The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-29 00:00:00

POLITICAL VARIETIES.

On Friday Colonel Estcourt was elected for Devizes
unopposed.
On Thursday, Sir T. Birch presented in the House of
Commons a petition from Liverpool against any increase
in the army or navy expenditure.
THE FIRST INCOME-TAX.----This impost came in with
the last year of the last century. It was laid on in 1799,
and then amounted to ten per cent.
The Presbytery of Edinburgh have agreed to petition
parliament against the bill for establishing diplomatic re-
lations with Rome.

KINSALE.-The committee have decided that Mr.
Guinness has not been duly elected. Mr. Serjeant King-
lake then intimated his intention of proceeding with a
scrutiny, with a view of seating Mr. Watson as a member
for the borough.
COMMITTEE ON MISCELLANEOUS EXPENDITURE.--Mr,
Vernon Smith, Mr. Herries, Earl of Lincoln, Mr. Henry,
Mr. Henley, Sir George Clerk, Mr. Rice, Mr. Stafford,
Dr. Bowring, Mr. Parker, Mr. Bramston, Mr. Horsman,
Mr. Hastings Russell, Mr. Henry Arthur Herbert, and
Mr. Corbally.

COMMITTEE ON NAVY, ARMY, AND ORDNANCE Ex-
PENDITURE.—Lord Seymour, Mr. Fox Maule, Mr. Hume,
Mr. George Bankes, Sir James Graham, Marquis of
Granby, Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Corry, Mr. Walter,
Mr. Edward Ellice, Mr. William Miles, Mr. John Greene,
Mr. Baring, Mr. Cobden, and Sir Thomas Acland.
SLAVE TRADE.—The select committee on the slave
trade was nominated as follows :—viz. Mr. Hutt, Mr.
Gladstone, Mr. Edward Stanley, Mr. Hume, Earl of
Lincoln, Mr. Cobden, Lord Harry Vane, Mr. Jackson,
Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Colonel Thompson, Mr. Evelyn
Denison, Lord Courtenay, Mr. Simeon, Mr. Monckton
Mimes, and Lord John Hay.

It has been announced that Mr. Coulson, of Lincoln's-
inn, has been appointed by Sir Geo. Grey to succeed Mr.
Bethune as parliamentary counsel to the Home-office, his
duty being to prepare the bills originating with any de-
partment of the government, and revising or reporting
upon any bills brought before parliament, and referred to
him by the Secretary of State. Mr. Bethune, Mr. Coul-
son's predecessor, proceeds immediately to India, where
he will fill the place formerly occupied by Mr. Macaulay.
WINDOW DUTIES.—On Thursday night, the following
were amongst the members who voted in favour of the
repeal of the window tax :—Sir T. R. Birch, J. Brother-
ton, W. Ewart, R. Gardner, J. Greene, Lord R. Gros-
venor, A. Henry, E. Hindley, Col. Sibthorp, R. Thick-
nesse, and Sir J. Walmsley. In the majority against the
repeal were W. T. Egerton, W. E. Gladstone, J. Hey-
wood, William Jackson, Sir J. Jervis, J. W. Patten, T.
Thornely, J. Tollemache, and E. J. Stanley.
Lord Granville Somerset,. M.P., died at half-past ten
o'clock on Wednesday evening, at his residence in Har-
ley-street. The fatal complaint was a disease of the
heart and a general break-up of the constitution, conse-
quent, it is said, on the excitement which attended the
late Monmouth election, and the annoyance which he ex-
perienced from the petition against his return. He was
attended up to the last moment by his brother, the Duke
of Beaufort, and in the chamber of death their differences
ceased.

NEW HIST.-Mr. Smee, in his pamphlet on the In-
come-tax, urges that, while at present 500,000 persons
have to pay the whole tax, calculated, in the present
budget, at nine millions per annum, the extension of that
tax to all persons having incomes of £5O and upwards
would bring in 1,820,000 new contributors, and raise a
furthersum (even at sevenpencein the pound) of £5,177,000
per annum. Mr. Smee, however, only proposes this on
the supposition that the working classes shall be relieved
from the malt-tax, and some other taxes which press
heavily upon them.

