The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-05-19 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SPIRIT OF FRIDAY NIGHT'S DEBATE.

POPICINS, NOT SIR ROBERT PEEL, THE AUTHOR OF

THE MINISTERIAL MEASURE

"The right hon. gentleman tells us that he does not feel
,i,umiliated. It is impossible for any one to know what are

,0
_feelings of another ; feeling depends in a great mea-
sureutri-; n temperament; it depends upon the idiosyn-
crasyb, 2ndividual ; it depends upon the organization
(Laughter.) But I tell the right
although he may not feel humiliated,
hon:theof th
ge c
e animal
oliTy ought to feet humiliated. (Loud cheers.) In
tin.itlmalernatn b:;t feels.
place of the ,self-complacencv of a great nation—in place
of the justifiable pride of Englishmen in one who from
his position has contrived to occupy the highest rank
amongst his fellow-citizens, it is felt, as Dean Swift said
of another Minister, that he is a gentleman who has the
perpetual misfortune to be mistaken ; and even now in
this, the last scene of the' drama, when the party whom
he unintentionally betrayed and unintentionally annihi-
lated—even now at the last scene, the right hon. gentle- ,
man, faithful to the law of his being, is going to pass a
project which I believe it is matter of notoriety is not of
his own invention ; one which may have been somewhat
modified, but which, I believe, was in substance offered
to another Government, and by that Government wisely
rejected. (Hear, hear.) The first day after the right hon.
gentleman made his exposition to this house, a gentleman
well known to the house, and learned in all the political
secrets behind the scenes, met me, and said, " What do
you think of your chief's plan ?" I said I did not exactly
know what to say about it, but, to use the phrase of the
hour, I supposed it was a great and comprehensive plan.
(Laughter.) " Oh," he replied, "we know all about it ;
it is not his plan at all, it is Popkins's plan." (Roars of
laughter.) And, Sir, is England to be governed and con-
vulsed for Popkins's plan? Will he go to the country
with it? Will he appeal to the people upon such a plan?
Will he appeal to that ancient and famous England which
was once governed by statesmen 'such as Burleigh and
Walsingham, Bolingbroke and Walpole, Chatham and
Canning,—will he appeal to England on a fantastic
scheme of some:presumptuous pedant ? I will not believe
it. (Cheers.) I have that confidence in the common
sense and common spirit of my countrymen to believe
that they will no longer endure the huckstering tyranny of
the Treasury bench, or of the political pedlar who bought
his party in the cheapest market and sold them in the
dearest. (Laughter and cheers.) I know that there are
men who tell me that the time is gone by when we may
appeal to the high and honourable impulses that were once
the mainstay and main element of the English character.
I know that we appeal to a people who have been de-
bauched by public gambling, and who have been stimu-
lated and encouraged by an inefficient and shortsighted
Ministry. 1 know that the public mind has been filled to
intoxication with schemes by which the people might be•
come rich, without the interference of industry and toil.
I know, too, that all confidence in public men is lost.
(Hear, hear.);;But I:have faithilin:the primitive enduring
element of English character. (Cheers.) It may be that
now, in the midnight of their intoxication, they will not
heed me, but I tell them that there will be an awakening,
and in the spring-tide of their frenzy I warn them of the
end of trouble. That dark and inevitable hour will ar-
rive, and perhaps they will then recur to those principles
which mede England great, and which, in my opinion,
alone can keep England great ; and it may chance that
they will remember, not with unkindness those who, be-
trayed and deserted themselves, were neither ashamed nor
afraid to struggle for the good old cause ; the cause asso-
ciated with principles the most popular, sentiments the
most entirely national; the cause of labour, the cause of
the people, the cause of England. (The hon. member re-
sumed his seat amidst applause which lasted fully two
minutes.)"—Mr. if's? aeli's speech.

