The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-06-23 00:00:00

TO MERCHANTS, BROKERS, AND OTHERS

The largely increased and most respectable circulation
which the 'luesday's Edition of the LIVERPOOL
STANDARD has now obtained amongst the mercantile
body in Manchester affords its proprietors the gratify-
ing power of urging this, amongst the other undeniable
claims which it possesses, upon the favor of that portion
of the mercantile community of Liverpool who desire to
bring their advertisements before the notice of buyers in
the neighbouring manufacturing districts. In most of
the surrounding towns of Lancashire the circulation of
the STANDARD is steadily increasing. In Manchester,
however, the centre of the manufacturing district, our
publication of Tuesday—occurring upon the most im-
portant market day of the Cotton Trade, when its
Exchange and Hotels are thronged with country manu-
facturers, spinners, and calico printers—is firmly es-
tablished in circulation, and is perused with increased
and increasing interest.

Under these encouraging circumstances, we trust to
receive an increased measure of support from the 2ner-
chants and brokers of the tcwn generally ; and it affords
us great pleasure to assure those of our friends amongst
those classes, who have hitherto bestowed their adver-
tising favours liberally upon us, of our increased ability
to do justice to the interests committed to their care.

Ebr &tantiarii.

FRIDA 1

2r/0 RNING, JUNE 23, 1843

Man is, by his nature, perverse and obstinate; but
your peculiarly philanthropic specimen of the genus
horn° is obstinate above all other created beings. To
effect the object of his pursuit is not sufficient for him.
He must effect it by his own peculiar method ; and he
will persist in that method, with unexampled pertina-
city, long after experience has demonstrated its in-
ability to ensure the end in view.

These is perhaps no body of men who have more
strongly illustrated the.truth of the above position than
a certain dissenting section of the Anti-Slavery Society.
These men set about the emancipation of the negro
population in our West Indian colonies; pursued their
object with a zeal unquestionable, but with motives, with
a passion, and with instruments, far from being so pure
and holy as those which should have been brought to
bear upon such a cause. The planting body stood be-
tween them and the realisation of their first proposition,
which was one of undeniable spoliation, and forthwith all
the powers of calumny and misrepresentation, written
and oral, were directed against them. They were de-
nounced from platforms—they were assailed through
the columns of a partizan press—as something little
better than fiends in the shape of humanity. They
were held up to popular execration as brutalised mon-
sters—human ogres—whose most familiar plaything
was the cart-whip, and whose sweetest music was the
shrieks of tortured men, women, and infants ! The
entire white population of our British West Indies—a
few agitating Mawworms of the Schobell tribe ex-
cepted—were men steeped in iniquity and blood,
whilst the negro race were patterns of suffering virtue
—miracles of grace and beauty—worthy to be doated
upon by lovesick damsels, and held up to the admira-
tion of elderly spinsters and dowagers.
Well, we have secured—all that British justice and
philanthropy ought to have, asked for—the emancipa-
tion of the negro population of these colonies, accom-
panied by just and equitable remuneration of those
whose capital was embarked in their ownership. Not
a human being draws the breath of slavery in the Bri-
tish dominions ! Our tropical products are now being
raised exclusively by free labour; but the difficulty,
which all reasoning men contemplated as the result of
emancipation, is becoming daily more and more ob-
vious. We cannot, with our existing coloured popu-
lation in the West Indies, supply adequately the mar-
kets of Great Britain, whilst from those of the rest of
the world we are entirely excluded. Another consi-
deration, too, presses itself upon the really humane.
We have extinguished the comparatively mild system
of slavery in the British colonies; but we have added
tenfold to the horrors of slavery, and the horrors of
the slave trade, as existing amongst the people of other
lands. To meet this difficulty we have doubled our
preventive force in the African seas. We have nego-
ciated treaties with the native chiefs of the African
coast. We have attempted African colonisation; but
in all these misdirected efforts we have failed—signally
failed ! And, as the alterative course to be tried, it is
asked by practical men, as the only means of securing
the objects which British philanthropy has in view, to
establish a system of emigration of free labourers from
the African coast to the colonies of Great Britain, and
to enable the West Indian planter to put down slavery
by cheapening, by means of free labour, the products of
the tropics, the high price of which furnishes the in-
centives to the cruelties which we deplore.
The futility of our past efforts, and the advantage of
adopting the course suggested by the advocates of free
immigration, under the supervision of government, are
so fat cibly put in an address of Mr. Macgregor Laird
to the Anti• Slavery Convention, now sitting in London,
that we make no .apology for transferring it to our
columns. Mr. Laird, in rising to propose a series of
resolutions upon the subject of immigration,

