The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-10-29 00:00:00

THE CORN LAWS.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The opponents of the corn laws are busied in descoting
on the gloomy prospects of our trade, and in seeking to con-
nect the evils that impend over our commerce, with the ope-
ration of that system which prevents the English agricultu-
rist from being supplanted in English markets by the foreign
corn grower. The Sun of Thursday night observes :
" We perceive with regret, by the accounts from Man-
chester, that the markets continue unfavourable, and that
prices are falling, and the prospects of the manufacturers are
becoming more gloomy. Notwithstanding the momentary
abundance of money in the city, there is a general impression
that prices will fall still lower, which deepens the gloom.
To us the apprehension of a fall in prices, as abounding in
evil, seems very strange, and of itself to indicate that some
erroneous principle is at the bottom of our political and com-
mercial relations. * *

" The presumed exception we have mentioned to the gene-
ral law seems to us to supply a solution of what now appears
almost an enigma. The manufacturer or the agriculturist
can only be prevented from injuring himself by his laudable
endeavours to clothe and feed men cheaply, by finding a con-
tinually extending demand for his produce. Such a demand
can only be the consequence of a continual increase of popu-
lation. The only source, according to the economists, of a
tendency of prices to rise, is the increase of people, and that
increase is stopped,—cut off by the barbarous law which, in
one country, cuts short the supply of food, and stops its in-
definite increase, and in another diverts industry from pro-
ducing cheap food to producing dear clothing and cutlery.
The laws which prevent the increase of food in England and
on the continent of Europe, are the causes by which the fall
of price, which the producer labours to effect, become ruinous
to himself.

"The intention of those who make these barbarous laws is
to counteract, so far as the cost of producing cloth and cut-
lery on the continent, and corn in England, is concerned, the
laws of nature to which we have adverted. They wish to keep
up the cost of producing corn here, and cotton and cutlery
there, and prevent that fall in prices which the ingenuity and
skill of the great bulk of the human race are continually en-
deavouring to effect. Their policy is as short-sighted as it is
wicked." _

`• The " wish to keep up the cost of corn," on the one
hand, and of " cotton and cutlery," on the other, is a wish
most beneficial in its tendencies and in its operation. The
classes who produce corn, and cotton, and cutlery, have
an obvious interest in keeping the prices of their respective
products high ; and all the other orders of producers have
precisely the same interest—inasmuch as the influences which
suffice to keep up the price of cutlery . and cotton, and corn,
sustain the prices of all the other products of industry. The
whole body of producers have a common interest in high
prices. The " tall in prices" to which our contemporary ad-
verts, is a result that can be advantageous only to the moneyed
classes, end to idle consumers. Every general fall in prices
adds to the power of money, and to the enjoyments of the
idle. Every general fall in prices tends, on the contrary, to
depress the whole order of producers—that order, for whose
benefit, in an especial manner, it is desirable that all legisla-
tion should be devised. In virtue of the fact, that the corn
laws tend to keep up the general level of prices, the corn
laws are entitled in an especial manner to the support of all
who desire that labour should receive a fair reward.

EXTRACTS FROM HUME'S HISTORY OF JAMES
THE SECOND,
DESERVING OF PUBLIC ATTENTION AT TIIE PRESENT
CRISIS OF PARTIES AND OPINIONS.

" The first act of James's reign was to assemble the privy
council, when, after some praises bestowed on the memory
of his predecessor, he made professions of his resolution to
maintain the established government both in church and
state." _

" The King, however, in the first exercise of his authority,
showed that either he was not sincere in his professions of
attachment to the laws, or that he had entertained so lofty
an idea of his own legal power, that even his utmost since-
rity would tend very little to secure the liberties of the
people."
" The King, likewise, went openly, and with all the ensigns
of his dignity, to mass, an illegal meeting, and by this im-
prudence he displayed at once his arbitrary disposition and
the bigotry of his principles—those two great characteristics
of his reign, and bane of his administration."
" Is it not the custom in Spain,' said James to the Spa-
nish ambassador, for the King to consult with his con-
fessor?" Yes,' replied the ambassador; and it is for that
very reason our affairs succeed so ill.' "
" On all occasions the King was open in declaring that
men must now look for a more active and more vigilant go-
vernment, and that he would retain no ministers who did not
practise an unreserved obedience to his commands."
" It must be confessed that no parliament in England was
ever placed in a more critical situation, nor when more for-
cible arguments could be urged, either for their opposition
to the court or their compliance with it."
" Then Coke, the member for Derby, rose up and said—
' I hope we are all Englishmen, and not to be frightened
with a few hard words,' so little spirit appeared in that assem-
bly, often so refractory and mutinous, that they sent him to
the Tower for bluntly expressing a free and generous senti-
ment."

" The next opposition came from the House of Peers,
which has not commonly taken the lead on these occasions,
and even from the bishops, where the court usually expects
the greatest complaisance and submission."--" Compton,
Bishop of London, in his own name and that of his brethren,
moved that a day should be appointed for taking the King's
speech into consideration. Jefferies, the chancellor, opposed.
The Bishop of London's speech prevailed."
" The smallest approach towards the introduction of po-
pery must, in the present disposition of the people, have af-
forded reason of jealousy, much more so wide a step as that
of dispensing with the tests, the sole security which the na-
tion, being disappointed of the Exclusion Bill, found pro-
vided against those dreaded innovations." -
" Four catholic lords were brought into the privy council."
—" The King was open, as well as zealous, in the desire of
making converts, and men plainly saw that the only way to
acquire his affection and confidence was by a sacrifice of their
religion."
But it was in Ireland chiefly that the mask was wholly
taken off, and that the King thought himself at liberty to
proceed to the full extent of his zeal and his violence. The
Duke of Ormond was recalled, and though the Primate and
Lord Granard, two protestants, still possessed the authority
of justices, the whole power was lodged in the hands of Tal-
bot, the general, soon after created Earl of Tyrconnell, a
man, who, from the blindness and fury of his temper, was
transported with the most immesureable ardour for the ca-
tholic cause"

" All judicious persons of the catholic communion were
disgusted with these violent measures, and could easily have
foreseen the consequences. But James was entirely governed
by the rash councils of the Queen, and his confessor, Father
Peters, a Jesuit, whom he soon after created a privy coun-
cillor."

