The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-06-11 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Owing to an unusual pressure of advertisements at a vory late
hour, we are compelled to postpone the insertion of the address
to the Rev. H. Carpenter. with the Rev gentleman's reply.
We are requested by a respectable sh-pkeeper in Lord-street,
to complain of the great neglect in watering that great
thoroughfare. Yesterday notwithstanding the recent showers,
the clouds of dust in Lord.street were most annoying and
injurious to the valuable goods exposed In the various shops;
and no attempt had been made by the authorities for three
days to abate the nuisance.

Ebt Liberpnol ,il)tanlari).

TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 11, 1844

The important questions involved in the Wallasey
Dock Bill are now attracting more attention than
at first; and as the real nature of the scheme be-
comes more fully known, public opinion is setting
in more strongly against it. We have used our
humble endeavours to bring about this result, and
to point out the dangerous consequences which
threaten to result to the navigation of the river,
whilst at the same time we have shewn that docks
may he so constructed in Wallasey Pool as to in-
volve no such danger, and no material diminution
of the tidal waters. The paramount consideration
with us in regarding this scheme is the preservation
of the river; and to any mode of carrying it out,
which even threatens it with injury, it is our firm
conviction that it is the bounden duty of the Dock
Committee and the people of Liverpool to offer the
most strenuous opposition.
Since our last publication two meetings of the
Dock Committee have been held, one the usual
weekly meeting, and the other a special meeting,
summoned for the purpose of receiving two impor-
tant documents, submitted for the information of
the general body by the sub-committee appointed
to conduct its parliamentary business. For the
proceedings at those meetings we must refer the
reader to the reports in our columns, and we now
propose to offer a few remarks upon the documents
in question.
The first of these is a communication from the
Chairman of the Dock Committee to the Lords
Conservators of the River, entreating their Lord-
ships, before they give their final sanction to the
plan of the proposed Wallasey Docks, to institute
an impartial and rigid inquiry into the merits of
the scheme, with a view of ascertaining the proba-
ble effects to he produced on the sea channels by
the encroachments on the river, and the abstraction
of so enormous a quantity of its tidal waters. This
paper is clearly and most ably drawn up; and by
unbiassed parties will be perused with the attention
which it so justly deserves. No opinions of the
writer are here obtruded on their lordships—no
speculative guess-work of his hazarded but a
plain statement of facts, founded on the evidence
of eminent engineers, is submitted to their consi-
deration as a ground for further investigation.
Not a word of fault was found with this document
by any member of the committee.
The letter of the Chairman was referred by the
Lords Conservators to Captain Evans, with a Cam-
mand that he should report upon the evidence, and
ascertain how far the statements which it contained
were borne out by the testimony of the engineers
examined before the Committee of the House of
Commons. That report is the second of the docu-
ments produced on Friday before the Dock Com-
mittee; and we must say that any thing more lame
and irrelevant never passed through our hands. So
far from confining himself to the duty assigned to
him—that of reporting or. the evidence—the gallant
captain very coolly throws it overboard; washes
his hands of the opinions of the eminent engineers
examined and volunteers his own ! We beg pardon :
the opinion of one witness he does condescend to
notice—viz., that of Mr. Tomkinson. Messrs. Ren-
nie, Giles, Vignoles, Mylne, Probis, and several
other eminent civil engineers have recorded their
opinions against the closing and silting up of the
Pool; and those opinions are cavalierly laid on the
shelf as unworthy of Captain Evans's examination ;
whilst that of Mr. Tomkinson—a very respectable
gentleman no doubt, but who would himself be the
last to put forward any claims to the possession of
engineering knowledge—being opposed to the
opinions of these gentlemen, is dragged forward as
conclusive in favour of the scheme ! To corroborate
this opinion, the captain whisks us away from
Wallasey to the Bay of Fundy, and amuses us with
a dissertation upon the tides in that remote quarter
of the world, which is certainly as little germane to
the question at issue, and the duty imposed upon
him by the Lords Commissioners, as any thing that
can be conceived. But we must examine a few of
the captain's opinions, and compare them with
those given in the evidence upon which he was to
report.

He says the Pool in its present state will
silt up ; and in corroboration of that opinion
produces the opinion of Mr. Tomkinson. Now
what say the other witnesses—eminent engineers ?
Mr. Vignoles says that such silting up will
+tot take p!ace. " I think," he says, (page 205)
" the operations are simi ar now to what they
have been for many years, and the Pool will always
he kept open by the periodical floods of the land
water. The same causes that kept open the
Mersey will also keep open Wallasey Pool." And
more than that, he adds—" If you build a dam
across it will decidedly silt up."
Mr. Walker (page 297) gives similar evidence.
He says, "if a dam is built across the Pool, there will
be a considerable silting up ; there can be no doubt
of that." We might quote more opinions of a
similar character, upon which Captain Evans might
have remarked had he been anxious to perform the
duty required of him, or even that which he im-
posed upon himself, viz., that of giving " a simple
statement of the facts of the case, and leaving their
lordships to draw their own conclusions."
We pass over what is said about the loss of the
tidal waters being made up for by the increased
velocity gained in the stream, as this position is well
known by every sailor who enters our port to be a
fallacy. Were it correct, the difficulty of docking
ships would be greatly increased ; the banks up the
river would be washed away more than ever, and
the low lands flooded every tide. This is so clear
that we will not waste words upon it. A walk along
the shore from Dingle point to Garston would con-
vince any man, however disposed to be sceptical.
There is no analogy at all, as imagined by Captain
Evans, between the cases of the Bay of Fundy, or
the Severn, and that of the River Mersey.
The acting conservator holds, and no doubt de-
servedly holds, the rank of post captain in her Ma-
jesty's royal navy; and we should certainly not ven-
ture to impugn any opinion which he might express
upon purely naval matters. Of the best mode of
manoeuvring a frigate, we might acknowledge him
a competent judge ; but upon engineering questions,
and even upon the subject of tides, we need scarcely
uy that we attach much greater weigbt to the
opinions of such men as Messrs. Walker, Vignoles,
Page, and others. We contend, however, that,
take it for what it is worth, the captain's report is
damnatory, rather than otherwise, of the Birken-
head scheme. He says, for instance, " I consider
the objection to the refuge basin for coasters to be
well founded. It is a cud de sac exposed to the full
force of the ebb tide, which rolls into it over the in-