The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-29 00:00:00

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41 this respect. Attacks apen her have not been wanting, I
am well aware, but- thanks, under Providence, to her ma-
jesty's'oppotition; those attacks have been defeated. (Great
cheers.) Has the constitution been maintained as it origi-
nally was ? Remember that the inroad in it was made be-
fore the trust of representing your interests had been re-
posed in either myself or my noble colleague. (Cheers.)
From that hour no inroad has been made. (Loud cheers.)
Attack after attack has been made ; attempt after attempt has
also been made ; and when it has been found that pro-
positions working unfairly as respects the constitution have
been attempted to he remedied by hens majesty's opposition
they have been thwarted by the mistry, and when the
struggle was for the constitution as it is, then the burden of
the struggle has been borne altogether by her majesty's
opposition. (Renewed cheers.) Having then returned to
you faithfully the trust reposed in me, .I trust I shall, without
the least diminution of your attachment, have the honour of
saying that I am as well supported as ever in my claim upon
that trust again. (Great applause.) And what is that trust
now ? What are we called upon to maintain at the present
time ? We ask now to have reposed in us the trust of main-
taining the interests of Britain against the interests of
foreigners. (Loud cheers.) They have tried to delude you
by saying that we are desirous of promoting class interests?
and wishing to protect this man and that man at the expense
of the community at large ; but if we were to adopt the mea-
sures proposed to us by ministers we should be injuring, not
foreigners, but ourselves. (Hear, hear.) Every one of the
measures proposed to us would be most injurious to the
interests we are most bound to preserve. (Hear, and cheers.)
To one of them I shall allude. I like to speak of familiar
matters, for I can then be least charged with any desire to
mislead you, because on such matters neither myself nor any
man else can mislead you. (Hear, and cheers.) Let us
then, take the question of the colonies. (Hear, hear . ) We
are called on at the present period, in this great town of
"
Liverpool,—interested above all things in shi •
ship-
building, ship-fitting, ship-manning, ship-victu.ll.g,
ing,o
,sayand,
bringing home timber by your ships,—we are called n
to destroy the whole of that trade. (Hear, hear, hear.)
Now, I appeal to any man connected with the shipping
e seen vessel
in-
terest, have you not, during the last ten ers,
after vessel quitting the docks in this great town crowded
with your fellow-countrymen, emigrants, relieving the poor-
rates of this country from the necessity of supporting them,
and l
seeking for a subsistence in a foreign and ? (Hear.)
You who remain here have been more fortunate. You have
been able to obtain employment. You have been able to
earn an honourable subsistence by the work of your hands.
Your fellow-countrymen, perchance not less honest, indus-
trious, or anxious for independence than yourselves, and not
less fond of their native country, have yet, in the distress of
circumstances, arising out of the natural progress of events
—the population of the country increasing beyond the means
of supporting them—sought a living in a foreign land.
(Hear.) You have seen them leave your shores and depart.
You have no doubt expressed to the parties surrounding the
docks your hopes for their prosperity ; but, will you now as-
sist her majesty's ministers in the carrying of a measure.
which must not only destroy all those hopes, butreduce your
fellow-countrymen to absolute beggary and starvation ?
(Hear, herr.) And yet such would be the effect of the mea-
sure they propose. Can any one connected with the port of
Liverpool be for one moment ignorant of the fact, that if the
timber trade with our North American colonies were stopped,
our fellow-countrymen who have emigrated thither would be
materially injured ? Or can any one doubt that that trade
would be ruined by the measure the goverement have pro-
posed for substituting the Baltic for the colonial timber
trade ? (Hear, hear.) If then, you sanction that measure,
and if you send men to parliament to support that alteration,
what is it but signing a fiat against your hundreds of thou-
sands of countrymen in the colonies ! And have you the
heart for that ? (Vehement cries of no, no.) Oh ! 1 know
you have n't the heart for it, though I appeal to your heart
first because it is a good English one. (Cheers.) Let me
now appeal to your reason, and ask whether the first honest
impulse of your reason is not supported by your judgment ?
What reason is there for it ? How can they prove that you
would be beuefitted by it ? Suppose timber was brought
from the Baltic, would you bring it ? (No.) Would you
build their ships ? (No.) Would you man them ? (No.)
Would you victual them ? (No.) Then what have you
to gain by the change? (Loud cries of " Nothing at all.")
