The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-07-04 00:00:00

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TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 4, 1848.

THE first step in the ministerial crusade against
our sugar-growing colonies has been successful. In
a house of 505 members, on Thursday night, the
motion that the members resolve themselves into a
committee to consider the question of the sugar
duties, was carried by a measuring cast majority of
15.- How far, however, this decision shows the
ability of ministers to carry through their measure
as 'originally proposed, remains to be proved, com-
prising, as the majority does, a number of honour-
able members differing from the government both
in the direction of free trade and of increased pro-
tection. From the weakness of the former, how-
ever, as shewn in the small minority (36) which
voted in favour of Mr. Bright's motion, and from
the unreserved support given to the ministerial
plan by Sir Robert Pee], we fear much that all
further opposition will be futile, and that our sugar-
growing colonists are doomed men.
The speech of Sir Robert, announcing the course
he is determined upon pursuing, is worthy of that
most inconsistent of all modern statesmen. ft is
throughout a happy combination of Jesuitical flat-
tery and insult. He sets out with a glowing exor-
dium upon the past loyalty and value to Great
Britain of her West Indian colonies. He " cannot
forget that they shared in our victories and our
defeats,—in our hopes and our despondings ;—but
he thinks, independent of all this, there are great
social considerations which would require us to ex-
tend a fostering hand to our West India possessions."
These social considerations are the advantage to
civilization to be derived from the maintenance in
prOsperity of the white population,—the planters,—
of the West Indies. " I believe," he goes on,
" the white population to be a barrier to the spread
of barbarism." (Cheers.) "If they should, from
any reason, disappear from the colonies, the cause
of civilization, humanity, and religion will materially
suffer." Naturally these sentiments, so true and
so 'just, drew down cheers from the house. Who
could suppose that, with the evidence before the
house, that this barrier against barbarism was fast
disappearing, under the influence of our legislation
—that the planter was a ruined man already—and
that cultivation was being given up in every colony
—Sir Robert Peel was, after this honied expression
of sympathy with his interests, and regard for the
importance of his. position, about to pronounce his
determination to abandon him in his hour of trial ?
No one who had not attentively studied the man.
Yet such is the fact. Sir Robert was about to
affirm his intention to vote for the miserable, in-
efficient measure of the Whir government.

Yet even whilst doing this the Right Honour-
able Baronet had his reservations, his doubts as to
the-eorrectness of our past policy. He entertains
"regret that a further experiment of the bill of
1845 was not permitted." But "we cannot revoke,"
he says, "the settlement of 1846." The " settle-
ment !" Why we are revoking it by affirming this
very measure. Is Sir Robert, after all, about to go
a step beyond ministers, and to bid in advance for
popularity with the free trade section of the house,
by binding them to the terms of the bill of 1846 ?
There is not a passage in his speech which is incon-
sistent with his adoption of such a course. He
objects to the proposed protection of ten shillings
per cwt. for six years, on the ground that it would
not 'benefit the West India body ; that it would
check their efforts to reduce the cost of cultivation,
and that it would not deter the Cuban planter from
extending his poWer to supply us, knowing, as he
would do, that at the end of six years, he would
have the unrestricted use of our markets. The
same arguments apply to the limited additional
protection granted by the present measure, even
more strongly, inasmuch as the latter violates a
"settlement" without affording efficient relief to
the planter. The latter says, and Sir Rol-mrt Peel
confirms the assertion,—that time will be required
before an adequate supply of labour can be
secured ; and, pending that period, he asks for
such a protection as will enable him to continue his
cultivation without ruinous loss. The ministerial
measure does not afford such protection ; and,
undir its provisions, cultivation would not be con-
tinued.

