The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-07 00:00:00

,he Dublin Courts, as his toadying of the Irish Court,
through the medium of the press, was notorious, was
of course despatched, as eminently qualified to admi-
nister justice among the planters of Demerara. We
perceive how admirably he has answered the expecta-
tions which might justly-have been formed of him.
These, then, are deemed to be matters of grievance
and complaint in the colony, and nobody surely can
deny that they are so. The colonists will, however,
rejoice exceedingly to find that the government at home
has passed away from the hands of men who have been
so reckless of their interests, both commercially, legis-
latively, and judicially. This, however, we admit is
not quite enough. We have changed the nien ; but
we must also change our colonial system, and that ra-
dically and essentially, if we desire our colonies to pros-
per, and if we wish to partake ourselves in the result-
ing advantage. With our immense colonial possessions
properly cared for, and their affairs wisely adminis-
tered, England may bid defiance to foreign rivalry, and
all the exclusion which the old countries of Europe
would put in practice against her commerce. With
such markets, she has no need to experimentalise upon
the capacity for endurance of her native agriculturists.
She has abundant resources within herself, and need
look for no free trade with independent governments
but such as would be not nominally, but really reci-
procal, and beneficial alike to all her people.
These papers mention an interesting circumstance.
" At a late hour on Monday night," says the Times of
,the 16th July, " eight persons, apparently in the last
stage of exhaustion from fasting and fatigue, landed at
one of our wharves from a boat of a remarkable con-
struction, and surrendered quietly to the Police. They
turned out to be of Surinam, in which colony they had
been working as slaves, when, inspired by the genius
of liberty, they contrived to make their escape. They
had hidden themselves during the day, and rowed all
night, for fourteen days and nights together, and the
scantiness of their provision for the voyage was pro-
portionate to the haste with which they must have
undertaken it. The boat the Customs folks have, of
course, 'seized. We believe it is' intended to let the
people themselves go where they please."
There was a division of opinion with regard to the
disposal of the party—and this, by the way, is another
proof that the laws of Dernerary are in an extremely
unsettled state. Some were of opinion that the run-
aways ought to be restored to their masters, whilst
others held the contrary. In our, opinion there should
be no uncertainty at all on such a subject. The mo-
ment a slave touches English ground he is free ; and,
surely, the same glorious privilege ought to extend to
every English colony.
The Guiana Times contains the following observation
on the occurrence, droll indeed, but spirited and just :

" Dr. Johnson, at an entertainment at Oxford, drank ' to the
next slave insurrection in the West Indies.' One needs not,
iu this age, be quite so bloody-minded as the obdurate old
moralist. But we would toast ' the speedy depopulation of
all Slave Countries, by emigration to British Guiana.' Li-
berty is a glorious prize, worth perilling life and limb for. If
all slaves came to know their own strength, this would be-
come one of the finest countries on the face of the globe. We
trust that they may soon know it, and that the multitudes
of the human race will spurn at the chains held on them by
the few. And, feeble and flickering as the flame of freedom
is, and liable to be extinguished by every passing breath of
wind, we do not despair of seeing it yet strengthened and ex-
panded, until it consume the system of shivery, wherever
prevalent.
" We dare believe, when this number of The Guiana
Times reaches Paramaribo, the paper will be burned at the
common market-place, and the editor gibbeted in effigy.
That is all very well, gentlemen of the cart-whip, but the
chances are, that more of your people will flee from misery
to happiness than you are now reckoning on. And we sin-
cerely wish them a safe deliverance, and a pleasant passage
hither."

We cannot conclude these cursory remarks, or rather
gleanings, without mentioning, that the papers con-
. _

tam the prospectus of a new periodical, entitled, "The
Guiana Magazine of Literature and Science," the
object of which is stated to be, " to bring the Colony
more prominently before the notice of the British
Public," by means, principally, of articles upon its
" topography and resources." A portion of every
number, however, is to be " devoted to general Politics,
Literature, and Science, as connected with the West
Indies generally, but with Guiana in particular."
The contemplated publication evinces a spirit of
improvement, and we hail it amongst other circum-
stances as an indication of awaking enterprise and

hopefulness in a region still young and but imperfectly
known, and placed at this moment in circumstances
both of a trying and novel kind.

