The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-07-27 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1841.

tions'

We could pardon the writer of the famous ante-
nuptial epistle a multitude of sins, if we could believe
him to be gifted with even a moderate portion of re-
gard for truth; hut as there are some who think that
it is necessary for them to go all lengths with their
party, so we apprehend his lordship is one of those
who conceive that one must not. hesitate to put black
for white, and lie enormously if the interests of their
sect require it.

The address to the electors of London may be re-
garded as the manifesto of the future opposition, as
well as an enunciation by an ad interim minister, of
the more immediate intentions of the Cabinet; and in
this point of view it is perhaps of more value than in
the other. The noble lord will, of course, be the
leader of the new opposition, and in this letter he af-
fords some glimpses as to what the character of that
opposition will be. We may depend upon it that it
will not be characterised by a scrupulous adherence to
veracity. "If they do these things in the green tree"—

if the leader of the future opposition whilst yet in
office, and under restraints which the dignity and re-
sponsibility of his office should impose upon him, al-
lows himself a latitude which far exceeds the bounds
of poetical license, what may we expect of him when
those restraints are removed, and he is at the head of
a band soured by disappointment, irritated by over-
throw, and raving with thirst after those official sweets
from whose enjoyment they have been excluded ?
His lordship reiterates the statement that the lead-
ing devices of the budget were no afterthought conse-
quent upon the defeat which ministers sustained on
the Irish Qualification Bill—as if that which nobody
believed when originally set forth must gain some cre-
dit by being often and confidently reiterated. But in
the absence of any evidence to show that the popula-
rity-affecting measures of cheap bread and the rest had
ever formed the subject of a Cabinet intent or consul-
tation, and the admitted fact of their never having
been once alluded to in Parliament, there are the re-
corded sentiments of the preceding year both of his
lordship and the Premier in entire condemnation of
any Such project. And yet the noble lord repeats this
assertion, and has even the hardihood to add that they
proposed these plans in order to save their successors
from "an unpopular or impracticable task"! " Had
we resigned," he says, " with a deficient revenue, and
without pointing out the means of improving it, the
same persons would, with far more justice, have ac-
cused us of being afraid to meet the difficulties we had
caused, and of imposing upon our successors an unpo-
pular or impracticable task."
This is another stretch of the flimsy plea of preme.
ditation ; here we are called upon to believe not only
that the plan of the budget had been prepended by the
Whigs, but that it was afterwards detailed out of tender
consideration for their successors in office ; and that,
in getting up the cry of cheap bread, it was the interest
of the Conservative party that they had chiefly consulted
for.

In making such assertions we charge the noble lord
with a palpable disregard to truth, and with gravely
stating not only what was not true, but what he knew
to be directly contrary to the truth. We would leave
it to any twelve men in England of the rank of petty
jnrors, that the budget was an afterthought consequent
upon an ignominious defeat, and that the plan of free
trade was brought out to catch a little popularity, and
in the hope of embarrassing rather than of affording

facilities to the successors of the ministry ; and would

have no doubt of their decision

In the gloriose style which the noble lord adopts to-
wards the close of his address, we see further evi-

dence of that tendency to distort and exaggerate which
seems to enter deeply into the constitution of his mind
—" Out of power, we forced our adversaries themselves
to free the Roman Catholics from their disabilities
.:"

" In power, we abolished slavery in our colonies—we
destroyed the monopoly of privileges in our corpora-
'—and so on. Now we should be very glad, if
it were in our power, to ascribe to his lordship and his
party all the merit of some of these achievements; but
truth compels us to negative the claim. With regard
to one of these vain boastings, the noble lord is parti-
cularly unfortunate ; it is, we think, the last of the
series, but certainly not the least in the Ferdinando
Mendez Pinto quality of romancing. He says, "In
" power, we have carried into practical effect the prin-
ciples of equality of civil privileges between Pro-
" testants and Roman Catholics, and have thereby se-
" cured to the Crown the affectionate loyalty of the
" people of Ireland."

