The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-12 00:00:00

HAVE CAUSE TO THANK YOU FOR THE DEED.

We mentioned, a few days ago, that the labourers
on the plantations Anandale and Lusignan, in Deme-
rara, had purchased the estate of New Orange Nassau,
in the same colony. Respecting this purchase the
Guiana Times remarks :—" By this transfer of posses-
sion we may safely compute that four hundred effective
persons will be withdrawn from the cultivation of the
staples. We find no fault with the people for trying
to better their station in life; but if these purchases go
on, as go on they will, and we get no immigrants,
what is the colony to come to ? When plantations
lately flourishing under the staples are rank only with
weeds or kitchen vegetables, proclaim through the co-
lony, if you can, without a blush for your rapacity,
that the colonists ought to double your civil list."
We have been informed, through a private source,
upon which we can implicitly rely, that, subsequently
to the date of _the foregoing remarks, the bargain for
the above purchase has been completed, and the money
paid. But a curious coincidence has arisen. The
negroes belonging to New Orange Nassau estate,
and who have been for years residing on it, under
" White" Massa, have positively refused •to come to
any terms to labour for their new sable governors. In
consequence of this " strike," the purchasers of this
property are sending home a petition to her Majesty,
humbly praying that the restriction may be withdrawn
prohibiting the importation of Hill Coolies, and that
every encouragement may be granted to favour a sys-
tem of immigration ! What will Lord John Russell
say to this ?

It will be seen, by our report of the proceedings of
the Dock Committee yesterday, that an attempt was
made by Mr. Robertson Gladstone to ascertain the ex-
penses already incurred in the endeavour to procure
the sanction of the committee of the House of Coin-
!nom to their absurd and dishonest dock warehousing
bill. We have already shown how readily the pro-
moters of that precious scheme were prepared to -bar-
ter for it those rights and privileges by the enjoyment
of which Liverpool has been enabled to attain her

proud pre-eminence amongst the maritime communities
of the empire; and Mr. Gladstone's object was, doubt-
less, to afford additional evidence to his fellow-towns-
men of the lavish manner in which the funds en-
trusted to the keeping of their liberal and reforming
representatives could be thrown away, when the object
was to obtain an increase of party influence and to per-
petrate a corrupt job. •
That gentleman, however, our readers will not be
surprised to learn, "took nothing by his motion."
The chairman, Mr. Alder Man Benn, knew nothing of '
the matter—" had no idea at all !" We wonder, by
the bye, at what remote period Mr. Alderman Berm ever
possessed such an article as an idea. When public
money is to be spent for Whig party purposes, your ge-
nuine reformer seldom takes the trouble of ascertaining
more than the amount which passes into his own
pocket, and that amount he could tell pretty accurately,
but—what a world of meaning is in that little mono-
syllable !—it is not always convenient to be so very
coin rnunicative.

But although the Dock Committee and their alder-
manic chairman refused to inform the public how their
funds are appropriated, there is no reason why we our-
selves should be delicate about the matter. We happen
to know that that bill, the joint production of knavery
and tomfoolery, has cost already several thousand
pounds, and will cost nothing less, if it is persevered
in, thzin three times the present amount. This is in-
dependent, too, of the money that will be necessarily
spent by the parties opposing it. We may conclude,
then, in plain English, that the abortive attempt to get
this dishonest bill will cost the community, fully,
twenty thousand pounds. We call it an abortive attempt,
for the promoters themselves say that their hopes are
not sanguine, whilst others, who are in the secret, say
that they have no chance whatever of succeeding.
None but madmen, with the host of persons arrayed
against them, would have begun it, and none but
knaves would now think of going on with it.

That this is the case is sufficiently indicated by the
fact that the chairman himself, whose meagre capacity
would permit him to enter into any folly, would now
gladly retrace his steps if be could, and abandon the
bill. Another gentleman, we perceive—an alderman,
too—one of the rejected of the people, who distinguished
himself as a witness before the Committee of the House
of Commons, knowing everything of every trade but
his own, has ratted ; and seems to prefer the area of
the Liverpool Exchange, where he is somebody, to the
Commons' Committee-room, where he is only a cotton
broker. In time, as the plot thickens, we shall no
doubt have a few more secessions, perhaps not unac-
companied with confessions, which will be vastly edify-
ing and which shall be duly chronicled. One or two
gentlemen, at least, who are not in their proper position
upon this question, we should be glad to see retreat
before any general blow up takes place.

