IN LONDON. Freemanand Cook.......................... 350,000 Sargeant, Garden, and Co................. 150,000 Thurbonand Co............................ 120,000 Coates and Co............................ 100,000 Leaf, Barnet, and Co..................... 100,000 Farmer and Ward......................... 55,000 Ryder, Wimbolt, and Co.................. 50,000 Pemberton and Co........................ 30,000 Abbot and Co............................ 30,000
Besides the great number of mercantile firms which failed, several banks were reduced to the same necessity: the West India, the Shrewsbury, Market Drayton, and the Honiton, were among the principal. Many foreign mercantile establishments which had connections with British houses also stopped payment, adding to the distress and alarm.
During the ensuing month large imports of bullion arrived from the continent and America, and the aspect of affairs became more hopeful.
Throughout the year the English populace experienced much distress, and bore it with patience; still there were food riots and disturbances of various sorts, which had to be put down by the strong arm of the law.
Notwithstanding the gloomy condition of all monetary and mercantile transactions, there were men of enterprise, who contemplated future undertakings of great magnitude. Among these projects was one proposing the formation of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, which, however, was not carried into effect. The French government and people were very desirous to have such a work accomplished; but English politicians regarded it with jealousy, especially Lord Palmerston, then the highest authority in England on foreign affairs. By him the measure was regarded as impracticable, at all events, as a pecuniary speculation; and in its political tendency, likely to separate Egypt from Turkey, and to give France, as a great Mediterranean power, an undue preponderance. He also regarded it as endangering, and not remotely, English empire in India. At all events, Mr. Stephenson, the great English engineer, investigated the subject, and surveyed the line through which certain French speculators proposed that the canal should be cut. As the subject is technical, Mr. Stephenson’s views are given in his own words, used ten years afterwards:—
“In 1847, in conjunction with a French and Austrian engineer, he investigated the matter, feeling how important would be the establishment, if possible, of a communication between the Red Sea and Mediterranean. The levels given by a French engineer, who visited Egypt in 1801, during the French invasion, indicated a difference between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean of something like thirty-two feet. It was suggested that if the old canal of Ptolemy were opened again, a current might be established between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, which would not impede steam navigation, and would at the same time scour the canal and enable a perfect channel to be maintained. However, after investigation, he and the other engineers found that, instead of there being thirty-two feet difference of level between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, there was no difference at all, though the notion of that difference of level had been entertained for upwards of fifty years. While that notion existed it was believed by professional men that a canal, or a new Bosphorus, as it was called, might be maintained between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; but the difference of level being found to be nil, the engineers with whom he was associated abandoned the project altogether, and he believed justly. Since that time he had walked over the district, at some considerable inconvenience, and investigated the feasibility of opening a canal between the two seas, assuming them to be on a level, and supposing the canal to be supplied with water from the higher level of the Nile, but he had come to the conclusion that the thing was, he would say, absurd, were it not that other engineers, whose opinion he respected, had been to the spot since and declared it to be practicable. He coincided in opinion with the first lord of the Treasury. Money, it was true, would overcome any difficulty, but, commercially speaking, he must frankly declare that he believed this scheme to be unfeasible. Whatever its political import might be, he believed it to be an undesirable scheme, speaking as an engineer. In his opinion, the railway now nearly completed would be more effective, as far as India and postal arrangements were concerned, than this new Bosphorus between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.”
POLITICAL AGITATION IN ENGLAND.
The commercial distress gave an opportunity for certain political charlatans to stir up the minds of the people. The Chartists, headed by Fergus O’Connor, took advantage of the privations of the populace by appealing to their passions and their sufferings, representing them as the dupes of the upper and middle classes, especially the latter, who were described as enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. The “people’s charter” was declared to be the panacea; all social evils were to vanish before the application of that political remedy. Some of the political demands of the chartists were just; all classes of liberal politicals felt that the people were entitled to a wider distribution of the franchise, but many who thus felt were deterred from the concession by the intemperate language and impracticable schemes of Fergus O’Connor and the lesser leaders of the confederacy. Whatever might be supposed imprudent as a measure of political agitation in a rich country, and where the vast mass of the people had a strong aversion to all constitutional, or as it was the fashion to name them, “organic changes,” by sanguinary or violent means, was resorted to by Mr. O’Connor and his coadjutors. He propounded principles of political economy so absurd, that it was difficult to suppose he could have any faith in his own theories,—holding out the hope of an ultimate division of the land among the people: others propounded the doctrine of a law by which every man should be provided with “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,” and the duty of supplying that “fair day’s work” for him rested, it was alleged, with the government. These men, in fact, did their utmost to bring about a social war, and the doctrines of communism were actively propagated and eagerly received among large numbers of the operatives in the metropolis and the north of England, and among the labourers elsewhere. There was, probably, no important town in England that had not its chartist association, which looked forward to a violent political revolution by which high wages could be procured by little labour. The Chartists, like the Irish repealers, were divided into sections, characterised respectively by their profession of physical force or moral force. The moral force Chartists were like the Old Irelanders, not generally very sincere in their belief of its efficacy. They professed it merely as a cover to conceal what they meditated; they were as much physical-force men as those who were so designated, but did not deem it politic to make the avowal.
After the dissolution of parliament (which will be recorded in its details upon another page), Mr. O’Connor succeeded in gaining his election. This circumstance filled his followers with revived hopes, and the agitation became more enthusiastic and demonstrative. Large public meetings were convened, which were conducted with order, and dispersed peaceably, although the speeches on these occasions were very inflammatory. The government regarded these “monster meetings” with uneasiness, and they were closely watched. The loyalty of the middle and of large sections of the poorer classes, however, gave the government a sense of security, notwithstanding the menacing attitude of the Chartists; and this loyal feeling was extended as the peaceably disposed became alarmed by the seditious and unprincipled harangues which the chartist orators addressed to such large assemblages. Many of the most active Chartists were socialists, and used the confederacy as a means of propagating their atrocious doctrines. As a specimen of the tone and method which characterised the chartist gatherings where order was maintained, the following account of one which took place after the elections will suffice:—“A meeting of Chartists, to the number of nearly ten thousand, took place at Newton Common, on Sunday. The object was to address the operatives in the manufacturing districts of Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton, Buy, Preston, Liverpool, Wigan, &c., on the land and labour questions. Shortly after one o’clock, Mr. Fergus O’Connor, M.P., accompanied by Mr. W. H. Roberts, the miners’ attorney-general, appeared in the crowd, on their way to the platform. Both these gentlemen were received amidst the loudest demonstrations of applause. Mr. Roberts having been duly proposed and seconded, assumed the office of chairman. He addressed the meeting at much length, on the progress and prospects of Chartism, and encouraged the vast multitude then before him to take courage from the past, and work with determination and zeal for effecting the great cause of the people’s charter. A resolution, proposing that a committee, or a conference of delegates, should go to London, to escort Mr. O’Connor into Parliament on its opening, was agreed to. Mr. O’Connor then came forward and spoke at great length. He reviewed the great progress of Chartism, abused the Whigs, and browbeat the press. He next narrated the plans he had adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for ‘The people’s charter, and no surrender.’ The meeting was conducted in a very orderly manner.”