The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-27 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, LIVERPOOL

Under the Management of Mr. CLARKE, Sole Lessee.

THE PERFORMANCES DURING THE SUMMER SEASON
WILL COMMENCE AT HALF-PAST SEVEN.-DOORS TO
RE OPENED AT SEVEN.

The LAST NIGHT of the ITALIAN OPERAS, FRIDAY,
August 27th, for the BENEFIT of Signor LABLACHE,
on which occasion
MADAME GRIST,
SIGNORA ERNESTA GRIST,
SIGNOR LABLACHE,
SIGNOR MARIO,

SIGNOR F. LABLACHE
Will appear in the Opera of I PURITAN!, which was re-
ceived on Tuesday Evening with the most rapturous applause
by a brilliant and crowded audience.
CORNO PRIMO, SIGNOR PU2ZI./
CONDUCTOR, the Celebrated Pianist, M. BENE CT.
PHIS present FRIDAY, August 27, the enter laments
will commence with the Drama of

THE v INNKEEPER'S . BRI .
T0m...... Mr. Harley.
After which will be presented Bell' i's Opera
I PURITA '
E I CAVALIERI.
Elvira.. (Daughter of Lord Walton).. Madame Grisi.
Tha Widow of Charles
Henrietta of France { First, under the name Sig. E. Grisi.
of Madame Villa Forte JJJ
Lord Arthur Talbot A Knight, and partizan llSig. Mario.
of the Stuarts
A Colonel on Half Pay, his
Sir George Brother, and a Puritan Sig. Lablache,
Sir Richard Forth (A Coloneland a Puritan) Sig. F.Lablache.
Lord Walter Walton (Governor-General, a Puritan,)
Mr. P. Crowe.
Sir Bruno Robertson (An Officer and a Puritan,)
Mr. G. Horncastle.
Peasants, &c. by a full Chorus.
Monsieur BENEDICT will preside at the Piano-Forte.—
Leader of the Orchestra, Mr. ALDRIDGE.—The Band, on
this occasion, will be considerably augmented.
In consequence of the great expense attending the Engage-
ment the prices of admission will be the same as on a similar
occasion last season. Lower Boxes, 6s. ; Upper Boxes, 4s. ;
Pit, 3s. ; Gallery, Is. 6d.
The Box Office, for this night, will be open, from Ten
until Four o'clock.
No Places can be secured unless Tickets are taken. Doors
to bebptned at Seven, and the Performance to commence at
Half-past Seven.

MADEMOISFLLE CERITO'S BENEFIT
Will take place on MONDAY NEXT, August 30.

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We cannot make room for the lines forwarded by " A
Bookworm."

It is currently rumoured, that collections are now making
in all the Popish Chapels in this town and neighbourhood,
for the purpose of placing on the list of municipal voters
a number of fellows who are only able to exercise their
trust in conformity with the will and bidding of their
grinding task-masters. We had prepared some remarks
relative to the duty incumbent upon all friends of the
town to bestir themselves immediately, for the purpose of
securing a majority of good men and true at the approach-
ing municipal struggle ; but we are compelled to defer
them until Tuesday. In the mean time we may observe,
that considerable funds have already been subscribed, in
order to increase the number of the radical constituency
in November ; though we have little doubt their disre-
putable efforts will be defeated as they have been before.
" Justitia" shall appear on Tuesday, if possible.
We are compelled to omit our Birkenhead and Seacombe
news, from want of space, as also a notice of the Theatre
Royal, which is in type.

