The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-27 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We reeeived the letter of " A Poor Member of St. Jude's" too
late for insertion.
We will represent he complaint of "A Townsman" in a quarter
likely to affol (.1 him redress.

br aibtrpool

TUESDAY 310TiNING, FEB. 27, 1844.

Our contemporary, the Man•chtster Guardian,
affects on all occasions a propriety of manner and of
language to which plain men of the world of litera-
ture or commerce must not aspire. He never uses
bad language : oh, no! He never imputes unwor-
thy motives to a political opponent. He never de-
nounces deliberate " falsehood" on the part of such
opponent by any more violent appellative than the
words " fib" or " erroneous statement." Look
through his columns from January to December;
and the unthinking world, who know not the hol-
low pretension of the man, would imagine it impos-
sible to find a sentiment which a Cowper might not
have dictated, or a line which a Chesterfield might
not have penned.
With this refined spirit animating him, our con-
temporary on Wednesday last approached the consi-
deration of a letter, which appeared in our last week's
paper, addressed by our townsman, Joseph Sandars,
Esq., to Lord Talbot, and which, from the fact that
it has drawn upon the writer the yelping of the
whole pack of the League's scribes, must have some-
what galled that august body. Of course it was
impossible to deal with the letter in question with-
out a preliminary flourish of the Guardian's exceed-
ing gentility of style and language ; and accordingly
Mr. Sandars is accused of " abusing the Anti-Corn•
law League, in that choice and elegant style which
seems to have lately found so much favour with
more aristocratic advocates of monopoly," and which
is so unappropriate, when applied to a body sogentle
f speech and irreproachable in manners as are the
League an.l its itinerant spouters ! We ourselves
cannot discover any portion of the letter which de-
serves our contemporary's reproach. We can find
no expression throughout which is not quite good
enough for the parties to whom it is applied. His
perception of the genteel, however, is more acute
than ours ; and we are informed that Mr.
Sandars, on the ground of this same " abuse,"
would have been deprived of all the advantage and
honour of a reply in the columns of the Guardian,
had his letter not contained " some statements re-
garding the average cost of bringing foreign grain
to this country," which this great authority esteems
calculated to " mislead the publ c" from their blind
devotion to the oracles of the Anti-Corn-law League.
Let us see, then, what are these statements which

our contemporary proposes to controvert.

Mr. Sandars had remarked upon the falsehood
of the statements made by Mr. Cobden and others,
that "the average cost of freight of foreign wheat to
this country was 10s. 6d. per quarter," and that
such charge was a sufficient protection to the native
agriculturist. We will, however, for the satisfaction
of our readers, and the more clear elucidation of the
question at issue between Mr. Sandars and the
Guardian, give the precise words of the former gen-
tleman.

" I have stated that the League have been guilty of
falsehood ; perhaps misrepresentation would be a less of-
fensive term. I will proceed to the proof. In the Times
newspaper of the 30th December last, Mr. Cobden is
reported to have said at Derby, that the average for
carriage, &c., of bringing foreign wheat to this country,
was 10s. Gd. per quarter. Take the cost at 40s. per qr.,
if they liked, and that was 25 per cent. carriage to be paid
before the corn could he landed here.' "

Upon this (to the precise wording of which we call
the attention of our readers) Mr. Sandars went on
to say—
" It is astonishing, after the repeated contradictions
which similar statements have received, that any man
can be found daring enough to repeat them. I now beg
to state, from my own intimate knowledge of the toreign
corn trail tb.r the Aeight from llawburg has long
~.
,anged at is. 3d. to 2s. per quarter ; and that foreign
wheat, so imported, is subject to no charge to which
English, moved from one port to another, is not subject
likewise : and, moreover, I state, without the fear of con-
tradiction, that the rate of freight on such English wheat,
moved coastwise, is as often above 2s. as it is below it.
He is a bad calculator, who thinks that the merchant in
Yarmouth who buys wheat, and the factor in Wakefield
who sells it, work without a commission. The charge for
commission, porterage, metage,' and the ' imaginary
profits' of Mr. Macculloch, are common to all wheat,
wherever bought or sold. Freights from the Danish
ports vary from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 9d. per quarter, and from
the Baltic ports from 3s. to 4s. per quarter, to which must
be added 6d. per quarter Sound dues."

. _
--
In reply to the above statements made upon the
faith and the extensive experience of an honourable
British merchant, our contemporary quibbles most
wofully. Mr. Sandars, he says, has not made " the
slightest attempt to prove that the statement (of Mr.
Cobden) is erroneous." The question at issue, he
says, " was not as to what the mere freight is from
one foreign port only, and that the nearest to Great
Britain, but as to what the average cost of carriage
is from the various ports of the Continent and the
United States." But Ir. Sandars has not given the
mere freight from one foreign port only. He had
given it as well from the Danish ports and the Bal-
tic—from the ports, in fact, from which we derive
the bulk of our foreign supply ; and the Guardian's
assertion, therefore, is a little more than a quibble.
It is decidedly and desperately dishonest.
But with respect to the freight from Hamburg,
as given by Mr. Sandars, the Guardian is not satis-
fied, and quotes the following estimate of Mr. Meek,
the government commissioner, in favour of his own
and the League's views.