" Regretted he could not congratulate the meeting upoit
the progress of the cause of the African race since the Anti-
Slavery Convention held three years since. If they looked
to the western hemisphere, or the condition of the slaves of
Brazil, Cuba, and the southern states of America, he would
ask them did they witness any alleviation i❑ the condition of
the negro ? Did they see any improvement even on the
coast of Africa ? (Hear, hear.) The system of treaty-making
for the suppression of slavery had most signally failed. (Hear,
hear.) When treaty-making was commenced by this coun-
try, it began with bribery. In 1814 a treaty was made with
Portugal, and this country had given to it a bribe of X 600,000
to give up nominally the slave trade, except for the supply
of her own colonies. In 1817 another treaty was made with
the same power; the mixed commission courts were estab-
lished, and so matters remained, the sea swarming with
Portuguese slavers until the year 1839, when the law was
taken into cur own hands, and an act was passed which
authorised our cruisers to treat Portuguese slave traders
captured by them as Elitist' subjects. That was repealed
last year, and we got another treaty or piece of parchment,
and the result of all the bribing and treating was, that in
1840, 48 Portuguese slavers were condemned at Sierra Leone.
(Cheers.) The speaker then referred to Spain and the vari-
ous treaties which had been entered into with that and other
countries to put down slavery, the whole of which had been

inoperative. He was not going to propose a general war to
put down slavery, although he believed it would be the holiest
cause which bad ever induced a war. (Hear, hear.) These
slave-trade treaties which had been so much talked about
were only attempted to be justified by the alleged good they
effeeted amongst the African race. He denied that they
effected any good, or could be justified under any circum-
stances. (Cheers.) The chief object of these treaties was,
that in pursuing trade we should have nothing to do with
slave traders; but this was done in a way which inflicted far
deeper cruelties on the unfortunate negroes than when slavery
was in the height of its glory. (Shame.) Slavery was car-
ried out with increased rigour under another name, and the
slave trade would be carried on as long as there was a demand
for slaves, even if every ship in the British navy were manned
against it. (Hear.) It would continue to be carried on, for
the profit on it was so immensely great. The only way to
remedy the evil was to take measures for underselling the
slave trader. (Hear, hear.) This was easily to be done, if
the government were sincere in carrying out the abolition of
slavery. (Hear.) It was true there had been a commission
established on the coast of Africa, at a❑ expene of £229,000
per annum to this countty ; and for what ? .To increase the
cruelties of slavery there. (Shame.) The feelings of this
country were such, that they would pay £20,000,000 again to
effectually abolish the slave trade—if millions would do it;
but it would do no such thing. (Hear.) His plan was, that
there should be n bridge between Africa and the West Indies,
toll free. He was convinced, that if a market for free labour
were opened, it would soon put an end to slave labour. He
knew that it was the principle of the convention to oppose
every proposition that was not morally ileligious and pacific;
but would any one say that was not the case when he de-
manded that we should open our colonies for the reception of
the poor creatures who ran away from the bondage of thir
task•masters, and wherever the British flag was hoisted o

