The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-02-24 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

The Courier-office was closed when we received the note
from "12, Bedford-street South," or the request (although
a very unusual one) would have been attended to. The
whole of our Tuesday'slimpression is sold off.

t Riberusol Otanbart.

FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 24,
.1843.

On Monday evening a question was put to the
Home Secretary, by Mr. Ferrand, the reply to which
is, we rather think, significant of something more
than the mere words outwardly imply. The enquiry
of Mr. Ferrand was, " whether the govtrnment had
made any investigation into the causes of the late out-
breaks in the manufacturing districts, or whether they
intended to make such investigation." The reply was
as follows :—" On a former occasion a gentleman had
been sent down by government for the purpose of col-
lecting and marshalling the evidence upon the subject
to which the hon. gentleman's question referred. That
evidence had, in part, been brought before a compe-
tent tribunal; parties had been convicted upon it, and
some were undergoing the punishment of the law.
Another portion of that evidence was still to be investi-
gated. But true bills had been found upon it, and the
parties would he tried upon it on the 4th of April. He
was of opinion that all the facts of the case would be
brought before that tribunal; and that the question
would then be really brought out who were the parties
responsible for the dangerous disturbances which had
taken place."

Of course, Sir James Graham referred to the trials
of Southam, O'Connor, and others, which, it may be
remembered, were, traversed, and are to come on at
the ensuing Spring Assizes at Lancaster. If such be
the case, we firmly believe, with him, that all the facts,
as to the origin and the causes of those " dangerous
disturbances" will come out—that much more will be
disclosed than will be convenient and pleasing to some
people who are at this moment hugging themselves in
fancied security, and sufficient to convince the world,
if it even do not convince the legislature, of the dan-
gerous character and incendiary working of a certain
body which it is quite unnecessary for us to mention.
Up to this hour, the recent disturbances in the manu-
facturing districts are boldly set down to the account
of the Chartists alone. It will be in tke memory of
most of our readers, that the only case in which there
was any probability of a complete investigation into
the whole question—the case of Hutchinson—was
quashed by that party being prevailed upon to plead
guilty. The evidence, therefore, in the hands of go-
vernment has only in part been brought before a legal
tribunal. There is " another portion" still to be in-
vestigated—the connection of Chartism with the dis-
turbances in question; and we are much misinformed
if that investigation does not " bring out" the con-
nexion with them of another kind of agitation, and a
somewhat different kind of agitators, to those to be
placed at the bar of justice. Perhaps we may be
treated with a little information as to the movements
and deliberations, during the turnout, of those parti-
cular friends of the Anti-Corn-law League the " die-

senting ministers"!

The Manchester Guardian, we observe, has stepped
forward as the apologist of Mr. Richard Cobden, and
treated the world with a laboured essay upon the pro-
per interpretation to be put upon the language recently
directed by that personage towards Sir Robert Peel.
Mr. Cobden, he informs us, only meant by the "indi-
vidual responsibility" of Sir Robert Peel, his respon-
sibility as premier. Why, so the man told us himself.
But why, we ask, at such a time especially, whilst one
misguided man is already waiting his doom for a
murderous attack levelled at Sir Robert—at the man,
and not the mere abstract idea of the Prime Minister--
labour to impress upon the national mind that it was
his hand which alone kept immersed in poverty and
wretchedness an entire people e Of course it was
a minister" that Sir Robert was to be held " i "us
ndiv
ally responsible ;" and it would be as a minister only
that an assassin would dream of directing his weapon
against him. Unfortunately, you cannot shoot the
minister without depriving of life at the same time the
man himself.
Really, we must suggest to the Guardian, that this
kind of shuffle is very paltry. It matters not at all
whether the "individual responsibility " spoken of by
the Stockport M.P. was intended to imply personal
responsibility or not, except so far as regards the ques-
tion whether the man who used the expression is a
deliberate inciter to bloodshed, or only a madman or a
fool. In themselves, there is nothing very startling in
the terms used. All the world knew, long before they
were uttered, that Sir Robert Peel and every other
prime minister of this country is individually respon-
sible for the consequences of their
policy. But when
viewed as an adjunct to a fierce agitation, in which the
passions of a suffering people are studiousl ysought
be wrought upon to frenzy,—when we have already
before our eyes the dreadful calamity by which the
doctrine of personal responsibility was so nar.
ely exem-
plified,—then, indeed, there is
more than folly—more
than mere senseless repetition of an admitted truth;
there is crime in the lightest sign made to point such
passions to an object upon which to wreak themselves.
Such, we maintain, was the tendency of Mr. Cobdens
'
speech ; and as such we believe that it is viewed b
every impartial mind in the community. y
The Guardian thinks differently, however, and so, it
seems, think the leaguers of Liverpool, Stock and
Manchester; for we see that addresses are sport, b
up from these towns, in which Mr. Richard
Cobden is
e sent
condoled with as something very like a marty es
r ! Y,
this furious itinerant is to be complimented
upon this new proof of his zeal for free trade;
and we
assured by the Guardian, that the disgust which are
the
proof in question has drawn down upon him fro
other quarters has attracted towards him
amongst the League party only "increased sympathy and encourage-

The Liverpool Times of Tuesday last comens
report of a case of appeal, against an order for m
the pays
- ment of parish rates, with the following quasi-apolo-
getic reason for its insertion. "On these occasions,"