The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-31 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are not dispostd to retort on " 1 Friend to Uniformity" as
we conceive he deserves. Is he aware that by the 74th canon
bishops are -required " ‘,o wear in their j urneys a priest's
cloak, and to wear a "In nightcap Qf blaf:k s Ik. satin, or
velvet." When h, can show us on his own principles any r a-
-4 son why the hisi.ops do not comply with this canon we may
then attempt (no great endeavour) to r, concile the usages
and non observances which have so excited the wrath of our
correspondent, with a firm and uncompromising attachment
to the Church of England.
We have received several communications on the so ject f
erecting a church in th s town for the celebration of div ue
worship in the Irish laugulge. As w.r have already said, we
shall be exceedingly glad to help forward so desirable an ob-
ject; but we fear thr., influence of the priests would be ex-
erted, and that very few of the poor Irish Romanists would
avail themselves or the opportunity of hearing a sermon in
their native tongue. We may zuggest that a middle service
in that language should be condw ted in one of the present
churches; and N-ce shall I e glad to see some influential parties
set about it in VCAI earnest. The fi st step should he the
raising of a sum of money to defray the unavoi !able expenses
of carrying it out.

Eig iliberpool &tail-Dalt%

TUESDAY MO RAING, DEC. 31, 1844

The close of a year of successful enterprise im-
pels us to the performance of a grateful duty—the
acknowledgment of the kindness and support which
we have received, and continue to receive, at the
hands of our friends. In the performance of this
duty, we shall not permit ourselves to be betrayed
into the indulgence of a boastful spirit. We shall
not vaunt of prosperity which we do not enjoy, nor
of influence which we do not possess. The test
has been withdrawn by which the truth of such
vaunts could be tried. The Government returns
of the circulation and advertisements of the press
of the country, are no longer issued; and we shall
not take advantage of that circumstance, and
thereby incur the possible suspicion that we are
anxious to claim a position amongst the journals of
our town and county, to which we are not justly
entitled. The rapid increase of our circulation,
and the advertising favours of our friends, afford
us, as men of business, the best proof which can
be 'afforded, that the influence which we possess
with the public is too fully felt and acknowledged
to need from us more than the expression of our
sincere thanks.

How far we have merited the support which we
have received, it is not for us to say. We have
striven, however, to merit it, by rendering the
LIVERPOOL STANDARD, to the best of our ability,
a faithful and honest record of passing events, and
by advoc.ting in its columns those principles and
measures, which we sincerely believe to be most
conducive to the wellbeing of our fellow-townsmen
and the public good. If we have not succeeded in
our efforts—if we have come short of the expecta-
tions of some of our friends, or gone beyond the
views and wishes of others, the fault has been one
of judgment, for which we are sorry, and not of
intention or unworthiness of motive.
With respect to the future we make no professions,
beyond that of a perseverance in the effort to ad-
vance the best interests of our town and of our
country, and to abide, at all hazards, and under all
circumstances, by those principles which we have
hitherto prof, ssed, and which we feel to be those
best calcula ed to advance the permanent happiness
of our fellow men. We are going to perform uo
miracles of ability or of liberality. We are neither
going to issue any extraordinary statistical docu-
ments, for which the world is to be filled with rap-
tures of gratitude, or to supply our paper gratui-
tously " to all the hotels in Lancashire, to every
commercial room in the kingdom, and to all the
principal places of resort, public offices, &c., in the
empire." The first great feat we leave to be per-
formed by a contemporary, whose opinion of his ca-
pacity for it is greater than our opinion of our own ;
and the second is happily unnecessary, inasmuch as
the LIVERPOOL STANDARD is already supplied to
most of the hotels in this and the surrounding
counties, and to the newsrooms of all the leading
towns in the empire. Our effort shall be only to
advance its usefulness and circulation by every le-
gitimate means, and every legitimate sacrifice of
time, labour, and means.
With these remarks, and repeating the expression
of our gratitude, we take our leave, wishing to each
and all our readers " a happy new year," and to
our fellow-townsmen and the country, a continu-
ance of that prosperity which has dawned upon them
in the year now hastening to its close.

