The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-10 00:00:00

1.-ACCESS

We have already briefly touched upon the respective facili-
ties of ingress and egress of the two parts, and have now to
adduce an analysis of the evidence on that point, together
with our own experiences."
Southampton,—The passage of " tbe Needles," in making
a direct course, must be encountered both in running to, and
in sailing from Southampton. " When I go to Southamp-
ton, I always take the Needles inside, but I could not ven-
ture to run through them in foggy weather," says Captain
Moppett, of the steamer City of Limerick.—" I have known
cases in which the weather was so thick that I could not with
safety carry a large steamer from the Needles up to South-
ampton. I have myself been obliged to anchor inside the
Needles, and unable to rue on through the bad fogs, which
prevail a good deal on the south coast of Hampshire ; the
land is low and swampy, and there is the New Forest covered
with trees • and where trees exist, there fogs hang and rains
prevail. If I was approaching Southampton in thick wea-
ther I should certainly not attempt the Needles at all; there
is very great danger in it ; I should go round St. Catherine's
Point, keeping a depth of twenty-two or twenty-four fathoms,
stearing eastward, and by that means fall in with Dunnrose,
or perhaps very near it; then I must go round to Spithead,
and round the shoal there, and proceed to Southampton
within the island. Even a Cowes' pilot would not attempt
the Needles in foggy weather."—Mr. W. Walker, Queen's
Harbour-master at Plymouth. " One great disadvantage to
Southampton is that the Needles are generally capped, and
not to be seen in thick weather."—W. Long, Esq., mer-
chant of Portsmouth. " I would not venture to run for the
Needles in thick weather, unless my position was clearly as-
certained. I have been obliged to go round the Isle of
Wight instead of making for the Needles.—Lieut. Hosken,
lt.N., commander of the Great Western. " Vessels cannot
go through the Needles at all times."—Lieut. C. Claxton,
R.N. " The passage of the Needles is in many cases objec-
tionable, on account of the fogs that prevail, the very narrow-
ness of thei channel itself, and, above all, the circumstance of
the tide not running parallel to the Needles passage. It sets
at angles with the channel. With an ebb tide there is great risk.
We lost a man-of-war in the middle of the day in going in
there; she sheered. went on the bank , and was lost. The preva-
lent fogs on the coast of Hants are more dangerous on account
of the character of the coast."—W. Walker. " I have seen
the Needles in such weather that I would not take a ship
through. In crossing the bridge at the Needles, the strength
of the tide is immense, and there would not be room for a ship
after breaking her sheer to come to again. The mail ships
cannot sail at all times of the tide from Southampton. The
Great Liverpool grounds at her moorings in Southampton
water, at the last quarter ebb, and the first quarter flood.
On one occasion she dragged the mud for a length of time in
the centre of the harbour." Lieutenant Slaughter, in
charge of the mails in the Great Liverpool, from Falmouth
to Alexandria. [The rounding of the Great Liverpool is
contradicted by a pilot's certificate offered by Captain Wood,
but it is scarcely to be supposed that Lieutenant Slaughter
could have 'been mistaken, as he was himself on board the
vessel at the time.] " There are fogs in every port of the
English channel after the rainy season, and they always last
a long time."—Captain Moppet'. Several of the witnesses
concur in opinion that the ingress to Southampton is not
sufficiently buoyed and lighted. Captains Maill, R.N.,
Claxton, and 'others, say :—A floating light placed on the
westermost or " mist buoy," on the shingles, is required, to
make the Needles a pretty certain passage ; and the light at
Needle Point is too high, and frequently invisible. It ap-
pears also that there is considerable danger of collision in the
English channel. There might be times of the weather when
the steamers could not proceed to sea with the mails from
Southampton, Dartmouth, Devonport, or Plymouth.—Capt.
Russell.