One of our Liberal contemporaries is not satisfied
with our solution of the enigma, how it happens that
the circumstances of the Radical prints of this town
are, on the whole, more favourable than those of the
journals which espouse the cause of Conservatism, and
broadly affirms that the true account of the matter is
to be found in what he alleges to be the fact—namely,
the iqfcriority of the Conservative papers in all that re-
gards the essential qualities of newspaper production.
" Conservatives," he says, " like other people, like to
have something to read that is amusing—they like a tolerably
fair statement of what is going on in the world—some inde-
pendence of tone, and some candour of investigation ; for
this they will look in vain in the Tory prints. * *
To be plain with the Standard, the Tory newspapers of Li-
verpool, mere creatures and organs of cliques, the fanatic
Methodist, the outrageous Evangelical, the billotted Macy-
ite, are not articles generally saleable."

We are glad that while our contemporary passes sen-
tence upon the journals of our party, he is not unjust
to the party itself : he admits that the Conservative
likes a good thing, and knows how to appreciate it,
and that, in the newspaper which he favours, he loves
" independence of tone," " candour of investigation,"
" fairness of statement," and so forth. We thank our
contemporary for this acknowledgment, notwithstand-
ing that it is made, or intended to be so at least, at our
particular expense. This hint might be useful to our
cause also in another way, for he intimates that if jour-
nalism do not flourish so signally on our side as it does
at his, the fault is owing to the bungling and ineffi-
ciency of the Conservative journals and journalists
themselves, and that, under better management, they
might partake of the great prosperity of the Liberal
prints. There is one other admission which we should
have been pleased to have received from the same
quarter, and that is the admission that there is nothing
in the cause or principles advocated by Conservative
journals which has a deteriorating effect on their ge-
neral composition—nothing that renders them neces-
sarily less independent„ candid, truthful, or amusing
than those of their Liberal competitors.

It is plain that in thus expressing ourselves, we are
anxious to make the case as strong as possible against
our own particular claims as dealers in the newspaper
commodity ; and, in truth, we are jealous for the honour
of our cause and party much, more than for that of
our craft—both of which, we think, would be much
calumniated if it were said that there was any natural
or moral impossibility for a free press to flourish under
their auspices. How then stands the case according to
our censor and reprover, the Liverpool Journal ° 'Why
that the public of Liverpool, not being able to get a
yood article at the Conservative offices, are forced to
resort to the Liberal ones for their supply. Wanting
something amusing, they go, of course, to the Mer-
cury ; or something tolerably fair in statement, to the
Journal 'or Chronicle ; or something independent in
tone to the Albion, or to all and each in succession.
Such is the Journal's account of the matter. But his
dictum on the subject is certainly not conclusive ; it is,
on the contrary, liable to every exception. In the first
place, it is not the sentence of
a rightful judge, but of
one who is himself a competitor in the market—an
interested rival—and, therefore, as coming from him,
it is an assertion entitled to no weight ; and we, in de-
nying it, are deserving of quite as much credit as he is
in makin it. We deny then that the Conservative
g
journals of 'Liverpool are inferior, to say the least, in
any one respect to the journals of Liberalism—inferior
as to talent, information, spirit, independence, or even
those amusing qualities on which our contemporary
sets so much value. It would be absurd to think that
men would embark so much capital in, and devote so
much time to undertakings of an extremely harassing
and responsible character for which they had no apti-
tude, and that with all their exertions they should find
themselves ever doomed to be second in the race to
those who would seem to have no other advantage over
them than that they call themselves Liberals. The
. Journal talks altogether at random when he speaks of
us--(we are not called upon to answer for more than
ourselves)—as the organ of a clique; he is quite mis-
taken; we are the property of no clique whatever; we
are independent of every thing but our principles. For
the rest, it may be a matter of taste ; we cannot answer
for it ; but being, as we may say, in the free-trade,
general mart of competition, we are content to rest