The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-05-06 00:00:00

matter of opinion, which the writers do not shew
any strong ground for entertaining.

I‘Aessrs. Nair, Greenhow, and Irving, after re—
ferring to the state of the cotton market, remark
that the market for goods " has been characterized
by gradually increasing dullness and depression :"

_ ..
"The demand, which throughout the month has been
limited to existing wants, as indeed it was sure to be, has

been essentially confined to export purposes, little or no-
thing having been done for the country trade, which con-
tines in the same inanimate condition."

They sutra up as follows :
" Altogether, the condition of this market cannot but
rmiarticA

facturers are a

)st ever

here, wi

„,..uning of the loss incidental to their calling. and no
,nportant or permanent amelioration need be apprehended,
until something decisive can be realised regarding the
supply and value

of cotton

Men, and not until then,

can we expect a better state of things, for the recollection
of the value of the raw material and the manufactured
article in 1848, cannot be supposed to pass away from the
memory so soon. The working of short time is on the
increase, and many of the smaller class Y. producers,
ear, be obliged to give way to the pressure now
there must be if
operating against them."
I

will, it

THE meeting at the Amphitheatre on Tuesday
is certainly to be accepted as an emphatic protest,
on the part of the people of Liverpool, against the
trimming policy of government on the subject of
their emasculated Papal Aggression Bill. It was
a triumphant display of the Protestant fidelity of
our fellow-townsmen, although it might, by better
management, have been rendered more telling, and
gratifying to the Liverpool public. Some hundreds
more of our population would have been present
had an opportunity been afforded them ; but we
were ourselves compelled to deny tickets to them
for two or three days previously to the meeting.
The muster, in despite of these arrangements, was
a full one. Its tone was enthusiastic and unani-
mous, and it ought to exercise a serious influence

upon the legislature

Yet Lord John Russell chooses to postpone the
further progress of the government bill for another
week, because forsooth, he has been beaten upon

the income tax perpetuation bill ! His small mind
is touched by this defeat; and be chooses to disap-
point the dearest hopes of the nation as a kind of
salvo for his wounded honor. His lordship however
will discover, perhaps too late for himself, that the
country is not to be trifled with by a man of his
calibre. We might tolerate the peevishness of
official station in a Pitt, a Chatham, or a Fox. But
the peevishness of Lord John Russell is simply in-
sult and presumption.

"PROTECTION is dead !"—wrote the London Times
on Saturday, his text being the recent great meet-
ing at Drury-lane. " The Protectionist party has
no head, for those who lead it are ashamed of the
profession of their creed, and are always seeking to
translate it into something different from what its
supporters understand by it." There is some truth
in the assertion. Yet it is not because the agricul-
tural classes in this country, heavily taxed as they
undoubtedly are, can afford to submit their labour
to the trying ordeal of competition with the
foreigner. Our Protectionists are not making the
most of the righteous case which they have against
their opponents and calumniators. They are shilly-
shallying about a five shillings duty for revenue
purposes ; about imposts which press too exclusively
against themselves, and other similar matters. Let
the legislature to-day grant all that is openly de-
manded by the leaders of the agricultural interest,
and we shall still have widely-spread distress. The
_ power will still be exercising its tyranny
over industry. The sweating, or middleman system,
will still be going on. A five shillings duty on
foreign grain will not raise prices for the British
ng i farmer

money

ilf-a-crown per quarter. It will not nearly
cover the error in the estimates of the protection, to
arise from the rates of freights and charges, pro-
mised by the free trade authorities. It will not
make up the difference between 38s. per quarter
and 525. No practicable remission of taxation, in
favour of one class, will enable even that class to
in this country; no reduction of rents, short
vill do it whilst we have to raise

of confiscation

annually a sum of fifty millions for the charges of
government and the interest of the nation's debt,

.•
in a money which the legislature has enhanced a
hundred per cent. in value, and increased not
only public burthens, but every sort of private

indebtedness at the same rate. -
Our Protectinnist leaders refuse to grapple ear-
nestly with this portion of their case. They ac-
knowledge, by their hesitating tone, that they dare
not attempt directly to raise the price of the food
of the people of Creat Britain, even to save the

- -
great majority of that people from the ruin, which
they foresae to be the result of the continuance of
our present policy. They fear to raise the nominal
price of the loaf, although they know that the real
price is becoming clay by day higher, and is already
beyond the reach of thousands amongst our popu-

. .
lat.-ion. They know where the shoe pinches, where
their difficulty lies, because a committee of their
own party have told them in unmistakeable lan-
guage. But they shrink from the adoption of a
manly and sensible coarse of action. They are
afraid of the sarcasms of little men and self-inter-
ested philosophers ; afraid of the jargon of " little