The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-10-18 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

The report of General Goblet to the Chamber of Re-
presentatives at Brussels on the state of the negotiations
with Holland has already appeared in our columns. We
remarked at the time that the poor envoy was actually
called upon fur his accounts before he had had time to
make himself decent after his voyage by a change of linen.
Happily to revolutionists such a trifling affair is a matter
of luxury, but not as is well known of necessity. It cer-
tainly appeared to us a diplomatic indecency so to hurry
on to an unreserved exposure of all the proceedings of the
conference charged with the regulation of the disputes of
the Netherlands.
The censures which we hazarded, and which common
sense dictated, have not it appears been undeserved. W e
are informed by the Staats Courant of Amsterdam, that
the state of the negotiations between Holland, Belgium,
and the Conference were, not being determined, to be
kept a profound secret. Those who remember the pub-
lications of Lord Palmerston and M. Van de Weyer on
very recent occasions, will not be surprised that such a
proviso should be introduced ; but as laws, like cobwebs,
are made to be broken through, the Belgians have brave-
ly' trespassed on the common commandment, and published
the secrets of the prison-house according to their own
views of the question. As an earnest of good faith in the:
prosecution of one engagement, the Belgians have Com-.
menced by violating another. The Journal de la Haye
contains a masterly exposure of this conduct of Messrs.
Goblet and Van de Weyer, which had we received it
earlier we should have made a point of transferring to our

columns.
Among the stipulations dictated by the Conference
itself, the King of Holland was engaged to produce the
act of adhesion of the Germanic Diet (in the affair of
Luxemburg) at the moment of the signature of the de•
finitive treaty. As only one of the singularities of the
foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, the immediate con-
sequence of this stipulation was, that in lieu of being the:
last and contingent article of a treaty to be concluded, it
became the stumbling-block of the negotiations. Sixteen
of the t wenty four articles adjudicated by France and
England had been discussed, and with trifling modifica-
tions or reserves agreed upon; and there remained only
the more substantial and important matters to treat
embodied in the 9th, 11 th, 12th, 13th, and 14th sections
of the pact of the 15th November, when a stay was placed.
to further progress, by the absurd as well as disloyal
pretence of advancing a collateral and contingent pro-
vision, to the dignity of an article of primary import in
the remaining discussions. The navigation of the Scheldt,
the peages, the pilotage, and the balisage (regulation of
the buoys) of this river; the use of the canals which tra-
verse the two countries; the communications by Maes-
tricht ; the new route by Sittard ; the repartition of the
debt, and certain liquidations connected with the sinking
fund; the repayment of advances made by Holland on
account of the joint debt since 1830 ;—all these vital
matters were postponed to the flimsy consideration of
securing the agreement of the Germanic Diet to a point
the least consequential of any which remained to be ad-
justed. In the whole annals of diplomacy and pettyfog-
ging, there cannot certainly be found a parallel to this
litigious spirit of the Tallevrand school, of which Lord
Palmerston is so apt a scholar and so short-sighted a dupe.
The Albion has the following :
" There are at this moment ten engineers in this country in
the pay of the French government, whose business here is to
snake plans and reports upon our various improvements for fa-
cilitating communication, and assisting manufacturing and
mercantile industry. Our system is different. Instead of learn-
ing to beat the French at their own weapons, (in manufactures
we mean, for in another sort of beating we have already shown
our proficiency,) we purchase the products of their industry,
though they will not purchase ours, and we send over Dr.
l3owring to learn book-keeping, and Mr. Poulett Thomson to
dine at St. Cloud."
Mr. Thomson, according_ to accounts, seems to delight
more in the purlieus of the pera at Paris, than in former
times he did in Anglo Chili shares, Greek bonds, or tallow.
—His amusements, we presume, are based upon the poli-
tico-economical principle of buying at the cheapest market
—France being confessedly the cheapest for fun and frolic
—and selling at the dearest—which England undoubt-
edly is for talent, if we accept for proof only what she
pays for such as he has it in his power to bring to market.
--.--Guardian and Ledger.