The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-08-14 00:00:00

CORPORATE BODY.

" It may he desirable that there should be few of the principal
Tate-pavers in any town who are not burgesses, but it may be
doubted whether it be equally desirable that there should be no
other burgesses than rate-payers. They who pay fates and
other direct taxes have undeniably an interest in the good
government of towns, but they are not the only persons so in-
terested. A prudent antiquity loved the thrifty contract of ap-
prenticeship, and although it may not accord with the restless
spirit of modern innovators, it seems that the young journey-
man, who probably pays no direct tax, having subscribed seven
years of his life to good order, usefulness, and wholesome re-
straint's, may justly claim to assist in the choice of the mayor
of his town, and to partake of other municipal duties The
democratical principle forming a principal ingredient in our
mixed constitution, a discretion, not unacquainted with the
science of government, permitted persons of humble station,
but who had proved themselves to be of good conversation by
a prescribed servitude, to perceive at an early age that they
-also had a stake in the state. It has been sagaciously re-
marked by an experienced observer, that workmen are far
more independent than the small tradesmen; and the majority
of rate-payers in towns is commonly composed of the latter
class. Custom has been used more extensively and more effec-
tually to influence votes than employment. The artisan may
be discharged, and so put to some inconvenience, but the shop-
keeper may, be ruined; the one is tree, the other adtcriptus
,stleba, fixed to the curb-stone in front of his shop: if the latter
offend, he must encounter bankruptcy, or the borough gaol;
whilst the former, with the wide world before him, quickly ties
up ,his moveables in a handkerchief, and after a short ramble
finds a new master, and wages, r7ood, or bad, according to cir-
cumstances, which patrons and candidates cannot control.
Freemen by birth obtain the franchise in a truly independent
manner, by the uncontrolled title of inheritance; and their
birthright commonly gives local attachments, as well as liberty;
it is complained that persons, who make a little money in a
country town, are often strangers and foreigners, ignorant of
its usages, and wanting in municipal patriotism: where free-
dom is acquired by marriage, considerations of locality have
also their due weight. Choice, to be made by the burgesses,
or at least by some persons connected with the town, appears
to have been accounted an important element in the assump-
tion of new burgesses; the father does not choose his son, it is
true, but he, a burgess, may fashion him as he will, and the
master may train up his apprentice into the form of a brother
burgess. If it be ordained that every householder, every male
inhabitant, every rate-payer, all of a prescribed rental, com-
plexion, age, or stature, shall be burgesses, choice is swallowed
up in a new and vast experiment."

" The tone of the report of certain of the commissioners,
wherever it touches the rights of the freemen, is peculiar and
remarkable; it is accounted a crime in a freeman to seek to ex-
ercise those franchises which the laws of his country and the
usages of his forefathers have given to him ; it is ahinist parri-
cide in him? although inhabitinga populous town where the
workmen being assembled in large bodiei, are animated-by end-
less political discussion and gratuitous excitement, to desire to
have a vote for the boraugh."

GOVERNING BODY.
" It is further complained that 'since the repeal of the cor-
poration and test acts, and the removal of the civil disabilities
of the catholics, very few instances occur in which either,
catholics or dissenters, who often form a numerous, re-
spectable, and wealthy portion of the inhabitants, have been
chosen into the governing body of the corporation.' The dis-
senters are generally numerous in English and Welsh towns,
many are wealthy, and all, it may be truly said, are respectable,
for very few members of their large and miscellaneous body are
of ill conduct and character; it must be admitted, indeed, that
republics are favourable to decency and to the ordinary vir-
tues. The real question, however, is this: are the disseuters
generally accounted to be so friendly to the English constitu-
tion, as by law established, by those persons, in whom the
choice of the common council is vested, that they might con-
scientiously have chosen them into the governing body of their
town? Certain sects of protestant dissenters are supposed to
differ, but littleflin doctrine, if at all, from the church of Eng-
land, their discipline only is not the same, but more strict, for
this and doctrine and pious observances they extend and en-
force further than ordinary churchmen are wont; reverence for
and submission to subsisting authority they also carry so far, as
-to seem incapable of active resistance. To these dis-
senters, if such they arc to be called, there would perhaps be
no objection on the part of orthodox electors; but in proportion
as men devote themselves conspicuously to religion, they seent
to withdraw from secular affairs, and it might well be doubted
whether an eminently pious burgess would desire to be intro-
duced into the council, or would attend heartily to the business
of the borough. The corporations of England and Wales have
long been and still are distinguished in a remarkable manner
for the most dutiful and affectionate loyalty, for an equal attach-
ment to each branch of the constitution, with a steady regard
for whatever is established; their tastes and their toasts are for
church and, state, and especially do they harmonise well with
the established church, the authorities Usually attending divine
service with much pomp and the best example. It is too much
to expect that such bodies, which in truth move but slowly in
any case, should in a few short years fill their senates with dis-
senters, professing open hostility to the church and suspected
of republican tastes in civil government, partly perhaps be-
cause they are sticklers for democracy in ecclesiastical polity.
Historical recollections linger in provincial towns; the people
look upon the first years of the reign of King Charles 11., a
period which is sometimes styled the Commonwea:th, and the
days that immediately preceded it, as the administration of the
dissenters; and the remembrance of such times being odious to
Englishmen, a jealousy, more vigilant possibly than is needful,
torments all who dread to recall them.'*
PROPERTY.

