The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-03-06 00:00:00

was signed, it
600,000,000 lbs

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Pas in 1815

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mination of the French vc

Hear and applause.)
so long ; but he w

ned tai

re taken frOn- that whi,
catechism of the free t

was sorry he had del:..
to say that his figures wel
generally supposed to be the
" Porter's Progress of the British
and applause.) With regard
Labouchere, after the derv,,.._
would be followed up by similar meetings in Other
ports,) it was scarcely necessary to go further; bu
could not permit, the opportunity to, go past without
tieing the libels perpetrated by those men calling
selves the British ministers, upon English seamen .
artisans. They had raked together, it grieved him to sa

[ad that I
to hear tl,

stration of that

one of

the most filthy evidence, from- various canti
searched out all th

,nce.

se men

e dirty channels a'

reach, for the purpose of inventing a malignant libel.
(Loud applause.) Those libels were brought forward both
by Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Labouchere in the Commons.
They stated that British ships were so badly navigated,
that the insurance upon them was much higher than upon

t seemed to have

istituti

e present day
such of infatu-

ere were various

.esent in I ma:

foreign ships,
that room who were very conversant with insurances, and he would would ask them whether it was a truth or a falsehood? ation in tu,, _
("It is false.") It was a notorious fact that British be done for the for
ships were insured to and from all parts of the world at a God or of nature
less premium than foreign ships. (Hear and applause.) j been s,;l
Those ministers of the crown had also said tha'
captains were drunken, ignorant, and incapable of con-
ducting their vessels from one port to another. (Hear.
He and those about him who were shipowners, knee
whether that was a truth or not. (Applause.)
garded his own experience, for he had employed man)
captains in his time, he could say that, on their return
from voyages, they had often told him that they had met man, and next, to,
with American captains, who had hailed them, who were cheers.) He looked upon this ,
as vastly out of their longitude as it was possible to be. Labouchere) as a most iniquitous niece.
(Laughter and applause.) It was only in the course of to sap the very foundation of English supremai
last year that one of his own ships fell in, off the coast of transfer the capital of this country to foreigner
Ireland, with a- foreign- vessel from the. Mediterranean, he looked at the effect of this measure to
laden with grain. His captain, thinking that the vesael anchormakers, to sailmakers, to all cc
looked in a strange predicament, imagined she was de- ping, world they tell him he was not interested,
serted by her captain and crew. Ho went on board the he was not a shipowner- (Great applause.) He
vessel, and found hi 3 surmise was perfectly correct. He more : the agriculturists and the town of Taunton,—mis-
therefore took possession of the vessel, to navigate her represented by Mr. Labouchere—(loud laughter and
into the nearest port. There had been a gale; the Me- cheers)—had an interest in this question ; and if the men
diterranean captain thought it was a hurricane, and, in a of Taunton possessed two grains of common sense the
fit of terror, had deserted his ship, leaving the custody of would send him to the right about. (Laughter and cheers.)
it, to whom did they imagine ?—to the Virgin Mary and How were we to protect our colonies but by
to St. Anthony. (Laughter and loud applause.) To the And was it nothing that we should retain the
Virgin Mary and St. Anthony, who were both seated, not been purchased at such an immense seer'
in a living state, but in the character of images, in the and bloodshed ? (Loud cheers.) He
cabin, with tapers burning before them ; and that was colonies as the lungs of the mother cot
the way the foreign captain had allowed his ship to be destroyed these, they destroyed the breatl
brought into port. (Loud laughter and applause.) He (Great applause.) It had been said "
should conclude with one or two brief remarks. First,

