The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-31 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 31, 1848.

THE election for municipal honours, which will
take place to-morrow, are characterised by some
peculiar features ; and with respect to several of
the wards, cannot be regarded by ourselves without
feelings of a painful nature. We regret the almost
certain prospect which is before us of the loss of
several most valuable members of the Conservative
party, who have offended their constitutents, by
their votes on the question of Water Supply, and
rating the Dock and Corporate Estate. We fore-
saw and foretold that this would be the case; and
the only conclusion, therefore, to which we can
come is, that these gentlemen preferred acting up
to their sincerely-entertained views in the Council-
Chamber; and that they are satisfied, until these
important questions are decided, to retire into pri-
vate life.

In eight out of the sixteen wards there are, at
present, the elements of a contest; but we do not
expect to see above five or six carried to the poll.
The Conservatives opposed for their votes on these
questions are six, viz. :—Messrs. F. Shand, Ever-
ton ; J. Stewart, St. Peters ; Thomas Royden,
Great George; West Derby, J. Plumpton ; and
South Toxteth, Ambrose Lace. In addition Mr.
C. W. Reade, Conservative, retires from Abercrom-
bie. The Whig-Radicals who are opposed on
these questions are five, viz. :—William Rathhone,
Vauxhall ; Eyre Evans, St. Paul's; V. Higgins,
Lime Street; W. Earle, St. Ann's ? and T. Lloyd,
North Toxteth. Two of these come forward for
different wards, viz.: W. Earle, for Abercrombie,
and Mr. Lloyd for Great George. In another
column will be found a tabular statement of the
entire list.

There are not many of the wards in which the
comparative fitness cf the candidates can admit of
dispute. In Everton Ward we conceive that, irre-
spective of his views as to the rating of the Dock
and Corporate Estate, Mr. F. Shand ought, from
the long and intimate connexion of his family with
the commerce of our port, and with its numerous
institutions, to be regarded ns, beyond a doubt,
entitled to a renewal of the honour which he seeks.
He has shown himself in the Council, as in his
private capacity, a straightforward, intelligent, and
honourable man of business. We are sorry that,
upon certain points, he has not the wishes of his
constituents; but as to his sincerity upon these
points, his perfect disinterestedness, and his fitness
on all other questions to represent the constituency,
we have no mis-givings. Mr. Shand we know;
Mr. Langsdale we do not know publicly ; and we had
rather a thousand times trust men, whose opinions
upon a few points we know to be opposed to us,
than untried men, whose only recommendation is
an accordance with us upon those particular points.
We must not forget that there are other questions,
besides these, in which we are deeply interested ;
and that in these our " new loves" may disappoint
us as egregiously as our old friends have done in
those which happen to be the questions of the
hour.

With respect to Vauxhall Ward, we have every
disposition to see Mr. Rathbone sent to the retire-
ment of a private station. We have no sympathy
with this faded and very bitter gentleman. In
St. Paul's we do not expect to see Mr. Eyre Evans
appc a 7 at all. The question—" what interest have
the Albert Docks paid ? " ought to upset him. Mr.
Briscoe, the Conservative candidate, is a respectable
and honourable tradesman. The new Whig-Radi-
cal philosopher, M`Guffie, is nobody, and will be
nowhere. St. Peter's Ward, we must confess, it
gives us great pain to see contested by two such
men—both Conservatives. Mr. Ferguson we
should be happy to see in the Council, as one of
the best representatives of his class. But we had
rather see him displace any other man than Mr.
John Stewart, a gentleman whose talents and ex-
perience have served the town often, and which
they would be justified in paying for, and may have
to pay for, at a very high rate. Mr. Royden is
also a gentleman of unflinching honesty, whom we
can ill spare; and Mr. Ambrose Lace, as a lawyer
and gentleman, of extensive and practical infor-
mation, will be grievously missed in the Council.
His clearheadedness, legal knowledge, and un-
swerving honesty, ought to have induced his con-
stituents to overlook his obnoxious votes upon the
two particular questions of the day.
With respect to Mr. Wm. Earle, we can really
spare him from the Council, replaced as he will be
by an intelligent gentleman, in the person of Mr.
Poole. We can dispense with buffoonery in the
Council chamber. As to the other Whig-Radical
homunculi, we are well rid of them also. The last
of these to which we shall advert is Mr. R. M.
Beckwith, the competitor of Mr. J. Bourne for
West Derby. The former must go to school for a
few years, and learn to write grammar, before he
will be fit for the position to which his pothouse, or
hothouse admirers, have taught him to aspire.

