The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-01-11 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING„IANUARY 11, 1833.

Every day teaches us to marvel less and less at the
strangeness of passing events—yet we have not been
able, so -far, to divest ourselves of the natural tendency
as to have perused without astonishment, the unblushing
display made by Mr P. Thomson, .at the dinner lately
given to him and his colleague, Mr. Philips, at Man-
chester.—We were prepared for much of violent decla-
mation .and of assertion, unmeasured and unsubstanti-
ated, from that Right Hon. Gentleman; but the ful-
ness of our faith in the extravagance of his opinions, and
the form in which he gives them utterance, fell very
far short of the reality unequivocally established in the
presence of his constituents.

We pass over, with the speed that best becomes it, the
eulogium so modestly passed by himself on his own po-
litical life; and as we hurry onwards, we come to the ex-
traordinary assertion that the " exPloded system of the
Corn Laws"—deserted, as he is pleased to state, by its
firmer friends—and too glaringly absurd to be supported
by those most deeply interested in this important ques-
tion. What the absurdity is, why • the desertion, and
what the sage measure with which the prolific brain
Thomson is big, he does not condescend to
make known : sufficient is it for the country to know,
that the subject has his most tender care and considera-
tion, and, therefore, that it is sure of meeting with a
safe and satisfactory adjustment ! Speaking in the midst
of an assemblage of those whose views are narrowed
into calculations cf what directly affects their own poc-
kets, and who are either ignorant or forgetful of the
grand pr:nciples that ought to regulate measures affect-
ing the general good of the community, the Right Hon.
Secretary felt confident that his sentiments would find a
ready echo in the cheers of that part of the "commer-
cial metropolis" which he had around him.—But we
deny that those cheers represented the feeling of the
wealth, respectability, and intelligence of Manchester.
—We deny that that important class of society takes the
ighted view of our commercial Premier (for such
this flippant gentleman virtually is). It asks itself, by
whom have we manufacturers been created ? to whom
are we to look for our most important and steady sup-
port ? Undoubtedly to the agriculturist—for we shall
go in vain to foreign countries in search of markets, for
the manufactures, which we shall be enabled to offer at
prices to compete with the foreigner, if the great source
of our consumption at home is dried up. Such were the
sentiments declared by a great manufacturer on the hust-
ings at Lancaster ; such we feel assured are those
Which. animate the thinking part of the manufacturing
community ; • such we know to be inseparable from all
who,view this country in its present artificial state, and
ho would legislate for that actual state, rather than for
the Ut-opia that is sketched out in the imagination of
Mr. Thomson. To him we hope to return in our next

of Mr

short-

publication.

WORKING OF THE REFORM BILL.—We observe that
some of our contemporaries are twitting, the Tories, on
the subject of certain enactments of the reform law—the
extinction of non-residents, the division of polling-places,
and the abbreviation of the time allowed for elections.

The ground-work of their sarcasms is this : you op-
posed the reform bill, yet see how well these enactments
work." A narrow and an unstable foundation! It is
true that these enactments work well—but we are not,
therefore, to be blamed—because these enactments were
not the objects of our opposition. It is •true that they
work 'Well—but- neither are the Radicals to assume to
themselves great credit thereupon; because these were
not the objects of their adoring support. They were
welcomed as beneficial provisions by four-fifths of the
Anti-reformers ; they were approved certainly, but only
approved by the great body of the'Reformers : their zeal
and their enthusiasm, their hard words and their brick-
bats, were all reserved to be used in defence of the sche-
dules and the £lO clause.

To speak of their beneficial results, as the results of
the reform bill, is perfectly preposterous. They form,
indeed, an utterly inconsiderable fraction of that great
and -complex law : and bad; indeed, beyond human con-
trivance, must the measure be, which among enactments
so numerous and so varied, should contain not one which
is calculated to work for good.

Could it have been contrived by legal regulations, to
prevent the payment.of the expences of the non-resident
voters, or strictly to limit them to a certain fixed rate per
mile and per day, this might have been the more desira-
ble alternative; but, as the difficulty of enforcing such
rules might have been serious,—perhaps insuperable,—it
may have been better to destroy the whole of a system,
upon which so much corruption was engrafted.

But, considering the workings 'of 'the bill as a whole,
we are compelled to lament, that it has excluded from
Parliament many able, humane, and excellent men; it
has admitted into Parliament some as thorough Revolu-
tionists as the annals of our country at, any period can
show; it has left bribery utterly unchecked, while, by
multiplying the number of contests, it has greatly en-
larged its field; it has made the expellees of this general
election even greater, we fear, than those of its prede-
cessors ; in England, and far more in Ireland, it has
caused violence and outrage to an extent, hitherto, ut-
terly unknown : tearing the country with dissensions
froin Cape Wrath to the Land's End, it has checked our
industry, and by consequence depressed the condition of
our labouring poor—and, last, not least, while professing
to remove the theoretical anomaly of nomination bo-
roughs, it has introduced a practical anomaly which will
be found much harder of solution, and, which -places us
in the following dilemma :—if the will of the people, now
freely expressed in the House of Commons, is to be pa-
ramount to that of the other branches of the constitu-
tion, and, if the vote of the Lower House is to be vir-
tually decisive of the fate of any legislative measure,
why do we mock the shades of our ancestors, by retain-
ing the mine of a monarchy and the pageant of a peer-
age? But, if, on the other- hand, our King is still to be,