The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-02-09 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have received, from E. F. for the Irish Fund, which we
have handed to Mr. Wetister; I for the scotch Fund,
handed to Mr. Clow ; and 10s. for the District Provident So-
-ciety, handed to the treasurer.
The excellent letter of J. W. M., Leicester, is postponed.
`A l iver. 00l Lad" writes heartily and to the point, but the
publication of his letter vvc-,:'d, we fear, not promote the ob-
ject of our pevious corre,pulident.
Would "J. S." kindly favour us with his communications a
little earlier. We can seldom do anything with letters re-
ceived on Monday morning.

OL Or Elbtrpoot &tantiarb.

TUESDAY MORATTAT, FEBRUARY 9, 1847.

THE solemn tat, that in God alone to afflict
or to bless—that the destinies of a nation, as of an
-ir dividual, are immediately in His hands—is one
which every human being, who kneels in His tem-
ple, confesses with his lips ; but, alas, how often is
it forgotten the instant that he returns to his
worldly occupations ! We thus recognize it, not
only individually but as a nation, when we use
those prayers ordained by our church to be offered
up in seasons of calamity. We thus recognize it
-on each succeeding Sabbath, when, from thousands
-of churches and places of worship throughout
the land, are offered up the supplications for help
and deliverance, contained in our sublime Litany.
The Scriptures remind us of its truth in every.
page ; and even our frail human nature itself re-
minds us how little we can effect for ourselves,
how circumscribed is. our boasted 'wisdom, how
shallo3v is our philosophy, when set against the
omnipotence and the omniscience of our Maker.
Yet, enter either of the two houses of the
legislature, and what do we find ? Practically we
witness the deliberate and continual denial of this
great fact of our dependent existence. The member
of either of these bodies, who presumes to remind
his fellow-members that the hand of God himself
is in all things, is set down as an intrusive enthu-
siast by the mass, whilst the all-sufficient wor-
shipper of human philosophy is regarded as alone
entitled to be trusted in devising measures, for the
removal of evil or the promotion of good. The
bare introduction of the name of the Most High in
debate, however serious and Solemn its subject,—
however closely it may relate to matters over
which God alone can have control,—is looked upon
as approaching to profanity, or, at the least, enti-
tling its utterer to be set down as a helpless
dreamer,- or that worst of characters in the mere
world's estimation—a saint.

. Where, however, is the warrant for this too ready.
conclusion ?_ Do we find those men, who acknow-
ledge the direct workings of God in the disposal
of human affairs, less prompt to labour, to watch,
to give of their time and their substance for the
benefit of their suffering fellow-creatures, than the
worldly man—the philosopher ? Unhappy Ireland
replies, from the pallid lips of thousands, snatched
from starvation by the hands of such men, an em-
phatic No. To the clergy throughout the empire,
and to those who have responded to their eloquent
appeals for aid, in the name of God,for his afflicted
people, their gratitude is lifted up from a thousand
desolate hearths. For examples of the energy with
which they have devoted themselves to the task,
we need not look beyond the clergy of our own
town ; and, especially, we cannot pass by without
eulogium, for which we fear he will scarcely thank
us, the painstaking labours and the sacrifices, en-
dured for the relief of his Irish brethren by the
beloved Incumbent of St. Jude's, the Rev. Hugh
MlNeile. Our advertising columns to-day bear
witness to the urgency and the success of his ex-
ertions.; and here we may digress from the main
object of these remarks, tp offer a word of entreaty-
to the wealthy and charitable of our town:
Nearly three thousand pounds, it will be seen,
have been subscribed by the members of Mr.
M`Neile's congregation, and his, and their, and
Ireland's friends, through his agency. That
amount has effected infinite good, through the ex-
cellence of the machinery by which it has been
distributed. The fund, however, is nearly ex-
hausted—now, when that machinery, has been
perfected in its operation—whilst hundreds, and
we may say, thousands, are looking towards it as
their only hope in the long period of suffering,
through which they may have yet to pass. Need
we say more to incite our friends to increased ex-
ertions in procuring the means of further benevo-
lent aid ?
To return, however, to our subject :—We speak
n to those who themselves, recognizing the
dealings of God with us, are not afraid to do so in
the face of the world. We ask them to join in the
prayer of the following memorial, to be presented
to the Sovereign, entreating that her Majesty will
enable her loyal subjects, with one voice through-
out the land, to humble themselves on account of
their past transgressions, and to "bear testimony,
before men and angels, that this great nation be-
lieves in God."
The petition itself has been prepared by the
Rev: Hugh M`Neile, and affords another example
of his watchfulness and his zeal in the service of
God and his fellow-men. The subject was referred

