The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-01-16 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORAING„TAN. 16, 1814.

There was never, perhaps, a period, since Liver-
pool was ranked amongst the leading ports of the
empire, at which her prosperity appeared more ca-
pable of large increase or decline, according as the
circumstances with which she is surrounded shall
be wielded with judgment and firmness, or the re-
verse, than the present period. A universal feeling
appears to have grown upon the public mind that,
vast as are its present capabilities—as already the se-
cond, and at no distant date destined to become the
first port of the greatest commercial country in the
world,—t his locality has still mighty resources to be
developed, and that the time of their development is
at hand. Oa every side a disposition is ""Ig
evinced to seize opportunity by lL mrelock—to
look and to operate in -a. ante of present neces-
sities it -cu.( becomes us therefore, as jour-
nalicf-5 anxious for the welfare of our town, and for
the increased prosperity of its inhabitants, to draw
attention to the policy, on the part of those who
have the management of our public estates, which
we conceive best calculated for the crisis in which

we are placed.
Let us, for an instant, glance at all the varied cir-
cumstances of our position. For the past half cen-
tury we have been engaged in erecting, upon the
shores of our river, within the bounds of our cor-
porate estate, one of the most noble properties to be
found in. any city in the world. We have nearly
reached the extremity of those limits. Our docks
extend, now, in a continuous line from the furthest
point of land which we possess in the south of the
town, to the extremity of our estate on the north ;
and our commerce still loudly dernands increased dock
space. Our necessities have thus far grown with, if
not faster than, our means to supply them; and the
all important question meets us—in what direction
are we to turn ourselves in search of these means ?

Meantime we are not left calmly and coolly to de-
liberate the best, steps to be taken, and leisurely, as
in times past, to pot those steps into execution. We
have a pressure from without--a threatened compe-
tition—impelling us to decide upon, and proceed with
at once, some GREAT EFFORT, to relieve the vast
,commerce which resorts to our river from the in-
conveniences and the onerous charges to which it is
at present subjected. A demand is made upon us
by the people of the adjacent manufacturing dis-
tricts for the admission of their produce direct
through the port of Runcorn. We have been threat-
ened by them with ;an improvement in the naviga-
tion of the river irwell—with the establishment of
bonding and other warehouses in Manchester itself.
And these proje ts, wild as they appeared to us
once, are at the present moment assuming a pros-
pect not only of ultimate but of speedy and vigorous
realization. A powerful proprietor—the owner of
the Bridgewater Canal—has already possessed him-
self of the navigation of the river Irwell, to Man-
chester, by the purchase of the entire property of
the Old Quay Company; and with this important
adjunct to his former great influence, aided by the
spirit of enterprise and determination with which
his Lordship's property is wielded, we cannot dis-
guise from ourselves the fact that in him we have a
competitor for a valuable portion of the trade of the
port and the town—one whose power we cannot
afford to despise. We cannot stand still now. We
cannot trifle with half measures now. We must go
on, unless we wish to see Liverpool thrust back from
her present eminence, and commencing a course of
certain, if not of rapid decline.

Again, if we direct our eyes to the opposite shore
of the Mersey, we have the prospect of future dock
competition reminding us of the necessity of vigo-
rous efforts to maintain our present preeminent po-
sition. An active and enterprising community,
there, have possessed themselves of a site, late the
property of the Corporation of Liverpool, having
eminent facilities for dock purposes, and which is
well capable of being wielded, conjointly with the
Bridgewater property and the new purchases of its
noble owner, for the infliction of no small amount

of injury to the commerce and the property of this
port. That ad/ the projects of the new proprietors
of Wallasey Pool will be carried into effect, at any
early period, we do not say. The acceptance or
non-acceptance of the additional plots of land in that
neighbourhood, offered them by the Council, will
afford us some idea of the bona-fide character of their
intentions. Notwithstanding any doubt, however,
which might reasonably be entertained of immediate
competition from this quarter, the mere agitation of
such extensive schemes ought to warn us that the
time for acting, on the part of the authorities of
Liverpool, has arrived !
We regard none of these projects with alarm.
We trust that their realisation is destined to be the
forerunner, as it is the omen, of a vast acquisition
to the capabilities of the Mersey, as the inlet for the
commerce of the world to the manufacturing dis-
tricts of England. But still Liverpool must do its
duty—must claim her share in the advantages to be
derived. She must prepare for this expected influx
of commerce by widening her boundaries—by ex-

tending the capabilities of the port. And it is not a

•
trifling additionhere, or a doubtful experiment soul rejoice at the circumstances which have relieved
him from that ecclesiastical ban, and that clan-
._ there, which will suffice for our wants. A large
measure, we repeat, is now required. We must ger from fire, bullet, or steel, which would have
provide, not for a few years to come—not for a been the result of 'his concurrence in a verdict of
trifling increase of the trade of our river ; but for guilty against the prisoners !
many years, and for a large increase—larger proba- One great consummation, however, this "Aggre-
hly in its ratio to our present accommodation than gate Meeting of the Catholics of Ireland," in the
has ever heretofore been called for. Taking into Music Hall of Dublin—this huddling together of
sevenmillions of people in a pint bottle—has served
consideratiot; the circumstances of the times, the
trade of this port is already increasing more rapidly to accomplish. It has enabled that poor Whigling,
than it has ever done heretofore. The commercial Richard Lalor Shiel, to emerge front his sulky re-
depression of the past three or four years has affected tirement, in which he has been for months past ru-
the revenue of nearly every description of property minating over his denouncement by
the arch-agi-
-railways, canals, &c.—dependent upon the activity tator, and grieving for the sweet sops of office which
of the trade of the country. But the Dock Estate of he has lost, to take the initiatory step toward the
Liverpool stands alone in its increased productive- adoption by his, party, in the coming session, of the
ness ; and, with the revival of commerce, which is weapon which Irish disaffection offers them for the
embarrassment of Sir Robert Peel. Lord John
even now visiting us, and has shewn its effect in an