The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-11 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We had several communications ready for insertion, but
are obliged to postpone them in consequence of the ad-
journed council meetings, and the proceedings at the
commercial associations, on the subject of the Fire
Bill.
We have received the letter of our correspondent, " An
Orangeman," upon the subject of the recent attack of
the Mercury upon that loyal body. Our Popish con-
temporary's heavy wit is not worth the notice of any
Orangeman. " Let the galled jade wince." It will be
long before the Mercury's pet boys—the ribbonmen of
Liverpool—dare give to the world a record of the say-
ings and doings of any of their conclaves. Loyalf.„ is
at all events better in our eyes than sympathy w:ithre-
bellion, whatever our brother of the Mer'..-tery may
think about the subject ; and it is better, too, in the
eyes of the respectable portion of the p'-oPle of Liver-
pool, whatever may be the feeling those localities
where our contemporary is most industriously spelled
over.

Eire Etheriloot &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 11, 1843.

Amongst the remedies proposed for the present
disaffected state of Ireland, concession to the de-
mands of agitation is the most prominent, because
the most ready of suggestion and the most produc-
tive of present ease. To oppose a headlong torrent,
or even to dam up a gentle streamlet, requires an
effort, both of the will and of the body ; whilst to
yield to their influence, it only requires that we
should close our eyes from the view of that gulf to
which they are surely and rapidly bearing us.
" Strive to remove the grievances of the Irish
people !" is, therefore, the cry of the timid and
lethargic Protestant—who would be puzzled to de-
scribe in what those grievances consist. " Put
down the nuisance of an established church !"
shouts a demagogue of the Roebuck school.
" Take away only her surplus (!) revenues," ejacu-
lates an admirer of Lord John Russell. " Give
Ireland a Whig ministry," lisps out the faded beau
who lately protocolled in the Foreign-office. The
burden of the song is still concession ; whilst if any
loyal Englishmen, a little bolder than his fellows,
dares to look one step beyond present expediency,
and to ask the question, " Why yield up one out-
work of that constitution—why yield up one stone
of the buttresses of those walls, upon which we
must ultimately stand, to battle for our liberties and
for the integrity of the empire ?" he is straightway
denounced as a fanatic, an intolerant, and an enemy
of the Irish people !
We care not for such denunciations. We detest
that cowardly expediency which, to ward off the
hour of struggle—to buy a treacherous and hollow
peace—would negociate terms of submission to
armed and menacing rebellion. We would concede
to justice freely, and all that Ireland can claim.
We would concede to menace, NOTHING ! With
the result of such concessions in past years before
us, how can we, as men resolved to maintain the in-
stitutions of our country, pursue a different course ?
The history of the struggle with popery for the last
fifty years has been one of concession after conces-
sion ; and have those concessions purchased for
Protestantism peace or security ? No ! Only a
few days ago, in the House of Commons, we were
reminded by an Irish member, Mr. Wyse, an advo-
cate of popish claims, and the would-be supporter
of popish supremacy in Ireland and throughout the
world, that, " from 1793 to 1829, concession had
followed concession ; England had passed from
necessity to necessity. She must go on." And
again : " Let no man suppose that Catholic eman-
cipation was a final act ; it was the last of a series,
but it was also thembeginning of another series" !
This is THE TRUTH. Disguise the fact as we
may, we are embarked upon the waters of a torrent,
which are bearing us over fall after fall, still in-
creasing in depth, until at length we are approach-
ing a " lower deep," upon the brink of which we
must pause—if pause we can—for the chasm below
it contains the elements of our ruin as a Protestant
nation ! The act of 1829 was " the last of a series."
We were promised, as its result, PEACE ; the ces-
sation of agitation ; the quiet submission of the
Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to the supre-
macy of the British Crown ; the blending of the
Roman Catholic people of Ireland into the mass of
loyalty and devotedness which are the charpcteris-
tics of the Protestant people of Great Britain, and
of Ireland as well. Have these promises been kept ?
Have the hopes with which we regarded them been
realised ? They have not; and we are reminded
that if the agitation which preceded the act of
1829 was the last of one series, it was also
" the beginning of another"! And that other,
provided by the Jesuit faith of Rome as a lash for
our past credulity,—withheld from our gaze for a
while, and now paraded, in insulting mockery, be-
fore our eyes,—is this agitation for the objects which
are comprised in the term " repeal of the union" !
And yet we are urged, even by Protestants, to
concede to that agitation. Even now, when its
leaders stand up, with arms in their hands and
ARMIES within their control,—when we have ring-
ing in our ears the boast of a traitor that he wields
" more physical force than ever monarch com-

manded or general led,"—we are urged to go on in
that fatal course which has already brought the
empire to the verge of dismemberment ! Do the
advocates of such a cowardly policy really imagine
that any concession—that even the sacrifice of the

