The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-02-23 00:00:00

Peb. 23, 184/.

A LETTER FROM LONDON.

LONDON, MONDAY MORNING.
The accounts from Ireland are increasing the alarm
now generally felt for the lives of the people. A. hint,
thrown like a rocket, from the columns of the Times,
that Manchester ere long may become an English Skib-
bereen, has excited emotions in this metropolis from
which apprehensions of the gravest character cannot be
separated. What is to be done ?

A reader, or a listener to, the debates in both Houses,
with a fore-knowledge of the real extent of Irish destitu-
tion would imagine that the Legislature meets not so
much to adopt alleviative measures as to indulge in de-
clamatory exhibitions. Ministers themselves have good
intentions; their desires rim in a right direction; but they
fail in that energy which is necessary to make Parliament
feel the full pressure of its responsibilities. To have com-
plete, and official, intelligence that human beings'speaking
our own tongue, are perishing by thousands, and yet to
hesitate in applying the most comprehensive remedy that
the national resources can afford, is suggestive of a power
behind, which is more than ministerial.
A small, very small, section of the legislature, has
pointed out the cause of the national calamity, and the
duty of the country in consequence of it. Mr. Plumptre
has been the only man who has dared to say in the House
of Commons that the visitation is sent in consequence of
our grievous sins. Not one of the mitred bishops, who
occupy the very bench in the House of Lords from which
the noble President of the Council, with the tongue of a
master in eloquence, has described Irish calamity, has yet
been bold enough to declare that we are under a dispen-
sation of wrath. The new commission, and its probable
operation on prelatic purposes furnish more agreeable
topics for discussion, and are less likely to offend in high
quarters. What is to be done ?

All that has been done by the episcopal order has been
to direct their clergy, in obedience to the Queen's letter,
to incite their flocks to liberal alms.. Some have them-
selves contributed, perhaps all ; but what more have they
done ? National sins demand nationarrepentance, yet what
spiritual lord, in his place in Parliament, has called on the
Government to appoint a day of public general humilia-
tion ? None. But at this moment, it really makes us think
the laxity of the worst portion of the last century may re-
cur in high places. The inferior clergy of the metropolis
are procuring signatures to petitions, praying Parliament
to address the Crown with this design in view. In the
parish church of Islington, the Rev. Daniel Wilson called
upon his hearers yesterday, to sign these instruments—
even on that sacred day. Other ministers did the same.
The case then is urgent ; and the Church is found in its
right place and duty, when the body of it call upon the
executive to give the people an opportunity to bewail their
transgressions, and by prayer and supplication "to move
Him who moves the universe."

The "Irish Society," and other circles exclusively de-
voted to the green isle, can scarcely dissemble their alarm
at the state of Mr. O'Connell's health. That great ill of
the flesh, which commonly assaults men of his age and
habit, and which puts both materia medics and the col-
lege of surgeons at fault, has exhibited symptoms so
formidable as to render it very probable that this may be
an eventful year for Conciliation Hall. The Reform Club
only saw him once last week,—a visit with a purpose ;
but the • approaches of the grim enemy, despite appesr-
ances, from all accounts, are clear, if not rapid.
All elements considered, the present session promises
to rival in historic interest any one of its predecessors.
The navigation laws are certainly doomed at the hands of
this professedly protection parliament : the Church will
have a portion of its episcopal relations extensively modi-
fied, whilst the Irish branch may feel some anxiety as to
the practical views held suspended in the mind of the
ablest cabinet minister after the premier ; and the public
burdens will not be found any lighter in 1847 than they
were six years ago, although sanguine persons so led the
people to think. In personal interest this session will
amuse—perhaps instruct. Gross inconsistencies—that
cannot be explained, viorent attacks which fail of
justification, loud - professions incapable of realization
—these mark, and will yet mark, the session of 1847.
Peel sits by the very side of Disraeli and Bentinck ;
Inglis below Hume ; Graham alone on the third back
bench, his vast form unscrupulously occupying the whole
of it ; and a representative of T.C.D. goes out in the same
lobby with Repealers, to whom all the Saxons are
nauseous. Lord John, to complete the picture, seems
sick of his office and charge, whilst Sir C. Wood
was never fuller of personal satisfaction and confidence.
His phrase—not an original. phrase eitherof " desti-
tute shareholders," in antithesis to the " destitute poor,"
has been complimented in the House as witty ; and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer is thereafter happy—so true
is it that a name is oftener made by sounding words than
useful deeds. Macauley is dumb ; Shier- has been muz-
zled. The smaller men—Gibson, Hawes, Tufnell, and
some others who were formerly both useful and objection-
able, no more offend with their tongues ;. for they are at
once gagged and eclipsed by Russell, Grey,. and Wood.
Lord John makes his financial statement to-night. On
it depends his reputation as a great minister in a great
crisis. If the Whigs fail this time, D'lsraeli's theory of
national reaction may probably be supported by a grand
episode in the " New Crusade, '—a work which the world
that has not seen the proof-sheets guesses will not ob-
scurely relate to the next " appeal to the people."

LIBRII

THE RIVER PLATE.—By the arrival of her Majesty's
brigantine Dolphin, at Portsmouth, on Sunday, we have
news from Monte Video to the 29th December, and from
Rio to the Bth of January, being thirteen days later from
the former, and twenty from the latter, than the previouS
advices. The affairs in the Plata were u much the sea°
'qusly heard. The bloek.4..virag
nts

still Kept up, and the merchants were anxiously waiting to
know the result of Mr. Hood's return to England. Rate
of Exchange at Rio, 281.

" A Ratepayer," in a letter to the Manchester Guar-
dian, states, that in one hour last Saturday 31 beggars
called at his door,—in the course of the day 134.