The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-05-07 00:00:00

THE LIVERPO

lutely necessary (that it should be the subject of a specific
inquiry.
Lord ALTHORP thought it but fair that the proposed com-
mittee should have a fair, trial before it was pronounced that its
functions were incompatible with an efficient inquiry into the
shipping interest.
Mr. RIMIVEN complained that but two Irish Members were
on the agricultural committee, though its inquiries included
Ireland.
A select committee was then appointed, and the following
named as members :—Lord Althorp, Mr. P. Thomson, Mr.
Goulburn, Mr. R. Baring, Sir H. Parnell, Mr. G. Wood,
Lord Lowther, Mr. J. Oswald,.Mr. Morrison, Mr. Grote, Mr.
Abercromby, Mr. Estcourt, Mr. Herries, Mr. T. Attw•ood, Mr.
Lyall, Mr. Davenport, Mr. Ewart, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Ban-
nerman, Mr. J. Parker, Mr. G. F. Young, Mr. Fielden, Mr.
J. Marshall, Mr. Warburton, Mr. E. Tennant, Mr. Pelham,
Mr. V. Smith, Mr. E. Lambton, Mr. R. Briggs, Mr. A. Smith,
Mr. E. L. Bulwer, Mr. Christmas, Mr. A. Chapman, Mr.
Heyett, and Mr. Alderman Thompson.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of, and the
house adjourned at half-past two o'clock.

THE LONDON PRESS.

(FROM THE AGE.)

We told the " rascal rabblement," -when they were
bawling for Reform, that it would do no good to them—
we told them that the promises and pledges of those who,
from the hustings, wooed their most unsavory voices,
could not, or would not, be kept—but, as usual, we said
all this in vain. What are they the better for it, that
Jos. Alexander no longer returns two members for Old
Sarum, or little Monson manufactures no senators out
of Gatton ? What boroughmongering, corrupt, rotten,
" Den of Thieves"—what bad house that ever kept bad
hours, played such a trick as has been played by this
Mirror of Parliaments with respect to the Malt Tax ?
What legislative assembly ever voted on a Friday a re-
mission of taxation, and reimposed it on the following
Tuesday ? None that we ever heard of. Talk of breach
of faith indeed! What faith was kept with those who
speculated in malt on the credit of the House of Com-
mons? Will Lord Althorp offer any compensation to
those who have lost thousands upon thousands, under
the belief that the old custom of Parliament in money-
bills—in all bills, in fact—would be adhered to—or, to
come somewhat closer to the noble and candid Chancel
for of the Exchequer, under the impression that when
Lord Althorp said he would not disturb the vote, although
he disapproved of it, Lord Althorp meant what he said ?
But is this to go on ? Are all the monetary affairs of
the empire to be left perpetually in this state of chaotic
blundering? No—reply the ministerialists, we are but
in a state of transition. Give us the Malt Tax and the
Assessed Taxes this year, and we shall give you the In-
come Tax next year. We do not doubt but that we shall
come to a tax on property (we hope not upon income,
in spite of all Sir Robert Peel's logic, and the absurdly
extreme cases on which it is founded)—but with what
face will the whigs impose it? They tore it away from
Vansittart, denouncing it with every term of infamy
and opprobrium, at a time when the country was far, far
better able to endure it than at present—and how can
they come forward now ,with a proposal to renew it?
Why, just as they did before. When the Income Tax
imposed by Pitt was six per cent., nothing _ould be more
hideous. Well, when the whigs came into power for a
short time, they raised it to ten per cent. They are
quite as ready to do the same this moment. A tax is in-
quisitorial because it is tory—admirable for all purposes
of government when it is Whig. Imposts are oppressive
and founded on the falsest principles when they are tory
—indispensible to the well-doing of the state when they
are whig. Is not this pitiful trifling ? If Althorp does
what Goulburn did, how is the countryb benefitted by the
change ?
The ministerial papers are becoming very haughty in
their denunciations of Parliament. No tory among us
all, not even the Age itself, was ever so despotic, as the
Morning' Chronicle. A change has come over the spirit
of our dream, and he who votes for the remission of
taxes is declared as great a villain as the same authority
used to declare those who voted for their imposition. All
who venture to say now what the Morning Chronicle
had been saying for years—all who repeat the advice of
Lord Fitzwilliain, given only last year, are abused as
traitors to the state. Our old tory vocabulary is ran-
sacked for epithets of abuse. The " disaffected" are
duly held up to indignation—the " levellers," the " fac-
tious," the "seditious,"—all come in for their due share
of scorn. We could scarcely suppress a horse-laugh,
when we found, in the last Edinburgh Review, the peo-
ple rated for their " ignorant impatience of taxation"—
the very phrase which drew down so much indignation
on poor Lord Castlereagh. Even the Globe, cool and
cucumber-like as it generally is, has of late grown hot
and peppery. Last night it contained the following:—

- - - _
" A determination no longer to pay the assessed taxes, we
perceive, has been delivered ore rotondo, and in the midst of
much noisy applause, by Mr. Wakley. Notwithstanding, how-
ever, the loftiness of the example, we question whether it will
be very widely followed, or that, strongly supported as ministers
are by a Parliament openly and popularly chosen, they will
allow tumultuous and illegal proceedings to induce them to
change their course—proceedings, by the way, which, if suc-
cessful, would render government a Joke, and representation a
farce."

Well, and did not this same Globe panegyrize Lord
Milton and Mr. W. Brougham, when they, just as nois-
ily and with mouths as rotund, recommended the self-
same thing that Wakely has done ? But if this be allowed
now, Government, we are told, will become a joke and a
farce. Will become ? Why how could it be a greater
joke, or a more absurd farce, than it has been during the
week. The joke, we admit, is cracked, and the farce paid
for at our expense ; but though that is not very amusing
to us, they are not the less a joke and a farce for all that.
The anger. of the Globe explodes thus :
"We feel quite satisfied that no at once large and respectable
portion of the community will countenance a line of conduct
which, however favourable to the sinister views of those whose
prospective harvest is derived from social disorder and confu-
sion alone, must be destructive to the best interests of all the
rest of the community."
_ _ _

So the whigs find out now that the views of those to
whom they are indebted for their seats, point only to so-
cial disorder and confusion, and will, if successful, be de-
structive to the best interests of the community. Good
Globe, you might have found that years ago in the Age.

We said, and we spoke from accurate knowledge, that
the political unions were of the deepest danger to all that
was valuable in the country, and that they should be sup-
pressed at once, in their very birth. Did the ministers
take our advice ? Not they--on the contrary they fos-
tered and flattered them. Loud was the approbation of
the ministerial prints when a threat of bringing up a hun-
dred thousand men to Hampstead Heath was uttered in
Birmingham. This threat was real treason, but it met
with unanimous applause from the whigs. Now, the
Birmingham men declare that they will pay no assessed,
taxes, and for this passive resistance they are denounced
by the same whigs as traitors. Pshaw !
It is quite plain that such a Government cannot go on
without producing ruin and revolution. Tax after tax
will be'surrendered to clamour, and the fundholder will
soon find his claims treated as inimical to the interests of
the country. Where, indeed, can the fund for paying
him, and doing the ordinary business of the nation, come
from, except from a sort of confiscation of property ? To
this complexion have we been brought by the reformers.
Bitterly must all among them who have anything to lose,
deplore the part which they took ; but they shall have
small compassion from us. We told them from the very
beginning how it would be.