The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-27 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

f the new .judze is not likely to
at is called the

_ ~ousts of law will not sit until the first
_.auras Term, the 2d of November, and no doubt,
re that day, all the arrangement s will be complete.
er" wishes us to direct the attention of the Wallasey
nets to the state of the roads between Liscard and
According to his

' A Rat

Wallasey Church. and also about Seacon)e
representations they arc in a wolul plight.
A Friend to Early Closing" was received too late,

tt)r tibtrpool

TUESDAY

anbarb.

_MORNING, OCT. 27, 1846.

The Manchester Guardian, a fortnight ago, pro-
mised its readers to prove the converse of the
proposition, advanced by the Chamber of Com-
merce of Kingston, Jamaica, that the colonies of
Great Britain have been, and are the basis of her
-political and commercial strength. We have waited
with patience for the realization of this bold promise
have it before us

of our contemporary; and we now
in his Wednesday's publication.
The positions taken up by our colonial brethren,
which the Guardian -had to controvert, are thus
summed up by themselves :

•` The value of the colonies to Great Britain may be
estimated by considering them

nstituting naval sta.
u every part of the globe.
" 2nd. As contributing to maintain her naval supre-

s and military posts

3rd. As affording employment to her artisans and

... .
manufacturers, through their own consumption, and
through the means they afford for promoting the sale of
British goods to the foreign nations in their vicinity, espe-

cially during a period of war.
" 4th. As the means by which the people of England
have been regularly anti abundantly supplied, as well with
articles of the first necessity as with those considered less
so, but yet contributing greatly to the comfort and hap-

-piness of a people. -
" sth. As preserving the British people, by such supply,
from either depending wholly on foreigners for articles
even of the first necessity, to obtain which they might
eventually have to give gold, or be compelled to dispense
with them, and consequently with those other articles
which contribute to the comfort and happiness of man.
`• The list might be almost indefinitely extended, but
that it is unnecessary, since the advantages derivable to
Great Britain through her colonies are so palpable, that
the mind must he obtuse indeed that does not perceive it
to be as much her interest to preserve her colonies, to
cherish their industry in order to increase their produc-
tions to the utmost of their capabilities, as it is to the
interest of the colonists to experience that parental fos-
tering care."

%"se shall first deal with the proposition that our
colonies have been the source of our greatness as a
nation, which the Guardian pointedly denies and at-
tempts to disprove. But how ? precisely by such
an adroit attempt at evasion as we might have ex-
pected from such an adversary ; by the suppression,
in fact, of the main point, in his opponent's case.
The Kingston Board of Trade state, as their first
proposition, that the colonies are valuable—" First,
as constituting naval stations and military posts in
every part of the globe." The Guardian, in the
whole of his article, never once refers to this very
material question ; and in his own summary of the
arguments of the colonies studiously omits it alto-
gether. As a specimen of our contemporary's
honesty, we give the summary in question ; and ask
the candid reader whether it is a fair one :

" Ist. Thd political strength of this country, say these
reasoners, lies in her naval power; her naval power can
only be maintained by rearing a constant and unfailing
supply of hardy seamen :—this can only be accomplished
by sustaining a large commercial marine :—and a com-
mercial marine can only exist through the means of colo-
nial possessions ;—ergo,
_colonies and colonial protection

ur political stren
who has read attentively the his-
country the lesson will have been con-
every page—in the narrative of
. -
every glorious achievement of our naval arm—that
her colonies were the fulcra of the lever, with which
Great Britain, during the late war, overthrew the
combined power of the whole world banded together
for her humiliation and destruction. With the West
Indies for a point d'appui in the South Atlantic;
with Malta for a station in the Mediterranean, and
Gibraltar to guard the pass of that sea; with the
St. Laurence, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia in the
North Atlantic ; with friendly harbours to run into
for shelter or refitting in every portion of the globe,
our Howe's and our Nelson's possessed sources of
strength which their enemies, driven to skulk besieg-
ed in their own harbours, would have given worlds
to have been able to wrest from their hands. And,
even in later times—in our Chinese quarrel—where
would have been the resources of Great Britain
without her Indian empire ? and what is that empire
but a colonial possession, in which to marshal our
strength, and from which to draw our warlike
resources ?

