The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-04-02 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 2, 1833.

Our next publication day being Good Friday, the STAN-
DARD will be Published as usual, but the Office will
close at Eleven o'clock in the morning.
Those of our subscribers, therefore, whose offices will
not be open on that day will be pleased to send for their
papers as early in the morning as possible. •
The STANDARD will be kept for sale during the whole
day at Messrs. Wilmer and Smith's, Church-street,
and at Mr. Arnold's, Post-office-place.

THE affairs of Don Pedro are not rendered more intel-
ligible by the contradictory accounts which have appeared
during the last few days in the London journals. There
has been some skirmishing about provisions, but that is
all that the Scotch fusileers and the St. Giles' fencibles
seem to care about, and this upon the old maxim, per-
haps, that he who will not fight for his bread would not
fight for his king. The poor adventurers are in a miser-
able state of starvation, and hunger drives men to desper-
ate expedients, and pays no respect to stone walls. The
ex-Emperor we are told is still animated by excellent
spirits and his troops are full of hopes. These last we
suspect are more abundant than their rations or their
chances of success. We suspect that none of the sol-
diers are animated after the manner of their. chief.

It will be seen by an advertisement inserted in another
page that a requisition, numerously and respectably
signed, and embracing men of all parties, was yesterday
presented to the Mayor requesting him to call a public
meeting to consider the propriety of petitioning parlia-
ment in favour of a modified system of poor laws for Ire-
land. His worship has appointed Monday next for the
holding of the meeting at the Court-room.
We rejoice to perceive that this important question
has thus early been taken up by our fellow townsmen,
for it is one which has been too long neglected, involv-
ing as it does the peace and happiness of Ireland, and
the relief of those classes in this country upon whom
£8,000,000 of poor rates press most severely.
It ma3l be a complicated question ; but in all those
cases where justice appears in the foreground, and ne-
cessity makes her appeal to mercy, we should put away
from us some of our superfluous prejudices, burn our
books of political economy, commit Malthus to the unfa-
thomable deep, and make some effort in right earnest to
correct our past errors, and minister to the wants of the
most oppressed peasantry on the face of the earth. Ire-
land is not a poor country; it is her labouring population
only -who are poor. The grinding system that pervades
Ireland keeps these, people poor in spite of all their exer•-
tions. Their very poverty imposes a serious tax upon
the labourers and rate payers of England. Every far-
thing paid in this country for the support of Irish pau-
pers, or the removal of Irish paupers, or the maintenance
of those English labourers whom the Irish deprive of em-
ployment, is a bounty in favour of indigence and high
rents in the sister island.

We are glad, therefore, to see a meeting callod for the
purpose of removing this stain upon the policy of both
countries, and we trust it will be numerously attended.

The Irish coercion bill was read a third time, and passed
the Commons, on Friday last. The bill has been so pum-
melled and cudgelled, a /a Donnybrook, in its progress
through the house, that we are totally unable to discover
any one of its original features. How the measure is
likely to work we consequently cannot conjecture, and
we opine that Lord Althorp is quite as oblivious as 'our-
selves.

WE are gratified to learn that Colonel Dawson Da
mer's petition against the election of Mr. Thomas Glad.
stone for the borough of Portarlington has been dis-
missed by the Committee, despite the silly insinuations
of Mr. Wason, and the misrepresentations of a certain
officious gentleman connected with Liverpool, whose
name is too notorious at the present, moment to bear be-
ing repeated in the pages of the STANDARD.
The petitioner, either from a want of means or inclina-
tion, or more probably from a spirit of disingenuous pro
crastination, had not thought proper to bring forward his
witnesses. He had the assurance, however, to ask for
more time, which the Committee, considering the vexa-
tious delay which had already taken place, refused to
grant. There was consequently an end to the petition.

NEARLY all that has recently been said about contem-
plated changes in the ministry has at length proved true.
Lord Goderich has been removed from the Colonial of-
fice, and Mr. Stanley from the secretary-ship of Ireland.
The latter has been advanced to a higher station, while
the former has been shoved into a humbler berth, merely
to render his fall more easy, and give him an opportunity
to slip out of the cabinet by a sort of back-stairs passage
where he will be less liable to be observed, and not so
much exposed to the jeers of his particular friends.
Poor Lord Goderich • Wtve we not seen him stand-
ing, to use his own bright metaphor,. " under the portals
of a constitutional monarchy," proclaiming to the world
the unrivalled and unexampled prosperity of his country,
counting the capons which were to fall into the poor man's
kettle, and the guineas which were to drop into his pocket?
Yes,. oh, yes, we saw the sunshine of Mr. Frederick
Itobinson's prosperity, and it was delusive and valueless
as " reek i' the rotten fens." It was a summer of the ima-
gination, speedily followed by a real arctic winter—all
cloud and gloom, and storms. In the spring of 1825, the
noble Viscount was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
notwithstanding this boasted prosperity, we were as a
nation, six months afterwards, and, according to the tes-
timony of Mr. Huskisson, within twenty--four hours of a
state of barter. The panic came, like the pestilence which
walks by night, and swept away the goodly edifice built
on the sands by his Majesty's minister's. The " run" on
the banks dissipated the golden dreams of Lord Goderich
and his brother philosophers, and the country was only