The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

'aw are—

Ist. That ships carrying 100 or more passengers, must
carry a cook to cook their food ; but as the law only
requires the ship to provide the passengers with food at
the rate of lib. of biscuit, flour, oatmeal, or rice, per
passenger per diem, and the whole of which may be bis-
cuit (one-half of it must be), this seems a very absurd
provision.

The government adopt the suggestion of the shipowners
to require a cook to be provided, but REJECT what alone
would render a cook necessary or desirable, viz. the
recommendation of the shipowners to compel the ship to
supply the passengers with tea, coffee, sugar, &c. &c.
2nd. That no ship be allowed to clear out until the
passengers and the medicine chest have been inspected
by a medical man. Sick passengers being required to be
put ashore.
On the whole the new bill is an improvement ; by afford-
ing more space, the health of the passengers will be better
preserved, and it will not tend to increase the cost of
passage very greatly.
It is to be regretted that the suggestion of the ship-
owners, as to the dieting scale, was not adopted ; it would
have more effectually promoted the health and comfort of
the passengers than all the doctors (without such aid) in
Christendom could do. By throwing the passengers thus
almost wholly on the ship for support, the master would
have been enabled far more effectually than at present to
enforce habits of order and cleanliness ; a saving would
also have been effected for the passengers, because (as we
formerly pointed out), now they buy duty-paid articles,
whilst, if found by the ship, the shipowner would have
bought them in hoed. Was the loss to the revenue, by
this saving of duty, the reason why the Whig government
rejected it
Emigration to the North American Colonies will be
checked, not so much by the bill above adverted to as at
present altered, as by the acts of the different colonial

legislators, acting on the advice of Earl Grey, the
Colonial Secretary. The effect of these will be to deter
all sensible shipowners from carrying passengers, and we
venture to predict, that the emigration to Canada this
year will not be one-third what it was last year; and
mainly from this cause, last year and previously, the ship-
owner had to pay ss. currency (abdut 4s. 2d. sterling) per
passenger, for every passenger taken to a Canadian port ;

the new acts referred to raise this to 10s. per head (children
the same as adults) under all circumstances, and if the
ship, through having sickness on board, has to go into
quican4ne, or does not arrive before September the
charge is increased to 15s. per head. If the ships lay a
certain number of days, or do not arrive out before Oc-
tober, the charge is increased to 20s. per head. Now
under ordinary circumstances the shipowner does not re-
ceive for the use of his ship more than 15s. to 20s. per
passenger, so that he must either obtain a considerably
greater sum to compensate for the increased risk, or he
will not carry passengers ; under either circumstance, it
will be obvious that the price of passengers will be mate-
rially advanced, and thus thousands of those, whom we
should most gladly see leave the country the very
poorest, and those whose prospects are most hopeless at
home—will be unable to go.

The increased charge is, if one were to judge from ana-
logy, unnecessarily high. Last spring the New York
State Legislature passed a law, to the effect that instead
of the importers (as we term them) of immigrants being
privileged as previously, to pay a certain amount per head
(varying from one to ten dollars per head) or give bond
that they will support any immigrants who may within two
years become unable to support themselves, the importers
shall pay to the state a fixed tax of one dollar per head,
and give bonds for the support of any lame, blind, or in-
sane immigrants, that they might land on the state.
They made this charge because they found that the par-
ties in New York, who were in the habit of contracting
with the parties who forwarded passengers from Liverpool
and other places,—to undertake all responsibility as to sup.
port of immigrants in consideration of a payment of one
dollar per hoad,---inado a ha-ad-some proat out of the basi-
ness, which profit they thought might go to the state
funds:

NOW if one dollar raja on tnc awrag: in,Ner York,

We have a good supply of Beasts to-day ; and, although trade
is rather slow, prices are pretty well supported. There are a
few more Sheep than of late, still the number is small; the dead
markets being slow, considerably affects our trade, and every-
thing meets with a dull sale. The best qualities suffer a reduc-
tion from Monday last of 2d. per 81bs., and inferior fully 4d.
The best shorn Sheep make from 4s. 6d. to ss. From Holland
we have about 660 Sheep and 84 Calves. The Calf trade is very
dull, and but few reach Ss. 2d. Pigs are a heavy trade, at
rather lower rates.