The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-23 00:00:00

pit rliairt entar p laroterbings.

The new Parliament was opened on Thursday by com-
mission ; the Lords Commissioners being the Lord Chan-
cellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of
Lansdowne, the Earl of Auckland, and Earl Spencer.
The Commissioners having taken their seats in front of
the throne, the Lord Chancellor directed Sir Augustus
Clifford, the Usher of the Black Rod, to request the at-
tendance of the House of Commons.

Amid testimonies to his great ability from all sides of
the house, Mr. Shaw Lefevre was again chosen Speaker
of the lower house. Lord George Bentinck and Sir Robt.
Inglis were especially complimentary to him.
Lord G. Bentinck and Lord J. Russell had a lengthened
conversation together during the time the commission was
being read in the House of Lords. Sir R.. Inglis and
several other members of the house also held short, con-
versations with the Premier.

The Commons being present, headed by their Speaker,
her Majesty's approbation of the appointment of the right
bon. gentleman was signified by her Majesty's commis-
sioners, through the Marquis of Lansdowne, the senior
commissioner in rank present, in the absence of the Lord
Chancellor, when the Speaker, in the usual form, laid claim
by humble petition, on behalf of the Commons, for the free
exercise of all their ancient rights and privileges, more
especially those of freedom of debate, freedom from arrest
and molestation for themselves and servants, and free access
to her Majesty when occasion may require,—all of which
rights and privileges it was intimated her Majesty con-
firmed, and the Commons retired, the remainder of the
sitting being occupied by peers taking the oath. On the
return of the Speaker and the members by whom he was
accompanied to the House of Commons, the right hon.
gentleman informed the house what had taken place in
the House of Lords ; and after again thanking the house
for the honour it had conferred upon him, for the third
time, stated that the only business that could then be pro-
ceeded with was taking the oaths, which ceremony was
observed in the first instance by the right hon. gentleman
himself, and then by other members in succession until
the rising of the house.
The Royal speech will be delivered to-day (Tuesday), it
is supposed, by commission.

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.
4
The Times intimates that the income-tax is to be raised
to five per cent. The announcement is very likely to
prove true.
Mr. Cobden, it is stated, has announced his intention of
retiring from business in favour of his son, and of taking
-up his permanent residence in the metropolis.
The weight of the tracts distributed by the Anti-Corn-
iaw League amounted, according to Mr. Cobden in a re-
cent speech at Hamburgh, to 128 tons.
German buttons are now offered for sale in Birming-
ham 25 per cent. under the price at which the manufac-
turers there can produce them. Such is the effect of free
trade !

The Earl of Dalhousie, while he fills the post of
governor-general of India, will retain his two Scotch
sinecures, as clerk registrar and signet keeper, which .are
worth £2,500 a-year, but will pay the proceeds into the
exchequer. •
MR. THOMAS DUNCOMBE, M.P.—The medical advisers
of the honourable member for Finsbury have recom-
mended his temporary retirement from public life. He
is about to " pair off" for the ensuing session, and pur-
poses sojourning for a few months at Lisbon, to recruit
his health.—Morning Post.
A large meeting of the Conservative party took place
on Friday, at Lord Stanlev's residence, in St. James's-
square, London. His lordship- was prevented by indis-
position from attending. The meeting was accordingly
adjourned until this day (Tuesday), when it is hoped Lord
Stanley will be sufficiently recovered to go to town.
MR. BICKHAM Escort' met a large portion of his late
constituents at dinner on Monday evening, at St. John's
Rooms, Winchester. The occasion was one of great
compliment to the Ex-Member for Winchester. More
than 200 sat down to dinner, which was followed by the
presentation of a piece of plate to Mr. Escott.
LORD MINTO.—If news it be, we may state that Lord
Minto arrived at Rome on the 3rd instant, but had not by
last advice 3 had an interview with the Pope. We trust
that upon the meeting of Parliament the son-in-law of
this nobleman, the premier of the hour, will be required
to explain fully and circumstantially what has sent his
noble relative a-dangling at the heels of Pius IX. in the
capital of Popery.
Mr. F. Baring, the former Whig Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, has been making a speech at Portsmouth on the
Income tax. The occasion was a meeting on Friday of
the inhabitants, to complain of numerous surcharges that
had been made by the commissioners. Mr. Baring said
he had opposed the Income tax at the time it was put on.
but he had no hesitation in saying the country was in fa-
vour of its imposition, and held out no hopes of its removal.
Mr. Urquhart, Member for Stafford, met his consti-
tuents on Friday in lait week, and addressed them at con-
siderable length on the principal political topics of the day.
He was strongly opposed to the existing Poor Law; he
advocated a Health of Towns Bill; he denounced the
Currency Bills of 1819 and 1844 as the " most infamous
acts that man ever contemplated ;" he recommended that
the Irish Parliament should be revived, and cast upon the
country the burden of her own support; he thought the
creation of a Bishop without a seat in the Lords was most
unconstitutional ; and lie claimed for the colonies equal
righ's with the inhabitants of Great Britain.
A TERRIBLE RETORT.—Mr. Rothschild, the Jew mem-
ber returned to Parliament by the city of London, met
the constitutional objections to his return, with one proud
boast that lie had been returned by the people. The
Morning Herald, in reference to this boast, says—" The
terrible retort challenged by this claim, founded upon the
bought votes of a corrupt unchristian or factious rabble,
will long ring in the ears of those who witnessed the de-
claration scene at Guildhall. ' I stand here,' said Mr.
Rothschild, `as the choice of the people.' A deep, clear,
and solemn voice, replied, from the farther end of the
spacious hall, `So stood —.' We dare not write the
name, the christian reader can supply it, and will feel that
so frightful a retort was never uttered."
THE WEST INDIAN COLONIES. —Certainly, if faith
could be placed in the declarations and avowed principles
of public men, the colonies had no reason, at that time, to
fear that the broad principle of morality and justice laid
down by the great practical convert of free-trade—Sir R.
Peel—upon the sugar question, as distinguished from any
other questions to which free-trade was applicable, could
for many years, at least, be broken through. The colo-
nists viewed that settlement as a final one, calculated to
increase, to a sufficient extent, the supply of sugar in the,
British market, and, at the same time, by an increasing
competition so to keep down the prices of colonial sugar
as to render the partial monopoly, reserved to the colonies
altogether harmless. But they were deceived. Change
was followed up by revolution, and the colonies now no
longer possess any privilege in their natural market in
which the foreigner does not equally participate, with the
trifling exception, that, during a limited period of five
years, a differential duty, commencing at seven shillings
and receding to a cypher, is levied upon the sugar of the
slaveholder. This system, which came into operation on
the sth August, 1846—t00 late a period of that year to
have any sensible effect on the sugar market—may be said
to have practically commenced in the present year, when
the second phase of the measure became operative, and
foreign slave sugars were admitted into the British mar-
ket on payment of a duty of only six shillings a cwt. above
that levied on British colonial produce. It has, however,
been very clearly shown that from this difference in value
between the sugars of this island and those of foreign
countries, the extra duty of six shillings a cwt., at present
levied on foreign Muscovado sugar, does not, in reality,
afford a protection to that extent to British plantation su-
gar, which is, practically, only protected to the extent of
3s. Gd. per cwt., a difference which will almost vanish
with the next annuli change in foreign duties.—Col. Mag.