'ery ma

veyed in almo

But if the colonies were thus inestimably advan-
tageous to us during the wars of the French Revo-
lution, how infinitely more so must they be in any
future struggle in which we must be engaged, now
that the introduction of steam has brought about so
important a change in naval tactics. What would
be the operations of a West India squadron in the
present day ? should we hear of the fruitless cruizes
in search of an enemy's fleet, wasting perhaps an
entire season, of which the history of the late war
affords so many instances ? Certainly not ; a British
fleet might lie safely harboured in any of our trans-
atlantic ports, whilst a fast sailing steamer would
be scouring the seas ready to bring us down upon
an enemy at a few days notice, and with a certainty
of finding that_ enemy which, hitherto, the sailor has
new

_r enjoyed. For such steamers too, of every
calibre—and he is a blind man who cannot see that
steam is ultimately destined to furnish the chief si-

s in every portion
_
of the globe would form depots for fuel, without
which the paddle or the screw would be alike power-
less. As affording stations for convoys, in time of
war, for our merchant fleets, our colonies offer an-
other advantage, which the application of steam
Power to naval warfare, would render doubly striking

of the nava

arm—our colt

d efficacious

Our contemporary, of course, will see nothing in
these arguments and facts. He says, indeed, of one
of these important stations :—" If our West Indian

colonies did not produce a pound of sugar—if an
earthquake were to bury them all in the bosom of the
deep—our mercantile marine would have as much
employment in the transporting of sugar, and our
naval supremacy be fully as safe as it is now." He
would, perhaps, tell a different tale, however, after
he had paid war rates of insurance upon a few Bra-
zilian cargoes, or had a few of them carried into
Brest or Toulon. But, the supposition of an earth-
quake is a violent one. The British West Indies
are very likely to remain above water ; and if we do
not value them aright, there are other powers quite
willing to relieve us of their burthen. We ask the
Guardian, therefore, with Jamaica, St. Thomas's,
Trinidad, and the rest of our West Indian pos-
sessions in the hands of a rival and a hostile power,
how much employment would our mercantile ma-
'Tine have in transporting sugar from any portion of
the South American continent, of which these im-
portant naval stations, so far as the commerce with
Europe is concerned, form the keys ?
With respect to the claim of the colonies to con-
sideration, as furnishing, to use the language of the
memorialists, " the means of rearing a hardy and an
experienced race of seamen to man the nation's
fleets," the Guardian argues that our foreign trade,
being more extensive than our colonial trade, and
employing a greater amount of shipping, is capable
of affording a more ample supply of seamen for the
navy ; and, hence, that colonial protection and the
colonies themselves should be swept away, inasmuch
as they interfere with the unlimited expansion of
our foreign trade: But has the Guardian ever re-
flected how much of the present growth of our
mercantile navy is to be attributed to the impetus
first given to the enterprize of British merchants
and shipowners by our colonial system ? Our colonial
trade, the pages of history shew us, was that which
laid the foundation of the vast commerce and gigan-
tic mercantile navy which this country at present
possesses ; and at this moment it constitutes the
keystone of the prosperity of that commerce, and
of the foreign and commercial marine which it
employs. From our West Indian possessions we
first stretched our arms to grasp the commerce of
the new republic, and empire, of South America.
From these possessions our merchants first made
their acquaintance with the commercial wants and
resources of that vast continent—first angled timidly
and cautiously in that mine of wealth, from which
we now draw so largely for the support of the in-
dustry of the nation. From India we first made
our footing in the immense market now opened
freely to our enterprize in the wealthy and populous
Chinese empire; and by our Indian power alone
can we hold our present advantageous position
amongst that singular people. By our command of
the St. Lawrence we have afforded us a strong
check against the exclusive commercial policy of the
United States ; whilst other colonies, scattered over
every sea, afford not only depots for our commerce

