The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-17 00:00:00

produce able and honest statesmen, then there is no-
thing which can ; if Conservatism, carried out in do-
mestic and in state policy, cannot make a happy people
and a great nation, then every known principle must
also fail to do so. Do we complain of dulness of
trade and dulness of prospects at the present moment,
then answer this question—is it to Conservatism or to
Liberalism that it is attributable ? We desire to in-
dulge in no quackery on this head ; we know of no al-
chemy that can turn lead to gold ; we do not pretend
that there is " magic" in Conservatism; and if " man
be born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards," we are
perfectly sure that it is not in Conservatism to reverse
his doom; but we do say, that Conservatism, rightly
understood and resolutely acted upon, is able to raise
our country to the highest degree of political and so-
cial happiness of which it is capable.

Men, in this our free and enlightened country, are
so much in the habit of doing what seemeth good in
their own eyes, that we expect no credit for conceding
that the sundry ministers of the conventicle have a
perfect right to meet in conclave at Manchester, and
debate upon free trade or any other topic they please.
They may meet in " conference," of course, if they
please; and for any effect that their "conference" will
produce upon the corn-laws, we are quite at ease upon
the subject. Our object has been to arraign the prin-
ciple much more than to attack the men, and to point
out to our readers a strong and noticeable evidence of
the political working of Dissent.

It would be uncharitable and unfair to attribute to
all the conferring ministers corrupt or improper mo-
tives in holding the political synod in question. We
do nothing of the kind. We prefer supposing that
they act from a good though mistaken motive—that
they are quite sincere in thinking that they have com-
mitted themselves to a good work—and that they act
in perfect accordance with their own principles. It is
the fairer way of judging as regards the men, and, by
such interpretation of their actions, we do not weaken,
but greatly fortify our own case.
In our last paper we had the satisfaction of inserting
the very admirable letter of a correspondent, signed
" Viator." It supplied some interesting information
on the statistics of Dissent and Churchmanship from
the neighbouring principality, confirmatory of a pro-
position which we ventured to state in broad terms in
this journal some time previously. At Newtown, in
Nlontgomeryshire, he found the vicar an absentee,
Dissent rife, and political Radicalism (as abundantly
evinced at the last election) in the ascendant. At
Welshpool, in the same county, he observes the " ap-
pearance of order, respectability, and a high state of
Conservatism ;" but here the CHURCH is ascendant,
" being favoured with a resident vicar, who, with his
curates, labours in the vineyard." His next visit was
to Wrexham, in Denbighshire. "In this town,"
writes our correspondent, " Dissent and Radicalism
appear predominant. And no wonder; for, on inquiry,
I found that, until the present respected incumbent,
there had been no resident vicar for many years."
Further inquiry would only tend still more to confirm
and elucidate the principle. We should like to see a
table of this sort compiled for all England—a table
which would shew the true and practical extent of the
connection between Church and State. The theory of
the thing is to our mind so certain that we need no
proof of it; but we should like, nevertheless, to see it
tested by actual inquiry. It seems to us incredible
that in any town or borough where a Radical or Radi-
cals are returned, the Church can be in a very efficient
state in that locality; we would pronounce, a priori,
that it is not so. In an opposite state of things we
would, of course, argue the reverse; we would, at all
events, venture to preaflirm that where there is an ac-
five and faithful Church ministry, political Conserva-
tism is not far off.

