meter when a spark fell from the candle upon some loose powder. The- Jury Could only return a verdict describing the way the men were killed. The explosions were of terrific violence. Not a fragment of the drying-. house remained on the spot where it had stood, and a hole five feet deep was scooped in the soil. The works were situated in a wood, and whole groves were swept away.
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