The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-01-05 00:00:00

sole prinei tile of action Is self-aggrandisement. In
case of a European war. she will fall an easy prey to
France, in whose favour her resources, such as they
are, would be made available.

The Chartists have re-commenced their career of
agitation in various parts of the

kingdom

Many of

their leaders have been liberated from prison within
the last aw weeks, their term of incarceration having
expired, and they have resumed their treasonable ap-

peals to the passions of the multituitt. The principal
object of these incendiaries, at present, appears to be
to excite a feeling of sympathy in favour of Frost,
Jones, and Williams, with a view to the liberation of
these convicted traitors. We are glad, however, to
perceive that the numbers who attend the Chartist
meetings have materially diminished of late. They
will soon merge into the Socialist body, with whom
they seem to have strong feelings of sympathy. The
meeting which was held, on Friday last, at Newport,
notwithstanding the most extensive preparations, was

comparatively insignificant in point of numbers. The

magistrates appear to have taken the most prompt and
energetic measures for the. preservation of the public
peace. The audience did not, at any time during the
meeting, exceed 1,000 persons. The meeting at Nor-
wich was equally a decided failure, the number of
Chartists' present being only about 400. The meeting
at Manchester, on Friday last, served to show, in like
manner, that the cause of Chartism is nearly extinct.
Its day, like that of many other political humbugs, has
passed away. The labouring classes have, at length,
sound out that the lazy delegates and travelling orators
were the only parties that were likely to profit from
the agitation in favour of the charter. Two Chartist
newspapers have recently become defunct, and the
Northern Star itself is in articulo mortis. In another
year we shall hear nothing of Chhitism but at those
dens of infamy, the Socialists' " Halls of Science."

We sincerely trast that the'approaching'siiscon of
Parliament will not be suffered to pass over without
some decisive attempt, on the part of the conservative
leaders, to mitigate the severity of the present system
of poor laws, or, at least, to introduce some improve-
ment into the mode of their administration. All par-

ties seem to agree that some modification of the

laws has become imperatively necessary

The test

many of the magistrates, at the various metropolitan
police-offices, is strongly in favour of some amend-

Among the chief of the evils attendant upon the
administration of the New Poor Law, we must parti-
cularise the " Union" system, by which the poor are
withdrawn from the reach of sympathising friends,
and under which, owing to the great numbers so fre-
quently collected together in one establishment, there
cannot be that perfect supervision which ought to,be
exercised, nor that facility for the detection of abuses
which a system of sUb-division is calculated to secure.
This evil must be remedied. The conservatives cannot
take any step which will make them more popular than
that of ameliorating the condition of those of our
population who are the legitimate objects of parochial
relief. The present is an auspicious moment for some
movement on this question.

In another column will be found an article on the
Corn Laws, from the pen of one of the ablest writers
of the present day. Mr. Alison treats of the question
in the most masterly style, and his arguments must
strike every candid mind as irresistible. He has shown
the utter fallacy of the favourite principle of the op-
ponents of the Corn Laws, that permanently reduced
prices, and a permanently overflowing supply, of the
necessaries of life, can coexist in any country
silly dogma, after Mr. Alison's masterly exposition,
may be considered as fairly exploded. But even con-
ceding, for the sake of argument, that an abundant
supply of the articles of food could he obtained at
permanently reduced prices, Mr. Alison has shown
that the working classes of England would not be one
whit better off, under such an arrangement, than they
are at present. A reduction in money-wages must ne-
cessarily follow anything like a permanent reduction in
the price of the necessaries of life. But, indeed, the

working people of England
through the shallow devices

are beginning to see

Anti-Co

agitators. They now perceive that the sole object of
the latter is, not the relief or the -industrials classes,
but the sudden aggrandisement of the manufacturing
interests. The whole of the agitation of the Anti-
Corn-Law League is characterised just as much by
concentrated selfishness as it is by consummate dis-
honesty.

We noticed last week the hostility displayed by the
great agitator of Ireland against any attempt to procure
a supply of free labourers from that country to the
islands of Jamaica, and that, in pursuance of his man-
date issued from the Corn Exchange of Dublin, com-
mittees were to be organized to prevent the introduc-
tion into Ireland of any system -of emigration to that
colony. Well aware of the kind of instruments which
the impostor" has always at hand to consummate
fraud, by which his revengeful humour or his
selfish interest is to be gratified, we anticipated the
slander—the falsehoods—the gross and wilful misre-
presentations which have thus far distinguished the
newly-born agitation, We were prepared to hear Bri-
tish merchants and British colonists denounced as
slaveholders, and held up to an ignorant and credulous
people as monsters of cruelty, for the simple crime of
offering employment and food to the starving poor of
Ireland ; but we must confess, that with all our past
experience of the credulous folly of that people, and
the pre-eminent rascality of their leaders, we were not
prepared for anything so disgraceful as the proceedings
which have just taken place in Limerick.

'—was in the harbour

A vessel—" The Robert Kerr"
of that town for the purpose of receiving' emigrants,
and a cousiderable number had already engaged berths,
notwithstanding the efforts of the anti-slavery (!) agi-
tators. To prevent this infringement of the mandate
of Daniel, we are told by a Limerick paper of radical
and Romish principles, that a Mr. Moore, "attended
by some members of the Society of Friends," went on
Christmas Day to all the chapels to warn the peop!e
against trusting themselves on board the "slave-ship" (!)
That the same ambulatory patriots and philanthropists
on succeeding days pursued the same course, denounc-
ing what they chose to designate as the " atrocious sys-
tem of kidnapping practised by the House of Assembly
of Jamaica ;" (!) and finally that the same parties,
headed by the notorious Tom Steel, visited the docks
in order to point out this terrible ship, its owners, and
captain, to the execrations' of their excited dupes.

That the favourite Ribbon practice called " slating,"
was not put in opomtion upc:h the persons of the ob-
noxious parties thus held up as objects for popular re-
venge, may surprise some who are not aware that Irish
outrage is generally secret in its movements
substitute, however, we are told that the leader of the
agitation—Mr. Thomas Steele, "a little before sunset,
brought an enormous crovfod to the quay, and, after a
deep denunciation of Mr. Wm. White, kneeling down
himself, and the multitude followin? his example, they
invoked the curse of earth and heaven on the slave-ship
on her voyage !" We are not told what became of the
"members of the Society of Friends" during this inte-
resting ceremony—whether the curse was pronounced
in the true orthodox form by " their Reverences," or
whether it was simply a lay curse composed for the
occasion and uttered by Tom Steele himself. These
few little details are wanting ; yet as a whole, we can-
not but admit that the proceedings present as complete
a picture of the refinement, the philanthropy, and the
enlightenment of a Popish country in the nineteenth
century, as it has lately been our fortune to contem-
plate.

Our readers have no doubt heard the story, related
by Mr. Shelly, of a German student, who having suc-
ceeded in forming. and imparting vitality to a monster,
was, in return, Anted over the face of the earth by
the work.of his own hands. In some such unhappy
plight are the members of Lord .Melbourne's govern-
ment. With that reckless and unblushing dishonesty
which characterises all the " tactique" of Whig-Radi-
calism, the present ministerial party, although, as a
body, hostile to a repeal of the Corn Laws, have yet,
individually, fostered and encouraged an extensive
scheme of agitation directed towards that repeal. The
ministerial press, without a single exception, is in its'
favour. Abuse: scurrility, and misrepresentation of
the persons
and principles of British agriculturists,
form the theme of their daily and weekly diatribes ;