to before his congregation on Sunday last, and has
, since been warmly taken up by some of the leading
members of the church. It lies for signature at

the news-rooms, the newspaper offices: and the
usual places.
TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
The Petition of your Majesty's loyal and faithful
subjects, in the Borough of Liverpool, in the
County of Lancaster,
HUMBLY SHEWETH,
That your Petitioners devoutly acknowledge the good-
ness of God in raising your Majesty's illustrious family to
the throne of these realms ; and earnestly pray that the
blessings which have been vouchsafed to the nation under
its benign sway, may be perpetuated to the latest gene-
rations.
Your Petitioners are deeply concerned at the destitution
which has so long prevailed, and the diseases and mortality
now consequent upon it, among a large portion of the
population of Ireland, and in some districts of Scotland.
They have observed with much satisfaction that measures
of relief have been proposed by your Majesty's Govern-
ment, to meet and mitigate at least the second causes of
the dire calamity.
Your petitioners feel, however, that something more is
required of a Christian nation. They believe sincerely
what is written in Holy Scripture—that the hairs of men's
heads are numbered ; that a sparrow cannot fall from the
housetop without our Heavenly Father ; and that men's
lives are of more value than many sparrows. They can-
not,therefore, hear the tidings, dailyarrivingfrom Ireland,
of inquest after inquest returning verdicts of " death by
starvation," without recognising the outstretched hand of
Almighty God.
Your petitioners believe also, on the same sacred au-
thority; and without presuming to be wise above what is
written, that famine and pestilence are two of the sore
inflictions of an offended God for the transgressions of a
guilty people ; and that when they appear, wise men
should hear in them a voice calling aloud to national
repentance.
Your petitioners are grieved to perceive that, bf per-
sons of station and influence, sentiments have been
uttered wholly subversive of this fundamental principle
of the religion which your Majesty has solemnly sworn to
defend, and calculated, as far as their evil example can
extend, to propagate practical infidelity amongst your

Majesty's subjects.
Your petitioners confidently hope that your Majesty
will manifest your high disapprobation of such sentiments ;
and they humbly and earnestly beseech your Majesty to
cause a day to be set apart for national humiliation—not
merely a reference to this subject introduced as a passing
addition to our Sunday services,. but—a day on which all
the public offices shall be closed, parliamentary and all
other businesses suspended, and a testimony borne before
men and angels that this great nation BELIEVES IN GOD ;
that so, through the merits and all-prevailing intercession
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Almighty, beholding accep.
tably a prostrate people confessing and renouncing their
sins, may mercifully stay his hand, and say It is
enough."
We hope there are not many persons in Liver-
pool who will decline or neglect to sign such a me-
morial as this.