For some time we have observed going on, in
this town and other resorts of speculation, a trade
which we know to be a most hazardous one to some
of the parties engaged in it, and, generally speak-
ing, to those who have money and a standing in
life to lose, and who are the least aware of the pos-
sible difficulties and losses, into which, without the
exercise of great caution, they may be led, and the
most anxious to act fairly and honestly. The trade
to which we refer is that in the shares of the new
rai,way undertakings; and the parties, on whose
account we fear danger and ultimate loss, are those
to whom such shares have been originally allotted,
or who in purchasing such shares have taken upon
themselves the full responsibility of the original
holders; and we cannot reconcile it to our con-
science, as faithful journalists, any longer to forbear
offering to them a few words of advice and caution
upon the subject.
The position of an individual to whom shares in
any railway undertaking are allotted, is, from the
first moment of the allotment, one of liability for, not
only the deposit but, the whole amount of such
shares, inasmuch as he binds himself to sign the
parliamentary and subscribers' deeds for such
amount, which on the passing of the act become a
register of the shareholders. The existing practice
is, on the deeds being so signed, to issue scrip to
the parties, which forthwith become saleable in the
sharemarket, passing from hand to hand, at pre-
miums or discounts varying daily and sometimes
hourly. Having parted with his scrip, perhaps at a
tempting profit, the original allottee and consequent
signer of the proper deeds imagines that he has ac-
tually realized the money which he has put into his
pocket, and that he is exonerated from all further
interest or risk in the undertaking. Past expe-
rience, however, which in the fever of speculation is
too apt to be forgotten, has feelingly assured thou-
sands that such is not the case. Such original al-
lottee, when selling and parting with his scrip, can-
not effect a legal transfer, and thus be relieved of
his responsibility, in any undertaking for which an
act of Parliament has not been obtained; and he
remains still, t) all intents and purposes, a share-
holder until such legal transfer is made. _ _

A practical instance will best show the result of
neglecting, in such cases, the proper precautions.
A B has had allotted to him fifty shares in some
promising or well-puffed line of railway, and, having
signed the usual deeds, receives his scrip, and sells
such shares at a thumping premium to C D, of
whose respectability and prudence he may or may
not be assured. C D sells to E, who sells to F,
and so on through the alphabet. In the meantime
the Act of Parliament has been obtained, possibly
on not such favourable terms as were originally an-
ticipated ; the rage for speculation subsides ; sales
from hand to hand are no longer readily effecte ;
further calls are looked forward to; and, as the
result of some or all of these causes, the shares fall
below par. Who, in this emergency, is, in the eye
of the law, the shareholder ? To whom do the
directors look for funds to carry on their under-
taking ? To him only who is registered. But he
has sold his scrip ! True; but where is it ? and
where is the party who is to take upon his shoulders
the original holder's liability ? In too many cases
of this description he is non est inventus, or, not
being legally bound to accept of such liability, he
refuses to come forward.

It is the unpleasant and possibly ruinous predica-
ment here described which we wish our readers
carefully to avoid. Many men, with the best inten-
tions, in such times as the present, take upon them-
selves liabilities greater than their means will war-
rant, in the expectation that they can be readily
absolved from them. In the majority of cases we
have no doubt every thing will go on smoothly;
but we know that there have been cases where such
has not been the re ult, and we grea!:y fear that
there will he again.

Respectfully, therefore, we urge upon our readers
the exercise of due caution. We have no wish to
repress that legitimate speculation without which
new railway undertakings cannot be got through
their initiatory stages ; but let those who incur
liability in such speculation take care that, before
they grasp at and count their profit as realised, they
have assurance of being legally relieved from such
liability at the earliest possible period.

