The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-19 00:00:00

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EAR Eibtrpooi attanDarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 19, 1841.

That Tories are good canvassers, and rather skillful
in the management of election affairs, we have the ac-
.knowledgment of adversaries who desire nothing so
much as to profit by their example. The acknowledg-
ment is at once gratifying and stimulative. It is gra-
tifying, because there is virtue in a proper use of the
attainment ; and it is stimulative, because it' leads us
to look for success where the talent is plenarily called
into exercise. There is a good occasion at the present
moment for a little display of this species of artistic
ability; and we would earnestly beg of our Tory
friends in Liverpool not to disappoint the public in
general by declining to gratify them with a taste of
their quality on this occasion.

We are called upon, in the first place, to be consist-
ent; we say consistent, because in our choice of par-
liamentary representatives we have declared, in com-
mon with the majority of the nation, that a Whig Mi-
nistry is not worthy of our confidence ; and it will
certainly be both strange and inconsistent if we do not
act_upon the same rule, locally, in our choice of muni-
cipal representatives. There are some, indeed, who
pretend to see a distinction between the cases. Local
government, say they, is a different thing from na-
tional; there is no need to embarrass it with political
ingredients ; give me a man that will stand up for our
local interests, and look fairly to the good of our town,
and I care not whether he be Whig or Tory, or what
colour he may be of in general politics ; I shall sup-
port him as my representative in the Council irrespec-
tively of such considerations. Now if the individuals
who delude themselves with such an hallucination be-
longed to the Whig party, which we have rarely, if
ever, found to be the case, we should be exceeding
sorry to attempt' awaking them from their dream ; but
as they are almost invariably Conservatives, or persons
who, on other questions and in other respects, may
fairly be reckoned as of our party, we should esteem
no pains thrown away that would be likely to relieve
them from so great an error. And a great error it is ;
because, in the first place, it is casting a stigma on
Conservative principles ; it is leaving it to be implied
that Conservatism is not the best form of patriotism
for every purpose, and that the Conservative body
does not afford a sufficiently ample collection out of
which to choose a fit and proper municipal councillor.
Now a Conservative, if he were well instructed and
sufficiently enlightened, would by no means think so
meanly of his own principles, or of the party to which
he belongs. If he understood the principles of Con-
servatism thoroughly, he would perceive that they in-
clude the duties of a good citizen not less in a limited
than an enlarged sphere of action towards his locality,
As well as towards the state ; and to admit that there
is any other better code of rules for his direction in
the one relation than in the other, or any so good, is
really to admit that there is something unsound in the
system itself; and this, we say, is dishonouring to it,
doing it despite and injury, and a manifestation of
gross ignorance as to its genuine character. But on
the other hand, if the doctrine be good, and the sys-
tem sound for national purposes and general adminis-
tration, upon what principle should the municipal
boundary of a town be debarred from its operation ?
There is no such isolation known in our country.
Conservatism, or the necessity for it, can be excluded
by no such arbitrary demarkation. To administer the
local affairs of a district well, they must be adminis-
tered on the Conservative principle, or there is no truth
in it, and, as a necessary consequence, by men who
hold that principle; and the Conservative who votes
for any other than a Conservative is, consequently, no
friend to the immediate circle and community to which
he belongs, whatever he may profess or suppose him-
self to be. The simple question then is, is not every
Conservative municipal elector bound to vote for a
Conservative municipal candidate ? We answer that
question by saying that the man is a traitor to his
principles who does not.
It is a mistake—quite a mistake—to imagine that
the grand political distinctions of Conservatism or Ra-
dicalism can, or ought to be, shut out from a munici-
pal contest. If our local affairs were in their charac-
ter as far removed from anything connected with ge-
neral politics as the management of a turnpike trust
or a river ferryage, which they are not, yet it would be
our bounden duty, for other reasons and for other pur—
poses, to give to the town the advantage of a Conser-
vative corporation. Why did we struggle so long and
so hard to re-establish Conservatism in the national
councils ? Because we were convinced of its value;
because daily experience taught us that Radicalism
would prove destructive; because, in short, we had no
. choice left between the re-instatement of a Conservative
Ministry and restoration of a Conservative policy to
the State and absolute ruin. Shall we, so far as Liver-
pool is concerned, now stultify ourselves by exhibiting
indifference in 'the choice and composition of our
municipal government ? Shall it be said, that though
we esteemed and actually discovered that Conservatism
was essential to the prosperity of the country nation-
ally, yet that Radicalism, or Liberalism, or any other
ism of that sort would do well enough for our town ?
We use these plain arguments because, though of a
very simple and obvious kind., they should, if borne in
mind, be quite sufficient, in our humble opinion, to
stir up the Conservatives to the achievement of an
object which, until it is accomplished, leaves their
public, political work but half done, and Liverpool in
an anomalous state, which is anything but creditable
to them.

