The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-05-21 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 21, 1850.

WE may be singular in our ideas, and differ
from many of our friends upon the subject, but
we must confess the fact, that we do not regret the
occurrence of the debate upon Mr. Grantley
Berkeley's motion on Tuesday last, notwith-
standing its result, and the subject for uproarious
chuckling which it has afforded to the Free-trade
party. They are welcome, so far as we are con-
cerned, to make the most of their victory. They
may call the struggle a fair stand-up fight, a
skirmish, or what they %yin; they may imagine it
the last kick of protection, and the cause of native
industry a doomed and prostrate one. We should
be ourselves satisfied to receive such a beating
every week for the sake of the galling insults flung
in the face of a suffering people, and the absurdities
and admissions dropped by our opponents in their
hour of triumph.
In the debate upon the address, at the opening
of the session, free trade in corn was distinctly
spoken of by the Marquis of Lansdowne, in the
House of Lords, and, as we understood him, by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of
Commons, as "an experiment." This debate,
however, has drawn from the latter functionary an
explicit denial of the expression imputed to him.
The hon. gentleman, reassured by the late tem-
porary advance in the grain markets, now informs
the country that ministers are actuated in their
policy by a desire that bread should be made as
cheap as the world can afford it, and that upon
that policy they are prepared to stand or fall. We
shall not remark upon the absurdity, after such an
admission, of defending high-price views, and
treating it as a favourable feature of that policy
that it would not give to the consumer bread very
cheap. The admission is enough for us, that,
though the sky fall—though ruin and desolation
be spread over the fields and farmsteads of Great
Britain—the clutch of the destroyer is not to be
relaxed; for Whig legislation is final—is perfect in
all its proportions, " totus teres atque rotundus."
Still more decisive was Mr. Richard Cobden, and
a little insolent into the bargain. "In that house,"
he said, " they had nothing to do with the price of
corn. As far as he was concerned, he did not re-
gret that the price was so low. The people of this
country had a right to obtain corn at the market
price of the world; and as long as they could get
it at that rate he was satisfied, let it be 355., 405.,
or 455." This is rather bold doctrine, Mr. Cobden.
Why not carry it out consistently ? Corn is surely
not the only article which " the people have a right
to obtain at the market price of the world"! Why
not tea, sugar, coffee, tobacco, malt, wine and
spirits, and other commodities, at the market price
of the work, ? A principle, to be correct, must be
of universal application. If the people are to be
allowed to throw off a part of the civil compact,
they may with. equal right throw off the whole. If
the state has a right to confiscate the property of
one class to gratify a popular cry, it may with
perfect reason, and it will, be asked to confiscate
all property.
We would really advise the fundholder to look
after this Mr. Richard Cobden. and the incapable
ministry whom he leads by the nose. That party
(the fundholder) is just now very contentedly and
confidently drawing the dividend upon his three
per cents, and luxuriating upon his bread ". at the
market price of the world"; yet. if Mr. Cobden's
principle is to be carried out, we should not be
disposed to value those three per cents at much
above three years' purchase. If we are to have
every thing at that market price, and British in-
dustry is to be employed, adieu to the debt—adieu
to the monarch—adieu to every institution which
British men have prized, and beneath the shadow
of which they have grown up and dwelt in honour
and safety, amidst the shock and overthrow of
nations and states around them! Shame upon
that British ministry—shame upon that British
House of Commons—whose members could listen
to doctrines so subversive of all that is established
and just in the land, without interposing their in-
dignant protest against the furious republican who
propounded them ! Yet there were men in that
house—poor drivellers—who cried " Hear, hear,"
to the very language in which their own doom was
pronounced!
We have confidence,, however, in the right-
minded majority of the British people, and in their
sensitive regard for their national honour, as our
best safeguards against the unworthy and destruc-
tive machinations of these men, and the insensate
folly of the parliament which tolerates and even
applauds their levelling doctrines. True it is that,
at present, ensconced behind the barrier of their
numerical superiority in the legislature, they"mock
at our remonstrances and dare us to the encounter.
Nay, they even taunt us with the fact that the
tenure of their usurped power has still three years
to run—that for three years longer they will out-
rage our feelings, and play havoc with the property
and the cherished institutions of the country. But
a day of reckoning is drawing near, perhaps more
rapidly than they imagine. There is a limit to the
forbearance even of the most patient ; and already
that forbearance has been practised too long.

ADULTERATION OF COFFEE WITH CHICORY,

AND OTHER WORSE MIXTURES.

For some years it has been a source of complaint, on
the part of the Colonial growers and the honest retailer
of coffee, that of the total quantity of what purported to
be that berry retailed in this country, a large portion has
consisted of chicory, a root possessing, no doubt, valuable
properties, but paying little or no revenue to the govern-
ment. On its first introduction, the root in question was
dear; and was used in the preparation of coffee for the
table, more as a luxury than with any view of saving.
But recently it has become of little more value than a
common root of the field ; and there is no question that
one•half of the stuff at present retailed to the public as
ground coffee, consists of this and other even worse
admixtures. Thus the poor consumer is robbed and half
poisoned, whilst the revenue is injured to an extent esti-
mated by some authorities at £250,000 per annum, and
by others at £500,000.
That this is a serious injury to the Colonial planter, as
well as to the consumer and to the revenue, must be ad-
mitted. This, indeed, is proved by the fact, that whilst
the consumption of tea and sugar have been steadily in-
creasing during the last few years, that of coffee, notwith-
standing a considerable reduction of the duty, had
declined 2,531,620 lbs. in the quarter ending the sth of
April last, as compared with the corresponding quarter of
1848. To account for this falling off, it is calculated that
10,000 tons of chicory are consumed annually to which,
add another 10,000 tons at least of the various adultera-
tives, such as acorns, chestnuts, beans,mahogany sawdust,
red earth, &c. &c.; and it will be found that the 28 mil-
lions in 1840 have progressed to little short of 75 or 80
millions. _ .

In 1840, in reply to a representation from the trade, a
Treasury minute was issued, which actually sanctioned this
adulteration by the following expression : "My Lords do
not consider suck admixture will be a fraud on the revenue,
so long as the chicory pays the proper duty." It so hap-
pens, however, that the bulk of the chicory at present
used is grown at home ; and pays neither customs nor
excise. It is astonishing and disgraceful to her Majesty's
government that they have hitherto refused to listen to
the well grounded remonstrances of the planters and the
trade upon this subject. It must be pressed again and
again upon them, if we wish so stolid and stupid a body of
quacks to be made to hear the voice of reason and justice.