The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-05-30 00:00:00

farmer, and the labourers and their families, who
have toiled for, orgrown up with him,might bear out
with them into the far off wild the same recollec-
tions, and the same scenes, to exchange them with
each other in many an after year, by the winter's
hearth, or when
" Following their ploughs along the mountain side."
Such a system would indeed be colonization, in its
first form ; but to bring about its extensive adop-
tion the generous and enlarged co-operation of the
government would be required. The rural popu-
lation of Great Britain is not an emigrating popu-
lation. They have an instinctive clinging to "the
old family faces," the old remembered spots. Even
the poor labourer is not tempted from the humble
cottage and the garden without a sigh, though the
wind and the rain may be streaming from the
chinks in its walls, or the decayed thatch. But
this repugnance might be mitigated by such a ge-
nerous co-operation as that to which we have re-
ferred, on the part of the government; by the in-
fluence of missionaries to explain to the people the
prospects before them, and by the assurance which
could be with truth made, that the time is rapidly
approaching, when, by the aid of the steamer and
the locomotive, the most distant ends of the earth
will be brought virtually as near each other, and as.
accessible as the neighbouring county was in the
time of our fathers.

We are aware that, by the agency of the Land
and Colonial Commissioners, a dribbling stream of
emigration is already carried on with Australia. A
few ships are freighted, and passages furnished,
free, or at a light cost, to certain descriptions of
emigrants. We want, however, a larger and more
comprehensive measure of assistance than this;
one which will enable the very humblest of our
labourers and artizans to carry their labour to a
country in which it is wanted. The most unskilled
labour is eagerly bought up in Australia; herders
of sheep and bullocks, men who can drive a team,
or hew down a tree are -valuable. The pauper
peasantry of Ireland even, who become worse than
valueless to us, when we have allowed them to
transfer their labour to our Canadian colonies, or
to squat in the forests : of America,
would be an acquisition to the i.! fs:)rrner of
Australia. So lately as on Friday evening, we were
told by Sir James Graham, in the House of Com-
mons, that numbers of juvenile offenders from the
Parkhurst prison—the refuse of cur large towns,
trained up to various trades,—had been sent there,
and good accounts received of their behaviour; and
it is surely not wise on the part of the government
that, whilst those whose first qualification was the
commission of crime, are conveyed to a new
country at the national expense, our own virtuous
poor should be left to starve unaided at home.
Again, however, we find that we have exceeded
Our limits, whilst we have far from exhausted our
subject. We shall, therefore, make no apology for
returning to it next week.

THERE, is a duty, imposed upon us as journalists,
to give to the world all the information within our
reach, with respect to affairs of great national
import. In the performance of this duty we cannot
do better than quote the remarks of our contem-
porary, the Mercury, upon the subject of the Naviga-
tion Laws ; premising that this said contemporary
professes to be the especial leader of free trade
opinion in our town. We shall not do him the
injustice of garbling his lucubration s. Our readers
shall have the benefit of them in full, the only
liberty we take with them being the few remarks
which we append to each paragraph.
In accordance with our contemporary's usual
practice, his observations have a text, drawn from
his own columns, and sufficiently pointing out the
authorship of the article. "Fair play is a jewel,"
is the text in question. The article itself is headed
" The Navigation Laws," and thus our contempo-
rary discourses :
These laws, as we have repeatedly shown of late, are
very injurious to the people of this country, and require
amendment ; but this does not prove that all the altera-
tions now proposed by Government, and the restrictions
proposed to be retained, are wise. It would be in
the highest degree absurd to admit foreign-built ships,
duty free, to be purchased in this country, or to be sent
hither duty free by British builders abroad, while the
British builder at home has to pay a duty of 15s. 9d. per
load on the foreign timber he may use in shipl uilding.
And it is equally absurd not to admit foreigners to trade
with their vessels from one port to another in these king-
doms, if they will admit British vessels to trade from port
to port in their dominions. We ought either to "open
our shop to all the world," saying nothing about recipro-
city, or we ought to make the reciprocity tell for what it is
worth. According to Mr. Labouchere's proposal, an
American vessel may trade between our home dominions
and our colonies. The Americans havenocolouiesbetween
which and the parent states our ships can enjoy any trade
in compensation for that advantage. Where, then, is the
reciprocity."
We should really like to be present at an interview
between the enlightened writer of the above para-
graph, and Mr. Labouchere, her Majesty's President
of the Board of Trade. We should like to hear
the Mercury prove the absurdity of Mr. Labouchere's
doing what he proposes to do, and leaving undone
what he proposes to leave undone. Our contem-
porary ought to be summoned to parliament to
give the nation the benefit of his rare wisdom.
We proceed however with the article, merely
reminding the reader that the first sentence is a
reply to the question asked in the opening para-
graph—" Where then is reciprocity."
"It is clearly at Parkgate. But, supposing our coast-
ing trade were thrown open, as well as the rest, while it
would be of little or no value to Jonathan, he would be
bound to open his coasting trade to us, and that would
compensate for all the freedom of navigation we would
award him ; for, while he would be entitled to bring sugar
from Jamaica to Liverpool, we should be entitled to carry
Manchester goods to New York, take a coastwise cargo
to Savannah, and return thence with cotton to Liverpool.
We could take calico and cutlery to China, thence tea to
Philadelphia, and thence a general cargo to Liverpool.
By opening our coast trade we should gain enormous ad-
vantages ; by reserving it to ourselves, but opening that
to the colonies. the colonists themselves would be bene-
fitted, but the English ship Owner would not."
Doctors do differ, certainly. "By opening our
coast trade we should gain enormous advantages."
Pray how, good Mercury ? Mr. Labouchere says
that there is a law of nature which compels us to
reserve that trade ; that it would do no good to
the foreigner if thrown open. But between the
president of the Board of Trade and the Mercury
there is no comparison on the score of authority.
Our contemporary has the advantage by many
chalks.