With regard to any specific measures which we
might expect a Conservative council would adopt, in
contradistinction to those carried out by the Radicals,
it is, we conceive, not only premature, but unnecessary
to speak just now. The Mercury, indeed, foreseeing
the probable issue of the contest, jumps to some con-
clusions to which we, who creep along the ground, are
quite unable to follow him. He draws his inference,
on one head, from. the little discussion which took place
at the last meeting of the Council between Mr. Har-
bord, Mr. Alderman Sheil, Mr. Hodgson, and other
members, relative to the appointment of Mrs. Boyce
to the situation of second mistress to the South
Scbool, and a remark made by Mr. Hodgson that the j

tloi was eomipg 4vlien gua. alsetwiiour, would not le
likely to waste the time of tha Council. But we know
of no warrant which any part of the discussion would
afiord for the Mercury's lucubration ; that which, we
conceive, will be generally thought most remarkable in
that conversation was the consummate folly of Mr.
Alderman Sheil and his worshipful backer, the mayor
--the umistakable doodle and noodle of the transac-
tion. The one would not allow their schoolmistress to
be asked of what religion she is of ; the other clinches
the argument by declaring that it is " impertinent" to
propose such an interrogatory. Now, we would hum-
bly ask, are not these very fit persons to have the care
of schools, or the appointment of teachers for the rising
generation ? We have to thank Mr. Harbord for put-
ting the question, and eliciting such an exhibition of
Popery and Socinianism in the persons of the two
worthies above-named, and Mr. Hodgson for the
manly candour with which he avowed his opinions;
but we repeat, that as to what measures a conservative
council will adopt on the subject of education, it is pre-
mature as yet to speak, and the question need not now
be agitated.
What we have at present mainly to look to is the ex-
clusion of radicals, and the election of conservatives—
to make our municipal and parliamentary policy homo-
geneous, and to give to Liverpool what it has too lOng
wanted, A DECIDEDLY CONSERVATIVE GO.
VERNMENT ! ! !

The recent arrivals from the United States have not
solved for us the question of peace or war between
Great Britain and the people of that republic ; and yet
they have disclosed a state of things existing upon the
frontiers of our Canadian possessions which it is im-
possible to contemplate without serious misgivings.
The power of precipitating a collision between the two
countries is at this moment placed absolutely in the
bands of a band of lawless and savage " sympa-
thizers" in the northern states of America, whom the
government of that country either will not or cannot
restrain within the bounds of law and order ; and al-
though it is quite possible that the immediate cause of
jealousy between the two countries—the trial of M‘Leod
—may have passed over without those results which
have been anticipated, yet it is quite clear that without
some immediate and stringent measures are resorted to
by the government of the United States to repress the
violence of tone and conduct towards Great Britain,
displayed by their frontier population, the disastrous
calamity of a war between the two countries may be
averted for a time, but must ultimately, and at no dis-
tant period, be the issue.
We are no advocates for war, at any time or with
any country ; and especially we should view with deep
sorrow any serious embroilment with America. As a
nation we have no quarrel with her which could justify
a resort to the sword for its settlement. As a nation,
we do not think that she entertains towards us those
feelings which would hurry her government into the
adoption of a hostile policy towards us. But the ques-
tion nevertheless arises and presses for solution—" Can
we much longer remain at peace with a country which,
whilst it professes towards us sentiments of friendship
and respect, neglects, at the same time, to take ade-
quate steps to restrain its lawless and savage popula-
tion from making continual inroads upon our territory,
and abetting rebellion and outrage amongst a portion
of our people ?" This question, we submit, presses
urgently for solution; and it must be solved satisfac-
torily to the British nation before we can hope for any
security for our Canadian possessions, or look forward
to the enjoyment of any perm'anently peaceful relations
with the American government.