-,•,••.,
declare them free. Meat.) The hon. gentl,eman who spoke
for nearly two hours, and who was much interrupted by cries
of " question" and "times tune," concluded by moving a
series of resbiletions to Vie effect that it was the duty of the
convention to support all plans which would carry out the
principle of free labour in opposition to that of slave labour,
provided such plans are consistent with the moral, religious,
and pacific principles avowed by the convention. That the
slave trade carried on upon the Atlantic was caused by the
demand in the western world for slaves to cultivate sugar,
coffee, and other tropical productions, and to destroy that
demand for slaves it was necessary to produce, at a cheaper
rate, by free labour, which could be carried out by the pur-
chase of unoccupied lands in the West 'lndies. That to effect
this it was necessary that all restrictions on the free emigra-
tion of the negro race should be abolished and emigration
carried out by her Majesty's government. That at all times
the emigrant shall have a right to demand a free passage
from the colonies to the place whence they came; and that
a petition to this effect be presented to parliament."

Can anything, we ask, be more reasonable—more
strikingly conclusive—than the desirableness of the
course suggested in Mr. Laird's resolutions ? Nothing !
Emigration of African free labourers to our West
Indian colonies is obviously the legitimate carrying
out of the measure of emancipation itself. We have
in those colonies a vast field for the development of
the principle of free labour. We can there, aided by a
copious supply of such labour, undersell the whole
world in the markets for tropical products. We can
there strike a blow at the very heart of the monster
slavery; and, surely-it.would have been conceived that
a policy so plain and practical could not have been ob-
jected to by any sincere friend of the African race I
But no ; it is too direct—too practical for the ultra
philanthropic section of the anti-slavery body. These
gentlemen have minds too deeply embittered against
the white colonists of the British West Indies to sanc-
tion a measure of amelioration which might possibly be
of benefit to those colonists. Zeal for the happiness
of the African race throughout the world is a feeling
less active in their breasts than hostility towards the
former owners of the now emancipated negroes of
Jamaica, Trinidad. and British Guiana ; and hence
they would rush to any Quixotic scheme—they would
go to WAR, even, rather than adopt a policy which,
.they affect to believe, Might lead to practices assimi-
lating to those existing before the abolition of the slave
trade !

Thus, at the meeting of the convention in question
a Col. Nicholls, although not entirely hostile to the
plan of Mr. Macgregor " believed it the easiest thing
in the world to put down slavery, if the government
of this country thought proper, and suggested that the
most effectual mode was to establish an armed force
and military posts along the coasts of Africa" ! ! and,
in explahation, remarked, very unnecessarily, we sub-
mit, that what he wanted was to prevent Africans
from being dragged away to slavery from their own
land, and to improve them on their own soil"—of
course, by means of " an armed force and military
posts along the coast of Africa"!

The Rev. Mr. Scobell, however, displayed, even
more forcibly, the animus of the opposition offered to
the plan of government emigration.
" Fault," he remarked, " had been found with the trans-
mitting of African labourers to our West India colonies.
They were all agreed on the point, that the plan was open to
the most serious objections, and could not he supported by
the people of this country. The West India planters had
prevailed upon government to carry this measure for their
own interests (!), without regarding the interests of our co-
lonies, that of the people of this country, or of the Africans
themselves. If money was given to the chiefs of Africa,
they could find free emigrants enough ; but not without that
could any Africans he found free."

The obnoxious West India planters again ! Ano-
ther speaker—

" The Rev. John Clarke, of Fernando Po, proceeded to
give a shocking picture of the present mode of exporting
labourers from the coast of Africa to that place, under the
plea that they were free emigrants. He expressed his con-
viction that the only way to benefit Africa and destroy the
slave trade there was to cnlighten her children."
And

" Mr. Lewis Tuppin, of New York, supported the latter
view of the question, and declared it to be his conviction that
as education spread in Africa, in exactly the same ratio
would slavery decrease, until at last it would be entirely
abolished—(hear, hear)."

Of course these reverends would be delighted to
volunteer as "the schoolmasters" who are to enlighten,
by some patent process hitherto unexplained, " the
children of Africa " !

