The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-23 00:00:00

ATHERTON COAL.

ABRAHAM BURROWS, Agent to John
Fletcher, Esq., and others, coal proprietors, beg respect-
fully to call the attention of Housekeepers to their present
SCALE of PRICES :

Atherton best House Coal, lls. 6d. per ton ; the beautiful
" Peacock" Coal, 11s. 6d. per ton ; Second House Coal,
les. 6d. per ton ; small best Coal. 9s. per ton. An inferior
quality of Coal at a lower price. The above are all warranted
free from Slack, and are carted free to the purchaser's resi-
dence, within the parliamentary ndary.
To Founders, Alillowners, a other large consumers, they
confidently recommend thei ngine and Steam Coal, at mode-
rate prices, which will be und, on trial, equal, if not supe-
rior, to any other kind ' the market.
To Shippers, they er a desideratum much sought for, but
seldom met with ' reality.

An excellenlApping Coal, all lumps, at the lowest market
price_ _ _ _ . _

Orders, addressed to the undersigned, will meet with prompt
and careful attention.

ABRAHAM BURROWS,
51, Crown-street, Liverpool,

Eiberpoot :74)tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 23, 1851.

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

THE fate of Louis Napoleon, the fate of France,
and the fate of all Europe is at this moment decided
by the voice of the French people, though we
cannot know for certain what that voice will be for
several days to come. There can be little doubt,
however, that a vast majority of the population,
now revelling in the luxury of universal suffrage,
will answer "yes" to the question put to them, and
that they will prefer Louis Napoleon, and something
like order and stability, to Louis Blanc, solialism
and anarchy. The army and navy have already
declared ; the first in an all but unanimous voice,
the latter by three to one in favour of the dictator.
The question of the prolongation of the power of
Louis Napoleon may thus be regarded as settled
in the affirmative. So far as England is concerned
we must say that, considering the circumstances by
which the President was surrounded, and the
cluster of ambitious and intriguing men who were
waiting for the first opportunity to grasp at power
and plunge their country again into confusion, we
shall rejoice should our anticipations be realised.
We can neither defend the President for the lawless
and violent acts he has committed, nor condemn
him altogether as the perpetrator of an unnecessary
and voluntary public crime. He upset by violence
a constitution which was itself based upon a violent
revolution. He met by force and fraud a conspi-
racy that only waited the opportune moment to
attack him, when its fraud should be matured and
its force organised. He was beforehand in striking
a blow, which was criminal in itself, but which was
likewise directed against criminals. Should he
succeed, as we think he will, temporarily at least, in
establishing a government that can give security to
life and property at home, and afford guarantees
that the rights of foreign nations will be respected,
we must be permitted to say that we shall not
regret his coup d' tat. We abhor despotiC govern-
ments, and therefore we have no sympathy with
Louis Napoleon's regime, per se; but we abhor
anarchy still more, and therefore we rejoice that
France is saved from falling into the abyss of
socialism and infidelity that stood yawning to
receive her. Since the 2nd of December, Louis
Napoleon has evinced more discretion, wisdom, and
genius for governing than the world gave him
credit for previously. Much of his future fortunes
will depend on the kind of constitution he will
propose—for some sort of a constitution in name, if
nothing else, he must frame. Much, too, will
depend on his future system of administration.
But there is little use in endeavouring to peer into
the future—particularly the future of France.
Louis Napoleon, like his uncle, believes that he is
a " Man of Destiny ;" it may be so; but we hope
he will not, like his uncle, tempt his destiny too far.

