The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-01-25 00:00:00

powerful bod
labour, while

night xeee

The Roman legions

Larger _
were ever employed, and it is worthy of remem
_

left behind them some r

numenis of their industry

lime works of public usefulness. The soldiery Of
Peter of Russia and Napoleon BOnaparte were
inured to labour, and there seemsp

List reason

ours in id

ess and inac-

of the

Philip y

peace establishment, although fully sufficient for
the fiercest war.

While, ho

ever, there is the gx
etween France and Er

fear a w

atest reason to

land, yet

can look forward to such a struggle without the
greatest grief, and a silent prayer to Heaven that
such a dreadful catastrophe may be overuled.
France and England, so nearly connected with one
another by the ties of commerce, whose people
have the same common love of liberty, whose laws,

manners, and institutions are so nearly similar—
will, should they rush into the heat of battle, shake

the earth to its base, and convulse the fabric of
nature. Nations will pause during the deadly
strife, and a spectacle will be presented to the world
more awful than can be conceived. How much
more honorable would be a generous rival

arts, science, and literature, than- the low ambition
of mutual conquest and extermination ? How much
)od might be effected by a cordial cooperation
greatest kingdoms of the world, in

ese two

spreading civilisation, diffusing knowledge, and
promoting the welfare of the human species ! and
how much misery will be caused to the present and
all future generations by their collision ! France
ye been regarded as the guardians
)er.ty of Europe, and for a time Louis-

nd Englatid I

th;;United Kingdom in efforts
to freedom; and the abolition of slavery

and the independence of Belgium were the favor--
able results. Having, however, become an abso-
lute monarch himself, he has sought alliances with
tyrants, and is now employed with them in aug-
menting the despotic power, while England is left
as the only protector of the rights of man. Although
sincerely wishing for peace, if France should join
with the Northern powers in a war with Er
yet relying upon that spirit which pervades the
hearts of freemen, and the patriotism of our
countrymen-

gland,

—knowing the love they bear to the
institutions of our native land—we should not fear
for the result, nor tremble, if the confederated
world were in arms against us.

THE Dock Bill, altered in form to meet the
sense of the amendments passed at the last meeting
of the Council, will be brought to-day before the
consideration of a special meeting of that body;
and we understand that it will contain no clause
for rating any dock warehouses which may in

future be erected by the Committee. We regret
this fact. The public might have been satisfied
with, and the Council would undoubtedly have
approved, any bill of the Dock Committee, in which
this reasonable concession to the interests of
owners of other property had been made. But
they can exercise no such forbearance towards a
measure which proposes to exempt the Committee's
property from our ordinary local burthens. Apart
from all question as to the propriety of permitting
a public body to become traders, by the aid of
public funds, there can be little doubt that such a
body ought to contribute to those rates for which
individuals are held liable; and should the Com-
mittee persist in their refusal to make part of their
bill a clause binding them to such liability, we can
anticipate no other conclusion from the meeting
to-day than the peremptory rejection of such bill.
It• is a pity that such an issue should be ha-
- 1, on account of—as far as_we can gather the

—a mere scruple. The Dock Committee have
noble career of usefulness before them. They
have it in their power to make this the first, if it
is not already the first, port in the United Kingdom.
They have within their reach the means of fur-
nishing to our commerce facilities and cheapness
ch no other port can boast
he risk of being compelled to surrender their-com-
manding position, by grasping at more privileges
than are consistent with the welfare of the public.
The dock warehouses already built are, they tell
us, an amply remunerating property. If it is so,
we, say " build more"—" surround our existing
and our future docks with such conveniences for
the geneial trade of the port. But act fair

Yet they run

iv in so

Do not appropriate as a profit what you
ring as your legitimate share of the public

