The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-07-13 00:00:00

11_ we un

EVERY past WI
nguished by the magnificence of its promise and

11 address the
g-e at half-past

ministry

he comparative paucity of its performance; and
he ministry of Lord John Russell has not contra-
licted this characteristic of his party. His lord-
.• 1 L 1 _

the commencement of the session

th his budget loaded with choice and sovereign
crsels of legislation ; Irish Poor-law Bills, New
)or-law Amendment, Bills, Registration" Bills,

these he

er bill

Prally i

has been able to read'
a disfigured shape, it is
'rnitted early to slin frnm

round to have been
acticable that they

so hastily concocted ar
I,nvr+ been romnelled

Tent back for recori-

sideration; and now, when the end of the session
is at hand, he has to abandon them by wholesale.
And, as is generally the case, these last abandoned
bills, which he has clung to with an extraordinary
tenacity, whilst giving up the minor fry with
scarcely a murmur, are almost the only ones which
possess any real value in the eyes of the country—
are measures which, if carved into a practicable
form by the wisdom of parliament, would have
been ample compensation for all the time and toil
frittered away in idle talk, and still more idle pro-

mise,- about the small matters which have almost
exclusively occupied the legislative attention.
One bill alone—the Health of Towns' Bill—
would have sufficed for the past session, if produced
and carried in a comprehensive form.. Yet, although
sickness has for months past been decimating our
population; although the wretchedly filthy condi-
tion of nearly the whole of our large towns is now
universally acknowledged, as causing a large
portion of this sickness, the Health of Towns Bill,
at last, after being postponed from week to week,
promised to the house after this debate and that
debate, he is obliged at length to drop, because of
the want of time for its discussion and the requisite
modelling required for all bills which issue from
the Whig workshop.

There is, surely, something radically vicious in 1
the management which produces such results, and
which almost induces the belief in the public mind
that the legislature is a solemn mockery, and par-
liament only a debating club—an arena for intellec-
tual and oratorical gladiatorship. So far as Lord
John Russell is concerned, the cause of the failure
of this and others of his more important bills in
the present session is, that he has undertaken, as
has been his invariable practice, too much. He has
fastened his hands with so many small matters,
that he has neither had opportunity to mature or
to produce his more important measures. There is
something, however, in the system upon which par-
liamentary business is conducted, which is conti-
nually causing such failures and retarding the pro-
- of useful legislation. Every successive go-
vernment, of late years, has been enlarging its
control over the business, or what we may call the
artistic department of legislation. The govern-
ment now must originate everything of greater
importance than a railway, or an enclosure bill,
whilst private members, on the ministerial or on
the opposition benches, are merely idle spectators,
permitted to originate motions only which lead to
nothing beyond the waste of a few nights of public
time, Does any honourable member not endowed
with the prescriptive wisdom which is fabled to
reside exclusively in Downing-street, venture to
give notice of a bill having any general bearing
upon the interests of the nation, some minister
rises forthwith in his seat, and assures the house
that the government " have the subject under their
consideration, and will shortly be enabled to intro-
duce a bill," The member in question may have
devoted to the subject the attention of years ; he
may have a practical acquaintance with all its
details. But the members of the administration
are supposed to know everything by instinct, and
aspire to be the authors of every measure pro-
pounded to parliament. Accordingly, at the end
of the session, or when the time of the house is
already fully occupied, some crudely drawn up bill
is laid upon the table, read a first or a second time,
and then withdrawn as impracticable, to be intro-
duced next session in an improved form, or, in all
probability, never to be thought about again.
Suppose, however, that some member is hardy
enough to push a measure, which he esteems of
importance, and of which he conceives that he has
perfected the details, he is reminded one day that
government business must take precedence ; when
he selects a vacant day, there is sure to be some
obstacle or other intervened—a question asked by
some government de?endent, to which a minister
takes the opportunity of replying in a two hours'
speech, which is so framed as to provoke a debate
by which the night is consumed. As the last
resource, there is the counting-out process.
If we are to get through any legislation at all in
future years, with the increasing mass of private
business, which railway and other bills create,
and of government bills, with which Ireland will
for some time, and until her social condition
is •

improved, abundantly supply us, we must
remodel the entire system of our legislation.
There are dozens of men in the present parliament
who are quite competent to undertake the framing
and conducting of measures of a useful character,
which government arrogates to itself the exclusive
right to undertake—dozens of men, for instance,
who could frame and conduct a comprehensive
Sanatory Bill—resolved men who, not having
the fears of the livery, the aldermen -or the elect-
ors of the city of London before their eyes,
would not consent, as Lord John Russell con-
sented, to allow that city, which of all others
requires such a bill, to be exempted from its pro-
visions. Another desideratum is that which, if
achieved, would materially conduce to secure for
us a really useful working parliament ; and such
desideratum it is in the hands, and at the option
of the constituencies of the empire, to provide for
themselves. We want no mere philosophers in the
next House of Commons ; we want no mere
motion makers; no men with but one idea in their
heads, and hopelessly ignorant of, or indifferent to,
the practical concerns of the nation. Get rid of
the Bowrings, Ewarts, et hoc genus omne, and
supply their places with practical men of business.

