The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-07-13 00:00:00

n sued fo:

I boroughs, thi
and, th

npromises

old feuds of Whig
principle is neutralized by the

rid Tory staunched, even
return, by consent,

and to avoid the expense' and trouble of a contest
of parties of opposite politics. By a few constitu-
encies Whigs will walk in unopposed, where Con-
servatives, before their too general apostacy, were
certain of election. In short, throughout the
country, the men hitherto the most energetic
workers in election matters, refuse to stir, disgusted
with the disappointment which has followed their
past efforts, and evidently impressed with the con-
viction that there is no faith to be placed in the
professions or the promises of statesmen.
We have to lament this feeling as existing to

xtent i

ment threatens to dam

ting protestant and
constitutional consistency. Not later than last
week we confidently trusted, and expressed our
heartfelt gratification, that Liverpool would still be
enabled to emerge triumphantly from the efforts
which "liberalism" has for years making to
possess itself of—the representation of this loyal
borough. The unanimous resolve of the leaders of
the constitutional and Protestant party to support
their present tried and respected member, Sir
Howard Douglas, with Sir Digby Mackworth as
his colleague, afforded almost unlimited satisfaction
to the great majority of the constituency. We have
to-day. howe

and it develop-

verelv the character

mstituen

to record, and to lament over, a
step—the introduction of a third candidate, in the
person of Lord John Manners, who must rely upon
the church and constitutional party for support,
and hence divide and weaken that party—which
materially alters our prospects, and which, if per-
severed in, will inevitably result in defeat and
which every true friend of the good old

disaster

town must sincerely deplore.
We know not who are the moving parties in this
matter—who were the deputation to Lord John
Manners, or who are his leading supporters in the
attempt, to which he has been so injudiciously
invited, to divide and weaken the Conservative
strength of this constituency. We know as little
what are his claims upon Liverpool, in especial, be-
yond his talent, his amiability, his eloquence, and
his excellent moral character, which none deny him
to be possessed of, He is in favour of the main-
tenance of the Navigation Laws : so is our old and
tried member, Sir Howard Douglas, and so is Sir
rbv Mackworth. He is an advocate for protec-
ies, the commerce, and the native
equally so are both these

t snpporter of the
igla.nd, and of the insti-

an arc'
)f 1

Doug.

m, and the Church of
established by the Reformation, the

r Digby Mack-

10 matters con-

he Const

) longer on a parr

We ask, then,'which Of the candidates already
before the public is it that Lord John Manners is
brought forward to oppose, and on what particular
questions ? If it is to oppose the two Conservative
candidates, it cannot be upon the question of the
Navigation Laws, or protection to the colonial, com-
-,•cial, or industrial interests of the empire. It is
^t question, about which
s are anxious. The conclusion

not upon any othe

constautionali

then, must be that it is upon some question con-
nected with the established religion of the country,
with respect to which, more than any other ques-
tion, Lord John Manners has made himself promi-

nent in parliament, and before the country: Is it
his peculiar opinions with respect to the law of
mortmain which constitute his superior fitness to
represent the greatest commercial port of the em-
We should imagine that in this age of pro-

,ds, and by the merchants of Liverpool, the idea
of any portion of the youth and manhood of the
kingdom moping in monasteries, when so vast a
field for the employment of their energies in the
improvement of the condition of their fellow human
beings was offered them out of doors, would receive,

from such a constituency as this, little sympathy.
We fear greatly that Lord John Manners, or
some of the parties said to be his supporters here—

we know not either who or how
many y are—have been misled as to his chances
of success in this borough ; and we are certain,
from the character of his lordship, that, if he could
suppose that, by pressing his pretensions, he was
in the least placing our town in danger of being
subjected to Whig-Radical and anti-Church domi-
nation, he would at once withdraw from a position
so unseemly and injurious to interests which,

we repeat that
t

although in some points eccentric in his views, we
believe he has at heart, Lord John Manners is,

to submit to the indignity which some of the party
who have brought him forward have prepared for
him—the indignity of being placed in a respectable
position on the poll, only by the votes of parties
hostile to the church, of which he professes to be
so ardent a supporter=for we have heard it stated

that some of the party in question meditate
coalescing with the friends of Sir Thomas Birch !
We should think little, indeed, of the scion of the
house of Rutland if he could descend to this.
Since writing the above, we have been confi-
dently assured that Sir Howard Douglas declines
to come forward again for Liverpool ; and we have
received, at a late hour, a copy of an address from
Mr. Edward Cardwell, announcing his intention of

ng the votes of

)nstituency, which will

have little time to cans,

in detail, the

observe,

,isfaction, that he is op-
of the Roman Catholic

, .
clergy, and to any undt

ement of the ex-

tion Law

I—infin

Upon commercial and
e aware that he is well
better than the Whig candi-
mas Birch, can be supposed to be.