" A fair average rate of freight would be 3s. 6d. per
quarter. Exportation would b- subject to other charges,
amounting, on the whole, to from 2s. to 3s. per quarter."
- -

This, the Guardian states, would be the average
rate of charge " if the trade were permanently ex-
tended." We have always been told, however, by
the League and its organs, that, under our present
system of Corn-laws we were paying higher freights
than we should do under a free trade, when an ad-
ditional and regular supply of vessels Allliad be
driven into that branch of the carrying trade. View
the question, however, as it stands at present, upon
practical evidence of the past. We have a specula-
tive opinion of Mr. Meek, against the bond-fide ex-
perience of one extensively engaged in importation.
The former fixes the rate of freight at 3s. 6d., and
the latter states that it has long ranged at Is. 3d. to
2s. We believe the latter,
. _

With respect to the " other charges," which the
Guardian, on the authority of Mr. Meek, puts down
at 2s. to 3s. per quarter, we must tell our contem-
porary that they are quite foreign to the present
question. Mr. Cobden's statement, to which Mr.
Sanders addressed himself, was, that the average of
" freight, &e.," of foreign wheat was 10s. 6d.; and
the object of that statement was to show that such
freight, &c., was an ample protection to the British
fanner. This object is clear from the passage
quoted above, viz., " take the cost at 40s. per quar-
ter and that was 25 per cent. carriage, to be paid
before the corn could be landed here." Those charges,
therefore (landing charges, brokerages, &c.), to
which British wheat, borne coastwise, is equally
subject with foreign wheat, cannot be brought into
the calculation ; and as to any similar charges in
foreign ports, we beg to inform our contemporary
that the quoted prices abroad are all "free on
board." There is no foreign corn upon which there
is any charge, beyond mere freight, from its ship-
ment abroad to its arrival in a Bt itish port, except

Danzig and Baltic cargoes, which have to pay Sound
dues of 6d. per quartet.

And now let us see how this very gentlemanly
journalist, who so loudly deprecates the use of bad
language, proceeds, at the conclusion of his remarks,
to insult his opponent. We give the passage as a
specimen of insolence, and of ignorance as well :-
1 " Some people may be disposed to say, Why should
Mr. Saedars have any strong feeling on this subject?
What interest can be have in the maintenance of the
sliding scale ?' We believe that Mr. Sandars- has good
reasons for pieferrine a tax which causes great fluctua-
tions in the mice of corn. He is a man of good judgment
in his business, taking great pains to procure information.
and, if we mistake not, has been a bold and most success-
ful speculator in corn. His preference of the sliding scale
is as natural as we believe it to be sincere : it rests upon
the same grounds as the preference of Demetrius, the
Ephesian, for idolatry—' SIRS, YE KNOW THAT BY THIS
CRAFT WE HAVE OUP. WEALTH.' "

We beg to inform our contemporary—and he
stands occasionally in great need of information—
that neither Mr. Sanders, nor any other Liverpool
corn-merchant or broker, is " interested in the
maintenance of the sliding scale." That scale works
injuriously for the corn-merchants of Liverpool,
whether as speculators or in their legitimate busi-
ness; and for this simple reason, which every prac-
tical man will acknowledge to be just. At a time
when great fluctuations are taking place in the price
of corn, the object of the importer will always be to
get his cargo to a British port as soon as possible,
in order to be able to avail himself of the most fa-
vourable time for entry, at the lowest duty payable.
On this account, purchases made on speculation at
such times, in any port in the North of Europe,
will be shipped for the east coast of England (Hull
or London), which can he reached in a few days;
whereas the average voyage to Liverpool is at least
three weeks. The operation, therefore, of a sliding
scale is to divert consignments from merchants and
brokers in Liverpool to other more accessible ports;
and, if personal and pecuniary interests were alone
to be considered, those gentlemen would be infinitely
advantaged by a free trade or a small fixed duty.

In reply to the insolence which the Guardian di-
rects against Mr. Sanders, in this charge of
interested motives, we need say little to those
who know our contemporary's own venal na-
ture. Has he no interest in his advocacy of corn-
law repeal, and his slavish couching to the League?
We remember an occasion on which the Guardian
openly denounced that body and its crotchets; and,
assuredly, it is not for nothing that he has been for
four years past so busily engaged in eating his own
words. .

So much of the preceding article applies to the
observations of the Mercury, as well as to those of
the Manchester Guardian, that we Might easily have
spared ourselves the trouble of noticing our Liver-
pool contemporary. We cannot, however, refrain
from remarking upon some figures with which the
Mercury has furnished us, as bearing upon the sub-
ject, which we conceive to be as outrageously ab-
surd, or as glaringly dishonest, as any statement of
the kind which has come under our notice as jour-
nalists.

The object of the Mercury (crammed, no doubt,
for the purpose by some eminent League authority)
was to show a high average rate of freight, as pay-
able upon foreign corn imported into this country.
And how does he set about his task ? Does he first
inquire, as any man acquainted with arithme-

tic and desirous of arriving at a fair average
would, from what foreign ports the bulk of our
supplies are procured ? No : That would not hava
served the purpose of the writer ; for the reply to
such an inquiry would have been that the bulk of
our imports are from the near ports of the North
of Europe. He leaves this part of the question
therefore, and strings his figures together after the
following fashion. The ordinary rates are, he says,

s. d. s. d.
2 oto 2 6

s. d. s. d.

From Hamburgh

„ LosTcr —Baltic
ports 3 0 5 3 6
Danzig,Elbing,
&c. 3 6to 4 0

S 6 10 o—average 210 to 3 4

From Italy 4 6to 6 0
Odessa 8 oto 9 0

12 6 15 o—average 6 3to 7 6

From United States 5 oto 6 0
Canada 6 oto 8 0

11 0 14 o—average 5 6to 7 0