The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-05-30 00:00:00

NORTHERN HOSPITAL REPORT, MAr 27.

ADMITTED: Accidents, 31 ; and Surgical Cases upon
recommendation, 15 ; Total, 45.—DiscuAnuED : Cured, 25 ;
Relieved and at own request, 13; Attending as',Out Patients,lB;
Irregular, 0; I)icd, 3; Remaining in the Ilospital, 82.
Consulting Surgeon, J. M. Banner. Esq. ; Physician and
Surgeon for the ensuing week, 1)r. Turnbull and Mr.
Ashcroft ; House Visitors, 11. J. Sanderson and John
Highticld, Emirs.; House-Surgeons, Mr. T. B. Gilder-
sleeves ; Treasurer, B. H. Jones, Esq.; Chaplain, Rev.
Wm. Hughes.

SOUTHERN AND TOXTETII HOSPITAL, MAY 24.

WEE ELY REPORT,

INDoOR : Cured and relieved. 10; Dead, 0; Entered, 17;
Under treatment, 55.—OUTDOOR : Cured and relieved, 50 ;
Dead, 0; Entered, 4(i ; Under treatment, 44.
Chaplain, Rev. Thomas Nolan? A.M.; Treasurer, B. Platt,
Esq.; Visitors, Mr. C. Cliallinor and Rev. R. ltobberds ;
House-Surgeon, Mr. Thos. Morris; Assistant House-
burgeon, Mr. Thomas Armstrong Cammock ; • President,
Jos. B. Yates, Esq.

LATEST DATES AT LIVERPOOL.
Direct. Indirect.
Direct.i Indirect.
Australia .. I .. .Jan. 251 Lima
Bahia I ,April 1001aranhana.. Mar. 39 ..
Barbadoes , .. I .. 26; Mauritius .. .. .. 18
Bombay .. ;April laAlobile i May 3
B. Ayres .. !March IliMonte Video .. March 12
Calcutta .. !April 9New Orleans • • May 3
C. G. Hope , .. 'March 23JNew York... May 10) ..
Charleston 1 .. May . 61Pernambuco. .. April 15
China :Baron 29.1ti0 Janeiro.. .. April 2
Demerara .. April 18 Savannah .. .. May 4
Havana
Jamaica , ".. April 20!Valparaiso .. i .. iFeb• 29
La Guavra 1 .. .. 22i Vera Cm .. • .. April 22
_.-----
. _.:-...—_—.
RAILWAY RECEIPTS.
The following arc the receipts of railways for the past week;
that is to say, up to the date to which the respective returns
are made:-
-
Week 1848. ' 1847.
RAILWAYS. ending Amount. Amt.
I _
£ s.- d. £
Aberdeen May 0 0 0 ..
Amiens and 13oulozne — 0 0 0 523
Arbroath anti Forfar
Birkenhead, Lan. and Cheshire. —2l 674 0 0 690
Caledonian —2o 3975 0 0 ..
Chester and Holyhead —2o 647 13 6i ..
Cockermouth and Workington —2o 144 0 0 ..
Dublin and Drogheda' —lB 839 0 0 865
Dublin and Kingstown
Dundee, Perth, and Aberdeen" — 0 0 0 322
East Anglian
Edinburgh and Glasgow —2o 3777 0 0 3500
Edinburgh and Northern —2o 1518 0 0 ..
Eastern Counties and N. Eastern —2l .14201 0 0 13525
East Lancashire
I Hasten] Union and Ipswich and
Bury —ll 1219 0 0 554
Glasgow, Garnkirk, and Ctbrg — 0 0 0 ..
Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr. —2O 2114 0 0 2511
Glasgow and Greenock
Great Southern and Western
Great Western
Kendal and Windermere —2o 162 0 0 ..
Lancashire and Yorkshire...— —2o
9276 0 0 9152
Lancaster and Carlisle
Leeds and Thirsk
Londonderry and Enniskillen —2o 128 0 0 87
London and North-Western —2l 41,47 0 0 43724
London and Blackwell
London & Brighton, South Coast —2O 8527 0 0 11772
Landon and South-A.Vesteni
1 M'cliester, Sheilield, and Lincoln —2l 2571 0 0 2126
Nlaryport and Carlisle 2l 532 0 0 710
Midland, Bristol, and Birming-
' ham
alidlaralGreut Western (Ireland) —2l 1051 0 0 ..
Newmarket 0 0 0 ..
Newcastle and Carlisle
Norfolk
North British —2o 2081 0 0 1730
Paris and Rouen
Itouensand Havre
Scottish Central — 0 0 0 ..
Shrewsbury and Chester
South-Eastern and Branches
South Devon
Taff Vale —2o 1511 0 0 1367
Ulster
Whitehaven Junction —2l 185 0 .0. q.z ,
Wishaw and Coltness - 1
York, Newcastle, and Berwick —2o 12635 6 tanalat
York and North Midland,tic —2o 8699 Oat I

ijL Eibtrpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 30, 1848.

