The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-31 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The letter of " Veritas

It appear next week

......, uas desired us to call attention to the whatever they may be, to be privately expiated,—
fact, that the mills in Bevington Bush are kept working and remembering the importance of the trust which
at such hours as t- -”nit the men at-
()lie worship. the possession of the franchise confers upon them
A Poor Man " erase his name and address for public purposes, make use of it only to advance
elnimunication? We should have been glad that great cause and those great principles of which
given the purport of it, had it not been for this
hitherto they have been the foremost assertors.

are not,—that they will yet pause in their ill-advised
course,—that they will allow private grievances,

correspon

tending
Why did '
from the
to have

circumstance

A Hater of Hambug " is desirous of cautioning the
public against the statements put forth in a letter signed Upon the question now at issue, with respect to
" Vim. Byrom," in the Albion, as expressive of the
Weslevans towards the Established Church. the necessity of providing increased dock accommo-
requests us to caution the public against dation for the increasing shipping of the port, by
ieveral penny almanacs. which he states are a gross im- the purchase of the Harrington Company's pro-
)osition on the unwary. and are merely got up by quacks,
who, to sell a box of their pills, do not mind making a perty, and the strand north of the Dock Estate, we
present of the almanac, in which their nostrums are have remarked at length in another article. To one
strongly recommended.
point, however, mooted at the meeting of the Dock
Committee on Thursday, we are under the neces-
sity, on account of its great importance, of address-
ing a few additional observations. We refer to the
principle which ought to guide the Finance Com-
mittee and the Council, in fixing the price of their
land, so to be disposed of to the Dock Committee.
It is urged by Mr. Alderman Evans, and the fa-
vourers of his crotchets, that the price of the north
strand should be a nominal one—at the utmost ss.
per superficial yard—inasmuch as the land to be
sold has been " made" for the corporation by de-
posits of excavations from the dock works. We
cannot admit the justice of the conclusion, although
we readily admit the fact upon which it is based.
The land in question has been advantaged by the
receipt of the waste soil from the Dock Estate ; but
it has also served as a convenient deposit for that
soil, and, but for its existence, a more expensive
scite must have been found. It has been " made"
by the Dock Committee, not as any matter of favour
to the Corporation, but as a matter of favour to the
Dock Committee; and the latter have just as little
right to profit by its enhanced value, as they would
have to profit by the enhanced value conferred upon
any neighbouring- land, by the construction of a new
dock, or other works, which might bring it into the
market by giving it a frontage for business pur-

views of the

Medico-

lizhtest
It is

to " V.

we had erased f

nt'ntion of giving any offence
almost impossible, in declining
mdent, to give a reason satis-

SOMETHING S

Did he not perceive, on perusing what
om his communication, that his expres-
haracterised by a spirit likely to render

this head, our

OUS ABOUT THE DOCKS."—In a
mtemporary the Journal
ticle imputed to a worthy alder-
Monday's Albion, and a reply,
e secret, graced the Stan-

t any F

aet our contemporary

.r portion of his remark.
n the secret or out of it,
ach the motives and ho-

is opponents, from behind our editorial chair.
st local questions we consider ourselves fully
4 express an opinion of our own ; and where
loss, we endeavour to supply our deficiency
'on by inquiry. If the gentleman recently
Ice in the Whig administration" has not
ied t —n his sublime contemplation to
uni he may be assured that,
ation. he ill find it desirable to make
knowledge of his subject—
,..cnered from an intelligent dock-
ave kept ►,im from the perpetration
-"-ed by sheer ignorance, ill dis-

such merely mundane matters

in his new ar
the attempt.

gateman—would
of a, article, ch

A,tanDartr.

