The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-20 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

CLIRICAL NEWS.

With deep regret we announe the death of the 'Very
Rev. Thomas De Lacy, Archdeacon of Meath,. ite the
72nd year of his age, and the 44th of his incumbency of
the Archdeaconry of Meath.—Dublin Mail.

Dr. Scoresby, the Vicar of Bradford, has proposed to
his parishioners a plan of dividing the extensive pariah of
Bradford into separate vicarages, on the plan proposed by
Dr. Hook, of Leeds. This scheme, suggested by the fa-
cilities afforded by the Church Extension Act, passed last
session, has been for months negotiating between. Dr.
Scoresby, the Bishop of Ripon, and the trustees of Mr.
Simeon, who are the patrons of the parish. All parties
are agreed on the desirableness of the measure, which, it
is hoped, will be effected by a private Act of Parliament
during the present session.
CHURCH EXTENSION: MUNIFICENT GIFT.—We
learn from a copy of a letter to the Secretary of the Ec-
clesiastical Commissioners, from the Lord Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol, which has just been printed, that
his lordship, having reflected upon the manner in which
his diocese may be benefited by the Act of 6 and 7 Vic.,
c. 37, called the " Endowment Act," has, under the pro-
vision of the 22nd section of that measure, placed in the
hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners TWO THOU-
SAND POUNDS, " towards erecting churches, of dimen-
sions proportioned to the population, in poor neighbour-
hoods of the diocese, to which the commissioners shall
assign ecclesiastical districts in the present year." The
Bishop adds—" In regard to the power of nominating
the ministers of the districts, I wish to leave the decision
to the commissioners ; stipulating only, that they shall
not be placed in private patronage." This truly noble
gift requires no eulogy. May all who have the means,
also give a portion of their worldly substance for the pro-
motion of the good and holy end in view!

of expenditure upon which the Eastern Counties Company
bad guaranteed 5 per cent. per annum, in perpetuity. The
directors further felt satisfied, that, when the projected
extensions were completed, great as the advantages of the
amalgamation were to the Eastern Counties Company,
the proprietors of the Northern and Eastern Company
would, in due time, realise a considerable addition to the
5 per cent. guaranteed by the terms of the agreement.—
The Chairman, in his address. to the meeting, referred to
the opening of the Hertford and Ware branch, and said,
from the receipts of the last two months, the most unpro-
ductive in the year, he had no doubt it would prove a
most profitable source of income.—A resolution, increas-
ing the proposed dividend from 41 to 5 per cent., was
adopted; and the sum of X 4,006 was placed at the dis-
posal of the directors, as a compensation for their past
services.

CORRESPONDENCE.

GAS QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SlR,—From the proceedings at the Quarter Sessions
on. Tuesday last, as reported in the Courier, it would
appear that the application of the Guardian Society was
to obtain an order from the Court to compel the New
Gas and Coke Company to reduce the price of gas, and
that the Company was compelled to reduce in consequence
of the application; whereas the fact is, the Company had
already announced to the public, at the annual meeting
on the 31st January, reported in all the Liverpool papers,
that they had determined to reduce the price to 6s. per
1,000 feet from the Ist of April next. The Guardian So•
ciety, therefore, gained for themselves and friends nothing
by their proceedings, except the privilege of paying costs
on both sides; for such will in effect be the result, it
being quite clear the proprietors of the Gas Company can
lose nothing, their dividends being secured to them.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE STAFFORD
AGRICULTURAL PROTECTION SOCIETY,
THE EARL TALBOT.

MY LOAD,-1 have been invited by the joint secretaries
of the society over which you preside to become one of its
members, and to attend a meeting on Tuesday next.
I most heartily concur in the objects of the association,
and shall be happy to have my name enrolled ; but I regret
that it will be totally impossible for me to be present on
that occasion. I however, enclose fifty pounds in support
of the cause.

