The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-10-30 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Courier, of yesterday, in its notice of last Saturday
Evening's Concert at St. George's 'Hall, takes the
:unwarrantable liberty to say " the NOBTFIEItig DAILY
TIMES is pecuniarily interested in the speculation."
t We beg to tell the Editor of the Courier that we have
no pecuniary interest whatever in the matter, and have
I no more to do with the management than he has. We
ir can afford to forgive the malevolent feeling which
I • prompted the publication of the wilful falsehood.

E,

e ilartOtu timeo

THURSDAY, OCTOBER :JO, 1856,

THE DAY'S NEWS

Yesterday, we mentioned that a rumour was
current that it was the intention of the Town
Council to impose a Borough rate, in conse-
quence of the enormous expenditure connected
with the Pike Scheme. We gave insertion
to the report as it reached us, for the purpose
of receiving an explicit declaration on this point,
whether or not such was to be the case. We are
glad to find that no such intention is yet enter-
tained in the Council Chamber, as Mr. Holme,
at the meeting of the Council, yesterday, denied
the correctness of the rumour. It is sincerely
to be hoped that the new Council will bear
in mind the assertions of Mr. Holme, and
not put an additional tax on the already
overburthened burgesses of this municipality.
Mr. William Brown is tired of the inertness of the
Liverpool Corporation. Some three or four years
ago, he offered the sum of mon& towards a build-
ing for the accommodation of the Public Library.
His donation was thankfully accepted ; but, after
the lapse of these four years, nothing more has
been done, than to advertise for, and receive plans
for the intended building ; the authorities have
not even come to a determination as to Which
plan
is the most suitable, seeing that they only intend
to spend 20,0001 in the erection. Mr. Brown is
much in favour of the design of Mr. Alton, and
offers a further 6,000/ if the Coporation furnish a
like sum. If not, he wishes that a suitable site be
.procured, and a building for the library axone be at
once proceeded with. We think that Mr. Brown's
`letter to the Mayor, of which we give a copy in
another part of to-day's impression, is a very
reasonable one. It is high time that a building,
towards which a donation of 6,0001. was given four
years ago, should be in existence",
Political rumours are very rife at present. It is
understood that a reduction of the chief officials
in the War Department is about to take place, Mr.
Monsoll vacating the place of Clerk of the Ord-
1. mance, and Colonel Munday that of Extra Under-
secretary. This, it is stated, is consequent on the
removal of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr.
Y. Peel, whose place Mr. Alonsell will take, the

THE

Clerkship of the Ordnance merging into the Under
Secretaryship. There was a struggle between Mr•
William Cowper, the. present President of the
Board of Health, and Mr. F. Peel, for the Vice-
Presidency of the Committee of Education, which,
despite family ties, the latter has won. This, how-
ever, is not absolutely authenticated, as there is
still a doubt about the Secretaryship to the
Treasury, and whether Mr. James Wilson will
vacate it or not.

Among domestic gossip we hear that Lord Ernest
Vane Tempest, notwithstanding the enormous
deal of trouble he has given to the Marchioness of
Londonderry, is very determinedly supported by
that wealthy, strong-minded—we had almost
written imperious—lady. A pamphlet is to be
expected in which an attack is to be made on the
Commander in-Chief, embodying a number of
facts connected with his military, and even his
private life; and war to the knife is to be proclaimed
against the Horse Guards by the house of Vane.
How such a " brochure " will be received
by the public, strange as it may appear, it is
not quite easy to say ; for it is a fact
that the " practical jokers " of the Fourth
Light Dragoons have absolutely a party, and
that not confined to persons of the class to which
Lord Ernest Vane Tempest belongs ; but certain
ultra-democrats are taking up their parable against
the mode in which the punishment was adminis-
tered, insinuating that there was not a sufficiently
English trial, and, moreover, that the dismissal
was not for the bad behaviour in the first instance,
but for the breaking of the arrest afterwards.

Our Continental advices do not contain any
news of importance. Contradictions continue to
cross each other between Paris and Vienna, con-
cerning the occupation of tiro Principalities and
the design of the Porte. At Paris they maintain
that the Porte has required the retirement of the
Austrians. At Vienna they obstinately affirm the

contrary

By some mischance, up to the hour of going to
press, our usual London intelligence had not
reached us. This will account for the meagre
summary of our commercial and continental
news.

