The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-21 00:00:00

TUESDAY 310 RA ING, MAY 21, 1844.

With an election for this important division of
the county impending over our heads—one too in
the decision of which we feel that important results
are bound up, we dare not, for the love we bear
Conservatism, express all the sorrow—all the dismay
—with which we have been compelled to view the
recent vote upon the Factory question. Had Sir
Robert Peel wished to damp most effectually the
enthusiasm of his supporters in this locality; had
he wished to deter them from the exercise of that
energy which the present crisis demands; he could
scarcely have taken a course more directly calculated
to bring about such a consummation, and to con-
vince them that there is no principle connected with
the maintenance of his government for which it is
worth the while of Conservatism to contend, than
the course which he has taken upon this subject,
and some other questions recently before Parlia-
We know that the result of the dogged op-
position to the humane views of Lord Ashley has
fallen upon the hearts of the true friends of Conser-
vative interests in this district with chilling and al-
most paralyzing effect; and that, were passion to be
allowed to have its sway—were the crisis of our
country's fate less bound up in the result of this
contest, less momentous than it is—there would
scarcely be found a hand to struggle, a voice to pro-
test or to animate, a heart to care whether, so far as
the election for South Lancashire is concerned, we
return for this county a friend or an opponent of a
ministry, which constantly compels us to ask our-
selves—" Why do we support—what is our interest
in, a government which is day by day yielding up
some cherished principle for which we have battled
in times past, and upon the faith of upholding which
we have placed them in a position to disappoint and
betray us ?"
It is a cruel position in which we find ourselves.
As Conservatives we long to support the ministry
of Sir Robert Peel, and to be able to look up with
affection and confidence to the members of that
ministry. We cannot, unfortunately, do the latter ;
but most earnestly we must urge upon the friends
of the constitution in this district to let no feeling of
distrust and disappointment, which late events may
have excited, operate to depress their exertions in
this contest. Let them remember that it is not the
cause of a ministry which has now to be decided,
but the permanence of all that, as Englishmen, we
hold sacred and dear, which has to be defended
against the assaults of Revolution. It is not a ver-
dict for or against Sir Robert Peel, or Sir James
Graham, which we have to record ; but we have
a declaration to make before the country of our
resolution to defend the rights of industry and the
security of property, which are menaced by heavy
blows from without, and by faithlessness from within.
Doubly fatal, in the present condition of Conserva-
tism, must be any fainting now. Defeat, for this
important county, would not only give an impetus
to the machinations of our opponents, which it
would be difficult indeed to withstand, but it might
even enable a ministry which worships expediency,
whilst it plays fast and loose with principles and
pledges, to justify before the world the adoption of
that very destructive policy which, as Conservatives,
we seek to avoid. For the gratification of a pettish
feeling against the men, we may drive them prema-
turely to those measures, which our own fears whis-
per they are prepared to concede, upon the first se-
vere pressure which assails them.

ment.

The Conservatives of South Lancashire will not,
we trust, take this rash, suicidal course. No—they
will throw aside their present apathy, and bury their
present jealousies; and rallying to the support of
those principles to which they are pledged by all the
ties of consistency and honour, they will beat down
the faction which is endeavouring to override them.
No Anti-Corn-law League—no seditious confedera-
tion of greedy milloerats—must be permitted to
hold the key of the representation of Conservative
South Lancashire.

All our readers must be aware that the Commis-
sioners of Birkenhead are now before Parliament,
endeavouring to obtain an act empowering them to
construct docks and warehouses on the Cheshire
shore. So long as the matter was in the hands of a
knot of land specubtors we did not apprehend that
Liverpool had much cause to fear the competition ;
but according to the evidence tendered before the
committee of the Commons, coupled with the asser-
tion that the capital has been subscribed to carry
out the project, we think that the interests of several
parties may be seriously affected ; and it behoves
them to be on the look out, lest such powers and
privileges be conceded as may really endanger the
paramount interests of Liverpool. The apathy
shewn, not only by the Town Council, the railway
companies, and the warehouse proprietors, but also
by the holders of property of all descriptions in Li-
verpool, strikes us with surpri-e ; and judging from
the spirit, the daring, and the ability which is direct-
ing the measure in question, hacked as they appear
to be, by capitalists in London, we deem it our duty
to direct the attention of all parties to the probable
effects of docks in Cheshire upon the various inter-
ests connected with this town, in order that our
local rulers may be awake to the dangers with which
those interests are now threatened.
It is all well enough to say that the whole matter
is a mere bubble, got up by interested land specula-
tors ; and that Cheshire docks cannot, in the face
of the Liverpool docks, with their large revenue,
produce a return for the capital invested. This
may, and probably will be the case. But it must be
recollected that if docks be made in Wallasey Pool,
and warehouses be there erected to the extent of
1600,000, as contemplated, it will be better for the
directors of such an establishment to receive even
the smallest return than none at all ; and the conse-
quences may be, that as trade will go where it can
be done the cheapest, dock rates and warehouse
rents here must fall to the competing point, and our
public trusts be thus placed in what a certain would-
be member of Parliament calls " a very akkard city-
ashon." It is perfectly clear to us that ulterior mea-
sures of a sweeping description are intended, which
will not only affect the whole of the leasehold of the
Corporation, the bondholders of the two estates, and
the trading community generally, but will operate
upon the two great railway companies connected
with Liverpool in a way which they do not expect.
Dust may be thrown in the eyes of the people of
Liverpool by the declaration that no rivalry is in-
tended, and that docks at Birkenhead are only to
receive the overflowings of Liverpool Liverpool has
long been a divided house on the subject of dock
accommodation, and the unfortunate opposition of
some members of the Dock Committee to the bill
now before Parliament, while it has materially
strengthened the hands of their antagonists, has
weakened the Dock Committee in their application
to the legislature ; and although there is little doubt
that the dock bill will be carried, the differences to

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