Upon our concluding quotation from the
Mercury's article we shall make no remarks. We
dont profess to understand it; and our contem-
porary will, doubtless, decline the task of furnish-
ing us with understanding.
We hope the meetinc, to be held to-day will not peti-
tion for the barbarism of protection," which is wresting
the carrying trade of the world from us. Let the ship-
owner and the shipbuilder of Great Britain be released
from all imposts which impair their freedom of action as
traders, and then they will compete with the world. The
pretence of serving our maritime power by compelling
him to employ three English sailors to one foreigner, is
too transparent. The system causes landlubbers to be
classed as seamen, while they dilute the natural rate of
wages, and drive the cleverest sailors to countries where
ability and better wages are in more equitable combina-
tion. To maintain the present navigation laws would be
as absurd as to adopt a one-sided amendment of them.
' But they may be and ought to be greatly liberalized, or
totally repealed, on principles of entire reciprocity ; and
to this object the meeting of to-day ought to urge the
Government."
We leave this paragraph for "the enlightened"
public of Liverpool to solve. We leave our readers
to ask themselves how our Navigation Laws can
be "totally repealed on principles of entire recipro-
city." We leave them, in short to the perusal, in
the above quotations, which constitute a leading
article in the Mercury, of the most astounding
piece of twaddle which was ever palmed upon the
public.

IRISH DEPENDANCE UPON BRITISH SUPPORT.

We have always been twitted with the fact that Ireland
could not only grow sufficient for her own wants, but that,
in addition, she supplied Great Britain with a great por-
tion of Or food. A slight change, however, is now ob-
servable. We receive, certainly, large shipments of
breadstuffs from Ireland ; but we send her, in return, the
full value in a similar commodity. We find in our Corn
Circular thatthe imports of Indian corn into Liverpool for
the week ending Tuesday last were 25,958 qrs., and of
Indian meal 1,230 brls. Of this quantity we sent to Ireland
21,744 quarters Indian corn ; and our shipments of Indian
meal were 7,227 brls. ; showing, at all events, and it is a
gratifying fact, that our Irish brethren are abandoning
their exclusive reliance upon the potato, and that the bet-
ter food, which at first they rejected, is now taken on
choice. The money value of these shipments of Indian
corn and meal about equals that of the wheat, &c., which
we received thence in the week.

FATAL ACCIDENT.—On the 28th of April a porter, 28
years of age, was receiving some bales of cotton into
Messrs. Newhall and Clayton's warehouse, Sefton-street,
when some of them fell upon him, from the height they
were piled, and :le had his leg broken. He died on Satur-
day last from the injury.