The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-12-17 00:00:00

BEN A RES.

Amount. °hosts Amount. u..
1,019,35 C 1,128 1,105,805
4574,650 1,130 1,029,585 '
'1,820,4* 1,579 1,329,129
'1,451,809 1,575 1,335,395
4,231,815 "1,518 1,448,195
"5,115,126 1,880 1,445,603
TOTALS.

4,401 5,299,920
7,171 6,928,880
6,857 5,907,580
12,10() 7,114,059
8,265 15,818,574
115,10318,781,700

-SEASON. CHESTS
31
32

AMOUNT..

1827-28
1828-29
1829-30
1830-31
1831-32
1832-33

9,535
13,132
14,000
18,760
14,225
23,693

10,425,075
12,533,145 I.
1207,157
12,904,263
11,501,584
15,W2,429

From the above it will be observable, that, although
the out-turn in China- of Indian opium amounted in
1832-33 to 65 lacks of dollars far 8,290 chests of Patna
and Benares, and 88 lacks of dollars for 15,403 chests of
Mulwa—together, 153 lacks for 23,693 chests, the largest
quantity that has ever been consumed in any one year in
China—still there appears to be a most enormous depre-
ciation in the value of the drug, as compared with 1821-22
—in which year 3,292 chests of Patna and Benares brought
68 lacks, and 3,855 chests of Malwa realized 53 lacks—
being, in reference to the quantity, treble the present
value for the former, and quadruple the value for the latter;
which clearly demonstrates, as far as Bengal opium is con-
cerned, that the total amount of capital which the Chinese
are disposed to vest in the opium trade has attained its
maximum, howevorma.ell theeultivation-mai be extended
and the quantity increased.

Parliament is summoned to meet on the 4th of Febru-
ary. Lord GREY has consented to retain office until
another premier can be found in whom the cabinet can
repose confidence. Lord DURHAM'S dream—Lord Durt-
HAM'S hope—Lord bußnAm's boast, has not been real-.
ized ; and his anxious country has not received the bene-
fit of his services. The consequence is, that Mr. STAN-
LEY and Lord ALTHORP are deputed to. fight the battles
of the Government in the House of Commons, and Lord
GREY and Lord GODERICH in the Lords. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM, we believe, has not condescended to offer more
than half a dozen spicches during the three years he has
held the situation of First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord
PALMERSTON has hardly been more communicative, and
Lord AUCKLAND, 0 affairs of trade, speaks by the
mouth of his vice, Mr. POULETT 111010 N, and his
speeches it would be cruelty to criticise. The Lord Ad-
vocate JEFFREY failed in every attempt to distinguish
himself in the House of Commons, and his labours, in
the matter of borough reform in Scotland, has set all the
liberals and reformers by the ears, to such an extent in
Glasgow at least, that the new council are already at
daggers thawing about the treasurership and matters of
money ; are accusing each other of falsehood, and inter-
changing
,opprotxious terms which must not be named
to ears polite. For thiis reason, JEFFREY iS to be shelved.
He is to be made a Lord of 'Session, or some such thing,
and kept entirely out of the arena of politics. Mr. Tito-
MAS MACAULAY Is 111-Wally defunct. No longer, for a
long time at least, will anxious senators listen to what
Lord MORPETH calls•his "riot and teeming eloquence."
He is now "rich" in other rekects, and goes to India,
with £l2OO as an outfit, to nurs\C his splendid sinecure of

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11. E (.?t M B ERKJ\ 143.10!!!‘.)

£lO,OOO per annum. Lord JOHN RUSSELL remains,. it )
is true, and Mr. SPRING RICE continues to docket the
excise bills of the CHANCELLOR of the ExcurotTEn, but
the influence of these underlings will be nothing in
grand spring tide of disputation and embarrassment whicn
is about to set in upon the executive.
Mr. STANLEY is a host in himself',—active,--sPirited—i
willing—eilicient; but he has the dead weight of ii°r`
Aurnono to contend r ith, and that is no trifling matter.
—The campaign, we are told, is to open with a bill fore
Church reform. Ministers intend to make the most °I
this measure. It is expected to carry them through near
ly the half of the session, and it is imagined that it w`ll
regain for them that popularity they have lost. Fatal
confidence ! The Whigs never can regain the hold they
once had on public opinion. Do they think they can
blink the question of the assessed taxes any longer?
they flatter themselves that we are to pmsue the shadow
and lose the substance, as we have done too long ? Na'
no, gentlemen I Give us the benefit of your standing.
toast. Give us a foretaste of one of your pledges. Y°ll
may reform the Church—you may reform the corivrali
tions—but in every step towards these reforms You t
only add to the number of your incensed and indignant
enemies. The malt tax must go, and so must the assessed
taxes. The libel laws must be amended, thanks to 1.431 d
DURHAM. The West India grant will have to be raise°.
—the Greek balance paid up—the guarantees to the Bank
and India Company made good—all this must be done
coute qui coute in the next session of Parliament, in the
teeth of a declining revenue. We know not whether the
fundholder is beginning to " set his house in order," but
we fear that this solemn duty cannot much longer OP
safety be deferred.

