The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-10-30 00:00:00

STANDARD EXTRAORDINARY.

It is 6urintention to publish, on THURSDAY NEXT,
an EXTRA EDITION of the STANDARD,
PRICE THREEPENCE,
Containing all the particulars relative to the pending
ELECTIONS, the Council and Parish Meetings of the
previous day, and other important matters. During
the day several subsequent editions will be issued, and
immediately at the CLOSE of the POLL will be given
every event of interest which may have occurred—
hourly statement of the voting—a list of the Council
as then constituted, 8(c. arc.

Ebt Etherpool gPtanTsarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 30, 1849.

THE commercial advices by the American steamer
are again very favourable, increased orders for Bri-
tish manufactured goods having been received by
her. She also brings Q 5,000 in gold, exchange
lacing at koA, and likely to advance.

IT is impossible to glance over the addresses of
the candidates, who will on Thursday next present
themselves to the constituencies, seeking admission
to the Council Chamber, and to compare them with
those issued by the most popular of the candidates
on the same occasion two or three years ago, with-
out admitting the fact that a striking change
'has taken place not only in public opinion
generally, but in the feeling of the various classes
of the community, upon some local questions.
Two or three years ago, the popular party was
indisputably that which offered to further, at any
amount of cost, the progress of sanatory reform.
The inestimable advantage of a copious supply of
water for sanatory and other purposes was the
most prominent topic put forward to influence the
votes of the burgesses. To such an extent was the
community prepared to go for this object that we
do not hesitate to say that, could it have been at
once realized, no cost would have been grudged by
even the most sturdy sticklers for economy in con-
ducting the affairs of the town. But, happily great
schemes cannot be carried out in a day. We are
unable to tunnel through mountains, or to clam up
valhes as by the wand of a magician. Surveys and
estimates have to be made ; and time gives us
opportunities of reflection. First impulses are
often found to lead to extremes; and occasionally
to errors in judgment, which we are left to correct
at leisure. Such has been the result of the further
opportunities, which we have had to examine into
the real bearings of the question of increased
water supply, so enthusiastically taken up, as the
popular question, two or three years ago. The
most forward of the advocates of such supply have
been compelled to confess that, in their zeal, they
overlooked the fact that sufficient water might be
within their reach, without travelling to Bala Lake,
to Holywell, or to Rivington to procure it. We
bear no more demands for fountains in every street,
and taps in every room of every dwelling. The
calculating powers of the ratepayers have been
busily at work in the interim ; and we have begun
to discover that we were going a little too fast—
about to pay too dear for our whistle.
One lesson to be derived from this is the danger
of allowing our judgments to be swayed, in so
important a matter as the selection of gentlemen
to conduct our local affairs, by their avowed opini-
ons upon any one or two questions, which happen
at the moment to absorb public attention, or to be
made the watchwords of party. Some amongst
us, too, ought to be taught from it the reason-
ableness, whilst impelled to acknowledge our own
past errors, of extending forbearance to those who
feel a great difficulty in jumping round in a day.
Men are at all times to be found willing to make
-such questions—without taking great trouble to
mature their judgments—a stepping-stone to power,
and a means to attain further and unavowed ob-
jects. We say this with no intention of imputing
such conduct to any of the gentlemen now put
forward as the opponents of the Pike scheme ; but
we do say let us not be hasty in regarding profes-
sions with respect to this single question, or even
two or three others, as the sine qua non of fitness
for corporate employment and trust. The mem-
bers of the local legislature of Liverpool have
other and important matters to deal with ; ques-
tions requiring great business experience and judg-
ment ; high character and influence. A. man may
have just views of water supply; great geological
knowledge and local information; and yet prove
most inefficient when called upon to give his
advice or aid in the conducting of the financial
affairs of a large public estate, of its parliamentary
and other business. We cannot, either, overlook
the fact that there are questions, which occasionally
call for the attention of the Council, quite as im-
portant, and which have been quite as eagerly con-
tested, as the present Water question ? No long
period ago this furnished the touchstone applied
to the claims of the candidates of two powerful
parties in the community; and it may probably, at
no distant date, be resuscitated from its present
temporary slumber.
Entertaining, sincerely, these views, and disposed
as we have ever been—at a time, too, when some
of the present loudest opponents of the Pike
scheme, were either its advocates, or were inert in
the matter—to deny the necessity of going be-
yond our own locality for a supply of water, we
are not prepared to lose sight.altogether of general
fitness, or of past valuable services, in the choice
of gentlemen to represent our interests in the
Council chamber. We are not prepared, either, to
treat our municipal elections as contests for the
preponderance of this or that class in the local
legislature. It is not the fact that the interests of
the merchant are necessarily distinct from those of
the tradesman ; and, until we see it proved, we
demur to the class, to which any candidate belongs,
being made a ground of his receiving our support.
The tradesmen of our town have never met with
any exclusion, that we are aware of. They possess
already a considerable influence in the Council,
which, to their credit, they have exercised with
great ability and disinterestedness; and we should
be the first to resist any attempt, on the part of the
marcantile body, to lessen that influence. More-
over, on the water question, the advocates and op-
ponents of the Rivington scheme are composed of
members of neither body exclusively; and grant-
ing the perfect right:of every tradesman to aspire
to corporate honors, and even to the highest of
these, we are confident that few of this class of our
fellow-townsmen would wish to attribute their suc-
cess to anything less than a full deserving of them,
earned by the integrity and ability displayed, not
upon one question alone but in every phase of their
,•
public ana private career.
In the few remarks which we shall add, with
respect to the qualifications of some of the gentle-
men about to be submitted to the choice of the
constituencies, we shall abstain from entering into
any invidious comparisons. Personally, we cannot

