The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-10-05 00:00:00

7 UESDAY HORNING, OCT. 5, 1852.

THE WEEK.

THE proceedings of the past week have been unmarked
by any incident of importance, although we are not with-
out indications of stirring events to come. Abroad all eyes
are fixed upon the proceedings of the PRINCE PRESIDENT
of France, whose assumption of the title of Emperor
is regarded as drawing rapidly nigh, and is creating rather
uneasy feelings in the minds of the public throughout
Europe. A powerful army, and an excitable population,
cannot be amused for ever with progress and fetes. A
blow, it is feared, must be struck somewhere, but in what
direction no one is able to guess. Loins NAPOLEON is
notoriously an unscrupulous man, who will hesitate at no
step which he conceives will consolidate his power ; and
there are not wanting persons, professing considerable
discernment, who intimate that Great Britain is the
power with whom he would best like to be embroiled.
Other parties point to Belgium, with which country he is
at present at issue on a question of commercial policy,
and whose government, at present in a state of chaos,
has recently been turning its attention to the condition of
its_ defences against an approaching European embroil-
ment.

At home the Conservative and Radical parties are pre-
paring for the struggle which is to decide the question of
their respective claims to wield the power of the Govern-
ment. His little Lordship, JOHN RUSSELL, has assumed
an amazing amount of vitality within the past fortnight,
and, during his wanderings in Scotland, has been bidding
largely for the leadership of the Opposition, and for the
post of Premier, if he can succeed in overthrowing the
Earl of DERBY'S ministry. A truce appears to have been
patched up with the Manchester party, who are to meet
in that town a few days before the assembling of parlia-
ment, to arrange their plan of operations, to appoint the
officers, and drill the rank and file of their army. That
the men of cotton and calico are well pleased at being
driven once more into a compact with mere Whiggery in
the person of Lord Jomg, who will most assuredly reserve
all the good things for the old familp clique, is not very
probable. It is hard necessity—the want of a few men of
mark in whom the respectable portion of the community
can place any confidence—which drives them to enlist
once more under the banners of the men whom they so
very recently denounced and insulted. In the meantime,
whilst all this fussiness and blowing of trumpets is going
on in the Radical camp, the Government of Lord DERBY
are calmly and confidently biding the onset of their ill-
assorted opponents ; and the mass of the public are
wonderingly asking themselves the question—upon what
grounds of policy, or of decency, can a party put forward
any pretensions to the possession of a charge, from which
only a few months ago they felt themselves compelled to
withdraw from their sheer incapacity ? There is a serious
stumbling-block in the path of Lord JoHN, the dan-
gerous character of which we question whether he has as
yet fully considered. The Anti-Church Confederacy,
headed by the honourable member for Mayo, Mr. Moo FL E,
will have to be appeased. Different in its constitution
from the Brass Band of former sessions, it possesses
cohesion and a purpose. A small sop thrown down before
it will not divert its members from their purpose, which i s
the destruction of the Protestant Church, as an establish-
ment, in Ireland, and the application of its temporalities,
not to mere Educational, but to " Catholic" objects. If
his Lordship is willing to prostrate himself before this
brazen image, and its intemperate priesthood, there are
very many of the more respectable members of his party
who will fall away from his side. Without the Irish
members he will find himself in a miserable minority in
any contest with the compact party of Lord DERBY.
Should he gain them over temporarily by any shuffle—
and their object is mainly to render the Government of
the country by either the Whig-Radicals or the Conserva-
tives impossible—he would most probably find them turn-
ing their force against him upon the first division he may
attempt as a Minister.

In our local politics there is a lull this week.] The
question of the Mayoralty is virtually settled by Mr.
EDMUND MOLYNEUX declining to be a candidate for the
office ; and the Conservative Party will therefore not be
divided, and the Radical portion of the council be
deprived of the chance, which might have been afforded
them, of appointing a portion of the Aldermen. The
same circumstance will probably settle also the selection
of the parties to be recommended by the council, at its
sitting to-morrow, for appointment as Magistrates.
In the midst of this apparent quietude amongst the
leaders of both local and general politics in the town, the
agents and lawyers have been engaged in determined con-
flict in the Registration Court. As yet, the ultimate vic-
tory is undecided, so far as regards the claims and
objections made. The Conservatives have no idea that
an election next year is probable, and business and em-
ployment being abundant, they have not attended the
court so universally as could have been wished. The dead
set of the Radical objectors has been against the Freemen,
many of whom cannot afford to lose a day's work ; but so
far they have made little progress in their disgraceful
attempt to rob these poor men of the franchise. Out of
542 objections served by them, 312 we lmn were either
withdrawn, or allowed yesterday ; an there is still
another day left for the undecided cases. It is satisfac-
tory, however, to know that of the 700 freemen knocked
off the register last year for non-attendance, nearly the
whole had their names inserted this year; and should even
a portion of this year's Radical objections be sustained,
we shall nevertheless have strengthened this arm of the
Conservative body. Strange inconsistency, by the bye,
that the very men who bawl most lustily for an extension
of the franchise to the working classes should select those
classes as the especial objects to be harassed and deprived
of the rights which they possess !