The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

and croapprnval of; long assize reports, and thinks
columns might be so much better occupied, does not
act manfully on his conviction, an 4 shorten these de-
tails. Meliora video, he seems to say, probo que ;

pejora sequor. We might ask this question, but as it
touches on a matter of " trade" in which we journal-
ists are all alike concerned, we shall, say nothing about

it : on such points it becomes us to be delicate

The anti-corn-law gentry had an out-door exercise
yesterday, in Clayton-square, but the attendance was
remarkably thin. On the platform all the old familiar
faces presented themselves to view, and Sir Joshua
Walmsley was, of course, president. We cannot call
him chairman, for we understand his knightship had
no chair to sit upon. The orators were sadly at a loss
for something to say. Every body now knows that
the free-trade in corn talk is all a mere hum-bug, and
any money would have been given yesterday for a topic.
On the last gathering of the " giants" the Conserva-
tives had kindly supplied them with a little ammunition
for their pop-guns, by the meeting which they had
held shortly before at the Amphitheatre; but yester-
day, poor fellows, they were obliged to depend entirely
on their own resources—and, really, coming forward
upon such a dependence, we must say, that they were
very far from being giants, Titans, or even Patago-
nians, but agitators of very small calibre indeed, and
less force.

One reason for the thinness of the attendance, we
conjecture to be, that the Irishmen not being quite so
absurd as the knight and his clique suppose, did not
think proper to support a scheme so utterly ruinous to
their country as this free-trade in corn monstrosity
would necessarily prove. The stage orators talk of
giving a cheap loaf to Manchester and the manufac-
turing people,but have they any idea how dearly Ireland
would have to pay for this accommodation ? Open
markets for corn to all the world, and how will rents
be paid in Ireland, we should be glad to know ? No
matter, say the orators, the tenantry will be as they

were : if the rents are not to be got at their full amount,
the landlords must take what they can get—and thus
all the loss occasioned by the revolution will fall upon
them. But how many thousands would be reduced to
absolute beggary by the process ? This is only one
instance of their .„narrow-minded, selfish, and heartless
schemery which these mountebanks contend for. But
their cry is only a pretence. Free-trade in corn is not
what they want—but a subversion of society by the
degradation and impoverishment of the aristocracy, and
to become aristocrats themselves by the ruin of others.
By the by, old Colonel Williams gate a good hint
yesterday to the free-trade Radicals, especially the opera-
tive classes. "Do you forget," said he, " that upwards
of thirty millions are spent annually in ardent spirits ?
Now ardent spirits are made from corn, and see what
waste is there. Do give up burning your insides, and

join Father Matthew's society." Good, colonel, very
good, indeed. Let the Reformers only reform them-
selves, and they will find bread cheap and plentiful
enough as it is, without any repeal or even modification
of the corn duties. A clever man is the colonel, and a
pleasant. We may possibly notice some more of the
oratory, in more leisurely fashion, in our next.