The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-07-29 00:00:00

[ ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. DUNCAN'S REJOINDER TO THE

LIVERPOOL TIMES,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SlR—Your contemporary, the Liverpool Times, has
lost his temper, and forgotten those rules of courtesy of
which he assumed to be PROFESSOR EMERITUS. In his
last publication he charged me with " impudence," and
designated me as a " libeller," a " slanderer," and a
" Socialist." When anonymous writers use such coarse
language, it is presumptive evidence of a bad cause or of
an incompetent advocate.
1. It is stated that Brown. Shipley, and Co., frequently
export British goods " of the value of upwards of a mil-
lion sterling per annum, thus affording employment not
only to thousands, but tens of thousands, of English
workmen." lam aware of the magnitude of their trans-
actions with the affiliated house of Brown Brothers, of
New York ; but, after all that m y be said, they are but
the instruments, not the creators, of this trade. American
demand for our goods would have been just the same had
the two firms never existed ; therefore, English workmen
owe them no obligation. I have never uttered a word
against the merchant, but against the member of parlia-
ment, and my censure has ben as much directed against
the electors of South Lancashire as against their repre-
sentative. My question, "Do Brown, Shipley, and Co.,
ever give freight to British vessels trading to the United
States" ? remains unanswered. Theret lateri lethalis
arundo.

2. I am a " currency quack," because lam represented
as having slandered Mr. William Brown. This sequitur
reminds me of the ingenious argument built up on the
imputed parallel sought to be established between a ches-
nut horse and a horse chesnut.
3. Another proof of quackery is my recommendation
to make the interest of the national debt a charge on
PROPERTY, instead of throwing it, or any part of it, on
LABOUR. The principle of a property tax was sanctioned
by Pitt and Fox, by Sir R. Peel and Lord John Russell ;
they, then, must be deemed quacks. A merchant insures
his warehouse against fire, and pays the premium to the
office. According to the Times, this is quackery. The
premium ought to be paid by those who do not possess
warehouses.

4. I am a libeller, because I stated that a Conservative
administration, with the Earl of Derby for its chief, would
amend our monetary system. To this amendment the
National Association, the recognised organ of the Protec-
tionist party, is solemnly pledged in print. As to Govern-
ment " assignats," the term used shows my censor
utterly unfit to write on the subject. Government now
issue exchequer bills for £1000; it might issue a thousand
exchequer bills of £1 each ; would such small bills bear
any resemblance to the assignats of France, in which
there was no government, unless that term be given to
the rule of anarchy and the reign of terror ?
5. I am a Socialist, because I would alter the incidence
of taxation, so as to restore prosperity to our colonies and
shipping. Why not say I was an Atheist ? The word is
as easily printed.
6. I am courting the Protectionist party " with the
most disgusting of the forms of adulation, that which
consists in slandering their opponents." Was it adulation
when i told the Protectionists, at the Music-hall, that
" their policy was profoundly in error" ? That they had
retained a money law and a corn law on the statute book,
each in direct antagonism to the other, which had caused
their downfall, by bringing the Anti-Corn Law League
into existence ? The public will decide if this be adula-
tion.—Yours, respectfully, JONATHAN DUNCAN.

COMPARATIVE HUMANITY OF BRITISH AND
AMERICAN SHIPMASTERS.