Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-10-28 00:00:00

which I trust will always exist, and which will be best fostered
by having gentlemen in the two bodies who will take a deep
interest-in tae well-working of both. In illustration of this
I need but ailade to a question which Mr. William Earle has
warmly and very properly taken up, and in which this ward is
greatly interested. I mean the approaches to our noble
river. Ido not think there is a more magnificent sight in the
world than when the river is crowded with vessels from every
quarter of the globe ; but the difficulty of reaching it is so great
that that which ought to be productive of pleasure to the
countless thousands comprising this vast community, has
become a source of the greatest inconvenience and positive
danger. If an improvement in this be as I believe
it to be absolutely necessary, how can it be carried out except
by the co-operation of the two estates? And will that co-
operation be best accorded by cementing the union between
the two or by raising them into rival bodies ?
Unwilling to inflict upon you a long letter, I will briefly say
that, feeling the greatest respect for Mr. Holme as a man of
the highest integrity, and one eminently useful in the Town
Council, I shall feel the greatest pleasure in aiding in any way
his re-election. In so doing, I should be sorry for any one to
think-that I am opposed to Mr. Beloe personally ; but I believe
Mr. Holme has served the ward long and faithfully, and is well
entitled to a renewed expression of your confidence.—l remain,
dear sir, yours truly, J. A. TOBIN.
T. Branch, Esq.
- - - - -

Mr. Alderman HOLME then came forward, and was
received with prolonged applause. He said it was many
years since he had attended a ward meeting. He was
not enamoured with tie character of being an itinerant
orator, flitting abaut from ward to ward (a voice :
"Three groans for Jeffery," and cries of "Order, order"),
in places where he had no business to thrust his advice
upon gentlemen much more competent than he could
be to say who was the most fitting representative for
them. And he sho-eld not have been here this evening
had it not been that he considered on one hand that
some injustice had been done to his brother—(hear)----
and oa the other, because he had read some extraordi-
nary sentiments which were uttered by another gentle-
man who sought- their representative. His brother had
been accused of negligence in attending to the duties of
the Council. For many years he had been most assiduous
in his attendance, but he-had been visited with affliction,
and in his solitude he felt somewhat incapacitated-to
i-sittend to his public affairs. He (the Alderman) and his
physicians persistently insisted upon his brother not at-
tending for a time to his public duties. He did, indeed,
state his opinion that his brother ought to retire ; but
that had been magnified into absolute certainty. But
Mr. Holme had now recovered. He was partial to his
brother ; and he would tell them that if they rejected
14m, they would reject an able, faithful, and honest
representative (loud applause). • For thirty years they
had laboured together, and by honest industry and in.
tegrity he hoped they each fought their way, shoulder
to shoulder, to the highest point which it was possible
for the town to confer on them; and he trusted neither
of them did discredit to the choice (cheers). He would
say that it was ungrateful to those gentlemen who met
in this room a few evenings before, to utter the senti-
ments they did.

" He who is ungrateful has no other crimes but one ;
All other crimes may pass for virtues in him."

Now, he saw with deep regret that attempts were being
made to sow dissension between the Dock Board and the
Corporation. Was it come to this, that the men whose
enterprise had converted a mere fishing village into
the greatest port in the world—that these men were
not to be entrusted with corporate matters because
the merchants had selected them as being the best
able to manage the docks ? He did not wish to say it
offensively, but was it come to thii, that Mr. Beckwith
should manage their affairs, and that a great shipowner
like Mr. Brocklebank should be excluded? (Hear, hear.)
The shops were made by our docks ; and he held
this doctrine, that it was the commerce of Liverpool
that had made the shops, and the counting-houses, and
the roperies, and the anchorsmiths of Liverpool. It
was that which had given us our wealth ; and they were
not the friends of Liverpool who would preach antagon-
ism between those two great bodies—the Dock Board
and the Corporation. (Applause.) If it were the desire
of:busybodies to exclude from the Council men of the
highest standing, whose position adorned, and whose
knowledge enlighted any assembly.—that their own
twinkling tapers might be better seen—they might,
possibly, succeed in creating a division ; but, depend
upon it, the government would speedily step in, and
take upon itself the management of those great works.
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) He would now turn to the
speech of Mr. Beloe, for whom he had the highest re-
spect. Mr. Beloe, at the meeting, said, somewhat
classically—" I think Mr. Holme, thus stabbed by the
neglect of his friends, might, like Cresar of old, have
wrapt himself in the mantle of past honours and fallen
with dignified silence." It was most magnificently put
—a brilliant idea ; and he was not surprised that the
Reporters had put after it " Hear, hear, and applause."
(Laughter...)
A person in the room said Mr. Beloe used the word
"retired," not " fallen:"
Alderman HOLME said the Reporters of Liverpool, he
could speak from experience, always reported the
speeches with considerable accuracy. Now, he said
there was no need for Cresar to have fallen if Brutus
and the other compatriots had not basely stabbed him,
while they were outwardly professing friendship and
admiration. (Cheers.) Recollecting his schoolboy days,
and the expression of Cresar, tu Brute, he involun-
tarily exclaimed on reading this part of Mr. Beloe's
speech—Et tu Beloe. (Laughter and applause.) And
he was somewhat reminded of the words put into the
mouth of Brutus by -Shakspeare

