The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-03-18 00:00:00

as a retaliation for slights, real or imagined, than
from any well-founded conviction that any mate-
rial change in the constitution of the Trust was

required

For example, the legislature was asked to alter
the constitution of the Trust by enacting that 16
members should be elected by the Dock Rate-
payers, and 5 from the Council, the Chairman
being one of the sixteen, instead of the committee
being formed, as at present, of 13 members chosen
by the Council, and eight by the Ratepayers, the
Chairman being chosen by the latter body. The
inference obviously intended to be drawn by
Parliament was that the dock ratepayers were in a
minority in the committee. It is proved, however,
—and it would be a rather singular thing if such
were not the case in a council composed like that
of Liverpool,—that, of the 13 members elected by
that body, no less than 8 are ratepayers. The pre-
sent chairman, Mr. Thomas Littledale, is as largely
interested in the trade of port and in the good ma-
nagement of the Dock Estate, as any other gen-
tleman in Liverpool.

It is stated that, in consequence of their position
before the parliamentary committee, the promoters
of the bill have been induced to make various offers
of compromise. Amongst other concessions, they

are willing to accept the removal of the veto at
present possessed by the Council upon the Dock
Committee's proceedings, as the price of the with-
drawal of the proposed bill. We must most strongly
demur to any such concession. The power of
vetoing the proceedings of a body which, at some
future time, may be composed of individuals having
not a farthing of property at stake in the town,—
of mere agents, in fact, representatives of foreign
and other shipowners and merchants,—ought natu-
rally to be in the hands of a popularly elected
Council, interested in the permanent welfare of the
Dock and Corporate Estates, and the property of
the entire port, and liable to he called to an account
h.l their representatives, the burgesses. Any mate-
rial abuse of its power by such a Council would be
promptly corrected.

The only concession which we conceive might
advantageously be submitted to, in the present state
of affairs, is a waiver by the parochial authorities to
press the clause for rating the docks to the relief of
the poor. This would he a prudent course, sur-
rounded as we are with enemies both open and
secret, and blessed with a House of Commons
which is anything but disposed favourably towards
those communities which have not prostrated them-
selves in abject worship of the popular dogmas:of
the day.

WHILST the free trade party in this country are
endeavouring to delude us with assurances that

foreig

n nations are only waiting for the opportunity
to imitate our mad policy, and to precipitate their
industrious classes into a struggle for the attain-
ment of " cheapness," at all hazards, intelligence
fortunately reaches us, day after day, which flatly
contradicts their bold assertions. By the arrival of

the mail steamer, Baltic, yesterday, we are in pos-
session of intelligence from the United States of
America which will, perhaps, tend to shake any
anticipations entertained by the party in question
of concession from that quarter.
In our publication of the 11th ultimo we ex-
plained the provisions contained in a new tariff for
the United States, by which it was proposed to
exchange the advalorem duties at present levied
upon bar and pig iron. anvils, machinery, and some
descriptions of manufactured gcods, for specific
duties ; and sheaved that, by the threatened measure,
the duty upon pig and manufactured iron would be
rendered almost prohibitory. In the New York
Courier and Enquirer, one of the most influential

newspapers in the Union, under dat

of the sth

instant, we find a summing-up of the shortcomings
of the present Congress, from which we extract the
following :

" First and foremost among these, is the neglect to
Tariff, so as to make the duties on imports

modify the

specific, instead of ad valorem. The consequences of this
neglect, will be another year of excessive importation,
the closing of the few blast furnaces still struggling for
existence, the shutting up of one-fourth of the cotton
and woollen manufactories now in operation, the lessen-
ing of a home market for agricultural produce, and the
increase of agricultural laborers and 'agricultural pro-
duce, with diminished markets and diminished remune-
ration to the laborer; and all, that the pauper laborer of
Europe may be benefitted at the expense of the free labo-
rer of the United States! Another year of ad valorem
duties and excessive importation, will do much to reduce
nll hihnp in the linited States to the standard of tl

,ur of Europe

; and at t

e destruc-

home markets;

manufactories, will so