The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-07-20 00:00:00

, 17S•

to the I

tes at present

20, 1847

belonged

been a member of the Peel Ministry, the Conserva-
tive electors should remember that Mr. Edward
Cardwell is not the first rising young member of
parliament whom that astute statesman has suc-
ceeded in drawing into a false position and—leaving
him there.

Mr. Cardwell will have an opportupity of meet-
ing the electors of Lime-street Ward on Wednes-
day, (to-morrow,) and there explaining his 'senti-
ments more explicitly, and, we trust, satisfactorily,
to the great body of the electors.

IN maintaining, on Friday night, in the discus-
sion of the new Bishoprics Creation Bill, the doc-
trine that a strict adherence to a declaration made
ten years ago by the ecclesiastical commissioners,
to the effect that "they were not nrenared to re-

comment

he tota

)er of epis-

copal sees," was "carrying the doctrine of findlily
to an extraordinary extent," the Premier, Lord John
Russell, argued that the church, like every other

stances of the times ; and that the large increase
of our population, during the last ten years, war-
ranted an increase of episcopal superintendence.
" It seemed to him," his lordship said, "to be a prin-
ciple belonging to every communion, ecclesiastical or
civil, to every commercial house, and to every railway
company, that in proportion to the quantity of business

.
done should be the amount of the superintendents at the
head of the establishment. (Hear, bear.) Such would
be the rule followed by any rational body of men, looking

We accept the principle as applicable to every
communion, ecclesiastical or civil, to every
commercial house, and to every commercial na-
tion, that the superintendence, and the instru-
ments and means as well, should be propor-
tionate to the work or business done ; and we
admit, with him, that, where that work or business
has largely increased, to insist that the means by
which it is to be conducted shall be inexorably
bound down within an arbitrary limit, is indeed
" carrying the doctrine of finality to an extraor-

A trader, whose increased bu-
siness has compelled him to employ an additional
shopman, cannot employ him to much advantage,
if he confines his establishment to the original one

dinar.i extent."

pair of scales and one set of weights with which
he commenced. A railway company, when its
passengers become double the number, not only
augments the number of its officers, but its stock
of locomotives and carriages. " Such," at least,
to use his lordship's very just observation, "would
be the rule followed by any rational body of men,
looking only to the good management of the concern
to which they belonged."

We invite his lordship, and the admirers of the
monetary laws of Sir Robert Peel, to apply this
rule to the operation of those laws. We ask them
if, when everything else is allowed and even stimu-
lated, to progress, to insist that the laws which
regulate the circulating medium of the country,
whatever that medium may be, should alone be
unchanged and unchangeable, is not carrying the
doctrine of finality to an extraordinary extent ?
The corn law of 1828 was boasted of as a final
adjustment. Its successor, the sliding scale, was
to be final. It solved every difficulty, and was
regarded, by its authors at least, as the perfection
of legislative sagacity; yet it was swept away by
the very hands that framed it, The Currency Bill
of 1819 was a final measure; yet the same hand
which framed it gave us the Bank Charter Act of
1844, as more suited to the circumstances of the
times. Why is this to be the exception to all
other works of man's intellect ? Why is it to be
held as sacrilege to touch it, to talk of it, or even
to point at it ? We are at a loss to conceive ; and
we tell the authors and admirers of both these
measures that the country, which has of late been
witnessing and experiencing the cruel effects of
their arbitrary pressure will not be s

at least an effo-rt to procure a full inquiry into the
whole subject, and an adaptation of the circulation
to the altered circumstances of our social and com-
mercial position.
. _

ff Regulations Act of
1842 and the subsequent repeal of the corn laws,
aggravated in their effect by a deficient harvest and
the loss of the potato crop, produced altered cir-
cumstances, which irresistibly demand a removal
sion of the contraction of the commercial power of
the country, caused by these measures. The grain
and bread-stuffs of the whole world is rushing to
our shores, and whether we require it or not, will
inevitably absorb a large amount of OUT gold cir-
culation to pay for it, in the first instance, although
a large portion of the supply may subsequently be
re-exported to countries more in need of it than
ourselves. The circumstances of our position will
always make us the chief factors of Continental
Europe and America. A new and extensive busi-

We

have not the Tari

ness is thus forced upon us, which it will require
an increased available capital to enable us to con-
duct. Our high credit will not stand us in great
stead here; for credit, or its representative—Bills
of Exchange—must always be regulated by the
state of the Exchanges. In 'the case of a mere
business in corn, as factors for other nations, and
conceding the very improbable supposition that we
shall require no bread-stuffs for the consumption of
our own people, the withdrawal from circulation of
the necessary bullion required for grain purchases,
even for the few months required to enable that
bullion to come back to us circuitously in exchange
for our exports, must cripple every other branch of
industry, depress the value of all railway and other
securities, and bring us continually into the jaws

of a money panic.
It is idle to imagine that a large investment of
capital in grain, either for our own use, or for the
casual wants of other countries, can ever produce
such an immediate demand for our own manufac-

tured fabrics in return, as will protect us from, at
least, a temporary derangement of our_ money