The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-10-23 00:00:00

TO OUR READERS.

We have made every exertion to present our readers this
day with afull and accurate report of the interesting
and important proceedings of yesterday, as well as
those of Wednesday evening ; and we flatter ourselves
that our efforts have been signally successful. In our
SUPPLEMENT will be found a corrected report of
the speeches delivered at the great meeting of the Young
Men's Established Church Society, held in the Amphi-
theatre, on Wednesday evening. Our ordinary pub-
lication contains a full and minute history of the rise
and progress of the Liverpool Collegiat Onstitution, a
detailed narrative of the public proceision to the site
of the proposed building ; a verbatim report of the
admirable and impressive discourse of our venerated
Diocesan, delivered in St. Peter's Church ; and a
copious report of the speeches at the great dinner to
Lord Stanley, given last evening in the Amphitheatre.
While we have given the requisite degree of prominence
to these important proceedings, we have not neglected
other matters of local interest which demanded our at-
tention. We trust that we have thus shown that we are
anxious to render the STANDARD the most faithful
record of all public proceedings in which this great
community is interested. We refer with satisfaction
to our columns this day for a demonstrative proof of
this desire to gratify the curiosity and to consult the
taste of our readers.

A ►TAMPED SUPPLEMENT is given with the
STANDARD of this day.

Ebt Eitnrpool -tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 23, 1840.

Stupidly and perversely blind must be those amongst
our countrymen who do not recognise the hand of
Popery prompting and guiding every political move-
ment of the present day. What is it, we ask, which
during the last two sessions of Parliament has main-
tained in office the most incapable, dishonest, and
profligate ministry which ever controlled the destinies
of a great nation ? The power of the Roman Catholic
Church! And what has been the ultimate, if not the
direct object of every great measure for which that
ministry has striven ?To advance—to strengthen—to
perpetuate in Great Britain the power of that church !
In the court of our sovereign—in the senate and in the
council—the intrusive foot of Popery has been boldly
planted. In our municipal corporations she has suc-
ceeded in usurping the control of the funds hitherto
devoted to the education of our youth in Protestant
principles. She fills our police, our public offices, and
our schools with her minions. She absorbs the great
portion of our public charities, and is winding her in-
sidious coil around the time-hallowed fabric of that
church, for the preservation of which, in its purity,
our fathers shed their blood in the field and at the
stake. She surrounds with her priesthood the dying
beds of our ancient gentry, and, day by day, some
noble property falls into their grasp, to be devoted to
the purpose of raising up anew that blighting super-
stition which has been, throughout the ages of its ex-
istence, a curse and a plague to mankind.
For years Popery has been silently but unceasingly
labouring for the promotion of her ambitious designs,
and the power which she possesses has defeated and
defied opposition. The sway which her priesthood
maintain over the ignorant and enslaved constituencies
of Ireland has enabled her to dictate terms to her op-
ponents within the walls of the British House of
Commons—to prescribe limits to our once boasted
Protestant ascendancy ; and she now seeks to extend
that sway over a portion of the constituencies of Eng-
land.

It is well known that for the last twenty years a
constant stream of immigration has been pouring from
the wilds and bogs of Ireland into the manufacturing
districts of Great Britain. In Liverpool, Manchester,
and the whole of the populous manufacturing towns
around—upon most of which the reform bill conferred
for the first time the privilege of returning members to
the House of Commons—the Irish Roman Catholic
inhabitants have long constituted the bulk of the lower
classes of the populaion. From these men, unorgan-
ized as they have hitherto been—removed but one de-
gree from pauperism, and, from their improvident
habits, unable to acquire a sufficient qualification to
entitle them to vote for members of Parliament, or at
municipal elections—the utmost exertions of the whig
party were never able to glean more than a very feeble
and precarious support.
But the aspiring spirit and the persevering energy
of Popery can achieve a victory over obstacles, from
which the feeble and contemptible efforts of whig radi-
calism would recoil in despair. A. class of men, which
to the latter presented only the spectacle of individuals
swayed by no steady
impulses, and capable of no poli-
tical organization, is susceptible of being moulded by
the plastic fingers of Popery into an engine sufficiently
powerful to operate upon the representation of Great
Britain, to an extent which a mere whig would never
even have dreamt of. For the purposes of Popery it
was sufficient that the Roman Catholics of our large
towns were servants of " the Church;" it was suffi-
cient for her that the materials were there in abun-
dance. She wanted only men, and she doubted not
her power to make them docile, humble, and ready
agents to the work which she had in contemplation.
Our Liverpool readers have witnessed the energy

and perseverance with which her priesthood have la-
boured to achieve that work—the creation of an over-
riding majority of Roman Catholic voters upon our
municipal and borough registers. But they are not to
suppose that the attempt has been confined to our own
town. In Manchester, Preston, Bolton, Stockport—
wherever, in fact, large bodies of Papists are herded
together—wherever the influence of the mass-house
and the confessional extends--the same struggle has
taken plaCe, ',tended by varied degrees of success.
The attack has not been a mere desultory effort to
achieve go= petty triumph ;---the object has been one