,tinientality

lotting

g was to
e law of
It had

•equirec

our own country

the late

t British meeting

t they v
nild not

Liowever, 1
r should

interested
y ; he ne-
of a ship.
ne class of

plause a

As re-

whole ; if the shipbu
country became deer

t of the
n of the

the mercantile

e(1, who felt it first b

:orkman dependent upon

him. (Loud

(the proposition Of Mr.
ire—one calculated

and to
When

nnected with ship-

)ecause
said

ur navy

which had

'nice of money

d upon our

entry, and if they

of England,

there was an attempt made by Mr. Labouchere to abo-
lish the system of apprentices altogether. In that the
government appeared actually to be running from one
extreme to the other. He (Mr. Yates) was old enough
to remember the time when the taking of apprentices was
the great grievance. Why ? Because the compulsion to
take those apprentices was confined to West India ships.
(Hear.) The system was now diffused over all the navi-
gation of the country : it was no grievance at all. But
here was a government determined to abandon the sys-

ing improvements. He denied it. Our ships were found
in almost every river of the globe, carrying the wealth of
distant climes. But, to take a higher view of the matter,
—it was something to convey the laws of England, the
institutions of England, the religion of England to darker
regions. :(Immense cheering.) It had been said, " let us
progress ;" but progression might be in the wrong as well
as in the right direction. He must say—but perhaps he
spoke with a political bias—(laughter)—that he distrusted
the honesty of the present administration. (Cheers and

ir capacity. Any man
might tinker an edifice, but it required a master hand to
touch the foundation. (Applause.) He had just as much
faith in Sir Charles Wood, the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer—who scarcely knew that two sixpences made one
shilling—(laughter)—as he had in the whole of the
ministry. (Lond and prolonged applause.) One or two
remarks had fallen from previous speakers with reference
to America. That country had her protective system. It
was true America had free trade within herself—in her
combined states—and very properly so ; but had we free
trade with her ? (Applause.) We received her corn and
flour, and she taxed our earthenwares, our hardwares, and
our yarns—(tremendous cheers) :—we levied an import
duty, and she taxed our articles of production. (Applause.)
The parallel which had been drawn would not hold good;
and when gentlemen stood up and talked about America,
let them tell the truth—the whole truth. (Cheers.) She
had republicanism, and she had the bitter curse of slavery
imposed upon her. (Great applause.) We possessed a
monarchy, and a freedom of action and of speech. He
could stand there, and denounce a ministry acting in a way
detrimental to the people's interest, and leave the room
without fear of being tarred and feathered after the most
approved fashion. , (Laughter and cheers.) He then
said, let him congratulate them, that whilst America was
an aristocratic community, we had the benefit of being a
monarchical republic. (Boisterous and prolonged ap-
plause.) It had been his painful position, in the exercise
of that which he thought a public duty, to oppose some
portion of the artisans upon questions always painful to
him ; but whilst he had not shrunk from that which was
right, he would never desert those from whom he had his
bread, and with whom, in his earlier days, he had worked
and toiled with pleasure. (Cheers.) He would never
desert them, whether their opposition was against a mer-
chant, a government, or against the feelings of a whole
nation. (Loud and prolonged applause.) They had been
told that ships could be built cheaper at Stettin, Ham-
burgh, and Danzic. Was it not clear, then, that the ship-
wright, the ironmonger, the anchorsmith, the ropemaker,
the sailmaker, and others connected with shipping, would
be the losers, and that the matter would recoil upon every
shopkeeper and tradesman in the land. (Loud applause.)
It would run, like an electric shock, through the whole of
society, and those who now advocated the scheme would
rue the day when it was brought into operation. (Cheers.)
Mr. Holme then, in severe terms, denounced the reci-
procity system, and his declamation was received with
loud applause. From those very boards upon which he
then stood, free-trade notions were perpetrated by the
well-paid Mr. Cobden, who had found that agitation was
more profitable than shipbuilding. (Laughter and cheers.)
And we were now to follow up, for consistency's sake, the
repeal of the Navigation Laws. If they did so, he could
only say, with the verdict of a Welsh jury, in the case of
the murder of a wife by her husband, "It served her
right." (Continued laughter and applause.) One of the
gentlemen who had spoken in favour of the amendment
that day—a secretary to some of the political associations
with which the country now teemed,—and it was the easiest
thing in the world to legislate upon matters in which a
man was not at all interested—had talked wonderously of
class legislation—given a compliment to the aritisans of
England, and had then attempted to knock them down.
(Laughter and cheers.) Monopoly ! It was a fine word :
but if P man honestly earned his bread, and established a
reputation, did not these belong to him ? (Cheers.) They
had been told of class legislation ! He declared he did
not understand the term. They could not have it in this
country. What affected the one did also the other. But
there had been a sop thrown out to the shipowners : they
were told they had better risk the consequences, and trust
to after benefits. First of all, the gentlemen who had
advocated this doctrine had said, that no one could com-
pete with an English workman. Well, then, if so, they
robbed him of his character : let him enjoy the monopoly
which by his skill, his science, and his industry, he had
earned, and not lug in the foreigner by giving us cheap
but bad ships. (Cheers and laughter.) He had lived
long enough to know that whenever a man wanted a
thing cheap, he wanted it either flimsy or nasty. (Laugh-
ter.) One of the speakers had said that he blushed for
the workmen (shipbuilders) of England. Could he blush
for those who had been the architects of the wooden bar-
riers upon which an invincible Nelson died, and a brave
Howe fought? (Great applause.) Could he blush at
seeing those splendid East Indiamen, bringing in their
cargoes of sugar without one particle being damaged ?
(Cheers.) It was a great misfortune when men would
persist to talk upon sujects in which they had displayed
the most profound ignorance. (Cheers and laughter.)
Had the House of Commons pluck? (Laughter.) A
good many of them were biassed and dared not give an
honest opinion, and he.cordially agreed with a former
speaker, and thanked God that we had a House of Lords.
(much applause.) He did not think their petition would
be available—it would fall upon ears always prejudiced,
to men who dared not give an honest vote. (Hear, hear.)
It would be for them (the meeting) to teach them a little
common sense. They had a deliberative branch of the
legislature—one of the glories of England, not biassed, as
it was rightly termed, by the " pressure from without,'
—men who had passed their apprenticeship in the House
of Commons—and who could coolly and logically debate
the matter,—to appeal to. The bill, before it became law,
must have the scrutinising glance of a Stanley, the good
sense of Lord Harrowby, and the keen searching glance
of a Brougham applied to it. (Applause.) Mr. Holme
concluded by moving a vote of thanks to the Mayor for-
his conduct in presiding.
Mr. R. RANKIN seconded the motion.
The motion was carried by deafening and prolonged
applause.