WE cannot bring ourselves to regard, as a mea-
sure to be scouted altogether by Parliament and
the British people, the proposal of Lord George
Bentinck to advance money from the public funds
in aid of the formation of railways in Ireland. It
is true that it is open to many grave' objections on
principle. It is scarcely fair towards the holders
of shares in the depressed railway undertakings of
this country, that similar undertakings in Ireland
should be bolstered up by the state. It is a fact,
too, we believe, that the lines, which are now at a
standstill in that country, and which are sought to
be pushed forward,' are mostly situated in those
districts where the distress is least felt ; and that,
consequently,. the employment of the population
upon them will afford little relief to those who are
most in want of employment. The conversion;
too, of some 50,000 able-bodied agricultural la-
bourers into the class of " navvies," may be one of
doubtful permanent advantage to
the moral and
social welfare of the people ; as it is well known
that men thus employed, and having become ac-
customed to the high wages, which such labour
affords, and the reckless habits which those wages,
and the.contact into which those receiving them are

th:3wn, induce, rarely return again to their original
avocations as cultivators of the soil. The project
flies in the face of the teachings of the political
economist, who would leave all undertakings of a
similar character to private enterprise, and who
argues—and, as a general rule, justly—that where
that enterprise refuses to step in, there can be little
in the intrinsic character of the work to be done,
which holds out a promise of any very profitable
result.

When we regard the subject, however, with all
its concomitant circumstances, these objections are
greatly weakened ; and it is not at all certain that
the proposal of the noble lord may not be ultimately
looked upon by dispassionate persons as capable,
with a few modifications of detail, of being advan-
tageously carried out. At the outset of such an
examination of its merits, and with respect to the
justice or injustice towards the British people of
railway enterprise in Ireland being aided by the
state, we must bear in mind that that country is
not at present in a state to which ordinary princi-
ples of action, or ordinary precedents, are applicable.
Ireland is already, and, for a time, irremediably,
thrown upon the state for support. We are pro-
viding for her people the funds required to snatch
them from famine; and we are also engaged in the
task of providing against a repetition of the cala-
mity which at present overwhelms her people, and
taking measures for their permanent advancement
in the social scale. Seven millions sterling, the
Premier himself estimates, will be required for the
former purpose this year ; and how small a piirtion
of that amount is likely to be ever repaid ! Nor
will the drain cease next year, or probably for some
years to come.