Your lordship will, perhaps, allow me to congratulate
you on the energy which the agriculturists begin to dis-
play. After enduring the calumnies, the falsehoods, and
the buffettings of the League, with a patience which has
but added fresh force to their assaults and more audacity
to their statements, the yeomanry of England have nobly
vindicated themselves ; and the sneer of a late minister
of the crown, who charged them " with having heads as
thick as their own clay," will never be repeated.
But, my lord, the agriculturists have to contend against
an active and well disciplined body ; an heterogeneous
body, consisting, in part, of able, honest, and enthusiastic
men, but, for the greater part, of paid advocates and
selfish and unscrupulous mill-owners, who pass from town
to town with wonderful celerity—who diversify their
meetings by a change of speakers—who gather intimidating
crowds by the lure of " cheap bread"—who have money
to influence, and, if they choose, to corrupt the consti-
tuencies—who compassionate the poor, with a tear in one
eye and a sly wink in the other, being " all for themselves
in this world,"—whose emissaries distribute Tracts
amongst the labouring peasantry, creating discontent,
without actually suggesting crime. This is the body that
has to be encountered ; but, my lord, let us not mistake
übiquity for numbers, nor importunate clamour for the
public voice.
The cause of the agriculturists, if rightly understood.
is intimately connected with the power and prosperity of
the nation, and, if vigilantly and earnestly maintained,
will never succumb to such assailants.

I have stated that the League have been guilty of false-
bond ; perhaps misrepresentation would be a less
offensive term. I will proceed to the proof. In the
Times newspaper of the 30th December last Mr. Cobden
is reported to have said, at Derby, " that the average cost
for carriage, &c. of bringing foreign wheat to this coun-
try, was 10s. 6d. per quarter. Take the cost at 40s. per
quarter, if they liked, and that was 25 per cent. carriage
before the corn could be landed here."

-It is astonishing, after the repeated contradictions which
similar statements have received, that any man can be
found daring enough to repeat them. I now beg to state,
from my own intimate knowledge of the foreign corn
trade, that the freight from Hamburgh has long ranged at
Is. 3d. to 2s. per quarter, and that foreign wheat, so im-
ported, is subject to no charge, to which English, moved
from one port to another, is not subject likewise : and,
moreover, I state, without the fear of contradiction, that
the rate of freight on such English. wheat, moved. coast-
wise, 2thsnat stfhte.ismbeerlochwanitt.
in Yarmouth
sisrmanb4hd
and the factor in Wakefield who sells
swcwwiaoohi calculator,
pwiansotyi ortasthrse,
wheat,orowuaf
tgtheeaon r
etage,,,
and the ' imaginary profits" of
commission. The charge for " commis-
sion,
Macculloch, are common to all wheat, wherever
bought or sold. Freights from the Danish ports vary,
from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 9d. per quarter, and from the Baltic
ports, from 3s. to 4s. per quarter, to which must be added
6d. per quarter Sound dues.
It is true that Odessa freights have been as high as 10s.
to Iss. per quarter, but unless the cost and freight of
wheat together were considerably below the cost and
freight of wheat from the Baltic, the trade to Odessa and
the South of Europe would be at an end. I have known
the price of wheat to be as low as 12s. per quarter at
Odessa, and, at the present moment, the price, on the
Danube, is only about 18s. to 195., and the price of barley
only 6s. 3d. per quarter. I have known the price of the
finest Baltic wheat (which is Bs. to 10s. per quarter better
than Odessa) to remain at 18s. to 19s. per quarter for
years together; but I should consider it as dishonest to
quote these as average prices, as I should deem it unfair
to quote the average rate of freights at 10s. 6d. per quar-
ter. But it is contended that free trade would raise both
the price of wheat abroad and the rate of freights. I deny
the consequence. That might be the first effect, but there
is:nothing more certain than that a steady demand for any
article, the production of which can be progressively ex-
tended, will finally establish a fall in price. Look at the
decline which, within the last few years, has taken place
in cotton, salt, coal, and iron. Look also at the reduction
dinont—hetrhaetemoof
sftreciognhsttoanntand steady coal between
of allenNe d
Newcastle and
TheseandLon
reductions, in part the result of over-trading and excess,
and for which some allowance must be made, will become
a permanent feature in the history of prices.
Perhaps I may be excused by your lordship for exhort-
ing the landed interest to adhere rigidly to the principle
of the sliding scale. The corn law has a double object
it protects the land of this highly-taxed country from the
free competition of the vast territories of Poland and
Russia, inexhaustible in their fertility. It protects the
tenant from the wretchedness of the occupiers of those
lands, and it protects the labourer from being reduced to
the condition of the miserable serfs and slaves who till
them. But it has another object, it protects the con-
sumers, as far as human legislation can do, against high
prices.
What can be more consonant to common sense than a
duty varying with the price ? At one time protecting the
producer from ruinously low prices; and, at another, the
consumer from oppressively high prices. With great
submission to many powerful authorities, I consider a fixed
duty as a fixed injustice, and that it possesses no other
merit than being a sort of " ready reckoner" for the
merchant. But can such a duty be permanent? In the
mutations of times and seasons, distress will reappear ;
and when the excitable masses (tbe " reserves" of agita-
tors) are converted into mobs, as they inevitably will be,
can any man hope that a fixed duty of Bs. or 10s. per quar-
ter would last many months; and being suspended, that
it
ever could be resumed ? More than forty years' expe-
rience leads me to conclude that, under a fixed duty of Bs.
per quarter, the average price of wheat, with good crops,
would not exceed 355. or 365. per quarter.
Before concluding this letter to your lordship, I have a
word to say on free trade. The League boasts of the ac-
cession to their cause of the Marquis of Westminster, and
they avail themselves, very naturally, of the grace and
influence which rank always confers on a popular move-
ment.