tem of rearing apprentices altogether, without giving any
earthly reason that he could discover why that abandon-
ment should be made. (Hear, hear, and applause.) The
taking of one apprentice for every 150 tons was no griev-
ance to the British shipowner. On the contrary, ap-
prentices could do many things which seamen could not,
and if a ship was allowed to take a small number of ap-
prentices, the wages of seamen were saved. And he
would appeal to any man of feeling whether he would
shut out the school of knowledge to the youth of this
country, especially the youth of the maritime classes.—
(Applause.)—He contended that the system ought not to
be abolished. The small number of apprentices which he
and other shipowners had to take was no grievance at all :
he, for his own part, was willing to submit to it, because
he believed it to be for the good of the country. One
more point it would be his duty to advert to. Mr. La-
bouchere, in his bill, which might be called "a bill of
pains and penalties," proposed to deprive us of our Li-
verpool Seamen's Fund. It was perhaps not known to
every one in that room, that there was a large amount
laid up in. the bank for the widows and orphans of Liver-
pool seamen. This fund had been raised partly by a con-
tribution upon tonnage, and partly by voluntary subscrip-
tions. He thought it would be a most unjust thing to
attempt to abolish such a fund as that, excepting on bet-
ter grounds than had been hitherto shown, and he trusted
its abolition would be resisted by Liverpool, and by all
the other ports. (Applause.) He should not detain
them any longer, but would conclude by moving the
adoption of the petitions, which he read ; that they be
signed by the mayor, on behalf of the meeting, and that
the members for the borough be requested to support the
prayer of the one to be presented to the House of Com-

