The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-03-22 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

the tiberpool tantlarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 22, 1833.

STRANGE as it may appear, we are still without any
eartain advices from :Oporto to a moderately late date.
It is not known whether the adventurer, Don Pedro, has
made-his escape or has resolved to hold out to the last.
lz is said that Admiral Sartorius has been superseded,
and that the terms of capitulation proposed by Don Pe
dro were refused by the King, but we have no authentic
information ou the subject. We are prepared, however,
to receive by the next arrivals a final settlement of the
contest, perhaps, the unconditional surrender of Don
Pedro..

THE Committee appointed to search for precedents, on
the subject of the Irish Church Robbery Bill, have re-
ported that Ministers, by their mode of.introducing it,
have not only betrayed their own ignorance, but have
positively violated the forms of the House. The bill,
therefore, is a brutum falmen, which being translated by
Colonel Jones, the annotator upon Joseph Hume, means
"a flash in the pan." It has gone off in smoke, and a
new bill must be brought in, if brought in at all, founded
upon the resolutions and a Committee of the whole
House. "Althorp" arid the word "blunder " are syno-
nymous terms.

FOWELL BuxTozes motion on Tuesday evening
gave rise to a short interlude, or one act piece, Of the
farce genus, which, to do the parties- justice, was capi-
tally performed. Lord Althorp requested the honourable
Member to pastpose his motion •on the ground that
ministers themselves had a measure to bring forward as
,aoon as they could come to a fair Understanding of its
details. As to the nature of the measure the noble lord
refused to disclose any idea. Mr. Buxton lamented the
uncertainty that prevailed on the subject, and urged the
impatience of the country to see the question set at rest,
as one of the reasons for pressing his motion on the
House; but as Lord Althorp named the. 23rd of April
as the last day of the respite which he asked frotn the
anticolonial party, Mr. Buxton made a merit of acceding
to his request by withdrawing his motion.

All this was a well concocted scena. Mr. Buxton, we
believe, is as well if not better acquainted with the in-
tentions of his Majesty's ministers than Lord Althorp
himself, and certainly far better than any of the parties
Who are deeply interested in the fate of the West Indies.

THE affairs of Turkey, and of him who we apprehend
•is the last of the Sultans, are involved in much uncer-
tainty. By various accounts it would appear that Russia
has a large naval armament under the wall of Constan-
tinople, and a military force, consisting of 20 or 30,000
men, within a few days' march of that city.
All.this, it is said, is for the purposes of mediation,
and in order to preserve the peace of Europe, although
it is admitted that Ibrahim Pacha has accepted the terms
offered him by his humiliated master. Russia under-
stands well the exact diplomatic meaning of the terms
peace and mediation. With one foot in Stamboul and
the other in the Capital of Persia, she will speedily be
etabled, without any very considerable exertion, to make
a seven-leagued stride to the banks of the Indies. If it
be the Emperor's intention to carry Lord Palmerston's
pacific pOlicy to the British empire in India, and give us the
benefit of his mediation on our own soil, we would advise
him to make as much speed as possible, for if the present
administration remain much longer in office our India
will hardly be worth the conquest. Perhaps it would
not be a bad speculation to sell him our transatlantic
colonieS—the money would be a windfall to the Chan-
odilor of the Exchequer.