A few more hours will bring us to the termina-
tion of the year 1844 ; arid before we take our final
leave of it, we shall briefly glance over its claims to

the remembrance, whether for good or for evil, of
ourselves and of posterity.
As a nation, we entered upon the present year
with flattering prospects. Externally the position
of Great Britain had never been more imposing.
We were at peace with Europe. We had succeeded
in settling differences which, for a lengthened pe-
riod, had embarrassed our relations with the United
States. We had wiped off the stigma, cast upon
our arms by recent disasters in the East; and added
a vast empire, hitherto rigidly closed against all
confidential intercourse with other nations, to our
friendship and commerce. We have not merely
succeeded in maintaining that position By a firm
and yet conciliatory policy, we have, during the
past year, warded off a threatened rupture with
France, without a stain upon our own honour or
the honour of that country ; and are at this moment
more firmly allied with all that is great and good
amongst its fickle people, than at any period of our
past history. We have shown to the world that,
by a course of highminded justice towards each
other, the Governments of Great Britain and of
France can afford to despise the querulous and
factious efforts which are resorted to by unprinci-
pled men, to bring them into antagonism, and,
!hereby, to endanger the peace of Europe. With
America we remain in amity, with few elements
apparent, in that country, likely to disturb such
amity; and in the East we have succeeded, by a
wise forbearance in success, in consolidating our
relations with the Chinese, and in developing the
resources of that vast Indian empire which calls the
Queen of this realm its Sovereign. _ _

Nor has the condition, or prospects, of the colo-
nies of Great Britain deteriorated during this year
of a Conservative administration. The least flou-
rishing of these—our West Indian sugar colonies—
are gradually recovering from the depression, cre-
ated by the scarcity of labour, arising from the
Emancipation Act ; and, by a wise and liberal di-
rection of the powers, given by Government to the
planters, to provide themselves with additional la-
bourers from other countries, whose surplus people
may be disposed to voluntary emigration, the an-
cient prosperity of these noble possessions, so long
the envy of the world, is, we trust, destined to be
restored. Our Canadian possessions no longer
present those appearances of a disposition to social
disorganisation and outbreak against the authority
of the mother country, which, a few years ago, dis-
turbed them ; and even our distant possessions at
the Antipodes, in which so many of our industrious
fellow-countrymen have seen their, at first too bril-
liant, anticipations disappointed, are recovering
from the effects of past mismanagement of their
finances, and, by the persevering energy of their
British settlers, are becoming gradually more pros-
perous in their internal condition, and more valua-
ble, as markets and contributors of valuable pro-
ducts, to the British empire.
On account of our external position, therefore,
there is nothing for which we have to charge with
blame the year which is now passing, whilst there is
much which we must set down to its credit. Turn
we then to an examination of our internal position.
We need scarcely point to the increased prosper-
ity, which we have experienced during this year, in
every department of trade and of industry—we
need scarcely point to the improved financial posi-
tion of the nation—to shew that, internally, we
have vastly progressed. Our agricultural position
and prospects, too, are, we believe, at this moment
placed upon as sound a basis as at any previous
period of our history. The mutual relations of
landlord and tenant, and the connection between
the prosperity of the latter and the permanent inter-
ests of the former have become better understood
and more extensively recognised. New and more
scientific modes of culture are becoming extensively
adopted, the owner and tiller of the soil lending
their mutual aid ; and promise, at no distant period,
to render the people of the country dependant upon
the resources of their own lands, alone, for an am-
ple supply of the great staples of human food. A
material fact, bearing upon our agricultural position,
we may here notice incidentally, as having strikingly
developed itself during this year. At the present
moment three hundred sail of British vessels are
reported to he loading, at one distant island, with
fertilizing materials for our soil, thus affording prac-
tical proof of the intimate relation between the pros-
perity and increased enterprise of the agricultural
community, and the prosperity of the British mer-
chant, shipowner, seaman, and artizan.
We are compelled, however, to notice a few dark
shades in the picture of our social position. The
capital of the merchant, the manufacturer, and the
agriculturist may be more productive at present than
a short while ago; but, alas, we have not to congra-
tulate ourselves upon any improved condition of the
masses whose labour contributes, with other causes, to
that result. A temporary increase in wages may have
here and there taken place; but, confessedly, that
increase is only temporary in duration and limited
to a few excessively stimulated branches of industry.
Amidst the glitter of our prosperity—side by side
with its magnificent evidences—we have still masses
of ghastly suffering and privation, well calculated
to startle us with a sense of the insecurity of the
wealth flowing in upon us, and the insufficiency of
the-mere growth of such wealth in a nation to in-
crease the happiness of its people, or even to remove
the pressure of want from their doors. Need we
look further for the evidence of this sad fact than
into our own streets and public institutions ? Or,
for its evidence, so far as the nation is concerned,
need we look further than to the growth and—alas !
under a Conservative administration !—the increased
stringency of that accursed system which is fast
winding its chain of tyranny and degradation around
the poor of our land ? We need not ; it is thus
virtually acknowledged by our rulers themselves;
and we defy the most sanguine of the admirers of
our existing prosperity—the most sanguine prophets
of its continuance—to assure us that, unaided by
other remedial circumstances, of which we see at
present littletprospect, it will remove, permanently,
even a fractional portion of that social disorganiza-
tion which we now witness and deplore. But, to
expatiate further upon this subject is beyond our
present task. _ _

