The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-16 00:00:00

terests, as well as the religion itself of the people of Great
Britain, have been placed virtually in the hands of a body of
men whom no faith is allowed to bind—over whom the con-
stitution has no hold—who represent no constituencies ex-
cept the Romish priesthood of Ireland, and whose votes in
Parliament upon the most ordinary questions of party are
directed by the dark and subtle policy which emanates from
the councils of the Vatican. Whilst this over-riding tyranny
exists, can it be said that you, the existing constituencies of
Great Britain, have an independent voice in the legislature ?
Do the majorities, by which a despicable party are enabled to
cling to office, express your will ? Is it by your permission
that the established religion of your country is hourly in-
sulted—that the constitution of your country is about to be
abandoned to the wild and reckless demand
that infidelity, socialism, and unvarnished infamy, are suf-
fered to pollute even the chambers of the sovereign? Un-
doubtedly not. At this moment the constituencies of Great
Britain are virtually unrepresented in the House of Com-
mons ; the once boasted constitution of our country is but a
plausible and an ingenious mockery!
It is true that time would in part have corrected this glar-
ing evil. The loyalty and patriotism of the British people
would at length be able to gain the ascendancy for British
interests in that house. Already the majorities which an im-
becile and worthless ministry can command, even with the
utmost aid of popery, have dwindled down to a paltry unit;
and a few more months, or even weeks, may extinguish them
altogether. Is it to be endured then, I ask, that a reckless
and dishonest faction should be permitted, by the bill brought
forward by Lord Morpeth, to recruit those majorities—to
admit another influx of popery of more undiluted and more
rampant Character than the existing body ? Will you—will
the people of England—rush madly forward to a bloody re-
volution, which must be the issue of thus handing over to the
uncontrolled power of a fierce democracy, wielded by popery,
the lives, the property, and the church of your fellow-sub-
jects ? I leave the question for the present to your calm
consideration.

s of democracy—

A PROTESTANT ENGLISHMAN
Liverpool, March 13th, 1841.

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT,

(From our London Correspondent)

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING.

The debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday
evening, on the subject of the removal of the Jewish disabi-
lities as applied to the holding of corporate offices, is well
worthy of attentive perusal. Although not apprehensive that
such a measure can ever, practically, effect serious injury to
society ; although satisfied that a Jew or a Hindoo is quite as
likely to dignify by his presence those precious assemblies
which have been created in our corporate towns by the mu-
nicipal reformers of the present day, as some of those sweet-
tempered Socinians who now figure there : yet it is impossi-
ble to imagine by what logic the admission of members of the
Jewish religion to legislate for the moral and social order of
Christian communities can be defended, which will not
equally apply to their admission to the legislature of the whole

kingdom

The manly and truly English speech of Sir Robert Inglis
is especially worthy of admiration, as proving at any rate how
the British constitution, in its ancient entireness, can be sup-
ported, against all the flippancy of modern liberalism, by a
Christian patriot, a scholar, and a gentleman. Let that
speech, unimpeached as it was throughout in all its positions,
be compared for a moment with a vapid mouthings of ultra-
liberalism, which issued from the lips of the Home Secretary,
or with the insolent chirpings of the unfledged duckling who
followed him, in the person of Mr. William Ewart. Con-
trast the open sneers and ribald mockery with which the very

mention of principle—religious principle, as constituting an
ingredient of fitness for the exercise of legislative powers,
were received by the " liberal" majority of the house, with
the exulting cheers which greeted the ministerial profession
of open latitudinarianism ; and the country will, at the least,
have an opportunity of estimating the degree of safety with
which matters of a higher import might be left to the sole
guardianship of that branch of the legislature. Would that

we had many members in the House of Commons possessed

of the same sterling and uncompromising Protestantism which
distinguish, on every occasion, the sentiments and the con-
duct of the honourable member for Oxford !

On Friday night, in the House of Commons, a motion was
introduced by the President of the Board of Trade, the sub-
ject of which will, I have no doubt, excite the most anxious
attention of your mercantile community, especially of those
engaged in the trade with our West Indian and Alnerican
colonies. It is well known—to your mercantile readers at
least—that the connexion between those colonies and Great
Britain, hitherto, has been maintained by the formation of a
system of mutually protective duties, in favour of colonial
produce and British manufactures, as compared with those
levied upon the produce or the goods of other countries. The
proposition of Mr. Lahouchero is to reduce the rate of duties

)sed by our colonial tariffs upon all merchandize, not the

oduce of Great Britain or of any British possession, to an
,erage rate of 10 per cent. ;—in effect to throw open the

.kets of our colonies to foreign powers, and thus to de-

prive Great Gritain of one of the most important benefits
which she derives from her colonial possessions, in exchange
for the expense by which they are supported, namely, a pre-
ference in their markets for her merchandize over that which
is afforded to all other nations.

