The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-12-15 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We shall not forget the hint of " RA," who advises us to
" show up" the reformed system of granting licenses. We
have already expressed our opinion on this subject with
some degree of freedom.
We cannot pledge ourselves to the immediate insertion of
poetical favours; nr must our acknowledgment of their
receipt be construed into a promise that they shall appear.
The letter of "J. Duckett" has been received. We have
not yet had time to examine the enclosures.
We have once more to request our correspondents to write
on one side only of their paper. The neglect of this hint
has frequently caused us to reject communications which
might otherwise have been accepted.
" The Dream of the Lonely One" has been received.
We shall avail ourselves of the hints contained in the letter
of " L," on " Railway Accidents."
We do not profess to answer questions on the solution of
which bets are pending.

Just Published, Price 45.,
A POLL BOOK

FOR THE LAST
MUNICIPAL ELECTION ;

Skewing the Duplicate Qualifications of the VOTERS,
and the WARDS in which they polled. The Lists
have been examined with the Polling Papers in the
possession of the Mayor. This publication, which
has been compiled with the utmost care, will be found
of great utility as

A BOOK OF REFERENCE,

and will be
.found of service to the several Ward
Committees in carrying on the Canvass for the ensu-

mg year.
Printed and sold by LACE and ADDISON, Standard-
eice ; and sold also by other Booksellers.

ETA Ithrrpool thifOarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 15, 1840

By an extraordinary express from Toulon, the whole
of the correspondence between Commodore Napier
and Boghos Bey, relative to the submission of Mehe-
met Ali, has been received. Commodore Napier's
first letter, which is published at length in the Morning
Herald of yesterday, conveys a request that Mehemet
Ali would send back all the Emirs and Shieliks of
Lebanon, who were sent to Alexandria in the month of
July, by order of the authorities of Syria, and that he
would give up immediately, and without any conditions,
the Ottoman fleet, and withdraw his troops from Syria.
Commodore Napier enforces these demands by an
appeal to what has been done in Syria, where 6,000
Turks and a handful of marines have taken Saida and
Beyrout, defeated the Egyptian army in three different
actions, taken 10,000 prisoners and deserters, caused
all the seaports to be evacuated, taken all the passes of
the Taurus, and the mountains of Lebanon, and
reduced Acre, after a bombardment of only three hours.
He then alludes to the discontent which prevailed in
the Egyptian army, and advises his highness to reflect
that " Alexandria might be taken as Acre was taken."
Boghos Bey, in his reply, assures the Commodore that
Mehemet Ali had already anticipated the wishes of the
Allies with regard to the liberty of the Druse Chief-
tains, and expresses the gratitude of the Pacha for the
proposition regarding the hereditary government of
Egypt. Boghos Bey then states that it had never been
the intention of Mehemet Ali to retain the fleet of the
Sultan. The whole communication of Boghos Bey is
of a deprecatory character. Commodore Napier, in
his reply, enforces the necessity for the immediate
evacuation of Syria, and the unconditional surrender
of the Ottoman fleet, and, at the same time, states
that he would not insist upon the departure of the
fleet for Constantinople until the Pacha be guaranteed
in the hereditary government of Egypt. On these
conditions Commodore Napier consents to suspend
hostilities. In a second letter Boghos Bey expresses
his satisfaction at the assurances given respecting the
hereditary government of Egypt, and promises the
immediate restitution of the fleet, on receiving the
official notification of the allied powers. He then
states that the Viceroy was ready to order his son,
Ibrahim Pacha, to concentrate his troops in Syria, in
order to their falling back upon Egypt. To the latter
proposition Commodore Napier replies, that the troops
were already concentrated, and offers to place at
the disposal of Mehemet Ali a steam-boat to conduct
to Beyrout the officer who might be appointed to carry
the despatch to Ibrahim Pacha. The correspondence
closes with the formal acceptance of this offer on the
part of the Pacha, and with an expression of gratitude
for the Commodore's " care and delicacy in the solu-
tion of the thorny difference" which has given rise to
the recent operations in the east.