Now if all his lordship says be as true as this, we
may infer how vastly scrupulous he is in all he alleges.
There are two positions in this one short sentence,
both of which are as egregiously, as they are, we may
say, notoriously incorrect. It is not true that the
Whigs have carried into practical effect the principles
of equality either civil or religious in Ireland. That
this is not the case in part, the horrible outrages per-
petrated by the Papist party at the late elections,
amounting, in intent, to a disqualification of all who
would exercise their civil privileges contrary to their
wishes, abundantly prove. There is no equality be-
tween Protestants and Papists, or, we might say, Con-
servatives ,and Radicals, in the sister country, in this
respect. There is abundant evidence to this effect from
Carlow, from Cork, Tipperary, Wexford, and several
other places. The following statement, taken from a
Wexford paper of last week, affords some illustration
of the religious liberty enjoyed in the country when
the profession of faith is not in accordance/with the
taste of the favoured masses :

" OUTRAGE IN TIIE COUNTY OE WEXFORD.—As a
clergyman of this diocese, accompanied by two ladies, was
returning home from the neighbourhood of Enniscortty, on
Saturday week, they were furiously assailed, while passing
through Taghmon, by a mob, which it was understood, had
been chairing Mr. Hawkshaw. The elder lady was struck
on the head and neck by several stones, one of which, subse-
quently found in the car, weighed between three and four
pounds. She is now suffering from concussion of the brain.
The young lady received a blow on the hip, which is conside-
rably bruised. The driver, to whose steady conduct, under.
Heaven, the party are indebted for their deliverance, was
struck severely on the side. The blow was doubtless-intended
for the clergyman, as the man who threw it was seen to pick
up a large stone and deliberately hurl it at that gentleman's
head. The providence of a merciful God, however, fortu-
nately frustrated the villain's deadly design—the stone passed
close by his face, and struck the driver, as we have stated, in
the side. What could have been the motive for this atrocious
proceeding, it is difficult to imagine, unless indeed that to
be a protestant clergyman, on even connected with one, is a
crime worthy of blood-shedding. In no way whatever is
the gentleman upon whom this attempt was made connected
with or engaged in the present electioneering proceedings—
nor indeed any one member of his female companion's family."
Occurrences of this kind are far from being un-
usual, and serve to show where the inequality at pre-
sent lies with regard to religious liberty. Of the
" affectionate loyalty" of the Roman Catholics we hap-
pen to have before us a specimen which ought to be
very grateful to the feelings of the Whig minister. It
is the speech of the famous Romanist Bishop Dr.
Mllale, on proposing Robert Dillon Browne, Esq., as
a proper person to represent the county of Mayo in
Parliament. It opens as follows :

" Dr. Mac Hale, in rising to propose Robert Dillon
Browne, Esq., as a proper person to represent this great
county, said-1 am sure lam but the organ of the unanimous
and enthusiastic feelings of the entire of this liberal con-
stituency. (Cheers.) I recommend him as one opposed to
the truculent principles of the tories—as one not content
with the wretched and vacillating policy of the Whigs, but,
above all, as a firm, sincere, and uncompromising advocate
of that national measure—the repeal of the legislatzve union,
and the restoration of a home legislature to our unfortunate
country."

Lord John Russell could scarcely have been aware
of the strong affection for Repeal entertained by the
Romanists when he spoke of their loyal affection for
the Queen. This affection Dr. M‘Hale further mani-
fests in the following passage :
" We are, then, nine millions, not an inert, lifeless mass,
doomed to a political serfship, as under the old regime, nor
driven to and fro like the Chartists in England, or the rest-
less anarchists in France ; but an active, intelligent, and in-
creasing body, conscious of our rights, and resolved to assert
them—wielding the shield of reason against the brute force
of our oppressors. (Loud cheers.) The unfortunate Whigs
overshot the mark. Had they asserted the interests of the
empire whilst they had . yet violated no pledge, and stood
firm in the confidence of the country, they might have gone
out of office with general regret, but they would soon have
been triumphantly brought back on the shoulders of the
people. Instead of that, they forgot their plighted faith;
they ministered to individual cupidity, instead of consulting
the public interest. They created stipendiary magistrates,
and inspectors, and commissioners, and chiefs, and sub-
chiefs of police, and a whole host of unnecessary function-
aries, increasing the local taxation of the people, and so
exhausted the confidence of the great influential masses of
the nation, that they are on the brink of expiring of a political
consumption. (Hear, hear.) They deserved their fate; it
will be a lesson to all succeeding administrations. (Hear,
hear.)'4

