The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-06 00:00:00

it requires to supply our daily wants. We have
it in abundance in other portions of the same
empire, and can obtain it from other regions,
where free labour, humane laws, and honest
stewardship might be made to add millions of
wretched beings to the fold of Christianity and
civilisation. These are the merciful, if not the
Divine object of conquest—taking from the son his
inheritance and giving it to the stranger—but
we shall never be victors until we have discharged
our duty as conquerors. We have no rich wheat
or sheep land idle at home, and why should we
have our fertile cotton fields, and coffee and
sugar plantations, lying waste in our colonies ?
There is no want of free tropical labour. We
can get millions from Asia. The scourge of
Africa need not be renewed or aug►imented to
give us what the British planter requires. No
brutal imposture practised on the peasantry of
Europe will supply the West or East India labour
markets. Offer Chinamen or Coolies employ-
ment on honest English terms—give them all
the protection the British flag affords to labour—
and pay them money-wages for their work—
and we shall henceforth be able to grow our
own cotton, sugar, and coffee without slaves.

But here we shall be told, " This is all very
fine. Where is the money to come from ?
You reason as though we were really an
Empire over which the Crown exercise an
unbroken prerogative in all matters relating to
the social existence of its subjects. Whereas,
there is not one link which binds the Colony
to the parent State, except the patronage the
placeman has at his disposal. Where you
dare not do gross political injustice, submis-
sion to the protracted neglect of the social

" duties of imperial government is the result of
" helpless, but deep-rooted, discontent." Here
we have no more than the unvarnished truth. We
are great in parish politics, particularly vigilant
about County rates, and manage to jug on with
the affairs of a kingdom ; but we have yet to
learn the meaning of Empire—bringing a world,
with all its varieties of character, soil, and cli-
mate, down to one uniform standard of laws,
government, and progression. We have fifty-
two colonies under our sceptre, for which we
have never thought of supplying any legal means
of Civilised existence—no medium of commercial
interchange, or basis of production —except that
which an intending emigrant can realise, under
the hammer of the auctioneer, previous to his
departure for a Colonial Settlement, or an
absconding debtor manages to carry away from
his creditors. If Australia had produced
12,000,0001. worth of wool annually, that would
not have made her the country she is. She
would still have been without labour, needy
and discontented. Fortunately, her soil yielded
what Bullionists call " Money," and now it
would be scarcely safe to question her prosperity
and respectability. It has made her an integral
part of the Empire, in the literal sense of the
phrase.

We look upon Melbourne with as much
reverence as we bestowed on St. Paul's and
Threadneedle-street only a very few years since.
No one ventures to ask where Victoria is to get
free labour, and how her rich soil is to be ren-
dered productive. All mystery on these vital
points disappeared with the discovery of the
first two-ounce nugget. And can it be possible
that we are to continue to suffer from the collapse
of our Colonial Empire, as we are at this moment,
because we cannot define what shall be the

Imperial money of Great Britain, and give it an
uniform value in production throughout her
dominions ? Are we to be starved for cotton
because America must abolish the curse of
slavery, and the West Indian Islands and the
Deltas of India have no surface crop of gold ?
Extend the legal tender system to the utmost
limits of the Empire, and ample security, of a
real and tangible character, will be found by all
who require its use, at a fair commercial rate of
discount. Be not ashamed of the Imperial Arms
as a bond of union, or afraid to use the
highest prerogative of the Crown to bind together
all the scattered elements of our power in one
unbroken chain of reciprocal interests and indis-
soluble alliance. We need look for no increased
supply of cotton, sugar, or other Colonial pro-
ducts, to meet the rapidly growing demands,
until the Legislature devises means to secure
their cultivation, and the Ministers of the Crown
are made to recognise the wide distinction be-
tween the government of a petty Kingdom and a
boundless Empire—they must trample on Bul-
lionism, which, like slavery in the United States,
has become a political ulcer and national plague,
which must be removed from the presence of
civilised society, at any cost.

ANALYSIS OF THE LIVERPOOL WATER ACCOUNT
FOR 1856.—This account has just been pub-
lished, and its perusal and careful dissection will
afford, at the present time, information of
no ordinary interest to all parties concerned.
We are no longer left in doubt as to
the extent of the cost of the Rivington
scheme or of the highly improper system
which has been adopted by those who have
been its concoctors and most active pro-
moters, in appropriating the whole of the very
large surplus revenue derived from the old works,
in liquidating the interest on the moneys bor-
rowed for Pike purposes, as also the constructing
of works for the uie of the Pike water solely,
and debiting the wells with the various amounts.
The abstract shows conclusively how the accounts
have been cooked, and that all we have advanced
on the subject has proved true to the very letter.
The first item is the cost of pumping ; this, at
the seven stations, is set down at 7,6221. Bs. 10d.,
including wages, coal, oil, and repairs of engines,
pumps, and boilers, or a little more than 1,0001.
per annum for each million gallons raised daily.
This would be much less if all the engines were
on the Cornish principle, similar to those at Green
lane and Windsor. The total ordinary expendi-
ture for the whole of the old works,including the
engineer and his staff, clerks, collectors secretary,
treasurer, superintendents, engineers, labourers,
&c., &c., is 22,3211. 19s, 7d. In this sum is
also included the rent of the Bootle springs
(8061.) paid to Lord Derby. The wells of the
two Water Companies cost the Corporation,