The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

We have in another article laid before our readers,
the insidious movement by which the ministerial and
anti-English party are endeavouring to swamp the
sound constituency of Liverpool and to convert this
loyal town into a nomination borough in the gift of the
profligate Irish demagogue who sways the government
of fallen England. Good God !—the commerce, the
wealth, the enterprise of this great community repre-
sented by the elected of the brogueless and tattered oc-
cupants of cellars, courts, and alleys from Marybone
to Clarence Dock—from Brick-street to the Potteries !
Can such utter contamination be allowed ? Can men
who have boasted of such names as those of Brougham,
Canning, Huskisson, and Sandon as their candidates
or their representatives, submit to crawl through the
degradation of a base subserviency to a mendicant im-
postor, or mingle their breath with those " most sweet
voices" which, from lips reeking with the fumes of
whisky. will rise to hail the triumph of Popery and
O'Connell over Protestantism and the loyal British
feelings of their fellow-townsmen ? We trust not.
For the honour and credit of Liverpool we trust not !
The merchants and tradesmen of Liverpool have
great and important interests at stake—interests which
demand the prompt and undivided attention of the le-
gislature. Their object should he to obtain a vigorous
and, above all, a working, practical government—one
composed of business men and disposed to enter upon
business questions. That the present is not such a go-
vernment we need scarcely waste words to prove ; and
that a further infusion of Popish and democratic ma-
terials will not make it such a government we need as
little endeavour to demonstrate. The modern liberals,
as a party, have shown themselves utterly incapable, if
they had not also been indisposed, to legislate upon
commercial and financial questions ; and any addition
of strength which they may acquire from an election
will be exercised to press forward innovation and theo-
retical change, rather than to disentangle the intricate
and, to a‘whig-radical patriot, the dry and uninterest-
ing details of business questions.

It may indeed be argued that such a man as Sir
Joshua Walmsley—the candidate, in whose behalf
popery and Whig-radicalism are making such strenuous
exertions in Liverpool—is a man of business, tho-
roughly versed in our commerce and in the local
matters of our town. This may to some extent be
true—although it is wonderful under what a small
bushel the worthy knight has hitherto contrived to
hide the lustre of his shining abilities, even as a com-
mercial man ; but in the House of Commons, how-
ever useful such a man might be, the individual would
be at once sunk in the mass, and, bound up amongst
the thick and thin supporters of a government, which
is not a business government, Sir Joshua Wahnsll,
even as the representative of Liverpool, would be only
a prominent joint of the Tail which ornaments the per-
son of the methber for all Ireland—a unit of the majo-
rity which on every occasion will be found arrayed
against the constitution and the liberties of English-

We call, then, upon the friends of the constitution ;
we call upon every true reformer to vote and use his
influence at the approaching election, not upon per-
sonal, but upon public and national grounds ;—to sup-
port not the individual but the cause. It is time—full
time—that we possessed a government able and willing
to attend to the internal state of the country; to adjust
and correct the evils which afflict our commerce and
our manufactures. The blood-thirsty " Nero fiddled
whilst Rome was burning." Our present government,
and the party which supports them, dangle in the
saloons of Buckingham Palace, and court the favour
of grooms and bedchamber women, whilst commer-
cial stagnation and wide-spread ruin are sapping the
foundations of their country's prosperity ; the present
parliament of Great Britain agitates paltry theories—
spending night after night in debating upon the case
of a church-rate martyr or a detected demagogue—a
Thorogood or an • O'Connor—whilst the insidious
enemies of Great Britain are hourly cutting off the
sources of her strength, casting dishonour upon her
hitherto stainless banner, and bringing down upon the
very name of " Englishman" the contempt and ex-
ecration of mankind !
We would also respectfully, but strongly, warn our
fellow townsmen, of the dangerous consequences to
them and to their country, of a victory gained in Li-
verpool, by popish aid, over the protestant feeling of
Great Britain.. The contest, about to be entered upon,
is not merely one of 'party.:--3f whig -or conservative
politics—but a contest of antagonist principles ; a con-
test, which is to decide whether the British constitu-
tion is to be perpetuated as a protestant constitution,
or weakened and betrayed into the longing grasp of
mingled popery and infidelity. A victory of repeal and
O'Connell principles in Liverpool would be hailed in
every popish court in Europe—would resound through
every den of Romish France, from Maynooth to the
Vatican—as the avant-courier of the universal domi-
nion of superstition, and a notice to whet the dagger
and sharpen the sword of persecution. The fangs of
the Romish wolf have of late been displayed too openly
in this protestant state. Take care, protestants of Li-
verpool, that the truculent and savage monster is not
blooded and let loose upon society by your own blind
and wilful infatuation !

