The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-08-04 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

dernned like the old timbers of a ship fit only for the
fire. Mayors and aldermen are tossed into the O'CON-
NELL ealdrOn.to make charms for a popish spell. The
king's rights are treated with as much respect as a bell-
man's noise at the market cross. The charters of the
sovereign are valued at no more than
.a canilet petticoat
sold at rag fair. His Majesty is kicked aside like a cos-
. termonger whose donkey has been impounded for rent.
He is not consulted--he has no chancellor to advise—
no attorney whom he can trust—no factor to command—
no servant who does not turn upon his heel, kicking at
his master, and flattering himself he is a better man and
a greater philosopher than his liege lord whose wages
he receives, and whose bread he eats. In short, those
hybrid calves—human blockheads we do not choose to
call them—Messrs. RoscoE and RUSHTON, in Devon-
shire, usurped more power than any monarch in Eng-
land. We can excuse their ignorance, for duller or
hungrier turnspits never turned a wheel in Lord
BROUGHAM'S factory, but their subserViency to the said
now degraded lord, who was their master, their em-
ployer, and their feeder, is raised to a degree of disgust-
ing notoriety, never to sink, never to smell otherwise
than rank and nauseous, by Sir CHARLES WETHERELL.
Sir CHARLES has proved that the censures which the bill
conveys fall upon his Majesty—that its effects tell upon
him—that it not only question his honour but it also
circumscribes his power—and that it exposes the Sove-
reign to such indignity and deprivation, affecting the
crown, its heirs, and successors, which the King of Eng-
land ought not to be exposed to, and which GEORGE the
THIRD rather than have submitted to, would have sought
refuge in Hanover, or have perished on the scaffold.
Parliament, we shal perhaps be told, is omnipotent,
and so it is to a certain extent, but thank God the House
•of Commons is not the whole parliament Of England. The
lords have as much right to reject the bill as the com-
mons had to pass it, and by rejecting it, or at least alter-
ing it in many important points, they will only fulfil the
wishes and intentions of the majority of the English re-
presentatives in the House of-Commons. We need not
here remind the reader that, this bill is not the bill of the
English people speaking by their representatives. A
vast majority of our countrymen are opposed to it. It is
purely an Irish and Scotch bill, forced upon us by those
who know nothing of our municipal institutions, who are
ignorant of everything appertaining to them, and incom-
petent to judge of their fitness or utility. But it is not
the lords alone whose duty it is to exercise an independ-
ent judgment by rejecting the bill; if they should deem
it an unwise, or unjust, or uncalled for measure, we con-
tend that the King is bound to reject it, on the ground
that it is a monstrous and unconstitutional interference
with the royal prerogative. His Majesty may not per-
sonally consider himself aggrieved by its enactments or
its deprivations, but surely the crown will deal tenderly
with the rights of its successors 1 There is the young
Princess of KENT, the heiress presumptive of the British
throne, is she to be placed in a worse .situation, as re-
gards the royal prerogative, than any of her ancestors of
the House of Brunswick ? Sure we are the people of
England would be ashamed to impose restraints of a gall-
ing nature upon a British queen, and we feel confident
that his present Majesty is embued with sufficient dig-
nity and nobleness of spirit to resent the degradation.
We now come to the rights of the church. Sir
CHARLES WETHERELL has shown into whose hands the
patronage of numerous livings in the church would fall
if this bill should pass. How many years is it since up-
wards of an hunctred chapels, which belonged to English
presbyterians were wrested from them, by the most dis-
honest class of sectarians that ever lived, and are now
in the hands of modern infidels ? What has been the
fate of the presbyterians within the last sixty or seventy
years may be the fate of the church of England before
1850, should this atrocious bill become the law of the
land. The corporation of Liverpool has considerable
patronage, but the members of the Common Council are
also members of the established church; This is our pre-
sent security and defence ; but. how long would the church
be safe if the Common Councils of Liverpool, Bristol,
Norwich, Coventry, and some hundred other boroughs,
.awe composed of socinians, independents, baptists, and
liaplsts ? The axe would then be laid to the root ;athe
tree. The enemy would then be in the centre of the
camp; and on the watchtowers of our Zion would be'
seen the wolf in sheep's clothing, the philosopher sow-
ing tares, the carping socinian smuggling his fraudulent
interpolations into the pages of the sacred volume, and
the contemptuous hater of sacraments sitting in meek
vestments, with his head covered, sneering at our faith
in some consecrated sanctuary, and perhaps pocketing
the tithes, which he once refused to pay, in the name of
charity.
Look to Ireland ! A bill following upon the heels of
ours has already been introduced for municipal reform in
that country. It is evidently, almost.avowedly, O'CoN-
tim's bill. The qualification of an elector there is that
he shall reside in u five pound house. How is this rental
to be ascertained ? There are no poor-rates in Ireland
—no taxes of any kind directly affecting the lower classes;
consequently this bill recognises universal suffrage, and
universal suffrage would place all the corporations of
Ireland in the hands of the priests and the Roman Ca-
tholics. Do this, we say, and the church of Ireland would
be annihilated in the next succeeding twelvemonths.

