The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-09 00:00:00

PROSPECTUS

It is proposed to form a Company for making the several
Railways from Canterbury to Rochester, from Rochester to
Strood, and from Rochester to Maidstone, with branches from
the former to Faversham Creek and Chilham.
The Plans and Sections of the proposed Line Lave been duly
deposited.
The whole length of the proposed Railways is about 43 miles.
The population to be served may be estimated at 4,278 per
mile, besides the through traffic from London, and from the
intermediate district between London and the Medway.

The estimated cost is about £BOO,OOO, but power is reserved
to increase the capital to £1,000,000, if found requisite.
The traffic on the Line is estimated to produce a gross annual
receipt of £123,000, or £2,860 per mile.
The estimated dividend, after deducting 50 per cent. for
working expenses, on a minimum cost of £BOO,OOO, is 7i per
cent. ; and on the maximum cost of £1,000,000, is 6 per cent.
The Committee of Management engage to return the deposits
without any greater reduction than ss. per Share, should the
Act for Incorporating the Company not be passed, and no Sub-
scriber will in that case incur any other expense or•liability
whatever. They also engage that no deduction beyond 2s. 6d.
per Share will he made for preliminary expenses, if a sufficient
Parliamentary Subscription be not obtained to authorise an
application for a Bill for one or more of the proposed Lines of,
Railway.

Applications for Shares, and for Prospectuses and forms of
application for Shares, to be made to the SECRETARY, at 35,
Lincoln's-inn-Fields, or to the following Stock and Share-
brokers :

London—Messrs. R. and W. HICHENS and HARRISON, 18,
Threadneedle-street; Messrs. SIMON and Sox, 7, Warnford-
court, Throgmorton-street. Liverpool—Messrs. D. and J. B.
NEILSON ; Messrs. MOCATTA and PENNY. Manchester—
Messrs. MEWBURN and BLAKEY; Mr. CHARLS BOULT; Mr.
JOHN FILDES. Leeds—Messrs. BARFF and FLINT, Stock and
Sharebrokers. Bradford--Mr. Jo RN COOKE, Stock and Share.
broker. Halifax—Messrs. MEWBURN and BLAKEY.

Offices :-35, Lincoln's-inn-Fields, let December, 1851

PLAYING CARDS

G 0 ODALL AND SON S'
IMPROVED PATENT
ENAMELLED PLAYING CARDS.
which, for novelty of design, and quality are unsurpassed.
Per Pack. Per Dos. Packs.
HIGHLANDERS ls. 10d. .... 2ls.
HARRYS
MOGULS 2s. ... 30s.
With Floral, Figut:s‘er-Sprting Backs.

FOR EXPOR_TOPTIST, AT THE MAKERS' PRICES

.~ GEORGE J. POORE,
42, CASTLE-STREET, LIVERPOOL

Eiberpoot tanbarb,

TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 9, 1851

THE " IDEE NAPOLEONIENNE."-THE
STRIKE FOR EMPIRE.

WHEN we last addressed our readers, we described
Prince Louis Napoleon as the master of a new
and a strong position; as having gained a great
advantage over his opponents—the Assembly ; as
having ingratiated himself with the army, and won
a large share of popularity : and we predicted that
he would most assuredly prove himself the nephew
of his uncle the Emperor. On the very day that
our remarks went forth, Louis Napoleon struck his
grand blow for his Presidentship for life in the first
instance, and for the Imperial dignity in due course
of time. It is not our province to say more here
upon that audacious usurpation of all authority,
upon that military revolution upon a revolution,
and upon the bloody manner in which it was
effected, than to deplore the terrible national crime
in the name of outraged liberty. That indignities
of all kinds were heaped upon the President, that
he was goaded almost to madness by the unprin-
cipled band of political scoundrels who held the
Assembly by the nose for their own selfish or
miserable party ends, that he was made responsible
for acts over which he had no control, and crippled
in.the execution of the Government over which he
was the nominal head, cannot be denied ; but this
systematic treatment of it cannot justify his nefari-
ous acts ; at least to palliate them is to take from
them the extreme weight of guilt. So far as we
in this country are able to judge from the accounts
that we have received, the usurper has been suc-
cessful ; but it should be borne in mind that the
telegraph and the post-office are completely under
the control of the dominant powers in France, that
all the intelligence comes filtered through their
hands, and that all the comments written by our
correspondents are based upon the statements cir-
culated by the men who at the moment hold the
reins of government. We have little doubt how-
ever that, for a time at least, Louis Napoleon will
be able to hold his ground. L'audace, encore de
l'audace, toujours del' audace, ever obtains adula-