ebt EtVerpool Manbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 27, 1841

The new parliament, it is evident from that docu-
ment called the Queens Speech, was convened just in
time to destroy the hopes of the Anti-Corn Law
League, and the Conference of Preachers ; for so far
as depended on the Melbourne ministry, the ball was
at their foot, and every facility would have been afforded
to gratify them in their wishes. The Speech, in all
that relates to the exciting topic of free trade, is only
an echo of the Report of the Select Committee on Im-
port Duties—of the resolutions passed at the meeting
at the Thatched House Tavern, over which Mr. Joseph
Hume, late M. P., presided—and of all the resolutions,
motions, speechifications, and petitions of whatever
kind which have been got up by the revolutionary fac-
tion from that time to the present. The recommenda-
tions inserted in the Speech could only have been put
there for the purpose of making it plain to the world
hat the retreating ministers identify themselves on all
points with the factory, dissenting, and popish inte-
rests, and of holding out the expectation that, as they
had been able to obtain the sanction of the Queen to
the promulgation of such a manifesto, so by keeping
closely together as one party they might be able ulti-
mately to attain objects from which they are for the
present rather uncomfortably separated. This portion
of the Speech had a far-seeing regard to the formation
of the future opposition, and the fusing as much as pos-
sible into one of the discordant elements of which it
must consist. Henceforward then we are to under-
stand that "free trade" is *to be, not, as it used to be,
a question for dispassionate men of philosophical tem-
per and of business habits—men superior to the influ-
ence of class interests, and at a distance from the im-
petuous current of party to decide upon ; but a mere
rallying point for political factions—the flag of a re-
union—consisting of various sections with as many
various opinions, but glad to have a pretext of any
kind for a temporary combination. Henceforward it
will be easy for us to know who is of the party of Dr.
Pye Smith or Mr. Cobden, of Daniel O'Connell or my
Lord John Russell, of Lord Melbourne or Mr. Owen;
let him only say that he is a "free-trader," and we
shall know him ; and, e converso, let him but declaie
himself to be, say, a Walmsleyite or a Palmerstonian,
and we may at once mark him down as a rogue in
grain. Under different circumstances there might be
a disadvantage in thus synonimysing of free trade with
whatever is absurd and revolutionary in politics ; but
at present it is quite otherwise, nay, positively useful.
Conservatism is strong, and will take care that nothing
that is really advantageous shall be lost because the
folly or the knavery of some has rendered the name of
free-trade odious ; and again. there is a positive con-
venience in having the country warned into a whole-
some distrust of Whig and Liberal free trading in ge-
neral, by having a distinct exhibition before it of the
sort of confluence of which the general tide of the
free trade party consists.

The free trade of the Liberal party is abominable on
its own account; it is even more so, if possible, if we
pay but the slightest attention to the unprincipled fac-
tion, or rather factions, who seek to carry it into effect.
Popish Agitators are free traders—Dissenting Reve-
rends of " all denominations" are free-traders ; so are
all Chartists and Socialists. Now, is it conceivable
that anything good, safe, or desirable, could issue from
the united councils of such parties ? Truly the safety
of having a multitude of such councillors would con-
sist in having little temptation to be guided by any one
of them. We grant that the pretext of " care for the
poor" is one of which all persons may avail them-
selves ; but what right has the millocrat, whose machi-
nery and overtrading have caused the distress, to talk
of any peculiar concern for the poor ? What right of
the same kind has the conventicle orator, whose church
may be that of the. well-fed pewowner—the man who
can pay for the luxury of undefined theology and vo-
luntary rhapsody, but is anything at all but the church
of the poor man ; and still more reasonably may we
ask, what right has Ireland's big b•.!ggarman to declaim
on this subject, who has often stripped the poor man
even of his last farthing, but who never gave him any
thing that we know of, but the curse of his evil spirit
and his sedition ?

It is absolutely necessary to relieve distress by whom-
soever or howsoever taused, and it is most desirable to
promote trade ; brit it is not necessary to resort to
quackery, and to quack cures for either purpose. It

is quite monstmus to suppose that the abolition of the
corn duties 'would do either the one or the other.
There is no 'doubt that it would take away our specie ;
there is eve'ry reason to doubt that it would afford the
slightest relief to the poor man. Take the case of the
handloor a weavers, for instance; the corn duties can
never rJach them ; they are the victims of machinery,
and k,laced for ever beyond the cure of corn laws.
Witt t regard to other operatives, whatever effect a re-
pea/, of the duties might have in lowering their wages,
it •would have no tendency to increase them, and then
t/ aeir future prospects must depend on our increased
trade with foreign countries—an event which has been
over and over again shown to be at best problematical,
whilst no account is taken of the corresponding in-
jury that must be done to the home consumer and the
home market. " Free trade" regarded as a:remedy for
distress is, in fact, a mere delusion—a gross humbug.
Factory speculation and the march of machinery have,
the one raised up, and the other pauperised, a large
proportion of the working population which are now a
surplus and burden to the country. To talk of reliev-
ing their distress by forcing up trade to the point of
giving them full
employment is a mere mendacious fal-
lacy—a hopeless, an impracticable absurdity. Our
colonies happily furnish an outlet where they might be