The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-01-15 00:00:00

RUINOUS EFFECTS OF THE PAPERTUTY.—The effect
of the paper duty 'is pretty conclusively shown by the
diminution of the number of manufacturers engaged in
the trade. In the year 1801 there were 413 paper makers,
in England alone. In 1845 there were only 381 in Eng-
land, and in Great Britain only 473.
MR. COBDEN'S SOIREE AT AYLESBURY.—The pom-
pously-proclaimed meeting for the purpose of hearing Mr.
Cobden's sentence upon the doomed cause of protection,
was held on Wednesday at Aylesbury. Mr. Cobden
made a long address, after which a resolution was adopted
by his adherents, denouncing all idea of a return to pro-
tection, and laying it down that the distress of the agri-
cultural classes is only to be remedied by a more equita-
ble adjustment of the relations existing between tenants
and their landlords ; and that to produce that result it is
necessary that the people at large should have a more
extended control over their representatives in parliament.
Mr. Cobden very wisely refrained from giving his pro-
mised advice to the farmers how to make tteir farms pay
with wheat at 40s. per quarter.
SIR JOSHUA WALMESLEY'S VISIT TO HIS CONSTITU-
ENTS' —On Wednesday last Sir Joshua Walmesley arrived
in Bolton on a visit to his constituents. On the same
evening he and Mr. Blair, the Conservative' member,
attended a promenade soiree at the exhibition of paintings
for the beuefit of the Dispensary and Public Baths. On
Thursday morning Mr. Blair and Sir Joshua went toge-
ther to inspect a model of the intended new market
place, made by Mr. Blinkhorn, joiner and builder, Crown-
street, at the expense of Mr. John Scowcroft, a member
of the Town Council. On Thursday evening Sir Joshua
attended a tea party at the Temperance Hall, provided
by his constituents, to give him a public reception. There
were 750 present; and, after tea, a considerable number,
who could not be accommodated in the body of the hall,
were admitted into the gallery.
THE FARMER'S CONSIDERATION FOR HIS LABOUR-
ERS.—At the Aylesbury protectionist meeting, last week,
Mr. Tramper said that " the farmers had been accused
by the Times, on account of a few alleged cases of profit-
able farming, of misdirecting our energies, comparing us
to a man who should spend 18 hours a day in doing a
celebrated old novel into heroic verse—a most gratuitous
assumption. considering the acknowledged progress that
agriculture has made of late years, shown in the increased
produce of the land. lam well aware that I could most
materially diminish the amount of labour, and, among
other things, by the erection of machinery, reduce by
one-half the expense of thrashing my produce. But
there are other considerations to overbalance this plausi-
ble economy. Our legislature, when they admitted the
whole world into free competition with my products, tied
me down still to the support of the labouring poor of my
locality. Under the present system this is inevitable, and
I prefer taking up the burden in the form of wages to
that of rates—partly as being the lighter of the two ;
partly from the demoralising effects of pauperism ; and
partly from motives which our adversaries scarcely give us
credit for, but for the reality of which I confidently appeal
to those of you, gentlemen, who, like myself, have spent
their lives on one farm. (Hear.) I have a host of fami-
liar faces with whom, and with whose fathers, I have been
associated from my childhood ; and to disturb the order,
whereby I have been enabled to give them regular em-
ployment, would be doing the greatest violence to my
feelings. (Hear.) And here, gentlemen, is a practical
illustration of the hardship and injustice of our position ;
for while the cotton manufacturer has economised manual
labour to an almost inconceivable extent, we are tied
down to its employment by an alternative as painful as it
is oppressive." (Cheers.)

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES AT HORSHAM.—A
" singular entry," as it is termed in the law report of the
case, excited considerable curiosity on Wednesday last,
in the Bankruptcy Court. We shall set down the case
as we find it reported :—" The bankrupt, Rowland, was
a stone-mason, in Horsham. He came up for his certifi •
cate. An opposition was attempted, and the attention of
the court was called to the following item in the balance-
sheet. Under the head of Creditors holding security,'
is, Sir John Jervis, Eton-square. Pimlico, Attorney-
General, cash advanced £650, interest thereupon £32 10s.
Sir John holds a mortgage on a house and garden in East
Horsham.' It was suggested that this item ought to be
inquired into. His Honour said it was either a gift or a
loan, or SOMETHING ELSE WHICH HE WOULD NOT MEN-
TION. Had it been a trade debt he would have minutely
inquired into it." Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque evi-
dently did not like the look of this entry, though it bore
on his face the name of the Chevalier sans reproche, the
immaculate Sir John Jervis. He was prevented from
" inquiring minutely" into it, by the circumstance of its
not being a " trade debt." Nevertheless he gave his
opinion pretty freely, that it was " either a gift or a loan,
or SOMETHING ELSE WHICH HE WOULD NOT MEN-
TION." For his own sake, for the sake of that honour
of his which has already gone bail in the House of Com-
mons for the purity of the Horsham election, we cannot
permit ourselves to doubt that Sir John will take the ear-
liest opportunity of pressing fora " minute inquiry" into
this gift, or loan, or unmentionable nescio quid, before a
tribunal which is not hampered in its investigations by
the technical distinction between " trade debts" and debts
of another and a genteeler sort ; the more so, as the
Chief Justiceship in posse renders it more imperative than
ever for Sir John Jervis to " assume a virtue if he has it
not," and in good earnest to sport the character of Caesar's
wife.—John Bull.