tion and temporary success in France, and Lonis
Napolion has displayed audacity that has no equal
since the days of the First Consul. But to what a
state has he reduced the enlightened and liberty.
loving people of France ! To subjection to an
absolute dictatorship, imposed by Pretorian guards,
and enforced by the points of the bayonet, and by
the thunders of the artillery ! True, to him they
are the semblance of freedom—they are to him
universal suffrage. But what a mockery that suf-
frage has been, what a still more absurd mockery
it will be in this instance ? Three times within
four years the French have had the privilege of
exercising this much-coveted "universal suffrage ;"
and what has been the result? A constituent
Assembly that framed a constitution which every
one repudiated and violated at pleasure ; a National
Assembly the most contemptible, unprincipled, and
inconsistent that ever existed ; a President who
was a Prince when all were declared to be equal,
and who had not, constitutionally, the power of a
peasant in administering public affairs : and now
they are a fourth time required to vote en masse to
confirm a military dictatorship in the midst of
bristling bayonets. Here is an example of the
working of " universal suffrage !" May Heaven
long preserve England from this terrible scourge!

THE REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
IRELAND has long, avowedly, been the great diffi-
culty with which successive Administrations had to
contend, and which baffled them all, one after the
other; but a solution, as unexpected as it is gra-
tifying, of that difficulty seems at length to be at
hand. What statesmen and legislators have for
years, for centuries, in vain attempted to accomp-
lish, by the secular means of cunningly devised
laws, by alternate coercion and caressing, by cajo-
lery, and by bribery, a few single-minded, zealous
men, have achieved by the spiritual means of the
Gospel alone. To make the Irish people faithful
subjects of the Crown, and obedient to the laws ;
to release them from the most galling and debasing
slavery that ever existed—slavery to a plebeian
priesthood and a foreign autocrat, who claimed
absolute dominion over their souls as well as their
bodies ;—to render them fit for the enjoyment of
rational liberty, and capable to appreciate and par-
take the freedom of thought and action which
Englishmen exercise in its fullest extent ; such was
the difficulty which governments essayed to conquer,
and before which, tin to the present, they all igno-
miniously succumbed. This continuous failure was
a just judgment for the vacillating, unprincipled,
unchristian course of policy pursued by the rulers
of England towards the people of the sister king-
dom. It was England, as has been well observed
by Lord Shaftesbury, that brought Ireland under
the yoke of Popery, for she owed no allegiance to
the Pope until after she came under the dominion of
this country; and it was England that, for crooked
and tortuous political purposes, kept alive and fos-
tered that abominable sacerdotal tyranny which has
systematically held the minds of the Irish people in
darkness, and taught them nothing save rebellion
to the English Crown and hatred to the English
race. It is to be hoped that we have sufficiently
expiated our crimes in this respect. The dawn of
a glorious Reformation has already appeared in
that country—late so dark, so abject in physi-
cal decrepitude, so cloaked in spiritual night.

The disclosures made, on Thursday last, at the
meeting in London, by the Rev. Mr. O'Calla-
ghan, by the Rev. Mr. Dallas, and by other mis-
sionaries, of the extending success of their labours,
in the Irish Church Missions, must convince every
one that the blessed time has arrived for the Irish
people to be regenerated. The conversions • that
have taken place, numerous and remarkable in
character as they are, sufficiently attest that a wide-

spread desire for enlightenment, and an almost
universal revulsion against priestly domination have
arisen, which will never be allayed until perfect
freedom, spiritual and temporal, shall be secured.
That it is a religious duty which England owes to
Ireland, and to her own Protestant faith, to push
forward this Providential Reformation by all means
in her pdwer, none, we think, will venture to deny ;
that it is the political duty of England to regenerate
Irishmen, in the only way in which they can be

truly and permanently regenerated, so as to make
them good citizens and worthy freemen, all must
admit. Here, then, are the means, holy and politic,
for solving the great difficulty of governing Ireland,
within our reach. Let England respond heartily
and generously to the appeal made by the Irish
Church Missionaries; let them contribute largely
to liberate Irishmen from the superstitious power
exercised over them by the Pope and his sacerdotal
minions, and soon we shall be able to congratulate
ourselves on having an United Kingdom, and a

united people, owing but one allegiance to the Bri-
tish Crown, and professing but one faith, the faith
of the Reformation.