In another column will be found a letter from
the Rev. Dr. Nl'Neile, repeating his previously ex-
pressed denial of the charge of having ever changed
his views upon the subject of endowing the Roman
Catholic priesthood ; or given expression, at any
time, to sentiments which, unless misunderstood
and tortured, could be construed into an admission
of the kind. The question is, therefore, now, one
of veracity between the reverend doctor and the
Mail's informant and correspondent, "A." We
would prefer, however, to treat it as one of misap-
prehension on the part of the latter; for although
be chooses to write in incognito, it is no secret that
the party is Mr. Henry Cleaver Chapman. a gen-
tleman whom we would not willingly see placed in
a position of antagonism with an honoured digni-
tary of the Church to which he belongs, upon such
a question. It is easy, and common, for men to
run away with wrong impressions of the full extent
of meaning to be attached to off-hand remarks used
in private conversations; and it is very clear to us,
and will be to all those whose minds are unbiassed
by party hostility against the reverend doctor, that
such has been the case in this instance.

A PAMPHLET has just been published by Mr.
T. Webster, Barrister, addressed to Mr. Bramley-
Moore, as Chairman of the Liverpool Docks ; the
object which the writer has in view is to depreciate
in public estimation the security of our Docks, and
to prove that—
" The expenditure of the money required for reclaiming
the waste land at Wallasey-pool would be a most profitable
expenditure ; and if as the consequence of the creation of
such valuable property for the Crown, unprofitable ex-
penditure on the opposite (Liverpool) shore were checked,
the bondholders and annuitants of:the Liverpool Dock
Estate, the commerce of the Mersey, and the public at
large, would be participants in the benefit."—page 12.
We give this extract to show the animus of the
writer, and before we proceed to notice the pamph-
let further, we will just inform our readers in what
capacity Nir. Webster appears before the public as
the champion of Birkenhead, and in antagonism to
the Liverpool Docks in particular, and Liverpool in
general.

Mr. Webster is a barrister, and has been engaged
on the Birkenhead schemes from their commence-
ment., He was the appointed paid Chairman of
the Birkenhead Docks, under the bill brought be-
fore Parliament last Session, but which bill was

summarily ejected ; Mr. Webster thereby lost his
paid chairmanship of £l5OO a-year, and is now
thrown upon the world again to try to obtain a
chairmanship elsewhere. Perhaps he has an eye
to a coming vacancy ?—Before we recommend him,
however, we must first ascertain his views on the
rating question !
_ _ _

Mr. Webster's pamphlet is so full of inaccuracies,
and his deductions are consequently so ridiculously
absurd, that we should not have deemed them
worthy of a passing notice, were it not for the
manner in which a cotemporary has blazoned them
forth to the world. Their existence will be ephe-
meral, and " like the baseless fabric of a vision,
leave not a wreck behind."

The leading feature of Mr. Webster's pamphlet,
(as far as the Liverpool Docks are concerned,) is to
prove that the income of the Liverpool Dock Es-
tate does not keep pace with the demands made on
its resources, and that the money now in course of
being expended will be unprofitably laid out, both
as regards the estate and in promoting the interests
of the commerce of the port. Now if there is one
point more than another that " he who runs may
read," it is the rapid and progressive increase of
the port of Liverpool ;—its increase in tonnage al-
most passes belief, and the receipts would .have
gone on pari passu, if the Dock Committee had
not, as in duty bound, from time to time reduced
the rates.

