The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-05 00:00:00

in so delusive a dream concerning

We can well believe that it

was from no love to popery, or to its priesthood, that

s founded

It was felt, doubtless, that

popery was the master evil of Ireland, and the found-
ers most likely chose this method as one to mitigate it,

ing that in pursuing the shadow, they
might endanger the substantial, and that in seeking to

not consid,

conciliate, they were rendering the. nation responsible
for nourishing and sustaining the monster itself, whose

very existence was its greatest infliction

There is nothing in the ostensible object of the meet-
ing convened by *the MAYOR for Monday next, " to
take into consideration the restrictions and prohibitions
of our commercial code, and .to determine on all pro•

per measures for obtaining such alterations therein, as

may appear expedient," that necesAarily involves any
peculiar views or feeling of party. We adverted to
this topic briefly in our last number, but as the subject
is one of very great moment and interest to all classes,
we may be excused for recurring to it in our present.

We have said that the removal of restrictions in our
commercial code is a matter in which all parties are
equally concerned—so far as that removal may be
really useful and beneficial to the community—and we
are nut disposed to allow to, or assume for, any parti-
cular class a monopoly in a proper, national, and pa-
triotic feeling for the prosperity of British commerce
and manufactures. It is easy to raise a cry for free
trade, and do a tolerable share of business in that vo-
cation, whilst for any practical purpose the clamourers
might as well keep silent, or, rather, had much better
remain so. The cry is in general popular, and com-
mends to popularity. It promises low prices and in-
creased industry. It holds out expectations of novelty
and change—is experimental and exciting, and there-
fore has on its side all that' is flattering and attractive.
But though the principle is excellent, the theory admi-
rable, yet when we come to carry it out into practice,
we find that it has so many difficulties to encounter,
that it can be acted on only to a limited extent. Much

circumspection is especially required in applying it in
a country where commercial and financial relations are

so complicated as they are in ours.
We grant that popular feeling may be legitimately
called into exercise on questions in which the principle
is involved; but it is unwise on the part of statesmen
to foment a mania' of this description, and still worse
that they should be compelled to give way, contrary to
their better judgment, before its impulse. We should
remember the Penny Post—aye. It is a fresh and me-
morable example to cool our ardour and assist our

judgment. We had, in that instance, free trade—in

letters, the removal of restrictions, and popular solicita-
tion combined in the happiest amalgamation. The
theory was beautiful : correspondence was to be cheap,
and the revenue was not to suffer. " Cheap, uniform,

and productive"—that was' the thing; and everybody
exclaimed that if " Heaven first taught letters for some
wretch's, aid," it was something little short of inspira-
tion which suggested to Mr. Rowland Hill the idea of
sending them through the postoffice for a penny. The

project was carried, as it were, by storm; but what has

been the consequence to the revenue

Why the loss

of upwards of one million sterling per annum

—a loss

by no means trifling at any time, but really serious and
important at a time when Whig management has
brought our annual expenditure so much beyond in-
come. Hence the inference is plain, that pop..dar feel-
ing is no safe guide in these matters.

The clamour for free trade in corn is another tolera-
bly clear proof that commercial regulation is not ex-
actly an affair to be entrusted to the collective wisdom
of popular assemblies. When aldermen and town-
councillors broach such monstrous doctrines on this

head, nothing that comes from factory operatives, or
the corn•law league, ought to give us the least surprise.
In the course of last week we have had the advantage
of hearing that profound statesman and prodigious
orator, Sir Joshua Walmsley, expatiating on this topic
as chairman of the Tradesmen's Reform Association;

and, as he professed to base his arguments on scrip-
tural grounds, we were the more struck by the nice
regard to truth and logic which he evinced in raising
his superstructure. He told the associated tradesmen

" that they saw the common necessaries of life—the
food of man—the bread, the beef, the pork, the coffee,
the sugar, all the most necessary commodities of life,
denied admittance into the country, unless at famine

prices. And they saw those who were the producers
of wealth, upon whom the rich and affluent depended
for all their comforts, sweating and toiling all day, and
condemned to eat the . •
lowest food produced." Under
the vehement persuasion of such a spokesman, we
make no doubt that the auditory saw all this at the
moment in their " mind's eye," and would have seen
almost anything with the aid of a triflng modicum of

that potent conjurer which sometimes makes men "see
double," had the eloquent chairman thought proper to
lay any further contribution on their optical powers;
but the statement is nevertheless a most reckless and

unwarrantable exaggeration. He next proceeded to

quote Scripture to his purpose :--" It was written in
the Divine law, He that withholdeth corn, the people
shall curse him;' and a learned and pious divine, of
the present day, had added, Yea, and God shall curse
him too, both in time and eternity.' " At this there
were vehement " cheers," and the speaker rioter'
doubtless, in all the In This

Y ury of applause

"learned

and pious divine"

must, we should think, have for

gotten the Scripture which says, " bless, and curse
not at all events his amen to the saying of the wise
king, and the entire quotation, is utterly destitute of.

the smallest relation to a protecting duty upon corn
" He that withholdeth corn"—that is the letter; but

the spirit of the passage is, " lie