We have given at a somewhat unusual length a
debate in the House of Commons, which took
place on Saturday night, in which Lord Clements—
one of the extraordinary specimens of Irish repre-
sentatives—rather ruffled the feelings of the house
by asserting that, in snatching, his fellow-country-
men from starvation, we had been doing no great
things. Had we been snatching his lordship from
starvation, or any other matter which would rid us
of such patriots, we should admit that we had not
been doing much to raise the average value of the
human race. But Lord Clements seemed to think
—and, in expressing his thoughts, he was rather
wrathful—that this poor unfortunate town of ours
ought to be obliged to Ireland, and to bear its
burdens with equanimity, on account of the im-
mense benefits which we have derived from our
proximity to that country. This has been the port
which Ireland has enriched by making it the port
of transmission of her exports to England. Alas !
we have had a sad drawback in being the port
which has had either to keep or to transmit home
her pauperism. We shall make no further com-
ment, however, upon a speech in every respect so
absurd. It is best answered by the following cas-
tigation, administered by Mr. Brown, M.P. for the
southern division of the county, wnom we heartily
thank for his spirit on the occasion.
" I am extremely happy to find that the noble lord
(Clements) stands alone in his undivided glory in arraign-
ing the conduct of her Majesty's ministers for want of
charity , that is the English people, for they represent
the people, and you cannot separate them ; and I am glad
to see that every Irish member present repudiates what
the noble lord has said. He alleges that Liverpool has
derived so much benefit from Ireland, that it is their duty
to provide for all the Irish paupers that go there. I would
ask the noble lord, has Ireland received no benefits in re-
turn ? Is it nothing that Liverpool, ever since it became

a commercial town, has relieved Ireland of some of its
surplus population, by giving_them profitable employ-

best market in t

he world for you

it nothing that when you are in dihre

we receive

feed them, although tliey bring a dreadful disease amongst
us, there being at this moment from 7000 to 8000
people in Liverpool ill of typhus fever. _ The cost of main-

marks, were tliey the sentiments of the Irish people, would
harden even a heart already petrified, and prevent on any
future occasion your being entitled to any aid from those
you so unjustly abuse. It is questionable, even now,
whether the hard-working beople of England will not

of too little

THE DISSOLUTION

—The mere routine business of

winding up the session will occupy the coming week—after
which the prorogation, followed by an immediate dissolu-
tion, may be confidently looked for. The ministerial
white-bait dinner, at Greenwich, which immediately pre-
cedes the prorogation of Parliament, is fixed for Wednes-
day, the 21st instant.—Observer.

THE ROYAL NAVY.—The following is the official return
of the Royal Navy of Great Britain, on the Ist instant :

Admirals of the fleet, 2 ; admirals of the red, 10 ; white,
10 ; blue, 10 ; vice-admirals of the red, 15 ; white, 15 ;
blue, 15 ; rear-admirals of the red, 25 ; white, 25 ; blue,
25 ; to consist of 150 flag officers, viz.: 30 admirals,
or ten of each squadron ; 45 vice-admirals, or 15 of each
squadron ; and 75 rear-admirals, 25 of each squadron ;
retired rear-admirals, 51, to be reduced to 25 ;

retired captains, 130; to be reduced to
for service, 561, to be reduced to 500

retired cap-

48 ; commanders, 879 ; retired ditto, under his Ma-
jesty's order in council, 1816, 100; ditto, Ist November,
1830, 204 ; lieutenants, 2,400 ; masters, 337 ; second

238 ; paymasters' and pursers active list, 462 ,
ditto, 28 ; clerks qualified for paymasters and pursers,
235. 40,000 able-bodied seamen, 2,000 stout lads,
12,000 Royal Marines, divided into 94 companies-Ist
division, Chatham, 23 companies ; 2nd division, Ports-
mouth, 28 companies ; 3rd division, Plymouth, 24 com-
panies ; 4th division, Woolwich, 19 companies ; Royal
Marine Artillery, 7 companies, bead-quarters Portsmouth.
Ships of war in commission, ordinary, or building, 678,
carrying from Ito 120 guns each—of which number 165
are armed steam-vessels, built on the most approved
principle for active sea service, from 150 to 750 horse-
power,

retired