The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-08-28 00:00:00

EXTRAORDINARY CONSPIRACY

(Prom the Bristol Mirror.)

The weather and the harvest have excited and are still ex-
citing the most intense anxiety, both amongst the agricultu-
ral and commercial interests, as a short crop, and a conse-
quent importation of foreign corn, followed as that importa-
tion would he by a great export of the precious metals, must
be productive of the most disastrous consequences to the
community generally. A letter, of extraordinary import-
ance, in reference to this subject, has just come under our
notice, from which it appears that an atrocious conspiracy
has been organised for the sole purpose of raising prices, and
so reducing the duty as to lead to the importation of corn,
the export of gold, and the attendant paralysis of all com-
mercial and tradik operations. The following is an extract
of the letter ' • it is from an unquestionable source, the well-
known Mr. Handley, one of the whig members for South
Lincolnshire, being the writer :
" My attention, says Mr. Handley, was called to the state of
the London and Liverpool corn returns in the course of last
month, and I in consequence moved for papers relative
thereto in the House of Commons on the 29th July, and
have since that period been in constant communication with
the Board of Trade.

It is perfectly notorious in London that several large
houses in the corn trade have combined and subscribed to
make forced purchases for the purpose of reducing the duty,
and hence the monstrous returns of the last four weeks,
9598 qrs., 11,235 qrs., 14,900 qrs., and 19,500 qrs., being in
the average more than double the amounts of any preceding
month. Thus, at a period of the Year when stocks are na-
turally low, and when the arrivals in the port of London are
represented as only 10,725 qrs., and the quantities by land
carriage 6 to 700 qrs., the returns of wheat represented as
sold in the same week are nearly double that quantity, and
almost equal to one fourth of the aggregate amount of corn
sold in the 149 other cities and towns of England and Wales
named in the corn bill of the 9th Geo. IV.

The discrepancies in the average prices of Mark-lane and
Boston are also singularly wide ; but the London returns are
better borne out by the markets of Guildford, Uxbridge, &c,
in price than they are by comparative quantities. The Board
of Trade has instituted a searching investigation as to the
bulks represented as sold, and the bona fide nature of the
transactions.

Should they be proved to be fraudulent, they will be struck
out of the averages ; but if it shall appear, as there is too much
reason to apprehend, that certain partie4s have really made
such purchases, and have thought fit to sacrifice large sums
of money, with a view to future gain, I fear as the law stands
there is no remedy, especially where the facilities are afforded,
as in Mark-lane, of three markets in the week."
No remedy ! The miserable wretch who robs his neighbour
of a loaf of bread in order to appease his hunger, will be sent
to the tread-mill or to Botany Bay, but your bloated profes-
sors of love fur the people,' your ardent philanthropists—
your corn-law-repealers—may swindle—may starve a whole
nation with impunity. So much for reform !
On these transactions the London Standard has the follow-
ing remarks :—The villany exposed by Mr. Handley has
strong substantive claims to the notice and indignation of
the public, but the exposure is otherwise of immense interest.
It proves the power of the great corn-dealers to raise and
lower the markets at pleasure, even in the present state of
the law, when the home supply necessarily interferes with
them ; and it proves also their readiness to employ the power
in question for their private gain, wholly regardless of the
misery they inflict upon the public. Let, however, the sup-
ply of our markets be made in a greater degree than at pre-
sent dependent upon an import trade, as it would be by a re-
peal of the corn-laws, and the power, now so wickedly exer-
cised, would be infinitely enhanced—the food and lives of the
people would become the subject of daily speculation—the
Stock Exchange would be as a dove-cote to the rookery of
Mark-lane. Let the people think of this in time. They
have but to inquire who are now the great anti-corn-law agi-
tators, and they will find them to be the moneyed capitalists
and their organs. From this, if they are not blind, they must
see that the purpose with which the cry against the corn-
laws is raised is nothing less than to place the subsistence of
the people absolutely at the mercy of the possessors of money
capital. Mr. Handley has shown the power which these men
already possess, and their mode of using it, and without his
assistance in the latter, the people see from the factory sys-
tem how the power conferred by money will always be used.
What reason is there to suppose, that money having obtained
a monopoly of the subsistence of the labouring classes, will
use that monopoly more delicately than it uses its monopoly
of the labour of the working classes ? Let the classes named,
the classes most deeply concerned in the preservation of the
corn-laws, think of this in time.

MOVEMENTS OF TROOPS TO THE MEDITEIt-

RANEAN

(From the United Service Gazette)

The following enumeration of the intended movements of
regiments has just been decided on by the General Command-
ing in Chief, in concert with her Majesty's government. We
are glad to be able to give this exclusive and authentic in-
formation at so early a period, because we know that it will
be the means of relieving the doubts and uncertainties of many
of our military friends. How far the projected movements
are likely to prove satisfactory to the parties more immedi-
ately concerned, we are not prepared to say ; but we shall be
happy to learn that they are such as to have met with their
approval. For our own parts, we must candidly confess that
they do not meet with ours ; originating, as they do, in the
" rotation system," which has always appeared to us to be
one of the worst concocted and least beneficial military ar-
rangements that have ever yet been brought into operation.
We cannot perceive either the policy or the justice of sending
regiments from one scorching climate to another, without
any intermediate rest; and we are equally at a loss to discern
the advantage which is likely to accrue to the service from
suddenly transferring corps which have been accustomed, for
a long series of years, to do duty under a tropical sun, to the
freezing climate of our North American possessions. The
inevitable consequences of so injudicious a proceeding have
been manifested upon more than one occasion, by the whole-
sale ravages which death has committed upon several regi-
ments subjected to trials similar to those which the corps in
question are about to undergo. We shall be but too happy
to be convinced that our gloomy, but, we fear, well-grounded,
apprehensions are erroneous, and to have it in our power,
hereafter, to record that the 14th, 70th, 74th, 89th, 84th, and
68th regiments have not had their ranks considerably thinned
by their transfer from the West Indies and Jamaica to Canada!
It will be a source of equal gratification to us to hear that the
removal of the 33d, 47th, 59th, and 92d, from their present
sultry stations in the Mediterranean to their destined quar-
ters in the western hemisphere has proved the means of im-
proving their physical and mental energies, and rendering
them equal to an efficient discharge cf their respective duties.
The rotation system is no doubt coesidered, by its origina-
tors and supporters, to be a most excellent and admirable
mode of relief; but, until it undergoes considerable modifi-
cation and improvement, we must beg leave to express our
dissent from the opinion. We subjoin the projected move-
ments, upon the correctness of which our readers may place
the fullest reliance :