As a conclusion, we find that, after some explana-
tory remarks from Mr. Laird, " the resolutions were
put and negatived by a very large majority, and the
convention then adjourned."
How long, we ask, will the British nation consent
to be misled by these transparent fooleries of the
Anti-Slavery Society ?

Our contemporary of Tuesday appears at length to
have discovered—or has some kind friend drilled the
fact into him ?—that the publication by a Liverpool
paper of all the twaddle which is indited by amateurs
upon the subject of our warehouse system is not quite
consistent with the course of any party who honestly
seeks, or ought to seek, the advancement of the pros-
perity of the town. In his last publication he re-
marks—

"We see that the Manchester papers, especially the
Guardian, take care to bring all disgtaceful facts, which are
now coming to light al:nost daily, respecting defects of the
Liverpool warehousing system (if system it can be called)
before their readers, and that they do not fail to draw from
them arguments in favour of the introduction of the bonded
warehousing system in that town."

Of course, the Manchester papers do this ; and in
so doing they are perfectly justed. If journalists in
Liverpool, for the sake of gratifying a paltry personal
spite, or of creeping up the sleeve of a dominant party
in the management of dock affairs, will persist in the
course which our contemporary has been pursuing—
will persist in deliberately offering weapons to the op-
ponents of the prosperity of Liverpool, to be used in
an effort to strike at the very existence of our port,
they cannot complain if those opponents as readily
seize hold of those weapons, as they ignorantly and wan-
tonly tender them. And, moreover, they cannot coin •
plain if the world at large estimate the amount of their
ignorance by the extent of their perseverance in a
course so suicidal.

We have little expectation that our contemporary
will be deterred from the perpetration of further silli-
nesses by any consideration of the injury thereby in-
flicted upon the interests of their fellow-townsmen.
There are some people who, like the incendiary
of Ephesus, would rather live in story, as the
author of calamity, than not be known.

By a reference to our report of the proceedings of
the Dock Committee, yesterday, it will be perceived
that some explanation was gone into, upon the subject
of the probable cost of the warehouses now erecting
upon the quays of the new dock. In our last publica,
tion, we stated that the estimated cost of erection of
ti

nese warehouses was £36 per square yard ; and, for
making this statement, we had the authority of our
own report, and another (the Mercury's), of which the
following is the substance :

" The sub-committee of works presented their amended
report on the subject of the warehouses, in which they recom-
mended that all the floors should be constructed on the prin-
ciple of the brick arch, according to a model prepared by the
surveyor. Some discussion ensued on the propriety of im-
mediately adopting the report, Mr. Evans contending that
an estimate of the entire expense should first be laid before
the committee. The chairman said the surveyor estimated
the cost, according to the plan now submitted, at £36 5s per
square yard. On the motion of Mr. Ripley, the motion was
adopted."

This report appeared in our publication of the lgth
ult., was repeated in a letter in our publication of the
2d instant, and remained uncontradicted or unex-
plained until, stirred up perhaps by the use made of it
in our last publication, we had yesterday what pur-
ports to be a final clearing tip of a matter so striking.
We give here the explanation verbatim from our re-
port :

Mr. BOLD said he wished, as there was comiderable mis-
apprehension on the subject, to ask the surveyor what was
his estimate of the cost of the Dock Warehouses?

The SURVEYOR replied, that he had the memoranda to
answer his question in his pocket last week, but the subject
passed over. The estimate was £ll 118. per square yard.
Mr. BOLD.—Does that include the vaulting?

The SURVEYOR.—Yes.
Mr. BOLD.—And the piling ?

The SURVEYOR.—Yes

The CHAIRMAN said he did not press the question last
week, because he thought Mr. Hartley seemed hardly certain.
It was, however, an important question, for by the news-
paper accounts the estimate had been mis-stated from week

to ieekj and thi r iblid thereby deluded. The mistake arcs
in making the ehAt three times the amount.
The Sum+licon. did not know how the mistake could have