with other and distant nations, but safe and friendly
harbours of refuge as well for the shipping which
that commerce employs. Admitting, therefore, as
a necessary conclusion, that our more numerous
mercantile marine contribute a larger quotum of
seamen to our navy than our colonial, we must
bear in mind that the former is only the offshoot of
the latter ; that the foreign commerce which em-
ploys it has been created and stimulated to its present
greatness--has been protected through the hazards
of a long war, when nearly every power in Europe
was arrayed against us, struggling to destroy or to
cripple this great feeder of the national resources—
by our possession of those very colonies which a
shortsighted manufacturing interest, guided by such
philosophers as our contemporary of the Manchester
Guardian, would destroy as worthless and injurious.
If an earthquake were to bury our colonies in the
sea, the Guardian says "our naval supremacy would
be fully as safe as it now is." How miserably
ignorant or unmindful of all the lessons of history
must be the author of such an assertion ! What
great naval power ever sprung up in modern
Europe, the foundation of whose strength was not
the possession of colonies ? Portugal, when her
fleets swept the sea in every direction, was a colo-
nizing nation, with rich possessions in almost every
zone. Her decline as a naval power was concurre t
with the gradual loss of the colonial empire. Hol-
land, when she contested with us the mastery on
the ocean, possessed a colonial empire ten times
greater in extent than the territory, which the in-
domitable industry of her people had won and
fenced in from the tides ; and the naval power of
Holland has declined before the growing colonial
system of Great Britain. How fallen is the naval
power of Spain since the days when her armadas
threatened to overwhelm us even in our island
home ! Turn even to France. What is it which
has even paralized her in her efforts to rear a navy
to compete with the fleets of England ? Ask her
great emperor. Look even at her policy during the
last fifteen years. See her deluging with the blood
of her warmest soldiers the barren wastes of Algeria
—turning men into blood-hounds and generals and
lieutenant-generals into fiends—desolating villages
with her razzias, and even outraging Heaven a.. d
nature with the groans of human victims offered
up in fire upon the smeared altar of her ambition.
See her again engaged in a petty quarrel against a
defenceless female for the possession of the petty
island of Tahiti. Of what is this grande nation in
search? For what does she now outrage humanity,
and now sully her tricolor in a petty Buccaneer's
quarrel ? Eor the possession of colonies ; for the
possession of those naval stations and military posts,
without which her statesmen know that they may
build fleets and man them and send them to sea to
measure their strength against the naval power of
England, without reaping any other harvest but one
of humiliation, defeat, and almost annihilation.—
" Our naval supremacy" (without colonies) "fully
as safe as it now is!" The dream of a child is wis-
dom compared with such an assertion.
But there is another light, and an important one,
in which to view the commercial usefulness of our
colonies—namely, as furnishing posts of commercial
communication with foreign markets. Where is our
route to India, with Malta " swallowed up by an
earthquake," and Europe embroiled ? Where our
rapid mail communication with Brazil, the River
Plate, or the countries of the Pacific, without the
West Indies to serve as stations for our fleet of
steamers ? But the subject is not worth pursuing.
The folly of denying the usefulness, for this purpose,
of these great aids to our commercial and political
strength is too transparent to need further notice.
We have not hitherto referred to the statistical
matter contained in the Guardian's article. Indeed
we have not examined its correctness. On another
occasion, however, we may do so; and unless we
greatly mistake we shall find his figures about as
correct and honest as his facts and arguments. At
present however our space is exhausted. •

We have abstained hitherto from offering a word
of remark upon the subject of the recent loss of one
of the noblest vessels—whether viewed as a success-
ful effort of naval architecture or as a triumph of
modern science—which ever cleared out of a British
port. Perhaps in doing so we neglected somewhat
our duty as British journalists. It is undoubtedly
due to the community, where lives are liable to be
jeopardized by the ignorance of commanders or
their carelessness ; by the unseaworthiness of the
vessels they command ; by the incorrectness of
charts, the variation of compasses, or the failure of
other nautical instruments, that the circumstances
attending such a disaster as the stranding of the Great
Britain, which might have been attended by such
fatal results, should be strictly scrutinized,—not
only for the prevention of similar accidents, but for
the advancement of nautical science and the better
elucidation of the intricacy and the dangers of our
channel navigation. We have however the powerful
plea for slience to offer that, up to the present time,
we have never had the whole case, on the part of
the Great Britain, properly before us; and we can
safely assert that, had we offered any remarks, in
the absence of such a statement as that with which
we are now furnished by the letter of Captain Hos-
ken—the substance of which we give elsewhere—
we should probably have done some injustice to that
gentleman and to the officers under his command.
The statement in question conveys a much more
favourable account of the whole transaction, as far
as the conduct of Captain Hosken is concerned,
than the apology for his friend, volunteered by Cap-
tain Claxton, and removes several most injurious
conclusions of the public. Captain Hosken's ac-
count of the voyage, from the time of the Great
Britain leaving port up to eight o'clock in the
evening, is substantially the same as that of Captain
Claxton and the account given by the ship's log.—
At ten minutes past one, the ship was fairly under
weigh abreast of the Bell Buoy, going, by the log,
at a speed of IoTI to 11 miles per hour. At about
half-past five, Captain Hosken " caught a glimpse
of the Isle of Man, but what part of the island ex-
actly, or how far off, he could not decidedly say, as
it was then getting dark and the weather becoming
thick." Under such circumstances perhaps he
ought to have concluded that the island was nearer
than he seems to have imagined from his remark at
seven o'clock, after an hour and a half's steaming
at 11 knots, or even the 10 which he allowed for,
that they " must be well up with the Calf." Soon
after this, he says,— _ _ _

