The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-03-24 00:00:00

jectioriabie poit;is urged by himself against the Ash-
burton Treaty. Then we had six years more of pro-
tocolling, surveying, and negociattng-; and, in the
mean time, what became of the disputed territory it-
self for which we were at issue ? Why, it had been,
inch by inch, conceded to our opponents !

" I hope," said Sir Robert Peel, " to hear from a late
high commissioner, the gallant officer near me, his testimony
as to what was the result of the delay respecting the dis-
puted territory. (" Hear, hear," from Sir H. Douglas.)
Did we gain by this procrastination ? No. America was
nearer at hand. Every month that passed was undermining
our dominion over that continent. I ask my gallant and
hon. friend (for instance), whether in W2B he did not ap-
prehend an American subject and bring him to trial for
encroachments on this disputed territory, and whether on
the very spot on which he was taken, a fort was not erected
by the authorities of Maine? (" Hear, hear," from Sir H.
Douglas.) The vast tide of population—that rapid and
resistless tide which knows no ebb—pressed on from day to
day, and each month that passed saw our territory further
encroached on—the dominion we had in 1838 we retained
not in 1810 (hear, hear;) and had we postponed the settle-
ment for another five years, the question would have settled
itself by a contest for actual possession." (Hear, hear.)
First, the concurrent Civil Jurisdiction was-conceded
to the blusterings of Maine. Then a demand was
made for the withdrawal of our military forces ; and
acceded to ! " And thus," remarks Sir Howard
Douglas,

" The concurrent civil and military possession for which be
(Sir H. Douglas) had struggled had been abandoned. After the
Americans had obtained these concessions, of course there
was no disputing their right to make a military road, and
this was accomplished all the way to St. John's. When the
American troops arrived there, it was asked where they were
to live? and accordingly the two forts of Fairford and Jervis
had been erected for them, and thus possession of the whole
territory was given to them. So that when the noble lord
left office the whole jurisdiction and sovereignty of the dis-
trict had been, by his consent, subverted, and instead of its
being held concurrently, it was held conclusively ! "

Yet this man, Lord Palmerston, who has tamely
looked on whilst the entire possessions in dispute were
conceded—so effectually conceded that nothing leis
than a war of extermination against the American sett-
lers could make them ours again—complains that be-
cause they have not rushed into such a war, it is the
negociations of this treaty, and not himself by whom
the honour and the safety of Great Britain have been
prejudiced! How much further could the force of
impudence have carried even Lord Palmerston than to
the propounding of such a motion as that of Tuesday
night ?

The leading tnembers of the League party display
just now considerable eagerness to draw down upon
themselves the reprobation of well-regulated minds.
By the prompt exercise of a more than ordinary
amount of bluster,' they succeeded in implicating
their whole body as abetters of their project to carry
the repeal of the corn-laws, by threats of " personal
responsibility" levelled at the Premier. The incen-
diary language of Mr. Richard Cobden, and the tone
of fierce rancour with which that language was deli-
vered, have been justified and applauded by public ga-
therings of his associate dupes throughout the king-
dom—gatherings at which even females were not
ashamed to present themselves, and to join in tributes
of thanks to the incendiary ! And now a bolder
flight of hardihood is resolved upon. The amiable
Leaguer, dissatisfied with the amount of his unenvia-
ble notoriety, entertains an ardent longing to appro-
priate that of the rev. dissenting preacher who pre-
dicted that, in case of the death of Sir Robert Peel,
" there would be few to shed a tear over his grave ;"
and accordingly, on Wednesday last, from the boards
of Drury Lane, in the presence of. some thousands of
his fellow-countrymen, and with the public press to
record his sayings for the benefit of the world, that
personage deliberately came forward to take upon his
own shoulders—nay, " took shame to himself that he
had not sooner taken upon his own shoulders"—the full
responsibility of a speech the most shameful which
ever fell from the lips of an advocate of this or any
other public question ! Far from disavowing this gen-
tleman's sentiments, he is extolled as an •` amiable and
warm-hearted" lover of hi• kind, possessed only of
one failing, " a want of tact in discussing political

questions."

