The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-10 00:00:00

most serious

From a perusal of the Britannia newspaper of
would appear that, notwithstanding

charac

most s

alone; the two remaining branches of the constitu-

voice of the masses is to be raised, in threat, to de-
mand the exercise of the power of the Crown in dis-

solving the present Parliament

There may, we admit, he much of this bombasti-
cally-devised scheme of operation, which is hopeless
of immediate execution. We see, however, what
the League has already effected. We know the
daring ambition of its leaders, and their utter want
of scruple as to the instruments with which they
work ; and we are compelled, therefore, seriously to
ask of the Conservative party, is this an agitation
which hey should content themselves with despis-

ing ? Are these designs which Conservatives should
regard without fear ? They are not. On the con-
trary, they demand from us, if not a counter-agita-
tion, at least a watchful energy, and the adoption of
every legitimate weapon within our reach, to guard
the mind of the public from the attacks with which
it is threatened. Lethargy now becomes not only
mad, but criminal. Every man who loves his country
and his country's liberties must now be at his post,
to aid in snatching them from the rock ahead which
threatens them with destruction.

But in what direction, it may be asked, are the
efforts of Conservatives to be made ? We answer,
they must throw off that fatal lethargy in which
they have been held since they succeeded in over-
throwing the domination of the Whig and Radical
faction. They must show to their fellow country-
men that it was not to carry out Whig crotchets or
to feed Whig rapacity, that they were placed in the
possession of place and power. They must carry
out a Conservative policy; and, above all, they must
rely upon Conservative aid to maintain them in so
doing, rather than endeavour to strengthen them-
selves by buying of their opponents. They must no

longer pander to a hostile press and neglect their
own. 'They must no longer court Radical applause,
whilst they grieve and alienate their most faithful
friends acid supporters. By such a course, their
position may be held in security, and the institutions
of their country kept intact and whole. By any
other, they are slowly, but surely, preparing the way
for a fall more utter and fatal than ever befel any
great party, with the certainty before them that their
prostration will be alike unpitied and unaided.

We have given elsewhere a full account of the

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

which O'Connell has been the Magnus Apollo—
"language of a seditious and inflammatory nature
has been addressed to the persons there assembled,"
—nay, in another paragraph, it distinctly points to
himself as its utterer; and surely the just course to
be pursued towards him is here as clearly indicated
as if an indictment was already framed and the
criminal placed at the bar, to answer for his manifold
crimes against an insulted country and a betrayed
people.

Whilst the wiseacres of our anti-monopoly, and
other similar associations, are fiercely agitating for
the erection of an unsafe commercial prosperity
upon the ruin of the agriculture of the nation, an
influence is silently at work which promises, at no
distant period, to snatch out of our hands a large
portion of that foreign trade, upon whose extension
the hopes of the country are fixed. For years past,
it is a well-known fact, that from the supplying to
foreign markets of the heavier fabrics of our cotton
manufacture we have been excluded by the cheaper
productions of the foreign manufacturer himself, or
by neutral competitors. In the continental markets
this has been extensively the case ; and from the
United States and a number of the South American
markets we have long been shut out, not by any
tariff, but in reality by the ability of the American
manufacturer to produce certain classes of goods
upon more favourable terms than ourselves. The
supply of our own colonies is even menaced from
the same quarter; and in our rising commerce with
the vast markets of China we find our active and
energetic competitor advancing step by step with
us, and looking forward already to the period at
which he will be enabled to oust us from our supre-
macy as a manufacturing and mercantile peonle.

Our attention has been called to this subject by
the following remarks extracted by the Manchester
Guardian, from the New Orleans Price Current of
the Ist September:—

" Among the peculiar features developed during the
past season, we may notice the increased activity and
extension of our home manufactures, consequent upon a
more favourable adjustment of the tariff, and the open-
ing of a new trade in goods and cotton with China. This
last new resource has already attained some considerable
importance, in view of the brief period that has elapsed
since its commencement, and a spirited rivalry appears
to be maintained between our own country and Great
Britain for ascendancy in the markets of the celestial
empire. Already, as we see stated in the northern pa-

pers, have cotton goods, to the extent of 15,000,000
yards, been shipped from this country to China, while
only 12,000,000 are known to have gone from England ;
and if the success of the American manufacturer in this
enterprise be equal to that which has attended him in
other parts of the world, in his competition with the Bri-
tish for the supply of heavy fabrics, the rivalry will pro-
bably not he of long duration unless some modification. of
the duties on the raw material should give a more fa-
vourable position to the manufacturers of Great Britain.
From our own port, two cargoes of raw cotton, amount-
ing to 4303 bales, have been shipped direct to Canton,
and other shipments, though we know not to what ex-
tent, have been made from the ports of the north."

Now what, we ask, ought to be the attitude of a
body of men, professing to be enlightened beyond
measure upon all the affairs of the commercial
world, under circumstances such as these ? Should
the leading members of the cotton trade be seen
running up and down in pursuit of their brawling
agitation for corn-law repeal and other similar spe-
cifics, when here is palpably before them an evil
which threatens the ruin of a valuable portion of
their business, and which the first energetic effort
would succeed in removing ? The impolitic and
paltry tax, levied upon the great staple of our ma-
nufactures, is obviously the source of our weakness
in the race of competition with the foreign manufac-
turer; and sensible and prudent men would un-
doubtedly use their efforts rather to procure the
withdrawal of so direct an obstacle to their pros-
perity, than waste their time and energies in the
search of a speculative good which, certainly at pre-
sent, does not seem to be of very easy or very early
achievement.

Whatever may be the course of our Manchester
neighbours with respect to the question ;—whether
they choose to stir in it, or to bewilder themselves
and harass the government and the community with
their ravings on corn-law repeal—we do trust that
the merchants of Liverpool will direct their atten-
tion at once to a practical effort for the removal of a
practical and direct evil. To the memorial of such
a body of men, no government can refuse to listen
with respect, and, if possible, to concede.