The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-16 00:00:00

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

The Tines says, " indemnity for the suspension' of the
Bank Charter is the sole object of the November session."
Lord Seymour will propose the Right Hon. Charles
Shaw Lefevre as Speaker of the House of Commons, and
Mr. Abel Smith will second the motion.

The Earl of Yarborough will move, and the Earl of
Bessborough second, the address in the Lords. Mr. James
Heywood and Mr. A. Shafto Adair will be respectively the
mover and seconder:in the Commons.
Lord Stanley will give a grand Parliamentary dinner to
a large party on the 22nd of the present month, the day
previous to the expected delivery of her Majesty's speech
in Parliament on opening the session.
Lord George Bentinck, M.P., is now on a visit to his
noble father, the Duke of Portland, at Welbeck Abbey.
He leaves for London on the 17th instant, for the ensuing
parliamentary campaign.
A Bath radical paper put forth a statement that Lord
Ashley had applied to his election committee for £B7, be-
ing his travelling expenses during the recent contest for
that city. His lordship has written to say that the state-
ment is utterly untrue."
In the city of York, where the municipal elections were
endeavoured to be made a political matter by the Radicals,
the elections terminated in the total defeat of the Whig_
Radical faction, and the return of the twelve candidates
supported by the Conservatives. The Conservatives
carried every ward. The Radicals were utterly routed—
they lost every seat.
BARON ROTHSCHILD.—The friends of the Church will
learn with gratitude and approval, that all attempts to nn-
Christianise the House of Commons will find no sanction
in the noble leader of the Conservative party ; and it is
hardly possible to conceive that the followers of that lea-
der will be less sensible of the obligations due to the reli-
gion we profess, and the holy Church to which we belong.
—Herald.