PHILOSOPHICAL FARMING—ALL IS NOT
GOLD THAT GLITTERS.
ONE of the easiest achievements in life for the
unscrupulous, active, and impudent, is to propagate
a falsehood, and to make it for a time pass current
as a truth. They have only to originate any tale
or statement that suits their purpose, to go on
repeating it incessantly until those who know it to
be untrue grow weary of exposing it, and then to
assume that it is admitted by all and incapable of
contradiction. So far can this process be carried,
that the very fabricators of the falsehood are fre-
quently, at last, beguiled into the belief that the
coinage of their own brain is a palpable substance ;
and no effort of reason can dispel the delusion,
once it has fairly taken possession of their minds.
The men who systematically wage war against all
the time-honoured institutions and principles of
this country have had great experience, and, we
regret to add, extraordinary success, in this species
of performance. The monstrous calumnies and
audacious assertions that have, of late years, been
made by mob orators, and echoed by the press, and
repeated by ten thousand voices, till the public
ear, by dint of habit, received them as notorious
truisms, need only to be hinted at ; the reader
will readily recollect many without our enumera-
tion, or further assisting his memory. But there
is one to which we would just now particularly
allude. It was charged over and over again against
the Farmers of Great Britain, that they were an
idle, ignorant class, far behind the spirit of the
age, unacquainted with science, obstinate, addicted
to exploded processes of cultivation, and pig-
headedly adverse to all new improvements and to
the application of economic principles to the
practice of their farming operations. The hard-
working tillers of the soil not being a talkative,
gregarious body, and not having sufficient loud-
tongued advocates to speak for them, were
condemned, by default ; and every smart man who
had a pen or a voice at command, felt himself at
liberty to hurl all sorts of ribaldry and opprobrium
on them, certain that the unthinking public would
enjoy a hearty laugh any day at the expense of the
awkward, unenlightened clod-hoppers. Some
taunted them with knowing nothing at all about
their business, and coolly requested them to give
it up to better men. Some undertook to instruct
them, at times in sober seriousness, and at times in
cruel jest. One said, farm high ; and another said,
don't farm at all. One mockingly cried, turn
graziers, and throw corn to the dogs. Another
saucily shouted, grow vegetables for the London
market—that's the way now to win fortune. So the
wags indulged their wit at public meetings, and in
newspaper articles. Careless all the while, that
what was fun to them was death to the important
class against whom they were firing their pointed
missiles. But amongst the clever town-bred as-
sailants of the honest rustics, there were a few who
were so thoroughly deceived by their own oft
repeated fabrications, that they implicitly believed
all they habitually asserted, and were fully per-
suaded that the British farmers were the ignorant
and good-for-nothing lot they were reported to be.
These few set about demonstrating their proposi-
tion in a manner the most incontroverti')le. They
turned farmers themselves for the nonce, deter-
mined to prove by actual practice that their new
theories were sound, and that the old principles of
working the land were vicious, and even ridicu-
lously absurd. One of the most earnest and intel-
ligent go-a-head of these agricultural reformers was
a certain sharp razor-strop manufacturer in Lead-
enhall-street, London, who having unlimited capi-
tal and leisure, and of course a superabundance
of scientific and economic knowledge, set up his
model farm, which was designed to show how corn I
could be grown, and cattle bred, and every kind of
farm produce raised at a comfortable profit, not- 1

withstanding the burdens on the land, and the
low prices now obtainable. The Tiptree-hall
model farm was cited and pointed at by all as a
triumphant evidence of what could be done by the
judicious application of money, labour, and science.
It was beautiful to look at, perfect in all its arrange-
ments, and thoroughly philosophical in compre-
hensive symmetry. Still one thing was long re-
quired to render it complete as a practical refutation
of the ancient agricultural system, and that one
thing was long coming—the balance sheet. It
has, however, at last appeared, and what is the
result ? After doing everything that man could,
and putting in execution every species of science
and economy, and using all kinds of new inven-
tions, the farmer of Tiptree-hall is obliged to
exhibit, in this current year, the astounding loss of
£653 18s. 4d., upon an occupancy of 170 acres,
being not less than £3 16s. 11d. per acre on the
wrong side of the account ! If this specimen of
high farming does not settle the question, we are
at a loss to know what will. We think that
British farmers are infinitely indebted to Mr.
Mechi for thus demonstrating the folly of
those town-bred dillettanti agriculturists who
have the presumption to lecture practical men
upon the mode of conducting a business to which
they have been trained, and to which they have
devoted as much skill and enterprise as any other
class in existence. This Tiptree-hall balance-sheet
is indeed invaluable, because it clearly proves that
taxation and local burdens enhance the cost of
production in this country to such an extent, that,
at present prices for corn and cattle, the cultivation
of the land cannot be carried on with a profit, no
matter what amount of capital, enterprise, and
scientific skill be expended on it. If Mr. Mechi,
with the aid of steam, chymistry, economic labour,
and unlimited capital drawn from his Leadenhall
razor-strop manufactory, cannot work his model
farm except at a loss of more than ten times the
rent, what chance has any practical farmer (who
has no town shop to supply the funds) to pay his
way, much less to derive a living from his land,
how highly cultivated soever it may be ? This
balance-sheet is also invaluable, as proving that no
reduction of rent will enable the tiller of the soil to
work it with a profit at the present prices of produce ;
for, were the whole rent struck off the Tiptree-hall
farm, the loss would still be ruinous to all but a
millionnaire. Mr. Mechi has the candour to admit
that, though he does not think farm€rs ought to
despair, farming is not as profitable as trades or
professions. Upon his own showing, we should
certainly say not.

