The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-10-30 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE.
(From the Morning Herald.)
The dark and lowering state of the political atmo.
sphere throughout the whole of Europe, throws an
ominous gloom over the close of twenty-five years of
general peace.
We had " a settlement of Europe," as it was called,
in 1815—a settlement which was to ensure a perma-
nent tranquillity, since which Europe, though not in
a state of actual war, has never kown the repose and
confidence of perfect peace.
Tory administrations governed England for fifteen
years, during which no return of general war desolated
Europe; but, nevertheless, the great powers of the
Continent did not disarm. Then came the whigs to
" settle" matters more, effectually upon " wiser and
better principles"—the whigs who were to give the
best possible government on the cheapest possible
terms to the people at home, while they maintained a
real peace abroad, and showed how the greatest modern
empire of the world could be ruled in accordance with
those maxims of policy which emanate from a spirit of
equity, moderation, and wisdom, and which give the
greatest stability to power, by basing it on the widest
extent of popular affections.
The whigs have now been ten years reforming and
improving England, and securing, according to their
own enlightened notions, the peace of Europe. Well,
how have they succeeded ? It would, perhaps, be dif-
ficult to find any period in our whole history, since the
foundation of the British monarchy, when popular
mis-ry and discontent more abounded—when doctrines
subversive of order, religion, and morals, were more
widely disseminated,—and when authority had less of
the respect and veneration of the mass of the people,
than in this the tenth year of Whig REFORM, cheap go-
vernment, and enlightened improvement.
As to our foreign relations, their condition is, if pos-
sible, still more unsatisfactory and threatening than
our internal condition. The Whig rulers of the nation,
not content with having absurdly and disgracefully
assisted to embroil the west of Europe, by taking part
in the revolutionary struggles of the Spanish peninsula,
have gone at length to the deserts of Syria to find " a
bone of contention" for a war in Europe I
It has been long apparent to the most ordinary saga-
city in political matters, that the Ottoman empire has
sunk into a state of decrepitude and decay, from which
no combinations of external powers can ever recover
it. An empire which has once filled a high place in
the history of the world, may be struck down by the
sword of conquest in some disastrous hour, but it may
again be able to rise from its humiliation, shake off its
chains, and regain its former position. Not so when the
decry is not the immediate consequence of external dis-
aster or accident, but the slowly progressive result of
internal debility and wasting corruption. Turkey
labours under that decline, which is incurable because
self-inflicted. Russia knows this well, though our
Melbournes and Palmerstons seem to be profoundly
ignorant of the fact, or, at least, act as if they were.
Russia knows that there is as much chance of the
" independence" of the Ottoman empire being restored,
and its " integrity" preserved, by placing " the Syrian
desert between Mehemet Ali and the Sultan," as of
giving life to a dead man by an imitation of the re•
vitalising process of Medea and her kettle—the boffin'
many pieces into one.
The Turkish empire is gone. The corpse, indeed,
of that once giant power may be galvanised and con-
vulsed by the experiments of the state physicians, who
prescribed blood-letting in Syria for the repose of
Constantinople. But the whole question now to be
solved is, whether Syria shall be ruled by Mehemet Ali,
no friend to Russia—or by Muscovite influence in the
name of the Sulton. It is to determine this question
that all Europe is agitated. and disturbed from end to
end, and threatened with the calamities of a general
war.

NAVAL ARMAMENTS OF ENGLAND.
(From the Times.)