mons,

Mr. BROCKLEBANK seconded the resolution. He
hoped they would unanimously agree that petitions should
be presented to the legislature against the total repeal of
the Navigation Laws. He thought that the expression of
public opinion shown that day, and elsewhere, against Mr.
Labouchere's pernicious bill,—pernicious he said, whether
considered commercially or politically, would be the
means of defeating it, if not in the present house of Com-
mons, in another. (Applause.)
Mr. F. A. CLINT came forward to propose the next re-
solution. He quite agreed with Mr. Tobin that men of
every variety of politics might oppose that most injurious
measure of Mr. Labouchere. The question of our na-
tional defences, which took the present out of the cate-
gory of commercial questions, invited every class to come
forward in defence of the Navigation Laws. (Applause.)
If he could convince himself that Mr. Cobden s theory
could be carried out, that war would cease, and that men
would hereafter be united in the bonds of brotherhood,
united by calico and other Manchester goods—(laughter)
—he might take a different view of the question. But
when he remembered that war still devastates the earth—
that wars and rumours of wars were every day bursting
upon our ears—when he recollected that only a year ago
the whole continent was convulsed from one end to the
other, he could not but think that Mr. Cobden's fancies
of universal peace were the dreams of a heated imagina-
tion. (Applause.) It was upon the question of the naval
defences that he supported the Navigation Laws—but in
reference to the commercial part of it, he said he could
not conceive a more silly and bungling bargain than
would be made by Mr. Labouchere in repealing the laws
and benefiting foreigners without receiving any advan-
tages from them in return. (Applause.) He could ima-
gine a case in which a carrying trade was conducted be-
tween A and B, in which both should have equal advan-
tage ; but when there were colonies in the question he
could not see why A should say to B, I have a trade
with colonies, which have cost me much blood and trea-
sure, here take a share of that. (Applause.) He could
still less expect that A should throw open his arms to
all his brothers in the alphabet, and say, here take all the
advantages I have, and divide them among you. He
could not conceive any commercial men guilty of such
bungling as that. (Applause.) It had been stated in the
House of Commons, this session, that the people of
England were opposed, to the Navigation Laws : he be-
lieved, on the contrary, that if the whole of England were
polled from one end to the other, there would be a ma-
jority in favour of the Navigation Laws. (Applause.) It
was " a weak invention of the enemy," and could serve
no purpose except to weaken his own cause. It could
not be too much impressed upon that meeting that the
first agitation for the repeal of those laws did not emanate
from any member of government, but from Mr.
Ricardo, the member for Stoke-upon-Trent, who, in
debating the question, had infused into it a bitterness,
which, however good it might be in the article that came
from the Trent, was very ill-judged in dealing with so
grave and momentous a question as that. Mr. Clint pro-
ceeded to hope that that meeting would originate such a
feeling, and create such execration throughout the coun-
try, that ministers would not dare to lay violent hands
on that fabric reared by our ancestors two centuries ago,
and which had raised us so high in the scale of nations.
The speaker, after a peroration setting forth the glory to
which England had attained, and would yet attain, if she
preserved her Navigation Laws, concluded, " We should
be earnest in season and out of season to check this per-
nicious measure. I hope that our artizans and all will
put their shoulders to the wheel, and stop a measure so
fraught with danger to the interests of all." (Applause.)
Mr. DUNCAN GIBE came forward to second the resolu-
tion. He said it would ill become him, after the able and
eloquent speeches they had heard, at that advanced hour
to detain them long. With respect to the question of the
mighty arm of defence which the Navigation Laws afforded
to this great nation, he wished to be allowed to notice that
while they had been an arm of defence, they had been, along
with another, the great arm of power to the nation : the
ploughshares of England had been nearly destroyed, and they
had been the next great arm of power in supporting the
home trade. All our freightage, taken by the British flag
throughout the world, had hitherto been expended in
this country,—had gone to the shopkeepers here, and
had caused a demand for the goods of Birmingham and
Sheffield,—aye, and the muslin-de-laines of Manchester
too, and had increased the demand for the manufactures
of Cobden himself (laughter). These were views which
would come home yet to him (Mr. Cobden), and other
manufacturers, who would be the first to suffer from the
free-trade movement which they themselves originated and
assisted to carry into effect (hear, hear.) It had been
the home trade which had caused the success of which
these men now boasted. He would like much to meet Mr.
Labouchere to catechise him a bit upon the matter, and if
he should not be sent upon the deputation he would go
himself (cheers and laughter).
Mr. SAMUEL HOLME then presented himself, and was
received with boisterous and prolonged applause. He said
the business of the meeting being concluded, there was
one duty yet to be performed, and he felt satisfied that if
those two fragments of the Manchester League had re.
mained in the building, even they would have joined in
the subject of the motion he was about to propose, (hear.)
It was much better to come in at the end of a feast than
at the beginning of an affray—(laughter)—and he con-
fessed that to him it had been a rich intellectual feast to
hear advanced those unanswerable statistical statements
which had been laid before them. It was a source of
pride and consolation to witness assembled such a meeting
as that before him, and to hear the cheering burst of en.

