The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-09-05 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
'ill the writer of the letter addressed to the Mayor be kind
enough to call at our office.

Peter Wright was requested by his Worship, the Mayor,
) attend the coroner's inquest on the bodies of those who
erished by the destruction of the Ocean Monarch.

itiberpool (tailbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING. SEPT. 5, 1848

His Lordship, the Premier, we observe, has
shed his hands of the unfinished business of the

Session, and betaken himself to Ireland, although
lox what earthly objects it passes our comprehen-
aion to divine. We may presume, however, that
3ornething superhuman is to be achieved in that

quarter. —The great problem of Ireland's pauper-
ism, discontent, and turbulence is perhaps to be

solved in a week's sojourn amongst the lakes of
Killarney ; the cause of the potatoe rot to be dis-

1 to be picked up,
to be the pretest for the nex
st that singular people.

ered, or an id(

as to what is
.nurse of agitation
among. Whatever may he
the object of the trip there is one result by which
it must be inevi

tably followed. A host of expec-
some of them wild enough, must be ex-

ed by the visit of so eminent a personage; and
commencement of next session will probably

be signalized by some great Irish measure, of
which no previous statesman has had the hardi-

ood to dream

What is it to be ? A transfer of the sittings of
Parliament every third year or so to Dublin ? Such
we observe is the latest straw thrown up ; the most
-pntly mooted scheme to tickle the vanity of our
ernian friends. And a most hopeful scheme it
A parliament composed of such materials as
our present one, and sitting in College Green, could
not fail in filling the larders of the peasantry in
Mayo, and quieting the wild marksmen of Tip-
perary ! We rather incline, however, to doubt
whether Lord John is quite bold enough to propose

. .
such a measure at present; and that it will be
found that a new Whig compact with their rever-
tnces, the priesthood of Ireland, and a heavy blow
against the Church is what is meditated. Such a
course would be in perfect accordance with all past

Whig policy.
We' might suggest a few subjects, upon which
his lordship might usefully make a few inquiries;
and a few scenes with which he might take the
opportunity of becoming personally familiar. It
might not be beneath his notice to visit a patken,
a wake, a station, or a wedding, and compare the
scenes which they present with those to be met
with, on similar occasions, amongst the correspond-
ing classes of England or Scotland, Perhaps the
improvidence, to call it by no worse a name, which
he would have thus brought before him, might ac-
count for some of the destitution and wretched-
ness of the masses of the people. He would have
an opportunity also of observing how far the
Roman Catholic priesthood countenance by their
presence, or at least refrain from checking the
improvidence in question. The latter portion of
the enquiry might very advantageously precede any
endowment of these rev. gentlemen, or any attack
against the Established Church in Ireland.

BY the arrival of the Royal mail steam-ship,
"Tay," five days before her usual time, we have
it interesting news from the West Indies, the
stance of which will be found under the usual
This mail enables us to judge fairly of
the opinion of the Wrest India proprietors, with
respect to the ministerial policy towards them, the
news having only been oat three days when the
preceding mail sailed.
The general feeling seems now to be that the
crisis of affairs in these colonies has arrived ; and
that the cultivation must progressively decrease.
And not amongst the planters only does this
opinion appear to prevail, but, as well, amongst
the free negro population, whose imagined interests
have been the sole object of care with our pseudo-
philanthropists. " What matters it that the plant-
ers suffer ?" has been the constant cry of these
1. " Our object is to advance the prosperity of
black population of the West Indies, who can
live equally happily upon the produce of their
garden grounds, although the sugar cultivation

beading

cease altogether." We 'Publish an extract from
De Cordovia lntelligencer, which gives a lamentable
picture of the condition of these deluded victims
of false humanity :

