The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-28 00:00:00

Miss Gardner

To which will b
TARNATION
And other Entertainments.
Tickets to be had at the Standard and Clironicle-offic ma
es
at the Music-shops ; and at the Theatre, where places
_ .

tt auucti,
STRANGE,

be secured. . -
Books of the words, 6d. each, to be had on application to
Mr. Cooxg, at the Box-office.
____.—......wwwwm•s—m--si

TO MERCHANTS, BROKERS, AND OTHERS

The largely increased and most respectable rzr0a...,,..
which the Tuesday's Edition of the LIVERPOOL
STANDARD has now obtained amongst the mercantile
body in Manchester affords its proprietors the gratify-
ing power of urging this, amongst the other, undeniable

cairns which it possesses, upon the favor of that portion
of the mercantile community of Liverpool who desire to
bring their advertisements Wore the notice of buyers in
the neighbouring manufacturing districts. In most of
the surrounding towns of Lancashire the circulation
est of
the STANDARD is steadily increasing. In Mancher,
kowever, the centre of the manufacturing district, our
publication of Tuesday—occurring upon the most im-
portant market day of the Cotton Trade, when its
Exchange and Hotels are thronged wikh country manu-
facturers, spinners, and calico printers—is firmly es-
tablished in circulation, and is perused with increased

and increasing interest.
circumstances, we trust to
Under these encouraging
receive an increased measure of support from the mer-
chants and brokers of the town generally ; and it affords
us great pleasure to assure those of our friends amongst
those classes, who have hitherto bestowed their adver-
tising favours liberally upon us, of our increased ability
to do justice to the interests com care.

Ebe tiberpooi *tantiarD.

FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 28, 1843

The experience of the past twelve months, has, we
are convinced, been more efficacious in dissipating
politico-economical fallacies, and in illustrating how
far "the wisdom of our ancestors" is to be estimated
above the crude theories of unfledged
philosophers,
than any similar period in our history. A a scie
ame
nce,
or rather a collection of truisms dignified bs y the n
did
of a science, political economy stands just where it
It is j
in the days of Adam Smith. just as excellent in
theory, now, as it was then ; and
as inapplicable in
practice. The system of a universal exchange of com-
modities between nation and nation is just as brilliant
an abstraction, now, as ever it
was ; but the notion,
that such a system is ever likely to be established, or
can ever be profitably established, is as far from being
demonstrated as ever--nay, it is further; for all expe-
rience is right in the teeth of the philosophy being ever
embraced by the majority of mankind, as the guiding
rule of their legislation, and most damaging to the opi-
nion that it is the interest of any nation to hazard
much of its existing prosperity in setting
the example
of its recognition.
It Las been a leading fallacy with the doctrinaires of
this school, that it was no less the duty than the inte-
rest of Great Britain thus to hazard her acquired posi-
tion, as the certain means of reaching a still higher
position from the adoption of her example by other
countries. With this view we relaxed our navigation
laws, and admitted to our ports the shipping of every
we bad commercial treaties. We
country with which derived ?
ask, what substantial benefits have
we
themselves Cer-
tainly those benefits have not extended to
that portion of the community—the shipping interest—
uPoo whom we were assured they than we
would fall. We
have given, in fact, snore—infinitely more—
have received ! And during the twelve or fourteen
Years after this and other concessions, what have other
nations done to meet us in our course of exuberant
generosity, which philosophers termed an enlightened
pursuit of commercial advantage ? Why the history
of legislation, by foreign governments, during this
period, has been a history of one succession of move-
ments in an opposite direction. On every side we
have been met by restrictive tariffs. Market after
roarket has teem dosed at
our commerce ; and
that we have made bead, at all, against the awakened
theof other countries, has been owing solely to
the success with which we have decreased the cost of
production of our commodities (decreasing at the same
time the comforts of our labouring population), and to
the we possess in
immense sustaining power which
the home
our large colonial possessions and in

