The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-09-05 00:00:00

Ebe 7Liberpool gPtanbarb.

TUESDAY MORAING, SEPT. 5, 1843

We are not alarmists

but we must acknowledge
that we cannot look forward with any pleasurable
feelings to the result of our municipal struggle in
November next. Of the members who this year
retire from the Council, we find that eleven are Con-
servatives and five Radicals. To hold our own, only,
will require all the vigorous energies which the
Conservative body can put forth ; and we greatly
fear, not that in any quarter want of energy will
be displayed, but that there is no longer that healthy
spirit abroad among the constituencies, which will
ensure

I response to our call, however loudly and
earnestly it may be made. Three years ago, it will

be Lorne in mind, we fought this same battle for the
same men, whose expiring tenures of office will
shortly place them again in the field. We remem-
ber well the energetic efforts—we remember well the
untiring zeal—which were put forth for the achieve-
ment of victory. The same efforts—the same zeal—
will no doubt be put forth again ; but will they suc-
ceed in rousing from their apathy, their coldness,
their pettishness, the masses without whose prompt
aid exertion will be in vain ? Alas, we fear they
will NOT

It may be deemed injudicious in us to make this
confession—a candid one, however, and one not
formed without anxious examination. The Radical
faction will chuckle over it. Some thoughtless
Conservatives will sneer at it. Wrapt up in their
e will perhaps laugh out-
ever, be deterred from the
performance of what we conceive to be a duty, or

ruth, b

of what we know to be the
her censure or ridicule.

ead of

The cause is with us more revered than the men.
It was for that cause that we fought; and, when we

filled, and even sacrificed, our faithful

warning shall not be held back. It is perillzd now.
It is shortly doomed, we fear, to defeat and disaster;

and we must raise our voice to urge upon those
whose mistaken policy—whose neglect of the means
by which alone ends are obtained—have produced the
vast amount of disappointment and disorganisation

existing amongst the various constituencies of our
borough, to awake from their dream of security, and
to retrace the steps which have led them so far

owards the annihilation of their strength

We ma

be asked what are the steps, the policy

of which we complain. In what has the present
Conservative Council been found wanting. We
reply, the policy of which we complain has been
a continual truckling to the dictation, the bullying,
or the sneers of the Radical minority. The quality
of which the Conservative Council has been found
wanting, has been boldness to assert, in their mea-
sures, those great Conservative principles, for the

Tofession of which, before their several consti-

s, they were placed in the possession of office

and power. From an examination of the entire pro-

s of the Council, since Conservatism ob-

ained the majority, the most telescopic vision can-
. ct more than a bare leaning towards Con-
servative principle. The spectacle indeed which it
most strikingly presents to us is that of a Conser-
vative government acting upon Whig principles and
with' Whig instruments. In every department we
jostle against the Whig nominees of the defeated
In every portion of the working of the
machine we recognise the guiding of Whig hands.
of its patronage, and the ap-
since the fall of Whig

not de

Nor have the exert.

pointnaents of the Council

been suck

ught to satisfy the Con-

servativ

II e found, on our entrance to
ofit or honour filled exclu-
Through all its branche3,

sivelyby Whig officials

from the highest officer to the common policeman
or scavenger, the thing was Whig. With a gene-
rosity and liberality unparalled, we left it so ; but
the:public did at least hope that, as time and oppor•
tunity offered, a little leaven would be infused into
" ss, and by degrees, however slow, Conserva-
- be enabled to assert its right, as a ma-
ie favours placed at the dis.

portion of

is own representatives. Such has scarcely,
case. Most timid and niggardly
bas been the hand which has doled out to the Con..

been t

hich it had in its power to
offer to merit, although we have seen Whig reci-
pients of its bounty fondled and fed, whilst " Libe-

s the

ralism" throughout its borders has rejoiced over our

excessive impartiality—our strict justice—our extra-

ordinary singlemindedness and purity

All this is very virtuous no doubt, but at the

same time it is very unwise, and we fear will prove
so on the first occasion when the test is applied. It
has produced alienation of feeling and heartburnings

in many quarters, which sooner or later must inevi-
tably develope themselves, to the serious damage of
the Conservative cause within our borough.
To another point, however, let us briefly address
How is it, we ask, that Conservative
mongst the community has so greatly dirni-
d within the last two years ? That it has done
must be a bold or a blind man to deny.
Where, then, are we to look for the cause ? To the
fact that, when victory, after years of struggle, had
ngth been achieved, the Conservatives threw
nd resigned themselves to the
ned jubilee ! Where, for

ourselves

I our Protestant

ngines of organisation

cations

to which so much of the suc

Conservative

lose is to be attributed

They are either wholly

broken up, or have a struggling existence amongst
- al operative portion only of the constituency.
rere courted in the day of adversity; they
-oublesome in the day of prosperity! They
might embarrass the Conservative government;
they might interfere with the eccentric:vagaries of
wavering Conservatives in the Council. They were

first slighted, and next discountenanced

d they fel,

But the day is coming, we fear, wh

the organised strength which they offered for the

11 be wanted

the spirit of attachment to the constitution • nd the
throne, which they kept up, will be wanted ; when
we shall discover, too late, that we have nothing to
oppose to the restless energies of Anti-Monopoly
and other Associations, except broken and divided
forces.

