The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

black, and next week that it was white. Is Sir
Thomas amongst the " SHAMS and SHARBIES ? "
Why not then say so at once ?
But our very independent Mercury—the man of
" Fair Play "—of course he has done the bold thing
and denounced the " Sham and Shabby " baronet !
Not at all. Mercury, on the contrary, keeps up the
cry against the unfortunate Mr. Cardwell, and has
absolutely the impudence to venture upon the
following :
" It certainly is to be regretted that several merchants
thought their letter of thanks to Sir Thos. Birch would
have sufficient effect on Mr. Cardwell."

What a pity the said letter had no effect upon Sir
Thomas Birch himself ! But, of course, our Lord-
street contemporary is as yet in a happy state of
ignorance as to the composition of the majority in
favor of a three years unmodified Income Tax.
He cannot be aware that a Whig, although he has once
tasted the sweets of office, would thus offend.

We have. thus far, remarked only upon the conduct of our
contemporaries with respect to this question. We have now
however to ask, seriously, what is the National Confedera
tion doing ? That body has a useful object in view; and may,
if its energies are properly directed, achieve that object.
We trust that the confederation are not going to hush up
Sir T. Birch's offence. They have already a memorial in
their hands of, unfortunately, somewhat doubtful authen-
ticity as to the signatures, which, we are told, are in course
of examination, previously to its being presented. Per-
haps the fair way now would be to make it a joint memo-
rial. Mr. Cardwell and his colleague are now both
offenders ; and, if one, both should be invited to retire.
We trust our brother of the Mercury will unite with us in
asking for such a measure of " fair play " on this occa-
sion.

The North American Passengers' Bill, to some of the
most injurious provisions of which we recently directed
the attention of our readers, was read a third time, and
passed in the House of Lords, on the lith instant ; but
in a form so altered, that the bantling may truly be said
to have been changed at nurse. Of the entire twenty-one
clauses, including interpretation and other clauses, of
which the bill consists, no less than thirteen have been
supplied by the committee ; and the leading feature con-
tained in the original—the creation of a new source of
Government patronage, by imposing upon the owners or
charterers of emigrant vessels the necessity of carrying
out a superintendent appointed by the Privy Council—is
omitted altogether. Coming into operation, as the act
does, at the commencement of the season for emigration,
when already many intending to leave the country have
made their arrangements, and shipowners and others have
also entered into contracts, it is important that its pro-
visions should be extensively made known ; and we, there-
fore, furnish a brief summary of the essential alterations
which are effected by it.

By the old law, vessels chartered to convey emigrants
to the British American settlements, were permitted to
carry three passengers (counting the crew as such) to every
five tons register, provided the space between decks allowed
ten superficial feet space for each adult. Two children
under fourteen years of age were computed as one passen-
ger ; and children under one year were not computed at
all. The law, as amended, allows only one adult passenger
to every two tons (exclusive of crew) ; but requires that
the space allowed for each should be twelve superficial
feet. Provided a surgeon sails in the ship, two children
under fourteen years are still to be considered as one adult ;
but in the absence of a surgeon, when the ship has more
than one hundred passengers, each passenger must have
fourteen feet of space, and every child over one year old
be considered an adult.