object to the claims of any of them ; and we firmly
believe that, but for the heats and ill-feeling, which
have been sedulously infused into the minds of the
community upon the question of the water supply,
we should have seen some of the wards uncontested,
so generally is the fitness of the retiring represen-
tatives acknowledged. On no other question ex-
cept that of the Rivington scheme would Mr. S.
Holme have been opposed for Rodney-street Ward ;
and should the result be his exclusion from the
Council Chamber, regret at the loss of so efficient
and useful a man will, in their cooler moments, be
the prevailing sentiments of many, who are now
actually engaged in promoting his rejection. In
Castle-street Ward Mr. James Aikin would, under
ordinary circumstances, and but for the use of ex-
traneous expressions, no doubt have walked over
the course, as in years past. As it is, although his
opponent, Mr. Avison, is personally unobjection-
able, the absence of Mr. Aikin from the chamber,
and especially from the Dock Committee, would be
regretted by men of all classes,—by many men'who
are at direct issue with him, not only on the water
question, but on political subjects generally. In
West Derby Ward, on the other hand, we trust to
see the return of Mr. Arthur Henderson, as a gen-
tleman sound on all points, and likely to become a
valuable member. We support this gentleman,
admitting fully the talents and past services of Mr.
George Hall Lawrence, who, we may remark, would
have stood better with the constituency, had he dis-
played a little less decided contempt for the opini-
ons of the public at large, on the water and other
questions, and received less of the damaging coun-
' tenance of his relative and adviser, Mr. William
Earle. In some of the other wards we fear that the
issue of the struggle will present very singular
anomalies ; a strange division of parties, and con-
flicts of opinion between friends and connexions,
which will leave deep regret and ill-feeling behind
them. Happy will it be for the community if, at
the same time, the further conviction is left behind,
how much of these evils and animosities have been
entailed upon us by the officious intrusion of that
body—the confederation—which has set itself up to
dictate to us how we are to exercise the franchise
entrusted to us, and to conduct the affairs, both of
the town and of the state ! If the close of the poll-
ing at four o'clock on Thursday presents in some
places a result unexpected by the opponents of the
Rivington scheme; if it be found that many men
have been induced on this occasion to throw them-
selves with ardour into the struggle, who in previ-
ous years have taken no active interest in local
questions ; and that powerful influences have been
brought to bear upon the issue, which it would
have been most desirable to have seen left unexer-
cised; it will lie found that the chiefly impelling
cause amongst a large portion of the community,
has been the conduct of this body, which has pre-
sumed to point out their course of conduct to men
as capable of thinking for themselves as its own
members, and which obviously wants the power,
not the'will, to set itself up as a tyrannical Junta to
lord itself over the town. Should these elections
r It in strengthening the hands 'of the Rivington
p , which we trust they will not, for notwith-
stan ing the declarations which have been put forth
to the contrary, we feel convinced that the question
-will yet be settled, as all other questions should, by
a temperate and careful examination of evidence,
the public will have ample cause to parody a cele-
brated expression, and to exclaim, "the confedera-
tion has done it all !"

