The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-01-16 00:00:00

Ebt Eiberpool &tanZiarl3.

TUESDAY MORNING, JAN. 16, 1849

WHEN the Financial Reform Association of
Liverpool first reared its imposing form above the
then calm waters of politics, we were assured that
the agitation which it had in view was to be
strictly divested of party bias. At its head was a
gentleman who had ably advocated for years the
principles of conservatism ; and the very name of
the association suggested, as its task, the devotioti
of the intellect and the commercial experience of
Liverpool to such a reform of the mode of levying
the taxation of the country as would render it less
painfully pressing upon commerce and industry,
whilst maintaining in all their efficiency our revered
institutions

We were a little staggered in our
expectations, however, when we saw its members
commencing their operations by ferreting out
extravagances of all sorts, alleged to exist in the
Royal Household and in various branches of the

; wading ''- ..,Jugh pension lists,
salaries, and allowances ; publishing black books
after the pattern of the Holywell School of
Reformers ;—in short. rushing into the adoption of
the wildest views of radicalism. A. bolder set of
ilowever,llluve now taken up the work.
The League has come to the rescue of the original
Liverpool body, which was fast sinking into con-
tempt ; and we have now the cloak of alleged non-
political feeling flung aside, and a whig-radical
crusade against the constitution of the country
openly entered upon. _

The past week las witnessed this new diversion
of the associations' exertions towards purely political
and party objects; and the formation in Manchester,
in connexion with it, of another and more demo-
cratic edition of the defunct Anti-Corn Law League.
Mr. Richard Cobden, of course, is its leading
prophet and oracle ; and is assisted in his work by
the well-known trio, George Wilson, Milner Gibson,
and John Bright. The first object of the new
association is the reduction of the military and
naval estimates to the standard of 1835, or, rather,
the restriction of the amount levied under these
heads, to a maximum of £10,000,000 sterling. How
this is to be effected, in the present threatening
state of Europe, without perilling the safety of the
country, and withdrawing the defences from our
colonies, we certainly cannot perceive. The second
resolution adopted at the meeting, moved by Mr.
Milner Gibson, proclaims the party object of the
agitation. We give it at length—Moved, " That
no permanent reduction of taxation could be effected
until the people obtained a more direct control
over the House of Commons, by an extension of
the system of electoral taxation' ; in advocating
which the speaker expressed himself in favour of
the spoliation of the Established Church in Ireland,
which announcement, the report assures us, was
received with " tremendous cheering" by the meet-
ing. The third resolution, however, moved by Mr.
John Bright, conveys to us, most significantly, the
real object of the agitation. It was to the effect,
that the meeting approved of the course adopted
by the Anti-Corn Law League, in the extension of
the 40s. freeholders, and their system of watchina
the register; also authorizing the chairman to take
steps for the formation of an association to secure
the objects of the meeting. Here the secret oozes
out. Free trade is at a discount ; and Mr. Richard
Cobden is not at all secure of his re-election for
the West Riding. To protect the world from the
loss or the valuable services of the honourable
member, and a few others of his stamp, who were
foisted upon us by the efforts of the League party,
the constitution of the country is to undergo an
organic change, and the registers are to be filled
with faggot voters ; another infusion of the demo-
cratic principle is to take place, and we are to be
hurried on more rapidly towards a violent revolution.
We are not of opinion, however, that any great
amount of influence will be gained by the leaders
)f this new crusade. The country will not be
by it from watching the working of the
h it was urged by these flippant

policy' into whi

philosophers. The delusions which have been prac-
tised on our abused working classes; the promise
of cheapness and abundance, of an enlarged trade
and universal prosperity, as the results of free
trade, and the bankruptcy and ruin, the stoppage
of employme-4

measureless suffering, which
have presented themselves in their stead, are not
forgOtten. The reign of charlatanry is drawing to
close; and, sooner than these men imagine, we
irn to sounder and more prac-
)bden may declaim ;
ay vociferate his vulgar spite
other institution of a
tied character ; the Liverpool Financial Reform
print and circulate their trashy
ly, the country is beginning to
eir attention to the true source
which periodically involves this,
the most industrious and enterprising nation of
the earth, in insolvency and crisis, and destroys

cal statemanshi

Mr. C

John Br

against the church and ever

think
of fhp

—to tt

machi

,erty and securities of every

description to ten tint
taxation, under whose t

s tlie- amount of the entire
ressure alone these agitating

believe

e now