The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-09-23 00:00:00

22nd session of the council: ram not aware that the
bishops in England enforce that 'canon. It is only de-
claratory of the old canon law. If an act of Parliament
were now passed forbidding those solicitations and exac-
tions, and making void gifts for masses, it could certainly
not be considered inconsistent with the legislation of the
Roman Catholic Church."

Mr. Trappes is perfectly right that the "Bishops of
England" do not enforce that canon, and much less
the (Popish) Bishops of Ireland. They are both
suppoted by " the voluntary system"—that is to
say, by certain " dues" extorted by refusing sacra-
ments and masses to the recusant; in simple fact,
under the penalty of an interdict. The decree of
the Council of Trent, therefore, in Dr. M‘Hale's
opinion, " would never do for Galway;" and there-
fore the "bargains and conditions and rewards for
saying masses," by the Council abolished, are by
the modern Popish bishops duly entered into. But
Father Trappes—who seems as honest a priest as
the worthy friar Peter Walsh, in the 17th century
—gives another hard blow at the deathbed system
of practice. He says :
"It was prohibited in the very early canons that ecclesi-
astics should be executors of wills, or employed in things
of that kind. There is a well-known instance of Cyprian
forbidding a man to be prayed for after he was dead, as a
punishment for having employed a clergyman as his ex-
ecutor, and the priest was excommunicated for having
undertaken the office. If, therefore, the provisions of the
Code Napoleon, which prevents priests from being execu-
tors or trustees, or receiving any benefit under the wills
of their penitents, were adopted in this country, certainly
no Roman Catholic would have a right to exclaim against
that as a measure of persecution. I think it would be
a desirable law, and most essential in any church, because
people I believe are often found who are willing to avail
themselves of the weakness of others. There should be
some efficient regulation. By the present state of things
everybody can drive through the law; nobody minds it.
I have been told by monks that they havea rule forbidding
it. The Jesuits have a very strictrule. Infraction of itwould
be considered an act contrary to the vow of obedience."

Reader, are you astonished that Father Trappes,
who gave this evidence, has been " removed by
order of his diocesan" from Hull, and that be ;s
not yet restored ! We hope and trust that he will
have the sense to obey no summons to Rome. The
" walls" of St. Angelo " have" not " ears;" and the
Jesuits say long since that the crime is nothing—
but indiscretion is everything. In the meantime, we
are glad to know that an effectual effort will be
made neat session to stop the system that tries

~ with impious hand
To shake the dying sinner's sand ;"
and that the parliament which can ruthlessly take
our flower gardens,if they happen to be in the course
of a railway, will not hesitate to restrain our power
of making testaments, if we desire to use it for the
advancement of Romish inventions.

PROTECTIONIST TACTICS.-

MR. DISRAELI.

IT is consolatory to find one man possessed of suffi-
cient courage to meet the false statement that the
agricultural population, and chiefly those who have
capital invested in such speculations, have not suffi-
ciently taken advantage of the state of science, and
that they have not made the land sufficiently pro-
ductive. Mr. Disraeli has met the statement with
facts, and they show triumphantly that even when
the farmers of England did not apprehend the
removal of protection, they were exhibiting an enter-
prise unknown to other nations, and were producing
per acre infinitely more than America or France.
The very charge of negligent cultivation so falsely
made by the League admitted in itself the Protec-
tionist argument, that if cultivation was not neg-
ligent, foreign nations had an advantage of soil,
extent, position, and resources. The charge now
falls to the ground, and the argument stands. If
America, producing far less per acre, can undersell
us, the cry of better cultivation is simply a delusion
and a snare. But the truth is, that this whole cry
of superior cultivation was an after-thought. Sir
Robert Peel repeatedly declared that he did not
anticipate any considerable fall in prices. He pro-
fessed,. whether he believed it or not, a hope of
reciprocity and general prosperity that by some
extraordinary paradox was to make bread cheap
without lowering the price of it. How be has sue•
ceeded, we can look around us and discover ; and it
is but fair to conjecture, that had he lived to see
the results of his policy he would hardly have
availed himself of the poor sophistry of what is
called the free-trade press, but once more admitted
his error and altered his course.

The question now, however, that presses most is
how the crisis that is upon us can be met. The
ministry have clearly abandoned the argument on
the free-trade question. They do not propose to
appeal to the country upon their policy, but to start
a new constitution and resign upon its defeat, so
that they may try at the hustings an entirely differ-
ent matter. This new project, the organs of the
Government say, will be desperately opposed by
the Protectionists, but the Protectionists say it will
receive no such treatment at their hands. They
will see what are its details, and hear an account of
its intended mode of operation, and according as
its merits seem to be, decide upon it. Assuredly
whatever party has fear of any further extension of
popular power, the Conservative party need have
none at all.

In the meantime it is false to say that the Conser-
vative party cries out for protection and for that alone.
It believes that in just protection the interests of
every class of the community could be consulted
best, but it believes also that under :any system
there ought to be an equalization of burden—and
that while one class in the community pretends to
despise the importance of the agricultural interest,
it shall still be saddled in a manner so enormously
disproportionate with the taxes of the country. A
very little time, however, will tell how the matter is
to be settled, for the great proposition of the
Government must be the renewal of the income-tax.
Parliament has reverted to the good old policy of
stopping the supplies. By limiting the duration of
the income-tax, it has taken away that support
which Peel felt he had behind him in cutting the
Gordian knot in 1846, and before the ministry shall
be enabled to renew that tax they must he forced to
adjust taxation, or to give up their office to those
who will.

THE SHIPBUILDING TRADE OF LIVERPOOL.
One of the most important inquiries ever made by a
committee of the Council of Liverpool was that of the
committee upon the shipbuilding accommodation of the
port. It was clearly shown, as the result of their labours,
that a large portion of that valuable trade was leaving us;
and the closing since of several of our large establishments
has proved that the committee were correct in their views.
But, we ask, has anything been done ? Where is the in-
creased accommodation which was promised us ? We look
for it in vain. Our shipwrights are still a neglected class,
in work one day and out of it the next. Our foundries
and machine-shops are only half employed ; and some
once-thriving portions of the town present a sad quantity
of untenanted dwellings. This ought not to be. The
capital of Liverpool ought not to be driven to import its
ships from the Clyde or the Tyne; nor is there any suffi-
cient reason why repairing should be done more cheaply
in Runcorn than in the docks or yards of our own town.