And in what position is that Conservative press
which has battled so energetically in time past for
Conservative interests ? Where are the evidences
of that support which was so abundantly promised
us in times when Conservative councillors and ora-
tors were but in embryo—when gentlemen who now
flutter in the sun had not yet succeeded in emerging
from the chrysalis state ? They are to be found in
the cessation within the past six months of three
Conservative publications ! They are to be found,
not in Conservative advertisements swelling the co-
lumns of the Conservative, but of the Radical
papers ! This is the support (?) which faithful Con-
servative organs receive at the hands of those for
whom they have battled. They are left to struggle,
through discouragement and difficulty, whilst the
very hands, which should sustain them, are sedu-
lously feeding the most virulent of their opponents!
This should not be. It is unjust and unwise.
With some sorrow we find ourselves urged to the
utterance of these charges, which, however, we must
have it distinctly to be understood, do not apply
to all the Conservative party, in the Council or out
of doors. There are many of our Conservative
fellow-townsmen who have in all respects done Their
duty nobly, and who deplore, equally with ourselves,
the mistaken policy and broken faith of some of
their Conservative brethren. To the latter only we
address ourselves—to the lukewarm and the waver-
ing—to the lovers of expediency and the seekers
after " liberal" praise ; and distinctly and unhesi-
tatingly we declare to them our conviction that they
are making shipwreck of the Conservative strength in
this town and in the Empire itself !

We are not in the habit of noticing the sayings
and doings of those very wise people who compose
the Anti-Monopoly Association of this town. The
twittering of sparrows upon the house-tops we have
never committed the absurdity of mi-taking for the
notes of the nightingale; and as little are we in-
clined to fancy that when Mr. William Rathbone
" aggravates his voice," or Mr. Charles Holland
saws the air, or any other of the young gentlemen of
the anti-monopoly clique indulge in their crude im-
pertinencies, we are listening to Demosthenes,
Cicero, Pitt, or Huskisson, or are contemplating the
graces of an Apollo Belvidere. .If, therefore, we de-
part from our custom to-day, and devote a few re-
marks to the proceedings of the Amphitheatre
meeting of Wednesday last, we would have it un-
derstood that it is for the purpose of noticing, not
this local clique of speechifying and tract-distributing
busybodies, but the very honourable and enlight-
ened gentleman who, by the grace of Lord London-
derry, and the purse of the Anti-Corn-Law League,
and the votes of the dean and sundry prebends, is
M.P. for the Cathedral City of Durham.

In the first place we cannot but refer to the very
unaccountable circumstance that politico-economical
knowledge should be an article so rarely to be dis-
covered in this good old town, whilst the locality of
Rochdale has such a superfluity that it can aflord
us an apostle to enlighten our darkened understand-
All the world have been imagining for a
quarter of a century past that, upon the banks of
our noble river were to be found a race of mer-
chants, second to none in intelligence and enterprise.
Sad mistake ! Amongst the chimneys, the cotton
fuz, the mud, and the mingled wool and oil of the
atmosphere of Rochdale alone are to be found a race
of individuals who know anything of the true prin-
principles of commerce. All the world, too, have
concluded, when they watched the growth of this
great port—when they contemplated her extending
trade, her increase of shipping, her extending range
of docks and piers, warehouses and wharves—that
the effect must spring from an inducing cause, and
that that cause must be found in part in the pros-
perous colonies, for whose produce Liverpool was
the great mart. Nothing of the sort we find has
been the case. The effect has not been produced
by the cause; for the cause was to produce some-
thing quite contrary ! Our colonial trade has all
along been ruining us, notwithstanding all the evi-
dence of our senses and the proof to the contrary
of our ledgers ! We have been labouring under
" the blight of monopoly" all this time ; and PHI-
LOSOPHY assures us that we ought to have dwindled
into a little fishing village ; that the magnificent
vessels which crowd our docks ought to have been
cobles or smacks, and that our merchants, who buy
and sell yearly the produce of half the globe, ought
at this moment to be chaffering for a cargo of her-
rings, or meditating the astounding adventure of a
shipment to Nantwich or lloylake ! Such, poli-
tical economy tells us we ought to be; but we are
not so nevertheless, however unaccountable may be
the fact. But let us turn to Mr. Bright.
This most enlightened gentleman commenced his

long and luminous speech by saying that " If he

understood the object of the meeting rightly, they
were assembled for the purpose of discussing a very
simple question,—whether it were advantageous to
Liverpool and the empire at large to have a great
trad , or a little trade ? for, after all the mystery and
all the fallacies which had been thrown around the
question of the corn laws and free trade in general,
it appeared to him that the question resolved itself
into one of much trade or little trade." Certainly
if this was all the question to be decided—whether
it were better to have " a great trade or a little
trade"---we should without much hesitation have
thrown up our hat for the former. There is one
kind of trade, however, which we should prefer to
either—viz., a safe and remunerative trade. We
have had within the past few years some little expe-
rience of the danger attendant upon "large trades,"
and this experience teaches us to long, above all
things, for moderation.

In opposition, however, to Mr. Bright's state-
ment, as to the question which the meeting before
him were assembled to discuss, we must contend
that they were not met to consider the relative ad-
vantages of a large and a small trade, but by what
legislative policy the former may be secured. Free
trade, Mr. Bright assumes, leads to large trade; but
we look through the whole of his laboured effusion
in vain for proof of his position. We have asser-
tion, supported by assertion ; but of proof none !
The orator never condescends to enter into the
question how free trade is to operate in producing
large trade, beyond hazarding the merely speculative
assertion that increased consumption will follow as
the result of the cheapening of foreign commodi-
ties, and increased importation attend the permission
to import produce in return. He never touches
upon the possibility (I) that the price of labour, and
the consequent limitation ofthaettpezerthoefrtehaelizwaotirokn-
ing classes to consume, may
r e a s e
of his schemes. He never hints a
d
power of consumption of the agricultural tthe
dc
ecommu-
nity. His sole position, in fact, amounts to this—
viz., that merchants will import more and manu-