The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-15 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We acknowledge the receipt of £1 from the Rev. F. Parry,
of St. Clement's ; £1 from E. Arnaud, Esq. ; £1 from.
T. Garratt, Esq. ; and 10s. from G. Beley, Esq., for the
fund now raising to relieve the Rev. J. W. Gowring,
whose afflicting case will be found advertised in another
part of our paper.
A correspondent in the last Standard, in suggesting a supe-
rior mode of warming and ventilating the churches of this
town, describes Christ Church as being one of the worst
ventilated churches in Liverpool. We are informed, how-
ever, that considerable improvements have recently been
made in this place of worship, and that it is now admirably
warmed and ventilated, and one of the most comfortable
churches of the town.
With reference to the letter signed " J. W.," which appeared
in the Standard of Tuesday last, a contemporary is in-
structed to say that it was addressed to us on Tuesday
week, but did not appear in our following publication. The
letter was not received at the STANDARD-office until a
late hour on Thursday night, and though marked for in-
sertion, we were compelled to postpone its appearance in
consequence. of the arrival of the important news from
China.

Ebe tiberpoot gPtanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 15, 1841.

There is no subject upon which the Melbourne and
O'Connell faction was wont to glorify itself more
abundantly than upon the results of its foreign policy.
Not only throughout Europe, but in every quarter of
the globe—not only in Spain or in the Mediterranean,
but in the furthest extremity of our Indian empire—
unmingled and pre-eminent success, we were told, had
crowned the efforts of our diplomacy and our arms ;
and whatever might be our internal position—however
disorganised our social condition—abroad, at least, we
had before us only a long career of peaceful and ho-
noured enjoyment of that lofty attitude which an un-
broken series of triumphs in the field and upon our
native element, aided by the superlative genius of a
Palmerston in the Cabinet, had won for us amongst
the nations of the world. Alas ! that we should ever
be compelled to awake from a dream so soothing to
our senses—so flattering to that national pride which
is deeply implanted in the breast of every English-
man!

Yet we are compelled to awake from it, and to con-
template, in sober, waking reality, a far different and
less gratifying picture. Where is, we ask, this glori-
ous, this peaceful prospect ? Where is the " golden
fruit" of the non-intervention policy of the Melbourne
government ? In what quarter of the habitable globe—
Mercury, in thy goodness, tell us !—is situate the
modern Arcadia of the sublime ex-ruler of the Foreign
Office? Is it in Spain—pacifeated Spain ? Alas, no.
Is it in the Mediterranean ? Still, no. Is it in the
eastern or in the western hemisphere ? In neither ;
and, in sober sadness, we fear that it is not to be found,
unless we seek it in some terra incognita which the
genius of a Palmerston, a Ponsonby, or an Elliott has
not as yet operated upon—some " regio in terris nostri
non plena laboris-"

We can discover, in truth, not a vestige of any glo-
rious or even peaceful result from the ten years' pro-
tocolling of Lord Palmerston ; but, on the contrary,
we see much to excite serious and anxious fears for the
continued enjoyment, by Great Britain and the world,
of the blessings of tranquillity. In the eastern world
we greatly fear that the policy of the last ten years has
weakened rather than extended permanently the influ-
ence of British councils and of British arms. We are
scarcely more disposed to congratulate ourselves upon
our position with respect to the powers of Europe.
Can we or dare we at this moment withdraw from our
present watchful attitude in the Mediterranean ? We
fear not; and yet what is our present position in ano-
ther quarter of the globe ? Obviously an insecure and
threatening one. Even whilst we write a blow may
have been struck in the United States which at once
and inevitably plunges us into a war—a war of supre-
macy too—with that country ; a war which must de-
solate an entire continent, prostrate in ruins its cities,
annihilate a vast and mutually profitable commerce,
and strew the Atlantic with its wrecks ; and into such
a war we must embark whilst our fleet—the main arm
upon which we can rely for success—is scattered over
the eastern seas—(waging a freebooting warfare in
China)—or pent up in the Mediterranean to restrain
the aggressive spirit of France, whose millions pant
for an opportunity to break loose and trample once
more the battle fields of Europe.

In such a prospect surely there is nothing upon
which we can congratulate ourselves. We may, in-
deed, by the interposition of Providence, evade its
present threatening aspect. The mercy of an American
mob may stay the impending torrent in its course.
American law may prove stronger than Lynch law ;
and a legal technicality or a judicial quibble may
snatch our countryman M`Leod from the clutch of
the harpies, who thirst for his blood, as the means of
precipitating a war between the United States and the
people of their fatherland. But, in any case, that di-
plomacy can never merit anything except execration
and contempt, which has thus reduced into deper,ldence
upon mere accident the momentous question of " peace
or war" between two friendly nations, bound up toge-
ther in a common interest, speaking the same language
and .sprung from a common stock; and from whose
hostile collision may flow such calamitous results to
the cause of true liberty, ,order, and peace, throughout
the world !