THAT Great Britain, as a nation, has not under-
stood and acted upon the important mission which
Providence appears to have designed for her, has
-almost come to be regarded as an admitted fact;
and, for the omission, we are paying in the fearful
and increasing sufferings of all classes of the
people. Pauperism is steadily extending itself over
the land. The working masses underbie each other
for employment in vain. From our agricultural
districts, from Ireland and from Scotland, crowds
of able-bodied labourers pour daily into our large
towns, willing to work, and ins:sting to he fed, if
work cannot be found for them ; and already the
drain upon the resources of our trading classes and
rate-payers is becoming insupportable. In addition
to this local pressure, we have to contemplate an
embarrassed commerce, declining industry, a de-
creasing ability to consume home or foreign pro-
ducts, and the prospect of a large, and probably a
permanent, deficiency in the national revenue, to
be made up, in some way, by increased taxation.
What are we doing, as a nation, to meet and sub-
due, this great aggregate of difficulty ?—Nothing
worthy of us, or equal to the extent of the emer-
gency. We are, it is true, about to enter upon an
effort to reduce expenditure, and to render taxa-
tion, both local and national, more just in its
pressure ;—an effort the success of which is highly
desirable and necessary, although in itself sufficient
only to relieve us of a fraction of the load we have
to hear, and totally failing to meet the cause of our
sufferings. A few amongst us are amusing the
people with proposals of constitutional changes,—
offering toys to the masses who are crying for food ;
dreams for the substance ; elections and vote by
ballot to men who only want employment and
clothing. Such a movement, at such a time, can
only be productive of discontent and social danger.
Yet all this while we have within our reach the
means of effecting a vast change for the better in
the condition and the prospects of our unemployed
and suffering masses, which we are either totally
neglecting, or, at all events, trifling with most
miserably. We have colonies belonging to the
British Crown—vast countries of unsurpassable
fertility—capable of absorbing population and in-
dustry ten-fold more than we can afford them, and
whose existing settlers are pining for the want of
that very labour which we possess in redundancy.
From our Australian colonies we learn, by the last
arrivals, that such is the demand for additional
hands, that good female servants are snatched up
on their arrival at EX) a-year wages, whilst farm
servants and artisans are in equal request. Such
is the scarcity of shepherds and herdsmen, that the
farmers are under the necessity of boiling down
their flocks for tallow ! They have timber in
abundance which they cannot cut down ; minerals
of immense value which they cannot get; abun-
dance, in short, of all things necessary for the wants
of man, only requiring hands to raise and fashion
their for his use. The out:ay of one quarter of the
amount which we devote every year for the main-
tenance of our able-bodied poor, for the repression
'and punishment of crime, for union workhouses
and prisons, penitentiaries and hospitals, would
place tens of thousands in the permanent possession
of comfort, and on the road to independence, if not
even of affluence. It would convert thousands of
these suffering wratches, now fed at our cost in
idleness, or snatching the bread out of each other's
mouths, in the eagerness of their competition for
employment, in the position of employers of their
ellow-countrymen's labour at home, and consumers
of the fabrics of the British manufacturer. Let
such an effort be made by the nation—it would
only be a temporary sacrifice—and we should
shortly see a happy, a contented, and an employed
people in our own land; whilst every wind from
our distant colonies would waft us the blessings of
those grateful thousands whom we had assisted in
throwing off their poverty, and enabled to tread, if
not their own, still a kindred soil, with the proud
step of freemen.
That we are not exaggerating the prospects which
Australia affords to the industrious settler, we pro-
pose to show by the following extract from the
letter of a gentleman there, who has addressed his
fellow-countrymen at home through the pages of
Simmonds' Colonial Magazine for March last :