At page 9, Mr. Webster says,—
"The financial condition of the Liverpool Dock Estate
at the time of the application for the Act for the Albert
Dock, in 1841, when contrasted with the financial con-
dition of the estate at the present time, shows the natural
consequences of the views which you have advanced.
From the passing of the Albert Act (May 18, 1841,) to
the 20th of June 1848, the bond debt has increased by
no less a sum than £2,187,263 ; or at the rate of £312,406
per annum on the seven years; which, at the rate of
£4 per cent. amounts to a permanent charge of more than
£12,000 per annum as interest, the increase of revenue
during the same period not amounting to £3OOO per
annum."

Nov, what is the answer to this ? Simply to
quote the dock receipts on goods and tonnage only,
and setting aside other sources of income :

Receipts on Goods and Tonnage.
1841 X 175.506 8 5
1842 .. 177,231 15 5
1843 .. 188,286 2 1
T 844 .. 185,164 1 11
1845 .. .. 223,247 4 5
1846 .. 213,423 16 2
1847 .. . 244,435 14 7
This is surely a complete answer to Mr. Web-
ster's proposition. and for this to be fully appre-
ciated by our readers, we must remind them of the
fact, that the Dock Committee, in 1845, reduced
the tonnage dues on vessels trading to the eastward
of the Cape of Good Hope from 2s. 3d. to ls, 6d.
per ton—equivalent to 33 per cent.
Mr. Webster is also aware (for he heard this
himself given in evidence by Mr. Bramley-Moore)
that the reductions in dock dues, from the year
1836 to the year 1846, amounted to the astounding
sum of ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOU-
SAND POUNDS.

Mr. Webster enlarges about our debt and in-
come ; but to show how little reliance can be
placed on his figures, and how erroneous his con-
clusions must necessarily be, we may mention
the fact, that he gives the gross amount of the
dock debt, which includes very nearly a million
sterling, for the Albert Dock and warehouses—but
he forgets ( ?) to give us credit for a farthing of in-
come arising from this costly structure. There is a
large amount omitted here by Mr. Webster alto-
gether. This forms, perhaps, the most unprofitable
part of the Dock Estate, and, in this respect, may
be worthy of the genius of the founder of it and of
Gill-street Market. The income, nevertheless, of the
Albert Warehouses must form an item of many
thousands of pounds, and could not easily escape
Mr. Wubster's notice, who professes to be ac-
quainted with all the " ins and outs of the Dock
Estate."

In allusion to the reduction made last year, of
£40,000 per annum, Mr. Webster says,—(p. 10)
" It is not one which ought to be relied on as capable of
being re-imposed, seeing that it was confined to cotton,
coal, iron, and salt, for which ample accommodation will
ere long exist elsewhere, and was not a reduction ex-
tending over the general trade of the port."
"Still harping on my daughter !" And such is
Mr, Webster's benighted affection for the place of
his chairmanship that be here forgets, or wilfully
misrepresents facts—for there was a reduction be-
sides those on coal, cotton, salt, and iron, and a
reduction which went to affect the general trade of
the port, viz., a general reduction of the tonnage
dues on shipping to a maximum rate of fifteen-
pence per ton, and the Dock Committee have the
power to re-impose the former dues whenever they
may think proper.
`We now leave Mr. Webster, for the present, for
the public to judge of him as a fair and impartial
exponent of the affairs and interests of the Liver-
pool Dock Estate. We expected nothing better,—
because we have often listened to Mr. Webster's
spiteful and erroneous statements in parliamentary
committees about the Liverpool Docks.
The gist of the learned advocate's pamphlet
amounts to this :—He wishes, if possible, to secure
the timber trade for Birkenhead, and prevent it
going to the North Shore. There are, however,
two or three hindrances to its ever being carried
over to Birkenhead, which we will name for his
comfort.

Ist. The Bill is passed, enabling the Dock
Trustees to purchase the North Shore, and we be-
lieve the arrangements with Lord Derby are defi-
nitely concluded.

2nd. The timber float at the north, and the
yards for stowage will cover a space of nearly two
hundred acres ; and cost, all complete, including
the sea wall, about ss. per yard, or the equivalent
of 3d. per yard annual rental.

3rd. The timber merchants will not remove to
Birkenhead.