TUESDAY IT/ 0 RA/NG, OCT. 31, 1843

We em

us, of c

race this, the last opportunity afforded to
12 the attention of the Conservative con-

o the

which will take plac

our opponent

ct of st

a deterr

hty are

poses

The fact is, the Dock Committee ought to have
purchased the strand in question years ago, at the
time (in 1822) when they bound the Corporation by
act of Parliament, to make use, or sale, of it for no
other than dock purposes ;—when, in fact, they fas-
tened it as a dead weight upon the Corporation.
They should have bought it before they made it of
this increased vable; and, having neglected so to
do, they have no right to any forbearance from that
body, to whom has naturally and justly fallen the
advantage which they themselves refused or ne-
glected to appropriate, when within their reach.
That part of the question, then, we must treat as
decided against the Dock Committee. They have
no claim upon the Corporation, as, of right, to any
preference over an individual purchaser. It is
urged, however, that they ought to be favoured—
that they ought to have handed over to them valua-
ble portions of the Corporation property, at a nomi-
nal price, as a matter of policy, the welfare of the
town at large being identified with the prosperity of
the Dock Estate. Again we admit the premises,
but deny the conclusion. The town is undoubtedly
benefitted by the extension of the shipping of the
port ; but that the Corporation, who are virtually
trustees of the property belonging to the burgesses,
have a right to part with that property at a price be-
neath its fair value, to advance the interests of the
dock ratepayers—a body composed, as the Chairman
of the Committee observed, of the consumers of
exported and imported produce throughout the
world—we cannot admit, even although their own
interests are thereby indirectly advanced. There is
no limit to which such liberal complaisance might
not be carried, if once we admit the validity of this
argument ; and we must remember that the Dock
Estate is richer and more able to bear its own bur-
thens than that of the Corporation.
The true principle, upon which alone the two bo-
dies can treat for this or any other property is, that
each body should look only to the interests of the
constituency by whom it is elected. That this will
be the course of the Finance Committee of the
Council we trust. They u ill insist upon, not an ex-
orbitant, but a fair price for the land now to he sold,
in justice to the burgesses whose property it is; and
in despite of the jesuitry of an anti-local faction,
who would willingly squander that property for the
advancement of their selfish crotchets and pet theo-
The Corporation stand urgently in need of
an increased surplus fund, to enable them to carry
out the various improvements required within the
borough without pressing upon the means of the
inhabitant householders; and from no source can
such fund be more legitimatzly augmented than
from the sale, at an equitable price, of those portions
of the Corporate Estate which, unproductive at pre-
sent and likely to continue so, for strictly corporate
purposes, can, as in the case of the north strand, be
converted to valuable use by the Dock Committee.

The agitation for Repeal still continues, despite
of its abandonment by O'Connell for the modified
measure of a " Federal Union," and the impending
prosecutions against that incendiary and' his satel-
lites. The "monster meetings," it is true, are for
the present discontinued ; but we have, in their
stead,•demonstrations of the promptitude with which
the peasantry can be summoned to a general rising,
by signal fires lighted from hill to hill ; we have the
usual weekly meetings in " Conciliation Hall," at
which the usual quantity of sedition is given forth
to the world ; we have daily accessions to the ranks
of the disaffected, and vast additional sums flowing
in, to swell the fund by which threatened rebellion
and treason are fed by a coerced and plundered
people. With these " signs and portents" before
us, rendered more striking by the continued pour-
ing of troops, from every available quarter, into
Ireland, we are fully justified in asking—What is
the nature of the crisis towards which these demon-
strations are tending, and for which Government
are making such energetic and vast preparations ?
That the ministry of Sir Robert Peel are in
earnest in their determination to put down the
agitation for Repeal, and to avert the threatened
dismemberment of the empire, we entertain no
doubt. That the prosecution against the leading
incendiaries will be firmly carried on to a convic-
tion, we as little doubt. But the next step—what is
that to be ? O'Connell evidently—his first cowardly
tremor having passed away—laughs at the personal
consequences to himself, to arise from the present
step. He anticipates probably a fine, which would
be promptly paid from the Repeal exchequer, and
the amount substituted by treble exactions from his
duped followers. Such an issue, however, cannot
be contemplated by Government ; or why this con-
tinued movement of troops to Ireland ? Something

more serious than a mere pecuniary atonement must
be intended, or else some ulterior and more decisive
steps, to strike at the agitation itself, and not merely
at the leading agitators, must be in preparation.
Perhaps,jocular as O'Connell now affects to be, the
issue of the approaching trials may lodge himself and a
few of his myrmidons within the walls of Newgate,

or some other equally secure place of confinement

for would-be

In this case, it is quite possi-

force at the disposal of Government

ce of Ireland