local quest
infori
slat

influen

upon_ a

y question which

his nativ

ill be feit in the proper

:r or whatever party may 1

.1. we understan

)eat the

lectors on 'Change at hal

of its promise and

performance; and
;11 has not contra-

John It

characteristic of his

)udizet

t the commencement of the sessior
loaded with choice and sovereigi
of legislation ; Irish Poor-law Bills, Nevi
• Amendment Bills, Registration Bills;
ight Bills, and other bills of all imaginary
,ome of these he has been able to reach
fh generally in a disfiit,,—,

unea early to slip from
)een found to have been
impracticable that they

back for e

1 comr

abandoned

an extraordinary
- -

tenacity, whil

Ist giving- up the minor fry with
a murmur, are almost the only ones which
possess any real value in the eyes of the country—
are measures which, if carved into a practicable
form by the wisdom of parliament, would have
been ample compensation for all the time and toil
frittered away in idle talk, and still more idle pro-

scarcel

mise, about the small matters which have almost
exclusively occupied the legislative attention.
One bill alone—the Health of '[owns' Bill—
would have sufficed for the past session, if produced

and carried in a comprehensive form. Yet, although
sickness has for months past been decimating our
population ; although the wretchedly filthy condi-
tion of nearly the whole of our large towns is now
universally acknowledged, as causing a large
portion of this sickness, the Health of Towns Bill,
at last, after being postponed from week to week,
promised to the house after this debate and that
debate, he is obliged at length to drop, because of
the want of time for its discussion and the requisite
modelling required for all bills which issue from
the Whig workshop.

There is, surely, something radically vicious in
the management which produces such results, and
which almost induces the belief in the public mind
that the legislature is a solemn mockery, and par-
liament only a debating club—an arena for intellec-

bual and oratorical glidiatorship. So far as Lord
John Russell is concerned, the cause of the failure

of this and others of his more important bills in
the present session is, that heshas undertaken, as
has been his invariable practice, too much. He has
fastened his hands with so many small matters,

that he has neither had opportunity to mature or
to produce his more important measures. There is
something, however, in the system upon which par-

_ business is conducted, which is conti-
nually causing such failures and retarding the pro-
gress of useful legislation. Every successive go-
vernment, of late years, has been enlarging its
control over the business, or what we may call the
artistic department of legislation. The govern-
ment now must originate everything of greater
importance than a railway, or an enclosure bill,
whilst private members, on the ministerial or on
the opposition benches, are merely idle spectators,
permitted to originate motions only which lead to
nothing beyond the waste of a few nights of public
time, Does any honourable member not endowed
with the nrescrintive wisdom xvhich is fabled to

amenta

reside exclusively in Downing-street, venture to
give notice of a bill having any general bearing
upon the interests of the nation, some minister
rises forthwith in his seat, and assures the house
that the government " have the subject under their
consideration, and will shortly be enabled to intro-
duce a bill," The member in question may have
devoted to the subject the attention of years ; he
may have a practical acquaintance with all its
details. But the members of the administration
are supposed to know everything by instinct, and
aspire to be the authors of every measure pro-
pounded to parliament. Accordingly, at the end
of the session, or when the time of the house is
already fully occupied, some crudely drawn up bill
is laid upon the table, read a first or a second time,
and then withdrawn as impracticable, to be intro-
duced next session in an improved form, or, in all
probability, never to be thought about again.
Suppose, however, that some member is hardy
enough to push a measure, which he esteems of
importance, and of which he conceives that he has
perfected the details, he is reminded one day that
government business must take precedence ; when
he selects a vacant day, there is sure to be some
obstacle or other intervened—a question asked by
some government de)endent, to which a minister

takes the opportunity of replying in a two hours'
speech, which is .so framed as to provoke a debate
by which the night is consumed. As the last
resource, there is the counting-out process.
If we are to get through any legislation at all in
future years, with the increasing mass of private
business, which railway and other bills create,
and of government bills, with which Ireland will
for some time, and until her social condition
is improved, abundantly supply us, we must
remodel the entire system of our legislation.
There are dozens of men in the present parliament
who are quite competent to undertake the framing
and conducting of measures of a

useful character,
which government arrogates to itself the exclusive
right to undertake—dozens of men, for instance,
who could frame and conduct a comprehensive
Sanatory Bill—resolved men who, not having
the fears of the livery, the aldermen .or the elect-
ors of the city of London before their eyes,
would not consent, as Lord John Russell con-
sented, to allow that city, which of all others
requires such a bill, to be exempted from its pro-
Another desideratum is that which, if