PROBABLE PRICE OF WHEAT UNDER THE OPERATION

OF FREE TRADE

I have had returns sent me of the quantity of grain
grown in Hungary the year before last ; and I may men-
tion that in Croatia there were raised a million and a-half
of quarters. Then, it maybe said, how are we to get corn
from Hungary ? Why. Sir, I received a letter, not long
ago, from one of the greatest corn merchants at Sissek,
the first corn market ha Fungary, and he says, that on an
average of the last five years, the price of the finest Hun-
garian corn, which I must remind you, is thefinest in the
world, which in the Dantzic market ranks with the finest
Dantzic wheat, was 18s. 6d., and that you may send it
from this town of Sissek to Carlstadt, by the river Saye,
at a cost of 4d. the English quarter, and from Carlstadt
to the port of Fiume for ls. Bd. a quarter. The person
who gives me this information is a practical man at Sis-
sek, and he is ready to prove the accuracy of his opinions
by acting upon them. He says, " Only give me a regular
trade with England, and I will send you, from Sissek,
500,000 quarters the first year." That is the report of a
merchant of Hungary. But do you mean to say that
that would not exercise the greatest influence on your
market ? When the demand is steady the market is
steady ; but I can show you what the effect would be with
an increased demand and an increased supply. Now, I
would take the markets of the Danube. The corn might be
sent from the two chief ports of the Danube, and here I
might observe that it is a very curious circumstance that
in the year 1842, as appears by a return I hold in my
hand, there were 1,350 vessels laden in those two ports
with the prodace of the Danubian provinces, but only
eight of them were English. It is a remarkable fact that
while commerce was thriving and free trade was advocated,
this, the greatest commercial country in the world, had
only eight vessels laden at those ports. But a gentleman
writing to a house in England,—l will give his name to
the right lion. gentleman, and I think it will astound him,
for it is Mr. Sa-'ders, of Liverpool (hear), says,—'• I
will undertake, by my correspondents, to secure wheat
from Hungary. at the price of 183. a-quarter, free on
board ; and / will lay down this year, in an English
'port, 200,000 quarters, at from 28s. to 30s. : and if you
will secure me a certain, a sure market, I will dauble
that quantity next year." That same gentleman, that
same Mr. Sanders, who has given in his adhesion to the
right hon. baronet, to-night, in the manuscript letter
which I have read—but which I trust the right hon. baro-
net has not read, because, immediately after he gives in
his adhesion to the agricultural policy of the right hon.
baronet, I find be says that the banking bill of last year
must ruin the country (hear, hear),—that same Mr. San-
ders then offers to enter into a contract to supplyl,ooo,ooo
quarters of wheat at 18s. a quarter, and if the measures
of the Government pass, he will undertake at the end of
this year that that 1,000,000 of quarters shall be doubled
and sent to England at reduced prices. (Hear.)—Mr.
D'lsraeli's speech.

MR. D'ISRAELI AND SIR ROBERT PEEL

The hon. member for Shrewsbury is undoubtedly the
evil genius of Sir Robert Peel, and the one member of the
house who appears to possess the power to disturb his
complacency. In the concluding debate on Friday night
upon the Corn Bill, Mr. D'lsraeli inflicted the following
severe castigation upon the premier, which called forth
from him very unusual symptoms of irritation :
" And now I must say a word in vindication of the right
hon. baronet. (Laughter.) I think that great injustice
has been done to him thrcughout the debate; that a jus-
tifiable misconception has universally prevailed respecting
the right hon. gentleman. He has been accused of a long
meditated deception, of a desire worthy of a great states-
man—even of art unprincipled one—to give up all the opi-
nions by which he rose to power. I acquit the right hon.
gentleman of any such intention, and I do for this reason,
that when I examine the career of the minister who now
fills a great space in the parliamentary history of this
country, I see that between 30 and 40 years, from the days
of Horner down to the days of the hon. member for Stock-
port, the right hon. gentleman has traded on the ideas and
intellects of others. (Cheers.) His life has been a great
appropriation clause. (Renewed cheers and laughter.)
He has been the burglar of others' intellects. Open the
index of Beatson, and from the days of the Conqueror
down to the termination of the last reign you will find no
statesman who has committed petty larceny on so great a

scale. (Cheers.) I believe, therefore, that when the
right hon. gentlemen undertook our cause on either side
of the house he was perfectly sincere in his advocacy. But
as in the course of the discussion the conventionalities he
had imbibed crumbled away from his grasp, feeling no
creative power to sustain him with new arguments—feel-
ing no spontaneous sentiment to force upon him convic-
tion ; the right hon. gentleman was reduced at last to de-
fending the noblest cause, based on the highest princi-
ples, the right hon. gentleman, faithful fo the law of his
nature, embraced the new doctrines, the more vigorous,
life-like, popular doctrines of free-trade, just as he had
embraced the doctrines of Horner; just as he had em-
braced the doctrine of every leading man in this country

for the last 30 or 40 years, With the exception of the doc-
trine of Parliamentary reform, which the Whigs wisely
kept as their own, and did not allow it to grow to sufficient
maturity to fall into the mouth of the right hon. gentle-
man. (Loud cheers.)

