The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-06 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

before the rich and poor can effectually meet to-
gether again in the House of God, who can say that
the sacrifice, and the good example, should not be-
gin with the better instructed party.
It has been proposed to buil i four churches upon
this entirely free principle within the town of Liver-
pool,--.—that the poor, in the first instance, may have
their place within the House of God, and that then
whoever will, of whatever other rank, may come
and take their place beside them. The cost of this
scheme is estimated at about £20,000. Of this sum
we understand something more than £lO,OOO have
been raised. Now that the subscription has reached
this amount, we should like to see a completer list
than we have yet chanced to meet with of the subscri-
bers, with their respective contributions. We shall be
samewhat curious, we confess, to see that document.
Having lately seen names down for large sums to
the Cobden testimonial, which we have not been
much accustomed to see upon giving lists before,
we feel curious to know how such persons' religious
sincerity rates with their political. We should like
to know what form thousands and hundreds on the
one list assume upon the other. We hope that the
committee will gratify this curiosity of ours, as well
as supply to the town at large, the more laudable
gratification of knowing who are its real well-
wishers and benefactors, who come forward first,
and with a liberality best proportioned to their
means, to relieve their fellow-creatures under that
only want where no demand ever stimulates supply.

The condition of Ireland becomes, day by day,
more distressing ; and the remedy, to which the
legislature hastily resorted, appears but too likely to
produce still more extended evils and suffering in
time to comr. The agriculturists and the peasantry
of that wretchedly mismanaged country are de-
prived, by the dispensation of Providence, of a large
portion of that crop upon which they have been
accustomed to depend for subsistence. Has this
event never occurred before ? Undoubtedly it has.
Ireland has had periodical visitations of famine for
the last hundred years. Again and again the charity
of Great Britain has had to be appealed to, as the
only available resource to snatch the population of
entire districts from the horrors of starvation, and
its concomitants—disease and death. Yet the tem-
porary emergency over, all classes of her population,
from the landlord to the poorest peasant, have gone
on as before; never thinking of preparation for a
return of the visitation—depending solely upon
their crop of potatoes, or, in case of failure of that
crop, upon the extorted generosity of the more
affluent of their own countrymen, and the sympathy
of the British people. And now we have the same
circumstances, and the same temporary remedy re-
sorted to, but upon a larger scale. We are called
upon now to contribute to the support, not of a
district, but almost of an entire people, whom we
are thus teaching improvidence, and neglect of the
duty of striving to become self-dependant.
It is, not a fact, we are assured by numerous au-
thorities upon the spot, that the whole, or any large
portion, of those who have taken part in the recent
disorderly outbreaks, which will he found recorded
in our columns—the robbery of bakers' and pro-
vision shops, and the threats of violence levelled
against landlords and magistrates—are in a state of
absolute want, or even very materially worse in
their condition than in ordinary years. We have
made a political stalking horse, however, of this
alleged famine. We have held out the offer of loans
for the removal of the suffering created by it ; and
whilst many of the farming classes, with the tribe
of surveyors and other rural harpies, are scrambling
for their share, the peasantry nearly to a man are
leaving their usual avocations, abandoning the cul-
tivation of their patches of land, and pressing their
claims to be set to work at the country's expense, or
to be fed. The rabble, who have resorted to acts
of violence, are composed, the hulk of them, of those
who never work—confirmed mendicants, midnight
prowlers, and lawless depredators. But thousands
of those who are profiting by the intimidation thus
created, and procuring relief from the workhouses
for present subsistence, with prospect of employ-
ment at fair wages, considering the country, are
parties not more in need of such aid than small
farmers and cottiers in this country, who have no
such aid held out to them, and little inclination to
seek it. The lesson, therefore, which we are teach-
ing these classes of our Irish fellow-countrymen is
ruinously demoralizing ; whilst the labour for which
we are paying them is of little public utility, and
would be more advantageous ultimately, even for
themselves, if bestowed upon the improvement of
their own holdings.
It is clear that we cannot persist in this from
hand-to-mouth system of treating the Irish people,
unless we wish to reduce them to a nation of pau-
pers. The whole social and industrial system of
that country must be taken to pieces and re-con-
structed ; and both the owners of property, the
cultivators of the soil, and the peasant and artisan
taught to depend more upon their own resources for
support in temporary emergencies like the present.
We must not allow two-thirds of the Irish people to
be permanently left but one degree from starvation.
As the basis of such an improved condition of the
people, we must have a Poor-law introduced into
Ireland upon the English system. Sanatory regu-
lations for the promotion of domestic comfort and
the improvement of their cottages and cabins would
create improved habits of cleanliness, and new
tastes, instead of the present filthy habits, dress,
and persons, exhibited by the lower classes of the
Irish people. There are none who have witnessed
the indomitable industry, and the comparative
cleanliness and taste for comfort, of a large portion
of the Irish residents in the large towns of England,
who will assert that their condition, in these
respects, in their own country, is a natural con-
dition. The Irish character is too full of shrewd-
ness to warrant such a conclusion. We believe
firmly that the present wretched condition of their
habitations, dress, and mode of living, is forced
upon them. The appeal ad misirecordianz is the
only weapon of the Irish peasant and small farmer
against the exactions of their priesthood, of middle-
men, and others who prey upon their industry.
The thriving man dare not show the produce of
his thrift and bettered condition in any of the forms
in which it is made manifest in other countries.