England, with such prospects of a naval war as have
been hanging over her for two or three years, has not
added to her admirable crops of marines so much as a
single company ! The marines, a force which cannot
be discipiined in a moment, ought to have a force in
reserve applicable to all sudden emergencies, and ca-
pable of supplying ships afloat or ships ordered for
commission, as well as coast garrisons at home and in
the colonies, until the establishment of troops of the
line could he recruited to the amount required by a
state of war. The marines are the most convertible of
all our forces, the most adapted to a variety of uses,
the handiest and most generally effective. They con-
stitute something between a fourth and fifth of the en-
tire crew of a man of war. Ashore they perform the
services of the best disciplined troops—afloat, when
their firelocks are stowed away in the racks, they do a
large portion of the work of seamen. The marines of
Great Britain ought never to be kept at a lower esta-
blishment than 16,000 men ; of which force one-half
should be kept as garrisons of the seven great depots,
magazines, dockyards, and naval stations—to wit,
Deptford, 'Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Ports-
mouth, Plymouth, and Pembroke. When the service
afloat requires more than 1000 men, the total establish-
ment ought to he reinforced in proportion ; but never
reduced below the level of that amount for the home
duty of the kingdom. There would then at all times
be a reserve of marines applicable to any exigency.
But, as we said before, not a single marine has been
added to the establishment throughout the whole of
this most critical European disturbance, arising out of
the Turkish and 'Egyptian war, although we have been
informed by, naval officers that all the marines in time
kingdom pit together fall short of 2000 men—not
more than the complement of nine or ten three-deck-
ers. But for the seamen, what addition has been made
to them ? The press and the naval profession taken
together, by dint of strenuous and fearless exposures
of the miserable sleepy Admiralty, forced Lord Minto
and his colleagues into a display of something like ex-
ertion, though lagging far behind the rapid progress of
the public wants.
After twelve months of a sort of superficial bustle,
they have scraped together an ill-manned squadron, the
Vanguard and Rodney included, of 14 sail of the line,
by this time in the Mediterranean, and, we believe, (we
hope, at least,) within immediate reach of the gallant
veteran Sir R. Stopford. Of that squadron four are
small and feeble ships of 72 guns, with crews very lit-
' tle, if anything, more numerous than the first class
French frigates of 60 guns, that is to say, with no
more than 540 hands on board-53 boys included--
and therefore short by almost 160 hands of the com-
plement allotted to the very lowest class of French line
of battle ships—viz., those carrying 80 guns, and which
crews have no boys among them.
This sort of armament, both in men and material, is
what must pass for a sample of the British navy under
an administration at once jobbing and screwing, which
pincnes every department of the public service, because
it dares not ask for money from a House of Commons
which reserves its liberality for the uses of partisan
corruption.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN
PROVINCES.
(From the Morning Herald.)
The importance of our South Australian colonies is
becoming daily more known, From an obscure coun-
try, chosen by the government but a few years since,
as the place of exile for offenders against the laws of
the mother state, they are grown into immense political
importance, and only require judicious fostering to be-
come the most powerful auxiliaries Great Britain can
have. Only a short time has elapsed, when this coun-
try was the place to which the returns for our own ma-
nufactures were sent from the Eastern, Archipelago,
but the population of New South IN ales, Van Diemen's
Land, and the parts adjacent, has so much increased as
to render it far more profitable to forward the produce
there than to send it home, To this the advantage de-

rived by the mother country from imports of its own
colonial produce must be added. Of late, in addition
to more than sufficient wool for our own consumption,
enough has been left to export ; the valuable fishery
must also be taken into account, and the more valuable,
from the decline which has taken place in the produce
of the north. _ _

Port Phillip bids fair soon to become the emporium
Of that quarter of the world, more especially when New
Zealand has been brought into full operation as a pro-
ducing country, and it is therefore to be hoped that
greater encouragement will be given, and fewer impe-
diments thrown in the way of colonising these new
places, than has been the case with the old ones. The
papers are full of complaints of the inattention of the
Government to the wants and wishes of the inhabitants,
more particularly in checking the immigration of re-
spectable labourers. The commercial accounts state
that the stoppage of the trade with China was beginning
to he felt, and that all the produce of that country, tea
especially, was rapidly rising in price. Corn, coming
more freely into the market, had not only caused a de-
cline, but had removed much of the apprehension that
had existed of a continued scarcity. British goods in
general were in good demand.

OPEN QUESTIONS.
(From the Newcastle Journal.)