We dare say that some of our readers may have
heard of the existence, in a neighbouring town, of an
individual who, by the grace of her Majesty's ministers,
has been enabled to rejoice of late, in the name and
title of Sir Thomas Potter, Knight,—the latter, which
distinguishes him from other Potters, having been con-
ferred upon him at the same period, which enabled
our own Sir Joshua to take precedence of his fellow
reformers in Liverpool. In both cases, we believe,
the title has been fairly earned. Sir Joshua has him-
self done "good service to the state ;" as his various
contributions of money and counsel to our Protector
and Reform Associations, sufficiently evidence. In
this respect, however, he has not come up to the ex-
ample of his compatriot—the knight of Manchester ;
who may be said to have made himself a kind of
_Eleemosynary pump, at whose spout needy radicals of
every grade, from John Thorogood—the church-rate
martyr, to Daniel O'Connell—the great agitator, have
drunk and been filled.

To this same Sir Thomas Potter, Knight—on the
occasion of his retiring from the office of pseudo
mayor of Manchester,—the whit; faction of that whig-
ridden town gave, on Thursday last, what we believe
they dignify by the name of a dinner, but what might
be termed, with greater propriety, a three and sixpenny
scramble for cold meat. The said three and sixpenny
scramble was attended by some six hundred whig
patriots,—a sorry number for an occasion of such
momentous interest ; and amongst the rest by the
members for the borough, Mr. Mark Philips, and Mr.
Greg; by Mr. Gisborne, M. P. for North Derbyshire,
and by Mr. Milner Gibson, M. P. for no place just
now;, but an aspirant hereafter to represent the
borough of Manchester.

We are not going to chronicle the doings at this

wretched affair—to weary our readers with the vapid
impertinences of Mr.. Mark Philips, or the insufferable
boobyism of Mr. Milner Gibson, who assured his sym-
pathizing audience that he "gloried in the appellation
of a Rat !" Our object at present is merely to lay before
our readers the candid admission of Mr. Gisborne—
and to his hearers at this feed evidently an unpalatable
one—that modern liberalism in the House of Commons,
and throughout the country, is at its last gasp! "Our
friends," said Mr. Gisborne, "have one after another
dropped off into the ranks of those who were formerly
our masters, and who before long will be so again.
(Confusion and cries of 'No, no.') Ay but they will
though ! I am not here to flatter you with prospects
which will not be realized. This is the truth; and
although disagreeable for you to hear it, it is not less
disagreeable for me to utter it."

We dare say it was disagreeable for Mr. Gisborne
to utter it, and for his three and sixpenny audience to
listen to so lamentable a confession. For that very
reason it gives us pleasure to add circulation to such
a truth, amongst the thousands of Whig-radicals in
Liverpool who delight in the perusal of our columns.
We have ourselves asserted the same fact over and
over again. We have asserted the fact of this very re-
action, accompanied by proof which would have con-
vinced any thing not absolutely wooden; but we have
not been listened to. A delusion is abroad amongst
our Whig-radical brethren, which will not allow them
to see that their days of political probation have past
by, and that they are about to be laid upon the shelf to
moulder for another half century of hopeless exclusion
from the sweets of office and the sunshine of patronage.
Will they listen to Mr. Gisborne—a member of their
own party and an able one ? We trust they will.

The Manchester Guardian of Saturday last, in re-

plying to our remarks on the sugar duties, reiterates
the assertion that " the time has come when the Bri-
tish public ought no longer to be required to pay dou-
ble prices for their sugars and their coffees, for the be-
nefit, not of the revenue, but of a body of colonial
monopolists," and insinuates that the West India in-
terests have had " a sufficient term of experience" to
warrant the presumption that they cannot produce
those articles on " an adequate scale, and at a reason-
able price." There would be some show of reason in
these assertions if it could be proved that the British
planters are alone to blame for the serious defalcation
which has arisen in the supply of those staples: The
contrary, however, is notoriously the fact. The people
of this country are alone to blame in this matter. If
the abolition of the Negro apprenticeship had not been
precipitated, in compliance with the popular clamour
raised in this country, the planters would have been in
a very different position to that in which they are at
present placed, and the supplies of sugar and coffee
would have been fully adequate to meet the increasing
demands of the British population. It would require
more ingenuity than the editor of the Guardian can
lay claim to, to prove that the planters of the West In-
Wes have evinced any indisposition to supply the Bri-
tish market with those articles. They have not been

