The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-28 00:00:00

did we dwell on the subject. The fact is, that as a
Post-office or a Packet Station, Liverpool possesses
every conceivable advantage—so much so that the only
question really remaining is, whether the computed
distance from Falmouth to a port in the West Indies,
being somewhat less than from Liverpool, this solitary
circumstance ought to, or should outweigh all others ?
We submit that the bare possibility of a vessel arriving
at an inconvenient port (inconvenient in all other re-
spects) a few hours sooner than at a most convenient
and central one, ought not to produce this result. If
the interest of the many and the most interested, he
fairly taken into account, we conceive that Liverpool is
every way entitled to a preference as the station of the
intended packets. We claim it not as a favour merely
to the port, but as a measure of equal justice to the
commerce and interests of the entire kingdom. It is
true we regard it as an adjudication which would be
creditable and advantageous to the town—but we rest
our claims simply and soberly upon our deserts. If it
be given to us, we think we have fairly earned it. The
immense capital which Liverpool has invested in docks,
canals, and rail-ways—in river-navigation, and harbour
improvements ; the enterprize of her merchants, the
skill of her engineers, her ship-builders, and her
artisans—the industry of her population in every variety
of useful form ; these are the circumstances which
make us feel that we have fully paid the price of the
reward, and which will prevent us feeling elated by it
to any excess, although we shall certainly rejoice at the
event.

We have no wish to prolong the controversy—which
we did not commence—with our local contemporary
the Journal, especially as he distinctly admits nearly
all that we had ever ventured to maintain. He grants
that the observations which we quoted regarding the
police and morals of the town, in certain respects, were
no over-statements, but rather the reverse : he allows
that there is a lamentable extent of coarse profligacy,
and unredeemed vice of the lowest kind palpably to
be seen and notorious to the authorities : he has aban-
doned his own allegation that things were werse under
the " old regime ;" and he leaves his unfortunate
clients of the "new" to sink or swim, as best they
may, under the general observation that in some coun-
tries the governMents find it convenient to " connive"
at licentiousness. The gentlemen of the new regime,
we suspect, will not thank him much for the sort of
aegis he has thrown over them, and will be apt to say,
"save us from our friends." Our contemporary talks
of our misrepresenting him, and proceeds, in his last
number, very exactly to show that we did not in the
least misrepresent him. The spirit of his reasoning
is, that it is judicious on the part of the magistrate
sometimes to he a little blind, and he leaves it to be
inferred, that what we complain of as supineness or
neglect, is only a proof of singular wisdom and pru-
dence : he argues, in a word, in favour of a modified
connivance ; and it is of course by such a process of
argumentation that we conclude he means to justify

the Cato's of the Watch Committee or our local
government at large. Now, we regard such a defence
as, in itself, indefensible. We condemn all " con-
nivance," and hold all bargains, of whatever kind,
made with iniquity, to be in themselves iniquitous.
This is the French system ; it is practised in Paris on
a large scale at the present moment. There the
magistrate abundantly " connives ;" for houses of
infamous resort are publicly licensed. Our contempo-
rary will not say that there is any " officious inter-
ference with private morals" in that city. Well, is
public morality improved by that indulgent and con-
niving system ? Let the following sketch, made by a
few strokes of the pencil, but done by a master hand,
answer the question :
" In Paris, eight hundred thousand human beings
know religion only by name, or as P. picturesque rem-
nant of the olden time, singularly effective in stage
effect. The theatres every night teem with licentious-
ness and obscenity. The illegitimate births are rapidly
approaching to the legitimate,* and two or three dead
bodies are every morning fished out of the Seine, the
victims of disordered passion and unrestrained licen-

tiousness."

