The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-04-02 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

preserved from overwhelming ruin by an issue of one
pound notes of the Bank o 9 England, which were fortui-
tously discovered in a dark chamber of that establishment.

But the noble viscount did not sink under this unex-
pected load of disappointments. The retirement of
Lord Liverpool in 1827, raised Mr. Canning to the of-
fice of -Prime minister and Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, thus raising • Mr. Robinson to the peerage, under
his present title, and removing him from a situation the
financial duties of which he was deemed incompetent to
discharge. His blunders as minister of finance were in
many respects as glaring as those of Lord Althorp, and
much more injurious to the interests of the country. He
was nevertheless deemed capable of administering • the
affairs of :the colonies. Having failed in one department
this was considered the very best possible recommenda-
tion_ in. favour of his filling another. Having swamped
the Treasury, he was fully qualified to inundate the
West•lndies.

The noble Lord's good intentions, however, were
placed under some restraint by the sudden demise of AIL
Canning in the summer of 1827, for to the astonishment
Of the nation, he becanie the successor of Mr. Canning,
and was placed at the head.of the ministry, The Gode-
rich administration was, as most of our readers will recol-
lect, of the most curious assemblages of strange birds
that ever was collected in a menagerie. The parrot
and the Solan goose—the daw and the screech owl—the
heron and the woodpecker—the magpie and the tom-tit--
were all caged together, pecking each other without in-
termission, to the serious interruption of the public busi-
ness, though to the vast diversion of the public. This
kind of civil war could not of course be endured very
long. The,King in mercy opened the' viiciO, and the
birds flew away: In short, the Goderich administration-
did not hold together six months ;—it was destroyed by
its own contentions, and the noble premier was saved the
peril -of conducting his: crazy ark through even a single
session of Parliament.

The Duke of Wellington came in, and Lord Goderich
was shelfed. We hear no more of him from the begin-
ning of 1828 till the end of 1830, when, having turned
his coat with Lord Palmerston, for the seventh or eighth
time, he joined the Whigs under Lord Grey, being called
to his old post as colonial secretary, to complete the er-
rors he had commenced in 1827. And, of a verity, his
last days have been worse than 'his first ! He has had a
most uninterrupted career. Withthat precocious states-
man, Lord Howick, for his coadjutor, he has done as much
mischief as any minister ever did in ancient or modern
times. He has brought our colonies to :the brink of de-
struction. He has made sport,of 'every interest connect-
ed with the West Indies. No one can truly say that Lord
Goderich has not had ample time to develope his pro-
found measures of policy. 'He has
.had the:Most ample
range that ever was given to the flight of fancy or ignor-
ance. He has had two or three rebellions to cope with—
he has exasperated every planter against the mother cOun-
try—he has deteriorated the value of every kind of pro-
perty in the West Indies full 50 per cent.—he concocted
measures which experience hai shown to be impractica-
ble—he has appointed obnoxious officers whom the insult-
ed and indignant colonists have expelled from their soil—
and he has reduced almost every person dependent upon
colonial profits to distraction and despair.. .
At, the last, however, he has been removed, and whis-
tled down the winds. The Premier of 1827—the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer in the year of prosperity—the Colo-
nial Secretary of 1833, after three year's practice, has
been found incapable of filling with efficiency any other
than a nominal and sinecure office. He- replaces Lord
Durham, and, like him, we suppose, will speedily be sent
upon his travels, without an outfit, .or a salary, at the cost
of the nation. So far well, and the sooner we have the
pleasure of taking a final leave of hint the better, even at
the expense- of an Earldom.

Mr. Stanley succeeds Lord Goderich, and is either
commissioned to repair his errors, or bring the force of
his superior talents to carry these errors into execution.
We know not yet how it is to be, and therefore we keep
silence for the present. The heir of the House of Stanley
is a young man of splendid abilities. The world is all
befure him, and there is fame in the distance, if he knows
how to win it, for—

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
&c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.

Sir John Cam Hobhouse goes to Ireland in 'the room
of Mr. Stanley. This is an extraordinary appointment.
The popular representative of Westminster carrying
into effect the Whig measures of coercion from his high
office in the Castle of Dublin, sounds strange in our ears.
What will the radicals say, for we believe there is no
party now in the metropolis who can be called whigs ?
Time will tell. We see that some attempts are making
to propose Mr. Sadler for Westminster, and we believe,
if they were made in earliest, there is no candidate who
would have a better chance of success.
Mr. Edward Ellice, it is said, is to be the new Secre-
tary at War. It is of no consequence who fills this office
under the present administration, but, if we had the ap-
pointment, we certainly should nominate the honourable
and pugnacious member for Pontefract--Mr. John Gully.

There are some whispers about the retirement of Lord
Althorp. This we conjecture Will be accomplished
during the recess, for we cannot think that the noble
Lord will ever have the temerity to meet Parliament
again as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and run the
gauntlet of the Commons on the subject of the budget
and the taxes. Lord Howick is yet unprovided for.

A REFUTATION as complete and conclusive as ever was
given to shuffling and trumpery evidence—as over-
whelming as ever s*ept over beggarly gossip and
paltry insinuations—was given on Friday and Saturday
last before the Committee on the Liverpool Election.
Mr. Nichol began his defence of the calumniated freeman
on the former day, and exposed the hollow statements, the
disingenious shifts, and the hearsay babble which con-.
stituted the sum total of the evidence offered by Messrs.
Rathbone, Harvey, Wyberg, and Co., and if the former
g-ntleman should ever forget the severe castigation he

received upon the occasion he must have nerves which,
considering the comparative softness of modern steel, it
wouldte well to manufacture into files and chisels for the
benefit of the Mechanic's Institution. But we think
better of him. He felt the infliction most poignantly ;
he was ashamed of his position ; he was ashamed of the
witnesses with whom he had come into contact; he was
ashamed of the scenes at the GOOSE AND BOAR, and when
the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson was mentioned, Mr.
William Rathbone was overcome by his modesty and re-
tired from the Committee to hide his face in a corner,
after the example of one of Mr. Thomas Campbell's ma-
tron-heroines—

" And with her handkerchief and both her hands -
She hid her face and wept."