guilty of retaining any portion of their stock in order
to produce a rise of prices. They have anxiously for-
warded home their annual crops for immediate sale.
They have found it necessary to do this that they might
be enabled to carry on the cultivation of their estates.
The, real cause of the deficiency in the supplies of su-
gar and coffee, and of the consequent advance in
prices, has been the general indisposition of the Ne-
groes to labour. The planters have not had fair play ;
neither have they had such a term of experience as
would justify us in consigning them to immediate and
irretrievable ruin. The government, urged on by a
set of unreasonable agitators, in this country as well as
in the colonies, has interposed every obstacle in its power
to prevent the British planters from obtaining an
adequate supply of labour on their estates. Let
the restrictions on free immigration be removed for a
few years, and we feel confident that the-West Indies
will yet recover from their depression, and that they
will speedily furnish both sugar and coffee as cheaply
as the Brazils. It remains yet to be proved that free
labour cannot, under any circumstances, compete with
slave labour. The advocates of emancipation have
always maintained that free labour ought to be more
productive than compulsory labour. We do not deny
the position. But let the experiment be carried out.
Let the planters have a fair chance of testing the com-
parative merits of the two systems. Until this is fully
and fairly conceded, it would be an act of gross cruelty
as well as injustice to consign the West Indies to a
state resembling that of their primitive barbarity.

The Manchester Guardian asserts that it is not true
that it has ever proposed, suddenly and at once, to de-
prive the colonial products of all preference in the home
markets. It should, however, be remembered that
even the partial abolition of the discriminating duties
would have the immediate effect of giving a preference
to foreigners in the British market. Even with the
present scale of duties the British planters find great
difficulty in competing with slave-holding foreign states.
The position of the West India proprietors is eminently
critical at the present moment. They have, as yet,
found it impossible to prevail upon the Negroes to set-
tle down to continuous labour, without which the cul-
tivation of sugar especially can never be carried on with
any degree of success. it would, therefore, be highly
ungenerous to take advantage of this precarious and
trying situation, in order to " deal heavy blows and
great discouragements" to the suffering planters. They
ought to have a little breathing time afforded them,
that they may endeavour to realise the promised advan-
tages of the free labour system. In demanding this
respite on their behalf we are merely insisting upon
having the principles of the abolitionists tested in the
rigid school of experience.
We can well afford to smile at the imputation that
the Liverpool Standard " almost lives and moves, and
has his being as the organ of the West India interests."
We really must disclaim the honour which the Guardian
appears so anxious to confer upon us. A reference to
our advertising columns will, we trust, convince our
contemporary that the amount of support which we
derive from the West India interest is exceedingly
limited. With some half dozen exceptions, the West
India merchants very rarely favour us with any of
their advertisements, notwithstanding our persevering
and consistent advocacy of their claims. 'We trust
that the Guardian will take this as a proof of our
disinterestedness in taking up the gauntlet in defence
of the British plantations.
We are glad to find that the Guardian has ventured
to speak its mind freely on the subject of the impor-
tation of slave-grown sugar and coffee, for home

consumption in this country. Our contemporary
boldly avers that " Great Britain does not and dare
not profess so to set herself up as a censor of other
nations, as to refuse to trade with thew on equal
terms, avowedly because their forms of government
permit the existence of slavery." Does she not, at

the present moment, our contemporary asks, permit
the importation of American cotton and tobacco, which
are the products of slave labour? True; but she

does so in virtue of treaties of commerce which were
in existence before slavery was abolished in our own
colonies. tier adherence to those treaties is no reason
why she should extend her countenance to slavery in
other countries, and especially those countries by which
the slave trade is still carried on in all its pristine
atrocity. The people of England are not prepared
thus to stultify their own exertions in the cause of
negro freedom. The strongest opponents of the free
trade in slave-grown produce, for which the Guardian
appears to contend with so much earnestness, will be
found among the ranks of the abolitionists, many of
whom have formally announced their intention to
forego the use of sugar and cofree altogether rather
than admit those articles from slave-holding
countries.
On this subject we beg to refer the Guardian to the
declaration which Mr. O'Connell made, last session,
in his place in Parliament—a declaration which Mr.
T. F. Buxton,
Gurney, Mr. Sturge, Mr. Scoble, and Sir

)t hesitated to reciFoeate at several public
meetings held subsequently. We happen to know
that this feeling of repugnance to the direct encourage-
ment of slavery and the slave trade is daily gaining
ground in all parts of the country, and that it will
eventually prove too powerful to be successfully op-
posed by the band of heartless political economists by
that encouragement is at present advocated.
'We do not deny that " the differential duties are as:
high against foreign free-labour sugar and coffee, art
against foreign slave-grown sugar and coffee." The'
reason of this is well known to every one who is, in the'
least, familiar with commercial affairs. Our existing