The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-08-01 00:00:00

TO OUR FRIENDS AND THE PUBLIC.

After four publications of the STANDARD in its
improved form, as a weekly paper, we may now
fairly assume that we are in a position to arrive at a
fair idea of our average circulation ; and we have
pleasure whilst thanking those friends who have so
kindly supported us, in informing them and the public
—especially the advertising public—of Liverpool
and the neighbouring towns and district, that our
sale is already closely approaching 2000 copies of
each publication, and is STEADILY INCREASING,
We have also to thank a now numerous and growing
conneaion in MANCHESTER. who have kindly handed
us their names as subscribers.

So unexpectedly large a measure of support, con-
ferred upon us almost without solicitation, is the
strongest proof which we can receive of the public
approval of our labours; and our friends may rest
assured that no effort, on our part, shall be spared
to increase our usefulness, and to present to them an
organ which shall even more fully deserve their con-
fidence and kind support.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

rHE GREAT BRITAIN STEAM-SIIIP.—If the correspon-
dent who complains that, " in every print that he has
seen, the name of Mr. Guppy appears as the modeller
of the steam-ship Great Britain," had referred to the
LIVERPOOL STANDARD, he would have found that we.
at least, committed no such error.
A SUBSCRIBER.—Medicus feels a difficulty in recom-
mending a plan for restoring the natural strength,
without knowing further particulars. There may be
causes out of reach ; but the use of the cold bath, with
or without salt, followed up with the daily use of
Dinneford's horse-hair gloves or belt, would be most
likely to prove of service, along with constant exercise
according to ability, increased gradually.
♦ The Corporation have certainly " fallen upon evil days,"
when they permit such a property as the Queen's Arms
Hotel, in the centre of Castlo.-street, to be let for " a
show." At the time at which we write, one of its win-
dows is plastered over with hieroglyphics of three-
legged pigs, and " other strange fish"—as a Hibernian
would say ; a mob of some fifty ragged boys and idle
men and women are obtructing the pathway, whilst a
stentorian voiced fellow is roaring out at the top of his
lungs, " Walk in, ladies and gintlemin, and see the
wonderful and curious prodigies, &c—to he seen all for the
low price," &c. &c. ! When the Leigh-street nuisance
was put down, we little thought the Council were about
to commence showmen on their own account.

Etberpoot &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, AUGU.ST 1, 1843.

The attempt of a forward child to strut in his
papa's hunting boots; the effort of a carrion crow
to imitate the notes of a nightingale; Joseph Hume

exhibiting a la Fanny E,ler, or Lord Brougham
attetnpting to compose his moveable features into
the placidity of one of the master-pieces of Canova

or Chantrey, would be objects sufficiently provoca-

tive of the merriment of all mankind : but the recent

effort of the pigmy scion of the house of Russell to
occupy the position which Lord Lyndhurst was
wont, at the close of each sesssion, to assume ;—th
effort to level against Sir Robert Peel's administra-
tion those trenchant and withering exposures, with
which that learned Lord was in the habit of over-
whelming feeble Whiggery, and holding it up as in
the pillory, for mankind to gaze and laugh at,—is
one, the most superlatively ridiculous, which can well

be conceived. We marvel as we wade through the
Russell explosion of vanity, not more at the sheer
impudence of the small performer, as at the fact that

300 English gentlemen could listen, with anything

at all approaching to gravity and decorum, to an

exhibition so absurd in its pomposity, and so mani-

festly impertinent, when we consider the small pre-

tensions to infallibility of the exhibitor, and the infinite

superiority of the statesman against whom the whip-
ped syllabubs of his Lordship were spluttered forth.
Lord John complains of the small amount of legis-
lative achievement which has marked the present
session of parliament. So complain we, and so com-
plain all men. But to what is this barrenness of
the session to be attributed so greatly as to Whig
factiousness ? Sir Robert Peel has effected little,

