The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-02 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL gTANDARD.

our destinies are so inextricably involved in its ca-
reer—that we dare not check it, even to measure

the dangerous gulf into which the indulgence of its
own wild whim would hurry us.
We cannot believe that this is a healthy symp-
tom of our condition as a nation. It is, on the con-
trary, one full of peril. A quarter of a century
ago, we used to be told that annual parliaments
would be conducive to the prosperity and mainte-
nance of the liberties of Englishmen. The masses
demanded that statesmen should appeal more fre-
quently to them as the arbiters of their measures.
But now the people are put aside. Their own re-
presentatives have not time allowed them for the
ordeal. They have other masters to serve, an d
must legislate with the brawling of a huge factory
population, or the fear of a commercial panic,
urging them on. The House of Lords may be said
to be virtually extinct as a controlling power in the
constitution. It has two influences operating to
make its voice null in the regulation of the national
affairs,—on the one hand the power of the crown,
wielded by the minister, and, on the other, the fear
of a commercial crisis.

It is impossible not to foresee very serious evil,
and even danger, in the growth of this formidable
power; and, moreover, that the effects of most of
our recent regulation must be to precipitate that
growth. We are getting more and more bound to
the wheels of this vast commercial machine. Our
masses are becoming more and more its slaves; and
we less capable of enforcing measures for the ame-
lioration of their social condition. A few days
ago, we had submitted to Parliament a wise and
humane measure, for limiting the hours of labour
of the youthful portion of our factory population;
and a British legislation durst not exercise its phi-
lanthropy. This new power in the constitution
urged its selfish fear of a trifling diminution of pro-
fits; and Parliament succumbed to the iron necessity,
which it has itself created, and is rapidly perpetua-
ting. What hope, then, can we have of procuring
for our masses, against the dictation of their em-
ployers and the pressure of commercial competi-
tion, any relaxation of their severe lot ? We have
no such hope; and whatever expectations may have
been entertained by our working population of
sharing the benefits promised as the result of our
present policy, they would do well to erase them
'from their minds. Legislation is no longer in the
people or in the peerage. The working and all
other classes must stand or fall now, must rejoice or
suffer, accordingly as the complicated machinery of
our commerce runs smoothly or gets out of order.

An amusing quarrel is just now being waged
between the Times and the Morning Herald, with
respect to the great foresight, or knowledge of cha-
racter, on the part of the former, in determining, so
early as the 4th of December last, the course which
would be taken by Sir Robert Peel and his Cabinet
upon the corn-law question. The Herald seems to
regard his powerful contemporary as a kind of poli-
tical Mephistopheles—a literary wizard, or a clair-
voyant—whose vision into the recesses of the minds
of statesmen is something more than human—
something calling for the exorcist or the Inquisi-
tion. The Times retorts by accusing his assailant
of a want of political discernment and perception of
character. We have no wish to snatch the laurels
from the conqueror in this dispute; but it does
strike us that they are fighting about other people's
property. Six months before the Times announced,
or the Herald contradicted " on authority," the de-
fection of the Premier and his fraternisation with
the League, the LIVERPOOL STANDARD assured
its readers that " Sir Robert Peel was prepared to
repeal the corn-laws." We dwelt upon no fixed
duty. We said, above twelve months since, that
he would propose a measure of total and uncondi-
tional repeal ; and he has done so. We made at
the same time some other predictions, with respect
to the future course of this pre-eminently inconsis-
tent statesman, which we expect to see fulfilled in
due course of events ; but as we don't wish to be
burnt at the stake for witchcraft before our time,
guillotined by the Monthly Herald, or to put the
public into premature alarm, we do not intend to
report them here. They are, however, to be found
by the curious in our file.