The same objection holds with respect to Sir
Robert Peel's further specifics for the relief of the
colonists. Sir Robert proposes the application of a
considerable portion of the £500,000, proposed to
be raised on loan for the purpose of procuring an
increase of labour, to other purposes—irrigation,
thoroughdraining, the formation of railways, &c.
The suggestion is undoubtedly a valuable one; and
by the by, it is easy for a member of parliament,
in his place in the house, with his hand unfettered
by practical difficulties, to make suggestions, and
to ask why were not these things done before,
during the palmy days of prosperity. It is suffi-
cient, however, to know now that they were not
done; and Sir Robert may be assured that, so long
as the plariter is subjected to unequal and ruinous
competition—so long as his property is productive
only of a yearly loss of the capital employed upon
its cultivation—they must remain undone. Besides,
all these improvements—this irrigation, draining,
&c.—are equally open to adoption by the slave
planter, who can apply to them the very money
which we give him, by his more favourable position
in the British market.
There is one argument upon which Sir Robert
Peel appears especially to rely in his opposition to
a temporary protection being given to the British
planter. He says :—" You admit that a very con-
siderable time must elapse before you hive any in-
crease in the supply of labour to the West Indies;
but the stimulus of protection to the East Indies
will be immediate, while the amount of available
labour there is 'enormous ; yet the East Indies
and the Mauritius are to receive an encouragement
to compete with the West In dies, though not labour-
ing under the same disadvantages, which competi-
tion will be as injurious to the West Indies, in a pe-
cuniary point of view, as foreign competition."
Now, what does the Right Honorable Baronet here
admit ? In the first instance, he admits the fact of
a large increase of free labour sugar being raised,
under the encouragement afforded by a temporary
protection. We know the effect of an increase of
supply of any product. It is cheapness. He ad-
mits it himself, when he says that "competition
with the East Indian planter will be as injurious to
the West Indies, in a pecuniary point of view, as
foreign competition." The consumer, therefore,
will not be taxed to the amount of this increased
measure of protection. He will still have cheap
sugar, the result of an increased supply, produced
by free labour in our own colonies, and paid for in
the manufactures of Manchester, of Leeds, of Shef-
field, and Birmingham—not the cheap article,
wrung by the lash from the blood and sinews of the
slave.

But there is another important deduction to be
drawn from this argument of Sir Robert. He had
j ust been saying to the planters ;---" It is only under

the influence of competition that you can hope that
these improvements—these drains and modes of
irrigation—will be bad recourse to ;" and he quoted
afterwards, with approbation, the following evidence
of Mr. Barklay, as to the effect of increased protec-
tion in putting a stop to the reduction of the price
of labour:—" At the present moment, in those co-
lonies, we are engaged in a struggle to reduce the
wages, which is the only means of putting the cost
of production on a sound and satisfactory basis. I
think the effect of a differential duty to that extent
would be at once to decide the struggle in favour
of the negro." But Sir Robert tells us that the
West India planter will be still subjected to a severe
competition with the East Indian, who has abun-
dant and cheap labour. He cannot afford, there-
fore, to stay his efforts to reduce the cost of culti-
vation. He will be driven out of the market, if he
does not make use of all the appliances and advan-
tages within his reach.
It was to be expected, of course, that so consum-
mate a master would not conclude without at least
touching that very important phase of the question,
its connexion with the system of slavery and the
slave trade. Sir Robert has reserved this point for
the close of his speech, and, in our humble opinion,
weak as the whole is, the conclusion is the weakest.
We quote it here :

