The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-08-07 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The communication of " G. H." is of so peculiar a nature,
that we fear its insertion might prove the source of consi-
derable inconvenience to ourselves. It contains several ex-
pressions which might subject us to an action for libel, if
we gave them publicity.
We cannot insert any reports of cases in the Insolvent
Debtors' Court, excepting those furnished by our own re-
porter.
We must decline inserting any further communications on
the subject of the appointment to the Bishopric of St. Da-
vid's. We see nothing in the letter of the Rev. D. James
that can be construed as an insult to any Englishman.
We shall make some inquiries before we can publish the
Queries" of " A Welsh Inhabitant of Liverpool."

Ebt iLiimpoot &tanbarb.

FRIDAI

MORNING, AUGUST 7, 1840,

The advices from Paris within the last few days
have dispelled a considerable portion of the uneasiness
which has been felt on the subject of impending war
between that country and Great Britain. It is now
Probable that France, notwithstanding the threatening
attitude which she has been compelled to assume
towards the four great powers, who have shut her out
from the arrangements entered into for the settlement
of the Eastern question, will not willingly carry her
exasperated feelings into actual hostilities; but the
motives which, on her part, interfere to prevent a step
Which ivould be hailed with rapture by nine-tenths of
the French people, are by no means of a nature flatter-
ing to England as a nation, or such as we can calcu-
late upon for a week's or a day's duration.

The moral power which Great Britain has been
accustomed to exercise upon European politics, has
on •this question confessedly deserted her. She has
no longer any great portion of the sympathy of Europe
to strengthen her arms. She has not even, in her
present quarrel, the more powerful support afforded
by the active good will of her own population. It is
not a British cause in behalf of which the Foreign
Secretary has thrown down the gauntlet of England,
hut a cunning and selfish intrigue, by the success of
which the colossal power of Russia—the arch-enemy
of British supremacy—will he cemented beyond the
possibility of attack, and a giant step be gained to-
wards the possession of those rich Indian possessions
of Great Britain, which Russia, for the last twenty-five
years, has made it the unceasing object of her diplo-
macy and her arms to draw within the clutch of her
extended dominion". In the alliance which has given
to the vanity of the French nation so deep a wound,
Great. Britain is only looked upon as the weak and
helpless dupe of this crafty power; and the day is
looked forward to when, the object of that alliance
being secured, her friendship will be flung away with
contempt, and her infatuation be made a scorn and a
mockery to Europe and the world.
The motives which at present prevent the active in-
terference of France, are evidently not founded upon
any feelings of respect towards the power of Great
Britain, or any sympathy with the objects of the alli-
ance.. The question upon which misunderstanding
has_ arisen between France and the powers, is, as yet,
of too trifling a nature ostensibly to be made a ground
for disturbing the peace of Europe. It is well known,
also, that the Sovereign of the French people is per-
sonally averse to embark in a war, the result and
extent of which it is so difficult to foresee. So long,
then, as the settlement of the affairs of the East can
be conducted without exciting any feeling violently
hostile to the national prejudices of the masses in
France, the ministry of Louis Philippe may probably
be content to remain neutral, keeping up nevertheless
an armed surveillance, which any untoward circum-
stance would convert into active interference. But if
these affairs are at last to be settled by the sword—if
England and Russia are compelled to throw the weight
of their arms into the scale to crush the refractory
vassal of the Porte, it will become very questionable
whether the power of Louis Philippe, even if he pos-
sess the inclination, will be sufficient to 'restrain the
Wild passions of a people burning for conquest, and
I°nging'to plunge into the exciting turmoil of such a
contest as would then unsettle and devastate Europe.
We must not, therefore, blind ourselves to the fact,
that Great Britain is now, as to peace or war, altoge-
ther at the mercy of circumstances, the direction or
control of which is beyond the reach of any effort
which she can put forth. For good or evil we are
now fairly embarked upon the tide of European poli-
ticS; and where, it is full time to ask, is the pilot
Whose wisdom is to guide us through the rocks and
shoals of those troubled and treacherous waters ?
Where are those vast resources which are to sustain

us in the conflict ? And, above all, where are the
ready zeal, the devotion, the enthusiasm, which, during
the last mighty struggle of Great Britain for supre-
macy upon the battle-field of Europe, poured forth
her thousands of dauntless hearts and her millions of
ungrudged wealth, to vindicate the cause upon which
her people had set so noble a price ?

