The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-06-01 00:00:00

and it would be perfectly hopeless to expect from him
any separate or independent course of action. To return
him to parliament is precisely equivalent to giving Mr.
Bright two votes,"

This is amusing enough ; but the following is
positively rich :

"That ➢lr. Gibson thinks that he has opinions, and
that he always adheres to them, we are fully prepared to
believe. It is one of the commonest weaknesses of our
frail nature to believe whilst we are being moulded to
the purposes of others, that we are perfectly free agents,
and merely obey the impulses of our own minds. Why,
there is not a hen-pecked husband, or an old bachelor
governed by his housekeeper, or the editor of a party
newspaper dragged daily or weekly through the dirt by
his friends.—who would not resent the imputation of
being governed by others, and declare that, in all he
said or did, he was actuated solely by his own inclinations.
We have no doubt that Othello, when yielding to the
instigations of lago, would have said and thought like
Mr. Gibson, that he was acting on his own opinions, and
was perfectly incapable of subjecting his reason and his
will to the views and the purposes of others. Yet we
know that he was' most innocently led by the nose,'
as even members of parliament sometimes are."

After such a rebuff from the most powerful organ
of the Free-trade party, Mr. GIBSON had better at
once advertise for a constituency. Such an adept
at dirty work would be invaluable to some patrons
of rotten boroughs. It is a pity, by-the-bye, that he
was not in the market when the Whig-Radicals and
Irish Romanists of Liverpool made their unhappy
selection of Mr. EWART. A gentleman so used to be
nose-led would have made an admirable colleague
for Mr. CARDWELL.

HOW THE WORKING MAN'S FOOD IS
ENHANCED IN PRICE BY FREE TRADE.

PRESUMING QUACKS assure us of the infallibi-
lity of their various nostrums, and there is equal
quackery in legislation, and presumption amongst
legislators. Free trade, we are told, is lin fait
accompli. It came from the hand of its author and
framer perfect, and it is, unlike all other works,
beyond the improving power of human wisdom.
The additional lights of experience shine upon it in
vain, and even to modify it to advantage is regarded
as impossible as

"To paint the lily,
Or add fresh perfume to the violet."

We must, however, demur to this assumption, and
shall endeavour to show that a very important fea-
ture in the settlement of the Corn-law question was
propounded in ignorance of the effect which it
would produce, and is operating most injuriously
towards those classes for whose benefit the entire
measure was professedly designed.
When it was proposed that the duty upon colo-
nial and foreign manufactured Flour should be 41d.
per barrel, the argument in favour of that regula-
tion was confined to the assertion of the fact, that
such sum bore a fair relationship to the duty of Is.
per quarter upon wheat. It was denied, and was
perhaps not foreseen, that an advantage was to be
conferred upon the foreign miller over the home
manufacturer of flour. We were led to believe
that our only competitors in this article would Ise
the people of the United States and of Canada,
against whom the expensiveness of inland car-
riage, combined with the comparative worthlessness
of the coarse flour and offal left behind, would
afford us a fair protection. A new competitor,
however, promptly entered the field. France,
which the free traders assured us could never be-
come an exporting country, was permitted by her
rulers to grind and manufacture for us, in bond,
the wheats of the north of Europe and the Medi-
terranean. A vast supply of French manufactured
flour was thus poured in upon our markets, and
forced into consumption, at prices against which
neither the importer of foreign wheats, nor the
British millers, could compete without the certainty
of ruin. It has been estimated, by competent
parties, that a virtual protection to foreign industry
over British industry, engaged in milling, has thus
been conferred, ranging from three shillings to five
shillings per quarter; and, besides this, a continual
downward pressure .has been created in our mar-
kets—for cargoes of flour, from their tendency to
heat, and from other causes, are generally sold
immediately on arrival—which has lowered the
ruling prices of both British and foreign wheats to
the extent of probably an additional two or three
shillings. This effect of the introduction of the
manufactured article at a low rate of duty, we re-
peat, was not foreseen by the framers of the Corn
Law Repeal Bill. It never entered into their sta-
tistical calculations of the rates which would pre-
vail under the operation of the measure, and it partly
accounts for their having so signally failed.
_

