The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-01-05 00:00:00

Such, we rejoice to say, is the present Mayor of Liver.
pool. We differ widely from Mr. CURRIE on political
questions; and, while we give him credit for sincerity,
we lament that he has so long attached himself to a party
who, he must be convinced now, are the heartless ene-
mies of the institutions he reveres, and of that venerable
church of which he is a member ; but still, widely as we
may differ, we owe it to candour to say, that under the
circumstances of the case, a gentleman better qualified
to fill the highest office in the new corporation, and dis-
charge its arduous and important duties, could nut have
been selected, than the present Mayor.
The Mayor having been elected, (legally or illegally
this is not the place to inquire,) the council next pro-
ceeded to appoint the town-clerk, when Mr. RADCLIFFE
was nominated to that responsible office by a majority of
32 to 30. An amendMent was moved by Mr. JAMES
AIKIN that a committee be appointed to inquire into the
duties and emoluments of Mr FOSTER, the late town-clerk ;
but this most reasonable and rational proposition was re-
jected by the same majority. This was quite enough
work for the first day ; the debate lasted several hours,
but such a debate !:—it will be found fully reported in
these pages; and we most earnestly call attention to it,
for we have a few observations to found upon the non-
sense there recorded for the benefit of the people. •
On Saturday, the second day, the council met again,
when, after anothe,looeautiful display of botism—for that
must now-be the Li3rpool word for whig-radical oratory
in the corporation—the treasurer of the corporation, Mr.
JOHN DEAN CASE, a gentleman of unblemished inte-
grity, of unostentatious politics, against whose conduct
or character not a word of disparagement can be uttered,
and who has, as sureties for the proper discharge of his
pecuniary trust, two of. the very first and most affluent
gentlemen in Liverpool, who are liable for him to the
extent of £3o,ooo—Mr. JOHN* DEAN CASE, we say, if
not dismissed, is already marked for dismissal, without
being charged with any act of malversation or neglect of
duty. No charge is brought against him—he is not
suspected—he is to be cast off and turned adrift in
mature years, without Me ceremony of a vote of thanks
or the satisfaction of an assigned reason, as if he had
been convicted of fraud and allowed to escape through
the extraordinary lenity of the judge.
With respect to Mr. THOMAS,FOSTER, the late town-
clerk, removed in the same summlirx way, we can only
speak of him upon the faiths of tile (o4urrent testimony
of his friends who kno4w4and esteem liim for his private
virtues, for his untardished integrity, and for talents of
the highest order in his profession. That he is master of
all the forms of municipal law, and is intimately ac-
quainted with the management of the corporation pro-
perty, its debts, its claims, its income and assets, no man
will presume to_question ; and yet he is superseded by a
whig partizan, who is called a lawyer, of habits the very
reverse of those of Mr. FOSTER, and who is totally unfit
for the office, inasmuch as he must be ignorant of all its
intricate forms and.elaborate details. We have no wish
to cavil with the pretenSions of patriotic aspirants to of-
fice; but we must say that Mr. RADCLIFFE will have to
serve a sober, sedate, studious, and vexatious apprentice-
ship of seven years in the Town. hall of Liverpool before
he can possibly be competent to discharge the duties of
town-clerk. In the meantime let the creditors look to
their bonds, and the 109:Seholders to their renewals. Tile
former are not worth much ; the latter cannot be de-
pended upon !
In offering these remarks in as far as they are
personally applicable to the gentlemen who have been
or are to be so rashly, discourteously, unnecessarily,
and unpardonably removed from situationewhich they
have held or still hold with so much honour, we
beg to state that we have not been influenced
by any personal attachments or considerations. We
have not the honour to know more of the late town-clerk
than what his pyofessional reputation and the admiration
of his intimate friends assert in his behalf. Mr. JOHN
DEAN CASE we do -not know at all. We think it our
duty to state these facts in order to shew that while dis-
charging aji important duty to the burgesses of Liver-
pool we are not either impelled or restrained by private
motives.