We have no fear of England, 1 towever, in such. a
struggle as the implacable spirit of a portion of the

people of the United Stated may provoke. Under the
manly guidance of Conservative statesman, we have
no dread that the British lion will quail before the
American eagle, or the British ensign grow pale before
the star-spangled banner of our brother of the West.
But we cannot contemplate the results which must
attend the course of such a quarrel without a shudder.
War—such a war at least as England must wage if
she fight at all—is no longer a game to be entered
upon as lightly as of old, but one of a far more devas-
tating and terrific nature. We have now engines of
destruction at command, compared with which those
of the last century were but the weapons of a jousting-
field. War has now enlisted in its aid the mighty
powers of steam, and the discoveries of science ; and if

" Freedom shrieked as Koskiusko fell,"

her sister angels, Humanity and Peace, may indeed
bewail at the sound of the first hostile cannon which
breaks the stillness of the Atlantic, whether fired by
an American or a British arm !

We proceed to the second part of the charge against
Lord Stanley, namely, that he has failed to vindicate
the order of landlords to which he belongs. In what
respect he has " failed," we have sought in vain to
discover. Failures of this sort we should take to be
much more damaging to the party in whose favour
they were supposed to he made, than to the author of
them ; and should we be amongst his lordship's back-
ers when next he comes in collision with the gentry
who advocate the doctrine and practice of "free trade,"
we should desire nothing better than that he should
commit just such another failure as he is charged with
having been guilty of in his last speech at Lancaster.
His lordship commenced his vindication of the ex-
isting law, by not only denying that it is the cause of
the distress complained of, but by pointing out the
source to which he conceived this distress is justly and
rightly attributable. How could these corn laws, said
he, be the cause of the distress, since these same laws
were in forte during a time of the greatest prosperity ?
From 1831 to 1841, the exports of our manufactures
have nearly doubled. The years 1834, 1835, and 1836
were years of great, nay, of extravagant prosperity—
so great, that in 1896 the poor law commissioners
published an account that at that moment, in Man-
chester and the neighbourhood, so great was the de-
mand for labour, that, in addition to all the manufac-
turing establishments then in being, there were then
in progress mills and machinery to the value of three
millions sterling; and that, in the course of this and
the following year, there would be a demand for 80,000
additional hands in the manufacturing district sur-
rounding Manchester alone. He goes on to fill up this
picture. Everything favoured this state of factitious
prosperity, till at length the markets of the world were
glutted, and the fever passed away, leaving the patient
distressed and exhausted. All this time the corn laws
were in existence, and no whisper of complaint was
heard against them. With what face, then, can those
same marvellously prosperous parties of 1836 turn
round now, and say that the corn laws are the cause
of embarrassment, so manifestly derived from a differ-

ent quarter ?
But, taking it as admitted that these laws have not
produced the distress of 1841, we are yet called upon
to show that they would not be a remedy for it. On
this head the noble lord begins by adverting, first, to
the hand-loom weavers, and he contends that the re-
sult of an alteration of the existing laws, with respect
to the price of corn, would have no effect whatever
upon them. The origin of their fallen condition was
the introduction of machinery, and no alteration of the
corn laws can repair it, because these poor people
would still have to meet that ruinous and insurmount-
able competition. But even if, says his lordship, there
was any trifling increase in the amount of labour de-
manded from the hand-loom weavers, such is the su-
perabundance of labour in the market, such are the
multitudes who are only half employed, and those who
are wholly unemployed, that their competition for em-
ployment would necessarily and naturally tend to keep
down to its necessarily low level the price by which
their labour is remunerated in the market. The mul-
titude of farm-labourers, who would necessarily be
thrown out of employment, must also be remembered ;
and then it may be fairly left to any ordinary under-
standing, whether, upon these premises, a repeal of the
corn duties would be more likely to prove a remedy
for, or an aggravation of, the existing distress.
His lordship next contends at some length that a
shifting duty has the tendency to maintain steadiness
of price. That prices should be unvarying for an ar-
ticle whose production depends upon the seasons, is
manifestly an attainment beyond human power; but,
under the operation of the existing laws, there have
been less fluctuations in the price of corn in this coun-

