The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-01-10 00:00:00

ition of continuous

labour than merely cheap
working population of our colonies would, at this

he present

moment, perform task-work for half the exorbitant
rates now paid, and perform it just at their pleasure,
nt, the object of the planter would

do at T.

not be achieved. But admit that a permanent reduc-
he price of labour must be the result of the

tion of

extensive immigration ; yet look at the circumstances

which will accompany such reduction. In the first
place, the free negro, who has now become owner of a
plantation, can cultivate profitably for export ; and, in
time, this class must become a powerful middle class--
an important link binding together in amity the two
races, and perhaps destined ultimately to take the
place and perform the duties of the existing white race
in the tropics. In the second place, the working
negro, who limits the amount of his toil to his necessi-
ties, would be only mulcted of the opportunity to
indulge his luxurious indolence. No extent of immi-
gration that we can imagine as at all practicable could
have the effect of depressing his condition lower than
one which, to his race, is a condition to be envied.
Bear in mind, too, the encouraging fact, that every
African thus landed upon the shores of our West
Indian islands is a soul transported from barbarism
and slavery, to be placed within reach of the light of
the Gospel and the influence of civilization ! Bear in
mind the fact that every additional facility offered to
tropical cultivation by free labour is a rivet struck from
the fetters of the slave in foreign lands! Surely the
sincere philanthropist will cease to place obstacles in
the way of a consummation so blessed !

It is not, certainly, with any satisfaction that we
point to the large deficiency in the revenue for the
year ending the sth of January, 1842, as compared with
that of the year preceding. This total deficiency
amounts to no less a sum than £922,630, whilst that
for the quarter just ended is even more—viz., £940,062,
thus shewing, we think, that something more than

.dinary causes has been at work to produce the un-

satisfactory result exhibited. Undeniably the trade
and the circumstances of the country, during the past
three months, have been much.more prosperous than
during the preceding nine months of the year. But
still, bearing in mind that a great portion of the excess

of the last quarter over the present must have
been created by the amount received in duties
on foreign corn admitted into consumption, there
is certainly a great falling off to be accounted
for and lamented. In part, and especially as the
principal falling off is in the excise and customs,
we may refer to the unsettled state of the wine trade,
and to the effect of the new tariff. Apparently in-
creased consumption has not, as yet, made up the loss
incurred by the various reduced duties. In one im-
portant trade, too, the timber trade, importation has
been almost at a stand still, owing to a further reduc-
tion to be made this year. It is said, too, that consi-
derable reductions of expenditure have been made by
individuals, to meet the demands imposed upon them
by the income tax. Upon this explanation, however,
we place little weight, as the particular portions of the
revenue suffering are precisely those least likely to be
effected by such an imposition. The pressure of the
Income tax has, as yet, scarcely been felt'; and it is
more likely to tell upon the amount of assessed taxes,
than upon the excise or the customs.

We shall, no doubt, have the Io pavan of victory
ung by the advocates of the late ministry over the

government of Sir Robert Peel, on account of this
state of the national finances. The cachination, how-
ever, we would suggest, will be a little premature. No

man ever expected that the mere circumstance of a
Conservative minister being at the helm could at once
right the vessel engulfed, by reckless steering, in the
whirlpool. It would infinitely better become such
politicians to ask themselves—what would have been
the position of the country had its restoration to
financial solvency been left to be accomplished by the
sugar budget " of the Melbourne edministration—
if we had had no Income and Property Tax to fall back
upon ? We leave them to reply to the question.
There are one or two considerations which the
existing state of the national finances cannot fail to
force upon the national mind. These are, first—" have
we not arrived at the limit of the productiveness of
indirect taxation ?" and, secondly—" can free trade in
corn or in any other or all other commodities be longer
regarded apart from revenue considerations ?" We
merely glance at these questions, for the present; and
that they are not idle, the reader will perhaps admit,
whatever his political creed, when he finds such an
opinion as the following coming from the lips of so
eminent a free trade authority as the London Times
:
It seems to us," remarked the Times on Friday last;
" very clear, whatever our free trade friends may say,
that any alteration which nay be made in the corn-
laws, ought not to be made irrespective of financial
considerations. We 'cannot in these times afford to
throw away a revenue."

We give, in another place, a summary of the news
furnished us by the recent arrival from India and
China. It will be seen that the entire British army
has retired through the hostile passes of the Khyber,
with little difficulty, and with very inconsiderable loss
of life, having destroyed in their course the forts and
strongholds of the enemy, and established upon a firm
basis the prestige of its invincible power in India. :At
the time of the last letters from that quarter, the
troops were under orders to march through the Sikh
dominions; and, long before this date, the last British
soldier will have quitted—we trust for ever—the scene
and the neighbourhood of those disasters which,
though they have been in part wiped away from the
national mind by sdbsequent triumphs achieved, must
stand upon the page of history as so many damning
testimonies of the unfitness of whiff; statesmen—the
present rate at least—to rule the destinies of this coun-
try and of her vast colonial empire.
From China we gather little worthy of commenting
Affairs, as between the two countries, were in
statu quo, both parties waiting for the ratification of
the treaty between them by her Majesty the Queen.

The Report of the Paid Officers' Committee and the
debates in the Town Council thereon seem to have
displaced the garrulous self-satisfaction of the Albion,
and to have raised the Journal above his accustomed