The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-11-06 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, NOV. 6, 1849.

WE cannot yet regard the whole circumstances
of the victory achieved on Thursday last by the
opponents of the Itivington water scheme, without
considerable regret, and some misgivings, as to its
ulterior consequences. The town has lost the ser-
vices of several gentlemen, undeniably amongst the
ablest members of the Council, apart altogether
from any question of politics. In the person of
Mr. Aikin, we have parted with a high-minded and
amiable man ; a Whig, indeed, in principle, yet one
upon whom we could always depend to interpose
his deserved influence as a check upon the ultra
and reckless of his party. In Mr. Samuel Holme
we have lost not only a consistent and staunch
political ally, but also one of the most valuable
practical men in the Council, whose great local in-
formation will be missed in every committee upon
which he sat. Nor is the loss of Mr. Jas. H olme's
services less to be deplored, whether we regard him
as merely a member of the Council, or in his other
character as one of the most experienced men,—as
regards the construction of works, the valuation of
property, &c., in the Dock Committee. Both the
latter gentlemen differed from the majority of the
constituency upon but one point—the water ques-
tion. With respect to the rating question, they
were our great strongholds.

We entertain some misgivings too, upon another
point. We are far from being of opinion that
these elections will have improved the materiel, and
standing in public estimation, of our local legisla
ture. Admitting fully the right of every consti-
tuency to punish by rejection members who have
ceased to pay deference to their wishes, without
which the principle of representation would be a
farce, we conceive that men might Nava been
found amongst us fully prepared to accord with
the opinions of the majority of the town, with re-
spect to the water and rating questions, yet of
much higher standing and ability than some of
those who have been just intruded upon us by
clique influence.
For the conducting of the affairs of such a cor-
poration as ours, something more is required than
that a member should be personally respectable,
and have adopted the popular views with respect
to one question, which has been discussed until
few can fail to be familiar with the arguments in
its behalf. We have matters continually present-
ing themselves, which call for the presence in the
Council of men of experience in business matters
on an extensive scale ; of men of suggestive minds ;
of men of influence, in whom the public will he
disposed to place implicit confidence in large finan-
cial and other matters. With every respect to the
gentlemen who have been placed in the Council by
the elections of Thursday, as well as by those of
last November, there are some of them very defi-
cient in these qualifications, and whom very few,
even of those who voted for them, would be dis-
posed to trust much beyond the carrying out of
the particular question, upon which the recent
struggle has mainly hinged.
We shall, however, say no more upon these
points. Our object is to examine briefly, what is
our present position, with respect to the Pike and
rating questions, and to consider what is the course
for the Council to pursue, in order to accomplish
the object for which it has been re-modelled by the
voice of the public. It must be borne in mind that
the Rivington project has not been stopped by the
issue of these elections; and cannot be stopped at
all, in Liverpool. We have to go successfully
through a Parliamentary ordeal before we are at
the end of our task. We have to procure the re-
peal of a law of the land, adopted deliberately, and
after a searching inquiry into facts, and weighing
of evidence, by both houses of Parliament, and
against the adoption of which the people of Liver-
pool, as a body, never raised a single voice of pro-
test. We say, emphatically, a public act, passed to
secure what the legislature regards as a public
object—the improvement of the health of the town;
for it is perfectly absurd to allow ourselves to be led
away by the idea that the water, or any other mea-
sure for the improvement of our sanatory condition,
will be regarded by it as a merely local matter.
Wherever that sanatory improvement has been
neglected by local authorities, the Central Board of
Health has stepped forward to perform their duties
for them. We saw that body, during,the recent
epidemic, dictating to the authorities in our own
town and elsewhere, the course to be pursued, re-
gardless of expense. It forced upon us the adop-
tion of the plans of its own officials; pointed out
to us what hospitals were to be erected, in what
localities, and what additional medical staff was to
be provided ; and it enjoined upon us its own
mode of arresting the progress of disease and
death. That it regards the carrying out of this
scheme as the fulfilling of a public requirement is
obvious too, if we had no other evidence, from the
admitted fact that it insisted on the passing of the
act, that its clauses should be imperative, and not
merely permissive.
It is well, therefore, to bear in mind this feature
in our position. We have the feelings of the en-
tire legislature dead against us at the outset of any
application to repeal the present bill ; and we may
therefore, possibly, be stopped by them in limine.
Presuming, however, that leave is given to bring in
a bill for getting rid of the existing act; that Par-
liament is willing to give us the privilege of a hear-
ing; what is the next step ? It is, according to
the standing orders of the House of Commons, if
not of both houses, in the power of any individual
member to move that the bill be referred to the
same committee, before which the evidence on the
original act was produced. We have here another
opposing element. We have to negative the whole
of the evidence upon which the former decision of
such committee was based, which is recorded in
their journals, and probably frO in their mem-
ories; and to ask them to reverge their deliberately
formed:judgment. The counter evidence must be
clear indeed, which will induce a committee
to do this. The application, too, it is very
desirable, should be as unanimous as possible.
The exhibition of bottles of muddy water will not
do here; for there has already been the evidence
of professors and chemists, that the Rivington
water is soft and limpid. We may be of opinion
ourselves that our present supply is of excellent
quality, and abundant in quantity ; but a Com-
mittee of Parliament will not defer in such a matter
to our opinion merely, after it has already expressed
a contrary opinion. Such a committee may pro-
bably say to us—" You shall not have sufficiency
only, but abundance, to the extent even of profu-
sion. The cost, compared with the advantages to
be reaped, can be nothing to a wealthy community,
and to a corporation with property worth seven
millions sterling."
Another important point, too, may be urged
against us, and no doubt will be urged, if the bar-
gains which we have submitted to with the land-
owners and others on the line of our propoied
works be so advantageous as they have been stated
to be. It may be said that we have trifled some-
what with these gentlemen ; that we have played
the game of the dog in the manger, and neither
allowed them to have the hay nor eat it ourselves.
We may be told of opportunities lost, whilst relying
on our promises; of improvements neglected, in
reliance upon our good faith ; of actual loss in-
curred, and formidable claims accruing as compen-
sation for the consequences of our fickleness. We
must be backed by formidable strength and influ-
ence to enable us to withstand such arguments,
addressed to a tribunal predisposed against us.
Nothing less than complete and unchallenged
proofs, formed after full and searching enquiry, that
we were wrong in imagining ourselves under the
necessity of going to Rivington, and that by doing
so we should be certain to meet with disappoint-
ment, and ruinous results, would serve us to reply
to such objectors.
But what, if after all, we cannot ensure unanimity
amongst ourselves—if we find arrayed against us
in the Committee-room on the Bill, some of the
most intelligent and influential of our own fellow-
ownsmen ; gentlemen possessed of extensive Par-