" I told the first officer to shorten sail at 8 o'clock, take
in top-gallant sail, two reefs in foretop sail, one in the
main, and haul the foresail up, as I should alter the course
to N. by E. (which is higher than the North Channel
course), and go easy all night, feeling sure the ship was
past the island. The course was altered at eight, and sail
shortened accordingly."
. . . _ .

So far the vessel was all right, and in a fair course
for making the channel passage, although it is clear,
from Captain Hosken's subsequent admission, and
from the interval between her leaving the port and
striking in Dundrum Bay, that the westerly set of
the tide had not been allowed for, and that, in con-
sequence, she was much nearer in to the Irish coast
than she ought to have been or her captain calcu-
lated. Here, then, commenced that fatal error in
judgment, to which doubtless is attributable the
disaster which followed. At a quarter past eight,
Captain Hosken says, the officer looking out on the
forecastle reported a light on the port or larboard
bow, which the captain concluded must be a ship's
light, until after being lost for a short time in the
thick weather, it again shewed itself in a revolving
light. " I immediately," he says, " kept the ship
off her former course, exclaiming, how is it pos-
sible she has not run her distance ; what can have
held her back it taking the light for one of the Calf

of Man lights, and supposing the other hidden by
the thick weather." The helm was then put about
to N. W. by N. We ought, in justice to Captain
Hosken, to mention, because the contrary has been
freely taken for granted, that he had been from half-
past five o'clock and remained, with the exception
of five or ten minutes, up to the moment of the
ship's striking, on deck, watching with his officers
the navigation of the vessel.

There is an important variation between Captain
Hosken's account of the time at which this light
was seen, and that given by Captain Claxton. By
the latter we are not told that the course of the ship
was altered at eight o'clock, but are rather led to
conclude that she kept on her original course until
the light of St. John's Point was seen, and the
vessel was within a few minutes of striking. We
have thus the impression conveyed to us—certainly
a most erroneous one according to Capt. Hosken's
statement—that, had St. John's light never been
seen at all, the only difference would have been that
the ship would have been driven, probably at full
speed, upon some other part of the bay, with her
own almost certain destruction, and that of her
crew and passengers. It is clear that the light did
mislead, and was in some measure the cause of the
catastrophe which followed; although it appears also

certain that the ship ought never to have been in
a position to see it at all.
But, according to Captain Hosken's account, an
important question arises. If at half-past five he saw
the land of the Isle of Man, which from his course
of N. W. by N. must have been on the starboard,
how, by continuing the same course for two and a
half hours—until eight o'clock, the light seen on
the larboard bow, immediately after altering his
course, could be mistaken for one of the Calf lights,
is not easily arrived at, unless the ship had not only
been " held back"—to use the captain's phrase, but
had actually been stationary, or nearly so, for those
two and a half hours.

From the period of seeing this St. John's light,
up to the time at which he was " surprised to find
that it was a quarter past nine o'clock," all appears
to have been confusion in the minds of Captain
Hosken and his subordinates. The strange light
utterly confounded them.