Protestant Church of Ireland, and the setting up of
Rome upon its ruins—would purchase for them any
greater amount of quiet than past concessions have
secured ? We give them, for their information, the
declaration, as to the result of such concession, of
the arch-apostle of treason—the leader of the phy-
sical force of Ireland—Daniel O'Connell himself!
" I had a conversation," exclaimed this incen-
diary, at the meeting of the Repeal Association on
Tuesday last, at the Dublin Corn Exchange,—" I
had a conversation lately, with gentlemen whose
names I will not mention, but whose opinions are
considered to be adverse to repeal ; and what did
they advise me to do ? ' Accept of no compromise,'
said they. (Loud cheers.) You will perhaps be
offered THE SACRIFICE OF TILE ESTABLISHED
CHURCH, and an appropriation of the ecclesiastical
revenues to the purposes of the state ; so take all
that you can get, but don't promise to give up any-
thing'! I WILL TAKE CARE TO FOLLOW SUCH

ADVICE"
Is this not warning sufficient ? Can the blindest
or the maddest, after such a declaration, advise the
concession of an inch of ground to the demands of
a traitor, so daring in his designs, and so insolent in
his menaces

In the report of the Council meeting of Wednes-
day last, under the head of " Dock Committee," we
find the following conversation. We may premise
that we take it from the Mercury, because it is a
source not generally supposed to he favourable to
our views of the question to which it refers :
" DOCK COMMITTEE.

" The report of the committee having been read,
" Mr. G. H LAWRENCE said the cost of the proposed
warehouses at the Albert Dock had been differently stated,
it being, according to one account, £36 ss. per square
yard, according to another, only £ll. He wished to know
which was correct.
" Mr. SANDS was as much surprised as anybody to see
it stated in the papers that the warehouses were going to
cost £4O per square yard. His friend, Mr. Stewart, knew
that that was quite fallacious. The cost of the warehouses,
including the vaults, would be £lO 10s. per square yard,
and without the vaults, £8 Bs.. They would be tire-proof,
as far as it was possible to make them so, and he had the

best authority for stating, that In-
surancewho-
Offices both here and nso built, the Fire
them at rates as low as those .tri London would insure
charged in London, or any
where else. (Hear, hear.)
" Mr. PL ATT.—U.:hat:t the Dock Warehouses ?
" Mr. SAN DS.—I
" Mr. Aldermar, EARL,.
—Does the estimate include
the land?
" Mr. SA'', OS.—No,—not the making of the land.
" Mr. '.tderman EARLS.—Then the cost will be some-
thing 'dry like .E4lO per yard.
" the report was then confirmed. "

It really does appear to us surprising that a body
like the Dock Committee, amply provided with sur-
veyors and other officials, should display such an
extraordinary want of decided information—should
give to the world such extraordinary differences of
statement—with respect to a matter so important as
the cost of the warehouses now in course of erection
upon the dock quays. We have now had, within a
couple of months, three distinct statements, none of
them agreeing with each other. First, on the 18th
of May, we had, from the lips of the Surveyor,
£36 ss. per square yard mentioned as the total cost
of erection of the warehouses in question. Upon
that statement we commented ; and we may say
with truth, that, in addition to our own, it excited
the amazement of the entire community ! At a
meeting of the Dock Trustees, held on the of
June, the same Surveyor who had thus deliberately
given to the Committee his estimate—in writing or
not we cannot say—protested that " he could not
say how the mistake" (qy. whose mistake ?) " had
arisen" ; but that the actual " estimate was £ll 11s.
per square yard." We have now, from the re-
spected Chairman of the Dock Trust, another ver-
sion ! " The cost of the warehouses, including the
vaults, will be £lO 10s. per square yard, and with-
out the vaults, £8 Bs."

How are we to reconcile these conflicting ac-
counts—first £36 ss. ; then £ll 1 ls. ; and then,
with the vaults, £lO 10s. ? The latter, we are fur-
ther informed by the Chairman, does not include
the land,—or, as he says, perhaps more correctly,
" the making of the land." The land cost £2 12s.
6d. per square yard. The " making of the land"—
the piling, filling, &c.—what may that cost ? Any
man who has gone over the stupendous works
which have been carried on upon the site of these
warehouses, and to form that site, may almost be
disposed to believe, with Mr. William Earle, and

in accordance with our first calculation and the
Surveyor's first calculation of their cost, that these
warehouses will not be completed, including land,
piling, &c., for less than £4O per square yard !
When will the Dock Committee solve, beyond
dispute—it cannot be very difficult—this most im-
portant question ? At the present moment, it is
all important !