THE grave calumnies on the Emperor NAPOLEON
and his EMPRESS, which have appeared in a Man-
chester journal, have excited the well-merited
indignation of the French Government, arid the
honest disgust of their readers in this country.
We claim for ourselves the most perfect freedom
of discussion on matters relating to the internal
condition, policy, and prospects of Foreign States.
To watch diligently the movements on the political
board, and the changes which are likely to prove
injurious or otherwise to our moral or material
interests, is the first duty of a Newspaper Press.
But when public journalists become pimps and
spies, and give publicity to the whispers of base
and treacherous employes about a Court, they for-
feit all claim to that impunity which our laws and
institution allow them. What is it to the people
of England whether the EMPEROR and EMPRESS of
France are the purest saints or the basest
sinners upon earth. We have no right to draw
aside the curtain, pry into the private affairs of the
Imperial Family, and measure Royal weaknesses
by Manchesterian morality and ideas of social
While France finds no fault, the interfer-
ence of foreigners is the excess of impudence—
nay, indecency. And it is to be hoped that our
cotemporaries will be constrained by the force of
public opinion to abandon the publication of their
well concerted onslaughts upon the privacy
of an Allied Court. There are matters
of far more importance to Free Trade
Manchester than the dastardly whispers of political
knaves, and palace flunkies. We are the parents of
the new economic doctrine, and since our mawkish
example has failed to satisfy Europe that Manchester
is sincere—that she knows what Free Trade is, we
have to demonstrate to the world that our bantling
is not a humbug, and vanquish prejudices and over•
throw still stronger suspicions, by an intelli-

purity.

gible array of facts, showing that we are both in
earnest and right in practice.
France admits that the Manchester theory is
sound ; but she looks in vain for a practical illus
tration of its benefits in this country. The word
reciprocity has been erased from our political
vocabulary. France wants to sell the products of
her soil—her wines, brandy, liquors, and fruits,
and while she makes reductions in her duties in
favour of manufactured goods, she expects some
corresponding advantages for her staple commodi-
ties, and, as we are not prepared to make such con-
cessions, she proposes to bide her time, when she
will give us a political thrust which we shall not
speedily forget. French statesmen see that it
remains for them to force reciprocity upon us and
the rest of Europe. They may be driven forward
by an advance on our part, but they will not forgo
a prolific revenue for a mere display of
empty words. France has not forgotten the lan-
guage employed in the recent debate in the House
of Commons on the wine duties. Where was the
spirit of reciprocity on that occasion ? " Protec-
tion" for British industry, and other common clap-
traps were not brought forward on either side.
The revenue ! " Consider the revenue," was the uni-
versal cry, and France very naturally responds—
" Think of my income." And no.v she finds that
we are in a dead lock in finance, she sees it
remains for her to carry out at her leisure that
which we have been very little more than talking
about.

There is a balance of about 7,000,0001. per
annum against us in our trade with France, and to
increase that balance twc-fold, she need scarcely
do more than reduce her import duties on those
yaw materials which enter largely into the cost of her
productions. How far the decline of that specious
bubble, the Credit Mobilier, will hasten her steps
in this direction, remains to be seen.. Its sudden,
though perfectly natural decline in public estima-
tion, must precipitate a crisis ; and it is not at all
unlikely that an attempt will be made to avert it,
by some bold financial stroke for the relief of trade.
As a monetary institution, the Credit Mobilier never
had a basis. It raised a certain amount of capital from
the common stock of the money market, and while
it absorbed a large share of its floating capital, it
added nothing whatever to the general money
power of the. country ; and when all its liabilities
are told up, whether in a season of pressure, or
comparative ease, the total must be very great,
and the consequences of its failure proportionably
disastrous. There never was a greater mistake
than giving credit a vast organisation for stock-
jobbing purposes, or a more childish phantom
than hoping to correct the evils of a scarcity of
money by creating an enlarged demand for cur-
rency, without augmenting the supply. France
did not want a fresh impetus given to the move.
ments of her circulation ; nor could the Bourse
hope to bo sustained by a credit bank, which was
not allowed the privilege to " promise to pay."
The Credit Mobilier must then be, sooner or later,
numbered among the things that were. It cannot
stand the shocks of political excitement. It is not
proof againstla‘'reactionary policy, and it will be
the first colossus to break down under the weight

of popular anxiety

These, and the other mighty eventualities hang-
ing over France, present a sufficiently wide field
England, without con-
to the journalists of
descending to the meaness and weakness
in upon the privacy of the
ofEmperorbreaking NAPOLEON and his family ; and our
Manchester cotemporary would do well to devote
more of his valuable space to matters of far greater

NORTHERN TIMES

importance to the people of both countries. The
bullion panic, from which French commerce is
suffering so bitterly, will not be obviated, or its
lamentable consequences averted, by calumny. It
is the result of deep-rooted distrust. Every
arrest, every act of apparent oppression and
supposed injustice, acts upon the barometer of
the empire. Trifles in such times assume the
dimensions of monsters, and it ill becomes
Englishmen to interpose in the affairs of others
with the view of doing incalculable mischief,
simply because the moment they select may
appear more than usually opportune. There is
much which directly concerns us which Manches
ter scribes might write about, such as the faultiness
of the Treaty of Paris, the proposal for another
diplomatic Conference at Paris, the unsatisfactory
position in which the Western Powers have left
the East, the Emperor's Russian sympathies, his
ukewarmness in the affairs of Naples, Italy, and
Spain. Here is a field wide enough in all con-.
science for the transcendent abilities of the Man-
chester Press, and while the plain unvarnished
truth supplies abundant food for the lovers of
news, it is earnestly to be desired that the North
of England should not be disgraced by encouraging
well disguised political slanders of a most out-