It may be said, indeed, that the government of the
United States has, within the last few weeks, taken
measures to repress the hostile aggressions of its fron-
tier population upon our Canadian possessions. The
President has indeed issued a proclamation for the pur-
pose of discouraging the formation of secret associa-
tions, amongst the citizens of America, for purposes of
hostility to Great Britain ; and threatens those to whom
it is addressed with the certainty of condign punish-
ment—and, moreover, with the withdrawal of Ameri-
can protection, in case, during any of their lawless
incursions, they should fall into the hands of the Bri-
tish Canadian authorities. But is this all, we ask,
which the government of the United States is entitled
to perform ? Is it sufficient for a nation, claiming .to
be a civilized nation, and to be recognised as such, to
declare merely her own non-participation in the out-
rages which may be committed by the individual peo-
ple or states which compose it, and to entail upon the
country which has the misfortune to be its neighbour
the necessity of a constant watch and ward to restrain
the commission of those outrages ? On the contrary,
it is certainly the duty of such a nation, herself, to take
strong and prompt measures upon all occasions when
she anticipates that they may be required, to compel
her subjects to maintain inviolate her own relations
with foreign nations, and to treat any attempt to vio-
late those relations as an act of rebellion, to be put
down with the same rigour as if it had been directed
against her own internal arrangements.
The government of the United States has not done
this ; and the tardy proclamation of her President can-
not and ought not to be accepted as evidence of a
sincere desire for the preservation of peace with Great
Britain. It is an acknowledged fact, that the " sym-
pathisers" of the American frontier, to the number of
fifty or sixty thousand men, avowedly waiting only an
opportunity to rush into a war of aggression in Canada,
are provided with arms from the arsenals of America
herself; and it was undoubtedly the duty of the Ame-
rican government, with the experience of the past be-
fore it, to take care that an opportunity of providing
themselves with such arms should not be left within
the reach of its unruly citizens. The American exe-
cutive.is, or is not, able to coerce its people into the
order which is required to be observed in a civilised
country. If it is thus able, it is deeply to be censured
for having neglected to exert that ability ; if it is not,
it has no right to usurp the character and to be treated
as an independent power.

We trust that, still, we shall be able to preserve our
present peaceful relations with the United States; but
we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that the pre-
sent anomalous position of the government of that
country with respect to its state legislatures presents
abundant grounds of fear for the permanency of those
relations. The American government must strengthen
its executive power. That government must put down
from within the prmdatory spirit of its frontier popula-
tion ; unless it is resolved to draw down upon itself
the just hostility of every country which has established
institutions and order to protect—unless it is resolved
to throw itself beyond the pale of forbearance from
every civilized state. America has its points of weak-
ness as well as Great Britain; and if by her own
ladles" with respect to the conduct of a portion of
her people she wantonly pro yokes retaliation, she must
not be surprised if Great B..ritain, or any other nation,
should cauterize those points of weakness, and stir up
the same strife within her own bosom which she is ob-
viously bent upon raising within those of her oppo-
nents. The debilitating curse of slavery is upon her.
The population of her southern states are within the,
reach of the breath of agitation ; and that breath may
fan into existence a flame before which all the powers.
of her democracy will strive in vain. Let her, then,.
not depend too much upon the world's forbearance,.
unless she desires to see her advancing prosperity
struck down at one desolating blow, and the fabric of-
half a century's growth prostrated in one hour of wild.
outrage by the manacled hand whose blood and toil.
have cemented it together !

We had not intended to discuss Mr. WNEILE'S:
claims on the fair consideration of a Conservative go—
vernment for promotion, but to leave the facts to speak,.
which in this case they do most loudly. But the
elaborate article upon the subject which appeared in.
the Chronicle of Saturday last, written with an affecta-•
tion of candour, but with real malice, must plead our
apology with the reverend gentleman for a defence,
Ntrifich we could well wish had fallen into abler hands.

Before Mr. M‘Neile came to Liverpool, his talents}.
eloquence, and activity in the cause of our national.
church, had made a deep impression on the religious
portion of the community ; and wherever he was an-
nounced to preach or speak, whether in London or the.
country, the churches and rooms were found too small
to accommodate the multitudes of all classes who-
thronged to hear him. We well remember the dense
masses of attentive auditors by whom he was periodi-
cally surrounded in the Church of St. Clement Danes,

tho Strand, it was at that period of his histavy that
ha resisted with such signal success the spread of the
Irvingite heresy,
In Liverpool he was soon felt. No description of
ours can do justice to the almost miraculous effects
produced throughout the town by his unwearied minis-
try in the pulpit, in the school-room, and in the private
chamber : for as yet he had not appeared upon our
platforms. Gentlemen from all the congregations in
the town and neighbourhood, strangers from all parts
of the world passing through, dissenters of all denomi-
nations were to be seen from week to week at St.
Jude's. The impreSsion made upon dissenters was
manifested by the numbers of Baptists and Quakers
whom the reverend gentleman received into the church
by public baptism ; and the permanent religious effects
may in some 'degree be estimated by the fact that the
congregation of St. Jude's contains now between 500
and 600 communicants.
The writer in the Chronicle does not know Mr.
M`Neile. He admits, indeed, (as who can deny) the
brilliancy and power of his speeches on various sub-
jects, but he can form no idea of the scriptural research,
• the solemnity, gravity, depth of reasoning, and clear-
ness, beauty, and simplicity of illustration which give
such a charm to the professedly religious instructions
of the reverend gentleman. Frequently have we heard
the remark, and felt its justice, that Mr. M'Neile's
reading of the scriptures was in itself an elucidating
commentary.