Exactly so; you would gain a loss (hear, hear, and great
laughter); and your less fortunate fellow countrymen now
living abroad would be reduced to ruin and starvation.'
(Cheers.) Another great interest which they are attempting
to take from us is one connected with our commerce, be-
cause, without it, it cannot flourish, but dependent, not so
much upon our commerce as upon our agriculture—l mean
the interest of the landholder. You have heard a great deal
of idle talk about this interest. You have heard about
the foreign grower of corn being willing to supply yon with
grain at a cheap rate,- and that it was impious upon your part
to keep from the people the supply Providence had ordained
they should possess. What sad nonsense !—I cannot treat
it more mildly—what utter nonsense is this you talk !
(Cheers.) I shall put the case thus :—I understand a cargo
of wheat has already arrived from Odessa, which, after pay
ing the whole amount of duty that is capable of being exacted
by the existing law, can be sold here and give a profit of 25
per cent. to the importer. Suppose that the corn-grower in
this country, bearing the burden of poor-rates, highway
rates, tithes, and other burdens which fall on the real pro-
perty of the land—suppose he sells his corn at a price that
leaves him five per cent., they immediately cry out, " Oh !
'tis monstrous that you should realise five per cent. by your
industry. it is contrary to the laws of Providence." (Hear,
and a laugh.) But, according to the laws of Providence,
what right has the importer to make 25 per cent.? (Great
cheering, and cries of Ask Sir Joshua that.") It is not a
fair auestion to put to any man, simply because no man has
a right so to argue, because if a man says that it is impious to
keep from the people the produce of the land which Provi-
dence intended for their support, why then any man has a
right to fix his own price on the soil, and the owner of it
must be bound to part with it at whatever the tenant may
choose to give ; and so you reduce the bargain and sale out
of the vulgar practices of trade. (Great laughter and cheers.)
So much for that subject. Though I fear that lam detaining
you—(no, no)r-to too late an hour on this, Saturday night,
which is so peculiarly adapted to repose, and when, after the
labours of the week, we may be anxious to enjoy it, I shall
just add a word or two more. (Hear.) I have attempted to
show you some of the evils which would have resulted from
the passing of those colonial and corn questions, not because
I think those questions of vital importance, but because if
your adversaries could show that you were under some mis-
take as to those, they might mislead you from the great and
leading questions on which the happiness of this country de-
pends. The main, and after all, the great fundamental feel-
ings which should actuate the constituencies of England at
the present moment is the maintenance of that great Protes-
tant principle—which seated our beloved monarch on the
throne, by which her ancestors reigned, and by which, I trust,
she shall reign after most of us are in our graves, under which
her country has thriven, and she has enjoyed liberty in reli-
gion, as well as civil liberty also. (Cheers.) Without reli-
gious liberty no civil liberty can long exist; for if the mind
be enslaved, the body cannot long remain free. (Hear, hear.)
You can have little choice in such a case. If you are subjected
to religious thraldom, I will answer for it that you cannot
enjoy civil liberty ; but, in the result, the pressure of the one
will make you rebels against the other, and you will become
infidels in religion and democrats in politics. (Great ap-
plause.) 1 find, therefore, in looking back on the history of
this and other countries and their present state, that demo-
cratic feelings and infidelity in religion go together ; that the
dominancy of the papacy and mental slavery are infallible
concomitants;—(hear)—that where the Popish religion pre-
vails, the priest domineers not only over the conscience but the
conduct of his penitent ; that it is only where man is instructed
to be free in his thoughts and actions, where he is daily
impressed with a feeling of reverence towards his Creator—
where he feels sensibly, every day of his life, his awful re-
sponsibility towards Him who made him, and his gratitude
towards Him who redeemed him ;—it is in such a case he
will enjoy all the blessings of religious, and, as a necessary
consequence, civil liberty also. (Renewed applause.) It is
on these grounds, as well as my fidelity to the constitution,
that I seek a renewal of your confidence. I utterly disclaim
all the new-fangled notions of the ministry : but if it were on
these grounds, and these alone, I am well convinced that you
are far too much enlightened even to suppose that they are
spread before you with the view of obtaining anything like a
benefit for myself. These are the grounds on which, I trust,
we have received your confidence ; these are the topics which
have, I trust, obtained for us a cordial greeting at your hands;
'these are the principles which will, I trust, be invigorateed
even during your day of rest; for it is on that day they are
more likely to work within you than on any other. (Hear,
hear.) To-morrow you rest from your labour, and from
those temporal pursuits to which you devote yourselves dur-
ing the week. Think then of those things which are more
sacred, for then will you come out on the Monday impressed
more fully than ever with the force of our arguments, and
more determined than ever to uphold those great institutions
under which you live, and which are the glory and the hap-
piness of your country. (Vehement cheers.) It is not on
the excitement of the moment that I rely, but it is on your
deep and sober judgments, your reflections, your feelings,
and your convictions ; and if I were not to see one of you
again, but be severed from you until after the battle had been
fought, I should still feel convinced that, by the force of your
own convictions, you would become more and more confirmed
in favour of the views which my colleague and myself enter-
tain ? you would see that our principles will withstand all
investigation ; you would repudiate the false notions which
are abroad; you would come as men to maintain your opi-
nions at the hustings, and you would rally round the poll to
return us as the representatives of your wishes to the great
council of the nation. Mr. Cresswell here resumed his seat
amidst thunders of applause.
