The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-24 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANUARIi.

• •

to 18-15 inclusive, as given in a return furnished by

THE LOSS OF THE COLONIES OF ENGLAND

the keeper of the Main Bridewell, Mr. Parkinson,
exhibits a similar decrease. In 1842, they were TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
much gratified iy
.your notice of my
6,029; in 1843. 4,950 ;in 1844, 4,582 ; and in R—la m
efforts v et
r y
humblelthis country
1845, 3,889. These tables, the Recorder remarks, to a sense of fataltheo awakenlowt the mechanics
to
be struck at their
would be consolatory, as sheaving that the number prosperity by Sir Robert Peel's measure.
of felonies had progressively diminished, were it Even the cotton trade will, I sincerely believe, be in-
not that other minor offences appear to have pro- jured from the first, although, as the employment in that
trade is chiefly to mechanics, girls, and children, the con-
gressively increased in number. In 1842 the num- sequences of failure or depression in it wilt not be so
her of persons charged before the magistrates with fearful or heartbreaking as would flow from wantof em-
' other offences than felonies amounted to 10,371 ; ployment for the II EN, the hardworking men of iIF • nning-
in 1843, 10,665 ; in 1844, 10,702 ; whilst in 1845 ham, Sheffield, &c.
it had increased to 12,854, or more than one-fourth I have no direct interest in agriculture or timber, either
over that of the year preceding. The Recorder in this country or in Canada,_ and, as Ido not return to
that colony, I may, perhaps, be permitted to escape from
adds, that the bright portion of the above picture is the imputation of what Mr.
Cobden
calls COLONIAL SELF-
already beginning to be clouded, the business of the ISIINESS.
Quarter Sessions having increased since October My interest, as a shipper of British goods, is, in fact,
last—a circumstance which we may again attribute identical with that of the maker of these goods; for if his
in part to the changed circumstances of our popu- manufacture is beaten out of Canada, (either through fo-
reign goods, while it remains a colony, or by American
lation. tariffs, after Canada shall have become a State of the
With respect to the great increase in the number Union,) my trade as an importer of British goods (not a
of persons charged before the magistrates during foreign merchant) is also extinguished.
the past four years with minor offences, we believe Now as free trade in England means also free trade in
the colony with all the world, and as the extra or protec-
tive may in part be accounted for without the suppo-
sition that any material increase of criminality has manufactureslve duties
preventsfroritierir .Englishafanvaiarnoofwreee i
taken place. It is, however, a sufficiently appalling ing her cotton and coarse woollen fabrics, loaf sugar, &c.
state of things, when we find that fully five per cent. &c. from America, and many other manufactures and
of the population of this great and flourishing town productions of continental countries, including cutlery and
other German hardware, it follows that, as merchants, we
are yearly arraigned before the bar of justice ; and
must either be driven by Sir Robert Peel's measure to buy
in
it ought strongly to urge upon the authorities the America, Germany, &c. &c., or be driven out of the
necessity of vigorous measures for the amelioration i trade.

of the moral and social condition of that population.
Whilst admitting this, and willing to offer our hum-
ble advocacy in behalf of an effort to improve its
condition, we cannot go the length, which some of
our contemporaries go, of placing Liverpool lower
than the average of large towns in the scale of mo-
rality. We believe, on the contrary, that Liverpool,
so far as its native population goes, is far from being
in that position, notwithstanding what is alleged of
the temptations in which it abounds, from the cir-
cumstance of " its docks being unenclosed "
(strange that, even in discussing such a question as
this, local faction must, by men of some grades of
mind, be introduced !) It should be borne in mind,
whilst looking at this question, that in this town we
have a large migratory Irish population, herding
together in cellars and courts, indulging, if em-
ployed, in continual outrage, which brings them
into the clutch of the law, or, if unemployed, and
consequently steeped in wretchedness, urged to

crime by their very misery. We have also a con-
,
stantinflux of sailors from every clime, whose pro-
verbial improvidence and ignorance of the snares of
life ashore render them absolute decoys to crime.
Above all, it must be remembered, as a circumstance
to be deplored, that in this town—unlike most other
large towns of the empire—we are almost totally
without the means of employment for the mass of
our juvenile population, who, as an invariable
consequence of idleness and want of parental super-
vision, fall into courses of petty crime at the onset,
and ultimately furnish a large proportion of those
confirmed offenders who fill our prisons and swell
the list of our police cases.
As a remedy for the latter sad feature in our local
statistics of crime, the Recorder recommends im-
proved prison discipline, the classification of pri-
soners, and, as necessary to carry out these views,
an enlarged and more commodious place of tempo-
rary confinement and punishment. We have ex-
pressed our opinion upon this subject, in a recent
article commenting upon the movement made for
carrying out the same object by the corporation of
the City of London. We want, quite as much as
we want prisons, properly so called, reformatory
establishments, in which the juvenile offender against
the law could be placed temporarily, and from which
he might come out again free from the gaol-bird
taint, and with improved habits and means of re-
acquiring—or acquiring, if he had never had it—
an opportunity of earning his bread honestly. With
such an institution, or two or three such, properly
conducted, we are not at all certain that any greatly
enlarged means of gaol accommodation will, after a
time, be needed. As an adjunct to such institution,
or institutions, it would be well worth the while of