" I would not despair of the result of competition with
the foreigner, because 1 think that the man must be blind
indeed to the signs of the times who can believe that this
system of slave labour can ultimately be maintained.
(Hear, hear.) Now look to what the state of this slave
labour is in Cuba. Lord Howard de 'Walden has lately
paid a visit there, and this is his account of the condition
of Cuba. Being asked if the overseer of an estate was
obliged to go armed, he answered, " Yes, I believe, in-
variably ; the overseer had a cutlass and dagger, and
three bloodhounds at his heels close by him. I under-
stand it was the custom of the island, that no white man
belonging to an estate should go unarmed. They would
net go on foot at any distance, but ever on horseback they
have always their pistols at their sides." (Hear, hear.)
When you look to the United States, are you sure that
the status of slavery can always be maintained Do you
believe that the inhabitants of the United States are easy
and confident under the maintenance of it ? What is the
reason all discussion of it is put down ? Look to the state
of Martinique, and remember also that these events are
furnishing a lesson which the governments of Brazil and
Cuba—aye, and of the United States—should learn, and,
in fact, are learning. (Hear, hear.)- My opinion is, that
the events which are happening in Europe must precipitate
the time when there shall be a final extinction both of the
slave trade and of the slave. I believe that slavery cannot
long survive, and that the slave, at no remote period,
must be emancipated. (Loud cheers.)

How miserably must the man have sunk in his
own estimation, and how low he deserves to sink in
the estimation of the world, who could bring him-
self to utter this wretched trash ! Whither have
fled all those noble aspirations of British statesmen
and of the British people, to be the pioneers of the
liberty of the African throughout the world ? Whi-
ther has fled their determination to carry out, cost
what it might, the great experiment of cultivating
the tropics with free labour ? To the winds ; and
now we have a reputed great statesman—one ac-
customed

" The applause of listening senates to command,"
instead of standing upon the high and holy ground
of principle upon this great social question, taking
refuge in the hope that the abolition of slavery is
only to be accomplished at last by the negro being
goaded to desperation and outbreak. Spirits of
Wilberforce and Clarkson, of what value were all
your eloquent appeals to the humanity of England
and the world, when the great object of your life's
labour an English statesman now leaves to be con-
summated by the same instrumentality which drives
a hound to fly at his master's threat ; when at
last the real emancipator of the negro is to be some
Cuban overseer, with cutlass and pistols at his
sides and bloodhounds at his heels, more wicked
and cruel than his fellows in crime ? Alas for Sir
Robert Peel !

Wt observe that, to some extent, the question of
our Water Supply will be again brought before the
Council, on Wednesday next (to-morrow), on a
motion by Mr. Parker, affecting Mr. Hawksley's
appointment. Little hope, certainly, seems to exist
that the Council can be induced to deviate from
their course by any coercion of argument which
can be brought to bear upon them. The Water of
Rivington Pike, or the supposed water, for it is
altogether in nubibus, and may never come down,
is that which it seems determined upon that the
inhabitants of Liverpool shall drink and bathe in.
It is of little moment therefore whether to Mr.
Hawksley, or any other engineer, we are to be in-
debted for 'bringing it. But we would suggest to
the Committee that, putting out of consideration
the fact that it has never yet been satisfactorily
proved that we have not within our reach, and be-
neath our feet, an ample supply of water for the in-
habitants of Liverpool, it is not at all certain that
we cannot get the Rivington Pike water without
going to the fountain head, or rather to the original
rainfall, for our supply.
It is notorious that at Rivington, as is the case
in all similar localities, where surface drainage is
depended upon, the supply is intermittent and
precarious; and the bulk of the evidence goes to
show that the Douglas and some other streams
are, during times of drought, or slight rainfall,
barely sufficient, if sufficient at all, to furnish the
requirements of the immediate locality. Has it
ever entered into the minds of any of the members
of the Health Committee, or of their engineers, to
endeavour to ascertain whether it is not possible
to avail ourselves of the same water, after it has
received the subsidization of a portion of the
country through which these streams flow before
discharging themselves into the Ribble ? Those
acquainted with the country know that at Lathom,
about thirteen miles from Liverpool, the Douglas,
the Tawd and the Elderbrook contain a consi-
derable volume of water, by which in heavy rains
the meadow lands are overflowed and the highways
frequently rendered impassable; that at such times
there is frequently a weight of water in one day
wasted, or employing itself only in devastation,
sufficient to keep Liverpool for years ; and that in
ordinary and average seasons the quantity available
is ample. These streams are within reach of the
Liverpool and Ormskirk Railway, down which
pipes might be brought at a light engineering cost,
in the same way that Manchester is supplying
itself from the hills of Derbyshire, by the route
of the Sheffield and Manchester Railway ; and
there would be these great advantages from a
supply from this quarter, over that from the
head source at Rivington. First ! there would be
only thirteen miles of piping, instead of twenty-
two miles. Secondly, tin water being brought
along the line of railway, there would he no heavy
engineering works required, and.no expensive land
purchases to be made. In the third place, we
should escape the whole of the .claims for compen-
sation, in money and in water supply, by the inha-
bitants of Wigan, the canal proprietors, and the
millowners in the district. This is one of the most
material features of the plan; and would save some
thousands yearly of the cost, and remove, at the
same time, the most serious difficulty of the Ri-
vington scheme.
We may be asked how are we to get the neces-
sary elevation for flushing sewers and extinguishing
fires. We answer, by mechanical means. Nothing
can be easier. We can raise the Bootle water to the
highest elevations in the town. We do the same
every day with the Harrington. It is not at all
necessary, in an era in which the principles of
hydraulics are so well understood, that we should
draw our supplies from distant elevations at an im-
mense cost, whilst a couple of engines will give us
the same elevation at a tenth of the cost in our own
locality.
We have merely mooted. this source of supply.
It is worth being inquired into before running our-
selves headlong into the expense of the Rivington
scheme. Our own impression remains, however,
that we have at home water in, abundance, if we
chose to sink for it in our red sand stone formation.