OUR MANUFACTURING AND COMMERCIAL
PROSPERITY—WHERE IS IT ?
AGRICULTURE is in a state of extraordinary de-
pression in all its branches—we admit the fact, we
deplore it; so much the worse for the large class of
producers interested in the British soil. But look
at the sound, healthy, flourishing condition of our
manufactures and our commerce ; take comfort from
that; this unexampled prosperity cannot long con
tinue without communicating its benefits to agri-
culture, and raising it up from its prostration.
Such is, in brief, the declaration dinned incessantly
into the public ear by the organs of the ascendant
political party—such is the solution of the words of
condolence and reassurance put in the mouths of
the Sovereign, by the Ministers, to be addressed to
Parliament. But has this assumption of general
prosperity a solid foundation ? Are our manufac-
tures and commerce in a sound, healthy, flourish-
ing condition ? We sincerely believe that well-
ascertained facts bear us fully out when we reply in
the negative. In inquiring into these facts, we
derive great assistance from a valuable correspon-
dent of the Horning Herald, who, under the name
of " Civis," sifts the figures furnished by the Board
of Trade, and shows that they completely upset the
theory which that organised concoctor of puzzling
and contradictory returns labours so unscrupulously
to uphold. From these Board of Trade returns we
learn that the declared value of the exports of
British and Irish produce and manufactures to all
Europe (including Egypt, &c.) has only increased,
from 1845 to 1850, to the extent of £665.010, while
to the rest of the world the increase has been, dur-
ing the same period, £10,393,693. This, at first
sight, would lead us to conclude that, upon the
whole, we were making a fair and satisfactory
progression. But if we look deeper into these
figures, we shall find that, taking into consideration
the intermediate years, our average exports since
1845 have actually decreased by the value of
£1,189,384. In plain fact, our exports to Europe,
since 1845, have never equalled our exports in that
year; and our average exports to all parts of the
world show an increase of only 3E777,349 over the
exports of 1845 ; and this notwithstanding the
great excess of imports in late years. Considering
that from 1840 to 1845 our exports steadily ad-
vanced to the extent of £9,000,000, and that if the
progression continued in the same ratio our in-
crease, on the average of the five years of 1845 to
1850, would be £8,000,000 more than it is, we have
no reason whatever for boasting of prosperity. The
increase of 1850 has little more than made up for
the decrease of the years succeeding 1845 ; and as
regards our foreign exports, we are only in the
same position which we occupied five years ago.
With commerce, to stand still is really to retro-
grade ; and therefore, instead of vaunting a re-
markable onward progress in our manufactures
and trades, we have every reason to deplore an
extraordinary stoppage, if not an absolute retro-
gression. The value of grain imported from 1846
to 1850 inclusive, exceeded that imported from
1841 to 1845 inclusive, by the enormous amount
of £50,000,000; yet our exports of British and
Irish produce and manufactures to the whole world
have only increased in the same period £777,000 !
Here is prosperity—here is an illustration ho

imports and exports adjust themselves! Th
dation on which the hope of agricultural revival
was based, having thus been proved to be unsub-
stantial, where are agriculturists to look for the
participation of prosperity so confidently promised
them ? Only, we answer, in a return to that ra-
tional and well-proved system of commerce, upon
which this country rose to a magnitude unparal-
leled in the history of the world.

well
e foun-

ST. AIDAN'S COLLEGE, BIRKENHEAD,

CHRISTMAS EXAMINATION, 1851
First Term.-Ist Class: Fenton, London.
Stevens, O'Connor. Woodward. 3rd Class Le 3
Willis. JEgrotat Snepp.

2nd CI