The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-02-05 00:00:00

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TUESDAY MORNING, FEB. 5, 1850

THE inquiry before Mr. Stephenson, so far as
regards the receiving of evidence in open court, has
at length concluded ; and we are happy to have it
in our power once more to compliment the gentle-
men who have conducted the case in behalf of local
supply, upon the satisfactory mode in which they
have performed their arduous duty to their fellow-
townsmen. Whatever may be the impression upon
the mind of the arbitrator, and whatever may be
his ultimate decision as to the important ques-
tion of water supply, the people of Liverpool must
feel satisfied that the local capabilities have been
fully and fairly stated ; and that gentleman him-
self, we have no doubt, will he prepared to admit
that the advocates of home supply, with such a
mass of evidence before them, cannot be accused,
with any fairness, of having been actuated by a
factious spirit in opposing the Rivington project.
No man knows better than Mr. Stephenson that
committees of Parliament, and even Government
commissions are fallible tribunals; and that many
a decision pronounced by them might be recon-
sidered with great advantage to the public.
We have no wish to press hardly upon the
advocates of the Pike scheme, who appear already

. .
sufficiently downcast. It must be confessed, how
ever, that after all the vapouring of their organ,
the Times, and the high and mighty way in which
some of themselves have comported themselves
upon the subject, that we expected something
rather better from them than the small dribble of
inconclusive evidence which they have been, with
apparent difficulty, enabled to adduce. Perhaps,
however, this may in part be accounted for by the
circumstance as suggested on Saturday by Mr.
Stephenson, that, beyond offering a negative to the
advocates of local supply, they have no facts to
adduce, their own project being in nubibus, and
consisting of nothing tangible " except a few iron
pipes rusting at Birkenhead." With respect to
the feasibility and advantages of that scheme the
arbitrator will judge for himself from personal
inquiry and calculation ; and we can readily believe
him when he says that neither Mr. Hawksley nor
any one else will be able to throw dust in his eyes,
or to warp his independent judgment. Two
objects be tells us will alone be borne in mind by
him in forming that judgment : one the hope of
settling finally a question which has so long agi-
tated and divided the town of Liverpool, and the
other a care for his own reputation. The latter is
an ample guarantee; and, whatever his final de-
cision may be, will assure its being received as
setting the question at rest for ever.
We shall very briefly refer to a few of the most
salient points in the evidence of the two days'
inquiry; and first we turn to that of Mr. Binney.
"That gentleman, it must be borne in mind, appeared
before the court under very disadvantageous cir-
cumstances. He was perfectly unprepared as to
the particular points,to which his geological know-
ledge was required to be directed, and had not had
any opportunity of examining the district near
Liverpool for himself. Yet the facts which he
stated with respect to other districts in the county,
with which he is practically acquainted, were most
forcible, and were rendered the more striking from
the great caution and modesty with which they
were delivered. The town of Manchester is now
constructing works for bringing a supply of surface
water from the hills in the neighbourhood of
Glossop; yet a local supply in abundance exists in
the strata underneath. In reply to a question from
Mr. Stephenson, Mr. Binney says:—

" I don't think that the -Manchester people knew that
the sandstone would yield any water at all, before they
went to the hills. (Hear, hear.) I have been positively
surprised at the quantity of water that has been raised in
Manchester from the rock. By dipping through the
strata, and going into the sandstone below, the water
rapidly came up to the level of the river Irwell. I have
not made a calculation of the water at Manchester, but it
must be a very large quantity indeed."