" The people 'twixt Philippi and this grsund
Do stand but in a forced affection.
For they have grudged us contribution."
Mr. Beloe quarrelled with the Council because they re-
fused to impoverish future councils by taking the fines
.for large sales, anl spending the money as income. That
was a question which -seriously affected the pockets of
every burgess in this town. And he would say this, that
if they wanted one who was really ecsnomical—and he
spoke from a -practical knowledge —they would. find
among the Conservative party in the Council men who
possessed a greater desire and a greater power to prac-
tise economy than many of those who went into that
assembly with the profession upon their lips. Alderman
Holme then proceeded as follows :—Mr. Beloe quotes
the following remark of the Finance Committee :

" That inasmuch as provision is made for the discharge of the
whole debt of .the Corporation, it will be necessary for the
future to invest the amount of such fines, the interest thereof
being payable to the borough fund ;" and then the report goes
on to say that perhaps the most convenient mode of making
such investment is to leave the money by way of a redeemable
mortgage upon the premises so leased, and thus the income of
the burgesses is immediately reduced from £lOO per annum to
£4 17s. 6d., namely, Di 10s. for interest, and 7s. 6d. redemp-
tion money during 75 years. I confess the arguments, as
well as the law of the report, are altogether beyond my con-
prehension. He-tells us what he will do when lie gets into the
Council ; but I promise him that he will there find gentlemen
sally prepared to meet him. And he adds—" I once renewed
a lease within four or five years of its expiration, and probably
paid the full value of the house. This being only a fine on
renewal, would be called, under the new system, income. Had
I abided my time and bought the house at auction for £6OO, I
should only have had to pay six times £4 I 7s. 6d. or £27 15s.
per annum for seventy-five years, and have kept the £6OO in
my pocket, to my profit and your loss. Again, the George
Hotel was sold for about £16,000; the ten per cent. upon this
purchase was called income, and you enjoyed it accord-
ingly, but the other 90 per cent. was called capital, and you
only enjoy the rent at 4,1 per cent. It these inconsistencies
were brought under the notice of the Treasury, there can be
no doubt that a royal commission would issue to enquire for
what purpose we were hoarding up our estates." Now, the
principle of the Municipal Act is, that all corporate property
should be kept intact, and that it should not be in the power of
any corporate body to grant leases for more than 31 years ; for
the granting of long leases had been a practice of many small
corporate bodies, and all their property had been alienated,
and the fines spent, so that they were without income.
The act therefore specifies, in the 91th section, that no
lease should be for more than 31 years, and that it should
be by a reserved rent, and not by a fine, unless in special
cases, with the consent of the Lords of the Treasury. In con-
sequence. however, of difficulties peculiar to Liverpool, a
subsequent act gave power to extend the period to seventy-
five years, that being our constant practice ; end now that we
shall receive from the docks a larger sum than will extinguish
our bond debt, we have to consider the best mode of investing
our surplus, so that it will yield us the largest permanent and
steady income. We have undoubtedly the legal power to alie- ,
nate the whole estate for 75 years, and to apply the sum received
as income, and expend it in any one year. So has a tradesman
the power, if he so choose, to convert his stosk into money—
call it income, if he likes—and spend it as such. It will last
him for a time; but is it wise or prudent to do it? Would
any man in his senses do it? Let us see how it works. We
had a block of land in Great Howard-street; we valued it at
about £50,000; we might have taken that money and spent it
as income, and then there would have been an end of it. But
we took an annual rent of £2,359 ss. in perpetuity, and that
goes to swell our annual revenue. fir. Beloe quotes his
own case. Had he bought the house for £6OO, and we
had passed the money to income, we should have spent
it undoubtedly; or had we put it out on mortgage, we should
not have got more than 41 per cent. for it, or £25 10s. per
annum, but by commuting it we obtain, by his own showing,
£27 15s. ; so that how it could be to his profit and our loss I
cannot make' out. He alludes to the George Hotel. 'Of
course, if we took the £16,000 for income. and spent it
as such, and followed the same course throughout, we
should have a large income for some years ; but, like
the drunkard excited by spirits, we should leave unna-
tural excitement, to be followed by subsequent langour.
But now, gentlemen, we receive for the George Hotel
the annual sum of £682 per annum, for the whole period
of 75 years that the lease has to run, and at the end of
the 75 years, after we have been receiving £682 a year,
the property comes back to the Corporation with a mag-
nificent building upon it, which is a
grand improvement
to the property. (Loud applause.) This just shows how
fallacious these things are when probed and explained.
(Applause.) Take another case :—We have recently sold