But to return from this little digression. We say
that the preachers of Dissent, in congregating at Man-
chester to aid in the free-trade excitement, are only
" labouring in their vocation," and as, from their
Dissenting principles, we should expect them to do—
that their political conference is a legitimate fruit of
Dissent itself ; and moreover, that we ought to thank,
rather than complain of, them for affording us so
striking a manifestation of Dissenting tendencies.
The conference is in itself a condemnation of Vo-
luntaryism. The Voluntary principle is destructive to
the mental independence of the minister, whose main-
tenance is entirely dependent on the contributions of
his followers ; and he must find himself much more
frequently their slave than their leader. In the instance
before us, the ministers are manifestly but the tools and
most obedient humble servants of their congregations,
and are thrust upon a duty whose performance can
have no other effect than to degrade their sacred office.
We dispute not their right as simple laymen to sit in
council upon the operation of the protecting duties on
corn ; but when they assemble as ministers of religion
to debate upon the subject, and hold a council ex-
clusively ministerial to consider it—then, we say, that
they fall miserably from their " high estate," and set
an example at variance with the sublime precepts and
injunctions of the Christian Scriptures. To provide
for the temporal wants of the people is a fit subject
of care to the temporal ruler—but it is not the pro-
vince of the spiritual instructor. He has not only to
teach, but to set an example of great tranquillity on
such matters. The gospel precepts on the subject are,
"labour not for the meat which perisheth, hut for that
meat which endureth unto everlasting life"—" take no
thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put
on."—" The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger;
but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good
thing"—and we say that it is a wretched coming down
in men who have once put their hands to the plough,
and committed themselves to the teaching of this
heavenly doctrine, to enter into cabals and join in mere
worldly strife, about affairs of trade, or to carry some
point of doubtful efficacy, even as regards that object
concerning which they are forbidden to be " careful"
or to " labour." Such conduct is wrong, very wrong
—wrong because it is factious, and has a tendency to
misdirect, disturb, and inflame the public mind ; but
doubly wrong, because it would seem to cast a doubt
upon the truths of holy writ, and raise a suspicion that
these " ministers" did not themselves believe in the
lessons which they have bound themselves to teach.

But the truth of Scripture is too strong for any sus-
picion which the conduct of such parties can raise
against it; nay it is remarkably confirmed in some
matters with which they have much to do; for we say
that if their religious ministration had been in any de-
gree successful, the cry for " bread" would not be
near so urgent as it is, nor woutd the necessity for it
exist. We request attention to the facts detailed in
the subjoined extracts, which we take from our Lon-
don contemporary the Record :
" A manufacturer in Manchester has informed us, that
after an extended period of remarkable prosperity, he in-
stituted a careful investigation to discover how many of his
FIFTEEN HUNDRED WORKMEN were doing well in conse-
quence of the high wages they had for years received, The
result was this, that, with the exception of seven individuals,
the whole were poorer, more wretched and helpless, than at
the commencement of the period ! The other fact is this—
that there is no place• in which the wages of the operatives
are statedly so high as in Sheffield, (from an obvious cause
which we need not stop to state,) and it is also a fact, that in
no place does vice so awfully luxuriate. We have it on un-
questionable authority, that in one extensive parish nine out
of every ten male adults of the working population are
habitual drunkards; and that this even is not the worst, for
that in another, it is estimated by one highly competent to
form a correct judgment, that fourteen-fifteenths of the
adult male population of this class are confirmed drunkards."
Our contemporary recites these facts to illustrate the
position "that high wages, without moral culture, in-
stead of improving the happiness of a people, further
and grievously deteriorate it--by exchanging poverty
for vice, and vice again surely issuing in deeper poverty
and more woeful destitution." And surely they prove
it, and not only that, but clearly indicate that the mi-
nister of religion, if he will do his duty, possesses a
much more efficacious mode of supplying the people
with bread, in his ministerial capacity, than he can
possibly have as a secular brawler about free trade, and
a debater even in " conference" about the corn duties.

"It is the fashion," says the London Times of Satur-
day, "with certain of our contemporaries to accuse the
Times of inconsistency upon every subject on which
we have the misfortune or the honour (as the case may
be) to differ from them." Now we are inclined to
think that these charges would not be at all so " fa-
shionable," if there were not so much occasion given

ior them. In the matter of the Protestant Associa—
tion, to which we adverted in our last, he pleads that
thou gli very becoming in the Times and the public,
(and we hope we may add without offence, Protestant)
press, to take up the subject of the late election out-
rages in Ireland, it was "improper and inexpedient, in
":the highest degree, for a professed theological body
" like the Protestant Association, to meddle with the
" matter ;" and he adds, " the world may be ill-natured,
but we believe it gives the gentlemen of that Associa-
tion no more credit for zeal for freedom of election, than
it does to the Romish priesthood." Further, he alleges
that the Association is sweeping and indiscriminating
in its censures of the Romanist priesthood; whereas
the Times always " distinguishes," and applies his epi-
thets only where they are deserved.