BY the arrival of the mail steamer Canada we
have the following important communication from
our private correspondent at Montreal :

"Montreal, October 15th.

" The question whether England will retain this colony
is arriving at a crisis. A movement, which I had, some
time ago predicted, has at last taken place. It is, that
last week, a manifesto was put forth in this city, signed
by three hundred and twenty-five of the wealthiest and
most respectable citizens, men of both parties, and in-
eluding two members of parliament, and two Queen's
counsel, in favour of ANNEXION WITH THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA, and the absolution from their al-
legiance to the Queen. At the time the mail leaves there
are about one thousand names to this manifesto. An
effort has been made to get up a counter movement, and
another document, expressing strong dissent from the
annexion manifesto, has been carried round for signature,
as yet with but sickly success.
" You felt little inclined to believe when I formerly
told you that the loyalists of Lower Canada had changed.
The names of some of the principal ones, side by side
with former rebels, are attaulied to the auneAlun maul-
festo. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

" La Minirre, the organ of the French influence in the
ministry, and Mr. Attorney-General Lafontaine's paper,
publishes this document, with no other commentary than
' that as it will find its way into the history of Canada, it
is well that it should be before the world.' And the Pilot,
the other ministerial organ in this city, criticises the docu-
ment delicately and gingerly. It is openly supported by
the other once loyal and conservative newspapers in the
city except the Transcript. The Quebec papers have re-
ceived it with neither very decided dissent nor approba-
tion. Sufficient time has not transpired to allow the news
of its reception to have arrived from Upper Canada, but
there is no doubt that it will be received with indignant
protest 'by the loyalist party there, judging from the
terms in which the preliminary steps have been com-
mented upon.
" I will refrain from any commentary at present on the
effect that this movement will have on the existing parties,
and only observe that its stronghold will be in Lower
Canada.
" The manifesto sets forth the present depressed state
of the country, as caused by the legislation of England.
It then reviews the different remedies which have been
proposed, and concludes by expressing an opinion that
none will be effectual but annexion with the United States.
This, it sets forth, would benefit both nations. It would
not that the separation from England should take place
except in a peaceable and friendly manner, and that any
other than a separation of this kind would be neither
practicable nor desirable. L.,

We were certainly not prepared, from the tenor
of all the advices hitherto received from Canada,
for so decisive a step, as is here described, to be
taken as yet, although, for years, we have regarded
it—and placed our opinions on record—as the in-
evitable result of our recent commercial policy,
and of the conduct pursued towards these depen-
dencies by the Colonial Office and the British
Government. It is clear, however, that, in common
with the bulk of the British people, we underrated
the extent of the irritation produced by the insult-
ing course adopted with respect to the Rebellion
Losses Bill. It has sunk deeper into the hearts of
the Canadian people than was perhaps expected by
the Colonial Office or the Ministry themselves,
and has precipitated a movement which seems to
have taken a large mass of the colony itself by
surprise.
We have before us a copy of the manifesto, in which
the case of the advocates of annexation is stated
in very striking terms; and the advantages of that
step urged with a clearness and plausibility which
must have considerable weight with an offended
and a suffering people. The memorialists give, in
the following passage, their views of the effect of
our policy, and a distressing account of its results
on the condition of all classes within the colony