the propierty near the Exchange for £60,000. Without
the britlewell it has"produced £1,560 per annum. If we
take the whole as income, the corporate estate for the
next 75 years is minus that amount per annum, in addi-
tion to the annual value of the site of the bridewell ;
but if we commute it, or employ the money as a loan,
.. A
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(. 1 merry
eT we have the interest to swell our annual income, and
provide for our annual demands (hear, hear). If you
believe that he is a prudent man who, possessing a landed
estate, alienates it for 75 years on the payment of a sum
down, and spends the amount at once, you will say that
of
fxtrshe tenxce6,o,obouot
inthata
poverty and distress are not far distant (hear, hear).
summary way. Herew it is •—" The other day the bur-
gessesed to purchase a cemetery, and
found 120 acres of laud suitable for that purpose at a
o
price of £60,000, and you are to have the pleasure of
being taxed to pay for it. Last week the C9rporation
sold, not 120 acres, but about one-third of one acre
for about £60,000. You are to be taxed to pay
for the one, but the profits of the other will be lost to
you, because they will be commuted for the benefit of
posterity at £4 17s. 6d.. per cent. Now, consider
for one moment the advantage it would have been to
the town if the one £60,000 had been set against the
other £60,000.• The cemetery would have been
got, and we should have had no taxes to pay. I
may be told that this would be illegal, but I do not
believe it. The Lords of the Treasury would never
have interfered to prevent an exchange for sanitary
purposes of 1,600 yards of land for an estate of 120
acres." If, then, he applies it for a parish ceme-
tery, my notion is that the whole of the municipal
borough would be making the parish of Liverpool a
present of £6o,ooo,and get nothing for it. (Hear, hear.)
The cemetery is for the parish only, not for the borough.
What will our friends in Toxteth-park say? They form
part of the borough. They have a cemetery of their
own, for which they are already taxed, and they will
not permit the borough fund, of which they are par-
takers, to lose £2,500 or £2,600 a year, for which they
get no equivalent. (Hear, hear.) We have already taken
in our estimate £20,000 a-year for renewals, which on any
average of years is not far from the amount which may
be treated as income, leaving the estate intact. Of course
if any one holds that we may alienate the whole estate
for 75 years, spend the money, and leave our successors
without income, I have done reasoning with him. (Hear,
hear.) It might be a present advantage to the town, or
rather to the parish, if one £60,000 could be set against
the other: So it might be an advantage to a reckless
trustee, who was in debt £60,000, if he could alienate
for 75 years that amount of trust property, receive the
fine, pay his own debts, and let the successor to the
estate be without any income until the lease had expired.
I am sure that such imprudent doctrines as those pro-,
pounded will not advance us, if acted on, either in wis-
dom or in credit. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Mr. Beloe
then attacks the system f audit, which he denounces as
a farce, a delusion, and a snare. He has been auditor
thirteen, not fifteen years, for I find that the Corporate
account for 1844 and 1845, ending August 31, are
signed John Walker and Geo. H. Plant, and those for
1845 and 1846 are the first signed by him. If,
then; the system be what he designates it, how has he
permitted it to go on without remonstrance so many
years ? He has had every facility for examining the ac-
counts, and he has annually signed them as correct. His
former coadjutors, nominated by the Mayor, were Mr.
Richard Houghton, of Rodney-street ; then Sir John
Bent, and then Mr. Preston, the present Mayor. Mr.
M'Quie has been for some time his co-elected auditor.
His remarks are an insult to the gentlemen I have
named—an unjust reflection upon those who are quite as
honourable as himself (cheers). The Finance Committee
are exceedingly obliged to him for "freely forgiving
them ;" but when he so pathetically complains that "he
made a deadly enemy of" almost every member "of the
Finance Committee," I beg humbly to observe, that he
must have lost his recollection, or given us the efferves-
-1 cence of a lively imagination for fact (cheers and laughter):
There were some inaccuracies or omissions in one of the
clerks, who had not kept an account of many trifling
amounts during the parliamentary contest, but they
really amounted to a comparatively small amount ; and.
when Mr. Beloe attempts to cast odium on the chair-
man of the Finance Committee of that day, I beg to say
that it was Mr. Hornby, who would not attach his sig-
nature to any document without satisfying himself of its
correctness. And when the present Mayor, Mr. Wm.
Preston, and myself investigated the circumstances to.