So much for the veraciousness of the Colonial Se-
cretary—a quality which we may reasonably expect he
will bring with him in undiminished power to the op-
position benches ; and as he speaks in no despairing
tone of hereafter carrying measures which he may be
compelled for the present to abandon, it is, we think,
right to be prepared for the system of operation which
he will be likely to act upon. That his lordship is re-
solved 'to be busy and bustling, he tells us himself.
" It is necessary for our purpose," he says, " to be
" vigilant and united ; to oppose zeal to zeal; to watch
" minute details as well as to maintain great principles ;
" in short, to exert, for a great and salutary end, the
" same untiring activity which has been exhibited in a
" more questionable cause. As we do not distrust the
" justice of the measures we have proposed, let not
" temporary failure check our perseverance."
For this intimation we should be thankful to his
lordship. Conservatives will not be suffered to sleep.
They have got no contemptible enemy to deal with;
and they must be on the alert. Fas est vb hoste
doceri.

According to the doctrine of certain Liberal patriots,
it is quite monstrous on the part of Conservative land-
lords and employers not to be satisfied with their
tenantry and dependents voting against their wishes—
and they hope to remedy the evil, first, by singling out
those parties who evince their displeasure as objects of
the most unqualified censure, and secondly, by a prac-
tice of secret voting, some time or other to be effected
by authority of the legislature.
Now, as good Conservatives, we must at all times
combat this device of the adversary in whatever shape
it presents itself—and it is fortunate that we can do so
without advancing, as partisans, one atom beyond the
line to which we should confine ourselves, were we in-
fluenced by no other feeling than a love of abstract
justice and perfect right. We do not rest merely upon
this, that they who complain of the Conservatives
should first take the beam out of their own eye—that
Liberals themselves exercise with certainly not less
strictness the very same watchfulness over their de-
pendents and employe's that they charge Conservatives
with doing ; this might be a sufficient answer to the
parties who make the objection, but would obviously
not be a sufficient answer to the objection itself—
inasmuch as it is no justification for a man doing that
which is imputed to him as a wrong, that others do it.
" Independence" is plainly the subject with which
our subject is conversant. The Liberal is anxious to
make the tenant, the operative, the shopkeeper, or
whatever other description of person may be named,
independent, politically independent ; we do not quarrel
with the object; we like to see men independent; but
what we allege to be the difficulty, nay, almost the im-
possibility in this case is, to make that man politically
independent who is not so civilly and morally; we say
that the thing cannot be done. Take the relation of
landlord and tenant, as existing between the owner of
a large estate and the peasantry or tenantry, whose
livelihood depends on the existence or continuance of
that relationship; there if independence exist it must
be mutual ; if the tenant may be independent of his
landlord, so, a fortiori, we may say, the landlord may
be independent of his tenant. The landlord is at
liberty to choose his own tenantry, and to make that
choice not merely with reference to certain conditions
inserted in a lease or other legal instrument of con-
tract, but also with respect to other things not in them-
selves immoral, or unlawful, as, for instance, that of
voting on the same side with him at parliamentary
elections. This the landlord certainly may do, and do
so, we conceive, unblameably. Now, if the tenant re-
ceive the land, and receive it on the understood condi-
tion, lie is bound to fulfil his part of the obligation.
The same principle pervades in other cases; when a

nan aecepti an employment, or favour of any sort, lie

should consider the conditions annexed to it, and he
has no right to complain of being afterwards required
to make good those which were incumbent upon hitr•
Thus, then, we establish a sort of right in the landlord
or employer in certain cases to the political support of
those connected with him in either capacity, and we
allow the benefit of it to the Liberal quite as much as
we claim it for the Conservative.