• .
No doubt we shall he told by the Free-traders
that this anticipated degree of cheapness is a boon.
To whom ? we may ask. To the consumers—to
the industrious classes. 'We grant this, in part, if
we are allowed to except from amongst those in-
' dustrious classes said to be benefited that very
numerous class engaged throughout the country in
the various processes of corn-milling, who are esti-
mated to exceed the whole number employed by the
cotton manufacture. The operatives in our manu-
facturing towns, no doubt, regard, as a guarantee
of the continuance of such cheapness, the gigantic
steps which are being taken by France to supply
us with the manufactured article of flour; but the
corn-millers of Great Britain and Ireland, and the
numerous artizans employed by them, look upon
the matter in a very different light—as fraught to
them with ruin. These men complain that theirs
should be the only manufactured article admitted
into this country duty free, or virtually so, whilst
the products of the industry of every other class are
protected with heavy imposts. If manufactured
flour, they ask, is thus to be imported free, why not
manufactured bread ? Why not cotton and woollen
yarns? Why not coats, trousers, dress of all de-
scriptions? Why not foreign manufactured tobacco,
confectionery, spirits ? To make an exception
against the milling interest may be free trade, but it
is certainly not fair trade.
We do not confine ourselves, however, to this
view of the question, but contend that, practically,
by our insane pursuit of the sort of cheapness
created by ruining the British miller, we are losing
very important advantages to the industrious
classes, and virtually enhancing the cost of the food
of our own people. This may seem a hold asser-
tion, but it is true. The poor man's pork, his
bacon, his beef, and other necessaries, is enhanced
by the diminution of our milling trade; and his loaf,
even, is not now so large as it ought to he, when
measured by the price of Wheat in our markets.
The bakers in our large towns complain that a
sound article for that description of bread is with
difficulty procurable. The rich man's white loaf,
made of the fine flour of France and America, is
cheapened; whilst the wholesome materials of the
poor man's loaf are kept by these countries to form
the cheap food of their own working classes, or to '
feed their cattle and pigs. To supply our own cat-
tle with food we have to resort more extensively to
the potato and other roots, which are at this moment
doubled in price to the human consumer. To feed
our horses we have to resort more extensively to
oats, which are thus enhanced in price, out of pro-
portion with wheat, to the classes who use oatmeal
as their food. And, so far as regards the manu-
facturing interests even, the effect is injurious. We
were to have crippled the cheap producing power
of Europe by raising prices of food there to the
level of the British market ; and in part we may
have succeeded. But by our absurdly patronising
the milling power of France to the exclusion of our
own, we have placed within the reach of the popu-
lation of that country an abundant and cheap
supply of wholesome wheaten bread, beyond what
they ever enjoyed before. We have supplied them
also with the materials for feeding and fattening
their cattle of all kinds, and thus placed within their
reach an added source of human food.

It is preposterous to tell us that a policy, which
has produced these unexpected results, is not sus-
ceptible of some modification. We legislated in
this matter upon calculations and estimates which
experience has proved to be widely erroneous.
Parliament never contemplated the possibility of
what has occurred under the operation of this por-
tion of the measure of Sir ROBERT PEEL ; and it
will surely not be tolerated that, because a portion
of the community have unexpectedly received a
present benefit to the injury of another, the injustice
should be perpetuated.

FOREIGN NEWS.

FRANCE

The most prominent features in the intelligence from
Paris are fresh warnings of newspapers and more refusals
to take the oath of fidelity to the constitution. The re-
fusals come principally from members of the Council-
General, no fewer than twenty-two more of whom have
resigned their offices rather than swear allegiance to Louis
Napoleon. Some of these gentlemen were formerly re-
presentatives, and bear names well known during the ex.
istence of the Republic. The state of the national finances
is far from encouraging, the receipts falling short of the
expenditure. The Debats declares that there must be ad.
ditional taxes imposed to make up the deficiency.
Letters from Algiers mention some successes obtained
by the French troops over the Kabyles in Little Kabylia;
and in the west hostilities were in progress with similar
results.

An enzeute has-taken place at the Ecole de Saumur, a
•
)r training cavalry officers. Some

militar