These questions, alas ! we ask in vain. No satis-
factory reply can be furnished. It is obvious that, in
the present state of continental politics, any war in
which France might feel herself called upon to take a
part in opposition to Russia, Austria, and Great Bri-
tain, would ultimately become a war for supremacy
between the great conflicting principles of democracy
and absolute power--a war in the progress of which
the tottering throne of the present dynasty in France
must fall, and be succeeded by a military despotism
or a Carlist government, as chance and circumstances
may decide. We are very far from being sanguine as
to the ability of the present statesmen of Great Britain
to bring her safely through such an ordeal ;—still less
are we satisfied with the ability of England to hear the
heavy drain upon her financial resources which such
a contest would occasion. Could we bring ourselves
to believe that the ministry whose acts have placed us
in our present position was one in which the people of
England could confide—one in whose behalf it was
practicable to enlist the power of a strong national feel-
ing—then, indeed, we might have hopes that all would
still be well. But the contrary is the fact. The peo-
ple of England distrust and despise the men in whose
hands unfortunately are placed the national interests;
and so long as those men continue to administer the
government of the country, we can foresee nothing but
dishonour and disgrace to our arms, however good the
cause may be in behalf of which they are wielded,
In any case, however, it is necessarily the duty of
the British people to demand from the government of
the country, that we should he placed in such a pos-
ture as to be prepared for any emergency which the
progress of events may bring round. It is not a po-
pular demand—the demand for increased taxation—
but it is one which we are bound to make, on the score
of economy as well as of prudence. Let England stand
forward, armed at all points—with an efficient navy, a
powerful land force, and a full exchequer—and she
may perhaps still be respected; but whilst her fleet is
scattered abroad throughout every quarter of the globe,
her army barely sufficient to keep down disaffection in
in her colonies, and to perform home duty, and her
exchequer literally bankrupt, we have little expectation
that she will be able to assert her claims to respect,
with that energy which ought to mark the policy of a

great nation.
There is another " lion in our path" which it ought
especially to be the object of a British ministry to re-
move. We are now openly twitted by the French
ministerial journals with the present condition of Ire-
land. That country it is openly declared will, on the
event of a war with France, receive with open arms
the aid of a French force to enable her to assert her
claims to be an independent state; and it is not with-
out reason that such an expectation is indulged in.
The agitation of the question of repeal is now openly
sanctioned by the ministry of Lord Melbourne. The
brazen throat of the mendicant by whose aid that
ministry is held in office has distinctly and loudly pro-
claimed that repeal, even at the cost of civil war, must
be extorted from Great Britain; and we know, unfor-
tunately, too much of the character of the Irish peo-
ple to doubt that, with their present ribbon organiza-
tion, there will be wanting men desperate and reckless
enough to throw the torch of civil insurrection into the
heart of her infuriated and savage population. Let
the government of Ireland do their duty—but they dare
not ! Cowardly, mean, and treacherous, the present
despicable crew dare not enter upon a manly policy,
although the result of a contrary course were marked
before their. eves in desolation and bloodshed.