of greater.purport and more sweeping effect, It has
been the giant struggle of the " mother of abomina-
tions" to disturb the waters, and to go forth and depo-
sit her filthy spawn throughout the length and breadth
of this once loyal and Protestant land.
The effort, however, we trust, has been made in
vain—in Liverpool at least we know that it has. The
spirit-stirring demonstration of Protestant zeal and
activity, recorded in our pages to-day, are guarantees
that in the good old town there is still sufficient strength
to bruise the head of the serpent, and to trample into
the earth the slimy form which has been reared, in
malignant hostility, against the venerable institutions
of our forefathers. The loyal men of Liverpool have
rallied nobly to the trumpet call of the lion-hearted de-
fenders of their Protestant faith; they have planted
yesterday a standard around which their sons and their
sons' sons may gather through all future time. They
have opened a fountain from which to pour forth
throughout the land the pure clear waters of scriptural
education and truth ; and in their name, and in their
behalf, we call upon our loyal end Protestant fellow-
countrymen to support their efforts and to imitate their

example.
Let it be borne in mind that we live not now in ordi-
nary times; we have not now to fight in an ordinary
cause. We have not now to struggle for mere party
objects; we are not attacked with mere party Weapons.
We have combined against us the united forces of
Popery, of Socinianism, and of infidelity, and we hold
in our keeping the purity and the entireness of our
Protestant constitution and our Protestant church. A
breach—a wide and irreparable breach—has been
made in the bulwarks of that constitution ; and its
enemies—a legion—are howling for the onset. In
that breach we have taken up our position ; and woe
be unto us if we fail in beating back the advancing
forces of the enemy ! The dark waters of Popery are
surging at our feet, sapping the foundations of our
citadel, and threatening to overwhelm and crush us in
its fall; but Ire have taken our stand upon the rock of
Protestant Truth, and, by the blessing of God, WE
WILL STAND FAST!

MEETING OF THE DOCK COMMITTEE.

Yesterday the weekly meeting of the Dock Committe,
was held at the committee-room, Revenue Buildings. The
following gentlemen were present :—Messrs. Leathom,
Homby, T. Holt, Holmes, Chapman, Mellor, Evans, Bar-
clay, Tobin, Booth, Moon, G. Holt, Middleton, and Mar-
tin.
The minutes of the proceedings of the former meeting
been read,
Several accounts were read and passed.
Mr. HARTLEY then read a report of a sub-committee on
the subject of dock work, which contained a recommenda-
tion that reverse gates be placed between the Coburg dock
and the Union dock.

The CHAIRMAN said that the object of the proposed
gates was to reserve a sufficient quantity of water in the dock
for the accommodation of the large steamers. The recom-
mendation was unanimously acceded to.
A desultory discussion arose respecting the erection of
additional shears on the dock quays. The recommendation
of the sub-committee on this subject was also adopted.
A memorial was then introduced by the CHAIRMAN, re-
commending that the parade of Prince's dock should be
covered with Bitumen. This memorial was signed by up-
wards of 230 gentlemen.
Mr. HARTLEY, in answer to a question, said that the
parade had hitherto been repaired by the Dock Committee.
A letter from the Seyssel Asphalte Company was also
read, offering to execute the work for about £BOO.
This application was referred to the sub-committee.
An application was made by the Steam Tug Company for
a piece of land to keep their life-boat.
Mr. CHAPMAN said that the other side of the river was
the proper place for the life-boat.
Mr. TOBIN said that the boat ought to be on the same
side of the river with the crew.
A model of the safety beacon erected on the Goodwin
Sands, by Captain Bullock, which stood on the table, was
then submitted to the inspection of the committee. A letter
was read from Captain Bullock, in which he offered every
assistance in his power in the construction of similar beacons,
should the Liverpool Dock Trust require any such.
Mr. CHAPMAN said he had no doubt that such beacons
would be highly useful on the sand banks at the entrance to
the port, especially on the Hoyle Bank, and in other situa-
tions.

The letter was referred to the marine surveyor.
Mr. H. Holmes and Mr. Thos. Holt were appointed to
audit the accounts of the Watch Committee.
The Solicitor to the Dock Trust then read a copy of a
notice for an application to be made during the next session
of parliament for an act to alter, enlarge, and modify the
construction of several of the docks, and for power to erect
warehouses on the west quay of the Prince's dock, and
on the north-west quay of the Salthouse dock ; also for
power to take charge of goods in vessels discharging in the
Prince's dock ; also for power to make tram-roads along
the several dock quays; also for the purchase of such.lands
as may be necessary to carry the provisions of such act into
effect ; also to empower the trustees to raise additional sums
'of money for the purpose of carrying out the plans contem-
plated by the act. The notice included several other par-
ticulars of a subordinate character ; but the above hre the
main features of the intended application.
The meeting separated at one o'clock.