philanthropic men and capitalists to inquire whether
the locality of Liverpool might not be made availa-
ble as the seat of many branches of industry, in
which our juvenile population might be employed,
advantageously to the community, and profitably to
themselves.
We render our unqualified meed of approbation
to the Recorder for his truly humane conduct in
calling the attention of the public to this vital ques-
tion. In doing so, however, with all our respect
for his humane character and ability, we cannot
give up our own convictions, which are opposed to
the idea of any great object, so far as reformation
of offenders is concerned, being gained by solitary
confinement, or any other of the modern specifics
for bringing about this grand desideratum. A vir-
tuous and a comfortable home is, after all, the only
really effective place of cure for juvenile depravity.
Example is better than coercion; and if we do not
carry into the dwelling of the parent that infallible
instrumentality which cleanses both the moral and
the physical being, we fear that we shall try in vain
to wean the child from crime, or to place him in
his just position as a responsible being.

THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE AND THE
REV. HUGH M'NEILE.

The latter is the alternative which, as an individual, I
shall adopt, because the moment that I see free trade in-
troduced into England I shall see danger to life and pro-
perty, before very long, in reserve for Canada in achieving
her independence, (which I have no confidence the good
sense of England would allow to be brought about peace-
ably, although no man could show any, the slightest
interest British America will have in continued connection
with this country, but quite the reverse, after the colonial
or protective system is broken down.)
When Canada is lost to England we shall have to pay
for our timber in gold, (instead of in manufactures as at
present,) just as we pay for three-fourths of our raw cot-
ton from the United States ; but who can assure us that,
EVEN FOR CASH, we could always get a supply of timber
from foreign countries !
It is well ascertained that the Baltic alone could not
furnish the supply now required, say two millions of
loads, (although we were always at peace with these
continental powers,) so that we must depend on North
America for a lame share of the timber wanted in Eng-
land. But Sir Robert Peel forgets that, in 1869, the
public mind of England was convulsed on the subject of
timber.

A local contemporary has expressed his dissatisfaction
with some portions of the third edition of this admirable
and universally read discourse, on account of its " unge-
nerous feeling," and likelihood to beget an ".ungentle
feeling." Such, however, is not by any maans the opinion
of the public generally, nor of the press. The following
extract from an excellent review of the sermon in the
Nonconformist paper of Wednesday, is as generous and
honest as it is correct and deserved.
" We notice this sermon because we like its tone. Mr.lll'Neile
is decided in his views, and in his expressions of them. He is
seldom caught doubting or hesitating. What with many would
amount only to a probability is with him a " demonstration."
He is a thorough Churchman, has very fixed notions respecting
Dissent, and Voluntaryism, and Independency, and is not-afraid
or ashamed of giving utterance to them. And yet there is not a
single word that we recollect which. as Nonconformists, we
could honestly object to, in the sermon before us. We differ
from the preacher, but cannot say that we disapprove of his
language or his temper."
Our contemporary then candidly states the leading fea-
tures of Mr. M'Neile's arguments, and recommends his
readers to peruse the sermon.

The enmity of the governments of the Baltic cut off our
supply, and the price rose from 4:5 to £l6 10s. per lead.
Parliament was called, but instead of following Sir
Robert Peel's fret-trade course, the statesmen of that day
raised the protection to colonial timber from 20s. 9d. to
575. 4d. per load, and gradually British timber was pre-
pared, through the erection of immense saw-mills and
other lumbering establishments, at a vast outlay of British
capital in Canada and New Brunswick, and imported in
sufficient quantity to regulate the trade (say two-thirds of
the whole). The price was thus permanently reduced, as
low as ever it was when the entire supply was foreign,
paying only a duty of 10s. 11d. per load ! before the day
of England's necessity drove her to raise up, by protec-
tion to British labour, in the forests of British America,
that great national interest which is now being given to
the Americans by our adoption of the anti-British theory
of free-trade.
The effect of free-trade and its consequences (on the
currency, &c.) in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
Glasgow, &c., will be utter and irreparable ruin to tens
of thousands of the most deserving and hard-working
men in the world, which I view afar more serious conse-
quence than the loss to the British empire, and the gain
to the A►nericar. republic, of three thousand ships and
sixty thousand sailors.
The free-trader may tell us that gold does not go to
America, but he is too intelligent not to know that it goes
to the Continent to pay for luxuries sent to America, and
for which America cannot pay by any other possible
means than through drafts on England, or English gold.
America draws these drafts on us to more than double
as great an amount as we send her goods, so that there is
at least two-thirds the nominal amount of the American
trade, wsi'cts YIELDS NO EMPLOYMENT OR PROFIT TO
THE English artizmi.
If, through the loss of Canada and the West Indies,
two other great staples, timber and sugar, were put in
this position, there would be no safety (even as a matter
of simple existence) for our over supply of English arti-
zans, hut in their transferring themselves to the United
States, to get under shelter of the protection of the Ame-
rican tariff.