WHAT FREE TRADE IN GRAIN HAS ALREADY DONE.—
It is no easy matter to ascertain the rates at which corn
may be grown on the Continent. The current prices at
foreign ports, such as Hamburgh, have, in reality, little
bearing upon this most vital point, though they have been
eagerly assumed by the free-traders as a sure index of fu-
ture prices. Very little consideration will spew every one
that the true way of forming a fair conclusion on the sub-
ject, is to ascertain, as nearly as may be, the cost of grain,
not at the ports from whence it issues, but in the Wand
countries where the greater portion of it is grown. The
reason for this is obvious. Under the old system, when
protective duties were the rule, the demand for foreign
corn was exceedingly fluctuating and uncertain. We ne-
ver dealt directly with the foreign grower; but, between
him and the British consumer at least three profits in-
tervened. There were middlemen, principally Jews, who
made it their regular business to purchase up the super-
fluity of the Polish crops on speculation, and to sell it to
the Dantzic dealers. Then came the profit of the latter,
and also that of the British corn merchant ; and, as the
trade was notoriously a precarious one, these profits were
of considerable amount. The demand, however, may now
be considered as fixed and steady. Henceforward, under
the operation of free trade, the two considerations of qua-
lity and cheapness must alone regulate the market. Not
only the superfluity of the continental harvests will be
available, but new land, of which there are immense
tracts of the finest description, hitherto untilled, will be
put under cultivation, and the produce regularly trans-
mitted to this country, where a ready market can at all
times be found. The first symptom of this new regular
trade will be the disappearance of one of the intermediate
profits. This is not the subject of prophecy; it has al-
ready taken place, the foreigners have now the whole of
the foreign grain trade exclusively in their own hands.
We are informed by one of the first corn merchants of
Leith, that there is not a single order sent for grain from
this country. " The finest Dantzic wheat, free on board,"
writes one of our correspondents, " will not be sold to a
British merchant for less than 38s. the quarter ; and as no
more than 40s. or 41s. could be got for it here, there is
no margin for a profit, and the risk is not run. But the
foreigner will send it on his own account, and sell it here,
at 38s. and realise a profit. You thus see that the entire
trade is out of British hands, for the prices of their own
grain must entirely be ruled by those of the foreigner;
and the consequence is, that every bushel sent to this
country is on consignment, and not to order.—Black-
wood.

MR. COBDEN AND MR. D'ISRAELI.—A Protectionist
meeting was held on Tuesday at Marlow, when about a
hundred and thirty were present. Resolutions were pas-
sed declaring the local taxation of twelve millions was too
hard a burden for the landed interest to bear, and that
taxes ought to be raised by duties on foreign imports.
After dinner, Mr. Disraeli made a speech, in the first
place denying the statement that he had raised his rents.
He declared that he had not raised them one sixpence.
He declared there was no class more dangerous to the
agricultural interest—no body of men whose existence
acted more injuriously to the common good than that body
of proprietors who wished to enjoy, at the same time, the
advantages of high rents and low prices. (That's a hard
hit.) He intended it to be a hard it. It was a principle
he had always enforced, because he believed it to be
founded on truth, and neither there, nor in another place,
would he be afraid to maintain it. He declined to meet
Mr. Cobden at Aylesbury—" He goes to Aylesbury to-
morrow to open the minds of the deluded farmers of
Bucks. (Laughter.) Why, all this proves the harpoon
is in the great fish. (Loud cheers.) We have got him.
I feel that I have him on the hook, and there I mean him
to remain. (Renewed cheers.) I don't mean to land
him easily. I'll give him line enough. I shall play with
him ; he shall flounce in the water ; but if I don't at last
land the large trout on the verdant turf, supported by the
electors of Bucks, lam mistaken. (Tremendous cheers.)
Mr. Cobden says that with respect to local taxation the
less that is said the better. I have no doubt of it. He
never said anything truer. lam certain that local taxa-
tion will he the end of the Cobden school. (Cheers.)
• • 0000000 . . Mr. Cobden is opposed
to all warfare except civil war, and the way he intends to
achieve his purpose is by the use of moral means. Now.
gentlemen, I have had some experience in public life, and
during that time I have seen a great deal done, and more
pretended than what are called moral means, and, being
naturally of a thoughtful temperament, I have been indu-
ced to analyse what moral means are. I will tell you
what I have found them to consist of. I have found them
to consist of three qualities :—Fjrst, enormous lying ;
second, inexhaustible boasting; thirdly, intense selfish-
ness. (Great applause.) These are moral means,—the
means of the Manchester school, which Mr. Cobden is to
explain and recommend in our county town to-morrow. 1
have received an invitation to meet him ; in fact, I ought
rather to say, I have received a challenge to meet him.
' To-morrow evening, in Aylesbury, he isto explain the great
principles of financial reform and representative ameliora-
tion. He is going, to use the language of the north of
England, to a swarm—(laughter)—and I have been invi-
ted to meet him. My answer I give publicly—l hate
writing letters—and my answer is, I meet him at soirees
seven months of the year; and whenever your interests
are concerned I hope I shall not be afraid to speak my
mind, even to Mr. Cobden. (Cheers.) But what buf-
foonery in a man who ought to have been a Cabinet
Minister, if his principles are right—what disgrace to the
present Government—to the political society of England,
that a man who, if his principles are right, ought to be
the foremost man of the country, the counsellor of the
Sovereign, the great advocate of the people—the man to
whom all ought to look—that he should skulk down in a
train to a miserable county town when noboby was there,
in order that lying newspapers might say that Mr. Cob-
den had appeared in the heart of Buckinghamshire—that
the people had been converted by the expression of his
opinion, and thats (lido:A dare to meet him:? (Cleers.)