because whiggery has prated, in season and out of
season. He has effected little because, against every
measure proposed by him, Whiggery leaguing itself
with dissent, with popery, with infidelity even, has
agitated the masses out of doors, and loaded the table
of the House of Commons with its fabricated peti-
tions. The most ordinary business of Parliament
bas been obstructed with ad captnadum motions and
factious divisions. The House of Commons has
met night after night, rather to listen to defences of
the policy of the late administration and professions
of the future policy of its members—rather to see
agitation in England coaxed, and rebellion in Ireland
patted upon the back—than to carry on the sub-
stantial government of the country. What was
Lord Palmerston's abortive motion upon Indian
affairs, the discussion of which occupied three nights.
but an obstructive effort? What was Smith O'Brien's
Irish motion, which occupied five nights? What
was the Canadian discussion, in which Whiggery
sought to aggravate to the utmost the unfounded
jealousies of the Conservative party ? What has
been the aggravating cause of the factious discus-
sions upon the Arms Bill, but the willingness of
Lord John Russell to promote obstruction to the
progress of legislation ? What is this very motion
before us but an obstructive motion ? In every way
the efforts of Whiggery have been the fertile sources
of the stoppage of legislation for the people; and it
is surely impudence the most gross and shameless
for the leader of Whiggery now to twit Sir Robert
Peel with that effect, of which the conduct of him-
self and his supporters has been the main inducing
cause !

We are certainly not ourselves satisfied that a firm
and determined effort, by Sir Robert Peel and the
Consen ative party, might not have tended to miti-
gate the evil, of which the country has too great
reason to complain. Upon this head we have ex-
pressed our opinion elsewhere. It is not competent,
however—it is scarcely decent—for Lord John Rus-
sell to allege, as a fault in his opponents, circum
cumstances which his own factiousness has most
materially contributed to bring about
His Lordship proceeds to remark upon the as-
sumed decline in the commerce and the finances of
the country ; and here too his hardihood of assump-
tion and argument is as ridiculous as it is impudent.
" You have adopted no decided measures to renovate
trade"—" You have done nothing to revive foreign
demand."—" You have done nothing to repair the
deficient revenue of the country." Indeed, my Lord!
And what does your Lordship submit, as the mea-
sures by which all these advantages might have been
secured ? A fixed duty on foreign corn ; an equal-
ization of the sugar duties ! By these magical mea-
sures—determined upon at the end of ten years of
dice—the last expiring effort—the last discovery of
a ministry in extremis, when ready to clutch at straws
to keep their heads above water and protect them
from the engulfing weight of a nation's scorn and
execration—England is to be placed in a position of
security, and her commerce and finances restored to
a state of health and prosperity ! llad these mea-
sures been adopted two years ago we should have

had no deficiency in the national revenue to regret—
no decline in the commerce of the country, and no
necessity for the imposition of a tas upon property
and income ! Really it is lamentable that a man of
Lord John Russell's ability should be so blinded
with vanity as to bring himself to utter an absurdity so
preposterous ? An eight shilling fixed duty upon

foreign corn could scarcely have produced to the
revenue much more than was realized under the
operation of the bill of last session. The sugar
duties, if we do not forget, were only estimated to
realize an additional £COO,OOO. And his Lordship
quite forgets, in his admiration of his own smothered
bantlings, to inform us in what way he would have
provided for the deficiency created by a reduction of
the entire tariff! We are reminded indeed that
increased consumption of all customable and excise-
able articles would have taken place ; but it is pal-
pable, from experience, that no such increase would
take place to the extent assumed, when it is from
those articles which are of greatest consumption
amongst the people, that the greatest reductions are
to occur !

With respect to the policy of Government towards
the repeal agitation in Ireland, and the Rebecca
agitation in Wales, we are compelled to express our
coincidence of opinion with his Lordship upon many
points, although we fear that his own house contains
a little too much glass to render a bout of stone-
throwing a very safe kind of amusement. Lord
John observes that

" There are two consequences, of which the house ought
not to lose sight. One was such as happened before in
Ireland, when, after political excitement and meetings,
those who attended the meetings began some local resis-
tance to the payment of some legal due. and thereby dis-
turbed the peace of the country, creating a necessity for
the intervention of the police and military force, which
again tended to increase outrage and crime ; and this state
of things spreading over a large portion of the country,
produced a kind of anarchy in parts of Ireland. There
is another consequence, and it is that with which Mr.
O'Connell has threatened the Government and Parliament
of this country,—namely, that he will summon a conven-
tion in Dublin, which shall escape the penalties of the
Convention Act—which shall curiously and cautiously
evade the law, but. which, sitting in Dublin, shall exercise
the power of representing the people of Ireland. is the
Government prepared for such a case? If, as is very
likely, Mr. O'Connell does succeed, with his acuteness
and ability, in evading the letter of the law, will you al-
low this convnition to go on, and the whole power of the
Government In be wrested from the Lord-Lieutenant, sit-
ting helpless in the Castle at Dublin? (Hear, hear.)
Are you prepared to allow the government to be taken
from you, and to see in any emergency, suddenly start up,
beyond the regular order of things, the name and title,
as well as the authority and power of Government ?"