THE COUNCIL AND THEIR DETRACTORS

FOR some time past, and especially during the last two
ar three years, there have been frequent complaints that
our Town Council is losing the high tone which it for-
merly possessed. The grumblings have sometimes as-
sumed a very offensive form—they have tended to excite
class against class, and the names of individuals have been
bandied about more freely than fairly and wisely. In
common with a very large number of the public, possess-
ing either good sense or good taste, we deprecate this
practice, and, in our last number, under the heading of
the present article, we bad some well-meant remarks, the
correctness of which few will question, who take
the trouble to read them. We studiously avoided
the practice, common in certain quarters, of dragging in
the names of individuals when speaking of general prin-
ciples ; and our opinions were fortified by the concluding
paragraph in a letter of Rector Campbell's to Mr. Picton.
An article in the Mail of Saturday, entitled, " Rector
Campbell on Dignities,' " without successfully replying
to a single position, take either by ourselves or Mr.
Campbell, endeavours to show that. the Town Council, in
Liverpool, is much more degraded than we suppose. This
may be; but, on a matter of opinion, we must be excused
for using our own judgment still.
The writer affects to believe that we speak disrespect-
fully of the mercantile class, and evidently supposes that
we are advocates of tradesmen in opposition to them.
Now, he ought to be aware that this rivalry of classes is
one of his own errors, which not only receives no counte-
nance in our remarks, but to which we are decidedly
opposed. We said nothing of the merchants, as a
class, but we showed that certain individuals, who are
not only frequently but habitually the impugners of our
present councillors, were themselves once high in office
and in public favour ; and, as these happen to be mer-
chants, surely it is an evidence, so far as it goes,
" that the public are losing confidence in them."
As an apparent contradiction to our reasoning, the Mail
mentions with particular approval the names of Mr. Hugh
llornby, Mr. James Aspinall Tobin, Mr. George Bolt,
and Mr. Edmund Molyneux. We are glad that he does
so ; and, although differing in some important respects
from Mr. Holt, we would rejoice to see every one of these
gentlemen occupying, in turn, the civic chair. But
surely the writer is inconsistent with himself. We tried
to show that our Council is still highly respectable, as a
whole, and it would be no reply to instance a few excep-
tional cases, if such exist. Still less is it a reply to quote
the names of four or five gentlemen, of high standing no
doubt, but equalled in every important point by others
who are not mentioned.

We believe " the head and front of our offending" to
be, that a much praised and much abused member of the
Town Council is supposed to have written the article in
question. Whatever be his merits or defects, it is only
due to him to say that neither directly nor indirectly was
he, or any other member of that body implicated, in a sin-
gle word or sentiment which appeared in our columns.
The Mail attributes the remarks to this gentleman, partly
in consequence of some " dog Latin" said to be contained
in them. This is the well-known quotation,
quantum," intended as a modification to a remark which
was perhaps sufficiently limited without it. In proof of
the excellence of the writer's scholarship, he evidently
does not see the force of the modification ; and his
amended reading of the genuine Latin is " valeot guar-
turn" ! We are, of course, greatly edified by this display
of erudition.

'• valeat

The Standard is called " our new and almost unknown
contemporary ;" on what grounds, we are at a loss to
know. The Standard was' established long before the

Mail, so that if novelty be an objection, it applies to
himself. If he means to suggest that the fact of a news-

paper changing proprietors is damaging, he seems to
forget how often his own print has changed hands. The
present proprietor of the Standard will guard at least as
earnestly as his predecessors against the introduction of
ribaldry, scurrility, and personality ; and this the public
do not require to be told is more than is done by those to
whom the guardianship of the Mail is entrusted. Such
allusions as those made by the Mail are happily unusual,
and in the present instance totally uncalled for ; but if
repeated, they shall meet with a suitable answer.