It is abundantly disgusting to observe the alacrity
with which the arch-hypocrite O'Connell denounces
the ribbon conspiracy, now that its objects and work-
ing appear likely to be betrayed to public execration—
now that it has served his unholy purposes, and when
his continued countenance might endanger the impu-
nity which has hitherto attended his own treasonable
machinations. Cowardly by nature as he is unprinci-
pled, the impostor is as ready to consign to the gallows
his ignorant dupes, as the most depraved burglar to
turn king's evidence for the purpose of saving his con-
temptible life, or the baffled gamester to drop a card
from his hand for the purpose of saving, by a. wrangle,
his paltry stake.
In the midst of the condemnation however, which,
with a view to effect, he took an opportunity on Friday
last at the Corn Exchange, to deal out upon the mem..
bers of the Ribbon Society, it is impossible not to no-
tice that a feeling of disappointment in the subject is
the all pervading sentiment of his mind. It is not the
existence of ribbonism which O'Connell deprecates,
but discovery ! And as a proof of this, he breaks out
into a frenzied attack upon the press—for what—do
you suppose reader ? Why for reporting the proceed-
ings and. especially the speeches of the counsel, Mr.
Brewster, and Mr. M`Donough, at the trial of Jones,
the ribbon secretary. " I found"—he says—" that on
the trial of Jones, Mr. Brewster was first counsel for
the defendant, and Mr. M‘Donough, an able man, was
second counsel. They ought to bring an action—l do
not often advise the bringing of actions—but they
ought to bring an action against the papers for misre-
presentation of their conduct, for Mr. Brewster, as the
senior counsel, is responsible for the acts of his juniors,
and the representations of the newspapers must be un-
true. Mr. M`Donough is represented to have examined
a witness so as to bring home the guilt to his own cli-
ent. That was answering a political purpose to show
that ribbonmen were murderers. What counsel would
sacrifice his client to a political purpose ? The repre-
sentation must be untrue. At the Irish bar an occur-
rence of the same kind never took place before. Coun-
sel cross-examined witness to show that his client was
involved in the guilt of the murder of Ganley. Ido not
hesitate to say that every one of the counsel who are
represented in the newspapers as acting in this way to
their own clients, have but one remedy to clear them-
selves of the imputation, and that is to bring an action
' against the newspapers." We are really not aware
what are the political opinions of the gentlemen thus
denounced for the strict and bold performance of their
duty as advocates ; but we perfectly understand the
motive which prompted this attack upon their honour.
Our readers, we dare say, will remember that upon the
trial in question a miscreant named Kennedy—a rib-
bontnan—was cross-examined by the counsel for the
prisoner, and admitted that he had been implicated in,
and an eye-witness to many " slatings " committed by
the orders of the Ribbon Society ; and that, in partic-
-1 ular, he was a party to the murder of a man named
Ganley who was beaten to death by a ribbon-gang, in
the egg-market, in Dublin—the guilt of which offence
was foully charged by O'Connell himself upon the
trades' unions of Dublin.

The object of the learned counsel in cross-examining
this wretch, was doubtless to save their client by show-.
ing how immeasurably infamous was the character of
the government witness ; but not to save life—not even
in the performance of their duty to their. client should