The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-13 00:00:00

THE DAYS NEWS,

In the House of Commons last night, Sir Robt.
Peel amused the members of that honourable
house by entering into a kind of explanation of his
celebrated speech on his visit to Russia. The
eccentric Baronet did not mend the matter by his
statement. He admitted that the speech was
reported correctly in the newspapers, but hinted
that it was delivered on an oceanion of jollifi-
cation, evidently hoping that this would be taken
as an excuse for any outrageous remarks he
might then have made. He said he did not intend
to cast any reflections upon the character of M. de
Morny, and all he said about him was that he cone
sidered him to be Le Plus Grand Speculateur de
l'Europe. His opinion of the Grand Duke Con-
stantine waie that he was as stiff and starched
as the " fall " of Eliz,Aneth.
but, did not
uau CL ICU IL (us -saaelenes ; out, it he had
given any offenr!,z,, he was most willing to make
the amen; g honourable. As our telegraphic
de!patch says—The conclusion of this address was
eceived with loud and prolonged cheers and
boisterous laughter, and so well it might be.
One of her Majesty's Ministers to make such an
exhibition of himself as Sir Robert Peel has
of late been in the habit of doing, is anything but
creditable to the Government of which he forms
a member. Lord Palmerston :acknowledged to
the House that a treaty between Austria and
France on Italian affairs had been signed
in 1851, but emphatically denied that
its provisions were now in course of being
carried out, or that it had ever been acted upon:
in fact that it had all along been a dead letter.
Mr. Disraeli severely commented upon Lord
Palmerston's conduct ou the first night ',of the
Session, in positi,e,;eiy stating that no such treaty
had been ::.egoeiated, and the noble lord retaliated
"P' 1 the leader of the opposition ; the treaty had
never been in force, and there had been no inter-
ference on the part of England. Mr. Cobden
stated that, on that day fortnight, he would take
the opinion of the House upon the proceedings of
the present Government with respect to the
Chinese difficulties, and the attack upon Canton
by the British Admiral. In the House of Lords
no business of the least importance was transacted.
The usual weekly meeting of the Dock and
Health Committees Were held yesterday. The
health of the town is about the average ; the deaths
last week being 238 It would appear from the
proceedings at the Health Committee, that the
Postmaster-General is of opinion that the General
Post Office in Liverpool, is quite large enough for
the requirements of that branch of the public
service for several years to come.
The annual meeting of the Liverpool and Lon-
don Insurance Company was held yesterday.
From the report read by the secretary, it would
appear that the company is in a most flourishing
condition, the receipts from all sources last year
being close on X 300,000. The directors recom-
mended that a dividend of 12s per share, less
Income Tax, should he declared, which was
accordingly done. This is close on 30 per cent.
Two very turbulent meetings took place yesterday,
one in relation to the United Legal Friendly
Burial Society, and the other concerning the elec-
tion of an assistant overseer for the parish of
Toxteth. We have reported the proceedings at
length in another part of to-day's paper, to which
we would call the reader's attention.

Seward and Anderson, who are charged with
being implicated in the London city forgeries, have
been committed for trial. The crusade against
the Metropolitan Betting Houses continues, and
there is reason to hope that this nuisance will
greatly abate, if not altogether cease: The new
evidence in the case of the double murder at
Walworth causes additional suspicion to gather
around that horrible tragedy.

A telegraphic despatch from Dublin, last night,
says that the Lord Lieutenant has appointed Mr.
S. -W. Fiannagan Third Commissioner of the
Encumbered Estates Court, in the room of Baron
Richards.

The news from abroad is not of much importance
this morning. In France, the great commercial
towns are getting up a petition, calling upon the
French Government to procure an indemnification
from that of the United States for the French
merchants who were sufferers by the bombardment
of Greytown, in 1854.
Our Spanish accounts state that M. Ordonez,
Govanor of Barcelona, has been dismissed. General
Zapatero, the captain-general, will fill the functions
ad interim. The Gazette publishes a declaration to
the effect that Government will respect the law in
election matters. It was said that the electoral
committee of the Progressists had resolved to
complain to the Governor of Madrid of certain
irregularities committed in the electoral lists. A
great quantity of snow had fallen in Castille and
Burgos. In the latter province, bands of wolves
were prowling about and attacking men and ani-

mall. Robberies of churches were frequent in all
parts of the country.