Now we say that this is no answer to the charge of
flagrant inconsistency preferred, nor any justification of
the unjust attack so foolishly and wantonly made on
the Protestant Association. That it is a professed
" theological" body, and therefore we suppose exclu-
sively so, is a mere imagination of the Times' writer
himself. Doubtless it does connect all our most va-
lued civil institutions with the maintenance of the Pro-
testant religion, and unquestionably in resisting the
dangers which it conceives we have reason to appre-
hend from Popish influence, it looks a little further
than to the mere outward exhibitions on which the laws
of the land can fasten ; but to say that it is on this ac-
count so much a theological body as to be debarred
from all political interference in behalf of outraged Pro-
testants, or insulted liberty, is a gratuitous assumption
which no reasonable person would be expected to al-
low. Then the attack upon the clerical members con-
veyed in the School for Scandal style of inuendo—that
the "world" gives them no more credit for "zeal for
freedom of election than it does to the Romish priest-
hoed ; why this, we say, is a contemptible slander far
more worthy of a Radical, or Popish journal, than of
the thundering Times. But, lastly, there is the charge
of " want of discrimination."

"As for the Protestant Association," says the thun-
derer, " they draw no such distinctions as we do, and
it is a theological and not political zeal which causes
them to represent Popery as something worse than the
worship of Mahomet, or Juggernaut, or Jupiter.
We are to understand by this, that there is some-
thing disqualifying and condemnatory in the name of
"Protestant "—and that to associate to a protest against
Popish practices, any thing of the odium theologicum
against the religion of Popery, is to put the party so
doing hors de combat, and send him into conventual
retirement. Why this is what the Protestants of Ire-
land have been for a long time complaining of ; they
say that they suffer persecution for the name of Pro-
testant, and that if they would only renounce it, they
might enjoy much exemption from their present an-
noyances, and a considerable amount of quiet and in-
dulgence ; but they add, they cannot, and never will
surrender it; and that it is as Protestants they look for
protection from a Conservative government, and the
blessings of the British constitution—and not other-
wise. But if the doctrine now put forth by the Times
gain an ascendancy, it is plain, that as Protestants they
must expect nothing. To be Protestant is to be
" theological," and to be " theological" is to put one-
self out of the pale of political relief. So sayeth the
Times; but the doctrine is unsound, and the Times
stands convicted, as a Conservative journal, of mon-
strous inconsistency in maintaining it. We have not
yet come, we trust, to the time when a man is to be
ashamed of the Protestant faith, and to sutler civil dis•
qualification and proscription for calling himself a Pro-
testant. Why, this, if it be not the tyranny of Popery,
is the tyranny of Liberalism—and one of these tyran-
nies is in our mind just as bad as the other.

We take much interest in attending to the move-
ments of the Mercury, now that it has evidently fallen
into the sere and yellow leaf. We feel ourselves as it
were attending at his bedside, and we anxiously catch
at any words that seem to convey any indication of the
state of his soul—for that is now the only matter with
him worthy of a moment's concern. A short time
since, we lament to say, he was heard to declare that,
as he had begun a Liberal, and had lived all his life a
Liberal, so he was determined to die one. The hearers
were shocked at the thought of anything in the shape
of humanity leaving the world in so hardened a state ;
and for our part we gave him up. However, we should
never despair even in the most seemingly obstinate
and hopeless cases; we observed a favourable sign last
week—he begins to make confessions, a disposition in
which he should by all means be encouraged. We
have taken down a very interesting one which he made
on Friday, and which amounts to a plain avowal that
he is now fully aware that he has spent a useless and
unprofitable life, and that, after his more than thirty
years' labours, Liverpool owes him nothing. His
words are these :

" It is with 'deep regret that we are obliged to admit the
disgraceful and humiliating fact, that, in this our native
town, intolerance and the absence of true Christian feeling
are more disgustingly prominent than in any other town in
the kingdom, or any part of the world with the history of
which we are at all acquainted."