Do not, either, become traders and
competitors with any portion of the community."
We might go a little further than this and insist
upon the Cominittee's be ; Colll.lig warello Übe owtscr3

burtheni

other and private enterprise. We might ask
whether the. Dock Estate would not be equally
benefitted, and' the public interest equally well
served, if the existing warehouses were let to the
highest bidder, or a portion of them were so let,
a competition beneficial to the interests of the
q thus created. But we will not trench
upon this ground. We leave it to the Committee
to decide by whom their property can be best
managed. But we must protest against the doc-
trine that the docks of Liverpool are the property
of any persons but the people of Liverpool; and
that they ought: to be excused from the payment
hose rates to which other property in Liverpool
subjected. Our docks bring us trade it is true ;
and ought.to be cheapened to the uttermost. But
our docks bring us also burthens; and a fair share
of such burthens they ought to bear. Merchants,
of course, such as some whom we find sitting on
the Dock Committee, may say, " Cheapen the
accommodation afforded by the port at all hazards,
and increased business will follow." But the rate-
_ „ who do not participate in the profits of
brokerages, &c. know well enough that the trade
of a port may increase—its imports and exports
.:—and its poor rates and highway rates in-
crease in the same proportion. We have not all
the fortune to possess country houses and drags.
We should really be happy to see the Dock
Committee reconsider their position. If they ;do
not, we can confidently assure them that nothing
but defeat is before them. We are sure they do
not wish to dragoon their fellow-townsmen into
submission to their plans. But, at present,
ill-
tempered people might assert as much without
any great fear; of being confuted. A quiet sub-
mission to the force of public opinion is what we
should urge upon them, for their own sake and the
interests of the town.

payers

THE condition of the industrious and the com-
mercial classes throughout the country, is at length
beginning to attract the serious attention of the
reflecting portion of the public. We have been
told. when comnlaininff of the non-fulfilment of

all the bright promises held out to us, as certain to
result from the adoption of free trade, to wait
awhile. The advent of summer was. to bring us a
revival of confidence and of business ; yet summer
came unattended with the slightest glimpse of
sunshine. Atittimn was next to repairthe omission.
It brought us as good harvest, which has generally
been the accompaniment, and, in a great measure;
the cause of prosperous commerce and well em-
ployed industry.; but the usual result has not fol-

hen Christmas, or the new year, was to
isher us into a brighter state of things. Our mills
were to resurne'their wonted activity, and at lenkth
we were to approach the halcyon days which were
predicted for us. We are now nearly at the end of
the first month of that new year ; yet what do we
see around us ? A prostrate commerce mi"
working half time, or not working at all

railwv

)rise suspended ; credit and confidence alines

universally destroyed, and suffering pervading all
classes, engaged in. the pursuits of commerce and
industry. There is not a solitary bright 'feature in
the siliole landscape ; not a gleam of approaching
Sunshine ; nothing to afford a hope of recompense

in the future for our present and past endurance.
Even the boldest of our prophets have ceased to
predict the day upon which the tide will turn in our

favour

How is this state of things to be accountedlo.

The effect of the potato rot, we should think, ought
to have:been', got rid of by this time. We .have
food of every sort in abundance, and cheap.. ,Our
investments in_railways may,_ in part, account for

the commercial embarrassments under which we

labour at homel but they certainly cannot be urged
as the cause of the almost total absence of foreign

'demand for our 'industrial products. We have no
high price of cotton to complain of ; no famine in
the raw materiar.of our
-most important manufac-

The Continent of Europe is inundate dwith

the money which we, have paid for its breadsttiffs •
Atherica is full of English gold and bills ; fromih;
Steppes of the Caucasus to the backwoods of the
New World, we have been eager buyers of the.
chief necessaries of life ; yet nothing flows back.
The produce of our spindles .and our , looms, our
mills and our forges, our factories and our wo'rk-
shops, are neglected, and seem almost to have
ceased to be essential to the comfort or the use of
the human race. Again we ask—how
is this. state
of things to be accounted for ? Again we•rcmitid
• the politico-econorniCal philosophers of the day,
that we are in the pOisession of Ihe boasted .heye.
reign cure of All ecinirnercial Trade,-: