The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-18 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 18, 1841

We have no apprehension of losing on the next
returns from Ireland, whatever hope we may entertain
as to a favourable change being made in the relative
proportion of conservative and ministerial members
from that country. There are two good men in the
arena to oppose Messrs. O'Connell and Hutton for the
city of Dublin, namely, Messrs. West and Grogan.
In other places conservative candidates have come for-
ward where we had scarcely expected to find them.
Mr. Fox starts for the city of Armagh with every
prospect of success. Colonel Bruen will certainly be
re-elected for Carlow county, and we are happy to per-
ceive has now a good Conservative, Thomas Bunbury,
Esq., of Moyle, associated with him in the canvass, of
whose return also we have good hope. Mr. F. Bruen
is a candidate for Carlow borough, in opposition to a
Mr. Layard, a total stranger, whom the O'Connellites

have put up for a con-si-der-ation, doubtless, in place
of Mr. Gisborne, who retires. But we do not, we

acknowledge, expect any very material change in the
state of the representation while the registration system
continues unamended, and the priestly power is so
highly favoured in its operation and opportunities of
exercise as it now is.

O'Connell is as rampant as ever. His authority has
suffered no decline. It is an authority springing out
of a system and therefore not so liable to fluctuation as
if it rested solely on personal grounds. It is the in-
fluence of Popery which makes him the dictator of
Ireland. He has the sagacity to perceive by what
means such power might be obtained, and he possesses
a combination of qualifications—a talent—which has
enabled him to seize upon them, and use them with
effect. O'Connell is the creature of Popery, but Po-
pery is also the creature of O'Connell. He subserves
the interests of the priests and of their religion, and
they compliment him in return with a dictatorship,
which he finds very profitable. Popery is never at
ease but when it is in alliance with absolute tyranny,
and its priests ever aim at creating such a power when
it is not the constitutional one of the state. More
than two-thirds of the representation of Ireland are
in the hands of O'Connell and I he- priests, and with
this lever we all know what they have been able to do
in this country. They have made the present minis-
try—yes, and they have kept them in power for several
years in spite of the people of England. The Popery
of Ireland absolutely rules us, not for our good, we
may be assured ; no, for Popery hates our religion as
a heresy which it would be a mercy to us to root out
and destroy, and it dislikes our civil institutions as
well.

O'Connell is frantic at the thought of his protege
ministry being driven from office, and nothing will be
wanting on his part, to save them from discomfiture,
as well on English as on Irish ground. His mobs
here will all be at the command of the foreign hus-
bandry-men ; the mass-serving priests will be ready to
" ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm." In Ire-
land the death's-head and cross-bones system will be
in active exercise; renegades will be denounced and
threatened from the chapel altars ; exclusive dealing,
murder, and persecution in every form will be unscru-
pulously brought into play, and it will not be the ty-
rant's fault if the full complement of ministerial
and Popish members be not made up. To show in
what spirit he commences his Irish agitation, we shall
take one or two passages from his address to the Irish
people, dated the sth instant, and read at the "Loyal
National Repeal Association" in Dublin on Sunday
week :

" People of Ireland !—beloved fellow-countrymen !—recol-
lect who they are that now seek to obtain the dominion of
your native land.

" Firstly—They are the men who call the religion of the
people of Ireland an abject, superstitious, and vile idolatry'
—who call the people of Ireland themselves ' brutal sa-
vages,' and ' a filthy and felonious rabble'—who call the
anointed priests of God surpliced ruffians' and a demo-
naical priesthood.' Every Catholic who supports the Orange
faction in the coming struggle adopts all these infamies, be-
cause they are the shibboleth of the party he supports.
Every Catholic who supports that party adopts those names,
avows his own turpitude, and should be regarded as the vilest
of living knaves.

" Thirdly—Recollect Lord Stanley's bill—the scorpion
bill—the bill for the annihilation of the franchise in the
bands of the people of Ireland—that bill, when it was an-
nounced, produced a scream of execration from one extreme
of Ireland to the other. What liberal, and, above all, what
Catholic elector, will support the supporters of that bill? If
he be a Catholic, let us see the face of the man, or rather the
monster, who prefers Scorpion Stanley to Ireland !
" Seventhly—Remember—l conjure you to remember—
that the most earnest desire of the Orange Tory faction is to
fill the counties with Orange partisan sheriffs—with Orange
packed juries—with oppressive and tyrannical magistrates ;
and, above all, to crowd the bench of justice with fiery par-
tisan assistant-barristers in the county courts, and with bi-
goted and malignant enemies to Ireland, as judges of the
superior courts.

" Whatever liberal Protestant, or base and mercenary
Catholic, votes at the ensuing elections in support of the
Orange Tories, does, in point of fact, vote for the corruption
and contamination of justice at its sources and in its course,
and seeks to have the waters of bitterness flow through the
land, and to bring home to every family the mephitic and
disgusting details of the law, administered through the chan-
nels of partiality, corruption, and bigotry.
" Ninthly—Remember—l say again, remember—people
of Ireland ! that the materials by which Orange tory faction
seek power are virulent hatred to the people of Ireland, and
malignant bigotry against their religion.
Remember again, that within the present session, short
as it has been, there have been near 300 petitions, containing
something approaching to one hundred thousand signatures,
praying that the miserable grant to Maynooth may be with-
held, on the alleged ground of tho idolatry of catholic wor-
ship. Remember also that that there have been many peti-
tions, many public declarations, many addresses and
speeehes of candidates for parliament—all calling for the
repeal of the emancipation act, and the re-enactment of the
penal laws. Liberal protestants of Ireland—catholics of
Ireland—l appeal to you all !—ls there—can there be one
man amongst you so base—so profligate—so daringly venal
and corrupt—as to vote for a supporter of the scorpion hill
—for a supporter of the annihilation of the Irish franchise—
for a supporter of the tithe rent-charge—for a supporter of
the insulting corporate bill—for a supporter of the degrading
attempt upon the Maynooth grant—for a supporter of the
repeal of the reform bill—for a supporter of the repeal of the
catholic emancipation bill—for a supporter of those who call
the Irish ' brutal savages,' and a' filthy felonious rabble '—
for a supporter of those who call your venerated clergy `sur-
pliced ruffians,' and a demon priesthood '—for a supporter
—in one word—of those who call your sacred religion by
the hideous name of idolatry ? Whoever votes for a tory
candidate at the approaching elections votes for one and all
of these. Arouse ye, then ! Men of Ireland, arouse ! Be
stirring--be active—be at your posts. One and all arouse.
religion.
Your liberties are threatened—your country is in danger—
your religion is menaced and insulted. Prepare for the corn-
ing, contest. Non-electors, form in every parish an election
iclub—canvass, beseech, entreat, implore every elector to
Can-
vass them every mdaughters
andchildren, to canvass them. Prepare, non-eleetors ! Prepare,
to do his duty to haisn—coguentttrhye,itro‘cvhivaersit,yt,hteoir
all, let an universal •
electors, and above all, and before sal indem-
nity to your means, funds to defray the expenses of the
laity fund be prepared to protect the electors from the
cruel tyranny of landlords or agents.

. ,
The spirit of the entire address is in these passages ;

and we ask any man of common sense if it is not plain
that the congenial spirit sought to ha evoked is religi-
ous bigotry ? Liberal . Protestants are occasionally
brought in—(as they are always lugged in by Papists)—
just as a cover to the design ; but the appeal is really
and substantially to the Roman. Catholic population,
and is founded on the hatred they bear to Protestants
and the love they are supposed to entertain for their
own religion. He begins by describing the Con-
servative party, the Protestants, the Sassenachs—i. e.
the Saxons—as their villifiers and traducers—men who
call the " anointed priests of God surpliced ruffians,"
&c.; and he assures them that " every Catholic who
supports that party should be regarded as the vilest of
living knaves." All is in the same strain. We call
attention to this not as to a thing to be at all wondered
at, but as to a mere matter of fact. There was a mi-
serable delusion afloat when Catholic emancipation was
the living folly of the day, that if the Papists were put
on an equality with Protestants, we should hear no
more of religious distinctions—that the Papists would
merge their religion in good citizenship, and become so
mixed up with Protestants as-to be unknown any more
as a religious denomination. The argument we have
heard a thousand times ; but how has the reality cor-
responded with the theory ? It shows a result just the
very opposite of what was
_expected ; and the spirit of
" the sect" was never in greater force than from the
moment the long-sought for boon was obtained. To
our mind it appears to be quite a natural consequence.
What was Catholic emancipation, as O'Connell has
frequently said, without the fruits—eligibility without
actual election ? And to obtain these fruits, what pro-
cess more likely to be effectual than for the Romanist
party to stick together and act together as one man—
to avail themselves of religion as the cement of their
union, and, as " a sect," to strive for 411 the advantages
placed within their reach ? Such has been the pro-
cess, and such it continues; and such, we venture to
say, it ever will be, under the same or similar circum-
, stances.