It is my sincere belief, that time is all that is required
to show that FREE-TRADE IS SUICIDE ON THE PART
ON THE PART OF BRITISH ARTIZANS, and that by not
preferring a moderate protection to out and out free-trade,
the liberal party will become very unpopular in this
country.
There is no man on either side of party politics who
understands the practical interests of the empire better
than Sir Howard Douglas, and no one expresses them so
well. In his speech on the late debate, Sir Howard
Douglas explains the true policy of England
The whole amount of manufactures exported to India does
not at present exceed .•"8,000,000; iu 1841, £7,691,666, includ-
ing- Ceylon. If we were to encourage, as we might, the natural
productions of British India, to enable her the better to pay for
British goods, there is scarcely any assignable limit to the in-
crease of that vast market of consumption for the production of
British industry; the demand for British cotton goods. in particu-
lar, if the population took but at the rate of Its. per he. d, would
amount to re51i,00.,,000 sterling ; and the demand for woollens,
silks, pottery, glass, plated wares, cutlery, iron, brass, and
copper implements, and an infinity of articles for domestic use,
would be prodigiously increased."
Let us take Sir Howard Douglas's advice, and endea-
vour to give employment to British subjects instead of
foreigners. Let us reorganise the Colonial system (which
is the cause of England's power and greatness) on the
principle of moderate protection.
Let us prefer to produce our cotton, sugar, timber, &c.
from the labour of British subjects, who have British ha-
bits, and consume British manufactures entirely, rather
than from the degraded labour of the American slave ;
and then our demand will be for manufactures and not
for gold, the national currency will get out of the present
feverish excited state, which gives no dependance to the
manufacture r, and keeps the labouring class always within
a few weeks of absolute want.
At present it is no matter how good and certain a mer-
chant's prospects are of disposing of goods, he cannot buy
them if the British money market is deranged, or, in other
words, if specie (which is the groundwork on which is
built all confidence and credit) is being exported to foreign
countries, or beyond the limit of the home and Colonial
trade,

_
Even the comparatively slight trial we have had of the
fruits of Our HIGHLY-WEIGHTED ARI IZAN BEING RUN
AGAINST THE UNBURDENED FOREIGNER, has been what
I call ruinous both to the minds and bodies of the people.
The aggregate capital in England, Ts true, has been in-
creased, but it has found its way into the hands of the
money-lenders, with whom the manufacturer now shares
his profit, and none of it has remained in the pockets of
the working classes, who, in fact, are getting more and
more crushed in their circumstances and degraded in their
moral and intellectual condition. Rather tha❑ buy our
commercial pre-eminence at so dear a price as the distress
of the working classes and a continuance of over produc-
tion, let us, by a parliamentary grant of the public money,
(a million pounds a year, if that were necessary,) in sup-
port of Scnooes OF EXPERIMENT, (with their travellers
and ramifications all over the world,) make, and educate
the people in, those advances in manufacturing science
and knowledge, which are found necessary to keep us first
among the nations.
Rather than not have a radical change in our systems,
and to enable it to be attempted safely,. I would support
the minister in laying on an income tax for three years, of
twenty per cent. for the first year, 15 per cent. for the se-
cond year, ten per cent. for the third year, to enable him
to construct an immense system of emigration to the co-
lonies, to push forward our colonial cotton and other pro-
ductions, and to ameliorate in every possible way the con-
dition of the industrious classes in the manufacturing dis-
tjicts and Ireland.
There never was before so glorious an opportunity as
the present for this country to return to homely and
sound principles, and there may never be again.
The effect of the construction of railways on the LABOUR
MARKET is such that (independent of Sir Robert Peel and
the political economists) every man, woman, and child
can get employment and high wages, and that at a time
when there is scarcely one article of manufacture for
which there is one-half the demand usually experienced at
this season of the year.
But the construction of railways, like foreign trade, is
at best but a temporary employment for a population,
and if GREAT NATIONAL means be not now taken to pro-
vide permanent outlets both for the people and their la-
bour, it is easy to foresee that wretchedness and distress
among all classes of the community, will by-and-by be
greater, more severe, and more lasting (so overwhelming
now is the increase of our population) than we have ever
before experienced in the worst times ; nor will it matter
whether nominally the colonial system or the theory of
free trade is in operation.
The agricultural interest of this country was at a cer-
tain disadvantage in fighting the battle of protection as a
matter of merely agricultural selfishness; but they will,
be sure to triumph at a general election if they ask for a
five shillings' protection to British and Colonial corn as
THE ONLY CONDITION ON WHICH THE COLONIES CAN
BE RETAINED, AND, AS A CONSEQUENCE, OUR NAVAL
POWER SUPPORTED, coupled with their defence of the
British artizan from the cruel competition of the fo-
reigner, with which Sir Robert Peel's bill threatens him,
the foreigner having the run of the British markets for
his surplus labour or sweepings (which can afford to be
sacrificed), while the British weaver and mechanic is ex-
cluded from the foreign market.
A truly British party, now starting up under whatever
name, will get the support of the working classes, who
are tired of the present SYSTEMS OF MEN " (as they
get tired of quack doctors and their specifics). If that
party (kindly descending from the distance and coldness
of abstract theories, or, in other words, of mere political
economy) will pass a. NINE OR TEN HOURS BILL, and by
parliamentary grant will provide intellectual employment,
with' the means of health and recreation for the poor in
those hours of happiness, which they have been the bles-
sed means of calling into existence.
Let the new government also pledge parliament to give
half a million each year to a NATIONAL SYSTEM OF COLO-
NISATION.
Let them so systematise matters that, through the la-
bour of a British colonial population, we will each year be

