The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-09-10 00:00:00

TUESDAY 21101ZNW;G, SEPT. 10, 1850.

It is difficult to peruse the proceedings of the
Council without being, from time to time, impressed
with a feeling that there is something faulty, in the
mode in which business is conducted in committees;
and that, practically, the Council exercises too
slight a controlling power over the acts of these
bodies. Public opinion, moreover, ought to exer-
cise some greater degree of influence over the deci-
sions of a representative body like the Council itself,
entrusted as it is with large powers, and dealing
with the revenue of a great public estate. TI e
proceedings of the committees come upon the ma-
jority of the Council with too much abruptness ;
too little time to enable members, who have not
beard the grounds upon which certain conclusions
have been arrived at, to weigh their propriety fully
before being called upon to sanction them ; and we
have thus occasionellJ introduced into the Council
the elements of ill feeling, and such incidents as
occurred at its two last meetings, upon the subject
of the vs etch Committee. Chairmen of committees,
and the members themselves, are too apt to regard
their conclusions as infallible, and to he huffed at
any ebjeetions being urged; and the Council, by
too frequently deferring to this feeling, sometimes
discover that they must stultify themselves by
retracing their steps.
It has been suggested that the evils of the pre-
sent system would be in a great measure removed
by the committees being thrown open to reporters
for the press. To some extent probably this course
would effect good; but unless a mere abstract re-
port was given it would entail inconvenience and
expense upon proprietors of newspapers to which
they might not he dispoSed to submit. Besides,
the proceedings of many of the committees are ne-
cessarily of a routine character, carried on too in so
conversational a style as to puzzle a reporter to
give them intelligibly; and the discussions in some
it would he injurious to the public service•to report
at all. The check which we should suggest being
placed upon committees is, that in all matters not
of ordinary detail, the committee should merely
report their decisions to the Council, with the
grounds and evidence upon which they had come
to such decisions ; that copies of such -reports should
be open at convenient places and times, to the in-
spection of the public ; and that confirmation of
the proceedings in such cases s'aculd not be allowed
to be given until the monthly meeting after their
being brought before the Council.
Under a systens Of this kind we cannot think that
we should have allowed ourselves to be committed
to the Pike scheme, for example, so far that we
could not turn back without a ruinous sacrifice ;
or that the Council would now have been tratnelled
with many other matters in which they have rashly
interfered beyond their proper province. Public
oninion, expressing itself through the columns of
the press, might have rescued them from that head-
long impulsiveness of feeling, to which corporations,
like individuals, are but too prone.

NYE published, three weeks since, a paragraph
from the Newcastle Journal, complaining both of
the quantity and quality of the water supplied to
that town by the Whittle Dean Company, which
furnishes the town with water on precisely the same
plan as it is proposed to adcpt atßivington Pike.
We stated afterwards that it was alleged that the
quantity might be increased by merely enlarging
the reservoirs. How far this is the case let the fol-
'—'ino• from the same paper, published last Satur-
day', Ue n,.
" DLAN 14 It mli vv t.o water
the inhabitants of this town by t
Company is still in a very impure state, absolutely nati-
ISPOC6 to the palate and offensive to the eye, being of a
deep muddy brown colour. It is understood the com-
pany resort largely to the Tyne, and the water is dis-
pensed without being properly cleansed of its impurities.
This is an unfortunate state of things, bat exactly what
was anticipated by all not interested in the boasted Whit-
tle Dcan.Stherne. A Liverpool paper notices the sub-
ject, which is one of great interest in that town, where a
proposal has been made to collect surface water over an
acreage for the supply of the inhabitants. It has been
stated that the reservoirs at Whittle Dean are not suffi-
ciently large for the purpose, tut such is not the fact ;
they are-calculated to hold eight months consumption of
the inhabitants of Newcastle and Gateshead, without
receiving into them au additional drop of water during
that period. The fact is that the impounded water suffers
a continual diminution, which is not compensated by a
corresponding influx, and it is quite .evident, therefore,
that such a process must come to an end, however capa-
cious the reservoirs might be. The .compauy, it is under-.
stood, are e7ttcnding the sources of supply at Whittle
De:m, by making a cutting towards the Pont, and, till
that is accomplished, the inhabitants must be content to
put up with the nauseous mixture with which they arc at
present supplied." • .

Verily-, vve have evidence enough here to make
us pause a little before casting away our present
mode of supply.

The London Times, of Thursday last, contained
sonic editorial speculations upon the probable fu-

tore range of prices of grain in this country, and
the condition of the agricultural classes under a
system of free imports, which are worthy of exami-
nation on several accounts. In the first place we
have the fact almost conceded that a permanently
low price, which we have not hitherto arrived at,
may be expected by the farmer ; and, as the con-
clusion, it is contended that a complete redistribu-
tion of the soil must take place, equivalent, indeed,
to a social revolution.

The Operation of the system upon prices the
Times asserts, has not yet been fairly tried, owing
to the dearth in Ireland, and a deficient harvest in
one year, along with continental disturbances and
other circumstances which have rendered the period
since M 46 exceptional. The year before us, how-
ever, if the harvest he well got in, promises no such
features, and will probably determine the rate upon
which the agriculturist must make his arrangements
and his contracts with the landowner and the
labourer. Extensive fluctuationsi by which the
gain of one year will serve to counterbalance the
loss of another, can no longer he looked for; and
instead, we are to be enabled " at all tines to pur-
chase the great staple of our food at the same mo-
derate cost." And our contemporary proceeds to
assure us of the following extraordinary fact:—
" This cost once ascertained, the- result to the farmer,
who is like any other person applying capital to produc-
tion, will be in no way iidurious. The transition, indeed,'
from the present condition to the one to he prodUced by
the chance may be attended by some loss and suffering,
but this will be only a temporary evil, to which every mnn
in trade is equally liable; while the new state of things
will be a permanei4 benefit to the farmer, as well as to
every other capitalist."
It is difficult to conceive to what school of politi-
cal economy the writer of this sad trash belongs, or
the process by which the farmer is to be benefitted
by low prices, although the yield..of his land may
be only half an average crop. The profitable result
of most other industrial avocations is governed by
the law of supply and demand. If a crop of cot-
ton, of sugar, or any other commodity fails, the loss
to the grower is partially recovered in the increased
price which he is enabled to demand from the con-
' Burner. The British farmer, however, subject to
the vicissitudes of seasons, like all "other men who
draw their sustenance from the soil, is to he practi-
cally bound down to a minimum of remuneration
in periods of abundance, with the.certainty of posi-
tive loss on every occasion when the elements -are
unfavourable.
This minimum of price being ascertained, will,
of course, determine the farmer what he can afford
to pay to the landowner for the use of the soil, what
he can afford to the labourer for his toil, and whe-
ther he can afford to till the land at all in competi-
tion with the foreigner. It is quite possible that he
may not be able to do this, and at the same time