The proceedings, thus far, connected with the
approaching municipal election, afford an admirable
specimen of the hollowness and trickery of the
Whip.:-Radical party. At the outset of the struggle,
we were told that the fitness of the men, and not
their mere politics, was to be made the test. by which
candidates were to be selected. We were to hear
no more of party in the Council ; and to offer an op-
position to any man of business talents, otherwise
qualified by the possession of high personal charac-
ter, wds to be regarded as indecent and factious.
Yet, at this moment, we see a Whig-Radical candi-
date brought forward in every ward except two,
which are left undisturbed by a contest, solely be-
cause opposition is considered utterly hopeless. West
Derby Ward and St. Peter's are the wards in
question, in which Mr. Geo. Hall Lawrence and Mr.
Tinne are to be allowed to walk the course. There
is, however, we venture to say, not a candid man
amongst the Whig-Radical party, acquainted with
its underground workings, who will hesitate to ac-
knowledge that, notwithstanding the admitted talents
and usefulness of these two gentlemen, their re-
election would have been opposed as bitterly as that
of the most obnoxious candidates in the Conserva-
tive ranks, could the ward committees have held out
to ►the members of the secret caucus the slightest
hope of foisting, in their stead, two Radicals of any
grade of rampancy, upon the constituencies.
Upon what ground, other than his politics, is the
re-election of Mr. Jas. Tyrer opposed for Exchange
Ward ? Certainly it cannot be said that his oppo-
nent, Mr. James Mellor, is better qualified to
represent the business intelligence of such a consti-
tuency. We never remember any thing. very
striking, either in talent or usefulness, which dis- '
tinguished the former presence of this gentleman
in the Council. He was an active partizan, ever at
his post when the Conservative party in that room
were to be attacked, and always at hand to further
the interests of his friends the Reformers. Yet Mr.
Mellor can parade in his address to the constituency
his (!) conviction that politics ought to cease to in-
fluence the return of candidates to the Council..
Upon what ground is Mr. Thos. Todd to be con-
sidered a better man than Mr. Thos. Kaye, the pre-
sent member for Abercromby Ward ? We might
refer to other Conservative candidates who are op-
posed, and the answer to a similar question in every
case, if a candid one, would be—that it is not that
they are less efficient men of business than their op-
ponents, but that they are not Whig-Radical
politicians.
Our amiable friends are fond of new hobbies;
and when they are mounted, they ride them most
unmercifully. The sanitary question is their hobby
of the day. Whig-Radical professions of readiness
to devote every energy to the efficient carrying out
of the new bill stare us in the face, conveyed, in
unmistakeable type, upon every blank wall or shut-
ter where a placard can be posted. What is the
Whig-Radical claim to exclusive love for cleanly
streets, and improved habitations for our working
poor, we have yet to learn.

Let us test the sincerity of their new sanitary
professions, bearing in mind their professed longing
that the fittest men only for the carrying out of this
and other similar practical questions, should be re-
elected to the Council.

Mr. Samuel Holme, the candidate for Rodney-
street Ward, is, par excellence, a gentleman calcu-
lated, by his business knowledge and pursuits, to
carry out the provisions of the new bill for the sani-
tary improvement of the town. Against such a man
there could be no ground of objection urged by any
candid man of the opposing party, except his poli-
tics

Has Mr. Holm-e's claim- of fitness been recog-
nised ? No. Mr. Thomas Booth, personally, no
doubt, a respectable and honourable man, has been
dragged from the shelf, upon which his fellow-
townsmen would have been content to see him re-
pose, to contest the ward. A paltry and pitiful plea
that Mr. Holme is engaged in a Corporation contract
is put forward. He is told that he cannot, as a con-
sistent man, enter the Council. Whig-Radicalism
sets itself up as the especial guardian of Mr. Holme's
honour (1) Now, mark the shameless hypocrisy of
this pretence ! Mr. James Holme is a candidate
for Scotland Ward ; Mr. James Holme is the bro-
ther and partner in business of Mr. Samuel Holme.
Both are concerned in the same contract, or the fag
end of it, which is said to present a bar to the elec-
tion of the latter. Yet to the election of Mr. James
Holme for Scotland Ward, we have seldom heard or
seen this contract, in which he is equally concerned
with his brother, offered as an objection ! And the
reason Why, it is palpable. Mr. Samuel Holme
is a prominent man amongst his party. He has
shown himself no mean adept in the art of pounding
Whig-Radical quacks in their own mortars. He is
cunning of fence, rather a heavy hitter, and, worst
of all, is more than suspected of being sound upon
the question of scriptural education in the Corpora-
tion schools. Hence he is offensive to the nostrils
of Whiggery, and is to be opposed with all the
virulence which the faction can bring to bear against
him.

