The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-06 00:00:00

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and we call to mind an
observation which has been frequently made, that the
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tempt to establish, the contrary of this principi

If payment of rates furnishes no title to a share of
management, or right of election, then the actual rate-
payers at this moment have no right, in point of prin-
ciple, to send in trustees to the committee, and enjoy
that privilege only through the sufferance of the Town
Council, or the extraordinary bounty of the legislature.
We beg the rate-payers to note this doctrine of Mr.
Alderman. Evans, a distinguished member of the mu-
nicipal body. He declares that no extent of contribu-
tion on their part gives them the slightest right or title
to have a vote with regard to the management of the
Dock Estate, and, moreover, that a body elected for
other purposes—who may or may not consist of rate-
-who possibly might not have a single rate-
payer among them—and who are not necessarily elected
by rate-payers—has as good a right to choose the com-
mittee as they have, if not 'a much better. The ad-
vancement of such a proposition does, to our mind,
indicate unsoundness in the basis of all the alderman's
reasoning. In his engrossing zeal for the aggrandise-
ment of the Council, discretion abandons him, and he
grasps at any and every paradox that seems to favour
the ruling passion.

He argues, that as " this town is purely mercantile,
the Council, while its duties are important, will always
consist essentially of mercantile men, who will, of ne-
cessity, select their delegates to the Dock Committee,
with a view to their fitness for that duty." It may be
granted that this town is " purely mercantile," and yet
it will not follow that the Council is the body most fit
to superintend the docks and warehouses of the port ;
becanse, strong as the " counting-house sway" may
be, it is by no means omnipotent in municipal elec-
tions ; nor are councillors chosen altogether with re-
gard to their mercantile weight or talents, but fully as
much on the ground of their political principles and
other qualifications not exclusively mercantile in their
character. And this is a sufficient answer to the argu-
ment that members of the Council must necessarily be
better qualified to act as dock and warehouse trustees
than men directly selected for the purpose by those
who use those docks, and have the greatest possible
interest in their proper management.
But rate-pavers, says Mr. Evans, are "a transitory,
varying body, without organization or periodical meet-
ings." Perhaps so ; but how in this respect do they
differ from burgesses who elect the Council ? The
members of the one body are just as "transitory and
varying" as those of the other. When one set goes
off, another comes in their place. Even town-coun-
cillors, lamentable as is the truth, are a "transitory,
varying body ;" and—sic transit gloria mundi—all
things upon earth are varying and transitory.
We do not see the force of this argument ; for how-
ever the rate-payers may fluctuate, individually, still
the interest of rate-payers continues, and must ever
continue, while there are docks to be maintained and
rate-payers to maintain them. As to organization,
what do they want of it ? and as to periodical meet-
ings, there is. nothing more easy than to have them
when the necessity for them arrives.

But the short of the matter is this : Alderman Evans
has conceived in his mind's eye a magnificent scheme
of Town Council grandeur, and the question is, will
the rate-payers of the docks and the burgesses of the
niunicipality lay aside their sober, calculating, count-
ing-house common-sense to assist the aldermen in the
realisation of his pleasant day-dream ? His worship
is, in our judgment, decidedly poetical, and sees such
visions of corporate grandeur as none but one inspired,
or one "of imagination all compact"—(a rare instance
of mental developement in the aldermanic body, by the
by)—could possibly behold. In this respect he labours
under a alight infirmity, and supposes that all the world
is in a conspiracy to thwart his views, and degrade, in-
stead of aiding him to exalt, his darling body. But—
" Oh, that Heaven the gift wad gi'e us,
To see oursel's as ithers see us"—
till fault lies nearer home than he has any idea of. He
may yet make the discovery that Radicalism is a thing
that carries no weight with it, no respect, and no con-
fidence.