LORD GEORGE BENTINCK AND THE CORN

AND CUSTOMS' DEBATE

We believe there were very'few persons, either in or out
of Parliament, who, a month ago, were prepared to give
the above noble member for King's Lynn credit for a
tithe of the statesmanlike ability which he has displayed
throughout this debate. Like Lord Palmerston, his lord-
ship appears to have sprung at once into a knowledge of
his own powers, and has certainly taken up a position in
the house second to that of few of the party amongst whom
he has ranged himself. In the debate on Friday night,
upon the subject of the timber dnties, he displayed an
amount of business knowledge, and acquaintance with facts
and fiaures relating to an important branch of commerce,
which reflected upon his industry and talent. A great
portion of the statistics, which he quoted with admirable
lucidness of arrangement, we observe his lordship stated,
had been furnished him by Mr. Rankin of this town, who
certainly could not have placed them in better hands, well
calculated, although they were in themselves, from the
importance of the house from which they emanated, to
have great weight with parliament and the public.

ST. JUDES' CHURCH SCHOOLS.—The Rev. Hugh
M`Neile will preach the annual sermons at St. Judes'
Church, on behalf of these excellent schools, on Sunday
morning and evening next. _ _ _

CHRIST CHURCH SCHOOLS.—On Sunday last, the
annual sermons were preached in Christ Church, in be-
half of the schools in connection with the church, by the
Rev. Fielding Ould and the Rev. Hugh M`Neile. The
congregations on both occasions were large and attentive,
The collection in the morning amounted to £45 75., and
in the evening to £4O, being the largest amounts received
at the church for many years.
SUSPICIOUS DISCOVERY ON CHATHAM ISLAND.—A
letter received at Lloyd's, dated Guatimala, Dec. 3, 1845,
mentions the discovery, by the Captain of the "Black
Cat," of London, at the Gallapagas Islands, of a number
of watercasks, and some spars, v hich had been carried in-
land, belonging apparently to a vessel of 180 to 200 guns.
A heap of cinders was also found, where a fire had been
burning, in which valuable sextants, compasses, &c., had
been destroyed, along with a quantity of gold buttons to
the weight of two ounces, which the captain brought away.
Several casks of stores, hardware, &c., were found buried
near the spot. No accurate conjecture can be formed as
to the ship, or the cause of her destruction.
We noticed in our paper a short time ago, that the
crewe of the barque Portland, of London, had been saved
and brought to Liverpool by the Denison, Captain King,
from Demerara. Since then we have been favoured with
a copy of the following letter from the captain of this
barque to Captain King :

" Irvine, March 14th, 1846.
" DEAR SlR,—Accept of sincere and heartfelt thanks for the
great kindness which 1 and my crew experienced when on
board of your ship, and more especially for sending your boat
and men, at the peril of their lives, to rescue us from our dan-
gerous situation. May it never be your lot to be so situated,
but as there is no telling what a day may bring forth, if ever
yon should be 29, and a' me sail heave in sight, may it be done
to you as Ikn ,w you would do to them. I am sorry. I have
nothing but thanks to carer you, but if my prayers availed
aught, you have them. That God may bless and prosper you
and yours, and give you fair and favourabl sales, untainted by
adversitz, sickness, or sorrow, to wait yna wont this transient
stream of life, shall ever be the fervent and prayer of your
riuskt obliged and anxious well-wham
U. WALLISTEIti
'' To captain William EIJI,