It will scarcely be expected that in my capacity, as a cor-
espondent merely, I can enter into the various and compli-

cated questions which must arise upon the consideration of
a subject of such vital importance to the interests of Great

Britain herself, and of her colonial empire. lam not aware
that the benefits of our past free trade policy at home have
been so strikingly evinced as to call very loudly for their ex-

:ension into our dependencies abroad. But it is impossible

of to be at once convinced that the present crisis of affairs

across the Atlantic is about the most impolitic that could be
chosen for the agitation of such a subject—be its propriety
in other respects what it may. We are menaced with a war
of aggression upon our Canadian possessions by the people
of the United States, which it will require all the energies,
and all the devoted patriotism, which our fellow-countrymen
in Canada possess in so emiment a degree, to repel ; and yet
this is the moment which is selected by a whip government
for the agitation of a measure which unquestionably must
tend—whatever other results it may have—to weaken the

connexion which at present exists between the Canadian peo-
ple and the mother country.

The Jesuit cunning which appears to pervade every move-
ment of the present cabinet, is not blind to the fact that the
protection afforded to British merchandize in our colonies,
once withdrawn, the corresponding protection afforded to co-

lonial produce in the markets of Great Britain must be with-
drawn also. If our West Indian colonies receive their pro-

visions, their timber, and their manufactured goods from

breign nations, can they demand that we should tax our-
;elves to encourage the growth of their plantations ? If Ca-
aada supplies herself with the silks, the linens, and the cot-
;on manufactures of Europe, can we any longer allow her a
uonopoly in British markets ? Undoubtedly not. The whole
u.oposition on the part of ministers, to the extent at least to

ilich it is carried, is a manifest trap, contrived to secure

the adoption, ultimately, in Great Britain herself of a policy
which they dare not, as yet, openly bring before the con-
sideration of the public.
The debate upon the motion, it will be perceived, was

adjourned ; and it is much to be desired that, in the mean-
time, the attention of mercantile communities throughout the
kingdom should be directed to a consideration of the sub-
ject.

In connection with the present hazardous position of the
Canadas, and with this proposition of ministers, it is impos-

sible to lose sight of the outrage about to be perpetrated upon
the feelings of our loyal Canadian fellow-subjects, by the St.
Suiplice robbery. If there be one darling object second in
importance to the subjugation to her rule of Great Britain
itself, towards the accomplishment of which popery is at pre-
sent directing her energies, that object is to secure a footing

upon the vast continent of America. The preservation by
Canada of her connexion with Great Britain is the obstacle
which can alone arrest the advance of this subtle power ; and
to break that connexion, let past events evidence how un-
ceasingly of late have been her exertions. But it is not by
an ordinary policy that the statesmen of the Vatican carry
out their projects. It is not upon such vulgar instruments
as Papineau and O'Connell, as M`Kenzie and Hume, that
they rely on all occasions to secure their objects. The in-
vincible loyalty of the province of Upper Canada frustrated
their last daring attempt; and that loyalty must, therefore,
be alienated. The people of Great Britain would still aid in
resisting any similar attempt; and that people must also be
alienated. Rome chooses her time with all the astuteness of
diplomatic foresight ; and now—whilst a fierce democracy
from America is hanging upon the frontiers of Canada—when
the war whoop has been shouted, and the bowie knife has
been whetted—a measure of gross dishonesty and shameless
perfidy is flung in the face of her brave defenders by a British
Governor General, whilst a British parliament prepares for
the disruption of the only tie, save loyalty, which binds her
to the British coronal. Deep and subtly daring as are all the
workings of popery—mysterious to the unreflecting of its
opponents and to the blindness of its duped and bewildered
tools—it is much to be doubted whether throughout her past
history—amidst all her plots against the liberties of man-
kind—can be found a more apt choice of time and of instru-
ments for effecting any cherished object, than is presented in
the crisis and the means which have been fixed upon for the
alienation of Canada from her connection with this country.
Unprincipled and reckless jobbing seems to characterize
every measure brought forward by ministers. The county
courts bill, which was read a first time on Friday, contains,
perhaps, as pretty a specimen as could be wished. By this
bill, and another legal measure which is before the house, be-
tween 70 and 80 judgeships are to be created at the disposal
of the crown, at salaries ranging from £5OO to £l5OO a year !
Nice pickings these for secretaries of reform associations and
other similar functionaries, who cling to the skirts of whig-
radicalism for the expected " doles." Her Majesty cannot
afford to make Oxford knights every day in the year ; and
hence the qualification formerly proposed for the judges in
question—a standing of ten years at the bar—is dispensed
with, as Sir Edward Sugden remarked, " to extend the sphere
within which the ministerial bounty may fall." Verily, they
are a nice set !