The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-05-27 00:00:00

purposes."

Let us hope that, no matter how gentlemen
may be committed to the Pike water scheme,
now that facts and figures are against them
will make an open and manly confession of
their error, and that no sophistry or quibbling
will this day be resorted to for the purpose of
bolstering up a bad cause. To the Town
Council we would say, Gentlemen, you are to
decide this day a question which intimately
'elates to the comfort, health, and happiness
of 400,000 human beings.

The Rivington water is composed of poisonous
ingredients. To force it on the people for
dietetic purposes will entail disease and death.
You have still the power to supply the red sand-
stone water, and can divert the Rivington water
to steam, manufacturing, and general household

purposes. Listen to the opinions of chemists of
the most celebrated character, as to the perni-
cious compounds of the Pike water. Many of
pu have visited the Works ; you have looked at
the reservoirs, and there beheld the discoloured
washings of the surrounding bills. You have
seen it pass through the filtering beds without
that discolouration being removed. You are
also aware, that the purer the water the more
crystal-like must be its appearance. Past
experience has told you that the Pike water can
never be clear, and, therefore, it must always be
impure ; if impure, it is unfit for human use,
and its continuance is an evil of the most
alarming kind. You, gentlemen, have been
returned to the Town Council as the representa-
tives of 400,000 people. You were sent there
to advocate their interests, not to forward your
own pet projects, and vote away more than a
million sterling of the ratepayers' money for the
purpose of enriching engineers, and perpetrating
a job for the benefit of builders, contractors, &c.,
&c. We appeal to you as men of intelligence,
of rectitude, and honour, to take the history of
the Pike into your earnest consideration, to
throw aside all prejudices, listening only to
reason, common sense, and an earnest desire for
the well-being of your constituents. Heed not
the taunts and jeers of disappointed jobbers.
Throw to the winds the insinuations of men who,
despite their convictions, cling to this miserable
Pike project with superlative audacity, that they
appear before the world as consistent men.
In giving your votes this day remember, too,
that the eyes of the people are upon you, and
that every man who has visited the works, in his
official capacity, as a member of the corporation,
should not silently record his opinions, but give
a reason why he takes his stand for or against
the continuance of the red sandstone water.
We have performed our duty. No factious
motive has dictated the course which we felt it
our duty to pursue. We foresaw, from the very
outset, the melancholy results which must
ultimately ensue, if the people of Liverpool are
compelled to use the Rivington water. We have
pleaded with earnestness and zeal on their
behalf, and now we take leave of you by asking
you to call to mind that remarkable saying of
St. Paul—"l speak as unto wise men, judge ye
what I say.'

A POLITICAL VOICE of no minor importance
has gone forth. DISRAELI, the leader of " HER
MAJESTY'S opposition " in the House of Com-
mons, has spoken. And although a distinguished
personage is reported to have exclaimed, " Good
GOD ! what can you say to them ? " the Right
Hon. gentleman has enunciated a political theory,
as regards the representation of the people,
which is the all-prevailing topic of the day. Our
political principles and sympathies are totally
antagonistic to the Right Honourable:the member
for Buckinghamshire, Nevertheless, the position
which he holds in the political world, and the
influence which such a personage can exercise
upon an unthinking multitude, is cause suffi-
cient why we should notice his late oration to
his agricultural constituents at Newport Pagnell,
last week. Here we may premise that we are
not of that class who consider Mr. DISRAELI
totally destitute of talent, and rank him as a
political humbug. Any one acquainted with
the House of Commons knows full well that the
efforts of a political humbug are but short-
lived. When such a character rises to address
the House, all parts of the Chamber, ministerial
and opposition alike, soon become deserted, and
if the Parliamentary " bore " chooses to proceed,
he may address empty benches, as was the case
when Mr. SPOONER brought forward his motion
on Thursday last, respecting the Maynooth
Grant. This is not the case with Mr. DISRAELI,
when he speaks, his own party crowd the
opposition benches, and Lord PAL3rEasroN
and all his colleagues, together with the
main portion of the Administration party, keep
to their places, eager to hear and scan
what " BENJAMIN" has got to say. A
man whose breath in the House of Commons is
so potent, and which compels friends and foes
to hang alike upon the eloquence, the sarcasm—
aye, and even the very sophistsy—which he can
put forth, is no minor member of that assembly.
Friends and foes alike regard him as a powerful
debater, and in more respects than one consider
that he has displayed powers of statesmanship of
no mean order. Under these circumstances,
any political declamation of such a man, and
particularly at such a time, is well and truly
entitled to attentive consideration.