" The reversal of the ancient policy of Great Britain,
whereby she withdrew from the Colonies their wonted
protection in her markets, has produced the most disas-
trous effects upon Canada. In surveying the actual con-
dition of the country, what but ruin or rapid decay meets
the eye ! Our provincial government and civic corpora-
tions embarrassed ; our banking and other securities
greatly depreciated ; our mercantile and agricultural inte-
rests alike unprosperous ; real estate scarcely saleable upon
any terms ; our unrivalled rivers, lakes, and canals almost
unused, whilst commerce abandons our shores ; the cir-
culating capital amassed under a more favourable system is
dissipated, with none from any quarter to replace it. Thus,
without available capital, unable to effect a loan with
foreign states, or with the mother country, although
offering security greatly superior to that which readily
obtains money both from the United States and Great
Britain, when other than colonists are the applicants ;
crippled, therefore, and checked in the full career of pri-
vate and public enterprise, this possession of the British
Crown—our country—stands before the world in humili-
ating contrast with its immediate neighbours, exhibiting
every symptom of a nation fast sinking to decay."
They proceed to canvas the merits of the various
other remedies suggested, which are,—lst. A re-
vival of protection in the British markets, which
they consider could not be permanently effected.
2nd. A protection for home manufactures, which
they conceive would be of little value, without
access being afforded them to the United States
market ; a federal union of the British American
provinces; the independence of the British North
American provinces as a federal republic ; and
reciprocal free trade with the United States as
respects the •products of the farm, the forest and
the mine ; each and:all of which, they contend,
would fall short of the full amount of benefit to be
derived from annexation. It is clear that our
Canadian brethren look with a longing gaze upon
the prosperous condition of the neighbouring
union. They contrast their own unfavourable
position with that of the protected people of the
United States, and argue that annexation would
at once open to them the markets of the entire
North American continent, and at the same time
attract towards their soil American capital, to cover

it with railways, to work its mines, and to give
increased facilities for the developement of its vast
resources.

It is professed by the memorialists that the
object is not to be carried out except peaceably,
and with a most amicable feeling towards the
mother country. We have not succeeded yet in
uprooting loyalty from the hearts of the British
portion of the Canadian people. But can annex-
ation be effected with the consent of the British
people ? Are we prepared to hand over these
valuable possessions to the United States ; or shall
we retain by force an allegiance •and a connection
which we might have retained by kindness ? We
leave it to- the Government to answer these
questions.

