The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-07-14 00:00:00

kTIONS,

TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1846.

• The town, we suspect, will hail with acclamation
the effort which the Rectors, in co-operation with
thßishop, are making to renew the work of
chtlYch extension in Liverpool. It is long enough,
&most too long, since the last undertaking of the

kirrd was brought to a close. Every day is
bringing an enlarged number of thinking men to
the convic ion, that there is no other way of even
humanizing the masses of fellow creatures which
are accumulating around us, than by spreading re-
ligious influences amongst them, That which we
have been slow to do. from the highest of principles,
we are now finding the necessity of doing, from con-
siderations of prudence and self-defence. And is it
not time for Liverpool to bestir itself, when it finds
itself lying under the imputation of standing lowest
in the scale of British towns in respect both of
health and morals.

The former stigma we are beginning to cope with,
by the introduction of extensive sanatory measures.
Spans are now proposed for abating the other evil
also, by extending % taat wisest, and best, and cheap-
esvof ail modes of police—which seeks to prevent
crime instead of punishing it—,he police which aims
at teaching what is good, instead of merely repres-
sing evil.

One likes not to dwell on the full argument that
exists for making this effort, and for making it very
strenuously. To hear of the tens and twenties of
thousands who are living at our very doors, in want
of every means of C

ian instruction, overwhelms
ous shud ler; for, divide the blame
e of things as we will, a painful por-
nains to every one. We would rather close
s to the magnitude of our work, until some
portion of it shall have been accomplished—until
the light of morning shall show us some portion of
our labour and peril past

with a cor

,ion re

sked the Bishop at the meeting the other
day) would have had the heart to set about raising
above £600,000 for the purpose of building churches,
and £40,000 a-year for clergymen's salaries, if told
ten years ago that such sums would be required ;
and yet within that space of time those sums have

been raises

auspicious for making
conquests already won. We
.very day—and we grudge not to hear it —of
the thousands which are shortly to be spent in pro-
moting loyal, and charitable, and social affections
amongst u; for a single day. Some hearts must
surely glow with a desire of doing honour, with at
least an equal portion of their earthly substance, to
the King of Kings, and of securing benefits to their
fellow creatures which are to outlast the day or the
year, or even the very hounds of time itself.

The time, too, is sure
this addition to t

3 which the present proposal con-
built under an Act passed a few
years ago, usually known by the name of Peel's Act.
Its great recommendation is, that it provides a sti-
pend of £l5O a-year, out of the Ecclesiastical Corn-
missioners' Fund, for every clergyman appointed
under its provisions as soon as a church shall have
been erected.

churcl

To secure such an endowment is, in fact, to re-
one of the chief difficulties which have been
rto found in the work of church building. The
hese churches is vested, by the Act, in
d the Bishop of the diocese, ultimately.
in his capacity of first nominator, has

appointed clergymen to three out of the four dis•
tricts which have been already formed, in each of
which it is proposed to build a church. And in two

has already commenced,

purpose, let our aim be fixed ❑pon twenty thousand
pounds; and twenty thousand pounds, we doubt

The Ministry of Lord John Russell may now be
regarded as formed. The bulk of its members have

out even the semblance of an opposition being
ffered to them ; and in a few days we may expect
D see the legislative machine set
n and guided by Whig hands.
1-3 unprofitably employed in casting a

may no

In the

eantime,

I. glance over the materials, of which the
is composed, and, from the slight hints a

ar to d

cv and ineasur

ermine their me

. ,
In all past attempts to conduct the government
of Great I

he WI

the country, and.thir usual supporters,

by their

exclusiveness, and the tenacity they have shown in
confining their appointments within the circle of
some half-a-dozen families. Nepotism has been