Our readers are aware that Mr. DISRAELI,
" according to custom," visited his constituents
at Newport Pagnell, and after partaking of a
Farmers' Ordinary," addressed a number of
the electors of Buckinghamshire. The topic
which he selected to descant upon was the New
Reform Bill. We are glad that the Right Hon.
gentleman selected that important theme for his
discussion, and simply because it teaches the
Liberals what the Tories are prepared to
advocate and support when Lord PALMERSTON
brings forward his promised Reform Bill next
session. It will not astonish our readers if we
at the outset declare that Mr. DISRAELI'S new
Parliamentary code of Reform does not approach
anything like what we deem to be the rights of
the people. By a species of political juggling,
which is peculiar to the Right lion. gentleman,
he advocates with much apparent plausibility
equal electoral districts. But, addressing as he
did a meeting of farmers, any improvement
which is to take plP.ce in the representation of
the people mug 1)e on the side of the owners and

occupiers of the soil. According to Mr.
DISRAELI'S idea, it would seem that as the
Reform Act 0f,1832 was one-sided, that of 1858
must also be one-sided, but in a totally different
direction. Hence the political influence which
the Whigs have wielded in both Church and
State, the Right Hon, member for Bucks seeks
to tranfer to the counties for the next twenty
years, or more if he can. This is certainly the
burthen of his song at Newport Pagnell, and his
political satellites are labouring hard for the
consummation of the same desired end.
Mr. DISRAELI only thinks of augmenting the
number of county members, so as to neutralise
the influence of the votes from cities and
towns. He is for equal electoral districts, but
without any increase of the franchise, and
he has not ventured to say a word upon
the expediency of taking votes by ballot.
—We have somewhere met with a geological
treatise, which shows that the normal heat of our
planet, as derived from the sun, relies very much
upon the position of land and water ; without
making any change in the proportions of either,
and even with no change in the general
appearance of continents, the resulting climate
of the globe would vary through a wide range,
from severe cold to considerable heat, in
proportion as the terrine masses were gathered
about the poles, or distributed round the
equitorial circle. We have seen ingenious
outlined maps, showing how the planet, by a slight
change in the relative situation of conti-
nents and oceans, might have been given up to
ice and rain, rendering it a very miost, unpleasant
body, or completely destroyed by torrid heat.
It strikes us that Mr. DISRAELI'S proposed plan
is constructed upon a somewhat similar principle.
His scheme is devoid of any change in the
electoral qualification—it is without any exten-
sion of the suffrage, and wanting in any
variation of the :class and number of voters.
All he seeks is to sum up and re-distribute the
voters on different principles. Now this, we
believe, will never satisfy the expectations of the
people, and it is hardly necessary to say, that
neither the country nor the House of Commons
can or will sanction such a political make-shift.
An enlargement of the political basis is an idea
that has not entered into Mr. DISRAELI'S
programme. In fact, he tells us as much as it is
foreign to his political tastes and desires. He
says—"l do not care how von reconstruct
your parliament; I do not care how you
adjust your franchise." Why should he, if
his sole end and aim is to add to
the number of county members. At the
same time, his silence as to the electoral quali-
fication is another proof of his earnest desire
and that of the party to which he belongs,
that they look upon a 5/. qualification or an
educational franchise as a most -serious matter
—one that would destroy all their influence
and pretension as a political party.
This is certainly the vital point of the whole
question, and it is one at which the Conservative
measure of Mr. DISRAELI will encounter the
most formidable opposition, and sustain the
greatest shock of puplic opinion. The element
in the Reform question which the Conservatives
adopt as the main principle in their plan, is
precisely that which the public at large deem of
the least importance. What is wanted is the
proper distribution of the country into electoral
districts, and not population on the one hand
and intelligence on the other. Each district
should send its fair share and quota of repre-
sentatives. Every man who contributes to the
taxes of the country, if of unblemished character,
should have his say as to the expenditure of these
taxes ; and until Mr. DISRAELI acknowledges
the principle, we take leave to tell him that be
is not a Parliamentary Reformer in the sense
which the country now requires.

TRAFFIC ARR%NGEMONTS FOR ENIIGRANTS IN CANADA.
—Messrs. Lee and Nightingale, of this town, have
addressed us •a note, in which they say :—" We have
received a communication from Mr. Shipman, of Toronto,
manager of the Canadian Royal Mail Through Lake
Steamers, in which he calls attention to certain erroneous
statements which have been published in some of the
local and other English papers, with respect to the
arrangements for forwarding passengers byj the_ steamers
with which he is connected. The paragraph in question
stated that emigrants to the United States and Canada,
by taking the through tickets of the Grand Trunk Rail-
way Company, are conveyed from their port of landing to
their destination in less than one quarter of the time
taken by steamboats, and at about the same rates of
fares. Thus a passenger can roach Chicago from Quebec,
a distance of 1,007 miles, in less than two days and a-half,
whereas by water it is nearly double the distance, and
requires from twelve to fifteen days, with five or six
changes of steamboats, during all of which they are ex-
posed to the arts and machinations of designing persons,
whose sole means of living is by their plunder. The
steamboats especially, when crowded, scarcely afford pro-
tection from the weather." To these statements Mr.
Shipman gives a most unqualified denial, remarking
that the steamers only take fifty hours in going from
Quebec to Hamilton, whilst the railway, under the most
favourable circumstances, occupy thirty hours, a d often
miss their connections. The steamboat company have the
same facilities for forwarding passengers from there as
the Grand Trunk Company, while the cost of the passages
by steamers (including meals), does not amount to one-
half the railway charges. The passengers on board of tl:e
steamers are all comfortably sheltered from the weather,
and their luggage carefully protected. Mr. Shipman pro-
mises a fuller contradiction of the unfair statements of the
Grand Trunk Railway Company; and, in the meantime,
all persons interested in the subject, can procure the rela-
tive rates of fares from Messrs. Allan and Gillespie, of
this town.