With these explanations we beg the inhabitants of Li-
verpool to consider §lriously the facts we are now going
to state. _ _

The town-clerk now superseded is entitled, by act of
parliament, by the municipal reform act itself, to two-thirds
in value of all the fees, salary, emoluments, profits, and
pecuniary contingencies of every kind which he may have
received for the five years previous to the sth June, 1835.
If then Mr. FosTER can show—and the litigious proceed-
ings of Mr. THOMAS BOLTQN will help him to show—
that
he has been in the receipt of upwards of £7,000 a-
year for the last five years, the compensation he can le-
gally claith will amount to something like £5,000 per
annum for life ! Mr. FOSTER is yet comparatively a
young man, His life is worth twenty-two years' purchase;
and whether the council shall or shall not award him
£4,000 or £5,000 a-year, the Lords of the Treasury, to
whom the appeal lies, cannot award him less than the
lowest sum, in which case he will be entitled to a com-
pensation in money, to he raised and paid to him,
amounting to very near £lOO,OOO. It is impossible to
rail the seal from off the bond ! Here is the deed—there
are the covenants—Lord MELBOURNE is a witness ; and,
come what may, the money must be paid, or England is
a dishonest and degraded nation !

This, we contend, sl,4eps away more than one year's
surplus revenue ! The corporation must pay this money out
of their income and if they do, how are the public im-
provements to be prosecuted Viow are the families of
5,000 masons, carpenters, bricklayers, and other arti-
zans to be supported They, we saw from the first,
would be the victims of this pernicious bill. Some few
hundreds called for it; but little did the whole fraternity
of operatives know that they would have to pay for it !
Perhaps they will not believe the assurance we now ten-
der them; if so let them look on and abide the fulfilment
of so palpable a result that it would be pedantic to call it
a prediction.
But the compensation of the treasurer follows that of
the town-clerk. The salary of Mr. CASE is £lOOO per
annum, and a moderate one, too, considering the vast
extent of his liabilities. He will, therefore, be entitled
to £665 13s. 4d. per annum, for life. To secure this,
will be required an additional sum of some eight
or ten thousand pounds more. But, mind, gentle
reader, this is only the work of two days. The reform-
ers have, by their economy, saddled the town
,with
an
unnecessary debt of at least £lOO,OOO if not £120,000 in
forty-eight hours. If they go on at this rate, the lowest
average per diem for the next fortnight cannot possibly
be less than £15,000. For, remember, they are re-
solved, as their' journals say, to make a clean sweep.
They are to have new brooms now, cost what they may,
and pay for them afterwards. They contemplate the re-
moval of some twelve or fifteen corporate officers, every
one of whom is entitled to compensation, to the amount
of two-thirds of his fees, profits, emoluments and per-
quisites. Even SOLOMON, of the Town Hall, the exhi-
bitor of its elegant suite of rooms, who has touched the
fingers of more strangers, as well as townsmen, with a
shilling or an half-crown stuck therein, than any other
master of the kitchen, the back stairs, or the carpets in
England, and who has frequently had the honour of en-
tertaining a radical barrister in the depths profound of
his subterranean hospitality—even this SOLOMON, who
has soliloquised upon the perfumes of rare roast beef and
indifferent port for many years, will be entitled, and has

a rightful and legitimate claim to a compensation equal
to two-thirds of his average receipts, profits, and perqui-
sites, for the last five years.
If, then, we take the clean sweep in the one hand, and
the cost of the sweep in the other, we shall find that the
whole surplus revenue of the town of Liverpool, as we
have already stated, is sunk, merged, and melted, for
the next two years !

Having stated these rather interesting facts, which
we challenge any man to question, fur the benefit of the
burgesses and the inhabitants of Liverpool generally, we
come to that part of the proceedings where the new
councilmen have evinced the most shameless and most
pitiable ignorance. Mr. JAMES AIJUN'S speech was dic-
tated by good feelings, and was characterized by re-