market.
We were assured, however, that these untoward
results were attributable solely to the incompleteness
of our experiment. We had not gone far enough in
our liberality. We had not bid sufficiently high for
the enjoyment of the markets of other countries; and
the increased measure of exclusion to which we had
been submitted, we were told, was " retaliatory !"
.If
we would only go a little further in generosity; admit,
without stipulation, the wines of this country, the
fruits and spices of another, the corn of a third, the
beef and pork of a fourth, we should be rewarded by
the voluntary accordance to us of all the benefits de-
rivable from a liberal admission to their markets.
We re-
Well, we last year reconstructed our tariff.
doted the duties upon six hundred articles, the produce
or manufacture of every country s upon the
upon the face of the
globe ! We materially reduced the duties
chief food of man, and the staple produce of our own
land—corn. We consented to receive the animal food
of America and Europe at a low duty ; and yet, how
have even our concessions of the past year been met ?
Is there a sign, the most remote, of concessions in re-
turn ? No. We have been met, only, on the part of
America, by a tariff even more restrictive than pre-
viously, and by increased disinclination, on the part of
every other country, to admit us to a greater share
than we already possess of the commerce of the
world!
the a
The fallacy, then, by which we are assured that any
voluntary concession of ours would lead to dop-
tion of the free-trade principle by an portion
y material
of the rest of mankind, is utterly exploded. We must
fool or
from henceforth regard that man as either a
duty upon
a
madman, by whom the reduction of the
at:ryiffon.e of the six hundred articles enumerated in our
benederivableate d, upon any other ground than the
from its cheapness to ourselves .1 No
voluntary concession--the concession, even, of a per-
fectlyfree trade in corn, if unconditionally made—
will operate to unlock the restrictions with which our.
productions are met in foreign markets ; for not only
pro
every voluntary concession failed in producing
has
such a result, but where such concession has been the
,subject of negociation, and where temptations, appa-
rently the most irresistible, have been offered, we: have
met with signal failure. What is the history of our
negotiations for a commercial treaty with France, but
a history of studied evasion and delays, practised by
the ministers of that country to defeat its result ,
What have been the fruits of our recent negociations
With Spain and Portugal, or with Brazi
it isl, but failure?
?
In met of these countries—Portugal
ercantile interest, and the population
that the entire m
of a large and important district, dependent upon the
trade in wine with the British market, was and is in
favour of a tariff which would permit a mutually bene-
with this country ;
ficial commerce to be carried on
and yet the outcry of six manufacturers (I) of wretched
woollen stuffs, acting upon has de-
a feeling, .._ _
hostile to the prostration of native industry,
feated the most active efforts of our diplomacy !
Will any man tell us that this experience of tat h
ion for
e past
does not strike a stunning blow at the agit
the repeal of the corn-law ? Where be now the mag-
nificent dreams of the League, of vast markets opened
to our industry, as the result of the transfer of the
growth of our bread stuffs from English soil to the
of borders of the Ohio and Mississippi, or to the countries
the Baltic and the Black Sea ? Where are the baby
dreams of Russian and Polish boors, with bread in
one band, receiving in return, with the other, British
silks, cottons, or woollens ? Where are the plausible
and plaintive lamentations over the acted folly of na-
tions burdened with food, but yet naked, prevented
from exchanging their surplus with a nation burdened
with unsaleable clothing • )
England, it is plain, has

in every country

and ti

inpite tue fay

'Ow

11411.44

or the

coittLl4*-Leieteuel I

recEtnt absurd demonstration of Mr. Ricardo,

and esr

of our negotiation with Portugal before
his eyes, will say that each sten which we take further,

a the direction of an ultra free trade, Is a wanton

ndonment of our power to coerce, or, convince,
inn countries into the adoption of a rational sys-

even to profusion, with offered benefits ; and the

blame is assuredly not ours ; our gifts have been
spurned—we are not, certainly, to be called upon to
" give, give," even by the craving of the horse-leech,
when all that we receive in return is mockery of our
folly !

The downward career of the Whig-Radical faction,
which so lately rode rampant in authority over this
good old town, is truly an instructive object of con-
templation. There was a time, even in its declining
days, when it could still muster a respectable front ;
when it dared hazard a decisive battle for an extensive
object. That time, however, has gone by; and, as !he
fallen roue, who once swaggered at Crockford's, and
betted his thousands at Newmarket or Epsom, is con-
tent to shine as the hero of a little-go—to rook" ad-
venturous footmen at chicken-hazard, or to join a
party of seedy thimble-riggers in an attack upon a
'prentice's purse at a fair,—our fallen faction have de-
scended to hawk at small game, and spend their once
mighty energies upon a parish squabble. Poor beings !
It is an achievement for them, now, to strut at the
election of a churchwarden or an overseer; and we do
not despair of seeing them, some of these days, de-
r voting themselves, with all their usual appliances of
' placarding and journalising, to the mighty object of
carrying the election of a parish beadle or a corpora-
tion bill-sticker !