" The emigrants who are most certain of immediate
success in South Australia are the able-bodied labourers,
who are industrious enough to work hard for a season,
and steady enough to hoard, instead of squandering that
for Which they toil. The man who does so, will, in the
course of a very few years, pass over from the ranks of
the employed to those of the employer. This is no day-
dream, but a result, which, under mine own eyes, has
followed the noble exertions of hundreds in this free
colony, who have converted their labour capital into land,
and their money capital into cattle or corn. Many men
who landed here without a shilling, and that too but a
very few years ago, are, at the moment I write, happily
settled on their own farms, and surrounded with plenty.
It will naturally be asked, ' How was this accomplished ?'
I will tell you. Suppose you are the father of a family.
and have three stout, hearty sons, willing and able to
work, (although people here do not generally work so
hard as in the slave-driven labour market of the three
kingdoms.) The wages, which, if you hired yourselves
for a year, you could earn, would average £3O each, be-
sides your victuals ; making a sum of £l2O between the
four. This sum is the very lowest which you could cal-
culate upon earning in fixed places of employment ; but,
if you could hit the seasons, you would earn, in all pro-
bability, double that amount. What I mean by hitting
the seasons' is this :—The sheepshearing and sheepwash-
ing season commences about September, and lasts about
two months, during which time experienced shearers
often return to town with from £2O to £3O ; but, alas
too often to spend it, or rather throw it away in dissi-
pation in a single week, with all the proverbial reckless-
ness of a sailor after a cruise, instead of prudently depo-
siting it in the Savings Bank, or laying it out safely and
to great advantage, for which there is every opportunity,
as many have found to their permanent benefit and satis-
faction. At the time of the hay harvest it is by no means
unusual for good hands to earn, by the job, 15s. per day.
After the hay harvest is over, then comes on the grain
harvest, during which experienced labourers can earn a
similar sum ; and, when that is at an end, the collecting
of gum, threshing, carting, &c., follow in the wake. In
the interior there is no lack of employment, either at the
mines, where 255. per week can be reckoned upon, as
permanent weekly wages, even by men who are not prac-
tical miners ; but, in general, a great deal more has been
earned by the ' job,' or by what they call ton-work, tat-
work, or tribute. When not employed at home, you
may, with your neighbours and others, be driving your
drays to and from the mines, the usual earnings, for a
team of six or eight bullocks, averaging £3 3s. per week.
And, if you have a wife and daughters, they may be busy
too; for butter, eggs, cheese, poultry, and every descrip-
tion of vegetable, find a ready market. The honest,
sober, and industrious man's best method of turning his
labour to profitable account, he will soon find out in this
province; but, as I have said before, £l2O is the least a
man and three sturdy sons ought to calculate upon as a
year's earnings in money. Deducting from this £5 each
for clothes, you would have a capital of £lOO in the first
year. This being accomplished, you can, if you choose,
purchase here and there, within some few miles of the
city, rich, beautiful land, not surpassed by any other in
the world for fertility, at the rate of £1 per acre, although
considerable portions of land can now only be obtained
at some distance from Adelaide; and, when once you get
an eighty-acre section, the road to wealth is smooth be-
fore you. With the surplus £2O two of you can com-
mence fencing, and two may be still for the next year
hired out as I have described, with the remaining two
occasionally so employed. The climate is so mild, that,
until you can afford it, there is not much necessity for
anything better than a slab-hut, which you can build
yourselves with your own timber; and, let me tell you,
in similar dwellings, men, who were nursed in the lap of
luxury, have been, and are now, living happy and con-
tented, because they are either earning an independent
livelihood, or, as is the case in many instances, making
an independent fortune. Working oxen and a dray, a
plough and harrows, follow during the next year ; and
seed wheat, samples of which in England have been de-
dared the finest produced in any part of the world, can
be purchased at from 3s. 6cl. to 4s. per bushel, or 325. a
quarter. So that you will observe the only thing which
is requisite to make you an independent farmer on your
own land, a respectable yeoman of the country which I
invite you to adopt. is, as I have before said, to be
industrious enough to work hard for a season, and steady
enough to lay by that for which you have toiled. Then
do you begin to reap the fruits of your industry, and, in
a very short space of time, you may find yourself asin-
dependent as a lord of the manor.' "
Many an honest yeoman and farmer there is at
this moment throughout Great Britain, pondering
anxiously what he is to do with his stalwart sons and
daughters, for whose support, in his own pursuits,
his property has become too small; hesitating into
what other branch of industry they can be drafted,
where all are overcrowded; by whom the prospect
here presented might be grasped at with avidity.
Many a rural parish, which has labour in burthen-
some superfluity, might be tempted to relieve
themselves from that superfluity; to tax themselves
temporarily for the achievement of a permanent
good. There might be even parochial machinery
brought into operation, by which all communities
of friends and relatives, the enterprising young