We find from the Manchester papers that, on Tues-
day week, a public meeting " for the abolition of
slavery and the slave-trade" was held in that town.
With the language and the sentiments of the great
majority of the speakers at that meeting we have little
fault to find. We can excuse the trifling exaggera-
tions in which they occasionally indulged, and to which
they were betrayed, no doubt, by an excess of zeal in
a good cause. With their eloquent denunciations of
slavery we perfectly concur. We are as anxious as the
most ardent of them for its utter extinction. But
while we would give every credit for purity of motive
and honesty of purpose to the greater number of the
speakers at the meeting in question, there were asser-
tions made, especially by Mr. Scoble, which we cannot
let pass unnoticed and uncontradicted.
Mr. Scoble ventured broadly to assert that "in the
West Indian colonies were men who assumed to them-
selves the right of making laws, and would pass laws
which would again enshackle the negro and coloured
population of those colonies in the chains of slavery."
In support of this sweeping and libellous charge Mr.
Scoble did not offer a tittle of evidence. It is a very
easy matter to indulge in such accusations, but it is a
very different thing to prove their truth. We defy
Mr. Scoble to the proof. Let us remind him of one
fact which is utterly at variance with his assertion.
Has he forgotten that the colonial legislatures in the
West Indies, whom he thus vilifies, actually anticipated
the decision of the Imperial Parliament by conferring
the boon of. unconditional freedom upon the negro
population of those colonies, before the term of their
apprenticeship had expired ? Was this act at all con-
sistent with the character which Mr. Saible has drawn
of these legislative bodies ?

Mr. Scoble proceeds to remark that " much had
been heard lately of the subject of immigration into
the British colonies. He would dissuade his country-
men from resorting thither. He found the greater
number of Irishmen induced to go there, were in their
graves. So with respect to the hardy Scotchmen, the
Germans, and the Portuguese. No European could
endure field labour in the West Indies." These asser-
tions, again, are at direct variance with acknowledged
facts. It is a fact that the climate of the West Indies,
generally speaking, is far from being detrimental to the
health of Europeans. Witness the numberless in-
stances of longevity which are almost daily recorded
in the obituaries of the colonial papers. We might,
indeed, settle this point by an appeal to hundreds of
our own townsmen who have spent their twenty, thirty,
and even forty years in the most unhealthy districts in
Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad. It is a noto-
rious fact, and one which admits of no dispute, that
the average duration of human existence in the West
Indies is greater than it is in Liverpool, Manchester, or
any of the populous towns in Great Britain. It is also
a fact that the British and German emigrants who have
been located in Jamaica have experienced no ill effects,
beyond thOse which ordinarily fall to the lot of huma-
nity in all climes, from their removal to that colony.
The same may be also said of British Guiana. It
should be remembered that these labourers' are chiefly
employed in the field-work of the estates on which
they are located. This work they go through cheer-
fully, and without any extraordinary fatigue. It should
also be remembered that they have chiefly been en-
gaged in the more elevated districts, where the heat is
by no means excessive. Indeed, at no time are field
labourers in the West Indies subjected to greater heat
than that which is experienced by our harvest labourers
at the present moment, when the thermometer stands
at eighty-four in the shade. English and Irish la-
bourers are glad to engage to work for sixteen hours
per day, exposed to this great heat, and that without a
complaint : whereas, in the West Indies, the field
labourers are very rarely kept more than nine or ten
hours at work when the thermometer is only at seventy-
five degrees. We say nothing of the high wages and
the numberless comforts enjoyed by European immi-
grants in the West Indies. We say nothing of the va-
rious trades and occupations in which there is em-
ployment for them in other than field labour. But we
say deliberately, and without fear of refutation, that
there is scarcely any part of our colonial possessions
which can be at all compared to the West Indies or
British Guiana as locations for European emigrants.
It is a gross delusion to assert the contrary.
Mr. Scoble's calumnies against the planters of Bri-
tish Guiana, in reference to their treatment of the
Hill Coolies, are too sweeping and atrocious to be
passed over in silence. He says, that " on the pro-
perty of Mr. Gladstone he (Mr. Scoble) had been twice
assaulted ;" and that " it was only by stratagem that
he was at length able to mingle with the negroes in
their villages, and to obtain that information which
enabled him to get Outride' the manager of the