The CHAIRMAN then said he felt very much obliged to
the audience for the respectable and orderly manner in which
they had conducted themselves throughout the proceedings,
hoping that the same order would be observed throughout
the election. (Hear, hear.) Though the resolution might
have struck them as a colonial shipping question, there was
another important matter which concerned the electors far
more deeply: He hoped they would not consider the present
to be a struggle of one party, or of one political creed. It
was a struggle in which they must be successful if sacred
principles based on truth, that only commodity which was
desirable, guided them in their course. They should strug-
gle against the wild elements of whiggery, which wild ele-
ments were disorder, insubordination, and ingratitude to the
sacred institutions of their country. (Cheers.) He begged
of them to remember what order and contentment were, and
the evils of disorder and discontent, in their own families ;
and also to remember that every vote held by an elector was
like a talent committed to his keeping, for the proper dis-
pensation of which he was responsible to God and his
country. (Great Applause.)
A vote of thanks was then presented to Mr. Gibb for his
conduct in the chair, to which he suitably replied, and the
meeting separated.

REPRESENTATION OF SOUTH LANCASHIRE.

VISIT OF LORD FRANCIS EGERTON AND THE
HON. R. BOOTLE WILBRAHAM.

On Saturday a very numerous and influential meeting of
the friends and supporters of the conservative cause in South
Lancashire assembled in the Clarendon Rooms, for the pur-
pose of meeting Lord Francis Egerton and Mr. Bootle Wil-
braham. Among those present we noticed Sir Thomas
Brancker, James Aspinall, Thomas Sands, Adam Hodgson,
R. B. Hollinshead Blundell, Charles Inman, Robertson
Gladstone, James Robertson, Richard Dawson, Thos. Bold,
Charles Parker, Reddish, Brandreth, W. H. Myers,
C. Boutflower, J. Walker, Thomas Toulmin, John Ireland
Blackburne, Christopher Bushell, Joseph Crisp, Hugh H.
Birley, Daniel Ledson, Nicholas Robinson, William Smith,
Charles Turner, James Bold, Thomas Moss, Simon Trotman,
George Grant, Charles Lawrence, William Dixon, Higgins,
John Ridzway, Alex. Smith, jun., Thomas Reyes, Thomas
Lee. King, Lawrence Peel, William Bnshby, James Law-
rence, Henry Sandbach John Sheppard, Richard Griffiths,
Francis Foster, Thomas 'Brassey, Wilkinson, James Hall,
Cottingham Moss, Esquires, &c., &c.
Business commenced soon after one o'clock, by Sir Taos.
BRA.NCKER moving that Nicholas Robinson, Esq., do take
the chair. He had served under him in many hardly fought
contests, and knew how capable he was of performing the
duties.
Mr. ROBERTSON GLADSTONE seconded the motion, and
it was carried.
Mr. ROBINSON then took the chair, observing that he was
not aware whether any resolutions had been prepared.
Sir TUOMAS BRANCKER said there was only one resolu-
tion. and that was a resolution to carry the conservative can-
didates. (Loud cheers.)
Lord Francis Egerton and the Hon. Mr. Wilbraham were
then introduced, and were most enthusiastically cheered.
Lord FRANCIS EGERTON, on wceaswarsecreeisvtoedred7ibthe
loud and vehement cheering. When
silence