The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-09 00:00:00

further encroachments of an alien and unconstitu-
tional authority, of which, it is plain, we are intended
to be made the victims. Already the various pa-
rishes of the metropolis, more alive to their interests
than the authorities of Liverpool, have made a stand
against the clauses to which we have referred ; and
the voice of the people of Liverpool should not be
wanting to aid in an effort for their defeat.

A return, containing some valuable statistical
details relating to the imports, exports, and con-
sumption of corn, grain, meal, and flour during the
year ended sth January, 1844, has just been pub-
lished, by order of the House of Common, from
which we extract the following statements, which
may be of interest to our readers :

The total quantity of foreign wheat upon which
duty was paid for home consumption, from the sth
January, 1843, to the sth January, 1844, was,
according to this return, 843,739 quarters ; of
British colonial wheat, (under the Act sth Victoria,
cap. 14,) 12,406 qrs.; and of Canadian wheat, (under
the new duty of is. per qr.,) 12,412 qrs. The latter
amount must not be regarded as furnishing a crite-
rion for our future trade with our North American
possessions, as the reduction of duty to ls. only came
into operation last autumn.
The total quantity of foreign wheat and wheat
flour imported during this period was 948,309 qrs.,
and of colonial, 119,239 qrs.; against which the
exports were 71,236 qrs. The quantities of other
foreign grain imported were as follows, viz., barley,
178,686 qrs. ; oats and oatmeal, 84,597 qrs. ; rye
and ryemeal, 4,872 qrs.; peas, 39,668 qrs. ; and
beans, 47,999 qrs.

The amount of duty received during the above
period, upon the various descriptions, was, for
foreign, £601,172 ; for British colonial, £2532; and
for Canadian, £62o;—in all £604,324 this year,
against £1,093,340 during 1842. Thus, in these
two years, or rather from the passing of the Corn
Bill on the 29th of April, 1842, a revenue has been
derived from foreign grain of £1,694,512, averaging
£847,256 per annum.
The rate of duty during 1843, was, from January
to the end of July, 20s. ; in August and September
it fluctuated between 18s. and 14s. ; and in October,
November, and December it was 19s. to 20s. The
average rate paid throughout the year may be stated
at 148. 3d. The largest quantity of foreign wheat
was entered in the month of September, viz., 600,846
qrs. in one week, at a duty of 15s. per qr. ; 46,396
qrs. were entered in the same month at 17s. per
qr., and 40,501 at 18s. Under the old Corn Law,
the greater part of the foreign wheat and flour im-
ported was thrown upon the market in the month
of September, at a duty of ls. only, the preceding
two months being employed by speculators in cre-
ating an artificial scarcity, in order to raise the
averages to the necessary height. During both the
years in which the new law has been in operation,
such attempts have failed. In 1842, the lowest
duty attained was Bs., and last year 14s. Thus a
large revenue has been gained from an article
which previously contributed little, whilst the supply
has not been diminished below the wants of con-
sumers; and attempts to extort extraordinarily high
prices have been checked by the gradual operation
of the scale. The highest monthly average price of
wheat in England and Wales last year, was 595. 7d.,
and the lowest 465. 2d., showing a difference be-
tween the two extremes of 13s. sd. per qr. The
real fluctuation, however, of the price of the whole
quantity consumed through the year has not ex-
ceeded a few shillings per quarter.
The total quantity of foreign and colonial wheat
and wheat flour in warehouse, at the end of De-
cember, 1843, amounted to 220,743 qrs.
The views of the advocates of protection, as to
_the low rates of freight at which foreign wheat can
be imported into Great Britain, are fully borne out
by this return. The largest wheat-importing coun-
tries to this kingdom during the past year have been
Prussia, (which has furnished two-thirds of the
whole,) Germany, Russia, Denmark, and the North
American colonies. This fact, also, in great part,
determines the question, whether, under any corn
law, the United States of America are able to con-
tend with the corn-growing countries of Northern
Europe, as we have been told by the Cobden and
Thornely school of politicians they would be. Under
what has, in effect, been almost a fixed duty, the
United States have furnished a mere fraction of our
supply.

We are told again and again by flippant "libe-
ralism" how mach of the wrongs and grievances of
Ireland is inflicted by the establishment of the Pro-
testant Church in that country ; but we much
question if it has ever entered into the heads of such
declaimers, to enquire to what extent the real
grievances,—the wretchedness and ghastly poverty
of the Irish people—are to be attributed to the exac-
tions of the Romish priesthood themselves, and the
pressure of that voluntary system (!) which is held
up to us as the perfection of human wisdom and
human justice. We have luckily at hand the means
of enlightening our English readers with respect to
the working of Popish voluntaryism in Ireland, its
intolerable pressure upon the poor Roman Catholic
population, and the cormorant avarice of those to
maintain whose usurped dignities it is employed.

The authority, from which we take our informa-
tion, is a letter whichi has just been addressed by a
Roman Catholic clergymen, through the medium of
a leading Irish Conservative journal, to his co-
religionists, complaining
.of the course which has
been taken by the Romish hierarchy in Ireland, in
rejecting, without any concurren, e, or even consul-
tation, with the body of the priesthood, the proposed,
or at least mooted, Government provision in lieu of
the present system. The letter, we may premise,
was refused insertion in the Liberal papers. The
writer maintains that. the great bulk of the Romish
clergy would gladly accept such state provision, or
any provision which would free them from the
rapacity of their superiors ; and he proceeds to show
the interested motives by which, on the part of the
bishops, such refusal has been prompted, by the
fact that "no ministry, however profligate of the
means of the state, could dream of allowing them, for
the maintenance of their episcopal dignity," more
than they at present exact from the people ! We
give the heads of these exactions, as laid down by
the writer—remember, reader, a Roman Catholic

priest.
" 1. In the first instance, they must be paid 5s 6d. for
evecy piiuper who marries in their diocese ; and, no mat-
ter whi trier the parish priest, in the conscientious discharge
of tie pi wrr vested in himself, marries a couple gratis,
seeing 4,lten that, unless he does so, the parties would live
in pubdc sin, to the great injury of reliliion ; yet the
parish pries must account to the bishop for every mar-
riage, and pay him for every marriage, whether rich or
poor. Should the parties be in good circumstances, the
bishos s insist on a proportionate share of the marriage
fees."
A pretty large slice this of the charge for coupling the
males and females of an almost pauper population.
But proceed to No. 2.
2. For dispensations in the prohibited degrees of
kindred both in consanguinity and affinity. According
to the proximity or remoteness of ihe rtlationship, bishops
get from £3 to £5, according to the state in life arid na-
ture of the circumstances of the contracting parties.'
Sad want of a Luther here !

" 3. Bi-hops select and set apart two or three of the
best par she in their dioceses fur their own u,e, Which'
in ecelrstastic it parlance, are designated as !news,.
parishes, that is, to enable those dignitaries to support