Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-10-23 00:00:00

his is to be added a very generally antici-

pated loss of 100,000!. per annum on the
working of the Birkenhead Docks, and 4,000,000/.
for the North Shore dock extention job ! These
are the embargoes our Corporate representatives
are heaping on the commerce of Liverpool. Every
sixpence the Corruptionists could lay their hands
on to squander, is to be thrown on the trade of
the Mersey, and this is what the Manchester
Corporation call " abolishing dues and other
charges unjustly levied on the trade of the ma-
nufacturing districts." The hoax may be
swallowed by their dupes. But it is for the
Burgesses of Liverpool, and more especially the
dock Ratepayers,,to see that where the commerce of
the port is so deeply involved, none but keen
and fore-sighted men of business are sent into
the Council. As for the politics of a Corpo-
ration, what are they ? A mere sham, by which
jobbing factions are kept alive.
We hope, then, to hear no more of politics in
these Municipal contests. A Corporation has
but two sides—Corruptionists, who seek power to
advance their own individual ends; and straight-
forward, upright men, who look to the economic
management of the public money, and general
welfare of their constituents. The latter are the
men we now stand more in need of than ever;
men who will not assume to have a prejudice
which throws their weight on the side of jobbery,
and who would scorn to encourage a passion as
a cloak to cover the perpetration of a great
public wrong. Accident can rarely, if ever,
place a really upright man on the wrong side of
a divided house. If any man can be found with
sufficient hardihood to say that there is no cor-
ruption, no jobbing, no toadyism in the Liverpool
Corporation, then, indeed, gentlemen might take
whichever side of the Chamber pleased them
best ; but, until this is established, no one can
take his place on the side from which all jobbery
dates, without f)rfe,iting that" confidence as a
public servant which he enjoys in private life.
If in saying this we give expression to the sen-
timents of the Municipal electors, it is to be
hoped they will not allow their votes to be swayed
by any considerations which relate only to
matters of a private character. The Borough
wants good, upright, and efficient men, to con-
duct its publie business. The dock, water, and
gas questions at present involve a sum of
some 15,000,000/. Certain little jobs now in
embryo will swell this gigantic budget to some-
thing like 18,000,0001.

Here, we think, we show sufficient cause for
vigilance on the part of the Ratepayers. The
D. Ratepayers appear to be quite unaware of
their stake in the coming election. The new
Conservancy Commission will, however, bring
them to their senses, and when the present dock
rates are advanced 50 per cent. " for th..! benefit
of commerce," what will our Manchester friends
say ? It will then be found that the elecion of
rui (lie CU' p.irtnicni was not
-•••,,,.-1 „I 4- _ ••
the Burgesses Burgesses were without a warning voice.
We have devoted labour and space enough, in all
conscience, to the exposure of the Council's
doings, and the avalanche which is impending
over the Borough. Oar efforts to meet the
difficulties before U 3 have not been wholly
unsuccessful, it is true; still, much remains for the
electors to do at the coming election. Wherever
a Liberal candidate offers himself for a seat in
the C)uncil, a determined stand should be made
to return him at the head of the poll. Some
such demonstration of the moral opinion of the
great bulk of the Burgesses is required, in order
to show the self-created and self-su.staing majority
in the C.nporation that their management of our
municipal affairs is n )t as irreproachable as they
seem to think it. New blood is wanted in the
Council, and while St. Peter's Ward is making
becoming efforts to supply this want in the
person of Mr. BOWRING, a shipowner, merchant,
and dock ratepayer, the same laudable spirit
should be shown in every other 'Ward where a
Liberal and inteliigent business man has been
put in nomination.

SUNDRY engineers, chemists, and aspirants to
philosophical fame, are amusing themselves, and,
at the same time, filling their pockets at the
cost of the ratepayers, by attempts to discover a
something more mysterious than the elixir of life,
or the philosopher's stone of the ancient
alchymists—namely, a method of transmuting
bog-wash, by some miraclous system of chemical
filtration, into pure, limpid spring water. Such
a discovery will—if ever made—not only im-
mortalise its author, but it will prove to them,
their heirs, and successors, an el dorado. But, in
the meantime, while these subtle and incompre-
hensible operations are being carried on, are we,
the ratepayers, to be compelled to use a com-
pound decoction of wash, miscalled water, in
order that we may more fully appreciate the
blessings of the doctored beverage, when we get
it pure and undefiled ? We hope not ; and if
the public submit longer to the jugglery, the
blame be with them, not with us. We look
upon the proposition of the Water Committee, to
continue the mixed supply until some indefinite
period, when it shall suit the convenience or
please the caprice of the Water Engineer to
report the result of his Quixotical experiments, as
a cool and deliberate insult to the common sense
of the entire population of Liverpool. What is
meant to be conveyed by the resolution of the
Water Committee ? That as much of the well
water as possible should be pumped intothe mains,
and that the deficiency (?) should be made up
of Pike water. Simply, they desire to perpe.