Such is Puris—where the magistrate connives ; and .
if such be the fruits of the system, all we say is,
defend our good town from it !
Our contemporary refers us to the times of the
Puritans; the laws against licentiousness, he says, were
then rigidly enforced, hut "it is very questionable
that they made the people more virtuous; they pro-
duced hypocrisy—made-the name of religion odious—
and, in short, only worked out the demonstration that
interference with private morals is injudicious."
Now, if our Watch Committee or the Council act
upon the principles thus set forth by their advocate in
the Liverpool Journal, we do not wonder that he has
run away from his position that " things were worse
under the old regime ;" it would be strange indeed if
they were. Suppress vice by connivance ! Why; the
thing is monstrous. We really cannot understand
such Machiavelism—such Jesuit morals. We did not
imagine that any thing so paradoxical had obtained
within the Council : lint if such really be the case,
and from the line of defence taken by their advocate,
we are justified in concluding that such is the case—
then we appeal to all the respectable inhabitants of the
town, and especially to the municipal electors, that it is
high time to turn out all such Machiavelian Councillors.
Out with them, we say; there will be neither luck nor
grace about us till we get them out.
But the Journal asks what reason we have for ex-
pecting results more favourable from a conservative
council—being, himself, quite at a loss to conjecture.
We answer, because in the first place we shall have
men in who repudiate this connivance system as utterly
as we do. What could we do with a party holding
such a doctrine ? How should we appeal to them ?
Did we point out some atrocious case, or grevious
nuisance, they would turn round upon us perhaps, and
say they must not interfere with " private morals,"
that such " meddling" was injudicious, and- that we
were mere " Prynnes and Puritans" to whom no liberal
man would pay the smallest attention. Having to deal
with such parties, we must despair of all improvement;
we must inevitably go on from bad to worse ; there is
no common standard of principle between us to which

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LONDON TIMES.

we can appeal.
With a Conservative Council, the case will be
different; the subject will be anxiously considered ;
religious instruction, the want of which lies at the
root of the evil, will be cared for; the great evil of multi-
tudinous beer and girl shops will be at least mitigated—
and from men avowing, and we trust sincerely main-
taining church principles, we shall look for all such
conduct as may serve to improve this great town in
this and every other respect, in which improvement is
wanting. Of a liberal council, we can make nothing ;
it is neither fish, nor flesh; their very best advocates
can say nothing for them—but what, in our humble
opinion, should doubly damn them. We wish to see
Liverpool great in all respects—as distinguished for
the excellence of its police and public as well as private
decorum, as it is for its docks, its industry, its vast
wealth, and commerce; and for this purpose we repeat
that a Conservative local government, acting with some
boldness in Conservative principles, is essentially
necessary.

* They are now as 12 to 19 in Paris. In London, as 1
to 3S.

SlR,—Having read some excellent observations in this
day's Times on the subject of the tinance and paper cur-
rency bankinc, system, &c., and your quotation from Lord
Stanley's able picture of the working of a paper currency
during the last seven years, in his late speech at Lancaster, I
beg leave to inform you, that as I have thought and read
much on the subject, and being anxious to support the pre-
sent conservative ministers as far as any man not an M.P.
can do, as well as from the anxiety I always feel for the pros-
perity of our still great country, I lately submitted to Sir R.
Peel a mode by which I am convinced he could raise
30,000,000 or more without loan, or having one shilling of
interest to pay.
This may startle you; and when I tell you that my pro-
fession is military, you may possibly laugh at me, and say,
"Ne sutor ultra crepidam." To expect that, at such a mo-
ment, Sir Robert could possibly give the plan the required
consideration, would be unreasonable ; and, though not un-
der any promise of secrecy, I think myself bound " not to
divulge the details of my plan" at present; and should he
hereafter adopt it, or any part, all I ask is the credit of the
suggestion ; but should he reject it, which may be probable,
then 1 shall think myself at liberty to lay it before the public.
But I think I cannot be blamed for thus publicly stating,
that on reading these words in your observations, viz.,—" It
is unquestionably a growing feeling that the Queen's govern-
ment ought to keep the sole power of coining money, whe-
ther in gold .or in paper, in its own hands, subject to the
constant inspection of parliament," I cannot, I repeat it, be
blamed for telling you that on those very words my plan is
based, I have the honour to be your most obedient servant,
G. COCKBURN, Geperal.
Senior United Service Club, Sept. 24.