The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-01-31 00:00:00

lace, &c.—for there your free trade would be one-,

He must 1

perrnittec

iOVCS,

these necessaries, as

Ito go to the cheapest market for

prepared for such a free trade ? Again the doctor cries,
"No monopoly !" Yet he is a monopolist ; for the

who is not a

licentiate of the Apothecaries Company and a member
of the Royal College of Surgeons has a right to bleed

,nule or set a

purge or poison any luckle

)ill or a draught,

being in these realm

You may import your singers, your artists, your actors,
your dancers and fiddlers, from the cheapest or the

dearest market, at pleasure ; but doctors are prohibited,
and, if caught exercising their art in Great Britain, arc
declared contraband!

There is really, when you come to examine it, vast
absurdity and infinite injustice in this perfect (!) theory
of universal free trade, as prated about by such smat-
terers as our learned doctor and his anti-monopoly
friends. For only concede what they demand ; sweep
away our entire fiscal cbde ; let the right to exchange

freely with foreign countries every commodity be
recognised ; let us have no customs duties, which are
all taxes upon food or articles of necessity or comfort ;
let us have nothing in the shape of a duty to restrict
our. dealings with the cheap markets of other countries:
—how, let us ask the philosophers of the League, is
the revenue of Great Britain to be raised ? Are we to

have direct taxation—a poll tax—a more stringent

income and property tax—increased window taxes—an
inhabited house • duty, or what ? Will they oblige us

at their grand display to-night with a reply ? Will
they tell us how they mean to patch up the dilapidated
revenue, which the success of their mad schemes would
create ? Is the debt to be sponged out ? Or what is
to be done ? 'We submit to these gentlemen—" all
honourable men"—all talented men—that these ques-
tions it is their duty to solve; and we cannot conceive
an opportunity more favourable than is offered by the
Amphitheatrical conglomeration of all the wisdom of
the nation, which is to be exhibited this day.
In conclusion, we hasten to correct an error into
which we have fallen in the course of these remarks.
We have said, in effect, that there was no undertaking
so mighty as to be beyond the reach of the eminent►
abilities or conceit of Doctor Blackburn. There is one
such undertakingone such office

It is the office of

Chancellor of the Exchequer; the duty of providing for
the wants of the State, and the claims qf the national
creditor, after the adoption of universal free trade.
But perhaps those gentlemen who exhibit such Violent
longings for increased commercial intercourse with
America, accompanied with no peculiar distaste to her
republican institutions, would not have any inordinate
dislike to imitate her Mode of settling with her public
creditors!

There is one department,—and that a most import-
ant one, of the business of the Dock Committee of Li-
verpool, which is conducted in a manner to us per-
fectly inexplicable. We have had reperted occasion to
refer to it, and we need scarcely explain that we allude
to the Engineering Department of that Committee.
With the knowledge which we possess of the duties
of the Dock Committee, we must confess that we have
viewed with some dislike and surprise a portion of their
proceedings on Thursday last, with respect to the exca-
vation of Albert Dock. By a reference to our Friday's
publication it will be seen that " the Snb-committee of
Works reported that Messrs. John Orrelll and Co. had
relinquished their• contract for excavating Albert Dock,
and recommended that an offer to make the excavation
from Mr. John Waring be accepted." Where, pray,
is such a system as we have described to be recognized
in the course of proceeding here revealed ? Messrs.
John Orrell and Co. relinquish their contract. Why ?
They had discovered, we are informed by the Chair-
man, " a mistake in their calculations, in consequence
of which they stated that they could not afford to do
the work." We are told, moreover, by the same gen-
tleman, that " if they took the work they would sustain
a loss of £4OOO or £5000." 'But where, we ask, are
their sureties ? What, asks Air. 'robin, becomes of
the penalty for the non-fulfilment of their contract ?
To both these questions the reply is perfectly conclu
sive : no contract has been signed !

Really, really, this is a very loose way of doing
things; a very'haphazard way of letting the execution
of any important work; for such the excavation in
question must be considered, when an oversight to cal-
culation could make the difference of four to five thou-
sand pounds in its cost.'