I which he alludes, we found that the mountain had been
in labour, and the town-clerk produced vouchers find
receipts for everything except small expenses hourly
incurred by Mr. Quick. The fact is, Mr. Beloe mistakes
altogether his position as an auditor. The 93rd section
enacts that the treasurer shall enter in books a true ac-
count of all sums of money received or paid, and these are
to be submitted to the auditors ; and if the said ac ,ounts
shall be found to be correct, the auditors shall sign the
same. That is, they arc a check upon the treasurer ;
they are to see that he has vouchers for all his payments,
and that his receipts are correct as between the treasurer
and the burgesses. But the auditors are not to usurp
1 the foundations of the Council, nor to say whether any
outlay ordered by the Council is judicious or not. (Hear,
hear.) As to the new landing-stage being useless six
1 hours out of the twelve, it is simply incorrect. We em-
ployed an engineer who is said to understand something
of engineering, Sir William Cubitt ; but I would not
venture to place his engineering ability against the supe-
rior knowledge of Mr. Beloe. (Roars of laughter.) We
are always obliged by any information that can be use-
ful ; but I am of opinion that we have now a corporate
auditor in Mr. Bland whose fitness and intelligence
will render it a work of superogation for Mr. Beloe, if
he is sent, to the Council, to interfere. (Loud cheers.)
He says he predicted the defalcations in the markets iu
1853. Now, I will not find fault with the Market's Com-
mittee, for it is impossible for any gentleman to detect all
the petty peculations of a determined rascal like Luya,
especially when they believed him to be an honest man.
But if it proved anything it was this—that the commit-
tee was composed of some of the most eloquent fault-
finders in the Council, and I hope it has taught them to-
he more considerate in the shortcomings of others. The-
majority were of the Liberal party, and here they are.
The chairman was Mr. Johnson, the deputy-chairman
Mr. Woodruff, a very active member of the committee,
who is, indeed, an active member of all committees ;
and let me say for him he often causes a little pleasant
amusement in the committee-room. (Laughter). Then
there was Mr. Beckwith—(laughter)—Mr. Robertson
Gladstone (loud hisses), Mr. Shell (hisses), Mr. Bowring
(hisses and laughter), Mr. Corbally (laughter), Roger
Haydock (loud cheers and laughter). But now I must.
put a little salt into it. Of the Conservatives there were
on the committee, Mr. Chilton—whom we have since -
lost (hear, hear)'—Mr. Ridley, Oliver Holden, with his
jolly round disc, and our friend Mr. Shimmin, who looks,
perhaps, as if a good dinner would dO him good some-
times (roars of laughter), but who has been, let me say,
Most attentive in his attendance upon the Council during
the short period he has been in it (laughter and cheers).
It is a clear proof, therefore, that the Liberals arc not
immaculate. (Hear, hear.) I have detained you too
long, and could go into many other matters of interest,
lam amused at reading the various addresses. What
lions and eagles we have outside ? What sucking doves.
when we get them into fair debate, with a clear stage and,
no favour. Truly, if half the crotchets talked about are to
be carried out, and by those who talk so largely too of
economy, you will not only have to take every bit of pro-
perty you can get, and spend the money, but you must have
a borough rate also, for you may rest assured that boule-
vards, public parks, and extended improvements, all
mean taxation ; and the more you have, the deeper will
you have to put your hands into your pockets, and the
less will be the corporate income you leave to your
children. But my fervent hope, is that its affairs may
be conducted with discretion, and that you will elect
men who will not sacrifice future prosperity for pre-
sent popularity—and such is the candidate who has
so long served you. (Hear, hear, and loud cheers.)
The Chairman introduced Mr. Hutchison to the
meeting as the representative of Abercromby Ward.
Mr. HITTCHISOIC, on risin", was received with loud
cheers. He thanked them I. their kind reception.
He had to congrat _date them upon their good choice in
again assembling to secure the services of their late
representative. -He had fought by his side in contesting
Abercromby Ward, and he was willing to forward the
interest of Mr. Holme to the utmost of his power.
(Cheers.)
Mr. PRIEST moved—" That after the 'explanation
made by Mr. James Holme, we beg to thank him for
his services during the nine years which he has repre-
sented St. Peter's Ward, and this meeting pledges
itself to use its utmost endeavour to secure his re-
election.

Mr. HOLDER seconded the motion, which was carried
amid loud cheers.
Three cheers were given for Mr. James Holme ; a
similar compliment was paid to Alderman S. Holme;
and a vote of thanks having been passed to the chair-
man, the proceedings terminated.