farmer, and the labourers and their families, who
have toiled for, orgrown up with him, might bear out
with them into the far off wild the same recollec-
tions, and the same. scenes, to exchange them with
each other in many an after year, by the winter's
hearth, or when
" Following their ploughs along the mountain side."
Such a system would indeed be colonization, in its
first form; but to bring about its extensive adop-
tion the generous and enlarged co-operation of the
government would be required. The rural popu-
lation of Great Britain is not an emigrating popu-
lation. They have an instinctive clinging to "the
old family faces," the old remembered spots. Even
the poor labourer is not tempted from the hUmble
cottage and the garden without a sigh, though the
wind and the rain may be streaming from the
chinks in its walls, or the decayed thatch. But
this repugnance might be mitigated by such a ge-
nerous co-operation as that to which we have re-
ferred, on the part of the government; by the in-
fluence of missionaries to explain to the people the
prospects before them, and by the assurance which
could be with truth made, that the time is rapidly
approaching, when, by the aid of the steamer and
the locomotive, the most distant ends of the earth
will be brought virtually as near each other, and as
accessible as the neighbouring county was in the
time of our fathers.

We are aware that, by the agency of the Land
and Colonial Commissioners, a dribbling stream of
emigration is already carried on with Australia. A
few ships are freighted, and passages furnished,
free, or at a light cost, to certain descriptions of
emigrants. We want, however, a larger and more
comprehensive measure of assistance than this;
one which will enable the very humblest of our
labourers and artizans to carry their labour to a
country in which it is wanted. The most unskilled
labour is eagerly bought up in Australia; herders
of sheep and bullocks, men who can drive a team,
or hew down a tree are valuable. The pauper
peasantry of Ireland even, who become worse than
valueless to us, when we have allowed them to
transfer their labour to our Canadian colonies, or
to squat in the forests ar.v".. f.s of America,
would he an acquisition to the i'=ner of
Australia. So lately as on Friday evening, we were
told by Sir James Graham, in the House of Com-
mons, that numbers of juvenile offenders from the
Parkhurst prison—the refuse of our large towns,
trained up to various trades: bad been sent there,
and good accounts received of their behaviour; and
it is surely not wise on the part of the government
that, whilst those whose first qualification was the
commission of crime, are conveyed to a new
country at the national expense, our own virtuous
poor should be left to starve unaided at home.
Again, however, we find that we have exceeded
our limits, whilst we have far from exhausted our
subject. We shall, therefore, make no apology for
returning to it next week.