"Never, since the great boon of freedom was accorded,
Las the Ist of August, its glorious anniversary, passed off
as it has done this year. Formerly the fortnight pre-
ceding it was replete with business—every negro, however
poor, laid in his little stock for the auspicious day, and
was merry in his gratitude ; but, alas ! in 1848 no one can
afford to be happy,—the day differed in no respect from
the one that went before, or the one that came after it ;
and, bad as the year has hitherto been, we look in vain
for any past period that presented so much of dull-
ness as the week preceding the Ist of August. Since
the abandonment of so many estates the negroes who
have been thrown out of employment have sought
n the sale of provisions and fruit the acquirement
of a little money. The consequence has been that
Kingston has within the last few weeks been com-
pletely deluged with fruit, which is being sold for little or
nothing ; but the earnings from this source are not only
extremely small but very precarious, and the negro is
compelled to be very saving. The dry goods trade feels
this state of things severely, trifling as it may seem, while
the quantity of ground provisions and fruit at market in-
terferes with the sale of breadstuffs. We regret that we
have to report the past fortnight the dullest for some
time, without a chance of the amelioration of business
for the future, unless some aid is afforded by the home
Government, the denial of which must result in the
abandonment of the colony."

In addition to the effects thus described, these

poor beings have been further affected 6y the
stoppage,—we trust a temporary one,—of the Ja-
maica Planters' Bank, in whose notes many of
them had stored their small hoards. And it is
xaost creditable to the planters that, to the last
moment, when a chance of keeping this establish-
ment from sinking existed, they offered every
chance, at a sacrifice of convenience to themselves,
a keeping up the negotiability of its notes.
The question has now become practically one, in
whose solution the government itself is interested.
Can the planters find money for the carrying on of
that government? The evidence given by the
advices by this mail is, that this is no longer
possible.

THE county of Gloucester is certainly very in-
differently blessed with the residence within its
borders of the family of the Berkeleys. From
the head of the stock—Fitzhardinge, the moral and
the amiable,—through all the various ramifications
of brothers and cousins, they seem to be inspired
with a laudable desire to give the spirits of their
neighbours, and of the world, a fillip in these
dullest of times. Sickened as we have been with
the tedium of a ten-months session of interminable
in Election, in which this pleasant family are
has been unexpected fun ; and

prime movers

we must congratulate the people of Cheltenham,
the locality of the election in question, upon the
treat which has been got up by them, as if with
the charitable object of dissipating their vapors
and imparting a racy flavour to their somewhat
vapid waters.

-
The quarrel has been a pretty one. Mr. Craven
Berkeley, a scion of this exemplary family, having
been unseated for the Borough of Cheltenham, for
having been guilty of the practice of bribery,
posted down to his quasi constituents, with a view
to protect them from the enormity ofbeing repre-
sented by any other than a " Liberal" of his own
description. In fact, the modest gentleman came
to request of them to allow him to choose his own
" Warming pan ! " Of course, the compliment
aaust have been appreciated ; for we find that,
although " Speculations were immediately afloat as
to. who should be Mr. Craven Berkeley's " Warm-
ing pan," that gentleman, on his arrival, found a
store of friends to meet him—friends, humble, nay
proud enough, to submit to be thus supplied by
him with the utensil in question. Lest the reader,
however, should not sufficiently appreciate the sub-
missive temper of the constituency of Chelten-
ham, and the kind of gentleman, of whose taste
they are so enamoured as to consent to his bed
being kept warm for him by a kindred personage,
we append a portion of the speech, which he ad-
dressed to them on his arrival, amidst "loud
cheers," and other demonstrations of delight.
Mr. Berkeley sets out by assuming that the borough
Itas been sadly ill-used by the loss of his most
valuable services, and thus speaks of the mem-
bers of the Committee who caused the depriva-
tion :--

" I will tell you hDw that committee was constituted,
yid now, gentlemen of the press, take my words duwn
atul report them correctly, for I intend my opinion of that
muntnittee to go east, and west, and north, and south
loud cheers). Now, the gentleman selected as the chair-
man of that committee was Sir William Clay, the mem-
hurfor the Tower Hamlets,—an empty-headed, cocks-