Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-08 00:00:00

and that of the Board of Admiralty were at
complete issue respecting the construction of
docks at Liverpool—the latter censuring the
report which the Board of Trade had made
upon the subject,
Now, if there are grounds for a charge of
incompetency, it follows that that of injustice,
which Mr. HORSFALL preferred, is equally clear
and conclusive, inasmuch as parties engaged in
trade, or the promotion of great and important
public schemes, are thwarted in their designs,
and the ultimate upshot of all is the loss of
time, labour, and money.

Then, again, we have the question of the
utility of the Board of Trade as to its effects
upon agriculture, exemplified in the mode and
manner in which the corn returns are made out.
Practical men, like the members of the Liverpool
Corn Association, or the President of .the
Agricultural Society, are better able to form
an opinion as to the worth and accuracy of
these returns than either Lord STANLEY, or Mr.
LOWE, or any of their subordinates. It seems,
too, that the Board take upon them to decide
pecuniary questions bearing upon the interests
of agriculture. This is implied in the case of
the recently discovered Guano Islands, which
the President of the Liverpool Chamber of
dommerce, a merchant and a gentleman of the
highest intelligence, honour, and probity, has
designated " a gigantic plunder." It is well
known that the railway interests have suffered
by the interference of the Board of Trade. Mr.
HORSFALL instanced two cases, proving his
position on that head, and made out a satisfactory
cause for granting the committee which he asked

Now for the answer. Two Cabinet Ministers
spoke—Mr. LABOUCHERE and Mr. LOWE; and
as both were implicated in Mr. HORSFALL'S
charge of incompetence, it was but natural that
they should stoutly deny his allegations. In
fact, the former set out in his speech by regarding
the motion as a kind of censure upon the
Government, and therefore made the most he
could of the inexpediency of thus arraigning
a great department of the administration of the
country with a view t(*) its reconstruction. He
could not deny the truth of the cases
cited to prove Mr. HousFALL's position,

ut argued to convince the House that they
were exceptional cases, and that if the decisions
were wrong with respect to them, it was
universally right, and the inquiry should not be
granted. But he eschewed all argument as to
the constitution of the Board, merely asserting
that he dissented from Mr. HORSFALL'S doctrine;
that men practically acquainted with trade,
should alone rule the destinies of the Board.
There was something like clap-trap in the right
hon. gentleman's remarks, when he said that it
was most important that there should be a
department, not only administrative, but qualified
to counsel the Government upon trade matters
This was very plausible, but it could not
convince any one that a peer and a lawyer are
exactly the best fitted persons to preside over the
commercial interests of the country. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM. came to the rescue of Ministers, but
after spending an extraordinary amount of
oratorical ammunition in praising Liverpool, and
HUSKISSON, in which, by the way, he committed
many blunders from au ignorance of the
geography of Liverpool; he eulogised the Board,
Praised its practical results, and called upon
the Government and the House to resist the
motion.

We cannot help regarding this effort of the
wily member for Carlisle as a symptom of his
anxiety to take office under Lord PALMERSTON,
and we are strengthened in this surmise from the
fact, that he is the Chairman of the Committee
on the Mersey Conservancy Bill, a project
which has the concurrence of Mr. LOWE, and if
we are not wrongly informed, was prepared by,
and with his sanction and advice. Mr. Lowit's
reply was lengthy and prosaic, abounding in
assertion, and denial, for which the hon. member
for Kidderminster has a happy knack. If any
reliance can be placed in all he said, the country
—commercial, agricultural, artistical, and the
several other interests of which the Board of
Trade takes charge—is really blessed, and that
nothing can exceed the ability and. zeal which
Lord STANLEY, of Alderley, and himself display.
in administering affairs of which they are as
ignorant as the tribes of North American
Indians, or the native and cannibal population
of New Zealand. ,The debatd closed by a reply
from Mr. HORSFALL, in which Sir JAMES
GRAHAM came off second best, for had Mr.
HORSFALL been less courteous, and followed up
his charge of political inconsistency, the
Netherby baronet must have felt its force, and
quailed before its effect. As we said before,
the motion was negatived without a division,
nevertheless it will ultimately work out good
results, and the commercial portion of the
constituency of Liverpool must rejoice that they
have such a straight-forward, honest,—aye, and
talented representative.

THE inquiry before the Select Committee of
the House of Commons, on the Mersey Conser-
vancy Bill, is still going forward. The last two
days of the inquiry has by no means stregthened
the position of the promoters of the Bill;
inasmuch as the evidence given by the principal
witnesses, Mr. BARLEY, President of the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce, and Mr. J. A.
TURNER, M.P. for Manchester, demonstrated
that they had been crammed for the occasion.
Th 3 outset of Mr. BAZLEY'S evidence was a
recital of the long-continued efforts of the people