The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-21 00:00:00

gh t more

" Strong as the warehouse-owners' interest. was known
to be in the Town Council, we doubted its power and

daring to set at naug
which, promoted at tt

ause o

ct of Parliament,

chants Of this town, wa:

a,Kuu u. buc .ustare ro Oulict on the quays of its own
docks warehouses, admitted by all else to be necessary to

ld of the country at large

those of priirate individuals Will be tolerated by the mer-
chants of Liverpool, by the executive government of the

. . ..
country, or by parliament, remains to be seen
_

NotWithsta-nciing the gloom which pervades the com-
mercial world,_the mercantile spirit is surely still too

nuoyant to sutler, unopposed, this subjection of public
right and advantages to the unjust and wasteful support
of individual interests. It is probable, moreover, that a
question will arise, in the highest quarters, as to the
propriety of withdrawing the management of the docks
from those who, as Trustees, when debating upon mea-
sures for rendering those docks more beneficial to the
trade of the country, talk of " protecting" their " own
property" in contradistinction to the public good.
" The extraordinary, almost mysterious omission in
the Dock Bill of the rating clause, to which the Albert
Dock warehouses are subjected, and the excitement 'out of
doors which this omission occasioned, gave the opening
which the warehouse-owning party availed themselves of
to destroy the Dock Bill in its most essential point. For
the rating clause there were special reasons, which good
policy, if not justice, required should not, for a moment,
have been disputed.
_ _

We are not aware that Mr. Urquhart, Mr. Thornely,
Mr. Danson, Mr. Jeffery, Mr. Bradley, and other
gentlemen who took part in the meeting at the
Clarendon-rooms, on Monday last, and have done
so much to rouse the tradesmen of the town to a
movement which should influence the Council in
f 4;, -

ravour of a rating clause, are connected at all with
warehouse property; yet we doubt whether any one
of them would have hesitated to throw out the bill
rather than that it should pass the Council without
such a clause. As to the threat "that a question
will arise, in the highest quarters, as to the pro-
priety of withdrawing the management of the docks
from those who, as trustees. when debating upon

measures for rendering those docks more beneficial
to the trade of the country, talk of 'protecting' their

own property in contradistinction to the ` public
good,' " we know of nothing so strongly confirma-
tory of the propriety of the course taken by the
Dock Committee as the admission which it infers.
If the docks of Liverpool are so far public property,
or designed for the " public good," in contradis-
tinction to the good of the inhabitants of Liverpool,
that they can be taken possession of by government,
what right have we to talk of raising £45,000 per
annum from warehouses upon their quays to relieve
ourselves from our own local .burthens ? A Go-
vernment Board, managing our Dock Estate for the
interest of the country at large, would no more
allow any portion of its revenues to be appropriated
to the payment of the hurthens of the parish of
Liverpool than of those of Manchester, Bristol, or
any other town.