WE have reason to believe that our Liverpool destruc-
tives will, before many days, bitterly lament the inquiry
Which they have been the means of instituting before a
committee of the House. of Commons. If such men
would be stung by feelings of shame they would hide
their faces from their fellow-townsmen for ever. If de-
rision,—if laughter, holding both her. sides,—if the finger
of contempt, pointed at them by every respectable per-
son, could drive factious charlatans out of society, we
should never be annoyed by their presence hereafter.
They have made a grave charge, which they are unable
to support by the least show or shadow of evidence. They
have obtained a tribunal, or what Lord Althorp, inspired
by " absolute wisdom," calls a "grand jury," composed
of fifteen.enlightened senators, and before this tribunal
they. have brought sundry old women who sell ale by the
quart, and retail gossip by the hour,.who amuse the en-
quirers with stories, ancient as the building of Babel, as
to how John Brown heard Mrs. Betty Smith whisper to
her brother-in-law, that her daughter saw a man (name
unknown) place something into the hand of Peter Jones
on the day of the election, which had all the appearance
of being a piece of paper, not,quite so large as a news-
paper, and consequently might, for anything that the
Witness knew to the contrary, be a five, a ten, or a twenty
pound note. Rumour, fancy, and hearsay evidence are
all they are able to offer in support of their allegations of
bribery. Nelly Green heard her husband one night
speak in his sleep about selling his vote, and this worthy
matron is sent to London to state the fact. Poor Green,
honest man, was only dreaming of money. Not one
farthing did he receive ; but, then, he had no business to
be talking when he should have been snoring. It was a
Lerivus matter, and worthy of being investigated by a
committee of the reformed Parliament. Green might
have received a bribe; and had he received it, of course
it mat have been given hint by some member of the
ourtivration. The castle in the air might have had some
tZtundacion, and it was quite right that our modern purists
should endeavour to ascertain the fact. A hunt after a
bribe in Liverpool is capital diversion to legislators, who
hardly know how to employ their time. The country is
ikt so prosperous a coudition-that it is .of far more impor-
tance to inquire into the price of beer, and the quantity
thank at an election, than to inquire how the taxes are
paid, or whether some of them might not be repealed.

Lord Althorp must be gratified in the highest degree at
seeing Mr. Benett, Mr. Evart, Mr. Wason, and a few
other equally respectable reformers consuming their
time in nibbling at imaginary grievances, and false
charges, which might haVe been spent in an attack upon
the treasury bench, and a furious assault upon the ex-
hausted revenues of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It
must be rare sport to him, but as the frogs said, so might
the people say, "it is death to us."
But to be more serious, for it is, after all, a serious
matter to see our public men, and the representatives of
the nation wasting precious time in an inquiry which must
in the end overwhelm its originators with ridicule, and
make them the laughing-stock of all their acquaintances.
Our readers will hardly believe, but we shall make good
our assertion ere long, that the whole of this investiga-
tion, this piece of solemn mockery, had its origin in a
hoax ! The defeated candidate, his committee, his friends,
his counsel, down to his very attorney, were all hoaxed!
Some wicked wag wrote them a letter, stating, that on
one of thle days of the election a certain £5OO note was
changed at a Liverpool bank, and the small change ap-
plied to electioneering and bribing purposes. The num-
ber of the note was briber and the bribees
were all named,—and one, of the. nicest cases made out
that ever fell to the charge of an ingenious artist learned
in the law. It happened to be true,:that on the day men-
tioned a £5OO note was changed .by the gentleman in
question. This was the basis of the -hoax. A fictitious
number, however, was given, and instead of small notes
being paid, the change consisted of . rather large notes,
which were applied to -commercial. purposes, and their
payMent can be proved. Strange as it may appear, the
fictitious name 'of the. hoaxer was not even suspected.
His statements were of so particular a nature that they
were, with Ou- inquiry, assumed,to be true, and so much
reliance was placed on his facts, that the banker, his
clerks, and all the parties named were summoned to Lon-
" don to unfold this clear and incontestable act of bribery
and corruption. By some means or other, however, the
hoax got wind, and an application has been made to with-
, draw their subpoenas, which the gentlemen have very
properly refused to return.
Such is the eventful history of what was supposed to
be one of the strongest charges against the ill-used and
calumniated freemen of Liverpool. All the other charges
are of a similar nature. They rest upon vague gossip,
or ten-times-removed hearsay evidence alone. A person
of the name of Abercromby has stated that he saw a free-
man receive a bank-note, (or what he considered to be a
bank-note) on one of the days of election. This bank-
note however turns out to be nothing more than an
innocent ribbon, wrapped up in paper.- It is singular,
with respect to this Abercromby, that report says he is
under prosecution at the present moment for slander.
He may be guiltless of slander it is true ; but still, the
eyes of such a man must not be taken to see further into
a brick-wall than those of other men. But it is unneces-
sary to say more till the whole of the evidence is laid
before the public. The "grand jury" will, of course,
ignore the bill, and perhaps an attempt will be made to
hush up the whole proceedings. But murder will
out, as the saying is, and we shall not be remiss in aid-
ing our contemporaries in making a full disclosure. It
will be seen that Mr. Hunt is attempting to imitate Mr.
Thornely, by charging the electors of Preston with bri-
bery, in order to obtain a committee under the precedent
of Lord John Russell. That precedent was an unfor-
tunate mistake on the. part of Lord John, which we think
he must now see and regret. He evidently did not know
what he was doing, but the ministers must now abide the
consequences. . .