So ends all his teaching ! For thirty years and up-
wards has he had the instructing of the burgesses—
for thirty years and upwards has he been their school-
master at home and abroad—and now, at the termina-
tion of his long and ill-spent life, he is forced to pub-
lish the humiliating fact, that, above all towns, Liver-
pool is most distinguished for " intolerance and the
absence of true Christian feeling." It is a foul bird,
saith the proverb—but the saying is somewhat
musty. The proposition is in itself false; but the
penitent's own conception of its truth is all that is ma-
terial to our purpose, for it shews a burning conscious-
ness upon his soul, that all his philosophy (falsely so
called) has produced no other fruits than " intolerance
and the absence of true Christian feeling" among his
disciples.
We should not omit to state, that with this solemn
confession the octogenarian mixed up much raving
about " meddling Irish Orange parsons," Popish
priests, and other matters which we have not time to
attend to just now, but to which we purpose adverting
in our next.

THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AGITATORS ARE NOT
" THE MANUFACTURING INTEREST."

In the various discussions upon which we have been called
upon to enter of late, upon the subject of the corn-laws, we
have made use of a term—" the manufacturing interest"—
which, we fear, is calculated seriously to mislead the public,
as to who are the real parties with whom we are at issue.
The men of the anti-corn-law league—the clamourers for
free trade in slave sugar—the conveners of the reverend con-
clave, which is this day met in a neighbouring town to hurl
the anathemas of dissent against the persons and pursuits of
our agriculturists—are not " the manufacturing interest" of
Great Britain, however eagerly they may affect to speak in
its behalf. These men are not "the manufacturing body"—
the producers of the nation's wealth. The free trade agitators
of the manufacturing districts are but a section of that body;
a fungus off-shoot which has grown upon it, marring its
healthy developement, and disfiguring its proportions ; and
the voice which is at this moment being raised as the voice
of that body is, we venture.to say, unsympathised in by the
far greater portion of those who do, in reality, constitute it.
To those who are intimately acquainted with the manufac-
turing districts this is no new information ; but the public,
we believe, is a little in error upon this point, and there are
parties sufficient who are not disinclined to keep them in
error. The circumstance that the large manufacturing
towns return, with few exceptions, anti-corn-law members
is esteemed satisfactory evidence that the majority of the
wealth and intelligence of these towns are favourable to the.
.r
ministerial propositions. e believe, however, the fact to•
be precisely the contrary. The substantial portion of our-
manufacturers are strongly Conservative, not only of the.
itu
itself,
but of the corn-laws, which are repre-
se
onnt
se
td
to tio
press heavily against their interests. The great
constitution
so
bulk of those engaged in the home trade regard the con-
tinued prosperity of the agriculturist as essential to the
stability of manufacturing pursuits ; and of those even who.
are embarked altogether in foreign trade, a considerable por-
tion arc equally inclined to view the proposed free trade mea-
sures of the government as suicidal and destructive of
British interests.

That such is the fact—that the bulk of the property em-
barked in manufacturing pursuits is ranged on the side of the
constitution and of native agriculture—the recent contest
in the West Riding of Yorkshire, with the abandonment, as
a forlorn hope, of any opposition to the present members.
for South Lancashire, is sufficient evidence. We believe,
too, that an examination of the comparative status, both as
regards wealth and respectability of the parties who voted at
the recent elections in our manufacturing boroughs,
would
prove the same fact. 'We admit that agitation and the influ-
ence inseparable from large undertakings, affording extensive
employment to the working classes, have conferred a present
numerical superiority upon the ministerial faction in most