The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-03-15 00:00:00

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

What a glorious field for the display of talent is the
House of Commons ! What an inexhaustible golden
mine of oratory "the Reform Bill " has opened to us,
rich in diction and profound in, reasoning! Then the
Fatriotic scramble for places—how delightful to behold a
EEL pushed from his stool by a COBBETT, bespeaking,
as it does, the gallop instead of the "march of intellect,"
and the rail-road rapidity with which business is dispatched
in the new house—hyperbole is silenced for want of phrases
sufficiently strong to express her admiration. Verily,
we never wished to be Speaker of the House of Com-
mons until now. As might be expected in a " Re-
formed House," the business of reformation occupies its
first and most serious attention. The time of the house
is not now wasted in discussing petitions befOre full
houses; millions are not now (as they used to be) voted
away by thin houses ; or before Mr. ' Speaker and his
clerks, before the sources from which they are to be sup-
plied are ascertained :—no—all these things are better
managed in "the New House"—the system works well.
In a former number we noticed some very important
motions in embryo, and on the same authority, we now
announce that on an early day an hon. and learned gen-
tleman, whose voice is Ireland's, means to bring in a bill
declaring that the Judges of the land shall be elected an-
nually, by the inhabitants of St. Giles' and its vicinity.
The utility of this measure is evident; for what class of
our fellow-subjects is so interested in the administration
of justice as the inhabitants of this classic region?
A noble under-Secretary of state, nearly related to a
venerable statesman who has grown GREY in the public
service, is said to have another bill ready cut and dried
to limit the number of sons, brothers; sons-in-law, cou-
sins, and Other relatives of any future premier; who
shall at one time hold commissions in the army and
navy, or places of pre-eminence, power, or emolument
in his Majesty's service, with an especial exemption in
favour of any future Earl Grey. Mr. Cobbett, whose
son William is a barrister, may object to this limitation
as too exclusive in its character ; it will, however, have
our support, because we know not, nor indeed ever heard
of, a family so .rich in talent, and so worthy of filling all
the high offices in church and state, whether civil or
military. The press' of other matter prevents us from
laying before our readers those other' measures which
are in preparation for the public good.

LIVERPOOL-FRIDAY, MARCH 15.

WE have given in another column, an account of a
Meeting of the Parishioners, held in the Session Room,
on Wednesday last, upon the question of the adoption
of Sir John Cam Hobhouse's New Vestry Act, to which
we called the attention of our readers last Friday, when
we laid before them an abstract of its principal provi-
sions, in reference to the subject now at issue. The
object of the meeting, which was convened upon a re-
quisition most respectfully signed, was to show the
inexpediency of departing from the system, a popular
one, by which the affairs of this parish have been for
some years satisfactorily conducted, and substituting a
new and untried system, more cumbersome in its ma-
chinery, and more remote from the control of the Rate-
payer. This object was, however, defeated by the cla-
mour and numbe'rs of its opponents' of whom we cannot
besupposed to speak disrespectfully, when we observe
their cause was advocated by the courteous, placid, and
dignified oratory of Dr. Collins, the eloquent and per-
suasive arguments of Mr. Thomas Smith, and the elegant
phraseology of Mr. Robert Turner, urged with his usual '
mildness, modesty, and gentlemanly demeanour. The
mean point appears to be a desire on the part of this
party, to introduce the system of voting without re-
ference to property, by which the vote of a man who
contributes the lowest possible sum, is to be made equal
to die vote of the largest contributor to the burthens of
the.parish, and if successful in this, by the same means,
they expect to have a select vestry of their own nomina-
tion, the consequences of which may be more readily
imagined than we can at present describe. The present
syst,pm rescued the parish from its previous incum-
brances, and its management has continued satisfactory;
and if we may venture an opinion, it is in its favour, as
being manifestly more to the interest of the Rate-payers,
to have the whole of the v'nstry under their annual control,
than to have a vestry of six times the number (120) who,
whatever be their disqualification for the office, are to
remain three years. We believe there is not a parish in
which less of any kind of patronage or abuses exists
than in this, we should, therefore, deprecate the change
proposed by the promoters of 'Mr. Hobhouse's

WE have the most perfect confidence that we need of-
fer no apology to our readers for calling their attention to
the sacred obligations of an oath. It .is the solemn ap—
peal which man makes to the Deity as to the purity of
his intentions, and the truth of his affirmations, by which
he is willing to stand or fall at the great day of retri-
bution.

Bearing this in mind, and cherishing a due sense of the
awful responsibility of an oath, it is with feelings of pain
and reluctance that we call attention to the conduct of
three individuals who, we are sorry to say, are our towns-
men, and freemen of the borough.of Liverpool.
These three individuals, namely,• Mr. Wybergh, Mr.
Rathbone, and Mr. R. E. Harvey; who are burgesses of
Liverpool, are at present in London, using their utmcst
exertions to overturn its corporation, and ()Main the dis-
franchisement of their brother freemen. This conduct
might be pardoned in persons who are not members of
the corporation, and who, animated by the revolution
mania of'the present day, conceive they only do their
duty in striving to undermine and destroy all the insti-
tutions of the country. But it is conduct which bears
a far different construction when it is pursued by persons
who are freemen of Liverpool. Every man, before he
can be admitted as a burgess, is obliged to take the fol-
lowing oath, a copy of which is, at the same time, pre
sented to him. Here is the oath : '