Here, then, is but the beginning of the beginning.--
Here we meet those conflicting currents caused by the
late political storms. Lord ALTHORP is selected to pilot
the crazy ship, and yet he has proved himself to be the
most inexperienced, craftsman that ever navigated a
wherry in Chelsea reach. He has ever evinced tlie.,in°9t
extraordinary alacrity at sinking. He has gone down
under every budget he has attempted to carry, and hoW
can he expect to brave those which are beset with ten
thousand greater difficulties than any ever committed to
his charge ? No, he must sink, and sinking break up the
ministry.

WE beg to assure the public, that the Reverend Mt-
LIAM SHEPHERD is not the author of the Bridge
Treatises. That excellent individual, whom we have t°
thank both for information and amusement, has commu-
nicated as much to a contemporary journal. What 14r.
SHEPHERD disclaims we are bound to acknowledge, and
what he confesses we are ready to receive. For the pre-
sent, therefore, he shall have his own terms.
It is singular enough that Mr. SHEPHERD'S admissions,
as to the part he took in the commission of inquiry, have
thrown some light upon the secret object of the inquisi-
tors, which has been further illustrated and confirmed 1#
Mr. BLACKBURNE, the chief commissioner, who is a can-
didate for the representation of Huddersfield in Parlia-
ment. Mr. SHEPHERD states, that when Mr. Commis-
sioner HOGG arrived in Liverpool, he sent him (Mr'
SHEPHERD) a "sealed letter of introduction from afrießa
requesting me to give the commissioners what inf°r°lB-
- I might think requisite to a perfect inquiry." He
has not condescended to inform us who that friend iS
Air. BLACKBURN; in answer to some question put t°
him by one of the electors of Huddersfield last week, states_
what follows, to which we earnestly call the attention 01
our readers:—
"I will not give up that commission immediately," Says IK
BLACK BURNE, "if you should elect me for Huddersfield; for
look on my election for HUddersfield as most serviceable to
tyat
commission, which is for ertirpating from our corporations the rot'
ten system which has now been extirpated from the legislature;
and I, as the chief commissioner, shall be thereby enabled to gire
more effectual assistance in ertirpatiny that rotten branch .1 the
constitution."
These are the openly avowed sentiments of a gentle-
man who professes to be an intimate friend of L°lll
BROUGHAM, to whom lie owes his appointment,and whose
views he is anxious to promote by having a seat in Par;
liament. What sort of justice can the corporations exre
at the hands of Mr. Chief Commissioner BLAcanuRNE
He has prejudged them without inquiry. According t°
his account, the commissioners were appointed, not to
inquire, but to condemn—not to be regulated in their
several reports by the evidence brought before them, lint
to ferret out evidence on which to found a bill of extir-
pation. The "rotten system" has been denounced hY
Mr. BLACKBURNE before the system has been tried and •
he is only anxious to be returned for Huddersfield for the
purpose of giving his vote against a system which he has •
pre-determined to obliterate, which he censures in pure
ignorance, which he condemns unheard, and which lie
holds up to be rotten and corrupt, even before the commis
sioners leave half terminated their labours, and before a
single one of them has drawn up his report. If this ha
justice, it must be based on rules with which we and the
great majority of mankind never heard of before. It roaY
be political justice, according to the maxims of the Whig
schools, which mock all its external forms, and assert the .
expediency of condemning first and trying afterward,
but it is not the justice recognized by the laws of Enn-.
land and every. other civilized country.
We feel confident, whatever views Lord Baouonl
may entertain on the subject, that lie never countenance
the preconceived and invidious prejudices of the chief
commissioner. We are, moreover, confident, that the
noble and learned lord will not feel altogether pleased
, .
with the liberties which Mr. BLACKBURNE takes with lets
name, and the ultra nature of that partizanship laicb
converts a judge into a demagogue, and who avails WT..:
self of his conunission to make it subservient to the vilest'
of electioneering purposes. Nor will Lord BRoVon't)l
be much better pleased with the familiarities of Mr"
SHEPHERD. His vanity draws too freely on the noble
and learned lord's goodnature and benevolence. Wb°
wrote the letter which introduced Mr. Commissioner
HOGG to Mr. SHEPHERD ? Who introduced Mr. Commis'
sioner Wirmssos to Mr. BOLLTON ? How came it that .
both of these commissioners were the bearers of letters'
which they delivered, on theirarrival in Liverpool, to tis;
of the leading Unitarians most hostile to the Corporation -
Suppose a commission were to issue under the great seal.
appointing Sir THOMAS DENMAN to try certain shit'',
owners in Liverpool for entrapping emigrants, and frau-
dulently scuttling ships at sea, what would the world say .
if Sir THOMAS DENMAN were to be the bearer Ora letter
introducing him to the accused parties, and which lettert—
he should deliver immediately on his arrival in Liverr°
and previous to the opening of his court? Would there,
not be a breeze in the north, and a gale in the east, talc,
a storm in the south, and loud thunder every where ?.
Would not the newspapers teem with dark insinuations
- -
Would there not he a cry of shame in the streets, rata
rnurs in the taverns, motions without number in the
Commons House of Parliament? 'l'lle parties might be
acquitted or condemned—no matter which—the prejudice
would remain, the suspicion would adhere, the Miler
would stick.