We shah hear no more now, we presume, of the
hardship and injustice of charging the language of
this rev. dissenter upon the League. The language in
question is now adopted by that body ; and in behalf
of it every member is now irrecoverably pledged.
The glee of the " warm-hearted" individual, who
luxuriated in the notion that "few would shed a tear
over the grave" of the Premier, is the glee of every man
and—proh pudor !—of every woman who from this day
forth countenances the Anti-Corn-law agitation !
And for what consideration—for what quid pro quo
—has the League embraced this astounding defile-
ment. Mark, reader—watch the filthy Mammon
creeping out, as the moving cause of this shameless
piece of hardihood ! The rev. gentleman, sought to
be whitewashed, is one of those " ministers of all de-
nominations" who, in the words of the League's
apostle, came forward, "in defiance of the declared
wishes of their congregations," to throw the weight of
their sacred character into the anti-corn-law agitation
—who preferred the smiles of the rich factory lord to
the entreaties of. the humble objects of their ministry.
The ministers are useful men, fluent of speech, able to
fawn upon public assemblies. The " drum ecclesias-
tic," though beat only by dissenting hands, was not to
be spared from the noise of League dinners, tea-drink-
ings, and conventions; and, moreover, there was work
to do, in which the personages in question were calcu-
lated to be useful agents. A bill, it will be remem-
bered, has been introduced by Sir James Graham, for
providing the advantages of education for the children
of the poor in the manufacturing districts. By the
same bill, the time of working for children in facto-
ries, from the age of eight to thirteen, is proposed to
be reduced to six hours and a-half per day—surely a
sufficient duration for the toil of children, in the debi-
litating atmosphere of a cotton-mill ! But so think
not the virtuous and humane Leaguers. The trade in
infant flesh they cling to with a tenacity passing be-
lief ; and the bill in question is therefore to be opposed
by every appliance of craft and cant which the party
can bring to the task ; and in such an effort what
agents so ready as your dissenting ministers ? The
education to be given, is education in Church of Eng-
land principles—education to some extent directed by
the clergy of that church; and, to obstruct the pro-
gress of such education, need it be doubted with what
zeal dissent will labour, or how eagerly its aid is
em-
braced by the " liberal" cottonocracy, which sees, in
the measure proposed, the infant health and strength
of the country wrested from its oppressive gripe ?
Well, here then is the evidence of the compact en-
tered into by the worthy twain—the League and their
rev. dissenting tools On Wednesday the latter were
formally cleansed, by Mr. Cobden, from the stain
which the assassination speech had cast upon their
skirts ; and on Thursday they hastened to enter upon
their crusade against Sir James Graham's bill, by a
meeting held at the London Tavern, the resolutions of
which were duly given to the world in the advertising
columns of the Times on the following morning ! Of
course those resolutions contain a world of complaint
of the " sectarian nature" of the education to he given ;
but the main ground of objection against it is the
injury inflicted " upon the factory-owners," and
superhuman impudence!—upon the poor children them-
selves, by the reduction of the period of labour from
eight hours per day to six hours and a-half !
We shall watch this agitation with interest. It will
afford us some little insight into the peculiar morality (.9
of political dissent, and the nature of that humanity
which vents itself in nauseous cant from anti-corn-law
platforms !

On the subject of this bill of Sir James Graham, our
metropolitan namesake made the following remarks on
Monday :

" The political dissenters are again busy in obstructing the
advancement of education among the humbler classes. For
twenty years they have laboured in the same perverse course,
and it will not be their fault if the people are ever educated
by public aid. The measure now before Parliament is suffi-
ciently liberal—at least more liberal than many of our readers
may like, but it is not liberal enough for the liberal dis-
senters. flow, indeed, can any measure be liberal enough
for those who think all but their own particular sect wrong,
and who make a conscience of bringing all whom they can
within their own fold ? We do not blame them for either
their opinions or their conscience ; but we blame them for
making the triumph of both the necessary condition of the
education of the'People. Ample provision is made to protect
dissenters from wrong by the provisions of the national sys-
tem of education, hut to allow them a place in that system
would be a contradiction in terms. They dissent from the