The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-08-09 00:00:00

CONTEMPOI?ARY PRESS.

It is very fit that the public should mark the legisla-
tive efforts of Mr. O'Connell's favourite for the lord-
lieutenancy of Ireland, if, peradventure, anything un-
toward should befal that miracle of political soundness
and sagacity who now sways the vice-regal sceptre. The
Stafford Disfranchisement bill which was turned out of
the House of Lords on Thursday evening is certainly a
beautiful specimen of justice for England which the
noisy clamourer for " jt st ce for Ireland" most especially
admires. We cannot buy congratulate the most noble
the Marquis of Clanricalth on the proof he afforded that
Mr. O'Connell's partiality is founded upon a perfect har-
mony of sense and sentiment. If the brawling beggar-
man admired the noble lord before how he must love
him now !

The Marquis of Clanricarde is Ariel of the House of
Lords. He had but just descended from a flight in the
clouds when, alighting gracefully in his place, he pro-
posed to their lordships to read a second time the bill
which, with signal celerity, he had prepared for disfran-
chising the only people connected with the late Stafford
elections who did not deserve to be disfranchised. Any
one, from a perusal of the bill, might have thought that
its noble author was still winging his airy flight through
supernal regions. His understanding, at all events,
must have been in nubibus when he composed such a
bill. It is not for us to say that a noble person who has
just been up in a balloon is incapable of taking an ele-
vated view of any subject, but assuredly if his views
were lofty in the preparation of this bill they were ex-
ceeding obscure so far as common sense and common jus-
tice are concerned.

Either the excessive impudence of certain whig per-
sonages who have been connected with Stafford goes be-
yond what even we could have imagined—and we allow
them no short measure—or they must feel little obliged
to their cloud traversing friend in the Upper House for
his meddling with the election affairs of that town. We
rather suspect that their Arzel is not found "correspon-
dent to command," nor that he does his " spiriting
gently" as they could wish. We dare swear that his
majesty's attorney-general would not have moved for a
writ of habeas corpus, directed to Mr. Green, in cloud
land, though he had kept the noble lord up in his balloon
until after the prorogation. His lordship is, indeed, a
most unlucky friend to his party, and is, we dare say, on
-that account not the less a favourite of Mr. O'Connell.
That very honest person, though he permits the whigs
to reign for his convenience, will not be suspected of lik-
ing anyone the less for bringing them into odium and
contempt.
Be Lord Clanricarde's efforts, however, pleasant or
the contrary, to the heads or tails of the administration,
it is worth while to consider for a brief space the sort of
legislation which so very liberal a senator would bestow
upon us, if he were allowed to do so. His grace the
Duke of Wellington described the bill admirably. He
said it put forth some very curious principles; and un-
doubtedly so it did. It ought to be preserved in all cabi-
nets of political curiosities, as an unusually complete
specimen of liberal justice. It assumed bribery and cor-
ruption to have existed in Stafford, which, indeed, was
reasonable enough, after the evidence which has been
brought forward of the intromission of Sir J. Campbell,
Knight, with the delicate purity of electors. But what
did the bill then do ? Did it provide punishment for all
who had been, or might be, proved guilty of bribery and
corruption ? No ; that might have touched some whom
that " tricksy spirit" the Marquis of Clanricarde would not
for the world intentionally wound. The punishment was
directed against the " burgesses and freemen." It doom
ed them all, at one fell swoop, the innocent as well as the
guilty; but not a word was said of those who, if the bur-
gesses and freemen were guilty, had been particeps
criminis, namely, the persons who had bribed them. Sir
J. Campbell, Knt., and his goodly whig companions were
to escape; but what, it may be asked, was the offence of
the burgesses and freemen, that they should have pro-
voked the peculiar and wholesale wrath of the soaring
Marquis of Clanricarde ? They are the old class of voters,
whose privilege is not derived from the reform bill. This
is their peculiar offence. There was no clause to hinder
them from being re-elected burgesses under the munici •
pal corporation bill, however guilty they might have
been; because, unless they were whig-radicals, there
was no chance of that, and whig-radicalism is that sub-
stitute for charity with such men as Lord Clanricarde
which covers a multitude of sins. But it was resolved
that voters who were not the creatures of the reform bill
should be swept away.
We have already remarked that the bribers were
wholly passed over in the proposed penal bill—the bribers
were whigs. But the bribed also, provided they hap-
pened to be of the "ten-pound householder" class of
voters, also escaped, -because they are also of the political
class which the noble and liberal framer of the bill could
.not bring his sense of justice to touch !
Thus we find a disfranchisement bill, which proposed
to punish certain persons, against some of whom no par-
ticle of guilt had been proved, and wholly refrained from
punishing the principal delinquents against whom guilt
had been proved, as well as leaving out a whole class of
voters of whom the general corruption was not a whit
less than that of the
class against which the penalties
were provided. is the justice of that liberal person-
age-i;vhom Mr. O'Connell would like for Lord Lieute-
nant of Ireland, in older that his cry of justice for that
kingdom might be satisfied. What an accurate and
righteous judge he is we may thus very plainly see.
And what we may also very plainly see with regard to
Lord Clanricarde is, that, however eminently he may be
to shine at an ecarte table, or at a steeple chase, or may-
hap in navigating a balloon, he is as contemptible a blun
derer in affairs of legislation as any man who has the
privilege of legislating.—Morning Post.

EPIGRAM
ON THE BOAST OF THE CHURCH OF ROME THAT THE GATES
OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST HER.

In that proud boast thou speakest well,
Thou need'st not fear the gates of hell;
What power ac'ainst its own would wage
A war of self-destructive rage?
Yet vain that trust, and that affiance
On Satan's friendship—hell's alliance;
Omnipotence shall lay thee low,
Heaven's gates, not hell's, shall deal the blow.
Dublin Evening Mail.

PROPERTY lIN GREAT BitITAIN AND IRELAND.

IMMOVABLE CAPITAL.
Property in land
Ditto in h0u5e5604,733,278
Ditto in funds, banks, &c 932,000,000
Ditto in canals, railroads, &c 118,000,000

£3,971,C56,218

MOVABLE PROPERTY.
In furniture, apparel, &e. ........ £975,874,277
In farmers' stock. .............. 654,8%3.730
Capital in manufactures ........ 201,000,00(
Stock in shops, warehouses, &c 350,000,000
Capital in ships.. ....... . ..... 33,573,032

£2,215,281,039

Grand Total of Property for England & Ireland £6,186,937,257
_M<Queen,s Statisties of the British, Empire.

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