The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Ebt Ziberpool g9tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 10, 1841

ture its plans before ushering them forward upon the
world, and whose measures are thrown up like straws
to be fanned into compactness by the breath of agita-
tion, and approved or condemned before we have either
the opportunity or the power of viewing them as a
united whole.

It may be said, indeed, and it has been said, that the
public has a right to be acquainted with the views of a
government upon such important questions as those
which are now occupying the attention of so large a
portion of the people of this empire ; that we have a
right to be put into possession of the views of Sir Ro-
bert Peel upon the operation of the corn laws and
upon our commercial policy generally. But, we may
ask, do we not already know perfectly well the opinions
held by him upon these important subjects ? Have
we not had ample opportunities of ascertaining the
bearing of those opinions, and of determining the po-
licy to which they point, as likely to be adopted by
him ? Undoubtedly we have; and it is not a little
unreasonable, we think, that we should insist upon
being made acquainted with the details as well of
the measures which he may propose to carry out those
opinions without allowing adequate opportunity for
their being brought to maturity.
We have had enough, in all conscience, of ad cap-
tandum propositions, and of merely tentative measures

within the past ten years. We have had abundance of
specious promises—of crude and undigested measures

thrown out as tubs to the whale—as baits for the po-
pular maw and subjects for the appetite of hungry
journalism. We have had hopes raised—bad hopes—
which were never intended to be gratified. We have
had a government bidding for popularity, through the
instrumentality of the press, which it never intended
to earn by performance. We have had professions in
abundance, theory in abundance, and the assertion of
principle in abundance ; but the result of all this pro-
fession and fine-spun theory—where is it In public
disappointment; in the conviction on the part of the

leo* that charlatanrie and the party by whom these

nstruments were used are inseparably allied ; and we

are quite satisfied, therefore—although as journalists we
feel its inconvenience in being occasionally driven to
bestow our remarks upon subjects of merely local in-
terest, when we might, if we had chosen, have been

dilating in large terms upon more speculative ques-
.

tions--to wait his own time to discuss the measures of
Sir Robert Peel when they come before us in an au-

Lenticated form

Our local contemporary the Times has fallen foul of
the able and eloquent minister of Christ Church, for
having made what he calls a " malicious and detesta-
ble insinuation" contained in the passage of a speech
deliverefl at a meeting of the Bolton Protestant Asso-
ciation, and which passage he recites, we know not
upon what authority. To what extent the insinuation
was either "malicious " or " detestable," however, we
shall enable our readers to judge, by extracting what
we believe to be a correct report of the passage in
question from the Bolton Chronicle of the 29th ult. It
is as follows :

" The rev. gentleman quoted a portion of the resolution
that the church was " constantly surrounded by watchful
enemies," and said, that a few years ago the two Houses of
Parliament had been destroyed by fire ; shortly after that
the Royal Exchange was burned, and at one of our ports
ships were fired, and no one could tell how they were done.
Since that; also, there had been a fire at the Tower, and no
one could tell how it had happened ; and in the newspapers
of that day he had read of an attempt to fire the Horse
Gnards—and when the question was asked " how it had hap-
pened," no one knew how it was done. They were sur-
rounded by enemies, and these things baying happened so
recently, they had every reason to recollect Guy Fawkes.
They had to recollect what had been done, and, if possible,
prevent its being done again.,,
Such is the material out of which a Whig and Pa-
,,)istical journal hasattempted. to frame a bill of indict-
nent—
plentifullyinterlarded'. with epithets of great

We have received a long report of a deputation appointed to
inquire into the merits of the dispute between the London
masons and their employers, but we have already said
sufficient on the subject.
The lines entitled " The sweet voice of love" are defective
in many respects.
Have we not already anticipated the suggestions. of " A
Protestant Operative ?"
Mr. Michael Alexander Gage must be profoundly ignorant
of the respect which is due to the conductors of a public
journal, or he would not have asked us to insert a com-
munication which appeared in the columns of a contempo-
rary several days since.
"A Staunch Conservative" is evidently sincere, and wishes
us well ; we therefore feel anything but offended by his
well-intentioned remarks.
The attention of the authorities is called to a nuisance arising
from the distribution of waste at a feather-dressing ware-
house in Cable-street.
If a " Lover of Harmony" will divest his communication of
the offensive allusion to an excellent clergyman, we have
no objections to insert his letter.

We are unfeignedly sorry for the condition of many
of our brethren of the broad sheet, Conservative as
well as Radical, in this time of unparalleled scarcity
of the wherewith to fill their columns and to satisfy
the cravings of the public for political discussion. Not
a word will Sir Robert allow to escape with respect to
the detail of the policy of his administration. Not a
hint—not even a feeler will he condescend to throw out
for the " fourth estate " to exercise their ingenuity
upon. The world goes on much in its usual way.
The seasons change, the sun rises and sets, the moon
waxes and wanes, as they have been accustomed to do
in time bypast; but journalism stands still. The eyes
of the political gladiator gaze only upon vacancy; the
world around him is a blank ; he has not even a sha-
dow upon which to place his spear in rest, or the ghost
of a measure proposed to gnaw at by way of keeping
his teeth in order.

And yet we cannot say, after all, that this is not as
it ought to be. Far though we are from wishing to
undervalue " our order," we are not by any means sa-
tisfied that it is good for a people to be kept in a con-
stant state of political fever by the discussion, through
the press, of every question which it may enter into
the minds of statesmen to moot, until their details and
the extent of their application are fully settled. We
are not inclined to place great reliance upon the wis-
dom of a minister or a party which, because undecided
upon a principle or a measure, throws out its undigest-
ed materials to be moulded into the particular form
which popular prejudice may devise for it. We have
no confidence in a minister or a party which has so
little reliance upon self that it cannot and dare not ma-