THE PREMIER'S ANNOUNCEMENT ,AND ITS EFFECT

I remember when the whig budget was rejected, and
the right hon. gentleman installed into office, the changes
which he proposed at the time created some suspicion ;
but all suspicion was hushed at the moment because the
right hon. gentleman was looked upon as the man who
'could make the best bargain for the party. I want to
know what gentlemen think of their best bargain now.
(Laughter and cheers.) At last, sir, it was announced
that the first minister meditated another change. And
how was that announcement made ? Were hon. gentle-
men called together, or had the influential members of the
house any intimation given to them of the nature of it ?
(Hear.) No, sir. It was announced through the columns
of a journal—(cries of " hear")—which is always careful
never to insert important information except on the high-
est authority. (Renewed cries of "hear.") And see the
effect which the announcement had on foreign ministers
and on foreign courts. I can bear witness to it. I know
one great potentate who sent for the English ambassador
and demanded an explanation of the announcement; and
I know an English ambassador who called on a great po-
tentate and assured him that there was not the slightest
truth in the announcement. (Hear, and laue,hter.) And
all this time members of the government—l have some of
them in my eye—were calling on other newspapers devo-
ted to the government, and instructing them to declare
that the announcement was an infamous fabrication. And
how ingenious was the conduct of the ministers—or of
that minister who formed the omnipotent rninerity of the
cabinet. (Loud and ironical cheers.) After so mucmuchagitation, after so much manoeuvring, and atter the cabi-
net had been reformed, was it not somewhat strange that
the right honourable baronet should have talked and acted
as if we had deserted him, and not as if he had deserted
us? (Great cheering.) Who can forget those tones? Who
can forget that an indignant glance ?
. •

" Vectabor humeris tune ego in!micis eques ;
Memque terra cedet insolentive ;"
which means to say, " I, a protectionist minister, mean
to govern England with the aid of the Anti-Corn-Law
League. (Cheers.) And, as for the country gentlemen,
why, 1 snap my fingers at them." (Continued cheers.)
Yet it appeared to me that even then the right hon. gen-
tleman had no cause to complain of his party. It is very

true that, on a subsequent occasion, 240 gentlemen re-
corded their sense of his conduct. (Hear, hear.) But
then he might have remembered the considerable section
of converts that he obtained, even in the last hour. (Loud
laughter.) Why, what a compliment to a minister—not
only to vote for him, but to vote for him against your opi-
n:ons—(much cheering)—and in favour of opinions which
he had always drilled you to distrust. That was a scene I
believe unprecedented in the House of Commons. Indeed,
I recollect nothing equal to it, unless it be the conversion
of the Saxons by Charlemagne, which is the only histori-
cal incident that bears any parallel to that illustrious oc-
casion. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Then, the Saxons,
trained from the banks of the Rhine, determined to resist
any more movements on the part of the Great Caesar; but
when the Emperor appeared, instead of conquering he
converted them. How were they converted ? In batta-
lions—converted in battalions and baptized in platoons.
(Roars of laughter.) It was utterly impossible to bring
this nation from a state of reprobation to a state of grace
with a celerity sufficiently quick. (Laughter.) When I
saw the hundred and twelve fall into rank and file—(con-
tinned laughter)—l was irresistibly reminded of tl
_ _

morable incident on the banks of the Rhine. (C.
Mr. &Israeli's speech.

