The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-12-29 00:00:00

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:ers, 15,886,300; number of accidents, 2; lives lost,
; or one in 1,985,787. The average number of miles to each
explosion, in the first of the above periods, was 235,646 ; in
the second, 843,240; in the third, 2,733,725. The estimated
average pressure of steam used during the first period was
7 inches ; second period, 14 inches ; third period, 18 inches.
It appears from the average results of this table, that, dur-
ing even the first period of five years after the navigation was
thrown open to public competition, the ratio of steam acci-
dents was only equal to one for more than 20,000 trips or
passages ; and that the average loss of life was only equal to
one for more than 126,000 passengers exposed. Thus, at the
fair outset of this noble enterprise, a degree of safety was at-
tained for the passengers, such as may well challenge com-
parison with any artificial means of transit or locomotion
that have ever been resorted to by the human race.—(United
States) Commercial Magazine.

TRADE WITH JAPAN.—We presume that Japan has not
been excluded from the contemplation of the government,
while the imposing spectacle of a, British war fleet floats for
the first time on Eastern Asiatic seas. To establish a com-
mercial intercourse by peaceful means with that country—to
furnish its population in which they live, render European
manufactures almost necessary to comfort—who are ad-
vanced in civilization, and who, from long uso, have accus-
tomed themselves to luxuries—is a grand national object.
Were that country thrown open to our enterprise, it would
be like the creation of a new nation of customers ; and the
achievement of this object, so devoutly to be wished for,
might, by an effort at this moment, be easily effected. It is
observed by Dr. Ainslie :—" With regard to the real diffi-
culties to be surmounted in the establishment of a commer-
cial intercourse with Japan, I consider them, so far as they
are founded in the character and political institutions of
the Japanese, to be of infinitely less importance than the
Dutch, from whose interested reports on that subject the
idea generally entertained of them has been formed, would
represent them. I may add, that the Japanese appear en-
tirely free from any prejudices that would stand in the way
of a free and unrestricted intercourse with Europeans ; even
their prejudices on the score of religion, on which such ex-
aggerated accounts are reported, are moderate and inoffen-
sive. The consumption of woollens and hardware might be
rendered almost unlimited ; they are fond of the finest spe-
cimens of glass ware, and it only requires to bring them ac-
quainted with many other products of British industry, to
obtain for them a 'ready introduction." In reference to the
exclusion of foreigners, the reasoning and the policy of the
Japanese and Chinese governments appear to be founded on
the same basis—contempt, yet dread, of Europeans ; their
contempt is founded in ignorance; but their dread is
founded upon a full conviction of their own weakness. We
hope the government will not neglect the present propitious
moment, while so many officers of rank are in these seas, to
obtain, by conciliating the Japanese, permission to resume
our commercial connection with that country : if the letter
to James the First is preserved in the State Paper Office, it
might be turned to some advantage in the negotiation. The
latest attempt to this end was made under the auspices of the
East India Company, in 1813 ; and the profit on the adven-
ture was 42,126 Spanish dollars. The goods England might
supply to Japan would be—woollens, broad cloth of primi-
tive, not mixed colours, hardware, glass ware, carpeting,
printed cottons, ironmongery, leather,
porcelain, morocco of
the brightest colours, clock-work, fire-arms lace, mock
jewellery, stationery, medicines, bottle corks, a few oil
paints, window glass, phials, pig lead. sheet lead. long ells,
looking glasses, figured muslins, camiets, spy-glasses, rabbit
skins, and felt cloth.—lndian News.