4th. The convenience of land and water carriage
at the North Shore far exceed anything to be
offered at Birkenhead.
sth. The land at Birkenhead costs about 235. 4d.
without foreshore or works; therefore 30s. may be
taken as a moderate cost per yard with works, or
the equivalent of ls. 6d. per yard annual rental.
If Mr. Bramley-Moore has not seen Mr. Web-
ter's pamphlet, we commend it to his perusal ; and
if we were in his place, we should "thank our
enemy for having written a book."

IN laying before our readers, last week, a docu-
ment purporting to be "Tract No. I. of the Liver-
pool Currency Reform Association," we expressly
stated it to be very probable that we were prema-
ture in so doing. We conceived that the gentle-
men composing the Association might have safe-
guards and checks to bring forward, along with
their principle ; yet we thought it advisable as soon
as possible to give an opportunity for the discus-
sion of such principle, and to announce to our
commercial readers the conclusion arrived at by
the Association, that our existing monetary laws
are bad in principle; and that a system, in their
opinion, can be devised, free from the defects of
the present, and, at the same time, resting upon a
perfectly secure basis. We repeat this explanation
here, in justice to the Association ; and now pro-
ceed to offer a few observations, in reply to an
article in the Manchester Guardian condemnatory
of the Association's views.

Our contemporary sets out with the old bullion-
ist bugbear—the query " What is a pound ?"
" Those of our readers," he says, " who have paid any
attention to the discussions which have taken place be-
tween the supporters and the assailants of the present sys-
tem of currency, must be aware that the question has al-
most invariably turned upon the measure of value. " A
pound, unless the phrase has reference to some tangible
and valuable article, may mean anything or nothing at all ;
—it may imply a value equal to that of twenty-three pen-
nyweights of gold ; or, like a Buenos Ayres paper dollar,
or a French assignat, it may mean, according to circum-
stances, a sixteenth part of the original value, or a piece of
waste paper, of no value at all. Sir Robert Peel, there-
fore, very properly called upon his opponents in the House
of Commons to state what their pound sterling was ; but
not one of them could give an intelligible answer to the
challenge."
Of course it is no fair imputation against the
Liverpool Currency Reform Association, that none
of the Parliamentary opponents of the great bul-
lionist doctor were able to give an intelligible an-
swer to his query. We never remember his having
given one himself which was very satisfactory to
us. It is easy to say that it is a certain fractional
part of an ounce of gold, the price of which the
Legislature has fixed ; but we know that the value,
or purchasing power of this ounce of gold, it can-
not succeed in fixing. A while ago a hundred of
these pounds would buy £lOO in Three per Cent.
Consols : to-day eighty-six of the same pounds
will secure to their owner the same amount as the
result of the investment. " A pound," our con-
temporary says himself, " unless the phrase has
reference to some tangible or valuable article, may
mean anything, or nothing at all," Decidedly so;

but wherein consists the value of gold? Adam
Smith would tell him that such value consists,
like that of all other commodities, in the amount
of labour which it contains. Like theirs, too, its
value as a purchasing power fluctuates in propor-
tion to its abundance and the demand for its pos-
session. As a measure of value, even, it fails,
because we cannot fix its aggregate quantity, in
the same way that we fix the yard with reference
to an ascertained length, the circumference of the
globe. We cannot ensure the entire stock availa-
ble for the exchange transactions of the world from
either incrwise or decrease ; we cannot prevent its
abstraction from our own country; and hence we
cannot ensure its value remaining in any particular
proportion to that of other commodities.
The measure of value of a pound proposed by
the Association has a degree of fixity which the
present measure, gold, does not possess. We have
a well-defined and fixed rate of interest, which
the nation is hound to pay, upon a certain portion
of the accumulated labour of the community; and
we can practically fix the purchasing power of our
currency upon this rate of interest, in the same
way that we estimate the value of a farm, or a
house, by the rent which it produces. An estate
which cost £lO,OOO, and yields £3OO per annum
interest upon the investment, may he considered
an equivalent value for £lO,OOO in Three per Cent.
Consols at par. Let the rent fall to £2OO per
annum, and it becomes one-third less than an
equivalent. The rate of interest which they pro-
duce determines the value both of the estate and
of the national security, which is the basis pro-
posed of the new paper currency. Thus far we
believe the Guardian is in possession of the nature
of the Association's system. We shall, therefore,
at once proceed to discuss the objections which he
urges against it. His first is a doubt whether it
could maintain the pound, permanently, at a cer-
tain purchasing power. He says :
" In the first place, there is an obvious source of change
in the fluctuations which may occur in the market prices
of stock, from the greater or smaller degree of confidence
in the stability of the government. Suppose some cause
of alarm to arise in England, similar to those which now
prevail in different parts of the continent, and the real
exchangeable value of consols may sink in the proportion
of 100 to 75. According to the Liverpool plan, the nomi-
nal price cannot alter; the stock must retrain at par;
and the depreciation will consequently show itself in the
exchangeable value of the paper money, which, as specified
in the details of the plan, is to be always obtainable from
government on deposit of the stock ; and the necessary
consequence of such a change would be, an apparent ad-
vance of 25 per cent in the price of commodities, but a
real depreciation of the currency to that extent, derang.
ing all the exchanges with foreign countries, and throwing
commercial undertakings of all kinds into unutterable
confusion." •