These are powerful reasons why the Lords should patise
before they open a door to such wide destruction, and by
an act of folly encourage crime. This is not a time to
weaken or impair the outworks of our venerable es-
tablishments. They must see the reckless and desperate
character of the men who assail the church, and who wade
chin deep in perjury to accomplish their unhallowed pur-
poses. The Louis must not allow themselves to be en
trapped by these men, whose servants for evil the ministers
of the King at present are. They must not truckle to
them, or compromise with them, or surrender one jot or
tittle of their principles. To entertain a thought of
yielding is to abandon virtue. To trifle with them is
contamination; to offer terms is ruin.
Lastly, how does this nefarious bill bear upon the patent
rights of the Peers themselves? Their Lordships will
be pleased to bear in mind that all their honours aid
titles, and many of their estates, have been conferred
upon them by the kings of England. But what better
title have they to their lands and titles than the corpora-
tions have to their. property, their privileges, and their
rights of common ? None-whatever. The huMble ban-
:dicraftsman, who by inheritance or servitude has acquired
the rights of a free burgess, is entitled do as much proiec-
tion, as the oldest and noblest peer in the realm. The
House of Commons have no inure right to touch his le-
ally acquired immunities, than they have to turn the
Duke of DEvoNsfitaE out of Chatsworth, or the Duke of
BEDFORD out of Woburn Abbey. They have as much
right to seize the ships belonging to Mr. BROCELEBANK
as they have to annul the rights of a ship-carpenter.

But what are the Lords called upon to do ? They are
required to pass a Lill which wrests from corporations the
property and the patent rights they have received from
the crown. They are asked to invade • and annul the
charters emanating from the sovereign—to rob one man
for the pretended benefit of another--the former not
having offended, the latter having no claim upon their
benevolence or their. justice. What is this, if conceded,
but saying that the House of Commons can deal with the
patent rights of peers as well as burgesses, both having
proceeded from the same source ? If the peers pass this
bill, they will pass a bill of attainder against themselves.
They will strike a blow at their own escutcheons—they
will light a fire, the flames of which would speedily reach
their own patents, charters, and title deeds.
No, we hope better things from the nobles of England.
More than mad would they be to promote a measure,
which besides its glaring iniquity and monstrous op-
pression, would react upon themselves, and strike at the
root of the monarchy. They have in the freemen of
England two millions of true, stanch, brave, and loyal
friends who at this moment look up to them for protec-
tion, and rely upon their sense of justice. It would be a
dangerous experiment to convert these friends into ene-
mies. It would be a fearful risk to exasperate these men
into the cry, "down with the peers!—they robbed us, we
shall retaliate upon them! This must not he, even though
iD'CoNNELL should be offended, or Lord JOAN RUSSELL
transported. The lords have a simple duty to perform—
' 7175LeT Tull. Vitt!