SYMPTOMS are already dawning upon us of the
approaching end of a system, based upon human
fatuity, the grossness of which succeeding genera-
tions will contemplate, in the pages of historic
record, with utter amazement. Sooner than we
had dared to hope for such a result, from concurring
causes, the confidence of the world in that un-
erring (!) standard of value, which has, within the
last thirty years, according to the confession of the
London Times, doubled the pressure of taxation
and of every private debt in this country, is shaken
to its base. We have seen manifested in past years
the effect of the working of the principle, upon
which our boasted monetary laws are based. We
have seen the natural action of temporary exports
of specie, followed by contraction of the media of
exchange, with its attendants, commercial suffering
and suspension of every branch of industry. And
discerning men have doubted the wisdom of thus
submitting the commerce of the whole nation to the
operations of " a metalic formula," and condemned,
as the most injurious of all sliding scales, the sliding
scale in gold, upon whose oscillations not the
marketable value of one commodity alone, but of
the entire property of the nation, at home and
spread abroad throughout the world, has insanely
been made to depend. But we have now to witness
the operation of the world's doubts with respect to
the continued marketable value of the commodity—
,gold itsel:—which we have adopted as our standard.
The advocates of the bullionist theory have, as a
body,'endeavoured to argue the world out of the
expectation that any great addition to the supply of
the precious metals would be the result of the
recent discoveries in California. The golden stream,
they have argued, would at once be absorbed by the
increasing commerce of the world. One of them,
however, the Times, treated it as a matter of little
moment whether the price of gold should rise or
fall—as an agreeable kind of lottery in which one
part of the community would win and the other
lose—no matter which. "We are now," he re-
marked a few years ago, and be has recently
repeated the remark, in treating of the subject of
California, " bound by a definite bargain, expressed
in a certain nomenclature—pounds, shillings, and
pence.• To cancel our liability is impossible. To
• evade it by arbitrarily changing that nomenclature
is impossible. To evade it by changing that no-
menclature would he a piece of tyrannous rascality.
It would be quite another thing, if such a change
were to be operated by natural causes. Of this
we ,and our creditors, like every other debtor and
every other creditor, must take our chance. If, by
circumstances, over which we have no control, the
value of money rises, so much the better for them;
if it falls, so much the better for us." Other
nations, however, as shown by some recent move-
ments, do not appear to entertain such free and
easy opinions upon the matter. The commercial
community of Belgium, for example, are not gene-
rally regarded as tyros in monetary science, and are
shrewd enough as to the relations of meum and
tuum. Yet we learn that, from some new lights
which have shone upon them, they have just passed
a decree suspending the circulation of the British
coined sovereign as legal tender in Belgium, until
the question shall be discussed at the next assem-
bling of the legislative chambers. Evidently, these
shrewd traders are beginning to doubt the con-
tinuance of the relation, in value, of our golden
pound to their own silver and paper money. It
was stated, a week ago, that upwards of £300,000
in sovereigns had been returned from Belgium to
Great Britain, since the passing of this decree,
which renders them no longer legal currency or
money of fixed value.
Th. DuLdi pcuplo arc c.atcnoiy-; dcaloro in es-
change, and reputed as quite alive to their own
interests in their dealings with other nations. We
find them, too, repudiating the correctness of our
bullionists as to the unerring value of gold, as a
commodity. A project of law has just been pub-
lished at the Hague, depriving gold of its monetary
functions, and c dling in from circulation the Dutch
gold pieces of five and ten florins, which it is pro-
posed to replace by paper money, provisionally at
least, until the present stock in hand shall have
come down to its legitimate value. In the preamble
of the decree it is stated by the finance minister
th=l, since it is known that the rival mountains of
Russia and the mines of California produce so large
a quantity of gold, prudence demands that, with a
prospect of an extraordinary appreciation of this
metal, more or less near, the gold of Dutch coinage'
should be withdrawn from circulation, and an oppor-
tunity given to offer it for sale at, as nearly as prac-
ticable, present prices. The minister urges that if,
within a few years, gold should lose one-tenth of its
value, prices would rise in a proportionate ratior
and the nation would have the right to complain of
the want of foresight in statesmen, who should have
hesitated, or recoiled from making a trivial sacrifice
whilst it was yet time. We commend the lesson to
Sir Charles Wood and his colleagues.
A still more striking fact has just reached us by
the last arrival from the Brazils. From a private
letter, addressed to a mercantile firm here, we learn
that an edict has just been published at Rio, sus-
pending the act which regulates the price of the
precious metals, until the opening of the chambers,
in January next. The Brazilians will not allow
the value of their own, paper dollars to be mea-
sured in our now suspected standard. Have they
more accurate information than we have as to
the probable yield of the diggings in California,.
or do they contemplate the early and entire blow
up of the bullionist system, and the reduction of
the precious metals from their present fictitious-
value, as monies, to their intrinsic worth as commo-
dities? Most likely both these considerations have
had their weight. The Brazilian people possess
themselves a well-regulated domestic currency, in-
dependent of any metallic basis. Their paper
money has for years fulfilled all the requirements,
both of their home and foreign trade. And they
object to receive as payment for their labour and
their products, a commodity which, is being scram-
, bled for in another part of their great continent
by adventurers of all nations, and is, apart from
its value as a money, for which they do not require
it, of no definable and permanent worth.
But there are whispers, it is said, nearer home,
which point at coming monetary revolutions. The
circular to hankers, whether accurately or not, hints
at perplexities in Lombard-street; and at new pro-
jects and modifications contemplated in Downing-
street and Whitehall. The bank labours under a
plethora of specie, and is said to seek to be relieved
from the legal necessity of taking a further supply
at the mint prices. It is not unnatural that she
should do so ; not unlikely that she sees some por-
tion of what is passing in the world, and calculates
its possible effect upon her interests. What indi-
vidual merchant would be willing•to receive all the
corn, sugar, or any other commodity, which sellers
may choose to bring, at a price fixed by law, inde-
pendently of the considerations of supply and
demand ? Yet this is precisely what the bank is
now doing with respect to the commodity, gold.
The directors know that the legislature cannot fix
a price for other nations; that a large increased
supply, beyond our wants for the metal as a money,
would reduce at once its relative value, as compared
with commodities, the supply of which has not
been thus increased ; and that by continuing to in-
crease their hoards, and paying for them the mint
price, they would be progressing rapidly towards
a future serious sacrifice of their funds.
It would be premature of course, now, to specu-
late, as to what are the precise modifications, if any,
intended to be introduced into our monetary.
system. We can only rejoice in the confident as-
surance that the bullionists must feel themselves in
a difficulty ; and that the more they attempt to
tinker their present system, the deeper they will
flounder into embarrassment. Suppose that it is
attempted to release the Bank from its bond to pay
£3 17s. 101 d. per ounce for gold ; and enact that,
when holding a certain stock, the national market
for the commodity will be closed. What will fol-
low ? We shall have an instant depreciation of the
standard, and a disturbance of the prices of all
commodities and of all contracts, public and pri.