The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-06-27 00:00:00

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

The Earl of Rosse has published an admirable letter—
temperate, rational, and full of the truest principles of
political wisdom—against the repeal agitation.
A decision of the Dublin Election Committee, last
week, has upset 198 of Mr. Reynolds, the Repealer's
votes. _ _ _

Mr. Hume's proposed reform is called the " Four-point
Charter," viz., retrenchment, household suffrage, triennial
parliaments, and vote by ballot.
In the present session of Parliament more members have
been unseated on charges of 'aribery than in any preceding
one.

A bookcase and library, valued together at £1750, have
been presented to Mr. John Bright by his free-trade
friends.

The Times says of John O'Connell: " He reels to and
fro, he staggers like a drunken man, and is at his wit's
end." The purpose of to-day is the no-purpose of to-
morrow. He shuffles, he twists, he wriggles, but there is
no escape. Resolution is fatal, and irresolution perdition.
Meetings continue to be held in all parts of the coun-
try in favour of Mr. Hume's proposed measure of reform.
They, however, excite little attention, the Daily News
being the only journal that thinks them worthy of mere
record. At Liverpool, Leeds, and one or two other large
towns the Chartists have succeeded in carrying their six
points as an amendment.
June is passing away ; in July, people will be counting
the remaining days of the session. Yet even the Budget
is still to be produced ; while Church reform, sanitary
reform, and many other important subjects are rapidly
falling into the danger of being " postponed from want of
time," before anything effectual is done. The House of
Lords has now been in attendance for several months,
with scarcely any important business placed before ir.
Very few statesmen of modern times have produced
such strange feelings in the minds of both friends and
foes as Lord John Russell is constantly producing. The
leader of " the Reform movement" one year ; the next,
"the chief obstacle" in the way of Reform. At one time,
regarded by Churchmen as their most dreaded enemy ;
anon, looked up to as the Church's firmest friend ! The
Dissenting leader at one period ; in a few years after, the
object of the greatest disgust to all Dissenters.! Scarcely
ever, certainly, did such opposites meet in the public life
of one not dishonest nor very inconsistent man.

THE NEW REFORM MOVEMENT.—At the meetingld
--
he
at the Portico, in this town, on Monday evening, to snP'
port Mr. Hume's motion for Household Suffrage, Eq.
Electoral Districts, Vote by Ballot, and Triennial Parka'
ments, the supporters of those measures were defeated by
the Universal Suffragists, who succeeded in carrying reso-
lutions lutions in favour of the six points of the Charter. As 1"
Chartists are miserably weak in Liverpool, this fact pro
that the Humeists must be still weaker. The fact is that
there is no party in Liverpool, except a little knot Chartist s, that desires organic changes of any kind. Dlo
o
those who are most disposed to them on general groan
consider the present period of political confusion abren
and commercial depression, (caused by that confusion)t
home, extremely ill chosen for reconstructing the Coot
tution of the country.—Liverpool Times.--( Whig Par;
CHEESE-PARING PATRIOTS.—It is not by sinecure
and unmerited pensions that the resources of a coal
are drained. Curtail all the expenses of the Court—to
Her Majesty's attendants on board wages—cut down
Chamberlain's and Lord Steward's departments—be at
penurious as you may be, you would not save 3d. OM,
to every tax-gatherer throughout the empire. It is PA,,,,"
the establishment of the Palace that is consuming,
subsistence of the householder at Stockport and Birneaut
ham : and, while in many departments we would ginfiti
see reduction, it is not by saving a few thousands a r:
that the merchant can be rendered prosperous or w
he
artizan kept in full work. We are as willing to redo,,
cant
not army and navy expenses as they can be ; but we caft
not break up the apparatus and appendages of a grey
empire as we would the stock of a bankrupt tradesman;
We cannot forget the duties and the responsibilities nt
rule just at a moment of accidental pressure. We cello):
fling Canada, Australia, India to the winds ; neither can
we keep them and all that they give us without soldier,.:
and sailors. We cannot afford to surrender our mii;
position and pre eminence in the eyes of the world.
t'it
is part of our stock in trade. It is our capital.
goes we go too. But we cannot keep it without keepilla
that by which it was obtained—an adequate fleet and an
adequate supply of brave and well-trained troops. Gentle'
men leaguers, be careful what you are doing. Petition'
agitate, and declaim, against superfluous and extravagant
expense. Petition against and denounce every unneces'
sary outlay in the army, the navy, the state ; but beware
of going too far. You may do much mischief without
meaning it. Your country is engaging the attention 0'
the world. Secure, and hardly shaken, she is affording
an asylum to the exiles of less happy lands, and the
victims of less healthy institutions. Slowly and steadily'
she will reap the reward of great actions and great suffer-
ings. Mar not the completion of a glorious history, nor
under the pressure of a temporary distress try to inflict
wound which no time can cure, but which all would have
reason to deplore.—Time

DECLINE 'OF MR. COBDE N'S POPULARITY.—ForeignI
are naturally imposed upon by superficial information, an
it has been truly remarked that even the speeches of nlr;
Duncombe and Mr. Wakley are read by continent?:
statesmen as if they carried with them all the vieign"
which belongs to some of our great party leaders. Tl3°
flattery heaped upon Mr. Cobden was therefore quite 04;
tural, and he enjoyed it. He came back to England wi'd
his ears still ringing with the cheers with which he nag
been greeted at public dinners and public meetings.
he had any misgivings as to the stability of his popniar4
Ili"
at home, these must have .been removed when the
news that greeted his arrival in England was his election
for the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was his election
for Yorkshire that placed Lord Brougham on the Yin°i,
sack, and had he declined that honour, might, with tole'
able management, have made him ultimately prime
nister. It was an honour that turned Lord Brougham
head, and has been the forerunner of his downward cour_gse'
The glory of Lord Brougham culminated when he w;
returned for Yorkshire, and we think Richard Cobden
star has not been in the ascendant since the day he WI.
elected to sit for the West Riding. He has found, Int'
unexpectedly, that the burst of enthusiasm which greere
his success as an agitator, has died away into expressl/ 0
silence: he no longer finds himself, as formerly, the ho
of the day, feted by the aristocracy, courted by the people;
and listened to with mute attention by the House of CoY
mons. His passage through the gay circles of Grosvenor:
square and Belgravia, has been scarcely more brilliant
more evanescent than those of George Hudson and PI.
r.
Ferrand. Out of doors the agriculturists can hardly clap
him as a friend, whilst the manufacturing operatives, Tffno.
clubbed their shillings and half-crowns to raise
.Zloo,u"si,
for the idol of their masters, now find, to their cost, t'i
they had a far truer and much more economical friendo
Lord Ashley, who never sought for such splendid Ng,
monials to his more effective and more consistent phil°
thropy. It is obvious that Mr. Cobden has been ,stutil
and mortified by the decline of his popularity, and s
more by the manner in which the House of Conar-°-,f
received the killing exposure made by Admiral Dundan
his attack on the British navy at Malta. Something ,°/_:5
done. A new league was to be got up. A new stananni`i
of agitation was to be raised, and reform in parlialej,
seemed to be the most promising. It has signally Lapfor
and the people have but too recently raised
.E7o,ouu
_clo
Mr. Cobden himself, and several hundred thousand pf.ild
more for a whole army of hungry agitators, to eePt„,/
any unusual exuberance of enthusiasm in favourd:
new league, having such costly appendages.—Ree°r