WE take leave to refer our readers to a letter, signed
MERCATOR, which will be found in another part of our
paper. The inequality of the assessments upon large
and small houses has been a fashionable theme for popu-
lar declamation for some time past ; but on this, as well
as on other subjects, the most noisy are the most igno-
rant. Whether the assessed taxes can be dispensed with,
or modified, or whether others can be substituted, is not
the question we are now considering,—but, the doctrine
that has been most industriously circulated by the sages of
" The Political Unions," that Woburn-Abbey, Chats-
worth, Eaton Hall, Trentham, and the principal resi-
dences of the nobility and gentry should be assessed, not
by what they would let tor, but according to the sums
expended in the erection of them. Were they taxed
according to this standard of value, the sufferers would
clearly be every class of artists from the sculptor to the
bricklayer's labourer`; from the landscape to the house-
painter ; for all these persons find occupation in building
and decorating palaces. If these residences were taxed
agreeably to the radical scale, the greater part of, them
would be closed, and how, we would ask, would this
affect the lower classes who find employment as servants?
How would it affect coach-makers, and indeed all the
trades connected with the elegancies and luxuries of re-
fined life ? Surely this subject requires no laboured dis-
quisition or subtlety of reasoning to arrive at the con-
clusion that the attempt would be madness ; and that
those who are clamouring for this equality know not
what they are doing.

THE blundering progresses swimmingly in the great
assembly of the representatives of the nation. The Irish
coercion bill has been moulded into as unshapely a form
as can well be conceived, and rendered as unintelligible
and inefficient as possible. It is now neither more nor
less than a bill to hang or banish the dupes and victims
of O'Connell and his friends, while the great agitators
are passed over, and allowed to escape with impunity.
Ministers, according to Mr. Stanley, " have struck out
political offences of all kinds,—all cases of libel, political
meetings, and matters connected with the press,—all
there offences have been taken out of the bill."
How O'Connell must laugh in his sleeve at this im-
becility ! Mr. Stanley will be disappointed of his sweet
revenge. He is not permitted to touch a hair of the
head of the leading agitator and his fellow-demagogues.
They are allowed the length of their old rope ; and while
they spout sedition in Dublin, and fill the papers with

their vituperations, those who follow their advice will be
punished in the provinces. For the victim there is mar-
tial law, while the author of his errors and crimes sleeps
securely under the portals of the British constitution.
This being the case we have the strongest objections
to the bill in its present form. It is a .cobweb to catch
the weaker insects while the larger ones shoot through
it. Under its provisions there is one law for the rich arid
another for the poor,—enactments giving a bounty to
agitation, and hanging those who are the lesser and
meaner criminals. It is, like many other whig measures,
based on injustice, and on this ground alone should be
opposed by all conservatives, as we are glad to perceiye
it has been by Lords Chandos, Ingestrie, and Hotham,
Messrs. Baring, W. Duncombe, and Cecil Forester, and
what is most extraordinary of all, by Mr. James Aber-
crombie, the late Chief Baron for Scotland.

The support which the bill has hitherto received from
the tory party has, in point of fact, been given under the
impression that the government were in earnest in their
exertions to suppress agitation, and bring to summary
and condign punishment the restless and unprincipled
demagogues who have too long been permitted to violate
the law, and disturb the peace of the country. But it is
now cleat that this bill has no such object. Riots and
murders, arising from the collection of tithes, are not to
be placed under the ban of this arbitrary bill. Lord
Lansdowu and the Duke of Devonshire are to be as-
sisted by it in the collection of their rents, but no clergy-
man of the Protestant church is rendered more secure in
exacting that to which he has as good if not a better title
than these noble lords have to their rents. It is a delu-
sion altogether. Its ulterior objects are foreign to the
enforcement of the Just rights of the church. It is simply
an alxiliary of spoliation. It is directed against the
Protestants ; and their coercion, and not that of O'Con-
nell and his crew, is its secret aim.

WE had prepared an article in exposition of the new
liberal system of applying large sums of money, wrung
from the Protestant people of England in the shape of
taxes, in order to encourage the spread of Popery in
Ireland, hilt which owing to the crowded state of our
columns we must set aside for the present. It is, how-
ever, a vitally important subject, and one which we must
dissect to the very marrow. Money is levied from us to
exclude the bible—the book of truth—the word of God
—the canons of Heaven, from the poor Protestants of
Ireland. Oh, shame ! shame!

