The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-27 00:00:00

14 7 17 10

General average.

4 10 to 5 11

A queer kind 'Of.. calculation this, Mr. Mercury,
as we shall endeavour to show you anon. In the
first instance you state, as you say, " upon high
authority," the freight from every port higher (by
is. per quarter) than it really is; and in the next
you introduce a shuffle into your calculation, which
stamps it as fraudulent. For what reason, pray,
do you specify separately the rates from Italy and
Odessa, the United States and Canada, whilst so
many of the ports of the North of Europe are com-
prised in a convenient " &c." ? Simply to raise
average. The bulk of the freight paid on foreign
corn—three-fourths of it—is paid at something less
than the rates in the three first lines of the state-
ment; and yet, by this Jesuitical juggle of figures,
we are to be made to believe that the average freight
paid is between five and six shillings. Average in-
deed ! A speculator would have a nice bargain
who should undertake to pay the freight of this, or
any other year's importations, according to such an
average !

But leaving this question of figures, with a re-
commendation to our contemporary to rub up his
arithmetic, we come to the use which the Mercury
makes of it. The lowest average freight is 4s. 10d.
Our contemporary then goes on to enume-
rate other charges to which the wheat is

subject, viz., Insurance
Expenses of delivery
Dock and Town Dues
Commission, 4 per cent. .. .
Ri-k of damage not covered by insurance . 1 6

Making a total of
Now to every one of these additional charges Bri-
tish wheat is equally subject with foreign ; and it is
quite beside the question at issue between Mr. San-
dars and the League—which is one as to the
amount of protection afforded to the British grower
by the cost of conveying foreign corn to this coun-
try—to introduce them at all.
We may remark, that the quantity of British corn
moved coastways and by canals, in England and
Ireland, and the amount thus paid by the British
farmer, are not generally known or reflected upon.
The port of London receives annually by sea be-
tween two and three millions of quarters (foreign
excluded). Upwards of a million quarters enter the
Aire and Calder navigation ; Liverpool and Glou-
cester receive another million ; and there are also
Glasgow, Newcastle, Leith, Plymouth, and Bristol,
to be supplied. Besides this, a quantity, greatly
exceeding the whole of the corn moved coastways,
is borne on canals and rivers for distances varying
from 20 to 100 miles. Yarmouth itself, one of the
greatest corn shipping ports in the world, receives
nearly a million quarters per annum down the
Yare ; and there is scarcely a town in either Eng-
land, Ireland, or Scotland, which does not contain
two or three, and sometimes twenty corn-dealers.

whose principal business it is thus to move corn
from one place to another. In fact, our internal
trade in the single article of corn greatly exceeds
that of our general trade with the whole world;
and it must be borne in mind, that the cost of that
trade, and of the transit of the article, must princi-
pally, and with foreign competition always, be
borne by the British grower.

At length, after nine nights' debate, and the
delivery of no less than SIXTY-THREE SPEECHES,
the motion of Lord John Russell has received its
deserved doom, by a majority of ninety-nine votes
in a house of five hundred and fifty-three members.
And, strange as his lordship may consider the fact,
we believe we may assure him that, defeated though
he is,—decisively and shamefully defeated—there is
scarcely a Conservative throughout her Majesty's
dominions, and certainly not one of her Majesty's
ministers, who does not from their inmost souls
thank him for the effort which he has made. The
sting of a gnat has been known to rouse a lethargic
man to exertion beneficial to his health; and the
peevish spitefulness of this human representative of
the gnat species has afforded an opportunity, to the
members of Sir Robert Peel's Government, of laying
before Parliament and the public an explanation and
vindication of their proceedings, in the recent trials
in Ireland, the most signal and triumphant ever
offered by any ministry within recollection. The
whole of the film of misrepresentation studiously
thrown round those proceedings by the organs of
the Whig-Radical party, is now scattered to the
winds; and all the effect which it has left behind is
the indignation of thousands of honourable men,
who, though opposed in principle to a Conservative
Government, would not stoop to a resort for its
overthrow to deception and falsehood.

And has his lordship, in this hour of his defeat
and shame, the poor consolation of reflecting that
he has earned from that man, at whose feet he has
abjectly licked the ground, one feeling of respect, or
one even of pity, for his abjectness and self sacri-
fice. He has not. At this moment Lord John
Russell knows that the convicted conspirator
despises alike him and his party with a depth of
contempt almost unfathomable. And his lordship
knows, moreover, that Daniel O'Connell is not the
man to confine his opinions and his feelings within
his own breast. By this time, in all probability,
the foul tongue which affixed the epithets " base,
bloody, and brutal " to the Whig Ministry of Earl
Grey, has declared to his fellow-countrymen the
grovelling meanness of the Whig opposition, and
heaped his obloquy with an unsparing hand upon
Lord John Russell, its leader.