A sharp controversy has been for some time pass
carried on between some of our metropolitan contem
poraries regarding the efficacy and morality of "open
questions," as well as their probable influence on the
present rickety cabinet. Although reluctant to inter-
fere where the weight of argument so largely prepon-
derates on the side taken by the conservative journals,
we are nevertheless anxious to express our opinions on
both branches of the subject. We will commence by
the bold, but confident assertion, that the resort to the
system of " open questions" by former administrations
has been the prelude to their dissolution. It evidenced
the disunion that prevailed amongst their members,
and invariably led to their downfall. We defy contra-
diction on this point. Making the " Catholic Ques-
tion," as it was then termed, an open one, broke up
various administrations, and was the real, though not
the immediate, cause of the break-up of the Welling-
ton cabinet in 1830. So far, therefore, as we may rely
upon, and augur from experience, the conclusion is in-
evitable that the attempt to " patch up" differences, or
film over chasms and chinks in cabinets by the adop-
tion of "open questions," has ever egregiously failed,
and tended only to hasten the consummation of that
event which it was intended to prevent. So far they
have been efficacious ; but as means for enabling strug-
gling and feeble cabinets to bear up against the effect
of disunion from within, and defeats from without,
they have proved utterly powerless, as such temporary
shifts ever do. The day of reckoning and of retribu-
tion cannot be staved off by such paltry expedients. Is
not the " Ballot Question" a pregnant instance of this
truth ? The pressing exigences of the cabinet, com-
bined with the growing estrangement from it of a few
dozen radical members, no sooner forced upon the
whigs the necessity of raising it to the dignity and
importance of an open question, than it effected the
detachment from the ministry of Lord Howick and
Mr. Wood, which largely contributed to the subse-
quent disasters, and ignominious defeats sustained by
the ministry. Thus the direct result of the first
experiment was unequivocally of an unpropitious
character, and we have but very little doubt, if the
trial be repeated, that it will in future be attended with
equally disastrous consequences. The adoption of open
queEtions is analogous to the admission of the point of
the wedge; instead of stopping up the gaping chink it
widens and enlarges it, and ultimately succeeds in
wrenching asunder even the firmest and most compact
body. And now as to its morality. We some weeks
ago denounced in terms of unqualified condemnation
the principle of " political coalitions," and pointed out
the hollowness and treachery of their basis, as well as
the apostacy and dishonesty of those public men whose
infatuation would make them parties to such a com-
bination. Now, " open questions" are, to the members
of a cabinet, precisely what " coalitions" would be to
those whoiyould form them—a mutual abandonment of
principle and compromise of opinions on subjects which
may vitally concern the honor and the interests of the na-
tion. No man can be justified in sacrificing his, conscien-
tious convictions on the altar of a base and truckling
expediency. These convictions may be abstractedly
erroneous, but while entertaining them he is bound by
his obligations to truth and honesty to adhere to and act
upon them. Any deviation from them is downright
dihonesty, and involves a breach of moral law, and a
violation of political virtue, irretrievably disgraceful to
a public man. Actions should be guided and determi-
ned by convictions, and he who is ready to act without
or against them is a political knave at heart, and un-
worthy of support or confidence. A cabinet composed
of such persons, is, it is unnecessary to add, totally
unfit for the direction or management of public affairs,
as being devoid of principle and consistency. Open
questions are signs of disunion and emblems of dis-
honesty. What I—ls Lord John Russell looking, as
he professes to do, upon the introduction of vote by
ballot as fatal to constitutional liberty, warranted in
uniting with Mr. Macauley, who seems to view it as
the perfection of political wisdom, and the only thing
still wanted to crown the worth of Reform ? Is Lord
Melbourne, who designates the opponents of the corn
laws madmen, justified in sitting in the same council
with these same madmen, and by that means enabling
them to work out their " mad" and wicked scheme ?
Assuredly not ; were the mischief affected he would be
held a particeps cr iminis—and accessary before the
fact—and be liable to be punished accordingly. These
" open questions" indicate weakness and hypocrisy
alike ; and the minister who resorts to them on every
trying emergency betrays the duty he owes to his
sovereign and his country.