18 DECEMBER 1841, Page 4

SCOTLAND.

A meeting of the noblemen, gentlemen, Commissioners of Supply, Justices of the Peace, and NI igistrates of towns of the county of Ren- frew, called together by Sir William Napier, Convener of the county, in compliance with a respectably-signed requisition, was held at Pais- ley on the 9th, for the purpose of taking into consideration the dis- tressed state of the unemployed inhabitants. The meeting was nu- naerously attended. Sir William Napier was called to the chair. The first speaker was the Reverend Dr. Burns, one of the Deputation to Lodon ; who gave a report of his mission. " With one splendid ex- ception," he said, "we were courteously received by all the heads of the Government—by Sir Robert Peel, by Lord Stanley, by Sir James Gra- ham, and by Mr. Gladstone, the Vice-President of the Board of Trade." He pointed to two remarkable indications of the growing distress in the town— Paisley has ever been a reading population. Its operatives would not ask gratuitous education for their families, could they find the means of procuring it for themselves. Within these twelve months a thousand applicants have beeu refused admittance to uur charity-school; and why ? because the school wee already crammed with five hundred pupils. Our next appeal was, and it is still, to the emigration-processes going on. Fifteen months ago we tried, On a small scale, an emigration of families to Canada. it was a most up-bill work indeed There was neither an inclination to go, nor a disposition on the part of the public to provide the means; and, after incredible efforts, a small number of families set sail. Now, you are inundated with emigration-appeals, and five hundred families at least are actually asking you to transport them to Australia or Canada.

Dr. Burns announced that the Deputation had collected 3,000/. in England. He added- " The members of the Government are seeking information, and they will thank y ou to give it them. Sir James Graham said to us, ' Gentlemen, what- ever you think, speak out. Let no false delicacy keep you silent. Go straight- forward.' We took his advice, and did so."

Mr. Brewster presented memorials praying for further relief, front the unemployed operatives on the Paisley Relief Fund, from the operatives of Paisley, and the operatives of Barrhead. The operatives on the Relief Fund asked for an increase of aliment : they were allowed lid. per head a day, including the allowances for food and fire. Mr. Campbell of Blythswood proposed that Sir William Napier and Provost Henderson should be deputed to confer with the Committee for the Relief of Paisley in Edinburgh. The motion NM agreed to.

Provost Henderson reported the last accounts of the local distress— When the Deputation was in London, the manufacturers were looking for- ward to the middle of this mouth for a resumption of business; but he was sorry to say that events had occurred within the last twenty-four hours which would make things a great deal worse. He was warranted to state that one- third of the existing credit of the manufacturers of Paisley had been annihilated by the failures of last night, and at least one-third, if not one-half of those in employment up till that time would be thrown idle ; the only trade in the town having been almost entirely conducted by those houses which had gone down ; the houses which had not failed having stopped business altogether—some of the leading firms, which formerly employed from four hundred to five hundred workmen, now employing only twelve to eighteen. No private subscription was capable of meeting the distress. At their former meeting they were struck with surprise when they were told that there were 11,000 dependent for sub- sistence upon the relief-committees; but there were now, however, 13,071— people at every time of life and in all states of disease. He moved that a memorial should be sent to the Queen and her Ministers, requesting their earliest attention to the subject, for the pur- pose of affording relief. Lord Kelburne objected to sending a memorial to the Queen : when they sent a memorial to the Government, it was unnecessary to address her Majesty. Provost Henderson said, the Queen was now a wife and a mother, and now knew something of the sufferings of human life ; and he had therefore the greater reason to believe that what they had to present would produce a greater impres- sion upon her mind. After a good deal of debate, Mr. Henderson's proposition was adopted ; as well as a series of resolutions moved by Mr. Patrick Maxwell Stewart, to the effect that a subscription be en- tered into for the purpose of procuring labour and implements of labour of any sort, and that a second subscription be likewise commenced for the purpose of procuring food for the unemployed; the latter fund to be under the direction of the existing relief-committee, and the former to be under the direction of a committee to be named by that meeting. An agricultural and a manufacturing committee were then appointed; and shortly after the meeting separated.

A preliminary meeting was held at Edinburgh, on the 7th, of minis- ters and members of Dissenting congregations, "to consider the pro- priety of calling a public meeting of ministers and members of Dissent- ing churches, from various parts of Scotland, to be held in Edinburgh on Tuesday the 11th and Wednesday the 12th January 1842, to ex- press their opinion of the injustice and immoral tendency of the Corn and Provision laws, and to petition for their total repeal, and an entirely free trade in corn." A long debate resulted in the following resolu- tion— " That a public meeting of the kind contemplated, if well attended by the friends of the cause from a distance, was highly desirable, and calculated to do much good ; but that, before coming to a final decision on the subject, circulars, with queries, should be sent to ministers residing at a distance, in order to ascertain their opinions as to the propriety of holding the meeting, and to know whether they could be present at it; and, if the answers should be generally favourable on these points, that the meeting should then be fixed to take place at Edinburgh on Tuesday the 11th and Wednesday the 12th Ja- nuary 1842." The Dundee Advertiser describes the state of the town in which it is published— "The distress among the labouring population of our own locality at this moment is now more alarming than many of our readers are aware of. Every description of manual labour is now beginning to feel the effects of a restrictive duty. Though some of our standing machinery has been put into operation, a proportionate extra quantity of weavers have not been i employed. The finer fabric which is principally woven by machinery, no doubt has increased; but, generally speaking, the greater quantity of spun-yarn has been exported to be woven by the foreigner. While the manufacturing interests feel the effects of the prohibitory system, those branches of industry more immediately connected with our home trade, though they too have an interest in the foreign, have now caught the mania, and the consequence is that many of the families of our best artisans have now to depend on human sympathy for existence. Our dockyards are emptying daily, and house-carpenters are equally helpless: we know one joiner who in May last had upwards of fifty men in his employment, whilst at this moment he can only boast of being able to procure labour for three. Cabinetmakers, too, are complaining, not unjustly. It is now an un- deniable fact that almost every branch of Industry in our country is suffering more or less from the fetters which entwine it ; and that if some salutary plan be not immediately adopted, the acknowledged ingenuity and skill of our mechanics, as well as our capital, must bid us a long and it may be a lasting farewell."

On the evening of Wednesday week, one of the most tumultuous meetings ever held in Arbroath took place in the Old Church. The meeting was called to consider the formation of a Church Defence Association in the town. The Reverend Mr. Cunningham of Edin- burgh, and Mr. Makgill Crichton, came expressly for the purpose of addressing the meeting and attempting to form such an association. The admission was by tickets, gratis, and the demand for them WAS immense. The tickets were meant to keep out the Chartists ; but a great body of Chartists contrived to gain admittance. They carried an amendment of their own, to the effect that there is neither "honour nor honesty among the Nonintrusion leaders," by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Crichton said he had no doubt his party would have had the majority had the women in the meeting been allowed to hold up their hands. This elicited the derision of the audience, and brought down on himself a storm of hisses.