Seriously, we ask, can the contemptible position of
this once haughty faction be more strikingly illustrated
than by the exertions recently put forth by them, for
the gratification of a paltry personal spite against an
individual member of the Conservative party —Mr.
Birkett ? —this " puddle

For weeks past—for months-
in a storm" has been getting up. For months, every
engine of detraction has been set to work, and their
conjoint dirty stream directed against this gentleman
in especial. A whole battery engaged in the very
arduous (!) task of blowing a cock-boat out of the
water is not a more ridiculous misapplication of power
than the whole force of whiggery—its Mercury, Albion,
Tilnes,Journal, and Chronicle—engaged in cannonading
the single person of Mr. Wm. Birkett ! The entire
affair, however well disguised under the cloak of an
assumed zeal for the due administration of the affairs
of the workhouse—(for which Mr. Birkett is just as
much or as little responsible as any other of the 25
members of the select vestry)—has been, in very truth,
no more than a splenetic persecution waged by the
united Whig faction against this gentleman—waged
against hitn because they durst not attempt the same

manifestation of feeling against the Conservative body

—waged against him upon the same principle as that
which incites a malicious coward to pinch his neigh-
bour's child, when he dare not lift even a finger at its
father.

Well, this paltry effort has been successful ; and
great is the gratulation—great the cock-crowing—in
the Whig-Radical camp. But over what victory of
principle is this gratulation ? Mr. Birkett, a Conser-
vative—a tried and known friend to the poor—has
been replaced by—not a Radical, but—a Conservative.
Over what, then, we repeat, have the Whig-Radical
faction to triumph ? They have not replaced Mr.
Birkett by one of their own kidney! They have gained
no Whig-Radical victory, in the only proper accepta-
tion of the term ! They have gained, therefore, no
triumph of principle—no triumph other 'than one of
party spite over one individual ! And how have they
gained even this pitiful thing ? Why thus—and we
ask Conservatives to reflect upon the reply ;—they
have gained their little all, by dividing Conservatism
against itself !
Individually it is nothing to us, and we are sure that
it must be nothing to Mr. Birkett, that such has been
the result of the recent attack upon him. The election
of Mr. Henshaw is not a Conservative demonstration,
and therefore does not implicate us in any implied ap-
probation of that system which he is understood to
favour ; and it cannot be claimed as a victory of
Whiggery. • But we must confess that we do grieve
ova.. the apathy, on the part of the conuorrativc
rate-payers, which has permitted this slight to be in-
flicted upon one of the most energetic of their party—
one whose exertions for the good cause, unobtrusive
though they may have been exercised,—have contri-
buted as much to the attainment of its present proud
position as those of any other gentleman to whom we
could point; and we can imagine nothing more likely
to prove the ruin of that cause than the neglect of
ConserVatives to rally, upon every occasion, in its de-
fence, whenever it is attacked, even in the person Of
the very humblest of its members. We are at present,
thank Heaven, the ascendant body. We were not
thus proudly situated, however, a few years ago ; and
a very, very brief period of inertion and neglect of our
best friends may change our position more irretrievably
than we at present imagine, when we may find our-
selves not the first people in the world who have cried
" wolf" too late!
We are informed that it was Mr. Birkett's strong
desire to be relieved from the duties which he has for
some time so efficiently discharged in connexion with
the parish, and that nothing but the threatened retire-
ment of several otherd of our parochial authorities
along with him induced him to forego that desire.

We are reluctantly compelled to postpone some
remarks on the council proceedings which appear
reported in our columns to-day in consequence of the
length to which the speeches at the Amphitheatre yes-
terday have extended. And with reference to the
latter, we can only urge our readers to study atten-
tively the statements of the Rev: Rector Campbell,
and the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, if they desire to appre-
ciate the merits of the Factory Education Bill now
before Parliament.