The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-02-09 00:00:00

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way to make peril and not glory the more probable re-
sult of the game ? No. The people of France are mad
to a.certain extent, but they have lucid intervals. The,
present is one of their calm intervals. They will not
rush into war for the sake of Poland. The intelligent
people of France, watever they may profess, entertain
the most cordial contempt for the patriots of Poland,
simply because they know who they are, and what they
have done, and how deeply they have heaped dishonour
upon themselves and brought disgrace upon their nation.
But thiS the artful 'Ministers of Lows'PlilLiPPE will do.
They will lead 'l,O whigs of England into a quarrel vw•ith
Russia. They will promise to unite in defence of com-
mon principles, but they will take care to make reconci-
liation impossible by blowing hot upon the one party to
exasperate, and cold upon the other to compromise and
concede.

This to us is as clear as any thing can be. The deep-
laid policy of France—our new-born allies, our implaca-
ble enemies, who love England as. Carthage did Rome---L
that pqicy is to involve us in a war with Russia. His
Majesty's ministers do not see the snare. France repre-
sents that our interests in the East are insecure—that
Persia is virtually a province of the Czar, and that our
Indian empire is at his mercy. This may be true; but
what interest can France, by means of this exasperating
and insidious argument, have in ,common with England,
with respect to Indian affairs ? Her professions are
questionable—out fears are childish. She offers an opi-
nion to mislead—we adopt a principle which she laughs
at. We respect circumlocution, are pleased with an
epigram, and reject common sense. We call France a
civilized power, and Russia a barbarian one. The dull
and lazy brutes of Constantinople we call honest, rational,
acute and honourable merchants; while in our commer-
cial vernacular the nobles of Russia, the statesmen of
Russia, and the ministers of the Emperor, are regarded
as untutored savages. This is a mistake. There is
more, honour and intelligence, and much more civiliza-
tion, amongst the higherclasses in St. Petersburg!), than
we find in Paris. In France we find madness—in Rus-
sia honour, acuteness, and principle. In France we en-
counter infidelity and the concomitant laxity of morals—
in Russia we meet with candour, truth, strong national
feelings, and the strictest honour.

On-the score of morality, therefore, the ministers of
England make a sad exchange by giving a preference to
the dexterous infidels of France who hate us, our fame,
and all our institutions, at the expense of Russia. They
know not what lir do. Russia understands the present
policy of EnglaWr, and she might be
,conciliated—France
only understands it to abuse our confidence ani mislead
us into interminable hostilities. But of this enough for
the present.

The last topic concerns Ireland and
,municipal reform.
To speak frankly we do' not see how some measure for
amending the corporations in that country can be avoided.
The question is undoubtedly beset by evils. We. have
committed a mistake here ; and such is our position that
we must follow up the blunder by committing a still
greater mistake in Ireland. No man can be so, blind as
not to see that, by opening the corporations to the multi-
tude, the whole, or at least the greater part of them, must
fall into the hands of the popish priests and their slaves.
This is the policy of the present day. We are called
upon to conciliate the enemies of England at all haiards.
The priests must be deluged with power, even though
the concession should lead to a deluge of blood. The
:argument an the other side is—why should not the corpo-
ration of Cork or Dublin be as open to all classes of citi-
zens as is the corporation of Bristol or Liverpool ? We
have a sufficient answer to this proposition, but we know
that it would not be deemed satisfactory to what is called
popular opinion. , But we have this answer to offer, in
regard to the general policy, and as being more strictly
applicable to the interests of the people of England. Mu-
nicipal reform in Ireland would not be the destruction of
an exclusiire system—it would be the creation of an ex-
clusive. system—it would give all the power to' the po-
pish priests—it would make every corporation a popish
citadel—it would convert every school into a mass-house
—it would turn the channels of protestant beneficence
into the kennel of monkish corruption—it would make
the desolatedhoule of prayer a convenient confessional,
and pervert what was the consecrated seat of piety rind
holiness- to -the purposes of licentiousness and debauch-
ery. Such, we venture. to predict, will be the conse-
quences tif Lord JOHN RusS:ELL's con,templated munici-
pal reform for Ireland. In brief—corporation reform in
that country would hasten, and render inevitable, the
much dreaded— , .

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House, in discussiug questions of the most silly and al
surd nature—questions that would provoke the derision
of a twopenny spouting club, be a reproach to the intel-
lect of a free-and-easy society, and put out all the pipes
of a smoking parliament in a pothouse, by means of the
convulsive shouts of mirth which the bare annunciation
of them would excite. No, Mr. EwAar ; if you wish to
shorten the discussioni, and jump earlier out of the
House into bed, you must keep all your curious motions
to yourself, and induce your friends to follow so good an
example.
. . _

The bantam of the Chronicle crowed most furiously on
Saturday last. Who spurred it, or whether it was spurred
at all, we have no means of knowing; but, judging by
the note of the bird, it must have been in a towering rage,
bordering on the ludicrous.