THERE is a duty, imposed upon us as journalists,
to give to the world all the information within our
reach, with respect to affairs of great national
import. In the performance of this duty we cannot
do better than quote the remarks of our contem-
porary, the Mercury, upon the subject of the Naviga-
tion Laws ; premising that this said contemporary
professes to be the especial leader of free trade
opinion in our town. We shall not do him the
injustice of garbling his lucubration s. Our readers
shall have the benefit of them in full, the only
liberty we take with them being the few remarks
which we append to each paragraph.
In accordance with our contemporary's usual
practice, his observations have a text, drawn from
his own columns, and sufficiently pointing out the
authorship of the article. "Fair play is a jewel,"
is the text in question. The article itself is headed
" The Navigation Laws," and thus our contempo-
rary discourses :
"These laws, as we have repeatedly shown of late, are
very injurious to the people of this country, and require
amendment ; but this does not prove that all the altera-
tions now proposed by Government, and the restrictions
proposed to be retained, are wise. It would be in
the highest degree absurd to admit foreign-built ships, I
duty free, to be purchased in this country, or to be sent
hither duty free by British builders abroad, while the
British builder at home has to pay a duty of 15s. 9d. per
load on the foreign timber he may use in shipl uilding.
And it is equally absurd not to admit foreigners to trade
with their vessels from one port to another in these king-
doms, if they will admit British vessels to trade from port
to port in their dominions. We ought either to "open
our shop to all the world," saying nothing about recipro-
city, or we ought to make the reciprocity tell for what it is
worth. According to Mr. Labouchere's proposal, an.
American vessel may trade between our home dominions
and our colonies. The Americans haven° colonies between
which and the parent states our ships can enjoy any trade
in compensation for that advantage. Where, then, is the
reciprocity."
We should really like to be present at an interview
between the enlightened writer of the above para-
graph, and Mr. Labouchere, her Majesty's President
of the Board of Trade. We should like to hear
the Mercury prove the absurdity of Mr. Labouchere's
doing what he proposes to do, and leaving undone
what he proposes to leave undone. Our contem-
porary ought to be summoned to parliament to
give the nation the benefit of his rare wisdom.
We proceed however with the article, merely
reminding the reader that the first sentence is a
reply to the question asked in the opening para-
graph—" Where then is reciprocity."
"It is clearly at Parkgate. But, supposing our coast-
ing trade were thrown open, as well as the rest, while it
would be of little or no value to Jonathan, he would be
bound to open his coasting trade to us, and that would
compensate for all the freedom of navigation we would
award him ; for, while he would be entitled to bring sugar
from Jamaica to Liverpool, we should be entitled to carry
Manchester goods to New York, take a coastwise cargo
to Savannah, and return thence with cotton to Liverpool.
We could take calico and cutlery to China, thence tea to
Philadelphia, and thence a general cargo to Liverpool.
By opening our coast trade we should gain enormous ad-
vautages ; by reserving it to ourselves, but opening that
to the colonies. the colonists themselves would be bene-
fitted, but the English shipowner would not."
Doctors do differ, certainly. "By opening our
coast trade we should gain enormous advantages."
Pray how, good Mercury ? Mr. Labouchere says
that there is a law of nature which compels us to
reserve that trade ; that it would do no good to
the foreigner if thrown open. But between the
president of the Board of Trade and the Mercury
there is no comparison on the score of authority.
Our contemporary has the advantage by many
chalks.

Upon our concluding quotation from the
Mercury's article we shall make no remarks. We
dont profess to understand it; and our'contem-
porary will, doubtless, decline the task of furnish-
ing us with understanding.
" We hope the meeting to be held to-day will not peti-
tion for the barbarism of protection," which is wresting
the carrying trade of the world from us. Let the ship-
owner and the shipbuilder of Great Britain be released
from all imposts which impair their freedom of action as
traders, and then they will compete with the world. The
pretence of serving our maritime power by compelling
him to employ three English sailors to one foreigner, is
too transparent. The system causes landlubbers to be
classed as seamen, while they dilute the natural rate of
wages, and drive the cleverest sailors to countries where
ability and better wages are in more equitable combina-
tion. To maintain the present navigation laws would be
as absurd as to adopt a one-sided amendment of them.
But they may be and ought to be greatly liberalized, or
totally repealed, on principles of entire reciprocity ; and
to this object the meeting of to-day ought to urge the
Government."

We leave this paragraph for " the enlightened"
public of Liverpool to solve. We leave our readers
to ask themselves how our Navigation Laws can
be "totally repealed on principles of entire recipro-
city." We leave them, in short to the perusal, in
the above quotations, which constitute a leading
article in the Mercury, of the most astounding
piece of twaddle which was ever palmed upon the
public. •

IRISH DEPENDANCE UPON BRITISH SUPPORT.

We have always been twitted with the fact that Ireland
could not only grow sufficient for her own wants, but that,
in addition, she supplied Great Britain with a ereat por-
tion of her food. A slight change, however, is now ob-
servable. We receive, certainly, large shipments of
breadstuffs from Ireland ; but we send her, in return, the
full value in a similar commodity. We find in our Corn
Circular thatthe imports of Indian corn into Liverpool for
the week ending Tuesday last were 25,958 qrs., and of
Indian meal 1,230 brls. Of this quantity we sent to Ireland
21,744 quarters Indian corn ; and our shipments of Indian
meal were 7,227 brls. ; showing, at all events, and it is a
gratifying fact, that our Irish brethren are abandoning
their exclusive reliance upon the potato, and that the bet-
ter food, which at first they rejected, is now taken on
choice. The money value of these shipments of Indian
corn and meal about equals that of the wheat, &c., which
we received thence in the week.