TAX THE LAND.—Make the owners of fixed property,
of the land, which pays no legacy duty, contribute their
equitable share, and the lords would start up in arms.
Touch the humbler classes, and the polling-books will
soon have strange tales to tell, such as Edinburgh and
Lambeth have already shown to be possible. Professional
men are, however, powerful out of doors ; and if they are
not disposed to submit to this barefaced extortion, it is
time they should make their power felt. Let the man
who by labouring day and night earns £5OO per annual
for the support of his family remember that, when he is
called upon to pay £25 out of that £5OO to this impost,
he is just paying in a proportion seven times greater than
the idle possessor of land. It cannot be that such an in-
justice should be longer endured.
In January, 1846, a few weeks only before Free Trade
was permitted to begin its career of ruin, by agitating for
the abolition of all restrictions, an annual balance sheet
was issued from the Treasury, the foot of which bore
these magic words :
" Surplus Revenue, £3,817,640 Ils. 2d."
Well : Free Trade, in the January of the present year,
had had more than a twelvemonth's tenure of experiment
and enjoyment. In January, 1848, again does a balance
sheet issue from the Treasury ; and its concluding line,
and very conclusive comment, may be found in the graphic
but ungratifying announcement :
" Deficiency, £2,956,689 Bs. ld."
There it is : Lord John points to it with a laugh ; and,
with malignant complacency, quietly tells the people to
make it good by nearly doubling the existing income tax'.
WHO REPEALED THE CORN LAWS ?—lt would be
long affair, or I could shew the world who it was that
repealed the corn laws. At present, this much I will
state : I advised the creation of the Zolverein, and the
advice was followed ; I then advised the getting up of
agitation to aid the manufacturing interests, and Mr.
Cobden and the League worked out to fruition my be-
heats. For thirty years I stood alone on the Liverpool
Exchange, as the advocate of free trade in corn; and at
all times I have said that I should live to see it law. I
have seen it law ; and, moreover, caused its being s°'
The Zolverein really caused it; and that I advised the
Baron Billow to create that association, and that he did
create it, his letters to me prove. I owned a principalitf
in Prussia, three estates noble, (the Mariensee estates,/
and three estates not noble (that is, estates not involving
titles of nobility); and I had in Liverpool to sign for the
emancipation of all the serfs, which I gladly did. This it
was that led to my advising the way to master our en-
lightened landowners.—Pamphlet by W. Pickering, Esq'
THE MANCHESTER " GAME COCK."—The following,
little incident--created some amusement in the House of
Commons, on Thursday evening. Colonel Sibthorp, in
the discussion upon Alr. Colville's motion for leave to
bring in a bill to enable all occupiers of land, having *
right to kill hares on that land, to do so without being
required to take out a game certificate, said—" He did not
know nor care whether the hon. member for Manchester
intended to bring in a bill or not ; but he held in his hand
two bulky volumes, containing the evidence before the
committee appointed on the motion of the hon. members
in 1845 and 1846, on the subject of the game laws • and
what did it all end in ? Much in the same way as 'other
motions of the hon. gentleman had done—in smoke.
Parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus.' But where
was the hon. member now ? (Laughter.) He had flown:
he was a man of no game at all. (Laughter.) He was no
game cock. (Laughter, which was renewed on the hon'
member for Manchester entering the house and taking his
seat.) He was glad to see the hon. gentleman once more
on his perch. (Renewed lauzliter.) The hon. member
failed in establishing any case by these voluminous publi-
cations, but he, nevertheless, called upon the house to pal
the expense of the inquiry. Now, if he (Colonel sib-
thorp) had obtained a committee, and had so signally
failed—if he had had the presumption' lie would say the
insolence, to dare trouble the House of Commons in sueh,.
a useless manner, he certainly should have felt himseil,
bound to bear the whole cost. (Hear, and laughter).
Thousands and thousands are squandered every session
printing voluminous parliamentary papers, nine-tenths 01,
which are uselessly moved for. It would be an excellent
check upon this waste of the public money if the memberS
who call for them were required to defray their expense;
whenever they failed to show that the public service had
been promoted by their publication.
MR. W. JACKSON'S MAIDEN SPEECH.—The plain
straightforward statement of the manner in which the
African trade is conducted, made by Mr. William Jackson
in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, is of more
value than a hundred reports of committees, and shoes
the great value of having practical men in parliament'
Ile tells us, and it is a well known fact, that slaves are
purchased on the coast of Africa for £4, and resold 0
Cuba and Brazils at £lOO per head ; that the paltry peicB
of £4 is paid in merchandise, on which, no doubt, some
fifty per cent profit is obtained, thus reducing the sant'
cost to £2 ; that the sole object of the Africans is to get
an exchange of commodities, gold and silver being aline!:
unknown, and consequently of no value. Mr. Jackson
arrives, then, at the very sensible conclusion, that if 10
carry our merchandise there, the Africans will gladly e%
change their palm oil and other produce for our goodel.
thus doing away, in a great measure, with the motive F.:
the slave.-trade. So far, the slavers lin-ro boon tba only
parties trading to that coast, and they would take nothing
in exchange but human beings ; the result of which i.st
that bloody wars era carried on, and prisoners sold of
slaves. No reasonable man can doubt that thousands 0A
free labourers could be procured for a mere song, 811...,".
that we can successfully compete with other sugar-groves;
and eventually withdraw a large squadron maintained 0"
an immense cost to the nation. Taxation is now getting
to such a height, that public men must listen to w 1314
practical men have demonstrated ; and, should Mr. Jacl‘..
son's suggestions be adopted, the results to our colonies
would be of an importance which we cannot fully estinantt
The numerous friends and admirers of Mr. Jacksou sy.Sl
be exceedingly gratified to learn that he was complimentev,
on his powerful speech from all sides of the house.
Robert 11. Inglis, senior member for Oxford University,
who immediately followed him, declared " his speech sr°2
one of the most remarkably successful, for a first effort'
which he ( Sir h. Inglis) had witnessed for several 91;
sions." Mr. Joseph Hume, who spoke next, added, "P
might confidently say a more efficient speech had not heel
made in that house." And after him Mr. Cardwell an
Lord Palmerston both spoke eulogistically of the addreS3'

METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER,
BY MR. C. H. CHADBURN, 71, LORD-STREET.

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Dry
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Deg. I Deg,
44 48
44 48
45 I 50
40 50
44 I 49

In.
0.18 W.4'l
0.06 A-14"
0.38 5' oA, f,
0.16 5.8' 0,
0.113 WS',./
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