We defy the Liberals to controvert this position.
Unless they can show that it is unlawful or immoral,
or in some way wrong, for a man to require his de-
pendents to support the same- cause that he does him-
self, they cannot do it; and upon that point we defy
their utmost.ingenuity. So far from being wrong, we
say that it is even laudable, provided that the cause
which the superior person espouses be itself a right
and a just one ; the practice is legitimate ; but the
cause in whose support it is exercised must determine
whether it be a virtuous dealing or otherwise.
The Liberals seek to loose men from this depend-
ence; but they cannot do it, unless they raise them
above those circumstances in which they were born.
Let a man acquire an independence in fortune, and
then he may be elevated to political independence; let
him be independent of landlords, employers, or custo-
mers, by reason of his own acquisitions or possessions,
and then he will be under no obligation to consult the
wishes of others in the exercise of his political fran-
chises. The Ballot is their short method for over-
leaping the difficulty. But it would fail of its pur-
pose; and so far from introducing political independ-
ence where nature and circumstances have denied it,
that we do think it would be the most powerful instru-
ment ever yet invented for bowing men down in a
state of dependence the most degrading and contemp-
tible. The Ballot is the Radical device to make the
dept:ndent man independent; but how is it to effict
tins ? Why, by concealing his vote. What a spirited,
independent politician that man would be who should
be afraid to avow his political sentiments; yet this is
the Radical way of making men independent A man
is to vote; but nobody is to know how he votes. He
may lie to his landlord, or employer, or political
solicitant, and thus escape all the consequences he
should apprehend from voting against their wishes—
an admirable contrivance certainly for promoting
treachery, duplicity, and falsehood—for anything, in-

iced, but making men virtuous or honourably inde-

pendent. The voter on the secret system must either
speak the truth, or lie, or say nothing respecting the
vote he gives. Now, if he do the first, the ballot is of
no use to him ; he hfv; no occasion for it. If he give
a false account of himself, then the ballot has been a
positive injury to him, and a sad temptation in his
way; but if he do 'the last—if he remain mute—his
silence will be taken for assent, and the ballot will
afford him no protection. The ballot would not conceal
the vote from prying superiors; and thus its principal
purpose, in the contemplation of its supporters, would
be defeated.

We return then to our main position; namely—that
here are no means of giving political independence to
hose who, by their circumstances in life, are essentially

dependent; we would add, that this dependence is by
no means so grievous a yoke as the Liberals would
represent it, and that it is quite capable of being made
to subserve an excellent purpose.
We perceive by a correspondence, published by a

London journal of last week, that certain methodists
of Gainsborough applied to Earl BroWnlow for a piece
of land, somewhere in the village of Torksey, for the
purpose of building a chapel thereon. The applicants
stated, that it would, in their judgment, greatly pro-
mote the election interest of the honourable Mr. Cust,
if his lordship would concede this favour. They
offered to purchase or take the land on lease, but still
they esteemed the grant of it on any terms as a favour.
They sated that the number of Wesleyans who reside
in the Gainsborough circuit is upwards of 1300, and
they added, that there was a report in circulation that
his lordship " did not fully admit the principles of
religious toleration," which report his granting this
favour would enable them " most happily to resist
and confute." Now, Lord Brownlow did not ac-
cede to this request, inasmuch as he said "it

