The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-14 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE CORN LAWS.
(From the Morning Herald.)
At the Birmingham meeting on Monday, a repea
of the corn laws was stated to be one of the great ob
jects to the attainment of which Mr. Attwood and his
friends propose to devote themselves.
A repeal of the corn laws would confiscate four-
fifths of the agricultural capital of England—would
destroy our home market—increase the wretchedness
of the labouring poor to an extent absolutely intole-
rable—render the discharge of public and of private
obligations, impossible—and precipitate the country
into a revolution of blood. Knowing how inevitable
such results are, if the corn laws be repealed, the farm-
ers of England are apt to believe the repeal of these
laws to be scarcely in the list of possibilities. It may
be well for them to distrust their fixed conclusions on
this subject. Changes quite as fatal in their tendency
—although not so comprehensive in their range of
mischief—,have been in regular progression duringthe
last twenty years ;—and each of those changes, before
it took place, appeared as little likely to occur, as a
repeal of the corn laws may appear probable, at the
present moment. The crusade against native indus-
try which whig " philosophers" projected, and which
whig statesmen and their pupils have led, has been in
regular progress for twenty years past- Our labour-
ing poor are doomed, day by day, to severe competi-
tion with machinery, and with foreign producers. Our
system of cotton manufactures—that system which
provided profitable employment for the young, without
robbing them of health and innocence—has long since
given way to our factory system, with all its unutter-
able catalogue of physical and moral horrors! Nearly
a million of ingenious, intelligent, and most patient
operatives—the hand-loom weavers—have been robbed
by the legislature, of a market for their labour, and
calmly handed over to a struggle with starvation—a
struggle that must terminate in the violent extinction
of the class! The market-gardeners of Kent, and of
the other fruit-growing counties are now about to be
sacrificed—and the farmers of England will, in due
time, be added to the list of victims to the principles
of " philosophical" legislation. Why should the far-
mers hope to escape ? Will they appeal to the fact,
that their landlords are concerned in the framing of
the laws, and, therefore, never will consent to. sacrifice
the cultivators of the soil ? Let not farmers deceive
themselves! The landlords of England—if they had
understood, in the faintest degree, even their own
permanent personal interests—(to say nothing of the
great interests of the nation and of humanity)—never
would have condescended to sacrifice the hand-loom
weavers, nor would they endure, for an hour, the sys-
tem which dooms tens of thousands of helpless child-
ren to slavery in cotton factories. The landlords of
England, be it recollected, moreover, are sinking,
more and more, every year under the dominion of the
" philosophers" and the schemers ; and many of them
begin, actually, to believe, that a repeal of the corn
laws—although it might ruin the present race of far-
mers—would not injure, permanently, the market va-
lue of land. Lord Fitzwilliam openly avows this opi-
nion, and his lordship is not without many silent fo -
lowers amongst the landlords who take part in the
business of legislation, and who would not be unwil-
ling, by sacrificing the farmers, to gain a respite from
unpopularity.
It is true, undoubtedly, that as yet the parliament-
ary landlords seem to stand by the farmers; and it is
no less true, that Lord Melbourne has declared his
unwillingness to meddle with the corn laws. The
landed aristocracy, however, has shown itself, of late
years, willing to oppose but feeble resistance to the
march of hurly-burly innovation on the rights of the
producing classes; and as for Lord Melbourne, he is
but the creature of " the pressure from without." Let
but an extensive system of agitation be organised—
let but a few large meetings, like thatof Birmingham,
send forth their voices—and the farmers will be sacri-
ficed, as the hand-loom weavers have been sacrificed in
times past. Let the farmers ponder gravely on the
dangers of their position. They can trust to nothing
but their' wri. energies. The harvest promises to be
a deficient one. Prices are rising. Foreign wheat
will soon be introduced in immense quantities, until
English wheat will, in all probability, sink to five shil-
lings a bushel. The supply may, after all, prove de-
ficient. The moment prices shall, in these circum-
stances, rise again, an outcry will be raised against
the corn laws. Their repeal will be the consequence;
and then—the beginning of the end will indeed have
arriVed! Let the farmers look to it !

GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH PARTY OVER THE
POLITICAL DISSENTERS AND INFlDELS.—Yesterday a vestry
was held at St. Peter's Church, in this town, to consider the
propriety of granting a church-rate for the present year.
The more factious and violent among the Dissenters had been
busily employed in organising a formidable opposition to the
rate, and had put forth handbills in which they summoned
the parishoners to oppose that "accursed impost," as they
termed it. The consequence was a very full meeting and a
proportionate degree of excitement. Mr. Alderman Webb
proposed that a rate of the amount asked by the church-
wardens be granted, which was seconded by Mr. G. Davies,
of the Ivy bush. Mr. J. P. Davies, after a short address,
moved to adjourn the consideration of the question for 12
months, which being seconded by Mr. W. Jones, one of
the proprietors of the Old Foundry, was put to the meet-
ing by the chairman, Archdeacon Bevan. The show of
hands was declared to be in favour of the adjournment, when
a poll was demanded on behalf of the Church party. It was
then arranged by both parties that the poll should immedi-
ately commence and be kept open till six o'clock; at the
close of which the rate was declared to be carried by a ma-
jority of 63. The announcement of the numbers was received
with a strong demonstration of feeling. Last year, the
political Dissenters and Infidels succeeded in procuring the
rejection of the rate,—this year a rate is carried by a ma-
jority of 63 persons. If this be not re-action we know nut
what re-action is.—Carmarthen Journal.
MOUNT TABOR, THE SCENE OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
—lt stands perfectly isolated; rising alone from the plain in
a rounded tapering form, like a truncated cone, to the height
of 3,000 feet, covered with trees, grass, and wild flowers from
the base to its summit, and presenting, the combination, so
rarely found in naturalscenery, of the bold and the beautiful.
At twelve o'clock, we were at the miserable village of Debo-
rah, at the foot of the mountain, supposed to be the place
where Deborah the prophetess, who then judged Israel, and
Barak and "ten thousand men after him, descended upon
Sisera, and discomfited him and all his chariots, even nine
hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with
him." The men an& boys had all gone out to their daily
labour, and we tried to persuade a woman to guide us to the
top of the mountain, but she turned away with contempt;
and, having had some practice in climbing, we moved around
its sides until we found a regular path, an ascended nearly
to the
r top without dismounting. The path wound around the
mountain, and gave us a view from all its different sides,
step presenting something new, and more and more
beautiful, until it was completely forgotten and lost in the
exceeding loveliness of the view from the summit. Stripped
of every association, and considered merely as an elevation
commanding a view of unknown valleys and mountains, I
never saw a mountain which, for the beauty of scene, better
repaid the toil of ascending it ; and I need not say what an
interest was given to every feature when we saw in the
valley beneath the large plain of Jezreel, the great battle-
ground of nations; on the south the supposed range of Her-
mon, with whose dews the Psalmist compares the "pleasant-
ness of brethren dwelling together in unity;" beyond, the
ruined village of Endor, where dwelled the witch who raised
up the prophet Samuel; and near it the little city of Main,
where our Saviour raised from the dead the widow's son; on
the east, the mountains of Gilboa, " where Saul, and his
armour bearer, and his three sons, fell upon their swords, to
save themselves from falling into the hands of the Philis-
tines;" beyond, the Sea of Galilee, or Lake of Genesareth,
the theatre of our Saviour's miracles, where, in the fourth
watch of the night, he appeared to his terrified disciples,
walking on the face of the waters; and to the north, on a
lofty eminence, high above the top of Tabor, the city of
Japhet, supposed to be the ancient Bethulia, alluded to in
the words, " a city that is set ou a bill cannot be hid."--
Stephens' i inci!ents of Trate,