Liverpool.—As regards the capabilities of the port for na-
vigation, Liverpool would be a good station for the West
India packets. The Halifax steamers run from thence.
Except at dead low water, in very low spring tides, (on 30
days only in the year) there is depth of water at all times for
the Halifax steamers to come in and go out. The British
Queen and President, which are much larger, have sailed
from it, (drawing from 18 to 19 feet when loaded.) There is
not an instance dining the past year of any of the Irish
packets being prevented from leaving the port for want of
water, or from the weather. Vessels are never kept from en-
tering the harbour from bad or foggy weather, and consider-
ing the number of vessels, there are fewer accidents than at
any other port. Steam-boats can depart at all times, and in
all weathers. Vessels from sea may run in .at all times with-
out delay. There is a new channel to the entrance of the
Mersey, opened on the 10th of October, 1839. The Victoria
Channel is very easy, and extremely well buoyed and lighted.
It has rather improved of late without being dredged. There
is depth for large steamers. The number of vessels that
passed through it in 1840, was from 14,000 to 15,000, and no
accident happened to any of them. At the dock gates there
is 32 to 33 feet rise of the tide. The mail packets have fre-
quently arrived in thick weather at all times.—Lieut. Lord,
Marine Surveyor to the Dock Trustees.—l like the new
channel to Liverpool very well ; it is very easy of naviga-
tion, and well buoyed and lighted : they do the thing as they
ought to do ; it is buoyed and lighted well. There is depth
for large steamers,—Captain Drew, one of the Elderßrethren
of the Trinity House, and one of the Admiralty Committee.
The same witness states, " Having made Cape Clear, there
is no difficulty in running up the Bristol Channel ;" and we
may add still less in running up to Liverpool, the prevailing
winds being from the westward. The writer of this has
come in from Dublin on a dark and hazy night, with perfect
safety, and on one occasion, while on board the Duchess of
Kent steamer, Captain Jones of that vessel, in proof of the
admirable disposition of the lights, piloted her so correctly
in the channel from the outer light ship, that we successively
passed every buoy on the starboard side, within a few feet of the
paddle house! The whole channel is equally well lighted all
the way to Holyhead, as is also (with reference to a West In-
dia voyage), the south coast of Ireland from the Tuskar rock
to Cape Clear, the point of departure. Compare this with
the acknowledged fact that even a Cowe's pilot will not ven-
ture to take a ship into Southampton harbour in thick wea-
ther, and we establish a decided advantage over that port in
accessibility and safety. As regards access to the port we
need but add, as stated by Mr. James Aikin, merchant—" It
is perfectly sufficient for the purposes of navigation ;" and by
Mr. G. H. Lawrence, merchant—" The insurance at Liver-
pool does not indicate any peril coming in or going out."
In our next article on this subject, we shall adduce the
superiority which Liverpool possesses for landing and em-
barking passengers, &c., &c.