We can fully-corroborate this fact; for we re-
member quoting in this paper the circumstances
attending the deepening the Gorton Well, from
which a supply was obtained four times greater
titan was anticipated. The greatest quantity in
Manchester is procured from the old sandstone
rock, which is covered by beds of limestone and
marl ; and this strata Mr. Binney had traced west-
wardto Chatmoss, Astley, and Edge-green. Further
than this, he had not personally investigated ; and
would not, without such investigation, express an
opinion as to the existence of the same strata be-
neath Liverpool ; but he took the opportunity of
reminding Mr. Stephenson that it had been put in
evidence that the lower sandstone rock had been
penetrated at Clockhouse-bridge. "He had no
doubt that if magnesia and marl were there, the
sandstone below would be there too." Mr. Bin-
ney's experience in Manchester disposes of the fact
urged by Mr. Hawksley and others, that, for the
water supply under our feet, we have to depend
upon the area of rainfall in the immediate district.
In Manchester the supply is immense; yet "they
had not any one area of ten miles in extent." And,
notwithstanding the theoretical opinion of Dr.
Buckland, before which he preferred practical ex-
perience, "he thought it impossible for any geo-
logist to say how far it would extend, or how much
water there would be in the porous sandstone said
to be under Liverpool and the neighbourhood."
The object of the people of Manchester in going
to the hills for water, notwithstanding the abund-
ant sources beneath their feet, is obvious : they
want the purest soft water, for calico printing,
bleaching, &c.; and this witness tells us that
they would pay any amount for such water—some
of the millowners would consent to pay as much as
£l,OOO per annum water rent. Liverpool can
scarcely be said to be similarly situated.
An important fact, as to the alleged drying up of
private wells, and strongly illustrating the remarks
which we made upon the subject last week, was
elicited during the examination of a well-sinker,
named Leather, with respect to a well at the cattle
market, reported by Mr. Bold to have been dried
by the pumps at Green-lane. The well in question
was dried, so far at least that no water could be
got from it; and Leather contracted to deepen it,
and to provide seven feet of water. On descend-
ing, however, for the purpose, they found that it
merely wanted cleaning out, the bore-hole and the
pump being choked with sand. The witness re-
marked—"if we had gone on sinking that well
deeper, two or three of us would certainly have
been killed. The well is 18 yards deep; and as
soon as we had cleaned it out and opened the bore-
hole, the water came all at once in upon us." It is
most probable that many others of the wells in the
neighbourhood said to be dried by Green-lane, are
in the same situation, and want cleaning.
We pass over, without comment, the evidence of
Mr. Thomas Spencer, on the part of the Pike pro-
ject. further than expressing an opinion, in which
most of those present will agree with us, that a
little modesty, and a less display of partizan spirit,
would have rendered it more impressive. There
was a little too much of "Professor Ansted and
myself," " Doctor Buckland and myself,"—too
much parade of chemical knowledge and geological
knowledge, and too much assumption of the advo-
cate, such as we did this, and we did that, to pass
current with a Liverpool auditory. Mr. Spencer
may be a very clever person, and have been very
well paid for the enquiries which he has made, and
the evidence which he has given; but we should
have valued more the opinions and conclusions of a
scientific man better known as such, less committed
to a party, and delivered with somewhat less zeal-
ous eagerness. Mr. Spencer should remember also
that attempting to prove too much is dangerous in
a witness.

The statement of Mr. Thomas Murray Gladstone
was a very important one ; and his opinion that the
district, and geological formation for water purposes,
may be presumed to be comprised in the basin
formed by the chain of hills from Noah Lancashire
as far eastward as the Yorkshire and Cheshire hills,
is, we conceive, a far more rational one than that of
Mr. Hawksley and others, who contend that it is of
more circumscribed extent. The fact that no
streams of any magnitude are found issuing within