Mr.SH:::PHERD has,—unconsciously, perhaps,—enahl'd
us to apply the analogy. Mr. Commissioner -
brought him a sealed teller from a friend, requesting hi"'
to give the commissioners information. It was -not
ri
simple letter of introduction, for it was sealed, and Mr.
SHEPHERD imagined that Mr. Hooa knew the contents.:
of it. Who dared to take such a liberty even with Mr.
NOGG ? Who could have employed him in this extia-
judicial manner ? It must have been no common person- •
age, otherwise Mr. Hoc° would have tossed the letter
into the fire, and refused to be- put forward as a sort of spY
to cater for evidence on the outside of the court, and bg
advised by a man who had not the courage or the can"
dour to enter the Sessions-house and seek the infornyt•
tion he desired in the presence of his fellow-townsme°' •
Until Mr. SHEPHERD shall inform us who the friend %
who could interfere in this' insidious manner, and 0110
could take such a liberty both with Mr. SHEPHERD and
Mr. Commissioner HOGG, we must sleep over the belie(
t
thatit was some one who was as strongly biassed again
corporations as Chief Commissioner BLACKBURNE,
who has determined to legislate upon preconceived
nions, whatever may be the reports of the itinerants Ke-
nerally.
The candid admissions of Mr. BLACKBURNE, however'

N /
~q.
~~~

But pass va e from the one friend to the other—our
amusing friend Mr. SHEPHERD. He tells the public that
he has ever entertained a very high opinion of the Liver-
pool Corporation, and that his prophetic intimations of
their purity and honour have been fulfilled. Very good;
but how comes it that Mr. SHEPHERD, entertaining these
opinions so long, should have been one of the incessant
revilers of the Corporation ? How came it that a sealed
letter was addressed to him soliciting his interference in
order to make the inquiry "perfect ?" He has been an M-
used gentleman indeed, if, cherishing such favourable no-
tions of the Corporation, he has been courted and looked
up to as an enemy of the Corporation. His literary admirers
have evidently been at fault,—they have not known their
man ; for one of them went so far as to beg the assistance of
his brilliant pen in supplying a commentary upon the evi
(Ince. This, Mr. SHEPHERD says, he declined on the ground
that the newspaper editor who sought his aid was a "vio-
lent anti-corporation man !" What ! too violent for Mr.
SHEPHERD ? We should like to know who he is.
A friend of his also " wished to bring an action against
the STANDARD for libel." Mercy on us ! what have we
clone ? Have the Whigs not had enough of prosecutions,
or is the conduct of Lord DURHAM infectious ? Perhaps
we are indebted to Mr. SHEPHERD for advising his friend
not to proceed. Perhaps his friend was well advised ;
and yet we hardly know how to express our thanks, for
we are unconscious of having given offence. So much
fer small beer,- and newspaper editors who are violent
anti-corporation men. It is very comical altogether.