WE committed a mistake in our last number in sad-
dling Mr. Ewart with some of the sins of Mr. Wason,
which, considering that the honourable member has a
superabundance of his own to answer for, would have
been an act of great cruelty on our part, if it had been
done intentionally. It was Mr. Wason, and not Mr.
Ewart, who opposed Lord Sandon's .motion to admit
counsel in defence of the freemen of Liverpool. Mr.
Ewart was a silent member on the occasion, and did not
commit that which he allowed to be committed by his
friends without offering a word in favour of his calumni-
ated constituents.

A learned contemporary having, in pursuit of his vocation,
put forth a laboured article on the church-and the dissenters,
and as the publication of such articles, with a view to under-
mine the established church and afterwards the monarchy, is
one of the means by which the revolutionary movement is to be
simultaneously forwarded in the metropolis and the provinces,
we think it right to make a few observations on the sophistries
which this one in particular contains. It is grounded through-
out upon the common fallacy which, however common and
however unblushingly repeated, is known to be a fallacy, even
by most of those who employ it, namely, that the church is sup-
ported by " a compulsive tax." The church is no more sup-
ported by a compulsive tax than the new-made Earl of Durham
is ; and the people of London may just as fairly petition to be
exempted from the prime cost of coals, as the people of Eng-
land may to be exempted from the imposition of tithes. Tithes
are a property which no more belongs to the people than do
the Earl of Durham's coals. Tithe is not a tax, and no unpre-
judiced man who is not very ignorant will call it so. When all
rents were paid in produce the original proprietors set apart a
tenth of the produce for the support of a religious establishment,
and this tenth, thus appropriated, has been by law confirmed to
that establishment for the last 1000 years. How absurd it is,
then, to call it a tax any more than rent is a tax ! and how is
the dissenter aggrieved by the payment of it? If he is a tenant
he hires his land, knowing that it is subject to tithe, calculates
the probable amount of the tithe, and makes a proportionable
abatement of the rent which he offers to pay. If he be a pro-
prietor he either possesses the land by grant, inheritance, or
purchase. If by grant or inheritance, tithe was expressly re-
served, and that portion of the produce never was his. If by
purchase he, of course,
_gave less for titheable land than he
would give for land tithe free, and therefore never paid for the
tithe : and what he never paid for he cannot honestly call his
own. How absurd, then,. again we say, is it to call tithe a com-
pulsive tax ! It is, as it has been justly called, "a lien upon
land which precedes rent, and was created before rent was
paid."
But, says the disciples of Ricardo, tithes are a tax because
they are paid by the consumer. This theory, however, is aban-
doned as groundless. Colonel Torrens in his tract on " The
true theory of rent" has exploded it. He has proved that
"'lithe is not paid by the consumer, even as rent is not paid by
the consumer. Both are paid out of that surplus fund which
must be accumulated, though neither landlords nor clergymen
were in existence." Ricardo's theory is abandoned even by the
Edinburgh Review. Seeing that about one-third of the land in
England and Wales is tithe free, together with large tracts in
Ireland, and the whole of Scotland, the reviewer acknowledges
that " the cultivator of tilled lands have not the power to throw
any considerable portion of the burthen of tithes on the consumers;
and admits that Adam Smith says true, when he affirms that
" Tithes constitute a portion of the rent, and that their payment
has no eject on the price of corn." Thus, then, we have tria
juncta in U7lO, Colonel Torrens, Adam Smith, and the Edin-
burgh Review against our learned contemporary, our readers
may choose to which authority they will bow.
But, it will be said, if tithes are not a compulsive. tax, at least
church rates are so. We are not prepared to admit even this
without reservation. In ancient parishes, when the church was
built, its reparation, and the decent maintenance of public wor-
ship, were no doubt provided for by the proprietors of the parish,
and the lands have descended by inheritance, grant, or pur-
chase, subject to this publicly known and acknowledged charge,
which, therefore, has been allowed for in all leases, grants, and
sales. Where, then, is the grievance ? But what is the case
in newly created parishes, like Liverpool ? When this town-
ship was separated from \Talton parish, the rectors were to en-