hat me-
eers.)—

SIR ROBERT'S DEFENCE OF THE GOVERNMENT

MEASURES

My first consideration was, what was the best means
for averting a great calamity ; and, secondly, to relieve
the people, I was bound to protect from the temptation
of famine and misery. I cannot charge myself or my
colleagues with having been unfaithful to the trust I have
undertaken. Ido not believe that the great institutions
of the country have suffered from this administration.
The noble lord who has just spoken has expressed a hope
that the discussions which have threatened the main-
tenance of amicable relations between this country and
the United States would be brought to a happy conclusion.
I think I can appeal to the course which we have pursued
as evidence that we have not abandoned the honour of
this country; and I can appeal to past experience as
showing an earnest desire, by any effort consistent with
my honour, to maintain friendly relations with every
country on the face of the globe. (Hear, hear.) These
principles will ever continue to influence me so long as I
have a share in the management of the affairs of this
country. If I look to the prerogatives of the crown—if
1 look to the position of the church—if I look to the in-
fluence of the aristocracy, I cannot charge myself with
having tasen any course inconsistent with Conservative
principles, or calculated to interfere with the high prin-
ciples of any branch of the legislature, or any institutions
established in the country. My earnest wish has ever
been to impress the people with the feeling that the legis-
lature is animated by a desire of carrying on their im-
portant proceedings on the principle of justice. I have a
strong belief that the great object we all contemplate is to
alleviate the social condition of that class of the people
with whom we are brought into no direct relations by the
exercise of the legislative franchise. (Hear, hear.) I
wish to convince them that our object is to apportion
taxation in such a way as to relieve industry and labour
from any undue burden,—(hear, hear)—and transfer it,
as far as is consistent with the public safety, to those who
are better able to bear it. I leak at the absence of any
commitment for sedition—l look at the calm that prevails
in the public mind—l look at the increased and growing
confidence on account of the course which you have taken
in relieving trade from restrictions and industry from un-
just burdens—l see that where there was dissatisfaction
there is contentment—where there was turbulence I see
there is peace—where there was disloyalty I see there is
loyalty—l see a disposition to confide in you, and not to
agitate questions that are at the foundation of your con-
stitution. Deprive me of power to-morrow, you can never
deprive me of the consciousness that I have exercised the
powers committed to me from no corrupt or interested
motives,—(cheers)—from no view to the gratification of
personal ambition or any personal enmity; that I have
laboured to maintain peace abroad consistently with the
national honour, and defending every just institution to
increase the confidence of the great body of the people in
the justice of your decisions, and by the means of equal
law to dispense with all coercive powers,—(" hear, hear,"
from the Irish members)—and to maintain attachment to
the throne, and loyalty to the constitution, from a con-
viction of the benefit that would accrue to the great body
of the people. (Che' rs.)—Sir Robert Peel's speech,

THE C-URT 4- FASHIOA

'ABLE WORLD,

On Tuesday forenoon, the Queen and Prince Albert,
with the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, left
Buckingham Palace for the old palace at Kew, whence
they returned the following day. The Court is now at
Buckingham Palace.

Her Majesty gave a concert on Thursday at Bucking-
ham Palace. All the singers engaged were German or
Italian.

The Duchess of Kent, attended by Lady Augusta
Bruce, honoured Sir Robert Peel with a visit on Thurs-
day.

On Monday afternoon Prince Albert laid the foundation
stone of the church for the seamen of the port of London.
In the evening the Queen and Prince Albert, with the
Duchess of Kent had a coneert.

The Queen Dowager will leave Marlborough-
Bushy on Wednesday ; and, according to present arrange-
ments, her Majesty will take her departure from England
for Germany on the 19th proximo. Cashiohury, the seat
of the Earl of Essex, has been refurnished, and is now
ready for her Majesty's occupancy. _

house for

The venerable -Earl of Harrow-by, although still some-
what infirm from his advanced life, is in improved health,
and intends to pass the season in town.
A handsome satin dress, surmounted with lace, and in-
tended as a present to her Majesty for the use of the Prin.
cess Royal, was exhibited at the Victoria Asylum for the
Blind, Newcastle, a few days ago. The dress was worked
exclusively by blind persons, inmates of that institution.

HER MAJESTY'S ACCOUCHEMENT.—The near ap-
proach of an interesting event, to which the public look
forward with intense interest, may perhaps be inferred
from the fact that the messengers of the Home-office
have received directions to be in attendance, night and
day, on and after to-morrow (Monday), so that the fact of
the Queen's indisposition may be communicated without
loss of time to the Cabinet Ministers.-- Observer.

DINNER PARTIES.—A custom has come in, and seems
to be gaining ground, instead of sitting at the top and
bottom of the table, the host and hostess sit opposite each
other at the middle ; by which means they are more at
ease, more in the centre of their guests, and better able
to communicate with each other. George IV. adopted the
practice twenty years ago ; it is followed by Queen Vic-
toria. According to this arrangement, two persons can
be accommodated at each end of the table—not a bad point
where there is limited accommodation.