s district is to revive, as we all hope and
believe it will revive. Your fixed capital here is of no use without
the population. It is of no use without your raw material.
Lancashire is the richest county in the kingdom when its machinery
is employed; it is the poorest county in the kingdom when its
machinery and fixed capital are paralysed, as at present. Therefore,
I say it is the interest, not only of this community, but of the
kingdom, that this population should be preserved for the time--I
hope not a distant time--when the raw material of their industry
will be supplied to this region.

I submit; then, to the whole kingdom--this district as well as the
rest--that it will be advisable, until Parliament meets, that such
an effort should be made as will make a national subscription amount
probably to 1,000,000 pounds. Short of that, it would be utterly
insufficient for the case; and I believe that, with an energetic
appeal made to the whole country, and an effort organised such as I
have indicated, such an amount might be raised."

SPEECH OF THE EARL OF DERBY

AT THE COUNTY MEETING, ON THE 2D DECEMBER 1863.
THE EARL OF SEFTON IN THE CHAIR.

The thirteen hundred circulars issued by the Earl of Sefton, Lord-
Lieutenant of Lancashire, "brought together such a gathering of
rank, and wealth, and influence, as is not often to be witnessed;
and the eloquent advocate of class distinctions and aristocratic
privileges (the Earl of Derby) became on that day the powerful and
successful representative of the poor and helpless." Called upon by
the chairman, the Earl of Derby said:-

"My Lord Sefton, my Lords and Gentlemen,--We are met together upon
an occasion which must call forth the most painful, and at the same
time ought to excite, and I am sure will excite, the most kindly
feelings of our human nature. We are met to consider the best means
of palliating--would to God that I could say removing!--a great
national calamity, the like whereof in modern times has never been
witnessed in this favoured land--a calamity which it was impossible
for those who are the chief sufferers by it to foresee, or, if they
had foreseen, to have taken any steps to avoid--a calamity which,
though shared by the nation at large, falls more peculiarly and with
the heaviest weight upon this hitherto prosperous and wealthy
district--a calamity which has converted this teeming hive of
industry into a stagnant desert of compulsory inaction