From the Lombard-Venetian kingdom our intel-
ligence is daily assuming more importance. An
outward sign is, that the Emperor's stay will be
prolonged up to March, and that the Austrian
Ministers are all summoned to Milan. This fines
its explanation in the independent position which
the young Archduke Maximilian has taken up
After it had been resolved that he was not to take
the title of aVaceroy, but simply that of a Governor,
he nevertheless has claimed Vice-regal powers for
this post, and he certainly wants at any rate to
have the appointment of all civil and military
functionaries in the kingdom. But it would be a
heavy blow for the military party of Austria. The
civil party, headed by the ministers, are favourable
to the measure, and for the simpl3 reason that it
would put an end to the uncontrolled sway of the
Austrian generals in Italy. It is expected that
this struggle will retard for some time the publi-
cation of the new political arrangements for
Lombardy.

The cloud that hovers over the questions pending
between Denmark on the one side, and her Ger
man subjects who have the support of Prussia and
Austria on the other, threatens to assume larger
proportions, is a note of the Danish Government,
finally denying the claims of the Holstein Diet to
control the sale of the domains in Holstein, will
really be despatched, as is anticipated. Hitherto,
the King is represented as wavering. The despatch
of. the note would necessarily induce the German
Diet to interfere, and, in cas@ of need, march troops
Into Holstein.

By the way of Russia we have dates from Teheran
of the 3rd of January. The advices confirm the
reports received through Constantinople, of Eng-
lish ships having approached Mohammara, on the
Chat-el-Arab. They also bring news of the assas-
sination of Issa-Khan, by an Affgan. Issa-Khan,
it will be recollected, is the Persian General first
sent to Herat, where he turned against the Shah,
conspiring with the Ameer of Cabul. He was
afterwards taken prisoner, but pardoned.
The treaty of 13alta Liman, concluded on the
30th April, 1846, for ten years, ekpires this year.
The Turkish representative at St. Petersburg has
consented to its provisional prolongation, on the
distinct promise that, as soon as Russia shall have
reformed her tariff, a new and more favourable
commercial treaty between Russia and Turkey is
to be concluded.

The screw steamer City of Washington arrived
here last night, with four days later news from
the United States. She sailed from New York
on the Ist instant, two hours after the United
States mail steamer Atlantic, which she passed
on the second day out. The Kangaroo WAS still
frozen up in the Delaware, but it was expected
would soon be released. The news aro unimpor-
tant. The House of Representatives had passed
a bill admitting Oregon and Minnesota into the
confederacy as sovereign states.

Tat Liverpool Town Dues—or Municipal
Spoliation—Bill, prepared and promoted by
Manchester, has been read a second time in the
House of Commons. The ostensible object of
this dastardly measure is to consolidate the
Liverpool and Birkenhead Dock Estates. But
its real aim is to subvert the rights of property,
and place the rateable substance of the Inhabit-
ants and Burgesses of this Borough at the
disposal of British subjects who may not live
within, or be connected with, the municipality,
so long as they pay, merely incidentally, the
large sum of 101. per annum in the shape of dock
rates ! Give the Manchester agitators and
levellers this advantage, and the Dock Bond-
holders who have advanced their money on the
strength of Acts of Parliament, will find a serious
reduction in their dividends. Those who have
invested their money in Dock Bonds may have
been the most strenuous supporters of the Dock
fore entitled to little consideration from the
Ratepayers—the Dock debt may he out of all
proportion to the clock accommodation and other
facilities given to commerce, vast as they really
are—still, there is a want of moral and national
rectitude in the manner Manchester men seek to
deal with the property of the people of this
Borough, which no Cabinet or Parliament will
have the conscience to sanction.