His Worship, in terse and appropriate remarks, replied
to the compliment, and the meeting separated at five
minutes to six o'clock.

The Mayor of Shrewsbury will preside at the jubilee
meeting in that town of the Christian Knowledge Society
on Thursday. The Rev. G. Warr of this town is adver-
tised to be present._

MR. ROXBURGH'S PROPERTY CIRCULAR.—A contem-
porary describes this circular as " a striking piece of typo-
graphy, which includes a description of ninety-five speci-
mens of property in his hands. which must attract the
attention of purchasers of every grade, from the thrifty
tradesman to the wealthy capitalist." The circular is
indeed " striking," and from a personal knowledge of Mr.
Roxburgh's high respectability and excellent business
habits, we can assure those who may do business with
him, that they could not be in better hands.
NOTES FOR ENGLISH CIRCULATION.—Under this sig-
nificant title Mr. Moody (admittedly the best comic vo-
calist of the day) gives an entertainment at the Concert
Hall on Wednesday evening next. The name of Mr.
Moody may not be generally known to a Liverpool au-
dience ; but his appearance at the Guardian Society's
and the Mayor's Dinner to the Prince of orange has es.
tablished for him a local reputation that cannot fail to en-
sure a first-rate audience. From our own knowledge of
Mr. Moody's vocal abilities, in his peculiar line, we can-
not do less than strongly recommend those who wish an
evening's enjoyment to attend. His happy imitations of
the London actors, his fine mellow voice, and the truly
characteristic humour he introduces, apparently without
effort, into every song, give to his works novelty as well
as originality.

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` thusiasm which had been sent forth, because it was a
sinde Mb.' If we included the shipping built and regig,
tered in Britl,l,ll America, our tonnage had only increased p,,,:00r that Englishmen possessed manly hands and manly
one-third, Nocv compare that small advance with the heAN.' ; and would fearlessly say to a ministry determined
gone —we are determined you shall go no further."
advance that had ,taken place in other manufactures. He to War.: every class of the community, " Thus far have
could go to thl iron manufacture, and to various other you
branches of trade, but would confine himself at pre- (Cheers.) Dj...ln the occasion of the late magnificent
sent to the cotton manufacture. In 1814, the cotton soiree, whikt n the hospitable board of their worthy
wool taken fdr consumption in Great Britain amounted mayor, he had bad tt,' pleasure of meeting with the two
4,. Kg /17 nnn 11 -..c —„-3...,.....F o.- 1„. ..,-. ...- h : and f1,,,,,,,i, I.- _.._„. ::- . :- 70TM —1.,.., 4.1,- 4----a-