TURNPIKE GATES.—A deputation of gentlemen, headed
by the Duke of Richmond, lately waited on Sir G. Grey,
praying the Government to entertain the subject of the
turnpike gates, and the consolidation of turnpike roads
with the highways. Sir G. Grey replied that it was the
intention of Government is ask, during the next session
of Parliament, for a committee to take the subject into
consideration ; and that the Government were of opinion
the turnpike, roads ought to be consolidated with the
highways.
POLITICAL DUPLICITY OF POPE PIUS THE NINTH.—
We call attention to the Pope's encyclical letter, in which,
whilst adoring the Virgin Mary as our advocate," " our
surest hope," and " sweetest reliance," he anathematises
Bible societies with the same rancour which animated his
predecessors. We have alse observed, that while he pub-
lishes a general amnesty for political offenders, there is a
fearful and ominous omission of all pardon for spiritual
offenders. Down to this time the dungeons of St. Angelo
and the prisons of the inquisition are filled with the vic-
tims of the Papacy. For them no pardon is promised—
for them no Tay of hope gilds the gloom of their grated cells.
OUR PRESENT COMMERCIAL POLlCY.—During the five
years from 1815 to 1819, our exports exceeded our im-
ports by £27,837,415. In the following five years there
was an excess of exports over imports of £6,639,901, whilst
during the next five years ending in 1846, there was a
balance against England by our imports exceeding the
exports £35,677,941. Thus has the balance between
England and the United States been reversed under
the policy of Peel, and with results which are before us.
While no less than thirty-eight English houses, some of
them among the greatest of the magnificent mercantile
structures of England, have failed within the brief space
of two months, but one American firm—that of Prime,
Ward, and Co., New York—has stopped payment, and
even that, it has been said, but temporarily. Such are
the natural fruits of a policy which is pouring the bullion
of Engiand into America.
The Gazette of Tuesday evening contains the royal pro-
clamation for the further prorogation of Parliament from
Thursday, the 11th, to Thursday, the 18th instant, then to
assemble for the despatch of urgent and important affairs.
In the House of Lords on that day, the business will be
limited to the peers present taking the oaths and signing
the Parliamentary roll ; in the House of Commons, to
that of the election of Speaker, when, it is understood, the,.
Right Hon. Charles Shaw Lefevre, member for North
Hants, will be re-elected without opposition. On Friday,
the members of the House of Commons, preceded by
their Speaker, will attend the House of Lords to hear her
Majesty's approbation of the right honourable gentleman's
appointment signified by the Lord Chancellor; and the
interval between that day and Tuesday, when the royal
speech will be delivered, will be occupied in either. House
by administering the usual oaths, and the signing of the
Parliamentary rolls.
THE BATH BRIO K.—Mr. Roebuck having been swamped
in the troubled waters of the Bate election, has been
honoured by a tribute from his supporters. It is emble-
matical of the gentleman it is presented to, being an oak
cabinet, very much carved—expressive at once of hard-
ness and ruggedness ; with 500 guineas inside of it—ex-
pressive of Mr. Roebuck's sterling qualities and, true
mettle. He has, it is true, had the art of making truth
eminently disagreeable. lie has occasionally paraded the
goddess, like the Lady Godiva, in a state of nudity, which
shocked the decorous House of Commons. The water
from the well in which that lady resides is, unfortunately,
bitter; and Mr. Roebuck had the mania of insisting on
everybody's drinking it, without the usual emollient ad-
ditions of milk of human kindness and sugar of courtesy.
Still, Mr. Roebuck's seat in St. Stephen's is empty, and
the " stricken dear who has left the herd," though apt
to butt, was a hart royal, and deserved a better fate than
to be pulled down by the Bath chaps. We are glad they
have shown some sense of his merits, even after the testi-
monial fashion.—Pus:ch.
JEWS IN PAILLIAMENT.—Professor Maurice, in an ar-
ticle in Fraser'B Magazine for the present month, argues
for the admission of Jews to Parliament,, on the subtle
distinction between Christianity and a belief in Christia-
nity. He allows that Christianity is the foundation of ci-
vil society ; but it would continue to be so, he says, though
every believer in it should have ceased to exist; the truth
is true, whatever our faith may be. All our belief, and
all the confessions of it which we exact, cannot, in the
very least degree, alter the reality, the permanent eternal
object of belief." To this the London Guardian point-
edly replies as follows :—" To us this seems a very insuf-
ficient reason for an act which is designed formally to un-
Christianise the State. No one has contended that our
faith, or the profession of it, can have any effect upon its
object. But, it may have a very great influence on its
professors ; it may be a duty, and the absence of it a crime.
We declare our belief in Christianity, not in order to make
it true, or prove it true ; but because (since it is true) we
should be committing a sin if we withheld the declaration.
If it were not so, martyrdom must be a very foolish dis-
play of obstinacy, and the maintenance of orthodox opi-
nions most unnecessary trifling. Mr. Maurice's argument
for abolishing the public profession of Christianity seems
to us not unlike the apology of a traitor, who should
plead in justification of his treason, that the real validity
of his sovereign's title was not thereby affected. Our na-
tional homage is due to the Truth, and to Him in whom
alone it exists. Ours will be the loss and the crime, if we
cease to pay it. Not that we render it duly now : not
that our present practice is consistent. Still, it is some-
thing ; if it is not adequate to our theory, at least it is
better than the denial of that theory." Mr. Maurice is
the Boyle lecturer at Oxford.
WEST INDIA ASSOCIATION.—A meeting of this asso-
ciation was held in London on Thursday to take into con-
sideration a 'memorial to • Lord John Russell upon the
state of our West India colonies, and propose measures
for their immediate relief. The memorial, which had
been drawn up by a committee specially appointed for
that purpose, was, after a lengthened and interesting dis-
cussion, accepted, and will he immediately forwarded to
the Premier. After stating it to be the sincere belief of
the association that the late admission of slave-grown
sugar had increased the horrors of the slave trade, aug-
mented the value of property in the Brazils and Cuba, and
diminished that of our cwn colonies ;proofs of which are
daily furnished in the reports from the African blockading
squadron, from the Brazils, and from the West ,Indies.)
the memorialists express a hope that the present ministry,
all of whom have at different times declared their abhor-
rence of slavery and the slave trade, would take into care-
ful consideration the effects of the late introduction of
slave-grown sugars into free competition with those of
our own colonies. The memorialists further express no
desire to interfere with the declared free trade measures
of the government, but hope that upon principles of a
higher nature than political economy the ministry will be
induced to lower the duties upon free sugars, equalise
those upon our colonial produce with those in the mother
country, and, by immigration and other means, afford the
suffering colonies every assistance which they may with
justice claim. The memorial was so' worded as to cm_
bine the various votes of the most conflicting parties,
whether free traders or protectionists, and was numerously
and powerfully supported. The association, newly formed,
includes among its members individuals of all parties, en-
deavouring to unite for the preservation of our colonies,
and the destruction of the slave trade.