The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-23 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, OC'T. 23.

LIVERPOOL POLITICS.

IT would be more than ungracious to revive
irritating discussions and to write ill-omened
words on the occasion of a festival of hospitality
and good-will. Let us hope that the reception of
the American Minister at Liverpool by the
Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce
of that remarkable city, and the banquet in his
honour at which the Foreign Secretary
of the present and the Prime Minister of the
future administration were conspicuous guests,
will be interpreted on both sides of the Atlantic
in their broadest signification as spontaneous ac-
knowledgments of the sovereign importance to the
civilisation of the Old World and the New, of
peace and amity between the two great
kindred nations whose common cause is
the cause of freedom. It would scarcely be
too much to say that the maintenance and pre-
servation of this mutual good-will between the
two great collective representatives of freedom
is the constant and transcendent interest of the
whole human race. In comparison with
ouch an interest as that most of the
European questions which occupy conti-
nental cabinets are the mere fopperies of
diplomatic triflers. Liverpool, following the
example of Leeds, and Sheffield, and
Worcester, celebrates the arrival of Mr.
lteveene JOHNSON as a minister of peace, and, if
need be, of reconciliation. But Liverpool, as it
is very well understood in America and here, is a
peculiar city. In a word, Liverpool is half
American. One cannot survey her docks, visit
her Exchange, enter her warehouses or her
counting-houses, her public hotels or her private
homes, without perceiving that to many intents
and purposes the " Pond" that flows between
Liverpool and New York is as inconsiderable a
stream as that which divides France and
Spain. Commercial Liverpool, and no other
need be taken into account, is a sister city to New
York. There is the same nomad population—the
same restless rush of speculators—the same reck-
less enterprise—the same contempt for old-fash-
ioned scruples of morality—the same turbulent pur-
suit of gain at any price, under any flag—the same
froth, the same sediment and lees of an adventur-
ous society always hovering between luxury
and ruin, the same rowdyism. There is,
perhaps, no city in the old country that
contains nobler elements of public spirit
and high-minded beneficence ; no city that
concentrates in its midst so much of the
splendour of cynical corruption, and the havoc of
lawless ventures, so much of the vigorous and
enlightened self-interest that combines with
national and local patriotism tobuild upthe fabric of
fortunate and flourishing communities. When it is
alleged that Liverpool was u centre of hostility to
the American Union during the civil War—that it