It is the spirit and the ascendancy of the sect which
give to O'Connell and the priests more than two-thirds
of the representation of Ireland, by which they govern
the empire. Popery is their strength, as it is the source
of our weakness. But what is to be done ? it is asked.
We cannot root it out. True ; but assuredly we may
abstain from pampering, strengthening, and encoura-
ging it, as the Whigs have done, and as, by the
wretched compact to which they pledged them-
selves, they were obliged to do. Mark then, electors
of Liverpool and of England, what you are called
upon to do at this great crisis ; it is neither more nor
less than to shake off the incubus of Popery ; for that
is the hag that oppresses—the night-mare that rides
you. Get rid of the Whigs, and you will get rid of
the incubus along with them. Let us have a Conser-
vative government, and the Popish alliance is instantly
dissolved. A Conservative government will rule, it is
to be expected, in the spirit of the constitution, and
govern Ireland, as it ought to be governed, in a Pro-
testant spirit; and although priests and demagogues
may rave, be assured of it the people—the great mass
of the population--will thank you cordially, and, we
doubt not, will avail themselves largely of that op-
portunity whence alone they can ever hope to attain a
real equality with Englishmen in whatever is most es-
sential to national prosperity or domestic 'happiness.

"We have seen that the knight, in his address, makes
no mention of those unfortunate, condemned crimi-
nals, her majesty's ministers—and, in this respect, if
he was neither manly nor straight forward, he was
certainly prudent. It looks well for the people's cause
that the partizans of the condemned are ashamed to
avow their connection with them. We may trace the
connection in this case, however, by the tertium quid
in which we find the parties agreeing. There is an
avowal of the idem velle, idem ?toile, and we may very
safely conclude, that where there is so much sympathy
—so much congeniality of sentiment, ties more tender
exist; although, for the present, like unhappy lovers,
they must disguise their mutual attachment. Seldom
is it the luck of politics, any more than it is the course
of true love, to run smooth, and it does happen in
both cases to be better for the adventurers, sometimes,
to seem, as in this instance, not to know each other.
But we have before us ample materials for making out
an identification, although the express declaration be
wanting. Indeed, the marks of ministerialism are so
plainly to be traced in the knight's address, that they
indicate the fact to our mind as conclusively as if the
worthy candidate for our suffrages had said, "The
condemned of the House of Commons for ever !—I
pledge myself to support them."
His principles are, first, a total repeal of the corn-
laws. To vote for a fixed duty would cost him rather
an exercise of self-denial; he is a whole-hog mer-
chant—a teetotal anti-home-grown. This is not set
forth in the address, it is true, because this was an
instrument intended for the general—amongst whom
there happen to be not a few who would be vastly
more offended than pleased with free trading of this
sort, and to this extent ; but it is the fact nevertheless.
The requisite paraphrase of Sir Joshua's general de-
claration in favour of " free trade" was furnished to a
meeting of his supporters on Monday evening. He
then unfolded his views in the following terms :
" I have been accused of not having alluded, in my address,
to a free trade in corn. Gentlemen, I have alluded to free
trade as far as it can be carried out in every thing. (Cheers.)
I believe monopolies to be as unjust as they are unequal in
their operation. I believe them to be unsanctioned by any
law, moral or divine, and I believe further, that they have not
answered even the selfish ends of their promoters. (Enthu-
siasec plaudits.) The principles of free trade are no longer
theories, thanks be to the immortal Huskisson. He proved
to demonstration the justice and the wisdom of the princi-
ples ; he showed us, that the nearer we approach to unre-
stricted commerce, the greater would be the developement
of the energies of our country. (Hear.) Those tests which
he introduced, or rather, those measures which he intro-
duced as tests of his system, are landmarks for the guidance
of future statesmen and legislators. They stand in bold
relief as proofs of what can be accomplished by British skill
and industry, when freed from the trammels of monopoly
and from injudicious restraints." (Applause.) _ _