" The church commenced an opposition to court measures,
and popery was now acknowledged the more immediate
danger."
" James issued his proclamation, suspending all the penal
laws in ecclesiastical affairs, and granting a general liberty of
conscience to all his subjects."
" In order to procure a better reception for his edict of
toleration, the King, finding himself opposed by the church,
began to pay court to the dissenters, and he imagined that,
by playing one party against the other, he should easily ob-
tain the victory,—a refined policy, which it much exceeded
his capacity to conduct. His intentions were so obvious,
that it was impossible for him ever to gain the sincere confi-
dence or regard of the non-conformists. They knew that the
genius of their religion was diametrically opposite to that of
the catholics," &c. " Yet such was the pleasure reaped
from present ease,—such the animosity of dissenters against
the church, who had so long subjected them to the rigours of
persecution, that they everywhere expressed the most entire
duty to the King, and compliance with his measures, and
could not forbear rejoicing extremely in the present depres-
sion of their adversaries."

" But what afforded the most alarming prospect was the
continuance, and even increase, of the violent and precipitate
conduct of affairs in Ireland. Tyrconnell was now vested
with full authority, and carried over with him, as chancellor,
one Fittors, a man who was taken from a gaol, and who had
been convicted of forgery and other crimes, but who com-
pensated for all his enormities by a headlong zeal for the ca-
tholic religion. He was even heard to say from the bench,
that the protestants were all rogues, and that there was not
one amongst forty thousand that was not a traitor, a rebel,
and a villain. The whole strain of his administration was
suitable to such sentiments. The catholics were put in pos-
session of the council table, of the courts of junicature, and
of the bench of justice. In order to make them masters of
parliament, the same violence was exercised that had been
practised in England."
" The church party, by whom the crown had hitherto been
so remarkably supported, and to whom the King visibly
owed his safety from all the efforts of his enemies, was de-
prived of authority, and the dissenters, those very enemies,
were, first in London, and afterwards in every other corpo-
ration, substituted in their place."
" The catholics, to whom he had entirely devoted himself,
were scarcely the hundredth part of the people. Even the
protestant nonconformists, whom he so much courted, were
little more than the twentieth, and what was worse, reposed
no confidence in the unnatural alliance contracted with Ca-
tholics, and in the principle of toleration, which, contrary to
their usual practice in all ages, seemed, at present, to be
adopted by that sect."
" Nothing now remained but to open the door in the church
and universities to the intrusion of the catholics. It was not
long before the King made this rash effort, and by constrain-
ing the prelacy and the established church to teak protec-
tion in the principles of liberty, heat last left himself entirely
without friends and adherents.

" Six prelates—viz. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph ; Kerr,
of Bath and Wells; Turner, of Ely; Lake, of Chichester;
White, of Peterborough; and Trelawney, of Bristol, met
privately with the
_primate, and concerted the form of a peti-
tion to the King."
" He struck out two of the judges who had appeared to
favour the bishops. He issued orders to prosecute all those
clergymen who had not read his declaration—that is, the
whole church of England, two hundred excepted. Ile sent
a mandate to the new fellows, whom lie had obtruded on
Magdalen College, to elect for president in room of Parker,
lately deceased, one Clifford, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and
titular Bishop of Madeira, and he was even said to have no-
minated the same person to the see of Oxford."
" His eyes were now opened, and he found himself on the
brink of a frightful precipice, which his delusions bad hitherto
concealed from him. His ministers, equally astonished,
saw no resource but in a sudden and precipitate retraction of
all those fatal measures by which he had created to himself
so many enemies." He replaced the lieutenants and justices
—he restored the charters—he annulled the ecclesiastical
commission—he took off the Bishop of London's suspension
—he reinstated the president and fellows of Magdalen
College—" he was even reduced to caress those bishops
whom he had so lately persecuted and insulted."
" The Princess Anne withdrew herself in company with
the Bishop of London and Lady Churchill. GOD help me,'
cried James, in the extremity of his agony, my own children
have forsaken me.' _ _ .

oisriii WHOLE," concludes the historian,
" ALLOWING THIS KING TO HAVE POSSESSED
GOOD QUALITIES AND GOOD INTENTIONS, HIS
CONDUCT SERVES ONLY, ON THAT VERY AC-
COUNT, AS A STRONGER PROOF HOW DANGE-
ROUS IT IS TO ALLOW :NY PERSON INFECTED
WITH THE CATHOLIC UPERSTITION TO WEAR
THE CROWN OF THESE KINGDOMS.

It is said that Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, M.P. for Reading,
is to succeed the late Justice Vaughan in the Common Pleas.
PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.—Parliament was pro-
rogued on Thursday in the usual form until Thursday the
12th December.

The London common council has voted the freedom of the
city, to be, engraved on a pirce of plate of the value of £lO5,
to Mr: Rowland Hill.

The strike of the carpet weavers is over in Halifax, the men
having gone to their work on the terms proposed by their
employes%