The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-05-03 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDAR,D.

would have obtained a long lease of .popularity, and
their former follies would have been-forgotten ; but pride
and obstinacy overruled prudence, and they have, conse-
quently, fallen never to rise again. Public opinion is
now decidedly opposed to them—the open-mouthed mil.
lion are showing their teeth—and the cry of the disap-
pointed is, " reform has come in vain 1 "
The London papers, received last night, inform us that
public meetings are to take place in various parts of the
metropolis, to petition his Majesty's to dismiss his
Ministers, unless they reconsider their conduct, and re-
peal the taxes which they have rendered parliament ridi-
pulous in repealing the one day and restoring the next.
We have no doubt that these remonstrances and petitions
will be general. In many parts of London placards are
exhibited, intimating the intention of various house-
holders to resist the payment of the assessed taxes.

This then is the reformed House of Commons ! Was
there ever in any assembly, in this or any other country,
such an exhibition as that of Tuesday last ? We have

heard of men eating their words—of men turning their
coats—of honourable members swearing black to be
white; and unsaying, from pusilanimity, or from paltry
selfishness, all that they had said during their previous
existence ; but we never heard of a large body of men,

many of whom in the teeth of their own solemn pledges;
passing a,resolution declaratory of their own fully, sub,

versive of their own dignity, and branding themselves
as the devoted slaves of an imbecile ministry, as this
our reformed Parliament has done I Oh, deep shame,

[iat this should be said of the representatives of Greai

Britain I

What do the people say of pledges now ? Mr. Bayn-
tun's pledge was nothing compared with the pledges of
Dr. Lushington of the Tower Hamlets, Mr. William
Brougham of Southwark, old Burdett of Westmin-
ster, and many others of less celebrity. They entered
the House of Commons, fettered hand and foot, pledged
to their full value, and as solemnly bound as men could
be, to support the views and re-echo the sentiments of
their constituents ; but they are no sooner within the
walls of the reformed Parliament than they violate all

their engagements, and do the very oppoSite of that
which they had contracted to perform. They not only
refuse to reduce the taxes, but they also slavishly place
themselves at the beck and nod of the minister, and re-
impose taxes which the house; three nights before, had
declared, by a majority of its members, to be obnoxious
and insufferable burthens upon the people. In order to
accomplish this disgraceful object they have actually

turned the forms and resolutions of the house into con-
tempt. They have proved to the whole world that its
votes and its majorities are not worth a straw—that no
dependence can be placed upon its decisions—that it has
no mind and no consistency—that what is done on Fri-

day is undone on Tuesday—and, that what is bread to the
poor to-day is to•-morrow converted into a stone.
And this, we say again, is done by the reformed par-
liament—in the people's own house—by the gentlemen
of the shopocracy—by the elite of the ten pound house-
holders! The bells that rang merrily on Saturday last
in Kent, Suffolk, and other parts of the kingdom, on the
receipt of the news—rare news indeed—the repeal of
the taxes—will to-day, we suppose, be muffled, and send
forth sounds of grief. Short lived indeed was our joy.
The old tax is not only re-imposed, but even the repeal
of the house and window duties is denied. Rather than
lose Lord Althorp we are compelled to pay threepence
more for our quart of ale. Rather than lose Lord Althorp
we must be content with our taxed sunbeams, and sub-
mit to have our doors darkened by the tax collector.
Rather than part with the dear Whigs, who promised us
retrenchment, and who while they were in opposition
kept up a constant howl against these very taxes which
they now cling to like drowning men,—rather than lose
the Whigs we must be content with our present burthens,
and live on as before, our distress uninquired into, our
privations scouted, and our embarrassments insultingly
denied. We are ready to do so—we rejoice to see the
Whigs at the helm, now that the waters and the wind are
about to rise, and a storm is brewing in their wake—but
what will the people say
_ _ _

Ay ! this is the question. From the blue north, and
the sunny south, and the red east, and. the green west, a
universal deniand has been made for a repeal of the as-
sessed taxes. The shopkeepers of London, twothirds
of whom have been bankrupts within the last four years,
declare that they will no longer pay these taxes. From
Liverpool, Mr. Ewart tells us, a petition praying for
their repeal has already proceeded, which has been nu-
merously signed; and yet Burdett of Westminster, and
Ewart of Liverpool, both vote against their constituents,.,
oppose the prayer of their petitions, and support the mi-
nister in continuing the tax. And is this to be borne
now that we have obtained a reformed Parliament ? Are
we.to have no relief, merely because we have the mis-
fortune to have a Chancellor' of the Exchequer who is
considered an honest man, simply we suppose because he
hardly knows his right hand from his left. They tell us
that if the house and window duties were abrogated, in
conjunction with a moiety of the malt tax, the public
credit would be impaired, and that the fundholder would
become alarmed. This' is nothing else than tHowing
dust in our eyes. This is an argument addressed to the
timorous, and to statesmen of the wooden-spoon order.
There are twenty ways of providing for the expenditure
of the country without the malt or assessed taxes, and
even without having recource to a property tax. Would
five shillings extra on the gallon of gin be found any in-
' convenience ? Would an additional tax upon those re-
ceptacles of v ice, and dens of thieves, the new beer shops,
be any inconvenience ? Would a few shillings more

upon claret and brandy be any inconvenience ? And
"supposing that these increased duties did not meet-the
1 deficiency caused by the reduction, how easy would it
have been for Lord Althorp, if he had had the brains of a
~kvlark, to have funded five millions of Exchequer Bills
and issued five millions in their place. This would have
done good in more ways' than one—it would have pre-
eluded the necessity of imposing fresh taxes, and would
have given an outlet to some of the standing capital of

the country, which is uselessly locked up in the iron
boxes of the bank of England.
This ought to have been done merely to save the cre-
dit of the House of Commons. As it is, that house is
lowered immeasurably in public estimation. It has dis-
appointed public expectation in every possible way. It
has outraged the country with a mockery of redress. It

has raised the cup to our parched lips in mere wanton-
ness, and for the fiendish purpose of dashing it to the
ground, and laughing at our calamities. In this House
of Commons, reformed though it be, no confidence what-
ever can be reposed. The reformed is now deformed,
and we are much mistaken if the people who created it
are not a thousand times more disgusted with its conduct
than ever they were with any former Parliament.

