NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Two circumstances mark the time—the spread of distress among the people, through poverty ; and the fact that enough corn does not come into the country to alleviate the distress by cheapening food. -Positive famine there is not ; and yet tens of thousands, in many pines, are in a state bordering on starvation. Take a current in- stance in the remarkable increase of pauperism in the great London parish of Marylebone. Looking beyond the Metropolis, we see Stockport exhibiting its lengthening list of paupers ; and in Scotland, the distress at Paisley does not cease to advance. Nay, the ad- vance threatens consequences far beyond the day : the Auditors of Marylebone report that the greatest amount of distress is usually observable in the years following the highest prices; and even if that rule be not strictly borne out in the present instance, any ap- proach to it, any increase of the present pressure, though the tide begin to turn considerably within the year, will be frightful to con- template. The probability is but too much confirmed by what is seen elsewhere. If the thriving town of Stockport, whose work- pelf,* were ever at an advantage compared with others in the great district of South Lancashire and North Cheshire, sinks un- der the distress, the waters may indeed be said to have reached the tops of the mountains. Yet there are no signs that the flow of
• the inundation is about to be arrested : there is a progressive in- crease in the number of the destitute ; while food does not fall in price, nor do orders come in for work. They are right, therefore, who look with gloomy forebodings to the time when the miseries of an inclement season shall be added to the forms of suffering that already exist.
They are any thing but right, however' who turn aside from the broad human sympathies excited by such a prospect, to follow the crooked by--ways of partisan politics. It is worse than useless to reproach the new Tory Government as the exclusive authors of this state of things. The existing distress is not the consequence of any thing now done, nor could any Government apply an imme- diate remedy to the results of causes long acting. If any Govern- ment were to blame, it would be that of the Whigs, who, when they had the power in their bands, neglected, nay repudiated, those prospective remedies which were urged upon them. The Tories, indeed, may indirectly share in that blame, since, as the quondam Opposition, they dictated much of the policy which the office- holders consented to execute : but the proper blame to the Tories will commence when they imitate their predecessors in neglecting to provide remedies for the future ; and that blame will be the greater since week after week they receive terrible lessons on the folly of the past.
