The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-08-31 00:00:00

.n producing that memorable finding, which

1 brand with lasting infamy th

velve jurors

hart t.l

h such evidence forced u

,on our

of the Roman

holic Chur

'ch, and of the influence of its priest-

Drd to

t the notion of Pena'

ression, and to

nrianif

-it requiring to be punished or arrested

cannot help hoping that the recent election scenes
in Ireland, in which priests have played so conspi-
cuous a part, will have more practical effect than
1 volumes of argument in convincing the public mind

and dangerous operations of the

tramontane doctrines, and of the imperative and

imminent necessity for stopping their progress with
Ong hand. Irrespective of the paramount
individual interests which are affected, the social
and political results of the spread of Popery are
such as to demand the most energetic interference
of the legislative and administrative departments of
the State. Without considering the effects of the
teaching and practice of the Church of Rome upon
the future welfare of its disciples, it is the duty of
the politician and statesman to trace and ascertain
their influence upon the temporal condition of the
people and upon the prosperity of the nation. It
were in vain that a Constitution, perfected by the
most consummate wisdom and the most extensive
experience, should bestow upon each member of
the community the largest amount of individual
liberty consistent with the general safety, and the
amplest privileges of citizenship, if the enjoyment
of such liberty and the exercise of such privileges
were constantly liable to control from an external
influence of the most powerful and urgent kind.
We cannot hesitate, however, for one moment, to
declare, that the influence at present exercised, and
greatly on the increase, among the Roman Catholic
Clergy, must effectually prevent their disciples from
profiting by their privileges, and must seriously
interfere with the practical working of our political
institutions. Popery, therefore, is continually
aggressive upon the Constitution of the realm, and
the rights of the people, and it becomes all true
patriots to enter into a mature deliberation as to
the best means of protecting our political and
social system from the dangers, open and covert,
with which it is threatened from the Popish party.

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN AND
OURSELVES.

WE did not observe, until too late to reply to the
article in our last publication, that the commercial
editor of the Manchester Guardian had undertaken
to "correct an error" into which he says we had
fallen, in contraventing some remarks of the London
Times. In supplying the omission, we shall first
suggest that, when a journalist voluntarily steps
forward to take up another party's quarrel, he
should state the question at issue fairly. The fol-
lowing is the correct version of our remarks, which
the Guardian attempts to refute :

" The Times contrasts the present state of things with
that which existed in 1846 and 1847. This is most disin-
genuous. Every one knows that. in those years the ma-
nufacturing population were compelled to be put upon
short time, partly owing to scarcity of cotton, and partly
to the operation of our absurd monetary system. With
discounts at from ten to fifteen per cent, and cotton at
nearly double ita ordinary price, there is little wonder
that the operative classes were reduced in those years to a
condition of great suffering. That they have recovered
themselves since, is to be attributed mainly to abundant
crops of the raw material, and to the extension of the ba-
sis of our currency, brought about by the discoveries in
California and Australia."

The Guardian omits altogether the fact that we
attributed the distress amongst the manufacturing
operatives in 1846-7 " partly" only to the short
crop of cotton, and "partly to the operation of our
absurd monetary system." The fallacy of his reply
to us arises in a great measure from this unfaii
suppression of a portion of our remarks. He is
perfectly aware that it was in consequence of the
scarcity of money and the high rates of interest in
1847, that a considerable number of the mills in
the manufacturing districts were put upon short
time ; that both home and foreign markets were
driven, into a condition of panic and disaster; and
that the raw material was kept much below the
price which it would otherwise have commanded.
The same shirking of the money element of the
question renders unfair the Guardian's referenbe to
the condition of the country in 1851 and 1852.
He says :

" If this (the short crop of cotton) was the cause of a
restricted trade in 1846 and 1847, why has not the same
cause produced a similar reFult in 1831 and 1832 ? Ia 1816
the price of cotton was 4.1,(1. per lb. for several months,
and up to September it had advanced about Id. The
highest price was attained at the close of 1846 and the
commencement of 1847, when once or twice it was quoted
as high as 7d. per lb. But in 1851, with the best trade
we have ever known in this district, cotton of the same
quality reached Bkd. per lb., and still exceeds the average
of 1846."

The answer is very simple. We had the Bank
of England in 1847 within twenty-bur hours of
stopping payment, and for a considerable portion
of the year the enterprise of the country was in a
state of suspension. We have had, on the con-
trary, in 1851 and this year, a plethora of money,
and discounts easily procurable at 21 to 3 per cent.
The Guardian almost admits that something be-
yond the influence of Free Trade has caused the
improved position of the manufacturing popula-
tion, where in a subsequent portion of his article,
he observes :

" There was a short crop of cotton in 1846.7, but the
demand was not large, and the warehouses were left full
of goods, while after the short crop of 1850-51 such was
the elasticity of trade that extraordinary expedients had
to be resorted to that the fabrics of this district might
meet the demand. The smoking of heavy goods was in
many cases abandoned, and lighter ones were substituted
to such an extent, along a ith other means of economising
the raw matsrial, that more labour was supplied so the
People out of this short crop, which went up to 84-d. per
lb., than had ever been known before, and stocks of goods
were almost unknown, and have been ever since."
We have yet to learn that the " elasticity of