The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-08-15 00:00:00

s borrow mere news from each other
ledgrnent. All that we wonder at is
Chronicle should con-

that our lively acquaintance
descend to borrow anythini
the Mercurv. without .nlc

a source as

whom he is

:le soporific

ay does the Mercury ever reme
without acknowledgment, but

publishing

—a nar

illy the work of his own pen
e cabbaved from two other
YE remember such an occur-
o it if he wishes for

papers in this t

direct
formation. Of course, such an occurrence was
accidental.'

s attentio

Ebe 7Liberpoot gPtaillian.

TUESDAY

MORNING

AUGUST 15, 1843

That a great portion of the distress and crime
be traced to the unsatisfac-

existing in Ire]

tions of landlords and occupiers in that

untry is

ndeniabl

and it

gratifying, there-

fore, to observe, that government is pledged to enter
into an examination of the subject, and to endeavour
to devise a remedy. We must confess, however,

that we are not very sanguine with respect to the
amount of benefit derivable from mere legislation.
The practice of subletting may possibly he checked.
Absenteeism may be visited with discouragement;
but the master evil—that craving for the occupation
of land, at any price and in any quantity, which
binds down the_great mass of the Irish peasantry to
the condition of Helots upon the soil where they
ought to breathe as free men—will still remain. We
shall still, under any law which can be devised
for the amelioration of the habits and condition
of the Irish people, be compelled to witness
agrarian outrage, arising out of competition for
land, and still to see contracts entered into, and
their fulfilment enforced, which are at once disgrace-
ful to the landowner and ruinous to the tenant.
no really effective remedy for the condi-
tion of the Irish people but the influx of capital and
enterpris

There

into that country, in sufficient amount to
it surplus labour, and detach them from

employ the

their present position as mere

squatters u,

pon the

soil. Ireland wants employment for her peasantry

—continuous and remunerative employment—to
create, out of her miserable cottiers and small
holders, a race of independent labourers. But that
capital can never be supplied whilst agitation is ram-
pant through the land. Tranquillise Ireland ; put
down her rebellious spirit; proclaim to her misled
population that they have nothing to hope for from
violence, and capital will at once and steadily flow
towards her shores, and convert a scene of squalid
misery into one of contented industry and hap-
piness.

Sir Robert Peel hopes, it would appear, to effect
this good by a legislative movement in the direction
of " fixity of tenure," for such was the measure of
Mr. Sharman Crawford, withdrawn to make way

the proposed measure of government. We feel
convinced, however, that aay such measure—any
measure which arbitrarily and greatly interferes with
the contracts between landlord and tenant, and espe-
cially one which gives the latter an undue portion of
the rights of the former—will be found injurious
and dangerous. We can dispense in England with
such interference. We can leave each party to make
their own.bargain ; and, if Ireland was in a healthy
condition, she could equally dispense with such in-
terference. If the agitation which now distracts
and deforms her was put down, she would speedily
arrive at such a condition. Her labour, bid for by
the capitalist, would cease to cling to the soil, and
waste its strength in improvident bargaining for oc-
cupation. Her peasantry now chained down to their
miserable holdings, would be emancipated from their
compulsory idleness and poverty, and enabled to
depend upon their own exertions for a continuous
and assured prosperity.

The night of Monday last was to have been an
era in the history of England's Parliament. On
that night the members of that noble assembly
walked down to the house with palpitating hearts,
prepared to be amazed, awed, terrified, withered,
annihilated, or driven into hysterics of delight, by
t

eloquence of the maiden parliamentary effort of

the meek and modest representative of the city of
t night for the

Durham
first time to throw his broadbrim into the wordy
arena, strip off his brown or drab, and make of
the entire Conservative party a collection of the most
wofully shattered and battered caricatures of huma-
nity that eve

was on t

presented themselves to the eontem-
Aation of mankind. Whiggery was up in the stir-
onservatism shook through all its
of Sir Robert Peel was
about to be " catawampously chawed up."!

runs in extasy; C,

The ministr,

borUe

Well, the important hour arrived. Blushing like

a bride—with the anticipation of victory gleaming
in his eye, and the very buttons of his coat throw-
ing out intelligence and radiance—John Bright
arose, run his fingers through his hair, hemmed
twice or thrice, and then began. But such a be-
ginjing ! such a middle! such a termination I The
reds of Parliament—the pages of history—nay,
romance itself—never furnished to the world so
dire a specimen of bathos. The uncorking of a
bottle of smoke—the bursting of a boiler—a colliery

explosion,—these were nothing compared with the
woful break down, or blow up, of the be-puffed and
be-praised quaker ! A prepared speech it was, no
doubt. It smelt villanously of the counting-house,
and Rochdale flannel. But the unlucky orator's
self-possession had deserted him ; and the diatribe
which was to hav' electrified the house, by the force
of its argument and the grace of its delivery, lite-
rally rolled out of his mouth, or ran out of it, a
continuous stream of trope and metaphor, bombast,
and railing, one huddled upon the heels of the other,
until at length the hapless gentleman concluded,

after the fashion of a spent water-engine,
exhausted the small supply of mud and
crater to be drawn from some village well!
In truth, a more utter failure than Mr. Bright's
we never remember to have noticed. Little as we
have always thought of his pretensions to the pos-
session of wisdom or of talent, we never dreamt to
have seen his very impudence desert him, as it ap-
pearsto have done on this occasion. After all, the
exhibition proves to us, however, that the House of

which has