His lordship seems enamoured of his new allies, but he
has yet to learn that the " hounds would as soon hunt
the huntsman as the hare." Rank and title are nothing
in the hands of a leaguer, when contrasted with the rights
of that never-to-be-defined personage, the public.
His lordship is for all manner of free trade, and is, at
the same time, for maintaining faith with the public cre-
ditor, but he has not told us how that is to be accom-
plished. Now, if I know what thorough free trade means,
it amounts to this ; that every man who has a privilege or
a protection of any sort, or kind, for his calling, should,
at once, voluntarily surrender it for the public good, that
all things may be in common. I submit, that when this
state of things has to be enforced by statute, it is demo-
cracy in disguise, or, as Sismondi has happily described
it, " a Game of Beggar my Neighbour."
It is the prevailing error of the present times to test
every question of state policy by money's worth. Things
different in sort cannot be compared in degree, nor can
the value of an annuity, which every man may be said to
have in good government, be estimated by an actuary.
The man who, being suddenly possessed by " economic
views," determined to repair his own clock, found no diffi-
culty in pulling it to pieces, but on attempting to put it
find no use. So the free traders will find, that the whole
itsogneotther, he had a bowl full of wheels, for which he could
the
complicated a
ndpa t eodf
statenor t hgeo
vp
ea
rr
ot salt
ohne t
wh
t/
he . al T 1
its
ramifications of property and industry,—with all its ba-
lancesmrntlsaacishneitpnaaeirnraying powers,—is not a whole to be
broken up on speculative suggestions.
It has been said that the first duty of a statesman is the
"care of his own times." A prudent minister, like a
skilful physician, will discriminate between an organic
disease and a functional derangement, and will restore
when others would destroy. The tariff modified, and re-
gulated protection. but carefully preserved the principle.
It has been maintained by many, that all the lands of
England are under mortgage for the public debt, but by
what force are they to be entered on, if, in the latitude of
change, the title should be disputed, and " there are more
things than are dreamt of" in the league's philosophy.
The public creditor, hotrever, is wise in his generation,
and instictively knows, that it is on the well and steadily
requited industry of the nation that he has to rely for
payment, and that " the first creditor on the soil is the
plough."
In the sincerewhhoiephe
esthhalyt
theythe aesesnocilaeteikonfewripllernmotahpelhayt
the game of their adversaries,
Your ih— froml
by abusing the leader of
that r
o t partyc
ti
omamos't my lord,faithful and obedient servant,
p
JOS. SANDARS.
Johnstone Hall, Eecleihall, Feb. 3, 1844.