Again, the legislature must seriously devote itself
to measures which will tend to give better security
than at present exists for tenants disposed to effect
improvement in their holdings. At present it is
notorious that thousands of the farming classes dare
not, although each has his little store available for
the purpose, improve either the condition of his
land or his dwelling ; but is deterred from attempting
either by the fear of his rent being increased or the
result of his industry appropriated. Of what use
are the reports of commissions if they are to lead
to no efforts to carry out the suggestions of those
who have so laboriously devoted themselves to
enquiry ? We want some practical legislation for
this object; and we trust that another session of
parliament will not be permitted to pass by without
such legislation being attempted. There are diffi--
culties enough in the way we know. The evils to
be surmounted are full of complication. We have
inveterate prejudices and long-accustomed habits to
be got rid of. But here, as in other attempts to effec-
tuate good, we shall be aided by the natural shrewd-
dness of the people, which, once awakened, will soon
enable them to see the advantage to accrue to them.
Whether the condition of Ireland will urge an
early meeting of the legislature, or not, we know
not; and 'reports upon the subject are very little to
be depended upon. For our own part, we doubt
the prudence of such a course. The crisis in which
Ireland is now unhappily placed is such as to render
any legislative effort for its immediate removal,
attended as all such efforts must be with delays—.
with tedious, and, perhaps, recriminating debates
and party struggles—impossible. The government
must act upon its own responsibility, in the first
instance; and in the meantime a series of compre-
hensive measures, of a character to meet the evils
and disorganization of the social system in Ireland
permanently, must be devised for a much calmer
deliberation than it is possible they could receive
at the present moment.

TORTETH-PARK.-011r contemporary, the Mercury,
was very inconclusively sage last week with respect to
sundry doings in Toxteth-park. We have an eye upon
these affairs, and upon the extraordinary mode in which
the Radicals of that extra-parochial place attempt to ma-
nage the register. We restrain ourselves, however, for
the present. But we shall not lose sight of the data which
are before us, and of the rumours which reach us daily.
Strange that men in the present age should imagine
that things could be done " in a corner," within a tulle
from the locality in which a newspaper is written and
published ! Radicalism, we always thought, had some
predilection for the light—some slight hatred of under-
the-rose tyranny. In this case, however, popery appears
to pull the wires. But we say no more at present. By
and bye, the Radical magnates of Toxteth-park may ex-
pet to hear from us, and to read an exposition of their
doings.

THE DOCKS AND PORT OF BRISTOL.

We had some remarks recently upon the position of
the Docks of Bristol, as compared with those of Liver-
pool, in which a reduction of the charges in the former
were urged as absolutely necessary to prevent the total
abstraction of that portion of the trade of the port which
was not merely local. We have now before us a report
of a meeting, held in Bristol this day week, for the pur-
pose of making an effort to stay the rapidly declining
condition of that town, arising from such extravagant
charges, which, in our opinion, holds out little expecta-
tion of any very great competition to arise from our
neighbour in the Bristol channel.
The result of this complication of interests is, for the
Bristoliar,s, sufficiently distressing. Their port is
branded before the commercial world as the dearest one
in the kingdom. Charters for British ports already in-
clude the proviso " for any port in Great Britain, except
the port of Bristol." Merchants are closing their es-
tablishments, and removing to more favoured ports.
The Great Western Company have been compelled to
send their vessels round to Liverp 'Ol. The sugar trade
is leaving the port ; and the only step conceived to be
effectual in repairing all these evils is to free it altogether.
But which of the parties is to buy up the other two?
The difficulty of deciding this pertinent question seems to
have struck the meeting, which separated after declaring
that it was " expedient to free the port of Bristol from all
charges on goods and shipping, except," &c.; that an as-
sociation should be fomed with the magnificent title of
the " Bristol Free Port Association " ; and that the inha-
bitants of Bristol and the neighbourhood be admitted
members on enrolling their names ! We doubt if this
" Free Port Association " will have the luck of the
League.

It seems that it is not altogether the dock dues of
Bristol that impede, by their extravagance, the commerce
of the port. There are town dues to deal with as well,
which form a material item in the cost of an importation
into Bristol. There is, moreover, a " Society of Mer-
chants," who have exclusive privileges. Here are three
bodies—the dock-owners, the corporation, as the owners
of the town dues, and the society of merchants—all of
whom must come to an understanding before any mate-
rial reduction can be made. In the meantime, one party
waits upon another ; one party argues, let the other re-
duce, and there is the more scope for our exactions.
Under these circumstances, the effort to make Bristol a
" free port"—for that is what is attempted—seems to us
hopeless.