The mysterious and double-faced way the
Board of Trade and their Manchester clique are
endeavouring to plunder the Municipalities of
England of their lawful rights, are sufficient to
excite the suspicion of her Majesty's Ministers
and the Legislature. When Mr. LOWE first
undertook the leadership of the Corporation
spoliators, he came forward boldly with a public
bill, baed, as the public were led to believe, on
the report of a Royal Commission. This measure
was defeated on its merits ; and now we have a
private bill, brought in by one Corporation to
deprive another of its local revenues and rights
of self-government, while the less powerful
owners of precisely similar dues are brought
again before Parliament in a public Bill.
Dover, Whitby, Burlington, and Ramsgate
are to have their tolls abolished by this
measure, on the understanding that the Govern-
ment are to transfer their respective harbour debts
to the State. There is something straightforward
and honest in this proposal, and Liverpool would
have no objection to treat with the Board of
Trade for the removal of Dock rates, passing
tolls, and Town Dues, on precisely the same
terms ; but, strange to say, both Liverpool and
Birkenhead are left out of Mr. LowE's Passing
Tolls Bill of this year, and are handed over to
the corporate officials of Manchester to batten
upon, like SD much food designed for the suc-
cour of sharks.

A harbour debt of 7,500,0001. is to be taken
off the shoulders of Ramsgate, the Government
agreeing to repay themselves by passenger and
salvage tolls. The benefit which would accrue
to the shipping interest from this arrangement
appears somewhat obscure ; still Ramsgate will
be a gainer by the change, and we are much at a
loss to know why this port, with its heavy dock
and harbour debt, was overlooked in the projec-
tion of such a scheme. Liverpool would gladly
give up her Town Dues and Passing Tolls for
what they are worth, and her Dock Rates also,
if they will only take with them the dock debt,
and still leave the shipowner and shipper the
management of the docks and river. Wipeing off
ten or twelve millions of this Borough's indebt-
edness would be a great boon to the Mersey, and
an act of justice towards the merchants and ma-
nufacturers of the North. Every sixpence we
have expenjed on docks, basins, and other faci-
lities to trade, was so much paid to advance
British commerce, without distinction or preju-
dice. We have done that to which a paternal
government might point with pride ; and when

the Premier visited LivcrpuA, the noble lord
must have lamented that his name was not asso-
ciated with the mighty national works he beheld
cn the estuary of the Mersey. They will outlive
the age of " compromise" and the fame of wily
placemen.
The State ought to have done for the Mersey
what Liverpool has been left to do for the com-
merce of the world. What right had the inha-
hitantsof a little Borough to involve themselves in
debt, and take upon themselves the duty which
ought to have been reserved for the responsible
advisers of the Crown ? We entered on the
desperate enterprise, in the belief that the means
we proposed, and the Legislature sanctioned,
would be respected, and the obligations entered
into under Acts of Parliament would be held in-
violate against all innovations. And we cannot
be persuaded, even at the present hour—when, we
see Mr. LOWE and his phalanx of Manchester
blockheads endeavouring to trample on contracts
which every Englishman holds to be sacred—that
the Government and House of Commons will
suffer Liverpool to be openly robbed of her Cor-
porate property and ConstitutiOnal rights. If
the trade of Dover, Whitby, Burlington, and
Ramsgate is to be relieved of direct taxation
affecting shipping, the commerce of the Mersey
must surely need the same generous considera-
tion ! The world has much to lose by heaping
embarrassments and forcing impotency on Liver-
pool. It is true that the trade of half a dozen
Cinque Ports, as Paddy would say, might dis-
appear with the foundering of a solitary thousand
ton ship ; still, a great community of mercantile
and maritime interests may stand just.as much in
need of State favours and timely relief, as the
smallest seats of trade and industry in the realm.
And, while we can have but little to fear from
the attacks of Mr. LOWE or his party of despe-
radoes, it is earnestly hoped, then, when such
places as River, Whitby, Burlington, and
Ramsgate are to be released from the debts they
have contracted to advance commerce, that
Liverpool will not be overlooked, and that where
Mr. LOWE shows a desire to be rational, he will
be compelled to amend his bill, and include the
Alersey in the list of harbours whose debts are to
be wiped off by the State. •

