The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-08-16 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 16, t 836.

In the House of Commons on Wednesday evening last
(vide parliamentary summary) Mr. Chancellor of his Ma-
jesty's Exchequer, alias the facetious " red herring" logi-
cian of a former debate in that honourable house of " the
people," re-introduced the " Stamp Duties Newspaper
Bill," as rudely amended " in another place," by the contu-
melious rejection of the inquisitorial eleventh clause, and to
which we offered some respectful attention in our last
number, for the sober reflection of our conservative
friends, and the sagacious consideration of our non-liberal
readers in general. _ . .

After indulging in some salient (4u. sapient ?) invec-
tive remarks against the House of Lords, for their gross
presumption and impertinence, in thus daring to inter-
fere with the training and dressing of his own darling
free .born, ingenious child, of " superficial" understanding
and " inches," the truly "liberal knowledge" member
for "all Cambridge" now moved, that the bill (as
brought back and so rudely handled without his per-
mission—for this was the gist of the right homAirable
gentleman's argument—be " laid aside," for the pur-
pose of enabling the house to bring in (heir own bill
without the Buller or rather bullying clause, and by
suspending the standing orders, pass it through its three
several stages, committal, and report, and send it up at
once, bang, like a thunderbolt, to the threAhold of their
lordships' house ! Admirable ! And can Mr. Spring
Rice, who really possesses some gentlemanly qualities,
even engulphed, as it is evident they are, in the maze of
the O'Connell policy, be so vain as to imagine that the
British peers care one straw for "superficial airs" like
these, for their high performance of a state duty, to that
very people who are insulted, trifled with, nay, de-
ceived, by their own natural guardians and professing
protectors ? _ .

But the legislation—the legislation Is this the inde-
pendent course, this the mode of maintaining a high
and tenacious respect for " privilege," propounded by a
leading member of the government, to the judgment of
an English House of Commons, for the sake of peace and
quietness, or of " convenience," and to " prevent delay"
—to get rid, as it were by a " side wind," of a stumbling
block raised by the peers on behalf of the sanctity of
private professions, the security of public influence, and
the general utility of the British press, as the admitted
herald of European freedom, against that of which the
ministerwthemselves, and their very generous supporters
in the measure, became sorely ashamed ? Sails impu-
dentio, sapientiffl parum !
Well, the Lords have, under the honourable leadership
of a Lyndhurst, stood forward in protection of the pri-
vate rights—the property, and the family interests of the
many highly respectable members of the English com-
munity who have risked those rights, property, and in-
terests, together with time, talent, and industry for the
public weal, in upholding the defensive shield of national
conservative freedom—the censorship of public morals
—the protection of the weak against the strong—the
advocacy of the cause of charity, and the protection of
religion, combined with free and safe government in the
state. As individuals, we thank the Lords; and in the
name of the cause we fearlessly espouse, we doubly offer
to their lordships the homage of our .gratitude on this
occasion, as on all others, and that without hypocrisy.
True it is, that, partially, in the hands of designing
whig oligarchs, fiery radicals, and political papists, the
press may be, and is; rendered the herald of false doc-
trine,—thesubtle agentof abstract rights, or the covert
engine of pure despotism; but taken as a whole it is the
opposite to all these ; and yet our ,sapient friends, the
tame followers of Messrs. Hume, Roebuck, Duncombe,
Wakley, Ewa-0, and Co. impudently drink s• the fieedorn
of the Press," at their bacchanalian orgies !
Reviewing the conduct of the government throughout
the whole affair, it has not maintained its own dignity,
much less, supported the just dignity of the House of
Commons.

.....
Its policy has been puerile, trifling, affronting, and dis-
gustingly truckling, and calculated to compromise its
supporting House in the opinion of the people " out of
doors;" and so far certainly, we ought to thank the go-
vernment for the "show-up" they have made of them-
selves with regard to this memorable bill, and which has
indelibly stamped their credit, as the friends and pro-
moters of popular rights, with every man of plain and
impartial sense from one end of this kingdom to the
other.

And now let us be permitted, in all good feeling, to
offer to our thorough-going friends and conscientious
fellow-townsmen a little wholesome advice for the radical
cure of that unhappy malady of blindness, with which
so many of them are, alas! afflicted, to their town discom-
fort and the disturbance of their neighbour's peace and
quiet. Onr prescription herein shall be a gentle one,—
the doses moderate, and thgeinedy itself innocent,—it
is simply to take a few moderate draughts of the 'refresh-
ing water which arises from the spring of common sense
—let them do this for a few mornings, fasting, and wash
their eves with a little of the sarnerwater, from the same
good staple spring, and we promise to spare them the
future obtrusion of our professional skill.
It has been well remarked by an able French writer,
that "men begin to perform their part in the great drama
of human life, by becoming the dupes, and then falling a
prey to the cupidity and rapacity of others; but they fre-
quently end. their own career by becoming knaves."

' " Suchis the crafty progress of deceit,
The silly dupe oft closes iu the cheat!"
Ours is the duty and the task to hold up the "mirror
which flatters not," and which if looked upon stedfastly,