The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-19 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

titnrpool gptanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 19, 1841

le fort

Manchester and Glasgow in the South American and

Mediterranean markets ; while from the markets of

Eastern Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Eastern Archi-

pelago, and China, they have almost excluded their

British rivals

But while the manufacturer looks only to the present
moment—while he feels his great want to be immediate

markets, and seeks to attain that object by what he

conceives to be the shortest road—the business of the

sagacious and prudent minister must be to take a

somewhat wider and more distant view of the subject

tle may have a reasonable fear that manufacturing

industry and the factory system (its now inseparable

concomitant in some of the chief branches) would be

pushed too far; and seek to lessen a passing distress

by draining off a portion of the unemployed, rather

than by attempting to create an instant demand for

manufactured goods through the doubtful and danger-

ous experiment of free-trade. He may not hope 0
satisfy the impatience of the short-time working ma,

nufacturer by this process; but he may be satisfied in

his own mind that he is consulting best for the inter.

est not only of the distressed operative, but of the
country at large—its lasting peace at home—its ex.

tended importance in the eye of the world

mother country will be made to put forth her swarms
more freely ; our distant colonial lands will receive

new inhabitants; the empire will be extended, not by
blood-stained conquests over men, but by converting
the wilderness into a garden—by the peaceful con-
quests of civilization over barbarism ; and our ships,
our colonies, and our commerce will increase together.
it will be a great object, worthy the name of a Con-
servative Administration, to carry into effect the vast
project alluded to by Lord Stanley.

!SER.—Much curious gossip has been caused
in
by the extraordinary circumstance attending the
to our contem
ca person named Mary Aspull, who lived by herself
leg ; never having been married. Uponptehresodnesatwhhoof
We are obliged
Lady, a search was made by one or twoporary of the Times--
xt of kin to the deceased; they being, however, only infinitely obliged. He has enabled us to unmask a
cousins. These parties, with one or two other per-
hypocrisy, and to show
o had been requested to attend them, found in their rank . forth, naked and undis-
in the most obscure and unlikely parts of the house, ,ui
, sed, the crawling, abject nature of • that " philan-
than £5,040 ; the whole of which, with the exception
t £4O or £5O, consisted in guineas. thropy '' by the loud profession of which the " Lib i e_

We have no intention of publishing in a pamphlet from the
lecture of the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, which appears at length
elsewhere ; and parties who are, therefore, derirous of
securing copies of that admirable composition, should
make early application for the Standard of to-day.

From the statement made by Lord Stanley to the
Scottish deputation, to the effect that the subject of
Emigration, on a large scale, was under the considera-
tion of her Majesty's Government, a good deal of spe-
culation has been set afloat. Such a project has had
from time to time a considerable number of sanguine
advocates, but no ministry has thought fit to make it
a subject of deliberation—upon a scale at least in any
degree commensurate to their expectations. The in-
clination of the public mind towards the plan has,
however, been decidedly a growing one, though sub-
ject to much disturbance, and to influences of an ex-
ceedingly opposite tendency. It cannot be denied or
disputed, however, by any party, that it is a prodi-
gious advantage to an old country to possess colonies.
" Ships, Colonies, and Commerce," have become a
sort of byword • adopted by all who speculate on the
grand outward instrumentalities of national greatness ;
but colonies are obviously the first link in the chain.
It would seem that there should have existed in this
country for a length of time a great desire to promote
colonization, and that it should have been contempla-
ted with more concern with a view to promote our
maritime and domestic interests, than it appears gene-
rally to have been. The most likely cause to assign
for such apathy, is the abundance of prosperity with
which the country has been blessed, without applying
any extraordinary stimulus to the colonization princi-
ple. Emigration was too much looked upon as a spe-
cies of banishment. A body of emigrants about to
embark for a distant settlement—at any time indeed
an object of interest—was made the subject of melan-
choly foreboding. Thus Goldsmith sung :
Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done ;
Even now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand,
1 see the ruralfvirtues leave the land,
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads tne sail,
That idly waiting, flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band.
The commercial maxim of " ships and colonies" was
unknown to the poet, and even had it been so, it is
more likely that he would have preferred indulging in
the poetry of the passing sigh or the parting tear, to
any speculations which involve concerns much more
fitted to interest the statesman than the bard. The
story, too, of almost all first settlers in a new country
has been one of great trial and difficulty, and their
reports have rarely suggested inducements to fresh
tempters of the wilderness. The advocates of Emi-
gration have therefore had to contend with an unpo-
pular theme, and no pressure of necessity has either
been so extensive or of such long continuance as to
prepare the general ear for its reception. Changes,
however—vast changes indeed—have been going on
in the world ; and we shall not he surprised hereafter
to find a very different view taken of the subject of
Emigration from that which prevailed at the time
when Goldsmith wrote, and long subsequently.
Our manufacturers want markets—and what mar-
ket so sure as the colonial ? They expect to attain
their object by free trade in corn—a free trade chiefly
with the old countries of Europe; but these countries
do not promise to take our manufactures in exchange,
and have long been making every effort to dispense
with them by manufacturing for themselves. We
learn from the valuable work of Mr. Montgomery on
the contrast of the cotton manufactures of the two
nations, that there is already invested in the cotton
manufactures of the United States upwards of forty-
five millions of dollars, or about one-fourth of the
capital involved in the cotton manufactures of Great
Britain. This enormous sum, observes a London
contemporary, our free-trade oracles assert that the
republic would allow us to destroy, in return for
throwing open our ports to the grain of the north-
west. Credat Judeus. Already do the coarser de.
scriptioas of American cottons compete with those of