their characteristic, and the idea of jobbing is ever
inseparably connected in our minds with Whig
ascendancy. Unhappily for himself, Lord John
Russell has not been able to steer clear of this rock-
a-head. With two or three exceptions, and with a
somewhat altered distribution of, their offices, the
present ministry is the resuscitation of the Mel-
bourne Cabinet. It has little of added popular ele-
ment; and absolutely nothing to win for it the
increased confidence of sober and reflective politi-
cians. The enlistment of Mr. H. G. Ward, of ap-
propriation clause notoriety, suggests sad remin-
iscences of that infamous contract, by which the
Church of Ireland was handed over for spoliation ;
and the selection of an untried man in the person
of Mr. Milner Gibson, remarkable only for one of
the most glaring apostacies on record, for so impor-
tant an office as that of V ce-President of the Board
of Trade, indicates, with tolerable clearness, that
our commercial policy is to be henceforth dictated
by those crude statesmen—the political tinkers, who
have made the Chamber of Commerce of Manches-
ter an assembly, whose mention is the signal for
inextinguishable ridicule and laughter. The remain-
der of the list is principally composed of the old
hacks of past years, whose administrative incapa-
city has been again and again shown to be antipo-
dean qualities with their large pretensions.
An administration thus composed can have in
itself little pretension to permanence ; and the mode
in which the responsibility for conducting the busi-
ness of the country has been distributed amongst
its members is not calculated to inspire confidence
in its efficiency. We cannot, for example, discover
any great evidence of the fitness of Mr. Charles
Wood for the office of Chancellor of the Exche•
quer. The only circumstance,indeed, which accounts
for his being in office at all, most people imagine
to be the accident of his relationship to Earl Grey.
As little are we able to discern Mr. Labouchere's
fitness for the Iri h Secretaryship. Lord Palmerston's
appointment as Foreign Secretary is a thing of
course; but how the objections of Earl Grey, by
which the last attempt of Lord John Russell to
form a ministry were defeated, have been got over
the public are not informed. He was a dangerous
member six months ago; but we should imagine
that he could scarcely change his nature as easily as
he changed his political opinions and alliances. Sir
J. Cam Hobhouse's recommendation for the Board
of Controul cannot be his former administration of
the duties of that office, connected with which the
nation has some unhappy recollections of disaster;
and, with respect to a number of the small fry, their
pretensions to their various offices are to be tried,
their past senatorial achievements containing little to
inspire confidence in their discretion or their ability.
It cannot escape observation that, with such a
ministry, in the present state of parties, the govern-
ment of the country must remain virtually in the
hands of Sir Robert Peel and his little band of Con-
servative supporters. Ultra-Whig legislation is ob-
viously impossible, unless the late premier is pre-
pared completely to reverse the policy, and surrender
the principles, of his past political life, and his ad-
mirers, the 120 gentlemen who so readily followed
him in his free trade movement, are prepared fur-
ther to stultify themselves. Mr T. B. Macauley, in his
speech to the electors of Edinburgh, stated truly
enough that the Whig party was the only one capable
at the present crisis of forming an administration ;
but even that self-satisfied gentleman would proba-
bly acknowfedge that his colleagues and himself can
only govern permissively. Their measures, and the
extent to which their principles shall be carried out,
are laid down for them. '1 hey are to carry out the
views of Sir Robert Peel. When they attempt to
go further—when they start anything original, and,
consequently, crotchety, the ex-minister will inter-
pose his veto and remind them of their subordinate
position.

The little that we know, thus far,' of their forth-
coming measures, affords abundant proof of this
utter want of independence. In the purposed final
settlement of the sugar duties, the ministry is only
following to its conclusion the policy which dictated
the surrender of protection to native industry. This
is certainly to be the main measure of the present
The only further hints which we have, as
to coming measures, is the announcement that the
Government is about to devote itself to measures of
social amelioration. We may look for a sanatory
bill, of which, no doubt, the bill of Lord Lincoln
will be the foundation. We are to have an exten-
sion of the means of education for the people, upon
the old Whig pattern, which has found such favour
with Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham. We
are not, at present, to h ye proposed to us the en-
dowment of the Popish Church in Ireland. That
pear is not ripe. It will not go down with the dis-
senting constituencies any more than with the ma-
jority of the Established Church; and is probably
reserved for a future master stroke of Sir Robert
Peel himself. The revenues of the Establishment
in Ireland, however, are doubtless doomed to be cut
down for educational purposes ; and Sir Robert
will support the robbery upon the plea of "perfect
equality," which he proclaimed in his retiring
speech. We are also to have a new settlement of
the law as between landlord and tenant in Ireland.
It is a part of the contract with Daniel O'Connell,
and accounts for his present wonderful good hu-
mour with the world, and for Dungarvon being left ,
uncontested for Mr. Richard Lalor Shiel, notwith-
standing all the past threats of punishment for his
recusancy. But beyon•l what is now chalked out,
Lord John and his colleagues are not to stretch
their fingers. Like children, they are to he per-
mitted to rideia few of their favourite hobbies—to
take a short airing upon the road of innovation ;
but the ex-premier is to hold the reins and to carry
the whip.

session.

We do not urge the fact of this control being ex-
ercised over them, to induce any one of our readers
to lay aside his, or her, fears of the result of Whig
incapacity and want of constitutional principle. On
the contrary, we would urge them to increased