the extensive water-shed thus formed, would lead
to the conclusion that a vast supply is pent up in
the strata beneath it, and that it has only to be
tapped to afford us any quantity which we require.
We come now to the evidence of Mr. Hawksley,
which closed the inquiry, and we must say, has
produced upon our mind no impression beyond
dislike of its casuistry and flttigue occasioned by
its wearisome length. The first hour and a half of
his speech was occupied by a history of the question
of water supply, from its first agitation by the
Highway Board until the present time, in the
course of which he displayed a very evident morti-
fication at the fact that the advantages of his pro-
ject had ever been questioned. At the outset,
however, he made an admission, or rather an
assertion, for which we were not at all prepared.
He had never, he said, expressed any doubt that
Liverpool possessed in the strata underneath our
feet an ample supply of water for the wants of her
population for years to come. If this he the case,
we have, in common with the public, been labour-
ing under a strange delusion. We have imagined
all along that Mr. Hawksley advocated the Riving-
ton project because he entertained an idea that a
supply was not procurable in the locality to the
amount required ; that, in fact, the rock was nearly
exhausted, and the water was rapidly going from
us. The evidence and the arguments adduced by
the advocates of the Pike were, that the depth of
water, not only in the public, but the private wells of
the town and district, was decreasing daily, and that
new borings would only temporarily add to the
total yield, whilst they would deprive the existing
private wells of their supply altogether. We are
told now, however, that Mr. Hawksley bases his
adoption of the Pike scheme upon entirely different
grounds, and resorts to a surface supply as being
cheaper and better in quality.
We shall not comment at any length upon that
portion of his long speech in which he at last
approached the question at issue. We say ap-
proached, for in reality he never grappled with it
fairly. His observations were little better than a
critique upon the plan suggested in Messrs.
Simpson and Newland's report, accompanied by
some speculative opinions of his own, as to the
general question of water supply. Upon these
points Mr. Stephenson had already expressed his
intention of judging for himself ; and Mr.
Hawksley's speech will therefore exercise no more
influence upon him than that of any other pro-
fessional advocate of the same standing would
have done. Upon one point, however, he made
an admission which is worthy of being borne in
mind. He was influenced in going to Rivington
for water, he says, by a desire to provide for a
population of 800,000, or more than double the
present population. The limited area from which
he considers the existing supply is drawn is not
sufficient to afford a supply for this large increase
in prospectu ; and he thinks it right to tax this
generation for the benefit of posterity. But is it
at all certain that any such increase of the popu-
lation residing within that area is likely to take
place within any reasonable period ? We think
not. The tendency of population just now is not
to concentrate itself into dense masses, but rather
to diffuse itself, by the aid of railways and other
facilities for travelling, over a wider surface. Our
merchants and our middle classes, by means of
omnibuses, have already spread themselves over
the distant suburbs of the town. Cheap railway
fares will shortly take them to greater distances.
The great number of town houses to let shows
such a movement to be going on, and it will in-
crease as further facilities are provided. A few
years will probably render a residence at ten or
twenty miles from the town as convenient and as
economical as West Derby, ,Wavertree, and our
other suburban villages are now. Under such
circumstances we cannot but regard the provision
of a supply of water for a prospective population
of 800,000 in the immediate neighbourhood of the
town as extravagant and gigantic folly.

THE proceedings of the Protectionists thus far,
since the commencement of the session, have been
attended with no other result than a lamentable
exhibition of a party with no recognised leaders,
and without any definite policy in behalf of which
their whole strength could be induced to rally.
The leading organ of Government—the renegade
Times—was cunning when he invited, and even
taunted, such a party into the step of an amend-
ment to the address. True, the acknowledgment
required, of widely-spread distress existing amongst
the agricultural portion of the community, was a
small matter. It was but the acknowledgment, in
somewhat stronger terms, of a truth already acknow-
ledged in the speech from the throne. It invited
a discussion, and nothing more. But unless the
agricultural party had been prepared with a policy
to announce by which they were prepared to stand,
a division, or any amendment at all, was, we submit,
unwise and premature. It resulted only in exhi-
biting their disorganised condition, and in nega-
tiving, we fear for the present session, the important
question the success of which they thus hazarded.
They had within their reach a strong case of injury
from the working of the present policy of the
Government. It hag been literally and empha-
tically thrown away.
This unfortunate result of divided councils and
the absence of mutual confidence amongst the
leaders of the country party inspires us, we must
confess, with little hope of an auspicious result of
the deliberations of the ensuing six months; and
this is the more lamentable when we look at the
present threatening position of affairs and the
excited state of opinion amongst the various classes
now, unhappily, arrayed in hostility against each
other. We have, on the one hand, the entire agri-
cultural community in a state of ferment, sinking
•in the social scale and embittered in feeling by the
insults levelled against them by the dominant
manufacturing classes. We have the tradesmen,
shopkeepers, and artisans, undeniably suffering
from the effect of recent changes, and more than
all from the monetary disturbance of 1846 and
1847. These classes are being hurried by dema-
goguism into a demand for violent changes in the
constitution of the country, and taught that their
salvation from impending insolvency and ruin is to
be achieved only, or mainly, by denuding royalty
and aristocracy of their splendours, and casting off
at once every institution of the state and every
safeguard and source of strength of the empire
which does not exhibit a present and easily osten-
sible source of profit and relief. Such men, or at
least the bulk of them, looking no further than to
the present moment and to their limited sphere of
action, are ready to abandon at once both colonies
and colonisation, national defences and national
honour. They live and breathe only within the
circle of their immediate interests. Any policy
which is truly progressive—which looks beyond the
mere wants of to-day—is regarded by them as an
extravagant sacrifice to the interests of posterity.
They are ready to cavil at a penny of expenditure
directly paid, but are willing to endure systems
which are robbing them, indirectly, of a hundred
times the amount. A little more pressure is all
that is required, in their present frame of mind, to
drive them to an agitation for revolutions in the
constitution of the realm which are undoubtedly
dangerous, as transferring the power of action upon
the constitution to classes whose means of arriving
at correct conclusions are inferior to their own.

