The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-19 00:00:00

That Tories are good canvassers, and rather skillful
in the management of election affairs, we have the ac-
knowledgment of adversaries who desire nothing so
much as to profit by their example. The acknowledg-

ment is at once gratifying and stimulative. It is gra-
tifying, because there is virtue in a proper use of the

attainment ; and it is stimulative, because it leads us
to look for success where the talent is plenarily called

nto exercise. There is a good occasion at the present
moment for a little display of this species of artistic

ability ; and we would earnestly beg of our Tory
friends in Liverpool not to disappoint the public in
general by declining to gratify them with a taste of
their quality on this occasion.

We are called upon, in the first place, to be consist-
ent ; we say consistent, because in our choice of par-
liamentary representatives we have declared, in corn-
mon with the majority of the nation, that a Whig mi-
nistry is not worthy of our confidence ; and it will
certainly be both strange and inconsistent if we do not
act upon the same rule, locally, in our choice of muni-
cipal representatives. There are some, indeed, who
pretend to see a distinction between the cases. Local
government, say they, is a different thing from na-
tional; there is no need to embarrass it with political
.ingredients ; give me a man that will stand up for our
local interests, and look fairly to the good of our town,
and I care not whether he be Whig or Tory, or what
colour he may be of in general politics ; I shall sup-
port him as my representative in the Council irrespec-
tively of such considerations. Now if the individuals
who delude themselves with such an hallucination be-
longed to the Whig party, which we have rarely, if
ever, found to be the case, we should be exceeding
sorry to attempt awaking them from their dream ; but
as they are almost invariably Conservatives, or persons
who,.on other. questions and in other respects, may
fairly be reckoned as of our party, we shbuld esteem
no pains thrown away that would be likely to relieve
them from so great an error. And a great error it is ;
because, in the first place, it is casting a stigma on
Conservative principles ; it is leaving it to be implied
that Conservatism is not the best form of patriotism.
for every purpose, and that the Conservative body
does not affbrd a sufficiently ample collection out of
which to choose a fit and proper municipal councillor.
Now a Conservative, if he were well instructed and
sufficiently enlightened, would by no means think so
meanly of his own principles, or of the party to which.
he belongs. If he understood the principles of Con-
servatism thoroughly, he would perceive that they in-
clude the duties of a good citizen not less in a limited_
than an enlarged sphere of action towards his locality,
as well as towards the state ; and to admit that there
is any other better code of rules for his direction in
the one relation than in the other, or any so good, is
really to admit that there is something unsound in the
system itself; and this, we say, is dishonouring to it,
doing it despite and injury, and a manifestation of
gross ignorance as to its genuine character. But on
the other hand, if the doctrine be good, and the sys-
tem sound for national purposes and general adminis-
tration, upon what principle should the municipal
boundary of a town be debarred from its operation ?
There is no such isolation known in our country.
Conservatism, or the necessity for it, can be excluded
by no such arbitrary demarkation. To administer the
local affairs of a district well, they must be adminis-
tered on the Conservative principle, or there is no truth
in it, and, as a necessary consequence, by men who
hold that principle; and the Conservative who votes
for any other than a Conservative is, consequently, no
friend to the immediate circle and community to which
he belongs, whatever he may profess or suppose him-
self to be. The simple question then is, is not every
Conservative municipal elector bound to vote for a
Conservative municipal candidate ? We answer that
question by saying that the man is a traitor to his
principles who does not.
It is a mistake—quite a mistaka—to imagine that
the grand political distinctions of Conservatism or Ra-
dicalism can, or ought to be, shut out from a munici-
pal contest. If our local affairs were in their charac-
ter as far removed from anything connected with ge-
neral politics as the management of a turnpike trust
.or a river ferryage, which they are not, yet it would be
our bounden duty, for other reasons and for other pur-
poses, to give to the town the advantage of a Conser-
vative corporation. 'Why did we struggle so long and
so hard to re-establish Conservatism in the national
councils ? Because we were convinced of its value;
because daily experience taught us that Radicalism
would prove destructive; because, in short, we had no
choice left between the re-instatement of a Conservative
Ministry and restoration of a Conservative policy to
the State and absolute ruin. Shall we, so far as Liver-
pool is concerned, now stultify-ourselves by exhibiting
indifference in the choice and composition of our
municipal government ? Shall it be said, that though
we esteemed and actually discovered that Conservatism
was essential to the prosperity of the country nation-
ally, yet that Radicalism, or Liberalism, or any other
ism of that sort would do well enough for our town ?
We use these plain arguments because, though of a
very simple and obvious kind, they should, if borne in
mind, be quite sufficient, in our humble opinion, to
stir up the Conservatives to the achievement of an
object which, until it is accomplished, leaves their
public, political work but half done, and Liverpool in
an anomalous state, which is anything but creditable

to them. •
With
.regard to any specific measures which we
might expect a Conservative council would adopt, in
contradistinction to those carried out by the Radicals,
it is, we conceive, not only premature, but unnecessary
to speak just now. The Mercury, indeed, foreseeing
the probable issue 'of the contest, jumps to some con-
clusions to which we, who creep along the ground, are
quite unable to follow him. He drawi his inference,
on one head, from the little discussion which took place
at the last meeting of the Council between Mr. Har-
bord, Mr. Alderman Sheil, Mr. Hodgson, and other
members, relative to the appointment of Mrs. Boyce
to the situation of second mistress to the South
School, and a remark made by Mr. Hodgson that the