Coolies on the plantation of the most atrocious cruel-
ties." Will Mr. Scoble have the candour to publish
the proceedings which took place, and the evidence
which was offered, at the trial of that manager ? Until
he does so, we beg to inform him that his mere ipse
dixit on the subject will hardly obtain credit among an
audience of enlightened and impartial Englishmen.
On the subject of the treatment of the Hill Coolies in
British Guiana, we would refer Mr. Scoble, and those
who may have been misled by his grossly erroneous
and exaggerated statements, to the testimony of Go-
vernor Light, in his despatches to the Home Secretary.
Before we quit this part of the subject we would also
remind Mr. Scoble that the parties who obstructed his
inquiries on several of the principal estates in British
Guiana were free negroes, who very justly conceived
that his meddling interference between them and their
employers, with whom they were on the best possible
terms, would only lead to mischief. They deprecated
his officious intermeddling. They had seen the disas-
trous consequences which had attended it on other
estates, and very wisely resolved to refuse his most
disinterested mediation.
The next point to which Mr. Scoble alluded in his
speech was the decrease in the growth and import of
sugar, which he said was not as great as the planters
stated. We have already anticipated his quibbles on
this subject, for it is a sheer, and not very creditable,
quibble to assert that the diminution in the growth of
colonial sugar has been but trifling. The method by
which Mr. Scoble seeks to make good his statement is
exceedingly ingenious. He says that " from the Brit-
ish West Indies, the Mauritius and the East Indies, the
amount of sugar introduced into this country in 1833,
was 4,278,000 cwt.; and in 1839 it was 3,914,826 cwt.;
being a diminution of only 363,585 cwt., or about one
twelfth of the whole." He very cunningly avoids spe-
cifying the comparative import of sugar from the West
Indies alone for the years 1833 and 1839. This would
not have suited his purpose.' It is well known that
from the East Indies, there has been a very great in-
crease in the import of sugar. This increase Mr. Sco-
ble very honestly avails himself of in order to show
that the decrease in the imports from the 'West Indies
has no been so considerable as it has been represented.
The next time he undertakes to enlighten an English
audience on this subject, let him confine his statistical
statements to the West Indies, and then we shall know
how to grapple with his figures.
Mr. Scoble drew very largely on the credulity of his
audience when he asserted that " the present high price
of sugar did not arise from the diminished quantity of
sugar imported into this country, but from the mono-
poly of the West India body in the British markets."
How does he reconcile this statement with the notori-
ous fact that a few weeks ago, the whole stock of sugar
in Great Britain was scarcely sufficient for four weeks
consumption ? 'Would not this fact alone account for
the high price of sugar ? If the " monopoly "of the
West India body be now the cause of the high price of
sugar, what was the cause of its low price during past
years, while the same monopoly was in existence ?
Mr. Scoble professes himself to be adverse to the
introduction of slave-labour sugar into the British mar-
ket, and yet he perseveringly opposes every scheme for
rendering our colonies in the West Indies more pro-
ductive. If he wishes to obtain any credit for consis-
tency, let him cease his senseless agitation against the
West India interest. Let him prove his honesty. by
advoCating the cause of free immigration into the West
Indies, which, he may rest assured, is the only plan
by which the boundless resources of those noble and
invaluable appendages to the British crown can be fully
developed, and by which a continued, abundant, and
cheap supply of sugar and other colonial produce can
be obtained

Our contemporary of the Mercury is not quite sa-
tisfied, it seems, with the already large increase of
whig-radical voters, paraded before the public as the
result of the pure labours of the Protector Society.
One thousand two hundred and fifty brothers of the
hod have been enabled, by loans from Sir Joshua
Walmsley's purse, aided, perhaps, with a little Trea-
sury gold, to pay up the rates for their various cellars
and piggeries; but this is not the whole. There are
more " men in buckram" than these "supporthers of
the ould church." The protectors, with " one John
Rosson, Esq." at their head, are not to run away with
all the glory of the triumph which is at hand; but
must consent to share with their brethren of the Re-
form Association.