was not consistent with his principles of attach-

merit to the Established Church -to contribute
to the propagation of dissent from her discipline
and worship." In this case, then, the negociation
failed ; but we say, had it been otherwise had
Lord Brownlow given the land, and the Wesleyan
Methodists of Gainsborough accepted of it, there
would have existed a political contract between them,
and the Methodists could not afterwards, with honour
to themselves, refuse to vote for a Conservative candi-
date at the request of Lord Brownlow. Had this taken
place it would be an instance—not perhaps the best,
but still an instance of that sort of political dependence
which men take upon themselves voluntarily—which
would consequently be no burthen to them, and of
which they would afterwards have no right to com,
plain. If a man's mind enters into the contract, no
grievance is felt, and none can really be said to exist.
Superiors and inferiors are only thus bound together
more closely, and if they co-operate for a good pur-
pose, more good is done, and good and not evil is gener-
ally the result.

Some landlords in Ireland have been grievously
assailed for acting upon what we would call this
reciprocity principle ; but we undertake to say, without
reason, at least in most instances. However, we shall
reserve this matter for another opportunity.

The Albion of yesterday reminds the burgesses that
though they are now late to take any steps for the next
parliamentary registration, they are not so for the
municipal, and earnestly entreats all such as are of his
way of thinking, to bestir themselves. By way of
encouraging his party, he assures them that notwith-
standing their defeat, at the recent parliamentary
election, they are still the majority in the town, and
must have the ascendancy in the council, if it be not
their own fault. Now, with all due deference to our
liberal contemporary, we beg to say that there is a
small exaggeration, the aliquot part of a stretcher, or
something of that kind, in his allegation. We should
not wish any of his readers to be deceived, nor that he
should be deceived himself on the subject; the Liberals
are not the majority in the borough, but the minority.
We appeal to the same authority to which our con-
temporary himself appeals, namely--the Poll Book of
the last election. He says that it appears by that re-
turn that Sir J. Walinsley had a majority of 61 over
Lord Sandon in the voters by household franchise;
hence lie argues that the majority of householders are
Liberals. Now, here is a specimen of what the
logicians call the suppressio veri, and suggestia falsi;
there is a truth told, but it is not the whole truth. It
is true, according to this return, .that 3875 house-
holders voted for Lord Sandon, and 3936 for Sir J.
Walmsley, which would give the knight a seeming
majority of the householders of 61 ; but on looking a
little further into the matter, we find that of the free-
men having household franchise, 186 voted for Lord
Sandon, and 76 for Sir J. Walmsley, which makes this
trifling alteration in the case, that instead of the Re-
former having the majority of householders on his
side by sixty,—he is just in a minoritylof thirty•one.
Every householder may not be a freeman; that is quite
true; but it is not so with the converseofthepto-
position, for every freeman may be a householder.
Now, the Conservatives are every way the majority in
Liverpool; they are the majority as free-men ; they are
the majority as qualified householders; and why should
they not have the majority in the Town Council ?
They return Conservative members to the national
Congress, why should they not return Conservative
members to the local Senate ? We shall say no more
at present, but that ifit be a matter of prime import-
ance that Liverpool should be represented by fit and
proper' men in parliament, it is a matter of scarcely less
importance that its local affairs should be administered,
and its local government conducted by representatives
of a similar stamp and character.

TIIE LATE INQUEST ON GEORGE MYEBS.-It will be
remembered that during the late election, a man of the name
of George Myers was killed by a brick thrown at him by
Daniel Shieds, an Irishman, who, along with other radicals,
was engaged in creating a disturbance in Fisher street. The
Manchester Courier of Saturday last, has the following ob-
servation on the case. "If the evidence in this case be cor-
rectly reported, (which we have no doubt it is) we apprehend
the verdict ought to have been " Wilful Murder," not only
against the man Shields, but against all the persons who had
congregated on the roof of his house. It is laid down by
Blackstone,
(vol. iv. p. 199,) that " if two or more come to-
gether to do an unlawful act against the king's peace, of which
the probable consequences might be bloodshed„ as to commit
a riot, to beat a man, or to rob a park ; and one of them
kills a man: it is murder in them all, because of the unlaw-
ful act, the malitia preecogitata, or evil intended before
hand.