'• The doctrines respecting corporate property promulgated in
the reports are raw and juvenile and of a foreig❑ hue; they
cannot be grateful to minds mature and manly and nourished
by the assiduous contemplations of English laws and of Eng-
lish institutions; the municipal corporations of England being
in their spirit neither Scottish, Irish; nor French, but eminently
national and exclusively English. To the chapters on property
every reader should be referred, who would exactly estimate the
the temper in. which the report has.been drawn, that he may
:earn with how much caution its conclusions and suggestions
are to be received_ -

"One expression occurs in this part of the report which is so
highly tilibecoming that it. were unfit to pass it by. 'Few cor-
porations,' say the commissioners, 'admit any positive obliga-
tion to expend the surplus of their income for objects of public
advantage. Such expeuditure is regarded as a spontaneous act
of private generosity, rather than a well-considered application
of the public revenue, and the credit to which the corporation.
in such a case, generally considers itself entitled, is not that of
judicious administrators, but of liberal benefactors. Even in
these cases party and sectarian purposes often prevail in its ap-
plication.' It is not pretended that any corporation has ex-
pended the surplus ofincome in constructing lavatories for ana-
baptists, or in erecting houses of gathering for quakers, presby-
terians, or unitarians, but it is notorious that many have be-
stowed much iu building, repairing, and endowing churches;
the munificence of the corporation of Liverpool in this respect
is almost incredible. It is plain, therefore, that the epithet sec-
tarian is applied to the pious benefactions of orthodox church-
men. If it were deemed expedient to inculcate that all modes
of faith and of worship are alike precious, the very intelligible
proposition might be propounded in terms; but it cannot surely
serve any end of utility, or of decency, to fling an obliqne insult
at the public establishment, by insinuating that it is but a sect,
and its adherents sectaries."
•
In his general notice of the report, Mr. Hogg says :--
"A copy of a printed bill, intituled, 'An act to provide for
the better government et certain boroughs, when incorporated.'
was sent to each of the commissioners at the commencement of
the inquiry under your Majeste's commission, as a part of big
instructions. Several parts of general report of certain of
the commissioners seem to have reference to this bill; it may
be fit therefore to notice it particularly hereafter, especially ag
it would create constitutions altogether new and different from
any, as it is believed, that have hitherto existed in any borough
of England or Wales. It is true that the attention of the com-
missioners is not commanded to embrace this matter by the
terms of your Majesty's commission.. but they are enjoined to
discover the defects to the constitotien of the municipal corpo-
rations, and if the constitution prescribed by the bill he the
best that can he devised, it follows that every departure from it
must he a defect, and; that it is their duty to mark it as such ;
and it is otherwise, of course, if the new constitution be itself
objectionable."
In other words AU, the commissioners were despatched
for the purpose of mataufacturing such a report as would
further the views of their employers who had predzter-
mined on the aestruction of all municipal bodies, and.
like Balaarn, the son of Fleor, when sent for by the King
• ()f Moab to curse the children of Israel, were almost corn'
rmantled by Lord John to "curse me these corporations."
Mr. Hogg will not get another cemmissionership Iraq
his lordship.