Mr. Huskisson is a great authority; but, under the
name of Mr. Huskisson, doctrines must not be broach-
ed, nor principles sanctioned, to which there is every
reason to believe, that Mr. Huskisson, were he now
alive, would give no sanction whatever. Mr. Huskis-
son never propounded any thing cto unwise, and so
unpatriotic, as the withdrawal of all protection from
British agriculture ; on the contrary, he was himself
the author of that very sliding scale which Sir Joshua
Walmsley and his friends now so joculary and respect-
fully denominate the "infernal machine." Mr. Hus-
kisson held the theoretical principle of free trade as
Sir Robert Peel holds it, as Lord Sandon holds it, and
as almost all conservatives hold it along with them ;
and in the application of it in some instances, but not in
all, it is generally allowed that he was successful.
Sir Joshua Walmsley alluded to the favourable effects
which followed the reduction of duties on foreign silk
and wool, and arg :ed from the results which attended
Mr. Huskisson's policy with respect to these articles,
that, therefore, a wholesale, undiscriminating excision
of all protective, duties,
,of
_whatever kind, must be
succeeded by like consequences ! Such a mode of
reasoning, we can assure him, is any thing but in the
spirit of that system of induction on which Mr. Hus-
kisson usually acted. With regard, however, even to
Mr. Huskisson's free trade policy, the knight should
be informed—exCeptions, and those of no light kind,
have been taken, and supported by an array of facts
impossible to gainsay. We cannot enter here into a
dissertation on the Reciprocity System, as it was called,
and the consequences which have resulted from it;
but we refer, with pleasure, to the second volume of
Mr. Alison's admirable work on the Principles of
Population for a very full and lucid investigation of the
subject.
That able writer shows, that under the navigation
law system, that is, the old protective system, the British
shipping in Europe increased, in twenty years, from
18,000 to 21,000 ships; that is, by a sixth; and that
under the reciprocity, or free trade system, the British
ships declined, in twelve years, from 21,042 to 20,388,
being nearly a tenth. The loss thus experienced by
the reciprocity, or free trade system, in Europe, has
been counterbalanced by the extraordinary growth in
our colonial trade, during the same period, (viz., from
1825 to 1836,) to which the reciprocity system did not
apply, as it was exclusively reserved, on the principle
of the navigation laws to ourselves, the vessels engaged
in that trade having increased, during these twelve
years only, from 4,375 to 6,600, and their tonnage from
800,313 to 1,351,017. Thus it is seen how, amidst
the constant complaints cf the shipowners, that their
interests wero declining and. almost destroyed, the
President of the Board of Trade was always able to

meet them with parliamentary returns, which showed
that the trade and shipping of the empire, taken as a
whole, was on the increase. " They constantly affirm-
ed," says Mr. Alison, " and with justice, that our
exports were increasing, and our tonnage getting larger
every year ; but they did not tell us, what was never-
theless the case, that the countries with which our trade
was increasing were our own colonies, or distant states,
with which we have no reciprocity treaties, and that
the countries with which it was diminishing or reced-
ing in comparison with the foreign tonnage with us,
were the European nations in our neighbourhood with
which we had concluded reciprocity treaties, and to
propitiate whose rulers we have been content to sacri-
fice three-fourths of our shipping employed in the
Baltic trade." Mr. Alison's conclusion, both from the
parliamentary returns and the admissions of the most
able and well-informed advocates of the reciprocity
system, is, "that the anticipated and promised exten-
sion of our foreign trade, from the adoption of that
system, has not taken place ; that, so far from it, our
trade has rapidly and signally declined, during the last
five-and-twenty years, with the old states of Europe,
fifteen of which have been spent under the reciprocity
system ; and, therefore, that we have gratuitously
inflicted a severe wound upon our maritime interests,
without having purchased thereby any equivalent
advantage, either for our foreign trade or our home
manufactures."