We deny this assumption. The proposed cur-
rency could not be depreciated ;—being a mortgage
on the property of the country, it is clear that its
value will always bear the same relation to that of
the property whereon it is founded. With respect
to the concluding portion of the quotation, we
maintain, that in the event supposed by the Guar-
dian, under our present system, gold would imme-
diately disappear, and, instead of the appreciation
he dreads under our proposed system, which could
not occur, of 25 per cent. in the value of com-
modities, a depreciation of double or treble that
amount would take place ; as it would then be
found impossible to convert commodities into
money on any terms : and the increased purchasing
power of a pound would be thus turned against us,
to the utter ruin of every class of traders, and the
sacrifice of the realised property, or accumulated
labour of the country, to the amount of hundreds
of millions. To foreign exchanges the Guardian
attaches too much importance. The Association
maintains that it is impolitic to have a currency
dependent on, and influenced by, foreign exchanges,
—the palpable defect of the present system being
its dependence upon so fickle a basis.
Our contemporary proceeds :
" But this, though an obvious and serious cause of
disturbance, sinks into insignificance when compared with
another defect which the plan involves. What is that
"aggregate amount of accumulated capital and labour'
which the Liverpool Association propose to erect into a
standard of value. Is there anything in it at all resem-
bling the circumference of the earth, or the length of a
pendulum vibrating seconds, or any other fixed and deter-
mined quantity or extension ? It is simply an obligation
on the part of the British government to pay annually so
many things called pounds sterling. Before we can esti-
mate its magnitude or its value, either now or at any
future time, we must learn from some other source what
a pound sterling really is. Instead of furnishing us with
any standard for correcting the value of the currency
when it is deranged by accidental causes, the funded debt
constantly requires the aid of the currency to determine
its own value. In this respect it differs entirely from the
circumference of the earth. If the latter is once ascer-
tained, and the length of a statute mile is taken at some
definite proportion—say one twenty-thousandth part of
the whole circumference,—then, in case of doubt as to
a departure from the standard measure of length, an ac-
curate re-measurement would correct the error, and re-
store the standard to its integrity ; but, in case of a de-
parture from the true measure of value,—if the paper cur-
rency should become depreciated five or ten per cent,—
where is the corrective power of the standard proposed ?
It would be just as wise, in case of an error in the stan-
dard bushel, to measure out a million quarters of corn for
the pprpose of ascertaining the collective quantity by the
standard, and then to measure them over again, for the
purpose of determining the standard by the collective
quantity,—as to settle the value of the debt by the pound
sterling, and then try to correct the value of the pound
sterling by the amount of the debt." _ _

The " aggregate amount of accumulated capital
and labour" is a particular description of property
adopted as a standard by which to measure the
value of all other property, and consists of eight
hundred millions of pounds, in the place of fourteen
millions of stock and an uncertain quantity of gold.
By this very admission, we may remark, of stock
as a basis of his circulation, Sir Robert Peel admits
the principle of the Association.
A steady measure of value could be secured for
the pound in account, uniformly fixed in the same
relation to all property; for every pound of this
funded property has been passed through the
market, and admitted to account at its market
value ; nor can it be justly altered without all other
property being altered in the same ratio.
The Guardian concludes :