MR. JOSEPH HUME has contrived to carry one of his
ingenious jobs through the House of Commons, without
much opposition except from Lord Sandon and a few
other members. Lord Althorp was favourable to the
job, and therefore we were surprised at seeing honest
Joseph voting against his Lordship on Tuesday last.—
But, to be sure, the job was finished, and therefore there
was no risk.

The job was this. A person of the name of Marshall,
not the honourable member fcr Leeds, has compiled a
book containing tables and sundry calculations intended
chiefly for the use of Mr. Hume himself and such mem-.
bers of the reformed Parliament whose atithmetical edu-
cation has been neglected. It was a work of labour, and
Mr. Hume moved that a grant of X 2,600 should be voted
to purchase a certain number of the books frcm Marshall
for the use of our lonourable• representatives. The
book itself is hardly of as much u.se as a cucumber, and
might, without any loss to the nation, be treated as Dr.
Johnson recommended in the case of that excellent vege-
table, viz., pared, peppered, salted, vinegared, and then
thrown out of the zoindow ! However, Joseph screwed
the money out of the House, and the author is, no doubt,

a happy man.
But who is he ? Oh, here lies the secret, and here the
interest taken in his case by the honourable member. for
Middlesex. He is one of honest Joseph's old clerks—a
kind of fag in small matters of finance—a penny-farthing
sort of a man, whOse coat has been worn out at the elbows
in the service of his liberal employer. He had to be pro-
vided for in his old age, and what way so eligible as sad-
dling him and his book on the country ? It is a nice lit-

tle fob—only ,12,600—a mete trifle when we consider
that it is to improve our representatives in their knowledge
of figures ! Oh, Joseph !

LONDON LATEST NEWS.

Wednesday Evening, Halfipast Seven o'clock.

By accounts from Matadias, we learn ilia great tears were
entertained that the cholera had reached there, four or five
deaths having taken place under very suspicious citcumstances.
We learn, by the advices from Lima to the sth January, that
political affairs were in a very unsettled state there. In Chili
business was improving. At Guyaquil cocoa was quoted at 3
dollars per carga, and very scarce. The flour monopoly,
granted on.the 12th June, 1832, had been taken off, to go into
effect on the 23rd March. At Lima an attempt had been made
to obtain a decree from congress, imposing a duty of six dollars
per fanega of 1001bs. on Chiti wheat. The bill had been sus-
pended, but as it was not abandoned; the market was iu a very
unsettled state for bread stuffs.

To give some proof of the activity and enterprise of the Ame-
rican whalers, we have but to state that during the last year no
less than 64" American whaling ships, with a tonnage of 21,10 J
and 40,895 barrels of oil, touched at. Payta.
We have accounts from Dominica to the 10th March. They
furnish full particulars of the seriesof earthquakes which, from
the Bth February, for eight successive days had been expe—
rienced at St. Kitt's, during which time the inhabitants were
kept in a state of constant terror. All the stores were closed,
and many of the residents fled for refuge on board the vessels in
the harbour. The injury done to the buildings in Bassaterre
was very great, there being scarcely a stone building or store
not injured in some.degree. The church, the Wesleyan chapel,
the jail, the custom-house, the reading-room, the tavern, had all
received damage. The parish church of St. Thomas, Middle
Island, had suffered materially. 'the works on several of the
estates had been much rent, particularly those. of Spring-
lodge, 011eys, and Olives. A considerab!e quantity of bottled
liquor was destroyed by the first shock of the earthquake,: to the
value of some hundreds of pounds sterling. At no period since
the awful visitation of 1797, when a dreadful convulsion in.
South America destroyed many cities, and buried some
thou-
sand persons in the ruins, and which was severely felt at St.
Kitt's, had such severe shocks been remembered in that island.
The earthquakes had been felt at Nevis, and very slightly at
Antigua, and not at all at St. Thomas's.
- - -

- •
According to advices from Greece, King Otho had named
General. Colocotrini to command in the Peloponesus, Generals
BOtzaris and Izarellas on the continent, and General Kolrofulo
on. Napoli.
- •

The city has exhibited a very peculiar scene to-day, in con-
sequence of the divisions of last night; and the threat of the
ministry resigning, instead of inspiring anything like the feel-
ing it excited on the result of Gen. Gascoyne's motion, has been
received with general symptoms of regret that the conduct of
the reformed house did not afford the "one measure" adminis-
tration an opportunity of. performing the threat. The public
have been insulted beyond measure at the conduct of the go-
vernment, which has been, from its birth to the present moment,
but one series of vacillating blundering, during which anything
connected with decision or common sense has not even- by
chance been stumbled on.

•
Consols are a shade firmer to-day, the closing price being
871 g, both for money and account. .
I,n our Foreign Market there is very little to notice. The
dividends on Belgian Bonds are now in course of payment, and
the price of the Stock, with the dividend deducted, is 851. Spa-
nish Stock is 194 ; and Russian, 1021 1. Portuguese Scrip is
a shade better, although nothing of any decisive character has
been received from that quarter. In no other. security has there_
been any material change since our former report.