The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-06-12 00:00:00

JUNE 12, L 5335.

less unjust than that which we have impressed, for the
snke of argument, as applicable to the Bank of England.
The stranger, the out-dweller, the unfranchised have no
more right to participate in the privileges and immunities
of corporations than have the shopkeepers of Cheapside, be-
ing natives of Nottingham, Birmingham, or Carlisle, to
participate in the privileges of the shareholders of t! e
Bank of England. But as regards Lord JOHN.S bill itis
not simply participation. It is robbery. It is not an
enlargement of rights—it is a transference of rights,
from one party in possessiOn*, to another party not in
possession, without consulting the former, and without
any compensation to those whose interests are invaded.
There are at least an hundred boroughs in England
whose united income does not reach that of Liverpool.
En this question income and property are everything.
When a man is a beggar, or a borough is without reve-
nue, you do not invade the rights of property by deal-
ing legislatively with the rights of the lord or the
beggar. In simple truth, there is no action, no inter-
ference, no reform where there is no property. But it is
a different thing where property is concerned ; and the
motive of attack is regulated by the peculiar
position, or
the sentiments of the parties interested. For instance,
Liverpool is attacked while London is left to the mercy
of ulterior measures. This arrangement is purely of a
party and political nature. It smelleth of whiggerY•
London is notoriously a rotten and corrupt borough—it
is in the hands of venal and worthless men—it is a sink
of jobbing and iniquity. It is spared ! Liverpool, on
the contrary, is pure—no man dare assail the honour of
its functionaries—against it no charge of corruption can
be alleged.

These are facts. If London be spared and LiverpOOl
condemned by Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S bill, what are Ive to
think of the justice of the present government? We
have hitherto argued the case apparently agninst the
corporation, but one argument, bearing against other
corporations, is in their favour. Lord JOHN'S bill does
not merely affect us—it invades all settlements, all
deeds, all charters, all acts of parliament, all property.
To speak plainly, it is a bill of general confiscation—of
national robbery. What security has the Bank al
England—what security has the national creditor—after
the passing of such a bill ? To transfer the rights of
freemen to the public, is no more an act of fraud than
transferring the incomes of fundholders to the public. If
parliament can do the one outrage it can and will do the
other.

We understand that a public meeting is summoned to
be held this day, of certain radical destructives, at the
head of whom is Mi. JAMES BRANCKER, and the object
of the meeting is to express a vote of thanks to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL for the bill which he has introduced in
favour of municipal reform.

We believe that these ginger-beer reformers are ex-
cessively annoyed because the conservatives have not op-
posed Lord JoHN's bill with all the zeal tilat was expect-
ed. They cannot understand why conservatives should
not oppose every measure emanating from that quarter.
'We can tell them that the conservatives are no ene-
mies of corporation reform, on the contrary they have
long wished fur such reformation, and they will do their
best to adapt the measure of his lordship to the constitu-
tion of the-country as far as possible.

But we have to call upon the freemen of Liverpool in
the most solemn terms that words will admit to abstain
from attending the meeting in Clayton•square. They
have hitherto, too imprudently and inconsiderately, swel".
led the numbers of such meetings, and we implore them,
once for all, not to commit a similar mistake to-day.

By the corporation reform bill the burgesses of Liver-
pool are threatened with disfranchisement and degrada-
tion. Their rights by inheritance and servitude are
deemed of no value, and of no consideration in the esti-
mation of the author of that bill. They are treated as
persons whom the legislature cannot recognise as reason-
able beings; they are cast out of the commonwealth as
blots upon its integrity, and are not recognised as form-
ing any part of the respectable and responsible subjects
of the King.
These are insults well calculated to raise the indigna-
tion of honest, well-disposed, and industrious men. We
deeply sympathise with them on this trying and unfor-
tunate occasion. We believe that they are the intended
victims of political expediency—that they are sacrificed
to the ambition and the love of place inherent in the
RUSSELL and the Whig families of England.
But with all these insults and indignities heaped upon
them by a minister of the crown, we earnestly conjurs
them to take no part in the proceedings of this day, to
absent themselves from the radical gathering in Clayton-
square, and to confine themselves exclusively to their
ordinary avocations.
We urge this upon the burgesses of Liverpool the more
earnestly because we have reason to know that, in the
course of a few days, they will have an opportunity of
publicly declaring and recording their sentiments on the
corporation bill of Lord JOHN RUSSELL. The meeting
of to-day will teach us who are the persons who support
that levelling measure ; it will show us how numeroug
are the bands who have been sent to this meeting by the
Roman catholic priests; and it will instruct the freemen
as to the number of aliens who claim the protection of
those municipal institutions which it is their object to
destroy. Last of all, we conclude by imploring

THE BURGESSES OF LIVERPOOL
NOT TO ATTEND THE MEETING IN CLAYTON-SQUARE
THIS DAY.

How is it, we ask, that S' marked a difference should,,
exist between the projected measures of Lord JotIN
RUSSELL and those of 1401 d BROUGHAM? The reason
is obvious. The ministry whose councils were in-
fluenced by the ex-chancellor denounced O'CONNELL
from the throne—the present ministry depends upon the
agitator for its existence. The price demanded for that
fleeting and ephemeral tenure is the surrender of the
corporations to the democracy—and thus is the govern-
ment, no longer its own master, compelled, like a spirit-
less ARIEL, to do the bidding of a PROSPERO mob.
every clause of the proposed enactment is the author-
ship of O'CONNELL visible. Without imposing any the
slightest qualification, with no intermediate body cor-
responding with or framed upon the model of our once
happily blended constitution, the appeal is direct to the•
people, and to the very dregs-a. the people:---And- the"'
municipal institutions of the country will be degraded to
the meanest and most despicable level, in which all that
remains of honour and respectability will merge for
ever, unless men of property, talent, and education unite
to stay the evil.

The privileges and the immunities of which BACON,
and GROTIUS, and PUFFENDORF, and BLACKSTONE:, and
ELDON, are the just, the pious, and enlightened advo•
cater, are disregarded and set, at nought; and, under a
form of government, lauded for its equal protection of
every species of property, we now recognise a system
of legislation which sanctions the violation of every
established right.
Property which the law has made exclusively his own
is taken from its rightful owner, and given to those
whom the law never intended it should benefit. Through
the munificence of royalty, evinced in a series of grants
from kings of this realm, and by purchase under the
protection of their charters, corporations acquired a
legal right to, and interest in, their present possessions,
and in the profits arising from them for ever, with the
uncontrolled power of directing in what manner such
profits should be disposed of and applied. Now, although
partaking of the indisputable character of loyal immu-
nities—publicly granted, and through a series of ages
publicly respected—these lights and privileges are to
be trampled under foot to serve the ends aimed at by a
democratical and reckless confederacy.
The right of choosing these.who shall be associates
with the owners in the goverment of their (nth property;
and their purchased, and acquired exempti4cw—now
deemed incompatible -with et:le demanded “equality of
rights' -is to be aholislied. %The inacai;einent and the
expenditure of the re-venurs of c ,ations--bodies
essentially conne, led e.ite the . 1 church—and,
until the repeal a thu• test het, sc---are to be;