The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-02-10 00:00:00

invasion of the constitution and the religion of the
law.
Well may we cease to wonder at the increasing
exultation of Popery when such measures can be
advocated in the Parliament of Protestant England,
without the utterance of a word of reprobation !
Well may we cease to wonder that judgments are
visited upon the nation,—that famine is at the door
of one portion of our population, and that another
is drunk with delusive hopes of prosperity and
wealth ! Well may we cease to wonder that mem-
bers of our pure Protestant Church are permitted
to wander into soul-destroying error, and that we
are become the scoff and the scorn of the heresy of
Rome ! With such a feeling,—such blindness and
fatuity existing in the British legislature,—we need
no longer ask the reason of the fact that Popery in
her conduct towards us, is daily throwing off the
mask with which she has for generations past
sought to cloak her real features. Let us, as afford-
ing proof of this, direct the attention of our readers
to the following paragraph, which is taken from a
communication addressed from Rome to a German
paper :
Rome, Jan. 19.—0 n the 14th instant, the Vicar-Ge-
neral of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Fatrixi issued a
proclamation to the people of Rome, which runs thus :
" Not a few persons distinguished for piety have besought
us with urgent prayers to grant permission for the solemn
festival of a novena (nine days' service in the Church of
the Jesuits,) in order to implore from Almighty God the
wider spread and happy increase of the Catholic faith
in England. The Holy Father has not only listened fa-
vourably to this pious request, but furthermore has pro-
mised to all the faithful who take an active part in the
ceremony a partial indulgence of 300 days for every
visit, and a plenary indulgence to those who attend the
novena five times at least, it being understood that at the
same time such persons are to approach the confessional
and Lord's supper. This nine days' ceremony is to begin
at eleven o'clock a.m. on the 17th instant, in the church
above-named. Whether ye look, my Christian brethren,
at the great and noble aim in behalf of which these pub-
lic prayers are offered to the Almighty, or whether ye cal-
culate the gain of the holy indulgences, by means of
which we may shorten the punishment due to our sins—
in either case you must in every way, to the best of your
strength, interest yourselves in the matter, and take part
in this exercise, by praying the Giver of all good, and the
Father of all ar.ercy, that He will pour out over that realm
and its inhabitants His light and those gifts of grace, for
obtaining which alone our prayers will be effectual."
Will any man, after reading this, say that Rome
is changed, except so far as that, in her treatment of
us, she no longer feels the necessity of wearing a
mask? Three hundred days' "indulgence,"—three
hundred days immunity to sin,—offered to the faith-
ful who pray for " the wider spread and happy in-
crease of the Catholic faith in England !" Bravos
of Italy, assassins of Tipperary, what a comfortable
creed is yours! Only pray for the conversion of
benighted England, and the blood of your victims
is washed from your hands.

Experience has shewn that we were perfectly cor-
rect in our remarks upon the injustice and impolicy
of the course insisted upon by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, with respect to the payment of railway
deposits into the hands of the Accountant-Generaf
of the Board of Trade. We maintained that the
spirit of the requirement of the Act of Parliament
would be complied with by the lodgment, by the
promoters of railway schemes, of valuable securities
instead of money. Obviously, it was unlikely that
parties would keep the amount of such deposits by
them in an unproductive form—in notes or in gold.
They would invest them in one or other of the ne-
gociable securities, publicly recognized'as equivalent
to cash. It was, therefore, a perfectly useless pro-
vision, or rather interpreAtion, of the Act, to re-
quire such investment to be reconverted into money
for the purpose of payment into the hands of the
Accountant-General; and, the more palpably so,
when we consider that the functionary in question
can be required immediately to invest the funds
lodged with him into profitable stock, possibly the
very same which had to be sold out to meet his
demand. The object of Parliament in stipulating
for the payment of a deposit upon new railway
schemes, was to ensure in every case a responsible
proprietary ; and it was surely the duty of Govern-
ment to see that this object was obtained without
the infliction upon the community, or upon indivi-
duals, of unnecessary and harassing conditions.
The only thing which Parliament had to ask was,
whether the companies had or had not the required
amount paid up, and its value available to hand over
to the custody of the officer appointed.
In taking the course, which he has determined
upon, of insisting upon a cash deposit, we do not
mean to insinuate the slightest imputation of an un-
worthy motive on the part of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, or the Government. But at the same
time motives might be imputed. A. very little ex-
amination of the state of the Money and Stock mar-
kets, during the past fortnight, will suffice to shew
that the course pursued, without strengthening one
iota the standing of the companies complying with
it, has opened a very wide field for those specula-
tions of capitalists, against which the public have
not the least protection, and, at the same time, has
inflicted wanton injury upon such companies. We
shall perhaps best explain our meaning by an ex-
ample.

