The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-02-11 00:00:00

:roved a sham

lied in bitter nio

agitate !" is the advice which
we offer to our fellow-countrymen. Organise your

testant as

ociations

Scatter through t

your Protestant appeals ! Proclaim to—the world
the fact, that he that is not with you, heartily and
wholly, is against you ! And if no satisfactory re-
sponse reach you from Downing-street, and faith
cannot be found in the present
_Parliament, look

Protestant men !

iverpool are perhaps not gene-
rally aware of the provisions of a bill, and of its
being pressed forward in parliament this session,

people of

g to be

a bill to alter

the Constitution

of the Committee for the Affairs of the Estate of
the Trustees of the Liverpool Docks, to authorise
the Establishment of an Emigrant's Home, and to
alter and amend the Acts relating to the Docks
and Harbour of Liverpool." Those of them who
may have heard of such a bill probably conclude
that it is only an application to parliament for
nary powers, and that its promoters are

some nece
the Dock C

omMittee or the Dock Trustees. Such,
however, is not the case. It is not an ordinary
bill. It is not promoted by the constituted autho-
rities, or by Liverpool interests at all; and the gin-

ly phrase—" to alter the Constitution of the
Committee for the affairs of the estate of the Trus-
' the Liverpool Docks"—means in reality no
an to rob the burgesses of Liverpool of their
erty in, and control over, those docks.
Upon what pretext the claim of the promoters of
the bill—which originated, we believe, with the
American Chamber of Commerce—is based, except
upon the assumption that the dock estate never was
the property of the burgesses of Liverpool at all,
em•mc,l • but a mere plane('

lawful pro

at its provisions will sufficiently hear out the view
which we take of it, viz., that it is an act of direct
confiscation which the people of Liverpool ought
to resist by every effort in their power; an act no
more justifiable than would he one, promoted by
private individuals, to " alter the Constitution" of
the Board, and to settle the fares of the London
and North Western Railway.

The Dock Committee is composed of twenty-
one members, of whom thirteen are appointed
from the Town Council, and eight elected by the
Dock Ratepayers of the Port. The Chairman is
elected by the Council; and that body, as "Dock
Trustees " exercises a veto upon the proceedings of
the Committee. Thus the substantial power is in

sof Liverpool; the dock ratepayers,
awever, backed as they usually are in all reason,
ble demands by the mercantile members of the
Committee and of the Trust, possessing a suffi-
ciently potential influence to protect their own
interests, and those of the great commercial com-
The Bill now before us, proposes a
sweeping alteration. It recites, at page 5, that "it
is expedient that the constitution of the same
Committee should he changed, by giving a greater
control over the man.T•yement of the said Dock and
Harbour, and the Warehouses, works, and property
connected therewith, to the merchants and ship-
owners of Liverpool, paying the rates and duties by
the said acts, or any of them, authorised to be raised.
levied, or collected." In other words, it is asked
that the ratepayers should have the power of fix-
ing and controlling the amount of dock and ware-
house rates they are to pay; the customer to have
the arbitrary power to determine the price he is to
pay for his goods, and to dictate how the shop is to
be managed This is modest enough ; hut it is
not all. There is a little jesuitry in the back-
ground. We are told that it is expedient that the
" merchants and shipowners of Liverpool" should
possess these powers. But, from clause 15, page
11, we find that such powers are to he given not
only to owners or part owners of vessels, and to
principals, residing within eight miles of Liverpool,
and paying rates, but to agents, so residing within
eight miles, "for principals residing more than

munity

eight miles from the said town," and who may
reside in London, in New York, or in St. Peters-
burg, and thus be enabled to dictate whether
our docks are to be worked at a profit, or at an
annual loss, and whether the dock bondholders, who
look to the Dock Trustees of Liverpool for their
principal and interest, are to be paid out of Dock
revenue, or, as in the case of the Rivington

scheme

the Corporate Estate is to be pledged as
collateral security for their claims.

But let us see what is the composition of the
committee by which it is proposed to supersede the
present governing authorities of the Dock Estate.
In sectioa 3, page 6, it is provided that the new
committee shall consist of 21 persons, " any seven
of whom shall have,use, and exercise exclusively, all
and every the powers and authorities," given by this
and preceding acts. Of these 21 members five are
to be nominated by the Council, and fifteen elected
by the Dock Rate-payers ; and the Chairman may
either be elected out of the fifteen representatives of
the rate-payers, or out of the body eligible to vote
for such representatives. One-third of the repre-
sentatives of the Dock Rate-payers are to retire
every three years, the five retiring members being
either " determined by arrangement amongst them-
selves," or by ballot in the committee. There is no
veto in the Council ; and from this, the small
minority allowed, as in mockery, to sit upon the
Committee, and the restriction as to the Chairman
being a nominee of the Rate-payers, it is clear that
the taking of the whole control of the estate out of
the hands of the Council—the present Dock
Trustees—is the object sought. The Bill goes also
for powers to authorize the Committee to allow
fires and lights on board vessels in certain Docks.
and to authorize the establishment of Emigrants'
Homes upon the property of the Trust. The former
power is sought for in the Bill brought into Parlia-
ment by the Dock Committee. The latter is a tub
thrown to the whale, upon which we shall take
another opportunity of commenting.
We feel that we are not overstepping the bound-

ries of polite language when we characterize this
as a most impudent measure. It is well known
that the Dock' Estate has grown out of the Cor-
porate Estate—the acknowledged property of the
burgesses. Those burgesses presented the land
upon which our original docks were built. They,
not later than on the occasion of the formation of
an the

Albert Dock and warehouses, sold the land
required at, so far as our memory serves us, about
,£2, 15s. per yard, when private parties would have

given L 5 for the same land. And in many other
ways the Dock Estate has grown at the expense of
the Corporate property of the burgesses. On what
grounds then is based this act of aggression on the
part of interests foreign to the town ? Has the Dock
Committee, as at present constituted, ever failed in
its duty of providing, to the utmost of its power,
accommodation to the shipping frequenting the
port ?

It has not ; an we are impelled to state,
as our deliberate opinion, that the proposed measure
is dictated partly by purely selfish and anti-local
interests, and in some measure is the emanation
of party disappointment. Putting the motives which
have dictated it aside, however, the movement is
none the less one of aggression, and one too which
ought to be resented by the town. It is intolerable
that year after year we are to be pestered by such
attacks ; and we would emphatically suggest that,
to rebut it, a meeting of the inhabitants should be
called forthwith. We may add that it is an affair
with which the bondholders of the estate, as well,
have to do. There is not in the whole bill a line of
acknowledgement that the Dock Estate owes a
debt of above four millions sterling, or even hinting
at the parties who, under the new arrangement, are
to be responsible for its payment. We should
strongly recommend the Dock Bondholders to look
Out, and to endeavour to ascertain what is their

position.
As a proof that the projectors of This ill-advised
measure are not sleeping at their posts, we may
intimate that the bill was read a first time on
Friday.

TuF: Ministerial party are happy in the posses-
sion of the requisite machinery for making out a
me to any pattern which may be required, and at