FATAL ACCIDENT.—On the 28th of April a porter, 28
years of age, was receiving some bales of cotton into
Messrs. Newhall and Clayton's warehouse, Sefton-street,
when some of them fell upon him, from the height they
were piled, and had his leg broken. He died on Saw,
day last from the injury.

TRANSFER OF THE BIRKENHEAD DOCKS.-
STATE OF THE NEGOCIATIONS.

We informed our readers in our last, that a negociation
bad been set on foot, by which it was hoped that an ar-
rangement would be come to, by which the docks of Bir-
kenhead would be handed over for completion, and be
worked in future by the Liverpool dock trustees. To en-
deavour to bring about such arrangement, a deputation
was despatched on Monday evening by the Birkenhead
authorities to London, to consult the bondholders on the
subject ; and as the result, three of the latter body, of
whom Mr. Isaac Lyon Goldsmidt was the leading one,
were empowered to enter upon negociations, as to the
terms of the proposed transfer, with the chairman and
members of the Parliamentary Committee of the Dock
Committee, in London.
Several interviews, we learn, were held during the
week ; but no arrangement of a satisfactory character, or
the basis of one, was arrived at. An endeavour was made
by Mr. J. Bramley-Moore to procure from the bond-
holders an offer of a definitive nature ; but the only reply
was a declaration from Sir J. L. Goldsmidt that he, as
the principal bondholder, must be paid off in full, 20s. in
the pound, with interest—a proportion of which, however,
he proposed to take in bonds, renewed by the Liverpool
Dock Committee at a lower rate of interest than those
which now represent his claim upon Birkenhead. As this
was stubbornly adhered to as the basis of the negociations,
and of course could not be assented to, nothing was done
up to the departure of the Dock Chairman to attend the
meeting held in Liverpool on Friday, or seemed likely to
be effected at all, up to the last accounts received. The
bonded debt of the Birkenhead Dock Commissioners
amounts at present to £423,000; of this only a portion
has been expended upon the construction of the works to
be purchased, and that portion not very jndiciously, in
the opinion of the proposed purchasers. Of the remainder
some has been lent, invested in the necessary plant, or
otherwise got rid of. The Dock Committee can, of
course, only treat for the purchase of an actual and bona
fide security; and, until the bondholders have such to offer,
and especially so long as they hold out for the full reim-
bursa' of money unwisely invested, some of it, no doubt,
with a view to profit upon other transactions, there can be
no prospect of a negociation being even commenced.
It appears, we understand, very doubtful that Mr.
Goldsmidt can be induced to recede from his present
position ; and, should this be the case, the proposed pur-
chase must fall to the ground, as the Commons committee
have only given until to-day for an arrangement to be
concluded; and, even should they be induced to grant a
further adjournment for a few days, there will be scant
time for procuring the consent of the Dock Trustees here
upon a matter which demands to be maturely weighed.—
There are other difficulties, too, in the way, and some of a
rather intricate character. As the basis of any purchase
of the property by the Liverpool Dock Committee, they
require that all the acts of parliament binding them, with
respect to its application, should be swept away. Now,
this would at once bring us into collision with the Woods
and Forests, who claim the northern strand of the pool,
and who have a claim upon the Dock Commissioners of
Birkenhead, who have undertaken to make a large portion
of it into land for their use. Again, it brings us into col-
lision with the Railway Company, who, having expended
a large amount of money for a branch and wharfage land,
demand the completion of the scheme as originally planned.
We should have, besides the Dock Warehouse Company,
the Warehouse Commissioners, the owners of frontages on
the pool,. the Commissioners of Birkenhead, and others to
settle with—the whole of whose demands would be quite
incompatible with the application of the estate for any
save purely Birkenhead purposes.
We think we have said enough to show that there is
little probability of any progress being made in a pur-
chase during the present session of parliament at all events;
and if it fall to the ground now, we entertain little expec-
tation of a renewal of the proposition from this side of the
water. It is clear that in the present state of affairs, the
ownership of these docks would involve the Liverpool
Dock Committee in endless contests with our neighbours,
as any attempt on their part to apply them merely as an
adjunct to their own dock estate, for beaching ground,
building yards, foundries, and other purposes for which
they might be made useful, would raise up against them,
from a host of different interests, a cry that they were
destroying Birkenhead entirely.