The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-07 00:00:00

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL.

On Thursday a Court was held for the despatch of
public business.

THE VOTE AGAINST

Deputy Rathhone said he thought it incumbent upon
the Corporation of London, af!er so important a decision
as that to which the House of Commetns had come
upon the Chinese question, to take into censidera.
tion the propriety of adopting measures to support
hrr Majes'y's Ministers in the coarse they had pur-
sued. (Hear, hear.) He would suggest that the Lord
Mayor should either call a public meeting of the
merchants and bankers, of London, in conjunction with
the members of the corporation, or determine upon some
other form of assembling the commercial and trading
interests in defence of the policy of Lord Palmerston.
He did not care in what shape his Lordship might think
proper to have the subject introduced, so that it might be
brought forward as soon as possible.
Mr. De Jersey said, that if the merchants and bankers
thought it necessary to take the question into consider-
ation, they could at once proceed to do so without any
reference to the corporation. (Hear, hear.) It was
not, he believed, the custom for the corporation to corn-
forward in support of ministers strider such circum-
stances as those in which Lard Palmerston was placed.
Deputy Dakin said if ever a crisis could justify de-
parture from general custom that crisis had arrived.
(Hear, hear.) He believed it was the general opinion
that a step more likely to be dangerous than that which
had been taken by those who opposed the government
upon the Chinese question could not have been resorted
to, and certainly there was occasion for great and active
sympathy. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Blake suggested the suspension of the standing
order, that the Court might at once enter upon the dis-
cussion.

Mr. Woodthorp (the clerk of the court) said the custom
of the court stool in the way of discussion, and that
here was no standing order to be dispensed with.
The Lord Mayor said he could not help thinking that
some damage might arise from the present discussion of
the subject, but (as we understood his Lordship) he
would most willingly receive a proposition in the usual
form from the members of the court.

It was in the course of the day intimated tint a court
would be shortly held, for the purpose of hri:;ging for-
ward resolutions upon the subject.

MANCIIFSTER.—Fruniv.

A meeting of the Commercial Association of Man-
chester was held to-day. There was a crowded attend-
ance. Several speechea were &livered all strongly in
support of the government. A. resolution was unani-
mously adopted—" That this association, clmposed of
merchants and manufacturers deeply. interested in trade
and commerce with all quarters of the globe, views
with profound regret the probable consequences of the
division on Mr. Cobden's motioa in the House. of
Commons on the 3rd instant. That, without venturinA, to
offer an opinion on toe technical or legal merits Of the
question at isue, the association well knows that much
difficulty and cmharassmeat in our dealings with
China has been caused by the aggressive spirit
displayed by the native authorities, and- by their
systematic evasion of obligations imposed by treaty,
and they cannot but regard with the greatest
apprehension the effects likely to ensue from the repudia-
tion by one branch of our legislature of the acts of our
diplomatic, military, and naval representatives at Canton,
not only in its bearing upon our future commercial inter-
course with China, but also a 3 being calculated to diminish
the respect hitherto entertained towards the rights and
liberties of British subjects in foreign countries generally."