- But the measure of Lord George Bentinck, it is
urged, will not meet the first emergency. In part,
we admit that such is the fact. We contend, how-
ever, it will do something. In the first place, the
completion of the 1500 miles of railway in Ireland,
for which acts of parliament are already obtained,
will support 110,000 persons, representing 560,000
souls, for four years; and although these lines are
generally to be constructed in districts of the
country where the population enjoys at present the
maximum amount of comfort—and the maximum
in Ireland is a low scale—the withdrawal of these
families from absolute dependance upon the soil
cannot fail to produce benefit to those engaged in
the pursuits of agriculture and industry generally.
The labour afforded by these best of public works
will afford material aid in the carrying out of an
efficient poor law, and even of the restricted one
proposed by Government. The amount of capital
set free for the purposes of agricultural improve-
ment, drainage, &c., will be of no mean assistance
to the landowner, cramped as his efforts are by the
pressure of mortgages and of tenure; and the cer-
tain ultimate improvement of his property may
tempt him to do more for the advancement of that
result by his own means than he might otherwise
attempt. . The influx of English capital into Ire-
land, and its concomitant advantages, would be
another result of the guarantee afforded for its secu-
rity by the State's participation in such investment.
The politico-economical objection we do not re-
gard as at all tenable. Private enterprise, to which
it is urged that the improvement of the condition
of Ireland should be left, has been tried for two
centuries and failed ; and such private enterprise
need not be hindered by the Government taking
into its own hands the maturing of the railway
system in that country. There is still a vast amount
of work for the capital and the industry of the
country to do before Ireland can be enabled to take
up her just position as an integral portion of the
empire, or to develope the vast resources of her
soil and of her geographical location. The abstract
theories of political economy are totally inapplica-
ble in a country whose evils and miseries are so
complicated and so accumulated.
It is more, however, as an aid to the measures
of Government for the permanent improvement of
Ireland, that we regard with favour the present
.proposition. If the extension of the railway sys-
tem in England has converted the barren soil into
a fertile garden ; if it has made the green blade
spring up and the corn crops wave, and planted
the habitations of man where, of old, was to he
found only the impervious morass; if commerce
has made, by its assistance, vast strides in advance;
if the buried mineral wealth of our country has by
it been made conducive to the wants and the com-
forts of man ; if the locomotive has borne civiliza-
tion and improvement in its path—as who shall
deny that it has ?—if it has brought the unin-
formed denizens of thousands of obscure localities
into beneficial contact with those of the populous
manufacturing town or the busy port; if it has
given markets to the industry of vast masses of
our population, hitherto shut out by nature her-
self from a participation in the benefits of our im-
proved commerce, what is the same cause not cal-
culated to effect in benighted and unhappy Ire-
land ? • Spend a million sterling in reclaiming
bogs and wastes, in Making roads and building
farmhouses, for the permanent improvement of a
country, whose population has not capital to stock
and crop above a few roods of potatoe ground !
Faugh. Give Ireland railways, and her bogs and
wastes will reclaim themselves under the awakened
enterprise of her own people. A railway never ran
through a country the most uninviting, in which
it did not startle indolence from its slumber; and
develope, not only in the soil but in man, resources
and energies of which neither ever made use or
were imagined to possess.
There are, however, some modifications in• the
scheme of the Protectionist Leader which we think
might be made with advantage, and would be dal-
culated to win for it a more extended approval
from the public. In a measure so extensive as
this, which calls upon the State for so large an
advance of the public money as £16,000,000 ster-
ling, we ought to be careful as to the prospect of
repayment. It is well known that many of the
Irish lines, for which acts were obtained last ses-
sion, were hurried through Parliament with much
too little inquiry, English members deeming it
ungracious to oppose the declared wishes of Irish
communities, although doubtful of the correctness
of the data upon which they were formed, and
leaving to the representatives of Ireland the moral
burthen of their failure as sound investments for
capital. In part, the suggestion of Lord George
Bentinck, that the Government Railway Board
should reconsider these measures, prior to their
being carried out by Government aid, will meet the
evil. We should suggest, however, that the ad-
vance by the State should be one-half the capital,
not one-third, as stated by his lordship, by which
a better security would' be derived by the state.,
We are not certain, moreover, that the- present'
position of Ireland, and the claim now made in
her behalf, do not afford a fitting opportunity for
Government to undertake the duty, which has
unfortunately been let pass by in this country, of
providing a system of railways under its own ma-
nagement, or the management of an Irish Board,
the profits of which should be devoted to purely
Irish' objects, either in cheapening the cost of
transit, as traffic increased, or-in the formation of
increased accommodation for the country. This
subject, however, is too grave •a one to be discussed
here, and we only refer to it as deserving of serious
consideration at the present crisis.

THE course which her Majesty's Government,
acting upon the advice of the committee of- council,
is about to take for the more general spread of
education, amongst the people, is precisely what we
anticipated from the allusion to the subject in the
speech from the thrones. We remarked at the time-
that Lord John and his,colleagues would not grapple
boldly with- the admitted evils, arising from the
want of a comprehensive educational measure, to
be carried out by the state, but would confine
themselves to some improvement in the training of
teachers, and in the supervision of the schools esta-
blished, or partially supported, by the state,--mea-
sures good enough in their way, but quite inade-
quate to meet the requirements of the case.. And
such are the features of the policy announced by
the Marquis of Lansdowne on Friday evening, the
heads of which we shall here, briefly state.
The noble marquis, after dwelling upon the ad-
vantages, stated to have been derived from the su-
pervision over the existing schools, exercised by the
officers of the Education Committee of the Privy
Council, intimated that additional inspectors would
be appointed, with a view to an inspection of each
school at least once a year ; in the second place,
that apprentices would be taken from the various
schools with a view to their ultimate appointment
as schoolmasters, those found not to be sufficiently
eligible, after going through a course of normal
training, to be provided with employment in the
revenge departments, as guagers, &c.; thirdly, it
is proposed to afford retiring pensions to school-
masters and mistresses incapacitated, and gratuities