THE ARMY ESTIMATES for 1857_8 show a decrease on
the revised estimates of 1856-7 of £9,023,551. On the
original estimate, calculated upon a war basis, but reduced
at the conclusion of peace from £34.998,504 to £20,249,084,
the decrease is no less than £23,772,971. The total sum
required for the service of the ensuing year, is £11,225,533.
The following is the deereaae on the revised
estimates for 1856.57:--Land Forces, 119,920 men.
Effective Services—Land Forces, pay, allowances,
and miscellaneous charges, £2,045,973 ; Embodied
Militia, £1,000,010; Volunteer Corps, £80,877; Army
Works Corps, 250,010; Departments of the Secretary of
State for War and the General Commanding in Chief,
£6,213; manufacturing sstablishments, &., £73,772; wages
of artificers, labourers. &c., £117,142; clothing and
necessaries, provisions, forage, &e., £2,625,540; warlike
stores for land and sea service, £1,903,819 ; fortifi-
cations, :civil buildings, an barracks, £899,686 ;
education and scientific branches, £12,160; making the
total reduction on effective services of £9,015,202. In the
non effective services the reductions are :--Pav of aso.r.l
9(IA ! widows' wnsinna, &e., 30,042 ; pensions
and allowances to wounded officers, £35,695 ; in peasion,
£155; superannuation allowances, £264, but there is
an increase on the items of rewards for military
service, of £905 ; pay to retired c facers, £49,612 ; and
out pensions, £11,296 ; so that the total decrease on
the non effective services amounts to £8,349 only.
We now give the items far the new estimates for
1857.58 in detail. Land forces, numbers, 126,796 men
Effeetive Services :—Land forces, pay and allowances,
£4,400,982 ; ditto, miscellaneous charges, £553,055 ;
Volunteer Corps, £7,123 ; Departments of the Secretary of
State for War, and of the General Commanding in Chief,
.C 185,604 ; manufacturing establishments, storekeepers,
barrack masters, £376,238; wage 4 of artificers, labourers,
&e., £332,868 ; clothing and necessaries, £418,570 ; pro-
visions, forage, fuel and light, barrack furniture, bedding, &c,
£9.55,900; warlike stores for land and seaTservice, £596,191 ;
fortifications, £245,930; civil buildings and barracks,
£693,453 ; educational and scientific branches, £227,744 ;
total effective services, £8,993,658. Non effective
services :—Rewards for military service, £26,305 ;
pay of general officers, £62,994 ; pay of reduced
and retired officers, £568,706 ; widows' pensions
and compassionate allowances, £190,378 ; pensions
and allowances to wounded oilieer £47,863 ;
in-pension, £31,941; out-pension, £1,179,688; superanu-
ation allowances, &c., £124,000 ; total non effective services,
£2,231,875. Recapitulation : Effective services,£B,993,6sB :
non effective services, £2,231,875; total effective and non
effective services, £11,225,533. We have stated that the
decrease in the navy estimates was £8,188,987. The total
therefore, of the decrease on the navy and army estimates is
£17,212,538. From this specimen of the resolute manner in
which the Cabinet has set about cutting down the public ex-
diture, we need have very little hesitation in coming to the
conclusion that this evening we shall learn the abandon-
ment of the whole of the War Income Tax, without, as
we reasonably anticipate, a resort to any other forni of
taxation. The fears that Ministers are inclined to be pro-
gal in time of peace, may almost be converted into appre-
hensions that their tendency is now to err on the side of
economy. We now learn a fact connected with the army
of considerable interest to the troops. The present depot
system at the great camps where our troops are massed, and
disciplined, and instructed as an army, will, we hear, he
continued for thy present. But hereafter these depots will
be broken up in the winter, and the troops placed in ordinary
barracks, to the great increase of their comfort and health,
and also of their efficiency— for to efficiency, comfort, and
health are of course essential. From April to October,
the army will, it is stated, in subsequent years undergo
training in these camps ; but from November to March they
will be broken up and placed in the old depots. This is a
change which will be thankfully received in a climate like
curs by bah men and officers.

BRITISH AND AMERICAN ANNEXITION.—Nnw, it may be
all very welt for our brethren on the other side of the
Atlantic, to preach up the doctrine of annexation, to s y
that it is the policy and destiny of England and America
to urge their way—one eastward, the other westward—
never stopping till the world is encircled—till John and
Jonathan meet together under the very walls of
Japan. We cannot, however, sacrifice the means to
the end. If our policy in the East may be termed
aggressive, there is still this consolation left ; in that
quarter the course of events has compelled us to work out
our destiny. Wars have been urged upon us, and annex•
ation has followed. No paltry pretext has ever been
resorted to for the purpose of inciting a people to rise
against their rulers, thereby affording an opportunity to
hunch into their country bands of freebooters and
desperadoes ; no, our .armies have gone forward in
the full conviction that their cause was a good one, and
that victory, which invariably waits upon arms uplifted
for the furtherr.nce and progress of civilisation has been