In the few remarks which we offered last Friday in
reply to an assumption of the Liverpool Times that,
provided a regular quantity of foreign corn was intro-
duced for home consumption, a corresponding amount
of manufactured goods would be taken in exchange for
it, and no drain for bullion would ensue, we maintained
that, even could so favourable an arrangement be made,
still a-portion of those manufactured goods consisting
of the raw material, which is a foreign product, would
have ultimately to be paid for in gold. This position
our contemporary does not venture seriously to attack,
although by a little bye play he contrives to throw a
doubt upon it. " There is not the slightest reason,"
he says, "for believing that the raw cotton, wool, and
silk used for manufacturing these goods would have to
be paid for in bullion." Indeed. In what shape then,
we ask, would these raw materials have to be paid for ?
In manufactured goods again,- argues our contempo-
rary, for " the only effect of an increased demand for"
raw materials, "judging from the experience of the
past, would be to increase still more the demand for
goods."

In this description of vague and unsupported asser-
tion your true political economist is always ready to
take refuge. On the present occasion, however, our
contemporary only postpones the specie payment for
which we have contended. The manufactured goods
in which payment for this additional quantity of raw
material is to be made will themselves require a further
supply of raw material; and if the operation is pursued,
ad ihtfiuitum, the
_same result will follow. We shall
still have to disburse a certain quantity of specie to the
foreign grower in exchange for his cheap corn. Our
contemporary, by the way, is a little out, in supposing
that five-sixths of our exports to the corn-growing
States of Europe consist of labour and British materials.
In a great portion of our exports to the ports of the
Baltic, from which, we presume, our chief supplies of
corn would he derived, and to which the chief remittance
would be cotton yarns, one sixth would be nearer the
mark, and that consisting of labour performed by ma-
chinery.

Our contemporary cannot comprehend how the
amount which we pay to the foreign grower, in exchange
for his corn, is so much abstracted from the pocket of
the British agriculturist. This plain position is "too
profound for his comprehension." We are sorry for
this, but we cannot undertake to supply comprehension
to our contemporary. Any tradesman would convince
him of the fact, that a transfer of custom from one shop
to another, is, in substance, a transfer of money from
the pocket of one tradesman to that of another. On
this subject we beg respectfully to refer him to his own
milkman.

The remainder of our contemporary's article is a
mere rehash of the stock dogmas of the political theo-
rists, in which the fact that, no matter how great a por-
tion of our fellow beings we throw out of employment
in our mad race of avarice, we have still that portion
in some way or other to maintain, is studiously left out
of consideration. Unfortunately we cannot, after we
have no further use for those human beings who till
our land, break them up like old machinery, or convert
them by a summary process into stocking frames or
beer
rinninogr
ij)euttinteirems,iluki.liclltveeatmniogibitr2eiatdisantrdued,riinkakndnetiitileiemr
over to the tender mercies of the Poor Law Commis-
sioners, but even that is a process of some expense.
These very ingenious gentlemen find it difficult to
starve a man, in England, for much less, on the
average than is 41d per week ; and that small pittance
—the lowest scale upon which a human being can be
converted into an anatomy, in order that a smaller
quantity of timber may be required for his coffin—
would sum up to no trifling figure when multiplied by
the number of living machines required to raise corn
to the amount of three millions per annum ! Possibly
• I
a considerable portion of them might be advantageously
converted into a rural gendarmerie, in order that the
remainder might be induced to starve quietly—a pro-
cess not very congenial to English stomachs ; and it
would no doubt be very delightful to a disciple of Mal-
thus to witness so truly philosophical a form of society
as would be presented during this thinning operation.
It is astounding to notice the shifts to which the
anti-corn-law gentry have recourse in order to blind
the public to the base and nefarious objects which they
have in view. "We cannot," says the manufacturer,
"compete with the cheap labour of the foreigner," yet
in the next breath the knavish quack holds up the
palms of his hands and professes that "he has no wish
to reduce wages !" He wants—heaven mend his hypo-
critical soul—to give the workman "a large loaf;"
but he has no wish for low wages. How cheap labour
is to he attained by any other means than reduction of
wages is past comprehension. Fasten him, however,
to this point. • Compel him to admit that cheap labour
and low wages are inseparable, and mark his next
shuffle. He didn't mean "money wages" at all. His
meaning was, that the workman would have greater
comforts and more food for less money; and he him-
'self would quietly put his hand into the pockets of the
British agriculturists and transfer the difference into
his own. The gross hypocrisy displayed throughout
the discussion of this question is sickening. The ar-
guments of the advocates of repeal, if carefully arranged,
would form the most beautiful jumble of contradiction
that ever was swallowed by a greedy public.

We beg pardon of the Times for making his feeble
notice of our remarks the peg upon which we have
ventured to rest our rather rambling observations. The
subject is threadbare, and, although our contemporary
is amongst the more moderate advocates of foreign in-
terests, he may depend upon it that the people of Eng-
land will not entrust so important a matter as the
alteration of our present system of protective laws to
that party which certainly abets, if they do not go all
lengths with, the bitter and rancorous enemies of the

agriculturists of Great Britain. Depend upon it, the
anti-corn-law humbug has gone to sleep, and we trust
it will not wake suddenly.