The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-04 00:00:00

have it

We have heard it started as an objection that the
metropolitan tome, being .got up by parties free from
local bias, will he regarded as more impartial, and have
more weight with underwriters and shippers than r.
local publiCation. But the objection is a mere shadow
without substance, and perfectly futile. As well might
it be said that a London almanack would have more
influence in Liverpool than a Liverpool one, which is
calculated and made up for. the meridian of Liverpool,
We know of no local bias, we cannot conceive any,
but one—and that a bias inclining only to the most
truthful accuracy. It is to be recollected that ship-
owners are not the only class in Liverpool who are in-
terested in the classification of our ships. There are
the shippers and underwriters also; and although it
may he the wish of some solitary shipowner to have
his vessel entered as A 1, when her proper place ought
perhaps to be—blank; yet it is to be recollected that
the interest. of other parties, or, at least, of one of
them, lies just in the opposite direction. No, there
would be no local advantage gained by the practice of
any deception, and it will be our common gain to have
the new Liverpool Registry most scrupulously correct
and well-founded in every particular.

. -
We do confidently anticipate that every facility will
be given to the forwarding of a work so becoming the
importance and so likely to promote the interests of
Liverpool. The names of the gentlemen who have
been chosen as a provisional committee,' and of their
abl6 scientific assistants, afford an ample guarantee that
the several rules and regulations will be drawn up with
judgment, and the foundation of this new and impor-
tant work laid on a sure and satisfactory basis.

We are no friends to experimental legislation, espe-
cially to legislation perpetrated merely for the sake of
experiment. It is an old and homely, but prudent
maxim, to "let well alone." It is one of the vices of
the present time that men have been taught to attribute
whatever they fee!, or fancy to be a privation, to the
state of the law, and that consequently our laws no
longer have that fixedness in the mind of the people
which they once had, and which they ought to have in
reality, for the well-being of the community.
Plausible pretexts may easily be found for changing
and altering the wisest institutions, and novelties may
easily be made to appear desirable, if we only shut out
of view all the inconveniences and disadvantages that
may arise from them.

It strikes our humble judgment very forcibly that the
" inland bonding bill" which is to convert Manchester,
and we know not how many inland towns, into bond-
ing "ports," is a measure the entertaining and passing
of which belongs precisely to this head of " experi-
mental legislation." It is an innovation upon a long
established usage and ancient system, for which we
can conceive no necessity, nor even tolerable pretext.
The law, as it has stood heretofore, has worked well.
Both Manchester and Liverpool have risen to their
present great commercial eminence under the existing
system, which has proved fully as beneficial to the one as
to the other. But suddenly there comes a cry for change,
and for no other cause than we can imagine or per-
ceive, but that inland towns have grown weary of being
inland—would like, perhaps, a trip to the sea—and
have determined, since neither sea nor salt water will
flow up to them, to try what converting efficacy there
may be in an act of parliament.
Now, we call legislation which favours this appetite
for novelty, and gives energy to the stimulus—unwise,
imprudent, and injudicious. We have it acknowledged
under the hand of parties most urgent for the innova-
tion in this instance—that it is altogether an " experi-
ment, and that they know not what the result may be,
but that they wish to try. This is, in truth, the best
they can say of it; but never before did he hear of
parliament being gravely solicited to LEGISLATE on
such premises. We find the following candid admis-
sion in the Manchester Guardian of Saturday, He