We cordially agree with his Lordship that these
questions are eminently deserving of the considera-
tion of Sir Robert Peel's Government. The loyalty
of the empire requires assurance with respect to
them. But is Lord John Russell, who has half
hinted the legality of the repeal agitation—who has
declared that it is an agitation for the repeal of an
Act of Parliament only—the proper party to school the
Government of Sir Robert Peel? Ought a states-
man, who in the Town-hall of Liverpool declared,
that midnight meetings of Chartists were to be tolera-
ted as constitutional, and whose pet magistrate John
Frost, is now expiating, in a penal colony, the crime
of rebellion stirred onwards by that speech—the
party to lecture Sir Robert Peel, and to tell him that
his dismissals of magistrates in Ireland are injudi-
cious, and tend only to aggravate ill feeling ? 'We
submit not. His Lordship may be of a contrary
opinion ; but we can tell him that the loyal and
well-disposed people of England and of Ireland look
upon his presumptuous and sedition-feeding con-
duct with reprobation and disgust.
But enough of so pitiful an exhibition of splenetic
absurdity. When the country is in want of the
splendid talents of Lord John Russell and his co-
adjutors, to restore its prosperity and revive its
strength, it will speak out without his Lordship's
prompting. It will, however, be long, we trust, before
such a consummation arrives.

The present session of Parliament is fast hastening
to a close ; and what a "beggarly account " of mea-
sures accomplished does it present to us, compared
with its long list of futile and abandoned efforts of
legislation! What hopes dashed to the ground—
what confident anticipations unrealised—what bitter
disappointment gnawing the hearts of all who have
trusted in the power of a Conservative government
to ameliorate the social condition of the people, and
to guard from outrage the property, the industry,
and the cherished institutions and liberties of this
great empire ! With a Conservative, majority in
Parliament, overwhelming in extent, and with every
disposition, on the part of the country, to support
the efforts of its Conservative representatives, and
the Conservative government of its choice; we are
compelled to deplore a greater destitution—not of
legislative energy perhaps, but —of legislative
achievement, than has marked any one year of
office, of any ministry within our recollection !

Why, we ask, should this be ? Why is the go-
vernment of Sir Robert Peel thus powerless to
effect the good which was the universal expectation
of the Conserva ive majority of the empire, upon

its accession to power ? Why has that government
been compelled to lay aside, one by one, and at
length to abandon, by wholesale, the best digested
and the most vitally important of its measures ?
We shall have pointed out to us, as the reason, the
obstructive efforts of the opposition in Parliament,
aided by the demonstrations of hostility to those
measures out of doors. We admit, in part, the
force of this plea Obstruction, in Parliament, has
never been more shamelessly and factiously dis-
played ; agitation, out of doors, has never been more

industriously carried on. Night after night of the
most valuable portion of the session has bees occu-
pied in obstructive debates—in talking against time
—in factious discussions upon questions already
determined, and in struggles for adjournments which
were known to lead only to further vain and unpro-
fitable, and almost interminable, TALK ! And now,
it is unquestionable that many of the proposed mea-
sures of government are to be abandoned, not be-
cause any:great amount of opposition to them is an-
ticipated; but because there is absolutely not time
remaining to permit of their passing undebated
through the necessa y stages of Parliament ! '

We may be told also that a portion of the evil may
be laid at the doors of some Conservative members
of Parliament. Sir Robert Peel has been annoyed
and badgered in the course of many of his mea-
sures, by Conservatives quite as much as by Whigs
or Radicals; and nothing has so greatly weakened
his position, as the head of the great Conservative
party in the country, as .opposition—pettish and
violent in its character—from such a quarter. But
such opposition, even, ought not, materially, to have
damaged the usefulness of a really strong govern-
ment. Besides this, we have to ask, from what
source did such opposition originate ? Agricultural
members, of ultra views, distrusted the sincerity of
Sir Robert Peel's professions with respect to the
maintenance of agricultural interests. Church of
England members distrusted his professions, or
wanted assurance of his determination to maintain.
intact the national establishment. Protestant members
feared some fatal concession to agitation in Ireland.
They grieved over his hesitation to adopt prompt
measures to put down such agitation; and, recalling
past concessions to mind, they had but too much
need to dread that such hesitation was the precursor
of further fatal yielding. 7he spirit to resist ob-
struction--the hearty will to stand by the govern-
ment in such resistance—were wanting; and that
government was left, palpably with the cold shoulder
towards it of a ;0 eat number of those who ought
to have been its supporters, to battle with factious
make way against it as best it
opposition, and to
could.
- "

V:c deei.y and unfeignedly, this state o.