The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-06-18 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

No official return has been published of Mr. Entwisle's ma-
jority on the first day's polling, but the most authentic
sources state it to have been 427.
We are unable to find room for even an acknowledgment of
the 'communications with w :ich several correspondents
have favoured us. We hope to be moie fortunate next week.

kiberpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORi\JNG, JUXE 18, 1844.

Day by day something astounding or ludicrous,
or a mixture of both, is sure to reach us from the
sister country, to relieve the tedium which we
should otherwise feel in this dull land of ours. But
we have had nothing recently half so awfully amus-
ing as a document, which is now before us, entitled
the " Declaration of the Right Worshipful the
Mayors and other Members of Provincial Corpora-
tions, assembled at the mansion of O'Connell in
Merrion-square, Dublin, on Thursday, June 13th,
1844, on the state of Ireland." Punch in his gravest
humours, was never so awe-inspiring, or, in his
wittiest, so fun-provoking, as their " right-wor-
shipful," the be-titled tailors, grocers, butter-curers,
and haberdashers of " provincial corporations,"
thus in privy-council assembled, "on the State of
Ireland", and it would not greatly astound us to
see, as the result of this declaration of the fruit of
their compound and corporate meditations, the
downfal of Sir Robert Peel's administration, the re-
lease of O'Connell and his fellow-convicts, the
repeal of the Union, a debtor and creditor account
of the receipts and expenditure of the repeal rent,
or anything which can he imagined equally far-off
and improbable. Let us, however, seriously, if we
can,, endeavour to lay before our English readers
the substance of this extraordinary manifesto of
these right-worshipful wiseacres.
in substance, thus runs the document. Having
been refused permission to convert the prison of a
convicted conspirator into a semi-royal levee, and
being big with the importance of having been chosen
to bear to that conspirator the greetings of the
Romish priesthood, and its dupes and slaves in their
various localities—an honor not quite equal to that
enjoyed by a postman's horse, who carries far more
important matters every day, and carries them quite
as discreetly and intelligently—their most " wor-
shipful" take the huff and, in ruffled mood, de-
nouncing the entire proceedings pgainst their fa-
vourite patriot as unjust and unconstitutional, pro-
ceed to put on record, as theirs,(!) " this most so-
lemn and conscientious declaration," which we take
the liberty of giving verbatim, with as few interja-
culatory observations as we can avoid.
" That the state trials, and their result, have produced
in the great communities, with which we are connected,
and throughout the whole country, a strong apprehension
that life, liberty, and property cannot be safe so long as
an administration so hostile to the national sentiments,
and so obnoxious to the people, continues in power.
" That if anything could increase the p-pular exaspera-
tion, it is this : that on the one hand the most oppressive
measures have been resorted to, under the forms of law—
on the other, ministers have been deluding the Irish na-
tion, by holding out, even in the speech from the throne,
hopes of a just extension of its electoral rights, at the
very time that they contemplated the introduction of the
measure, now before parliament, which if it become law
will almost annihilate the miserable franchise which we
now possess."

Thus far we. have restrained ourselves ; but there
is something so excessively impudent in this last
paragraph, that we must say a few words, in the shape
of running commentary, or rather running contradic-
tion. Ministers have never deluded the Irish nation
by holding out to them any hope of what would be
a " just extension" of the franchise, in the eyes of
these worthy and right-worshipful people. From
their first entrance upon the government they have
been pledged to the duty of placing the franchise
upon a sound basis—upon the basis of property or
rating, rather than upon one which encourages
fraud and perjury. They are endeavouring to do
this—we wish, by the hye, they were a little more
energetic in the work—and it is rather an odd and
indecent proceeding for those men to talk of the
present measure " annihilating the miserable fran-
chise" now existing in Ireland, whose idol pur-
chased his own and their parliamentary and official
existence by the sacrifice of the forty-shilling free-
holders of Ireland. But we proceed with our quo-
tation :

"That an administration which pledged itself to main-
tain in its full enormity the monster grievance of a church
establ shment in Ireland can never be countenanced by
the fri,h people."

But, bear in mind, most worshipful, that no other
ministry but one which so pledges itself can ever be
countenanced by the English people! And remem-
ber, moreover, that, as there is a Church, so there
are Churchmen in Ireland herself, who are prepared
to defend that Church, which Popery and the
ruffianism of Popish corporations term a " monster
grievance," with their blood ! Radicalism, with
Popery combined, has not been enabled to put it
down ; and Sir Robert Peel, even, were he willing,
should not be permitted to injure a stone of its
sacred fabric. It is not, therefore, a ministry but
a nation, which is denounced by these paltry digni-
taries in the paragraph before us.
The remaining portion of the declaration, being
the ordinary rabbish upon stilts, in which such
declaimers deal, we give without remark :

" That notwithstanding much hollow professions, we
see no attempt made to relieve the prevailing distr.ss—
we expect for the rack-rented peasantry no alleviation of
their misery, nor for our starving labourers any general
employment, and all that can be looked for from the
boasted land commission of this anti-Irish administration
is r tardy report, from which no practical benefit is likely
to arise.

" That while we thus deliberately declare our opinion
that the continuance in power of the present administra-
tion is irreconeileable with the well being of Ireland—still
we are daily more thoroughly convinced that the liberties,
the franchises, and the social prosperity of the people can-
not be uffectually or at all secured under any administra-
tion, without giving to the Irish nation a participation in
its government by the establishment of its own parlia-
ment."

We may add, that the above is signed by the
mayor and four aldermen of Cork city; the mayor
and eight aldermen and councillors, the treasurer
and town-clerk of Limerick city; the mayor and
five aldermen and councillors of Waterford city ;
the mayor and eighteen aldermen and councillors of
Kilkenny city; the mayor and eight aldermen and
councillors of Clonmell town ; the mayor and twelve
aldermen and councillors of Drogheda town; four
town commissioners of Galway town ; three town
councillors of Ennis town; two town commissioners
of New Ross town ; one of Carrick-on-Suir, three of
Kell's town, and one of Fethard town. On another
occasion perhaps we shall endeavour to inform our
readers what are the stations and the characters of
these men; but at present we must confine our-
selves to more important matters.

In the first place, then—its absurdity aside—
what are the reflections induced by this document?
We were told long ago that the reformed 69 muni-
cipal corporations of Ireland were to be " normal
schools of agitation." Why, they are becoming
more than this t The assembled tailors, whiskey-
dealers, pig and bacon merchants, of Limerick,
Cork, Clonmel, and elsewhere, are now aping the
legislative—dictating to the Parliament of the nation
its duties, and proclaiming to the Sovereign of the
nation, " thus far shalt thou go and no farther !"
These men were elected to perform merely muni-
cipal duties; to select "the most desartless man to
be constable ;" to determine the width, depth, and
breadth of sewers ; to " comprehend rogues" and
scent out nuisances. But on a sudden they are be-
coming legislators for the entire empire—claim to