" We do not know that it is necessary to pursue much
further the exposure of this chimera ; and we shall, there-
fore, only add that the Liverpool Currency Reform Asso-
ciation seem as if they were determined that the currency
they suggest should not escape depreciation ; for they
propose that government should always issue notes (we
presume at par) on deposit of stock ; on which stock no
dividend would be paid until the loan was repaid. As
there are somewhere about 800 millions of English fun-
ded debt, we should have a tolerably large circulation of
paper money, whenever the current rate of interest ex-
ceeded three per cent ; and prices of land and merchan-
dise would soon feel the effects of that supply. The as-
sociation appear to suppose that the abundance of paper
money would lower the general rate of interest to three
per cent or less. This is a very common error, but one
which a very little inquiry would correct. The rate of
interest was not low in France during the issue of as-
signats ' • nor has it been reduced in Buenos Ayres by that
issue of paper money which has diminished the value of
the dollar, from four shillings and two-pence, down to
three-pence halfpenny. An excess of capita' will reduce
the rate of interest ; and inconvertible currency in excess
can diminish nothing but its own exchangeable value."

In reply to the fear of our contemporary, on the
score of an excess of the currency, we think that a
little more consideration ought to satisfy him that
such a circumstance cannot very well occur as a
rule. When such excess is occasionally found to
exist, the rate of discount will fall, until the cur-
rency is returned to the Bank, and reassumes the
shape of Consols. We shall not have, as under
our present system, money deposited at call with
bankers, for one-and-a-half or two per cent, which
has formed so fertile a source of wild speculation
and undue credits, under our present system. The
Association do not think, as alleged, that the rate
of interest under their proposed system
could fall below three per cent. And further,
we may remind our contemporary that his
reference to the depreciation of the French
assignats and to the paper money of Buenos
Ayres is out of place. Neither of these systems of
currency had any solid basis or convertibility at all.
Before we conclude we cannot restrain ourselves
from adverting to the very uncalled-for tone in
which our contemporary introduces his subject.
" The presence of disease," he says, " in animal or
vegetable substances generally proves favourable
to the developement of parasite insects and fungous
excrescences, by which the mischief is increased
and disseminated. Social and political evils, too,
appear to have a tendency of a similar kind, and,
as sure as maggots breed in a piece of putrid flesh,
or the Botritis attacks a diseased potato, so do
currency nostrums originate and flourish in periods
of commercial depression." Now all this talk of
" parasite insects," " fungous excrescences," &c.,
is not only in bad taste, as applied to a body of
gentlemen, quite as capable of forming a sound
judgment on the currency question as the Guardian
himself, and equally anxious for the real welfare of
the country; but it is unfortunate as well, for if
currency reformers be the things they are compared
to, the country, under the excellent system of the

bullionists, is clearly "the piece of putrid flesh" or
" the rotten potato." The presence of social dis-
ease is admitted; and the regular physician has
failed to subdue it. The universal pill, that was to
cure every stage and every sort of disease—under
whose operation the patient was to be neither too
high nor too low, neither disposed to run his head
against a wall nor jump into the fire—has resulted
in producing alternately all these unhappy extremes;
and it is little to be wondered at that we are, under
these circumstances, inclined to fly to the unli-
censed doctor, or to take the examination of our
case into our own hands. The monetary policy of
Sir Robert Peel has obviously not fulfilled the ex-
pectations of its author. Under its operation, the
Guardian admits that we have had " extravagant
speculation," and " the collapse which follows it,"
which have scattered bankruptcy and ruin amongst
all classes indiscriminately. Men will not submit
to be held for ever in the cruel and torturing grasp
of such a system, without the attempt to extricate
themselves, for all the Burleigh-like shakes of the
head of the Manchester Guardian, whose preten-
sions as an infallible authority on this question we
are not at all disposed to admit.