THE LIVERPOOL TIMES

Our contemporary the Liverpool Times is certainly the
most pertinacious being it has ever been our fortune to en-
counter; and yet it is hard to say whether his pertinacity or
his indiscretion is most damaging to the party which is
afflicted with his support. So far as the defunct majority in
the council is concerned in, the tardiness displayed in pur-
suing the claims of Liverpool to be the station for the West
India mails, we had expressed our opinion; and, having done
so, were content to join our efforts with those of our fellow-
townsmen to repair past neglect by an earnest and combined
attempt to procure a reversal of the temporary decision
against our port which has been come to by government—if,
indeed, any decision can as yet be said to have been made.
Our contemporary, however, in the first instance, having
endeavoured to depreciate our past exertions, humble we
admit, to call the attention of our fellow-townsmen to this
important question, and to magnify his own, professes on
Tuesday his willingness to aid us in those which we are now
making, " provided that we do not attempt to turn them to
a factious purpose"—viz., that of throwing blame upon his
pet " liberal" majority of the council, of which he is anxious
to protrude himself into the situation of apologist-in-chief.
Now, heaven help, say we, the body which has for its apo-
logist our blundering and indiscreet contemporary, the
Liverpool Times ! " Save me from my friends" is a prayer
which that body may well make ; and above all other, " Save
me from the advocacy of the Liverpool Times !" For what
does this indiscreet advocate put forth in its last ? Why this
astounding fact, corroborative of all which we ever advanced
as to the tardiness of the steps taken by the council upon this
question. " We published above a year ago," exclaims the
Times, led away from the consideration of the interests of its
assumed clients by its absurd passion for the indulgence of
self laudation—" We published above a year ago those parti-
culars respecting the contract of the government with the
projectors of the line, and the course to be taken by the
boats from Europe and back again, which the Editor of the
STANDARD gives in his last Friday's paper," and which, we
may add, so far as the mere particulars of the contract in
question are concerned, most other journals from the Land's
End to John o'Groats can equally boast of doing. But what
of that, most excellent contemporary ? How much does that
better your plea in behalf of the exertions used by the coun-
cil to make Liverpool the port of departure and arrival for
those packets—setting aside for the present the indulgence of
your own absurd vanity ? We will examine.
Somewhere about, or above, a year ago, the fact that Go-
vernment had contracted for this line of packets was pub-
lished in the luminous columns of the Liverpool Times;
and of course all the world, and all the talent and public
spirit in it, which was at that remote date comprised within
the liberal town-council of Liverpool, are readers of the Li-
verpool Times. And yet how long, we ask, was it before
the said council was stirred up by the eloquence of the Li-
verpool Times to stir in the question ? Why, reader. not
for six, or seven, or eight, or nine months afterwards ; for
not a step did the council take until the 6th of May in the
present year, when they appointed a committee for the pur-
pose ! Yes, the information and the eloquence afforded
them by the Liverpool Times, added to some of our own,
could never move them until the 6th of May 1841, nearly
fourteen months after the original contract had been entered
into, which was dated the 20th March 1840—eleven months
after an Admiralty committee sate to consider upon the se-
lection of a port—and, as we have already stated, from six
to nine months (for the date of that occurrence is at present
apocryphal) after the Liverpool Times had enlightened their
exceeding darkness upon the subject!
We readily admit that when their attention had been
called to it, the council took up the question with a
zeal approaching to that which was becoming its impor-
tance to the interests of the port and the mercantile body of
Liverpool. We give our fullest tined of praise to the exer-
tions and the valuable evidence afforded to the parliamentary
committee by Mr. George Hall Lawrence himself, by Mr.
Aikin, and by Lieutenant Lord. But, without pressing the
question whether more evidence might not have been afford-
ed—whether, had the question been a dock-warehouse ques-
tion, more evidence would not have been afforded—we must
reiterate our conviction that the exertion was made toe late!
Memorials poured in upon government from Bristol, Pen-
zance, and other places, as we have shewn in a preceding
article, during the sitting of the Admiralty committee—from
the 3d to the 16th of July 1840 ; and did the council of Li-
veryool send in any such memorial? NO. And what, we
ask, was the result of this neglect? Why, that in the par-
liamentary committee which government were induced to
grant by these very memorials, the interests of the ports of
Liverpool and Glasgow, and of the manufacturing interests
of the North of England and of Scotland, were so inade-
quately represented as we have shewn them, and as they
must be admitted, to have been. The Channel ports, in
fact, so far as weight in the committee went, had it all their
own way.
But we are told, and it was pressed by Mr. Aikin at the
late council meeting, that the channel ports had the advan-
tage from the outset, owing to the terms of the original con-
tract entered into by government with the owners of the
boats. We readily admit this, and as well that they were
aided, as we shall shew in an article which will appear in our
next, by a jobbing spirit which characterised and, we submit,
tainted the evidence brought before the committee to sub•
stantiate their claims (we allude to the evidence of Mr. Ward,
an employ 6 of the Southampton railway, and a contractor for
the works at the port itself). But we cannot admit the va-
lidity of the argument of Mr. Aikin that, because of the con-
tract already existing between the government and a private
company, Liverpool, or the Finance Committee to whom her
claims are committed, ought to despair of effecting a change.
For so far as the government itself is concerned, it must be
remembered that it has already conceded the open nature of
the question as to the selection of a port, and the haste and
unadvisedness of the original contract as to its being in the
channel, by the appointment of two committees, and 13) the

admission into the last of evidence in favour of Bristol, the'
West of Ireland, and of Liverpool itself. Once satisfied of
the superior advantages of the latter. there can be no ques-
tion as to the power of government to win or buy over the
company ; and we are perfectly satisfied, and, indeed, our
columns of to-day afford ample evidence of the fact, that very
little objections on the part of the company would be, or
ought to be, offered to the change.