try than there have been in any country in Europe,
with the exception of Belgium. In America the fluc-
tuations in the course of the last four or five years
have been considerably greater; and in the markets
of New York and Philadelphia, the price of corn has
been considerably higher than in the markets of Li-
verpool and London. Steadiness of price, and com-
parative cheapness, (cheapness at least in comparison
with an Bs. fixed duty,) have resulted from the existing
laws ; and producing such advantages, his lordship
concludes that it is most unwise to depart from that
sound and wholesome principle which has been the
leading object of the existing corn-laws, namely, to
uphold such a permanent and fixed price of corn at
home, as may enable us, not in all years and upon all
occasions, to supply the fair wants of our population
at a reasonable price, but which shall enable a large
proportion of the lands of this country to be cultivated
with a profit, and furnish a supply of corn, in some
years adequate, in most years nearly so, to the wants
of the population ; and, at the same time, not prohibit-
ing the importation of foreign corn, but so regulating
it, that, according to the law, every necessity for it
here should produce its importation from abroad.
His lordship next adverts to the question, at what

prices corn could be imported from abroad ; and re-

fers to the return furnished by the British Consuls
from the principal ports of Europe, from which, under
a moderate fixed duty, it might be expected that there
might be introduced, upon the average, 2,222,000
quarters of foreign wheat annually. Under our pre-
sent system we have obtained that supply whenever
we wanted it. And here there is a remarkable passage
in his lordship's speech—so very remarkable indeed,
that we shall neither abridge, nor condense, but pre-
sent it to our readers in his lordship's own words :
" Whenever that corn [viz. foreign] has been cheaper than
at home, that corn has not been poured in at the moment to
inundate us with an unwonted supply. Whence do we draw
our corn ? Chiefly from the markets of Germany and Russia.
Let us hear a word from Russia. From Russia the consul

tells you that in average years the export from Petersburg
would be from 175,000 to 210,000 imperial Quarters ; and the
price free on board at Petersburg, 395. Id. per quarter ; with
freight and charges about 3s. 6d. more ; making the import
price here about 455. without any duty at all. That is the
ordinary state of things; and that is the amount which, in
common years, might be calculated upon at Petersburg. But
now comes a very great year, and corn is low here ; it is down
at 325. in England ; and what happens ? There is at the same
time a very prosperous harvest in Russia, and we are told
that in one year one single province in Russia sent down to
Petersburg 38 millions of quarters of corn. The average
supply which can be afforded is about 200,000 quarters ; but
in one year, from one province, there was sent down to Peters-
burg 38 millions of quarters of corn. What was the price of
that in the market? Why, it was sold in the market of Pe-
tersburg in that year, at the price of 13s. the imperial quar-
ter. The average and ordinary price there is 395.; but in that
year, owing only to the large supply, the price was 13s. Under
a fixed duty of Bs., or under no duty at all, the British grower
never could be guaranteed against such an importation, at the
time wheat is selling here at 395. • and when, in consequence
of this enormous influx, he has been led to abandon the cul-
tivation of wheat altogether, then comes a reverse, and the
following year, wheat coming to an average price of 395. in-
stead of 13s. at Petersburg, and instead of 38 millions quar-
ters, 200,000 quarters is the whole supply upon which this
country has to depend from Petersburg. Now, there is the
effect of the fixed duty—and there, but to a greater and more
ruinous extent, is the effect of no duty at all ;—that in one
year you have corn imported at a price which renders it im-
possible to cultivate it with profit an this country, and when
by au enormous admission at that price some year, you have
discouraged, disheartened, and ruined the farmer—then comes
a short supply in the markets of the world, and prices rise to
what may then be called starvation prices in this country."
We have now come nearly to the close of this most
masterly speech, and yet, in point of valuable argu-
ment, much remains behind. The discomfited leaguers
indeed talk of his lordship's "admissions," but we find
him making none in the slightest degree serviceable to
their cause ; they are entirely of their own cutting and
carving ; in the speech, fairly read and fairly inter-
preted, there is not one on which they have the small-
est occasion to plume themselves.
We now come to the highly-interesting question of
" reciprocity," and the benefit which our manufactu-
ring industry would probably derive from abolishing
the restrictions on free trade in foreign corn. We
shall here quote his lordship in extenso :
" It is assumed," says our noble lord, " that, if you admit
foreign corn under all circumstances, you must have an un-