A contemporary of Saturday attacks, in a lengthy
leader, the administration of the Dock Estate—
why, at this particular period, we are unable to
surmise. The whole policy of the Dock Committee,
he says, has been wrong; but the strangest com-
plaint is contained in the following paragraph

"Our general readers are perhaps not aware that in the
present year the Dock Committee have remitted dues to
the amount of £40,000 upon goods, Mark the words—
" upon goods," for this relinquishment of dues is no
benefit to the shipowner, but it is a considerable one to
the foreign importer, and the Manchester and Yorkshire
manufacturer. The free traders seem to take a delight in
beggaring themselves—in throwing every advantage which
this port, or the country at large possesses—away."

We repeat, with our contemporary,—"Mark the
words—upon goods ;" and we add the question,—
Upon what goods ? The reduction was principally
confined to the articles of cotton, coal, iron, and
salt—the great feeders of the commerce of the port,
and the principal sources of employment to the
shipowner. The proximity of the salt of Cheshire,
the coal of Lancashire, and the iron of Wales and
Staffordshire has ever been amongst the greatest
means of attracting shipping to our river. One or
other, or all, form a portion of nearly every outward
cargo; whilst cotton is acknowledged to be our
leading staple, and to have aided mainly in placing
us in the pre-eminent position which we occupy.
If it is not an advantage to the shipowners of Liver-
pool that the port charges on these articles should
be made as light as possible, we really do not know
what would be an advantage. We shall next be
told, perhaps, that cheap canals and railways, to
bring the adjacent minerals to our quays, and to
transport cotton and other produce into the interior,
are no boons to the shipowners and merchants of
Liverpool, and only benefit "the foreign importer
and the Manchester and Yorkshire manufacturer."

ANOTHER HINT TO THE WATER COMMITTEE.

The Manchester Guardian, of Wednesday last, con-
tains the following additional notification, which we re-
commend for digestion by the advocates of the Rivington
Pike Scheme :

" We understand that the total cost of raising the water at
Gorton, by means of the Cornish engine new working there,
from a great depth, from the red sandstone, is exceedingly
small. His stated that, including interest of money expended
in the boring and putting down the' engine, wages, fuel, &0.,
the cost of raising one thousand gallons of water by this
powerful steam-engine pump, is no more than five-eighths of a
penny."

Here is cheapness at any rate. This quantity, taking 20
gallons per day per head to be the proper supply, would
suffice for fifty days, and seven times the quantity would
be a year's supply. Manchester therefore, it is shewn by
this calculation, can provide water to its community at
the rate of *id. per individual per year. Will Rivington
be able to do this ?

THE MERCURY'S CURRENCY DTSCOVERIES.

A correspondent of the Mercury has just delivered
himself of the following pieces of wisdom, which almost
entitle him to the office at present held by that great cur-
rency sage, Sir Charles Wood. He says, " hold it quite
reasonable to make money of gold, because it• is incapable
of fructuation in quantity or quality (!)". How the
Bank people must have been gulling us all along ! Their
weekly returns should be voted an imposition on the
public. It never fluctuates in quantity ; and it is a libel
upon it to suppose that it ever goes to the Continent and
America to buy corn. But it has another excellent pecu-
liarity as a circulating medium—" An ounce of gold is
always equal to an ounce of gold." (! !) So is a brick al-
ways equal to a brick, provided one of the said bricks is
not a Bath brick ; and a hat equal to a hat, provided one
of the said hats is not without a crown. We submit that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the next time he is in
want of money, should select these two articles. They
would be peculiarly appropriate for a loan to Ireland.
We give another of his discoveries. He says :

" You express a wish to have a definition of money, and you
certainly. seem to stand in need of one, when you affirm that
money is the certificate of wealth.' If wealth could be ob-
tained upon certificates, I Should never feel the want of it again,
so long as I lived. I would certify the first house I met with to
my baker, a ship or two to my butcher, and I should soon be
surrounded with abundance of prog. But money—instead of
being the certificate or testimony that wealth exists somewhere
—is itself wealth. Few that commodity, whether corn, salt,
leather, soap, copper, silver, or gold, which a whole people
choose to receive in exchange for every thing else they have, is
money."

This beats Adam Smith, M'Culloch, the Economist,
and cockfighting hollow. Nothing, except spite and ma-
fioe, can possibly keep the writer out of the cabinet.