The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-07-02 00:00:00

TO THE ELECTORS OF LIVERPOOL.

GENTLEMEN,
THOUGH the Election, now terminated, has resulted in
my defeat, I have still the agreeable duty to perform of
thanking you, each and all, for the kindness, and, I may say,
enthusiasm, with which, throughout my canvass, I have been
almost everywhere greeted. From my political opponents
even I have generally received the utmost courtesy : and the
conduct of those parties who, though agreeing with me in
opinion, have withheld from me their zealous support, only
renders me the more deeply grateful to that large majority
of Reformers who, by their assistance, as well as by their
votes, have given me so gratifying a proof of their approval
of my views as a politician, and of their confidence in my
integrity as a man.
Every feeling of personal disappointment is absorbed in
a deeper regret that monopoly and exclusiveness should have
again triumphed, and that Liverpool, owing all its greatness
to home manufactures on the one hand, and to foreign com-
merce on the other, should have given countenance to politi-
cal doctrines equally injurious—nay ruinous—to both. By
our refusal to admit the commodities of other countries, we
lessen the foreign demand for the productions of our own,
while the high price of food, consequent upon our protective
system, as it is called, diminishes the HOME demand for
manufactured articles, lowers wages, and cramps, at the
same time that it starves, the industry of the nation. These
principles are so obvious and so important, that it might be
difficult to understand how, in a large commercial town—a
town at once the inlet and the outlet of the nation's wealth—
they should not have received the support of every intelli-
gent member of the constituency, were the means unknown
that have been unscrupulously resorted to in order to insure
their defeat, which, as some imagine, means their final over-
throw. No misrepresentation has been too gross, no mis-
statement too monstrous, no argument too absurd, no preju-
dice too unreasonable, no feeling too base, to be enlisted in
the cause of enactments by which the few profit and the
many suffer. The hallowed names of Religion and Patriot-
ism have been prostituted in defence of a system that, if per-
severed in, must be fatal to England's greatness, and that is
not less opposed to the will of God than it is injurious to the
best interests of man. _

Regretting deeply, as on public grounds I must ever do,
the result of this Election, I would indeed be unworthy of
the principles I hold did I entertain the slightest doubt of
their ultimate success ; they may be suppressed but they
cannot be destroyed ; their triumph may be delayed, but it
cannot be averted; their success may, it is true, be at too
late a period, and all Englishmen, worthy of the name, may
see and deplore, the causes that have been long sapping the
foundation of the country's prosperity, when the season for
applying a remedy has for ever passed away. But, I would
fain believe that the great mass of the English people will
not long allow themselves to be blinded by the mists which
a selfish sophistry would spread around them ; that they will
treat as they deserve the fallacies of those who presume to
say that it is for their Country's good that the necessaries of
life should be dear ; and, that they will ere long demand, as
with one voice, that line of policy—at once generous, expedi-
ent, and just—to which an enlightened patriotism and pure
philanthropy alike point. Sustained by this belief, (though
the election here has ended unfavourably, and whatever may
be the result even of the general elections), I regard the pre-
sent contest—which, so far as I am concerned, shall not be
the last—as but the beginning of a series of contests, that
will not cease until the abolition of all restrictions on indus-
try and trade shall either have been achieved by the party
who protest against their injustice and impolicy, or wrung
unwillingly from those who now profit by them, and who
would persuade others that they are the source of general
welfare, as they certainly are of their individual gain.
On the other questions regarding which, in the course of
this election, you have been called upon to decide, I have
nothing now to say ' • to these, when the excitement of the
struggle has ceased, I may have other opportunities of
directing your attention. Meantime, though I have not ob-
tained the honour of serving you as your Representative in
Parliament, I will still labour for the promotion of your
welfare in other ways. If I cannot serve you as I would, I
will at least serve you as I may.
I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,
Your faithful servant,
JOSHUA WALMSLEY.
Wavertree Hall, 30th June,lB4l.