The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

agents of its irresistible tyranny in the affi-
liated constituencies of a few large towns, will
resist Parliamentary Reform, however pre-
pared and willing they may be to extirpate
that corruption which, from the time of Sir
ROHE= WALPOLE, has exercised its pernicious
influence in the towns to impair the authority
of the landed aristocracy of this country.

THE CHURCH-RATE DEBATE.
THE HOUSE OF COMMON% on Thursday night,
presented a scene exceedingly characteristic of
the present phase of affairs. Indisposed to
business, and uninspired by oratory, some
three hundred members lounged, yawned, and
gossiped on the benches—disappeared to dine,

and returned to divide,—while, for seven
mortal hours, the privileges of the Church and
the wrongs of Dissent formed a subject of alter-
nate attack and defence. Mr. Puittamosx—in
whose plan Ministers, by giving him a day, had
signified, by anticipation, their general con-
currence—spoke from the Whig benches, but
devoted all his energies to conciliate Conser-
vative support. Sir W. CLAY, his rival, ap-
pealed more openly to the feelings of the
Liberal party ; but Sir W. CLAY is no orator,
and the Liberal party, during the hour and a
half which his performance occupied, was
mainly represented by Mr. HAYTER and some
half-dozen of the Ministerial flock. No suc
ceeding speaker was much more fortunate.
Neither the neo-Puritanism of Mr. MIALL, nor
the somewhat antiquated Churchmanship of
Sir R. INGLIS, could extract from an apathetic
audience any sign of emotion, or cause a
moment's cessation of the continuous buzz of
voices—that evidence of inattention, worse
than all censure, under which DEMOSTHENES
would have broken down, but which modern
Ministers have not rarely to endure. Party
spirit slept ; and, in the absence of party spirit,
popular assemblies either lapse into torpor
or require the stimulus of personal conflict to
rouse them. Even Sir GEORGE GREY, with his
clear accents, remarkable fluency, and habitual
felicity of comment, failed to draw more than
an occasional and feeble cheer. This eminent
ex-Minister took a singular course. He began
by finding fault with Mr. PHlLLlMORE—criti-
(need that gentleman's bill cleverly, but rather
unfairly—thence passed on to Sir W. CLAY'S
proposal, which he seemed equally to repu-
diate—expressed himself not very dissatisfied
with the present state of affairs—and ended
by voting with Sir W. CLAY, on the assurance
of the latter that " he really had something to
" propose, which he would tell the House, if
" allowed to go into committee." But Sir
GEORGE GREY'S vagaries were far outdone by
those of his ex-colleague. Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
the leader of the Il (am of Commons, dis-
played a perplexity which he had neither the
frankness to acknowledge nor the art to con-
ceal. Mr. PHILLIMOUE'S arguments," he said,
" had proved to him that Sir W. CLAY was
" wrong. Sir W. Ci..tv, in like manner, had
" exposed the impracticability of Mr. PHILLI-
" MORE'S scheme. Neither, he thought, would
" answer; but the law undoubtedly required
" amendment, and therefore"—he would amend
it himself? No such thing—" He would
" let one of the two bills be printed, and
" take his chance of its being improved
"in committee." Profound statesman !—in-
defatigable administrator! Well might Mr.
BRIGHT ironically com;ratulate him on his re-
cently-acquired profit ; ,liey in the art of stand-
ing still. But even this supercilious inaction
was not enough for the Whig chief. He went
farther : admitting that the law was bad, he
deprecated all efforts to improve it. " Church
" rates," said the champion of civil and reli-
gious liberty, " are an outwork of the Church ;
" touch them, and the citadel will fall next."
In Lord STANLEY'S pamphlet, which lie quoted
with a compliment., it had been argued that to
tax men for the propagation of opinions in
which they do not share is unjust. " That
" argument," remarked the author of the ap-
propriation clause, is fatal to all endow-
" meats." As though taxes and endowments
were the same—as though incomes drawn
from land could be placed on the same footing
with a fluctuating charge on personal pro-

SATURDAY,

perty—as though the Duke of BEDFORD held
his estates oa the same tenure by which the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER holds the in-
come tax The House did not share in the
opinions of its chief: it received the quota-
tion with a cheer; the comment in freezing
silence.
So matters stand for the present. An irri-
tating question, of whieh Lord DERBY or Sir
B. PEEL. would have disposed without diffi-
culty, remains still unsettled. Dissenters must
continue to pay against their consciences, or
to resist in defiance of law; moderate men
lament the result, and the Editor of the -
conformist triumphs. But Lord JOHN'S end is
gained—he has invented an excuse for doing
nothing.

THE TARIFF.—MARBLE AND CORDAGE.
WE are not disposed to question the obliga-
tion, conventional as well as political, under
which Mr. GLADSTONE lies to carry to com-
pletion the free-trade policy of Sir ROBERT
PEEL. But, whilst the reductions now in pro-
cess upon articles of consumiAion will be ac-
cepted as a boon by the many, there are some
items in the amended resolutions of the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, bearing upon
the handicrafts and manufactures of the
country, the changes in which will be attended
with keen suffering on the part of those now
deriving a livelihood from the processes to
which the articles in question are subjected
on importation. For this, the course of events
ought to have prepared the classes in ques-
tion, as but the gradual fulfilment and
natural operation of a system which is in turn
to bring within the sphere of " unrestricted
competition " every branch of industry in
these kingdoms. For the present, even Mr.
GLADSTONE'S measure defers the inevitable day,
in the instance of the silk trade and some
others, which still derive encouragement from
protective duties. But some minor sufferers
have been selected for instant despatch,
leaving to their survivors the comfort of Poly-
phemus in being the last devoured.
Two instances suffice to illustrate the pro-
gress of the system. Hitherto hemp, as a
raw material, has been admitted to entry free ;
but yarns, the first stage of manufacture,
have been subjected to a duty of three shil-
lings per hundredweight on importation. By
this means the ropemakers of all our sea-
ports have been ensured an occupation for
their enterprise and industry. But now Mr.
GLADSTONE proposes to place the half-manufac-
tured article and the raw material on an equality :
the duty on foreign rope yarns is to be abolished,
and this branch of the rope trade is to be
henceforth admitted free. The effect of this is
formidable. The operation of converting hemp
into cable yarns is effected by the simplest ma-
chinery ; and in Russia, with a command of
economical power, the manufacture will hence-
forth be conducted by those who now send us
only the unspun material. Russia will thus
naturally monopolise a double profit, that on
the growth as well as on the process. Not only
this, but the conversion into yarn will give her
an increased advantage in freight, inasmuch
as it will facilitate the stowage of her produce ;
hemp, from its bulky nature, being exposed to
charges which will now be reduced en its com-
pression into yarns. It is no doubt true that the
consumer of cordage may, in the end, be the
gainer in point of its cost; but, meanwhile,what is
to become of the English ropentakers ? This is a
question which the prospect before them has
caused to be anxiously asked at every seaport
in the United Kingdom.
But there is another class threatened with
even a more signal bereavement of their accus-
tomed occupations—the manufacturers of sawn
marble, and those whose capital has been in-
vested in establishments and machinery for its
conversion into mantelpieces and monuments.
Almost every great town in the empire has its
workshops of this kind. And so strong is their
claim, that, in 1842, Sir ROBERT PEEL, when he
took the duty off rough marble, imposed an
import duty of three shillings per hundredweight
on marble sawn into slabs. The result was
that our own masons continued their undis-
turbed pursuits, and employed their capital

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