So much for free trade, when acted upon indiscri-
minately. It is a good thing in itself, but its princi-
ples can be practically applied only by a most prudent
and careful hand. As to such lumpers, as the
knight and his companions, may .a merciful Providence
protect us from their management ! No interest would
be safe in such hands. Of Sir Joshua's other "prin-
ciples" something further will be found in another
place.

This town was disturbed on different occasions, last
week, by riots, occasioned by the Anti-Corn-Law party
collecting mobs in the open air, to receive instruction
on free trade and the art of gaining elections, from the
hired agents of the Manchester Directory. Those
honest Conservative men, the ship-carpenters, have
been most unjustly charged with being the disturbers
in these instances; but, as it is admitted that the Anti-
Corn-Law spouters are they who collected the mobs in
St. James's-place and Clayton-square, they are the
party, in our mind, who should be held responsible for
all the consequences. Their meetings are a perfect
nuisance under any circumstances, and ought to he put
a stop to ; but when they serve as a direct provocation
to disturbance, as they obviously and naturally do,
there is the more need for the authorities to interfere
and lay them tinder restraint. Papists and Protestants
somehow• get involved in these melees, and then break-
ing of windows or heads is sure to follow. The fol-
lowing placard w 25 posted on the walls on Saturday :

" FELLOW CATIIOLICII,—On Wednesday evening last a
body or our fellow-townsmen made an unprovoked attack
upon St. Patrick's Church. We are happy to inform you
that the damage we sustained is only trifling.
The attack on your church, which every good man must
pronounce disgraceful to the parties concerned in it, has
naturally excited your inagnation—and we regret (?) to
find you have for the moment, been led to acts of retaliation.
We implore, we beg of you, as fellow-Catholics, not to dis-
grace your religion by seeking revenge. We have every
confidence that the authorities of the town are ready and
able to protect you and your pastors from insult and injury.
" G. GIBSON.
" W. PARKER.
"11. GRAYSTOW.
" St. Patrick's Chapel, Friday night."

What a very fine piece of cant and fudge ! The
poor, innocent, harmless, inoffensive " Catholics !"
Why, these innocent babes (O'Connell's mob) actually
broke twice the number of panes in St. Thomas's
Church and at Mr. Unsworth's,. in Greenland-street,
of those which were broken in St. Patrick's Chapel,
or the school -house rather attached to it—an amount
of damage which the priests themselves here allow to
be only trifling. The " authorities of the town will
protect them from insult and injury." We hope so;
but we hope that the authorities of the town will also
protect the Protestants and Conservatives from those
meek, submissive lambs that belong to the pasturage of
St. Patrick's Chapel, and who are under the care of
those gentle shepherds, Fathers Gibson, Parker, and
Grayston. There will be far more need, we apprehend,
of their interposition in the one case than in the other.
By the by, this hypocritical, whining placard is by no
means in harmony with the little circular signed by the
great officers of the Anti-Corn-Law Association, which
earnestly calls upon the league party to be quiet—and
more than insinuates that the fault has not been all on
the side of the Protestants as the priests would have it
supposed. Let them settle this discrepancy among
them, however.

Sir Joshua Waimsley, speaking of his canvass, says
—and he must have felt a proper pride in saying it—
" I did not meet with a single Tory, though advoca-
" ting as opposite principles to those which I hold as
can be, who did not receive me with kindness, with
" good- feeling, and who, while he regretted that he
" could not vote for me as a politician, did not say that
" he respected and esteemed me as a man. (Applause.)"
This is a very high testimonial to his private character,
and we wish he had been content to enjoy that envia-
ble station as a merchant, a citizen, and a private gen-
tleman, to which there is abundance of proof that he
has attained. He seems to have himself a full con-
sciousness of its advantages, and instead of charging
him with egotism or vanity for recurring so often to
the theme, we think the more highly of him for so
doing. The disagreeable part of our duty consists in
contrasting him as an active and estimable citizen with
himself as an aspirant to high political distinction.
We rejoice that, even amidst the violent contentions
of public life, private character is held forth as some-
thing entitled to consideration; and that, from the
appreciation which it meets with, there is reason to
suppose that, were all other things equal, in political
contests, it would most likely turn the scale. It is a
supposition favourable to the prevalence of a strong
moral sentiment among the people ; and so long as we
have sufficient warrant for entertaining it with regard
to the constituency generally, we shall never despair
of our country.