SUGGESTED NEW NAMES FOR STOCKPORT AND MAN-
CHESTER.—An American correspondent of Blackwood's
Magazine speaks of these two seats of the miliocracy as
" Cottonburg " and " Calicopolis." We should strongly
recommend our Manchester friends to accept of the
latter. It is at once euphonious, dignified. and classical.
Calicopolis—citv of calico. If it were only for the sake
of the reporters for the Manchester papers it ought to be
adopted forthwith. It would save them the iteration of
" our city " half a dozen times in every local paragraph.
" The hon. member for Calicopolis " would sound well in
the house, and impart to plain John Bright a majesty of
which he is very short.
KNOWN THIEVES FOUND ROAMING THE STREETS AT
UNSEASONABLE HOURS OF THE NIGHT.—TherO are
many persons of this description to whom the attention
of the constables is directed by their superior officers.
Yesterday, the following were brought to the bar of the
Police-court, having been found in various parts of the
town prowling.about, with no good intent :—Wm. Sed-
don, Wm. Tetlock, Thomas O'Neale, Jeremiah Burns,
and several others. They had all frequently been com-
mitted, and were sent to gaol for three months.

ENORMOUS POOR RATES IN MANCHESTER.

The overseers of Manchester have been compelled, in
order to meet the demands upon them, to increase greatly
the poor's rate for the coming year. The estimated ex-
penditure for the past year was £120,000, raised by a rate
of 4s. 6d. in the pound. The actual payments, however,
have exceeded the estimate by £42,000, a large portion of
which the overseers have had to borrow from their ban-
kers. The funds are now entirely exhausted ; and. whilst
laying the rate for the present year at 6s. Bd. in the pound,
they have to appeal to the inhabitants for early payment,
to rid them of their present debt, and to enable them to
meet the very pressing claims upon them, made by the
guardians for the relief of the poor. Our neighbours of
Manchester have certainly profited little, thus far, from
the advent of what was to be the free trade manufactur-
ing millenium. And, certainly, they seem to be taking
a very odd method of relieving themselves, if they rely
upon the effects of the semi-chartist movements of the
Hume and Cobden school of reformers. A few years of
this six-and-eightpenny visitation ought to open their eyes
a little to the folly of looking at the every-day business
matters of legislation through the spectacles of this hum-
bug school of politico-economical philosophers.