limited free export for the produce of your manufacturing in,
dustry. That is assumed, as a fact, but it is not a fact ; for
the policy of other" countries interferes with the ordinary in-
terchange of different commodities. It is the policy of Ger-
many, of Russia, and of France, to maintain their own manu-
factures, and to impose protective duties upon them, as
against your labour and manufacturing industry. It is non-
sense to tell me, that you have set them the example by your
restrictive system. The question is, whether this principle
does prevail in France, Germany, and Russia; and whether
they are determined to maintain a protection for their own
manufactures as against the manufacturing industry of this
country. If they are, it is no use to say that your manufac-
tures might go out cheaper, or might go out at all, if other
countries agree in point of policy, that they will not intro-
duce them into their markets. Now, the late government
was negociating a treaty with France. France was anxious
that we should import, not her grain, for she does not export
it, at least very little, but the brandies and wines of France.
She expressed herself very willing to receive', in return, as
much produce of our manufacturing industry. But when
the question was asked as to British cotton goods, she de-
clined. ' No, it is just exactly those which we are not pre-
pared to introduce, and it does not suit our policy that we
should take them ; and though you may take our brandies
and wines, our policy says that cotton shall not be in-
troduced into France, upon a corresponding reduction of
duties.' 'Why, the case is the same in Germany. Some
years ago, fourteen or fifteen years since, there was
a large reduction in the importation duties on foreign
wool. The principal portion of that wool came from Ger-
many; and its importation was for the benefit of our
manufacturers—though it was complained of by our wool
growers—but we did largely assist the introduction of
foreign wool into this country. What was the result ? That
the Germans took more of our manufactures? Not at all.
The export of our manufactures have fallen off, in conse-
quence of her wool being infinitely more important to Ger-
many than her corn; and at this moment the amount of our
imports from Germany considerably exceeds the amount of
our exports to Germany. Has there been any indication
that Russia will take our manufactures, our manufactured
goods, upon the unrestricted introduction of her corn into
this country ? I know of none such. Now, therefore, I
don't think that you must assume, that the unlimited im-
portation of foreign eons will produce an unlimited con-
sumption of British manufactures. But even if it-did, lam
afraid, looking again to the distresses which are suffered by
the manufacturing community, I am afraid that such is the
power, the elasticity, the capability of production in this
country, such is the enterprise, and such the competition—l
sin afraid that, do what you please, legislate as you will, it is
an inseparable condition from a great commercial country,
that there should be a periodical fluctuation, that there
should be periodical periods of prosperity, and periodical
periods of distress ; for the produce of prosperity leads to
overtrading; overtrading leads to exhaustion; exhaustion
leads to a cessation of the demand for labour leads to neces-
sarily urgent and most painful distress upon the part of the
labouring community."

This is another specimen of his lordship's " failure"
in defending what the Mercury calls the cause of his
order, or his class ; but in truth his lordship may have
failed in that view of the question, for it is obvious
that he treats the question not as one of a class interest,
but as one in which the whole community is equally
and alike concerned. To maintain his cause in this
aspect of it, seems to have been that which gave him
most concern ; nor can he with reason feel much dis-
appointed if the class interest in cotton, refuse to give
him the credit of success.
His last argument is an appeal on the character and
quality of factory labour, which naturally connects
itself with the question of applying a new stimulus to
that species of industry, supposing that repealing the
corn duties, (contrary to all that has been said and
proved,) would produce that effect.
We will not, however, go at length into this point
here ; we are sensible of its great importance, and
would consider it separately; but we have, indepen-
dently of this important consideration, we conceive,
recited enough from the eloquent and convincing
speech of the noble lord at Lancaster, to show how
perfectly ridiculous and absurd is the talk of the free-
traders and their organ the Mercury, that the noble
lord had in any one iota failed to substantiate the
two points which he undertook to maintain. The
fact is, there never was a cause more ably, more clearly,
and we may add, more beautifully, and triumphantly
established.