After Mr. Nichol's opening speech various witnesses
of the highest respectability and the most unquestionable
veracity were examined for the defence. On Friday they
were examined generally as to the conduct pursued by
the agents of the candidates and others on the days of
the election. Their testimony was of the most explicit
nature, and every question was answered unreservedly
and in the most satisfactory manner.

On Saturday these gentlemen were examined specially
with respect to certain alleged acts of bribery in which
some of them were implicated. The charges were de-
nied in the most solemn manner, and under explana-
tory circumstances which evidently carried conviction to
the minds of the Committee. In fact they could not fail
to carry conviction, and it was from the force of this, that
Mr. Rathbone writhed and wished himself ten thousand
leagues frotn the scrutiny. He was so excited by the re-
futation, Xnd the contemptible light in which his evidence
was pla'ed, that he once forgot himself and was called to
order and reprimanded by Mr. Bannerman the Chair-
man.

Last night it was expected that the committee would
report to the house, in which case the inquiry may be
considered as terminated, and if so, we shall probably
have an opportunity of saying a parting word in our next,
upon the whole of these extraordinary proceedings.
But we beg pardon—we are forgeting the fair sex, in
the person of Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson Pray, Mr. Rath-
bone, will you have the politeness to inform us what has
become of this gentle witness ? She was, if we recollect
right, summoned before the house on a charge of contu-
macy, and she was told by the Speaker to go back to the
committee, and answer, unequivocally, all questions put
to her, which, if she should fail to do, she would be sent
to gaol. Now, what we want to know is—did Mrs. Ro-
binson obey the injunctions of the Speaker ? Did she
tell the truth at the awful hazard of being murdered ?
Or did a respect for her timid nature, and her feminine
sensitiveness, induce the gallant Committee to dispense
with her important evidence altogether ?
But stop a bit—walls have ears, and .the birds of the
air carry messages. If this authorithy do not deceive us,
we are informed that a certain police officer despatched
from Liverpool made a communication to the committee,
which had a tendency to depreciate the value of the lady's
evidence, even in the estimation of Mr. Wm. Rathbone,
and the consequence was, that Mrs. Robinson was dismis-
sed without the formality of entering into her personal
recognizances. What this communication was we shall
probably remind the members of the Liverpool clique at
no distant clay. We are not the recording angel, and
therefore have no tear to blot it out. It must stand for
the edification and enlightenment of future historians,
and if the gifted Mr. Baines should, with his original and
graphic pen, ever attempt a history of Liverpool, we
would advise him to devote a chapter to Mr. Wm. Rath-
bone and Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson. It would be a
" tight wittye and mirthfull" chapter, as old Hollinshed
would have said, in former times.

WE are constantly referred to America as possessing a
Government admirable "in concoction and in concep-
tion r' .We are eternally called upon to assimilate our
Gothic to her modern, and, consequently, more perfect
laws and institutions; we are everlastingly told of the
advantages of the cheap shop, and, therefore, superior
manner of doing things in that land where liberty, equa-
lity, and negro slavery abound. So often have we heard
the advantages of America's vote by ballot descanted
upon, that, in the simplicity of our hearts, we really be-
lieved ,that the human race had progressed to a state of
perfection unknown to any other region. Simpletons as
we are, we thought unregenerate England the only
place where corruption luxuriates, and that in America
the golden age of republican purity of manners had been
restored, unalloyed by any admixture of the baser pas-
sions. In a• word, that in America every thing is per-
fect !
Alas, alas ! from this dream we were awakened by the
perusal of a file of New York papei-s, from which we sub-
join an extract :
"CITY AFFAlRS.—Comptroller's Report.—With one accord
the papers of this city have been for months complaining of the
monstrous waste and extravagance of our city authorities, in
the expenditures of the public money ; and the report of the city
comptroller, which we publish to-day, shows that there is the
most ample cause for these complaints. Such a system of pub-
lic plunder is without a parallel in modern annals. But com-
plaints upon the subject are now too late. Those who ate the
most deeply interested on the subject of taxation, in the rage
of party madness, have brought the evil upon themselves. This
system of waste and extravagance is but the natural conse-
quence of universal suffrage in large cities. Who elect our
officers ? Go to the polls, and look at the majority of the voters ?
And how comes it that we have such swarms of voters at the
polls, 61 huzzaing for the powers that be, and driving away our
most respectable citizens in disgust ? How comes it, that in
New York there are annually five or six thousand MORE votes
polled„ than there arc legal voters in the city? -Look at the
comptroller's report, and you will there find the small item of
70,000 dollars, in a single year, thrown away upon paupers ;
which paupers, at the elections, swarm forth in countless array,
to vote for those who feed them with money not their own!
Here lies the secret. Cause and effect are not more certain,
than such results as we witness at our elections are sure to fol-
low such expenditures of the public money."

Oh ! wonder of wonders! can this be a reality, or do
we now dream ? If our New York contemporary be
right, all the wisdom that our modern patriots have gained
from the republican schools of England is sheer folly, and
they must go to school again.