We are glad of this ; for it would be a pity if these
Siamese twin societies should have cause of jealousy
one towards the other. It would be truly a heart-
rending circumstance if the hod was to prove stronger
than the yardstick—if the cellar was to outvote the
front shop ; and those clean and clever bipeds, who
have hitherto driven only pigs to market, were to be
found at the next election driving whigs to the poll to
vote for the "illigant mimber recomminded by his
riverence and Dan of Derrynane." Such a reversal
of the established order and fitness of things would
be a bitter pill for the proud stomachs of our Earles
and Rathbones—our Curries and Hornbys—the aris-
tocracy of the liberal party in Liverpool; and, for the
sake of humanity, We are glad that it is not on this
occasion to be forced upon them.

The Irish party ! (the hodmen, pig-drivers, journey-
men snips, and dealers in rags, bones, old spoons, and
various other similar commodities) are from experience
acquainted with the fact that sulky animals are plaguy
difficult to drive—especially the pigs. There is a pe-
culiar way of coaxing them in any given direction ne-
cessary to be resorted to when the coercion of whip-
cord is of no avail. The animals have a will of their
own, which it is highly desirable that they should ima-
gine themselves to be following ; and the protectors,
judging from analogy, are disposed to resort to this
persuasive vein in order to propel forward the some-
what sulky forces of the aristocratic reformers by al-
lowing them to fancy themselves free agents.
On this principle it is that the whigs of the Reform
Association are to be allowed for a while to hug them-
selves with the idea that they are still somebody; and
perhaps one reason for this permission on the part of
the protectors may arise from the want of Whig purses
to dip into occasionally. It is convenient, to say the
least of it, to have under thumb a few soft-witted in-
dividuals whom a little wheedling and flattery will per-
suade to part with the indispensable, whenever " the
boys" turn unruly and require a little whisky to whet
their appetite for a scrimmage.

Whilst alluding to this subject we may be permitted
to assure our sage contemporary that we are very far
from being in that state of rabid anger at the proceed-
ings of the faction which he imagines. Although im-
pressed with a due regard for the wisdom of the adage
which tells Us that "he who wins may laugh," we
cannot help laughing beforehand. When whigs them-
selves blush, we may .surely smile. When men, with
professions of liberality and universal equality in their
mouths, but in whose hearts are pride and scorn of
all beneath them, are compelled in the face of the
world to confess their own weakness and rub elbows
with the, great unwashed, we cannot help being
amused at the contortions of feature displayed as
their proud stomachs rise against the loathed con-
tact. We know that the whig party in Liverpool
feel, and feel deeply, the degradation to which they are
at this moment submitting. They feel the thrall and
dread the lash which will follow it. But feeling all
this, they are so bowed down in the slavery of their
own purblind and perverse natures that they willingly
embrace pollution; and we laugh—when we ought ra-
ther to grieve—to see human beings so utterly, so
deeply, so irrecoverably fallen.

Since the above remarks (intended for our Tues-
day's publication) were in type, we have learnt that
our friends of the Protector Society have been even
more successful than we anticipated in "swamping the
register." In consequence of the great number of
new names,—introduced at the very last moment, for
the purpose of stealing a march upon the sleepy con-
servatives,—the task of drawing up, arranging, and
printing the register, in time to be posted on Sunday
last upon the doors of the various churches and cha-
pels within the borough, was rendered one of in-
creased difficulty. A new mode of alphabetical ar-
rangement, too, had, it appears, been required by the
revising barrister at the last registration; and the re-
sult of these combined causes was, that only seven
complete copies of the new register were printed in
time to be posted on Sunday. _ _

This untoward accident will, it is feared by some
well-informed people of both parties, invalidate altoge.