The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-03 00:00:00

have availed themselves of his ticket to get into I
power. The State of Pennsylvania has shown
this by their rejection of Mr. BUCHANAN'S no-
minee, Mr. FORNEY. They would not accept
an avowed Southern partisan as a senator for
their Free State ! There are traces of reaction
here which might well make " a deep impres-
sion" on the slaveholding Democrats. Free-
soilers may have great respect for their veteran
statesmen, who have served them faithfully, as
Mr. BUCHANAN has done, through along life; but
they are not wedded to slavery, nor plOdged to
follow a reckless leader whose ticket 'they
,may
have supported, and we should not be at all sur-
prised to find the State of Pennsylvania leading
the Abolition opposition henceforth in the Ameri-
can Senate.

But, apart from these speculations, we have
before us a most encouraging fact--namely, that
a great cause has fallen into weak hands. The
Southerners w ill know how to appreciate this truth.
Their President has not the majority they anti-
cipated. He has been most ably check-mated,
and the Abolitionists will not fail to take advan-
tage of an event which turns the preponderance
of legislative power in their favour. It will not
do to have the South depending on the veto of
the President. Mr. Buc HANAN will be cautious
when called upon to record a casting vote against
the will of a large majority of a sovereign people
on a great moral and material question. The slaver
must not boast, therefore, of the triumphs of the
late election. The imperishable cause of huma-
nity has lost nothing by the well-contrived defeat
of the avowed Free-soiler—Colonel FREMONT.
Prolonging the anti-slavery agitation will make
his return all the more certain, and we see no
grounds on which the South would be justified in
believing that all is safe, even for Mr. BUCUANA N'S
comparatively short period of office. Opposition,
coming from the very State which raised him to the
Presidential Chair, is 'sudden death to a political
chief. It robs him of his locus standi in a repre-
sentative assembly. A man without a bona fide
constituency has no right to a voice in debate,
where all the other members represent a positive
majority. Take Pennsylvania from Mr. Bu-
CHANAN'S supporters, 'and we shall find him to
be the least popular of all the Presidents which
guided the destinies of the Great Republic. So
much for the present and future prospects of

slavery.
• Let us now turn to our own stake in these
important pro and anti-slavery questions. The
utmost the sanguine Southern sympathiser can
say is, that the abolition of American slavery is
not as near at hand as some people imagine.
This is all we can squeeze out of the men of
hope ; but this is not enough for a people
who require 1,600,000 bales of the product,
for 'which we are indebted to slave labour,
annually. The loss of one-third of this supply
would produce incalculable misery in Great
Britain. The three first years of the slaves'
transition from bondage to freedom might entail
upon us a loss of one-half of our present supply.
IThis would amount to a national calamity of the
most lamentable kind ; and while there is a
moral certainty bbfore us that slavery must be

. . . .
three, or five years at the furthest, no preparation
is made to open fresh sources from whence we
might obtain raw cotton to sustain Lancashire
and the innumerable branches of industry mainly
dependent on our manufacturing enterprise for
daily bread. We are all thinking more of who
is to be the next Peer, Judge, or Lord Mayor,
than we are of that which concerns the existence
of millions of our population. As long as we
can get our wants supplied, no thought is be-
stowed on the future —the dark and frigid day
when it will be no longer forthcoming, to the
extent to which we require it, to feed the hungry
and clothe the naked. These are melancholy
truisms, and it is much to be deplored that
Liverpool should take a matter of such vital im-
portance so very coolly.

As a general rule it seems to be a principle of
the British Government to resist the claims of
merit, and to manifest towards those persons
who confer a substantial and material benefit on
their country indifference, ingratitude, and
neglect. In our publication of yesterday we
adverted to, and commented upon, the conduct
of the administration towards Sir JOHN M`NEILL
and Colonel TuLLocrr, the commissioners sent
out by Lord PALMERSTON'S Government ,to
investigate the abuses existing in the manage-
ment of the British Army serving in the Crimea,
To-day we have to call our readers' attention to
the long-neglected and overlooked claim of
HENRY CURT for a more ample allowance than
381. per annum, as a national reward for the
inventions of his father, the said invention having,
it is alleged, "secured for more than half a cen-
" tury the safety of our fleets and the lives of
" our seamen, without the aid of foreign iron;
" and otherwise contributed more than any other
" invent;ons to render Great Britain invincible
" in the last contest, not only by cheap native
" iron, but by adding to the wealth of the nation
" five times the cost of the war, besides saving
" sixty millions annually." Such are the pleas
put forward by Mr. HENRY CORT in his appeal to
the Commons of the United Kingdom. As the
matter will be shortly brought before the" House,"
and another effort made to secure for the CoaT
family something like a just acknowledgment for
the services rendered to the nation by their late
father, we shall embrace the present opportu-
nity of making a few remarks upon the case.

Mr. CoaT's father was the undisputed inventor
of " wrought iron," by which twenty tons could
be produced with less labour and at a smaller cost
than was " required to manipulate one of inferior
" quality by the tedious operation of forging
" under the hammer." At and before the time
of this invention, Great Britain was mainly de-
pendent upon Sweden and Russia for her sup-
plies of iron, not only for national but general
purposes. and thereby obliged to yield to an
annual drain of over a million and a half ster.