On the other hand we have the agricultural clas-
ses—we do not say ill-affected, but at all events,
ill satisfied, advocating a return to a policy, which
the opinion of the masses of the large towns has
declared shall not be adopted. How these conflict-
ing opinions are to he reconciled, harmoniously,
we are at a loss to find out from the opinions ex-
pressed by the parties themselves. It is clear,
however, to ourselves that all parties are at sea, as
to the remedy for their grievances, and will remain
so until they direct their attention to a quarter in
which they may perhaps find it. Upon this we
shall take a further opportunity to express our
opinions.

When we first heard that his worship the Mayor
had consented to call a public meeting, for the pur-
pose of petitioning parliament for a reduction of
the duty on tea, timber, and other duties which
press upon the consuming classes, we were under
the impression that the movement was one pro-
moted by the leading men of all classes in this im-
portant metropolis of commerce; and we concluded
that the voice of such a meeting might exercise an
important influence upon the minds of the public
and the legislature. The peculiar reasons which
render a reduction of the tea duty desirable had
been lately enforced upon the government by a
deputation from this district. The demand for the
total abolition of the duty on timber used for ship-
building purposes could, we thought, scarcely be
resisted with any decency ; and the =policy of the

excise upon bricks, and paper, and of the window
duties, is fully admitted by all parties. The whole
of these, we knew, of course, could not be at once
dealt with ; but the desirableness of impressing
upon the legislature their importance, as entitled to
a precedence whenever remission became practica-
ble, seemed worthy of the attention of such a meet-
ing. And it appeared to us that, at a period when
every class of the community are preparing to
reduce expenditure; when the agriculturist is told
that he must submit to smaller profits, and the
landlord to less rental ; with food and every neces-
sary of life greatly cheapened, and with commerce
represented as in a state of increasing prosperity ;
government would shortly be enabled to decrease
largely its expenditure, and thus secure a surplus
revenue sufficient to enable it to dispense with a
portion at least of these taxes.

Alas, for our expectations ! Instead of such a
meeting as we had pictured to ourselves, composed
of the gentry, merchants, shipowners, and trades-
men of Liverpool, we beheld, on Thursday last,
only a repetition of the farce of the three tailors of
Tooley-street. A small fraction of the Financial
Association, with some three or four score of un-
employed porters from the Exchange flags, consti-
tuted the great demonstration that was to have
been. A more miserable failure we never remember
to have witnessed. A more chilly audience, speak-
ers, even of the calibre of those that were present,
never addressed ; and could the Chancellor of the
Exchequer have looked in for five minutes, he
would have gone away thoroughly warranted in
expressing his conviction that the people of Liver-
pool were a truly happy people, perfectly willing to
endure the hurthen of taxation, to any indefinite
period, and in any shape in which aWhig ministry
chooses to inflict it.

Is it possible that the Financial Association of
Liverpool—for it seems that this meeting was one
of their promotion—cannot see that the great bulk
of the public scout their interference, and refuse to
dance to their piping ? That public have no sym-
pathy with men who niggle at petty abuses—at
small pickings in royal kitchens and other dripping
and lard affairs—and seem to possess no enlarged
views of statesmanship whatever. The meeting of
Thursday, we tell them, has done more to retard
its professed object than all the monopolists, tax-
eaters, placemen, and other similar parties, once
obnoxious to whiggery, could have accomplished
in years of agitation. Sir Charles Wood is already
chuckling in his sleeve over the abortion ; and
Liverpool is blotted out from the list of his tor-
mentors. He will take William Rathbone at his
word, and say to them, "when you are willing to
adopt his suggestion ; to put your hands in your
pockets, and give me an additional Income Tax,
you shall have the reductions you ask for." But
he will afterwards whisper to his own sleeve,—
" When the sky falls we shall catch larks."