We will suppose a company whose paid-up de-
posit upon a million of nominal capital amounts to
fifty thousand pounds. 'lbis sum has been duly
furnished by the shareholders. There has been no
malversations of directors—no stagging—no reserves
of shares, nominally for the benefit of landowners,
but really as sops for provisional committeemen.
The fifty thousand pounds deposit have been in-
vested in consols ; and consols, we know were a
few months ago, at par. Now the course which we
advocated was, that such investments should be re-
ceived as satisfying the requirements of the act of
parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, how-
ever, has decided otherwise ; and, as the result of
that decision, every company has had, in the first in-
stance, to realise its investments and to produce
bank notes or gold for the acceptance of the ac-
countant of the Board of 'rrade. So far, then, all
the world knew that certain securities had to be
sold ; and men with any knowledge of business
know what is the result of such knowledge. In the
case before us, fifty thousand consols are to be ex-
changed on a certain day for cash ; and the market
is influenced accordingly—depressed accordingly.
Now what remedy has the party ? The board of
directors, compelled to sell out the best possible se-
curity which can be afforded it, has the opportunity
of purchasing again what has sold—consols, or
whatever e!se it may be. ;;Lit, before doing so,
parliament must be moved. sk!l the world, therefore,
knows that fifty thousand 7.ounds hive to be re-in-
vested in stock by a certain company on a certain
day; and again the result is against such company.
The fifty thousand, invested at par, loses five per
cent. when realised in cash. It loses another two
and a half per cenit when re-invested. The railway
proprietor is thus doubly victimised.
We cannot see the sense of this. It is not just.
In fact, to this very requirement of the act of Par-
liament, which calls for the deposit of five per cent.
upon the capital of railway companies, we suspect
may he attributed that favourable position of the
public funds which enabled the Chancellor of the
Exchequer last year to make that reduction of the
three and and a half per cents., the saving of which
to the country was not less than a quarter of a mil-
lion per annum. In mere gratitude, that func-
tionary ought not to have exacted the full amount
of his bond. The surplus capital of the country
enabled him, by its being invested in the national
securities, to bestow upon the country a great
boon, and whatever value the doctrine of retributive
justice may have in otlu r eases, it ought not to have
been acted upon here. \.Ve repeat that we attribute
no motives of an unworthy character; but we do not
like to see, coinci," lit with the recent state of the
•
money market, lately frequent operations of the
Government broker. In similar operations by any
private party, a motive would be attributed.

The warehouse owners of Liverpool have, for
years past, been about the best abused body of men
in the country. They opposed the erection by our
public authorities, with the public money, of ware-
houses on the dock quays, the land for whose site
was sold by the corporation, in the days of whig
rule, at an insufficient price—at less, in fact, than
land in less favourable localities had been sold to
private individuals; and for this were branded as
selfish men, opposing public improvements from
private objects. The Legislature, however, did not
think their demands so very inconsistent with justice
or so unreasonable; for it imposed upon the Dock
Committee, at their suggestion, a clause restricting
that body from prosecuting their scheme beyond a
certain point, and imposed certain conditions, with
which it was imperative to comply.
By our report of the last council meeting it will
be seen that the warehouse owners have, at length,
efFectually purged themselves of all liability to be
termed selfish in exacting the full amount of their