meeting.

rids of the present age drawn. so Ihrioly 01164
the sympathies of the u,nilhini‘ing portion of mankind
In his reply, or what 11.0 assumes to be a reply,
recent observations of our own upon the Brazilian
question, the 7iines thus delivers himself

to some

" Our contemporary's passionate appeal in favour of free
labourers, though a little odd, as coming from an advocate of
the West Indians, would be something to the purpose, if
there was any reason to
,believe that the happiness of the
nsgrocs depended on the quantity of sugar produced. That
is not the opinion of men, whose attachment to the negro
race, has induced them to visit the West Indies ; and, with
regard to the planters, although they may be entitled to be
treated with indulgence, and to receive a reasonable amount
of protection, yet we deny that either they or any other set
of persons are entitled to claim a monopoly enforced by pro-
hibitory duties. Justice to the consumer, and the interests
of the trade generally, are opposed to any such exclusive
system."

It is not, we think, with all due deference to our
contemporary, at all " odd " that the LIVERPOOL
STANDARD should. raise its voice in • behalf of the
principle of free labour in our West Indian colonies.
We have never hesitated to insist upon the necessity
and the justice of giving a fair and a full trial to the
operation of that principle, and of aiding it by every
means in the power of the British Government. Upon
the success or the failure of that trial depends, in our
opinion, the question, whether the brand of slavery
shall ever be removed from the limbs of the African
race; Whether the slave trade, with all its revolting
cruelties, is rather to progress with the advancement of
civilisation and the spread of commerce, or to be put
down by the universal voice of mankind, as a hideous
and unnecessary blot upon the character of the human
raca. In this light, and not merely as "an advocate
of the West Indians," we have ever regarded, and
shall continue to regard, the question at issue bettween
the Conservative party in this country and the advo-
cates of slave interests in Brazil; and our contempo-
rary may depend upon It that we have with us the sym-
pathies of the far greater portion not only of our fel-
low-countrymen, but of the sound and reflecting
throughout the world.
But it is odd, we think—very odd—it is monstrous,
to observe the position of the professedly philanthropic
Liberals, and of the Liverpool Times itfelf upon this
question. For what, we ask, is the fair interpretation
of the passage which we have quoted, with respect to
that position ? For years the government and the
and tqe people of Great Britain have been labouring to
effect the deliverance of the African from the thraldom
of his fellow-man. To effect this noble object our fleets
have scoured the seas and our gold has been showered
with a lavish and a willing hand. We have crippled
the demon Slavery upon every shore; we have drawn
down upon his head the indignation of mankind in
every clime; and, last and noblest effort of all, we
have cast him out, utterly and we trust for ever, from
every spot of earth which renders allegiance to the
crown of Britain. And yet, after all this sacrifice, we
are told that the paltry effect of our philanthropy is to
be the creation of a black elysium in each of our West
Indian colonies " The happiness of the negroes," in
the opinion of men whose " attachment to the race has
induced them to visit the West Indies," is not for-
warded by encouraging there the cultivation of sugar;
and we are therefore to bound ourselves for the future
in our exertions for the welfare of the African people,
to a consideration for the ease and comfort of the ne-
groes of the West Indies alone !
We are to abandon, say these pseudo philanthroPists,
the cultivation of the sugar cane to the slave-importing
Brazilian. We are to regard this product with the same
eye that we look upon other products of slave labour;
and to cast to the winds any effective legislative protec-
tion of sugar—the produce of free labour—since we
cannot at once dispense with our supplies of other
articles raised by slaves. We are to prostrate the
statue of liberty which we have erected as a mark for
the world to bow down to, because the Brazilian planter
can extract sugar from the life-blood of his enslaved
myriads at a cheaper rate than it can as yet—thanks
to the exertions of the Scobles and the Sturges—be
produced by free labour in our colonies. Philanthropy
"oozes out of the fingers ends" when tickled by the
sight of gold or dollars. The humane and sleek.faces
that we have seen in days past smeared over • with
" free-labour sugar"—the eyes which we have seen
revelling, on pletforme, in a dream of " free-laboiir
treacle,"—are now enraptured only by the chink of
specie, and revel only in dreams of a world of calico
and bobbinet. Oh, Nature ! human Nature ! is this
thy nobility ? Do we live to witness such a stain upon
our kind, as is the very contemplation of such a
sacrifice of well-earned honour as has been achieved
by the nation, in whose front these impostors have
bawled and ranted, wept arid whined, to the crawling
and abject love of mere money-getting ?
" Every objection of principle," urge these philan-
thropic philosophers, "applies as much to slaye-labour
cotton and coffee as to slave-labour sugar." Oft
refuted fallacy. The Liverpool Tunes knows, or ought
to know, that to the cultivation of sugar by slave-
labour is to be attributed one-half of the sufferings
of the negro race. It is this which wears down human
life in the tropics, whilst the cultivation of cotton and
coffee, involving infinitely lighter labour, is less destruc-
tive and painful to the labourers. We can diminish,
if we cannot at present altogether prevent, such culti-
vation by slave-labour and the misery it involves. We
can at least supply Great Britain with sugar, into the
composition of which not one drop of human wretch-
edness enters. And shall we not do this ? Shall we
not throw a portion, at least, of the curse of slavery
from us, even although we cannot as yet relieve our-
selves of the whole ? We shall do so !
Upon the politico-economical part of the question
we shall not offer a word of remark. If the Liverpool
Times is satisfied to leave it where it is, so are we, and
so is the public. We shall, therefore, content our-
selves with hinting to our contemporary, our conviction
that our policy towards the Brazils is a bad subject on
which to found a grievance. Let it alone. Let it alone