Let us offer a word of consolation—we suppose
it must be—to this very pure and conscientious
party. " Gentlemen, Mr. Samuel Home will seek
the suffrages of the constituency of Rodney-street
Ward freed from any interest whatever in a Corpo-
ration contract." Mr. Tomkinson, we believe, is
ready to relieve the firm of Mr. Holme from the
little that remains to be executed of their engage-
ment with him. Are the friends of Mr. Booth—

who only oppose Mr. Holme from their virtuous
dread lest he should sacrifice his honour (!)—pre-
pared to withdraw their candidate ? Of course not.
No man acquainted with the ways and propensities
of the faction could entertain the thought for a
moment. Meantime it is gratifying to know that
their candidate will be soundly thrashed.
We shall not have another opportunity of addres-
sing the constituencies of Liverpool upon the
subject of this election ; and must therefore
seize the present hour to impress upon them the
necessity of exertion in every ward. In two or
three of these, to which we have not hitherto
referred, we feel a great interest. St. Anne's I
must be won. A better candidate than Mr. Bennett j
it never had, and never can have. The men of both
Toxteths, too, must fight stoutly for Mr. John
Sheppard, their old and tried friend, and for Mr.
Glazebrook, who we are glad to observe has con-
sented to stand again. More honest men, or
sounder Protestants, they would find it difficult to
meet with. There is another reason, too, why this
contest should be fought unflinchingly in every ward.
An election for the borough is not far off, and the
result of our ward elections will be regarded in many
quarters as a test of the town. Nay, the very men
who are raising the cry of " Good men, and no poli-
tics," will be the first, in the event of the success of
a majority of their party, to turn round upon their
Conservative dupes and exclaim—See, the opinion
of the ratepaying constituency of Liverpool are in
favour of " Liberal" men ! By the bye, may we
ask, in concluding, are the Conservatives of Liver-
pool, in the event of an early. election—no very im.,
probable event—prepared with a candidate?

As some little misapprehension appears to exist
with the mode in
.which the Corporation of this
town propose to meet the increased expenditure lin.
posed upon them, by the merging of the Highway
Board in the Town Council, and in carrying out the
other provisions of the Sanitary Bill, we shall en-
deavour, as briefly as possible, to lay before the
public our actual position and the amount of ability
in the Council to meet the coming demands upon
them.

In the first place, the Corporation accounts for
tha past year shew a surplus ordinary income to the
credit of the borough estate of £26,907 17s.
This of course is applicable to the new demand upon
us. The general statement, however, spews a debt
outstanding on the 31st of August, of £835,167
gs. 10d., the balance of interest upon which is, for
last year, charged in the accounts at £19,039 18s. 9d.

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

Against this debt, however, we have assets clue to
the Estate, amounting to £545,562 Bs. 3d., with
property in addition valued at £44,793,—in all,
£59),355 Bs. 3d. Of this, only► from three to four
hundred thousand pounds bears interest at present.
One sum composing it, the reversion of Wallasey
Pool, amounting to £114,456, is as yet not finally
confirmed; but having been settled by arbitration,
will, no doubt, be shortly paid off ; and another of
£59,182, arising from the sae of land on the north
side of the Borough Gaol, is paid into court, and
will be applied to payment of the purchase money
for the Newsham Hall Estate.
From the realisation of the other outstanding
assets, it is calculated that a yearly sum of about
£BOOO saving in interest will accrue to the surplus
fund. In addition, the Corporation is in possession
of a large amount of acreage in building land now
being rapidly taken up, the fines upon which, as
well as upon expiring leases, will come into the
ordinary receipts of the estate. St. George's Hall,
too, it is to be hoped, will he finished some day
soon. From all these sources, there can be no
doubt of the Corporation being able fully to meet
every demand which the Sanitary Bill, or any other
requirement of the town, may bring against them.