The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-06 00:00:00

of the Cabinet who have been elected to Parliament

for their supposed adherent

the Church. Will

niversity o:

hford re

T. GLADSTONI

for his consent to such a rejection of the Church
societies ? Will Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT found

upon it a claim

Wiltshire ?

It may haw been done in spite

remonstrances. of then

pseudo-Churchmen

so, it shows that the boasted unity of the Coalitiou-

Cabinet is a mere fiction

The Observer. gives a End of ambiguous con

tradiction, by saying

" We have. the best authority for correcting the mis-
statement of a contemporary, to the effect that the Queen's
letter has been, withheld in favour of the collections an-
nually made in churches• for the funds of the National
Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts. There is no foundation for the mis-
statement, and the collections will be made this year in
the usual way in the• churches, upon the letter formally
and officially addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Primate of All England."

Our more orthodox contemporary, John Bull,

says :

"We cannot say that we ' deem' the ' authority' of
our contemporary sufficient' to induce us to give cre-
dence to so extraordinary a statement ; on the contrary,
we incline to think that some wag has practised upon his
credulity and ecclesiophobia. Not that we consider it at
all improbable that those members of the Cabinet who
are supposed by some to be the pillars of the Church in
that ill-compacted body, would at any time, if it suited
their cards, sacrifice the interests of religion to the crotchet
of Liberalism, but that we conceive such an act of hostility
towards the Church too suicidal to be contemplated by
any government, whatever may be its principles."

WE were told, through the Radical press, that
the meeting which was held in Manchester to ex-
press sympathy with infidel Turkey would be fol-
lowed by a similar meeting in Liverpool. Such
was the announcement, but, alas, for its fulfilment
The preliminary meeting was called for one day
early last week, and was attended by the one indi
vidual who had summoned his fellow-townsmen,
and a reporter for a Radical contemporary. These
two, having waited for some time without effect,
adjourned till the great meeting, which was
called for Friday last, at the Royal Hotel. At
the hour appointed, there were only eight in-
dividuals in the great room, all Reporters,
when it was suggested to vote one of their own
body into the chair, in order to make a show of
doing something ; and at no time were there more
than sixteen persons present, so that a sympathetic
demonstration in Liverpool was a complete and
utter failure. This is creditable to the great em-
porium of commerce, the centre of true Conserva-
tive principles. The gentlemen of Liverpool have
not sunk quite so low as the men of Manchester,
who, placing all their faith in cotton goods, make
Christianity a subordinate question, caring little
whether they support Mahometanism, Buddhism,
or any other phase of infidelity, so long as they
can find a market for their manufactures. Liver-
pool has an equal, or greater, interest in commerce,
but has more regard for principles, without which
neither commerce nor manufactures can be of any
real value.

THE Morning Chronicle, which is the organ of
the PEELITE section of the Cabinet, that strange
compound of semi-Popery and Free-trade, absolu-
tism in religion, and republicanism in commerce,
has published a list of English boroughs, which, it
says, " may regard their doom as sealed." The
authority for such a declaration may be taken for
as much as it is worth, though it may serve to
show the animus of at least a portion of that
mongrel compound known as the Coalition. The
list which is thus put forward, as condemned to
extinction from representation, comprises fifteen
boroughs, each having less than three hundred
electors, returning twenty-three representatives
and forty-six boroughs, with between three and
five hundred electors, returning sixty-four repre-
sentatives, making a total of sixty-one boroughs
and eighty-seven members. The former list includes
Andover, Arundel, Ashburton, Calne, Chippenham,
Harwich, Honiton, Knaresborough, Marlborough,
Midhurst, Northallerton, Reigate, Richmond, Thet-
ford, and Wilton. The second list includes—

ABINGDON, DROITWICH, MORPETH,
BANBURY, EVESHAM, PETERSPIELD,
BEAUMARIS, EYE, RIPON,
BEWDLEY, PROME, TAMWORTII,
110111411,/, (TREAT MARLOW, TAVISTOCK,
BRECON, HELSTON, TEWKESBURY,
BUCKINGHAM, HORSHAM, . THIRsK,
CHIPPING WY- HUNTINGDON, TIVERTON,
COMM?, KENDAL, TOTNES,
CHRISTCHURCH, KIDDERMINSTER, WALLINGFORD,
CIRENCESTER, LAUNCESTON, WAREHAM,
CLITHEROE, LISCARD, WELLS,
COCKERMOUTH, LUDLOW, WESTBURY,
DARTMOUTH, LYME REGIS, WHITBY,
DEVIZES, LYMINGTON, WOODSTOCK.
DORCHESTER, MALMEIIBURY,

With reference to the political principles which
operate in the several localities, it cannot be said
but that the list is so far fair, inasmuch as it con-
tains a large proportion of Whig boroughs, the
strongholds of Liberalism, the selection having
been made apparently with sole reference to the
number of electors. The proposal, however, comes
from the PEELITE faction ; and, by making popu-
lation the test of representation, they virtually
adopt the Chartist principle of electoral districts,
while the effect would be to throw all the governing
power of the House of Commons into the hands of
the manufacturing towns. They certainly possess
the preponderance of population, but the late strikes

will show how small is their claim to the possession
of intelligence, or any of those higher social quali-
ties which make good subjects and worthy deposi-
tories of political power. It is evident from the
channel throng,' which this announcement appears,
that it is by no means the opinion of the Cabinet
generally, nor is it easy to believe that Lord JOHN
RUSSELL has so far forsaken his Whiggery as to give
up the sources of his political strength. It is more
likely a straw thrown up to see which way the wind
blows, a specious manoeuvre by the disciples of the
great master of plausibility, the minister who never
advocated a cause he did not ultimately betray, and
never opposed a movement which he did not ulti-
mately support. These men naturally look for

support to the centres of manufacturing industry,
where PEEL statues are raised in the market-places;
and what can be more plausible than to allege the
paucity of electors as a sufficient ground for dis-
franchisement, without the slightest reference to
local interest, ancient associations, and established
communities

Another movement in the direction of reforming
the Reform Act is an interference with the fran-
chise of the counties, and this has been taken
up by ➢Tr. LOCKE KING, whose bill on this
subject wrung from Lord JOHN RUSSELL the

promise to bring in a comprehensive measure—
a promise which he does not know how to realise—
and which, it is to be hoped, will have the effect of
splitting the Coalition Cabinet into its original
fragments. Mr. RING proposes to reduce the
limit of county qualification to that which rules in
boroughs, and founds his argument in its favour
upon the proposition that from the lower scale of
rents in rural districts, the inhabitants of ten-pound
houses are of a higher grade of intelligence than
those which occupy houses of similar value in

populous towns. Such an argument might be
worth something if its application were confined to
dwelling houses, but in the country the rating ap-
plies to land as well, and little boast can be made
of the intelligence of a farmer who pays £5O a year
rent, when we consider the specimens of it exhibited
by provincial juries. The limit for the qualification
of mere occupiers was low enough as fixed by the
celebrated CHANDOS clause, but to reduce it to the
borough limit would open the representation to
every cottar who rented more than an acre of land.
unless

le rating were to be confined to dwelling