• The people of Liverpool have generally had the credit
of speedily forgetting the excitements caused by party
and political contests; but our contemporary, on this oc-
casion, departs from the rule, and will not forgive the
exemplary punishment which its idol the King of the
Beggars received in our Exchange-rooms nearly a fort-
night ago. The gentlemen who hissed DANIEL, when he
was being toadied by Mr. Councillor and Justice-of-the
Peace RATIIBONE, are consequently abused in the best
style of an infuria&l washerwoman, and are called
•" blackguards" and every other low epithet only to be
found in a slang dictionary. We apprehend the gentle-
men in question care as little for the abuSe of the.people
of the Chronicle as we do; for we are delighted to ob-
serve that they feel so acutely on the subject. O'CON-
NELL was expelled, amid hootings loud and deep, from
the Exchange-rooms, and they know it. . He was indig-
nantly spurned by the moX respectable inhabitants of the
town, despite the hired retinue of Irish hodmen which
followed him ; and he was taught a lesson which we feel
persuaded he. will remember as long as he liVes. "tile
was taught the folly and the price of his impertinence in
exhibiting himself before an assembly of Englishmen,
and he left Liverpool, as we 'have reason to know, under.
the most perfect and galling, conviction that, however
successful he may be in deluding and plundering his own
wretched countrymen, he has not a chance of playing the
Same game by imposing upon the Saxons of this island.
No; DANIEL must in future confine his oratorical dis-
plays to Irish patriots only ; for, although in a few of
our towns be may find a seedy unitarian, .or transmuted
quaker, or, perhaps, soine rabid dissenter to take hith by
the hand, and make him the lion of the hour in some
steam factory or infidel seminary; still, he may rely upon
it, that his character is properly appreciated and exe-
crated by all classes of intelligent Englishmen. As a
proof of this,'let the Chronicle call to mind the treat-
ment which, the mendicant received from the Mayor, who,
being a gentleman, knew his own position in society, and
refusedt6 shake hands with the fellow whom RATIIBONE
intruded upon his presence. Mr. CURRIE, of course, did,
not wish to offer any unnecessary or invidious disrespect
to O'CoN‘NELI, ;
.and he accordingly studied to be absent
from the Town-hall when the agitator was brought thi-
ther. Mr. RATHBONE, however, could not understand or
appreciate the delicacy et the Mayor's conduct, and he
had the bad manners to send for the chief magistrate, as
if the Mayor had leen RATHBONE'S footman. But he
received a proper )Ibuke. The Mayor came, looked
coldly, bowed fortnall and stiffly, and then—exit DANIEL
and his Friend ill an unenviable fit of shivering. They
entered warmly and boldly, but came out—quaking
All this must be as well known to our contemporary as
it is to us, and therefore the great folly on his part to re-
vive the subject, and give us an opportunity of making
the facts still more extensively known. It was the treat-
ment which O'CONNELL experienced in the Town-hall
and Exchange-rooms of Liverpool which detained him so
long on the road to Birmingham that he did not arrive
until the dinner was devoured and the guests more than
half-seas-over. His ,reception'here travelled faster than
, DANIEL. It reached Birmingham b6fore him ; and it
was the dread of a. similar reception by the conservatives
of that town which suggested the expediency of not ar-
riving until after it was dark, and his company had been
despaired of.
But in refer'ence to these men and matters the Chro-
nicle threatens.us I It threatens to itripale certain gen-
tlemen unless we spare Mr. Justice RATHBONE They
are to be tomahawked, unless we desist from wounding
the render feelings and nice sensibilities of the peace-
loving and peace-preserving assailant of General GAs-
COYNE ! This is a curious way of executing the duties
of a whig journalist. But hear its own words:—

"But we will not be satisfied in future, if the things go on, to
retaliate upon beardless boys and nursery vipers. We will fix
upon the* leaders•of the party—for they all encourage the pro-
Ceedings of their bantling paper. And we ask how Mr. John
Moss, Mr. George Grant, Mr. Sandbach, Mr. Ilorsfall, and
Mr. Lawrence, will like to be the heroes of such a rabid article
as that which appe►►red on Tuesday? They may depend upon it.
we will take them in hand, if they do not Wei:fere, and they are
all much more vulnerable than Mr. Itathbotte, inasmuch as they
are all infinitely his inferiors in character, talent, respectability,
and every attainment, moral and intellectual."
The .scribe of the Chronicle makes a mistake here.
The LIVERPOOL STANDARD does not ride upon the cable
of any man or set of men; and the gentlemen above
named, and thus menaced, as a sturdy beggar would
threaten a defenceless passenger in a lonely road, have
no more control over us than the proprietors of the Chro-
nicle themselves. We might indeed have better grounds
for making two disappointed parsons and a certain sti-
pendiary responsible for the abusive articles in the Chro-
nicle than they can have for making any merchants or
bankers of Liverpool responsible fur ours. Our contem-
porary may therefore do his worst in his own way.