A correspondent of the London Times supplies that
journal with what he calls " a plan of war " in the
event of M‘Leod's trial leading to such a contingency
between this country and the United States. The
writer acknowledges himself to be a civilian, and his
plan of making war is decidedly of the civil kind, for
it purposes an abstinence from all military operations
against the southern states of the union, and con-
templates the possibility of maintaining relations of
peace with them, whilst war should rage with unmiti-
gated fury against the northern. The suggestion is
certainly a good one; all must admit that half an enemy
would be more easily dealt with than a whole one ; to
" divide and govern " is an old and established maxim ;
the only point on which any doubt remains is, whether
we should be able to reduce the theory to practice, as
we must depend so much for its success upon the will
of others. True, we might abstain from committing
hostilities upon the southern states, if we choose ; but
we could not force them to continue peaceful relations
with us, no more than we could force the Chinese to
take the opium of India, if they were otherwise
minded. '['he projector of this plan, however, argues
fairly, and bases his arrangement on his certain views
of human nature, which in ordinary times, and in
ordinary circumstances, are usually justified by ex-
perience. He conceives that a war with the States
should be directed towards two objects; first, the
breaking up of the union by detaching the southern
states from the northern and middle; and second, the
destruction of the resources of the northern and
middle states :
" Instead of threatening to raise the slaves of the south, to
land black regiments from the West Indies, &c., by which
proceedings she would bind the south to the northfor ever,
Great Britain," he argues, " should declare, that having no
quarrel with the south, and fully sensible that the interests
of that portion of the states are identical with her own, she
will not be ungenerous enough either to accept war front
them, nor to wage it against them, for the present ; that her
quarrel is only with the northern states, and that for a whole
year she will, notwithstanding any provocation she may re-
ceive from the southern states, abstain from all acts of hos-
tility towards them and theirs.
" Great Britain, at the same time, should institute the
most powerful and rigid blockade of the northern ports from
the confines of Nova Scotia down to the Potomac.
. " The effect of this proceeding would be, that in the course
of two cotton crops Great Britain would have ruined all the
cotton factories of New England—have transferred the car-
rying trade from the shipowners of the north to those of
Great Britain—and have finally and irrecoverably detached
the southern from the northern states, thus splitting the
country into two separate nations."

The feasibility of this scheme, he contends for, on
the ground that it would be for the interest of the
southern states to forward its policy. "It would give
them," he says, " what they have not yet attained—
viz., intercourse with England, without transactions
commercially and monetarily passing through the
channel of New York ; and when they should see
themselves unusually flourishing, in consequence of
this exemption from war, and perceive that, if they per-
sist in forcing England to involve them in the war,
they would speedily involve themselves in peculiar
ruin ; they will first all declare their neutrality, and
finally detach themselves from the confederation."
The suggestion is, on the whole, worthy of conside-
ration ; but we are strongly inclined to think that the
plan will have to be laid by for some other opportunity,
for minatory as affairs may look at present, it is our
decided conviction that we shall have no immediate

war. We should remark that the Times assumes a
higher tone on this affair than it was wont to support
during the late ministry; and we rejoice in the fact,
taking it as an evidence of the altered bearing which
this country will assume towards encroaching foes
under a truly-national and conservative government.
He concludes a leader in Tuesday's number with the
following spirited and stirring passage :
" If the Americans imagine that the equitable settlement
of this question depended solely upon the elaborate farce
which they have played off at Utica, they are wofully mis-
taken. This country cares not a fig for the timid trimming
of their broad-brimmed jury. Of what is due to British
subjects and British interests, our own government shall
alone be permitted to judge. Her majesty's crown and dig-
nity have sustained an aggravated insult in the person of Mr.
M`Leod. Reparation, in some shape or other, cannot be
dispensed with. The liberation of the insulted prisoner
offers no indemnity for the past, and no security for the fu-
ture. War we do not desire. Nay, short of a sacrifice of
national honour, we would adopt almost any alternative to
avoid it. But Lord Aberdeen does not stand in need of our
humble counsels to direct him in the path of duty. With
such a minister, equally temperate and uncompromising, we
cannot doubt that if actual hostilities be providentially
averted, the Americans will at least be taught a lesson which
in future will lead them to a truer estimate of their self-con-
ceit and arrogance than they yet appear to have formed.
Pompous bombast in this quarter of the world has now gone
out of fashion."

AN EMIGRANT VESSEL WRECKED.—The Urania, which
sailed from this port yesterday week, for Sydney, got aground
on West Hoyle Bank in the course of the following night.
The passengers by this unfortunate vessel suffered severely
before they were rescued from the wreck. Few, if any, of
them had been at sea before ; and they were on deck, ex-
pecting every moment to be their last, from the vessel strik-
ing, at ten p.m., until noon of the following day, when the
life-boats were able to reach them and bring them to land.
Considering the addition they made to the number of inha-
bitants of that township, they were very hospitably received.
Every loaf and piece of meat was put into immediate requi-
sition, after which from about eighty to one hundred pro-
ceeded direct to Liverpool.
.The only hotel at the Hoose
being too small to stow them in any manner, in the course
of the evening a large body were removed to the hotel at
Hoylake, belonging to Messrs. Hugh, Williams. and John
Barton, who kindly offered it for the purpose. Fires being
immediately lighted, and straw obtained, 157 were lodged for
the night, in, to them, comparative luxury. Messrs. William
Smith and Son, the charterers, have humanely determined to
"actual them until another ship is provided for the unfortu-
ates ; and we are happy to bear testimony to the abundance
n d quality of the supply furnished them.