At length we have before us the opinions of the
leading members of the Council, with respect to the
question recently mooted by the commercial asso-
ciations of the port, and upon which we have lately
remarked; viz. whether as the remedy for the fre-
quent fires which have of late occurred in our exist-
ing warehouses, it is expedient, or just, to seek the
withdrawal of those clauses in the Dock Act, which
restrict the powers of the committee to erect ware-
houses upon the dock quays. We must confess
that, upon such a subject, we have referred, with the
greatest interest, to the remarks of Mr. Alderman
Evans ; not because we conceive that there is any
thing which we ought to receive as oracular in the
sayings of that gentleman; but because we have all
along entertained the opinion that the alderman
was the motive power, of which the busy and loqua-
cious Mr. Todd, who has come so prominently
before us of late, was the vox et preteria nihil. To
the speech of Mr. Evans, therefore, we turn for the
most potent arguments which can be adduced, for
setting aside the deliberately-recorded opinions of
the town, and of Parliament, as to the extent to
which his favourite experiment of dock warehouses
should be tried.

But first let us set ourselves right with respect to
our own objections to ride upon Mr. Alderman
Evans's hobby horse. We have no objections, in
the abstract, to the principle of erecting warehouses
upon the dock quays, although we feel convinced
that any land which we have to spare—and that we
have little enough is notorious—might be devoted
to a better purpose. If there is no safety, however,
in any other locality, build them on the dock quays ;
but build them as private speculations, or sell the
land to public companies, under any restrictions, as
to plans of erection or management, which you
choose. We object only to the Dock Committee
becoming warehouse owners, or warehouse keepers,
on the dock quays, or anywhere else! We object to
the capital of the dock estate being lavished in an
injurious and unfair competition with the capital
and the management of private individuals; and so
strongly is this principle impressed upon our minds,
that we would almost go the length of Mr. North,
and allow the docks themselves to be leased to pri-
vate individuals or to companies. From all that we
have seen of corporate management, or dock ma-
nagement, we are convinced that the public interests
would be better served by any other management !

Again we must protest against the frequently-
expressed notion that the restrictions under which
the Dock Committee—or, rather, that imperium in
imperio which is styled the Committee of Works,
and which is the Dock Committee—labour, are re-
striciions imposed upon them by " the warehouse
owners." Whatever may be the sins of that vilified
body of men, this sin is not to be laid exclusively at
their door. The Council—which, if we mistake not,
represents, or ought to represent, the town—willed
that these restrictions should be imposed. The
great majority of the community, who elect the
Council, willed the same. The restrictions, there-
fore, a e not the result of " an improvident bargain
with a few warehouse owners," but a security taken
by the community against the carrying out of the
hobby of a few crotchetty experimentalists !

And now to Mr. Alderman Evans's speech. We
pass by the somewhat flighty portion of it, in which
he refers to the warehouse owners as the parties
originating the restrictions to which we have re-
ferred, because we have already shewn that the
imputation is senseless; :,nd proceed to quote the
most material part, in extenso

" It was a principle of English law, quite consistent
with the practice of the constitution, that parliament
should give relief wherever an injustice had been perpe-
trated ; and whatever might be their views in that room,
however they might feel themselves restricted by the late
act, the public at large would feel no more restricted by
it than by any other act of the legislature which they
wished to have repealed. It was a rule of law, as the
professional gentlemen would tell them, that for every
thing valuable there must be an equivalent. Now, the
warehouse interest could not pretend that they had given
any equivalent for availing themselves of their momentary
political power to impose upon the public an unjust re-
striction. On these grounds, he believed that the mea-
sures adopted out of doors, or likely to be adopted, would
in all likelihood succeed ; and he did consider that it
would be a great deal more creditable for the warehouse
interest themselves to take the initiative in the business,
and to abandon a restriction which they never had the
least right to propose."

We are perfectly ready to admit the soundness of
the Alderman's view of the spirit of British parlia-
mentary law and practice. Parliament will, no
' doubt, give relief, even to the extent of revising its
own acts, " wherever injustice has been perpetrated"
by the operation of those acts ; but it will first re-

, --- - -
quir ‘ proof of the existence of such injustice. - Can

Mr. Evans, or any one else, prove that injustice ?
Upon whom has it been committed ? Upon the
dock trustees ? We rather think, on the contrary,