But excellence of private character does not, in
itself, qualify a man for political functions; indeed,
it may well happen that the man who is most sedulous
in the discharge of all his obligations as a private citi-
zen, is, on that very account, the most unfit to under-
take the duties of a legislator, or senator. A totally
different sort of training is required for the functions
of the latter. His early studies should have been inter
sylvas academi, not among the ledgers of the counting-
house, or on the flags of the Exchange—in the solitude
of the closet, in converse with the learned, or in foreign
travel, and not in the hustle of crowds, among the
mere details of trade, and in petty contentions which
excite the feelings without improving the understand-
ing, or correcting
,the judgment. Sir Joshua Walms-
ley is just an instance that, it is quite possible, for the
same individual to be a respectable private citizen, and
a desperately bad thinker for the public. To the one
he has served his apprenticeship, and is, as it were,
" to the manner born" ; to the other he has not been
educated, and it is not therefore surprising that the
first declaration of political opinions with which, as
one ambitious of great distinctions, he favours the
world, should be one uninterrupted series of blunders,
mistakes, and vital errors. Here he has gone beyond
his depth without having learned to swim, and the
consequence is, that unless some friendly hand be
stretched out to draw him into shallow water, he is in
imminent danger of going to the bottom.
What would be thought of the intellect of the peo-
ple of Liverpool, if, with all the regard possible for a
worthy townsman, they should send him into the
senate to advocate such preposterous, unconstitutional,
and anarchial doctrines, as, with all the gravity and,
we doubt not, sincerity in the world, our knight, in
his simplicity, propounds for their good.? He de-
clares that he is " firmly attached to the Church of
England " ; so firmly, that he would destroy all the
Church's defences, and put all manner of Dissent and
Church-of-Englandism on the same level—for the good
of the Church, no doubt, as the regicides in the (lays
of the First Charles fought against the King ! Now,
if this be the way a " firm " Churchman shews his
love for the Church, may we ask how a fierce enemy
'should manifest his hatred? The love may be great;
but certainly it has thus an ugly and suspicious way
of spewing itself. " Firmly attached to the Church
of England"! Whom does he select as his right-
hand man in soliciting the suffrages of the elec-
tors? One of the. most virulent Papists of the town—

an Irish demagogue, whose whole time and energies
are devoted to destroy all the bulwarks of Protestant-
ism, and who, pitchforked into the Council as an Al-
derman against the wishes of the people, insults us by
offering every species of contumely and reproach upon
our liberties as citizens, and our local privileges and
rights as inhabitants of an old and constitutional bo-
rough.
Again, from a firmly-attached Churchman, we
should expect a preference for a sound, religious,
Church-Education; but not so our aspirant citizen
senator; he shows attachment to his religious princi-
ples by favouring a system of education which dis-
cards them, and treats all religions opinion with in-
difference. As liberal in religion as he is in trade, he
would teach and encourage all systems alike, lest he
should be suspected of upholding monopoly ; and, as
liberal in trade as he is in religion, he would destroy
the merchandise of the British agriculturist, and trans-
fer it to the foreigner, for a similar reason. This may
be Liberalism, but it is an inconsistent sort of con-
duct, in our apprehension, entirely at war with com-
mon sense. Some people may call it having an en-
larged mind, cosmopolitanism, or whatever else they
please ; but we avow that it is neither rational philo-
sophy nor good patriotism, in our judgment.
But lastly, our knightly candidate for the House of
Commons, says, "I hold that enfranchisement should
" steadily keep pace with increasing intelligence, and
"that the independence of the voter should be, as far
"as possible, secured."
This is delicately said, but the meaning of it is, in
plain terms, that he is for vote by ballot and a suffrage
of so undefined'an extent that, for shortness, we may
as well call it universal.

Now Sir Joshua may be a respectable merchant, and
an excellent private character—and as such entitled to
esteem-L-but as a statesman and a senator, we avow
that he is nothing more than a ;tinker, and a botch—
and that as such it would be as much against our in-
terest as against our conscience to employ him.