In directing the attention of our readers to the
eloquent and beautiful address on the life and cha-
racter of Benjamin Franklin, delivered in our Amphi-
theatre, on Wednesday evening, by the Rev. Hugh
M`Neile—which will be found fully reported in our
columns this day—we are compelled to express our
strong disapprobation of the mode in which the praise-
worthy object for which the lecture was delivered has
been, we fear, in a great manner, frustrated by the
individuals who took upon themselves the manage-
ment of the meeting. When a clergyman of the
Church of England lends the sanction of his high cha-
racter and talents to advance any charitable purpose,
and when men of all parties come forward liberally to
its aid, the least that we can expeet, on the part of
those effecting to be especially concerned iu it, is the
display of a disinterested spirit, and a sincere desire to
carry out, in its management, the object in view, apart
from private jobbing and the indulgence of party pre-
dilections. That this has not been the conduct of the
managers of this lecture we are satisfied. Mismanage-
ment the most gross, and expenditure the most reck-
less, has, we fear, marred a great portion of the success
of Mr. McsTeile's splendid effort ; and that gentleman,
and the public who supported him in it, will have
cause at least to suspect the disinterestedness of
some of those parties, in whose hands they were in- ,

duced to leave the conducting of the preliminary
arrangements and the business details; generally of the

It needed not, we are sure, one fourth of the printing
and placarding which was adopted, to fill the Amphi-
theatre upon such an occasion. It needed not so many
forms of tickets of admission to be pnovided. And it
was scarcely in good faith towards the public to go on
with this wastefnl expenditure so long after it was mo-
rally certain that as many tickets, or even more than as
many, would be sold as would cram the place to over-
flowing. To those of the public who, by this grasping
conduct of the management, were shut out from an
opportunity of hearing the lecture, some apology is
fairly due; and it cannot be gratifying to those even
who had the pleasure of being present to reflect that
the ulterior object of the lecture itself—a liberal contri-
bution to the Printers' Pension Fund—should be in
part frustrated by extravagant and jobbing managment.
We have not as yet the gross receipts before us.
From the best calculation we can form, however, we
cannot esti mate them at less than £2oo—a handsome
sum it mu: it be admitted to be devoted to the purposes
of any cha city. From this, h owever, it will greatly.
surprise us if one farthing less than a half will have to
be deducte.3 for the wcpenses i ocurred—for the print.