We proceed, then, to another inquiry, viz. what
has the past year effected towards promoting the se-
curity of the Protestant institutions of our country.
The answer must again be unsatisfactory. We have
been compelled to witness the further spread of a
schism in our Established Church, and a movement
of a large portion of its members towards the adop-
tion of the forms and the doctrines of Romanism ;
and, further, we have been compelled to see this
movement not only unrepressed by the heads of our
Church, but encouraged by some of the most in-
fluential of those heads. We have been compelled
to witness these things as the spontaneous acts of
Churchmen themselves; but still more disastrous,
in its tendency, has been the policy of the govern-
ment, in matters affecting the institutions and the
established religion of the nation. We have seen
that government, with the consent of Parliament,
embark afr, sh in that fatal course of concession to
popery and infidelity, the adoption of which by Con-
servative ministers in 1829, exiled their party from
power for a period of more than ten years, and ele
vated to the seats of government a faction whose
" heavy blows and great discouragements," dealt
against the Constitution and the Church of their
country, have been so fearfully and so fatally felt.
The national mind, too, has we fear been prepared
for further similar concessions ; and we are proba-
bly doomed in The year which is coming to see the
power of the present government, and the influence
which it has acquired from the temporal prosperity
which it has brought to the nation, employed to
weaken the bulwarks of its strength,. which are the
Protestantism of its institutions and its people.

On these grounds, then, we are dissatisfied with
the year which is hurryinAto its close. We trust
that in our anticipations of evil to come we may be
mistaken; and that nothing but happy results from
the events of this year may be in store for England.
But when we witnei.s the apathy of those, to whose
voice it is given to direct the course of government
towards a safe haven—when we see Conservatives
hugging themselves in their worldly prosperity, and
worshipping the man who, whilst satisfying their
greed of gold, is aiming at the subversion of thier
dearest liberties and the wreck of their most che-
rished institutions—a misgiving will creep over our
minds that the glittering prosperity of this parting
year is not destined to be all for good—that, like the
enervating winter quarters of the soldiers of Hanni-
bal, it may only be the prelude to defeat and loss
disastrous as theirs, by inducing a blind confidence
in the statesmen who are pampering our senses by
throwing treasure and luxury into our laps, whilst
they are preparing to lead us to the destruction of
what we ought to hold far more dear and of more
lasting value than mere gleams of worldly sun-
shine, the fruit of revised tariffs or skilful finance.

We repeat that we may be in error in these fore-