The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-03-19 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 19, 1814.

The Anti-monopoly Association have done our-
selves and a contemporary the exceeding honour of
addressing to us another "Circular," in reply to our
remarks upon their last; and a more Jesuitical
and tricky production we certainly never met with.
Our rejoinder will be very brief. And, first, with
respect to the statements put forth by the association
as to the average rate of freight upon foreign wheat.
In our publication of the 27th of February we had
commented upon the dishonest character of a calcu-
lation of the rates of freight which appeared in the
Liverpool Mercury, evidently furnished by some
great authorities upon the subject,—indeed these
authorities were:known to us. In that calculation,
by what we justly called "a juggle of figures," the
average was made to appear as ranging from 4s. 10d.
to ss. 11d. per quarter. This very calculation was
reiterated in the circular, and conclusions drawn
from it in favour of the arguments of the Anti-mo-
nopoly Association, that the cost of importation of
foreign wheat was a large protection to the British
farmer. The same circular contained an estimate,
forwarded to government by the Consuls of the
various European corn-markets, of the probable
quantities of wheat which could be forwarded to
Great Britain in the event of a free trade.
Of this latter document we availed ourselves, in
an endeavour to arrive at a just average of freight,
which we had maintained could only be done by
taking into consideration the quantities forwarded
at the various rates. Thus, if half-a-million quarters
were shipped from one port at 2s. per quarter, and
a hundred thousand from another at los., it would
be grossly erroneous and dishonest to give the aver-
age of the whole six hundred thousand f,uarters as
6s. per quarter ; and yet the calculation given by the
Mercury and the Anti-monopoly Association was
made upon this erroneous and dishonest principle.
The true mode, we stated, was "to carry out the
calculations at the various foreign ports, and, for the
average, to divide the gross amount by the total
number of quarters ;" and by the application of this
principle to the case put above, our readers will see
the vast difference made—the average being by the
mode of calculation adopted by the association Gs.
per quarter, and by the correct mode 3s. 4d. only.
The reply of the association to this portion of our
remarks is this :
" We agree with the STANDARD that this is the correct
mode of obtaining the average, and tnoriover assert that
it is the way in which it is obtained. Our charge against
Lim is that professing to adopt the table as the means of
ascertaining " an average something like a true one," he
substitutes his own figures to work out his desired re-
sult. We repeat that the average freight of 4s. 94d.,
stated in the Parliamentary Table, is calculated according
to the principle laid down in the STANDARD, and in cor-
recting it to 3s. lid. he has made an error, as any honest
" boy in the Blue
.Coat School or Mechanics' Institu-
tion," will prove to him. In the mean time he will do
well to apologise for pestering his readers with ques-
tions of arithmetic,' until heis better versed in its rules."
One word of explanation will suffice to show the
cool independence and dishonesty of this paragraph.
We attacked—and the association knew the fact—
their calculation which made the average rates of
freight from 4s. 10d. to ss. lid. Our remarks
could apply to no other calculation. We had, the
week before noticing their circular No. 2, quoted
the very statement of whose correctness we com-
plained, and which we found repeated in that circu-
lar ; and we only took the quantities given by the
consular returns to show the incorrectness of that
calculation by contrasting it with the result of a
proper merchant-like calculation, made upon com-
plete data, and with as high and even higher rates,
which gave 3s. lid. as the average, instead of 4s.
10. to ss. lid. ,The fact, therefore, that the average
freight given by the circular returns is properly
calculated, does not affect our position. We never
noticed the average there given of 4s. old. at all.
We gave only the quantities in that document, with
the association's own rates, not " our own"—except
in two instances, when we took higher rates. This
portion, therefore, of the association's reply to us
are cannot characterise as any other than a mean