It was the education question that brought him fully
before the Liverpool public, as an orator as well as a
divine. It is not too much to say, that our new Church
of England Schools would never have been built but for
Mr. M`Neile. The success of the enterprise depended
upon the sympathy and liberality of the town at the
moment ; and no one conversant with the facts of the
case will deny, that, the meeting at the Amphitheatre,
where that success was secured, would have been a
failure, exciting little sympathy and producing little
Money, but for his burning eloquence on the occasion.
His sermon on the subject, preached the week pre-
vious, and briefly reported in the Courier, had been
made the theme of abuse in the Town-council, and the
reverend gentleman himself denounced as a pestilence
to the Liberals. This added immensely to the interest
excited by that celebrated meeting, and Messrs. Rath-
bone and Blackburn have good reason to remember
the recoil.

Mr. M‘Neile next defeated the designs of the volun-
taries against our church-rates. A meeting of the op-
ponents of the church was held upon that subject. A
meeting of the friends of the church followed, at which
the reverend gentleman spoke with his usual efficiency.
And when the dissenters called a third meeting, and
by a quibbling requisition endeavoured to give it the
character of a town's public meeting, Mr. M`Neile at-
tended, endured patiently the brutal treatment he re-
ceived, maintained his ground, extorted from an un-
willing chairman the confession that the meeting was a
private one of the friends of a particular measure, and
then immediately withdrew, when nearly one-half of
the meeting followed him.
These things checked amongst us the overflowings
of liheralism which followed the passing of the muni-
cipal reform hill, and gave returning weight and influ-
ence to the friends and supporters of the Church. It
was the reluctant acknowledgment of Mr. M‘Neile's
bitterest enemies, that Mr. Cresswell was mainly in-
debted for his triumph over Mr. Ewart to the results
of Mr. M‘Neile's labours in the town.
Those labours have been continued with unabated
energy. We need not speak upon the important sub-
ject of church building. St. Silas is a standing monu-
ment of the reverend gentleman's unprecedented effi-
ciency with his congregation, and all who know the
history of it, know that his energy on that occasion
gave practical impulse to the Liverpool Church Build-
ing Society. His appointment, beyond all competition
to be one of the trustees of that society, bore honour-
able testimony of the estimation in which he was held
by the subscribers.
To come to events of a later date, Mr. M`Neile's
unrivalled exposure of the practical abuses of the Irish
registration system is well known, and held in grateful
remembrance by every admirer of Lord Stanley and
advocate of his lordship's bill.

Mr. M‘Neile's speech upon the corn laws was ano-
ther masterpiece; and however our contemporary of
the Chronicle may affect to sneer at the reverend gen-
tleman's scriptural argument from the history of Tyre,
it is gratifying to observe that Sir James Graham
thought it of sufficient consequence for adoption in
one of his speeches to his constituents, and introduced
it as having been used " with vast skill by an eminent
and dignified divine."
It is our deliberate conviction that no one individual
in the kingdom has contributed more than Mr. M‘Neile
to our late anti-revolutionary reaction. And this he
has done chiefly by awakening among all classes of the
community a renewed and intelligent attachment to
the Established Church. He has defended the church,
not with the mere assertion of arrogant pretension, but
by scriptural arguments, which commend themselves
more and more to the good sense of the nation. It is
not the smallest part of Mr. M'Neile's well earned
praise, that in the midst of his popularity, naturally
exciting envy, he has remained friendly with all his
reverend brethren, and cordially co-operates with all.
Is a Missionary or Protestant movement to be made
by the evangelical clergy, Mr. M‘Neile is the chief
mover of the town. Is a church building or diocesan
education movement to be made by the high church
clergy, (as they are commonly but improperly called,)
Mr. WiNeile gives it the crowning impulse for adop-
tion and support.
We know not whether any serious intention of pro-

moting the reverend gentleman be entertained by the
government, but we are assured no appointment could
be more serviceable to the best interests of the church
in these agitating times; and we are assured that no
appointment would be more popular, or so popular,
with the great bulk of the conservative electors of the
United Kingdom.