The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-01-31 00:00:00

i AL, 'WILLIAMSON. gWiAllf

•
Mr. tt4lNgll and Mr. STUART,
Second Night of THE. TEMPEST.
Last Week of the COMIC PANTOMIME. •
TUESDAY EVENING, the 31st instant,

I Steaks

re's Play of

,MPESI

With New Scenery, Machinery, Dresses.
To conclude with the Comic Pantomime of
BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

rbt Kiinrpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAI

MORNING, JANUARY 31, 1543

It is really a rich sight to witness the utter con-
fusion which reigns just now in the camp of the free-
trade opposition. On the one hand, we have Mr.
Richard Cobden and his congregated noodles,

" tear-

ing passion to tatters," and shouting " repeal" at the
top of their lungs. Then we have a repealer of ano-
ther sort, sitting sore and sulky in his den in Dublin—
watching, with fishy eyes, the gold as it drops into the
begging-box of the League, whilst he hands round his
own empty wallet, and whines his " d6te obolum," in
-the ears of the shirtless and shoeless, who compose his

Next comes the Palmerstonian sec-
tion, represented by the Morning Chronicle, building
their hopes upon foreign embroilments, and clinging
to their fixed-duty proposition and their sugar budget.
Then the enlightened aristocratic whip party, pro-
claiming, through the columns of the Globe, that their
Added to

morning levees

free trade consists in reciprocity treaties

these—mingled with them—we have the complete-
suffrage men; and last, the Chartists, led on by that

profound aristocratic leveller, Mr. Thomas Duncombe.
A pretty lot, truly ! An agreeable confraternity ! A
crew about as well calculated to man a first-rater in a
gale of wind, and bring her to a safe anchorage, as

any similar number of land-lubbers and sea-lubbers,
land-sharks and sea-;sharks, half pirates and whole
horse-marines, you could pick up in Ratcliffe-highway,
Rotherhithe, St. Giles's, or the Mint.

And yet our amiable contemporaries talk of the
dissensions of Conservatives ! picture the premier
worried on one side by the farmer's friends, snapped
at on another by the mighty men of the League, and
pressed, from behind, by free traders within his own
cabinet ! That cabinet, they would persuade us, is a
chaos of conflicting opinions. The Conservative pha-
lanx by whom it is supported in power is a rope of
sand ;—worse, a discordant band of hostile elements.
Gentlemen, we ask you to wait one week to have
proved to you the fallacy and the folly of your asser-
tions and prognostications ; and in the mean time we
should he happy if you would point out to us one
dozen members of your party in the House of Com-
mons who could hang together for as many days,
upon any other question, but some such merely fac-
tious and speculative question as that which may pos-
sibly be concocted by Lord John Russell as the
groundwork for a division on the address to the
throne, or a debate, of a week or so in length, about
every thing and every body under the sun !
What a government would that be, which could be
made up out of such choice materials ! Why its very
first attempt to grapple practically with any of those
great questions which agitate the community would be
a farce as ludicrous as an attempt to stop a 64 H. ball
with a china punch-bowl, or cog the wheels of a.lOco-
motive, steaming it at the rate of thirty miles an hOur,
with an eye-glass or a lady's fan ! The ricketty thing
would drop to pieces with its own weight, or be blown
to pieces by the first opponent who sneezed or coughed
in its puny face !

We have succeeded, at some expenditure of pa-
tience, in wading through the mass of bbackheadism
perpetrated on Wednesday last by the members of
that distinguished body, the Liverpool Anti-Monopoly
Association ; and slightly indeed have We been re-
warded. A discovery of that venerable patriot and
scold—Colonel Williams—that Mr. Cobden is "worthy
of a diadem ;" an assertion of Mr. Charles Holland,
that the tariff of Sir Robert Peel has effected nothing
for the commerce of the country or the promotion of
the comforts of the people; and a complaint of a very
chivalrous young gentleman—Mr. F. Boult, jun.—
that he and his fellow anti-monopolists can " find
nobody to fight with ;" are the only novelties we can
discover. We must endeavour to quiet the minds of
these three most Wentell personages ; and first, turn
we to the gallant soldier.
We regret much that we can discover little chance
of a diadem for his distinguished friend, the great
o'Cohden; but the next best thing to that ornamental
head-gear is quite within his reach, and, if the worthy
colonel 4sincere in his professions, will not be denied
to such deserving. Let our venerable acquaintance
resign to his use his beloved white ducks, and his pro-
togee would be from thenceforth irresistible in the
House of Commons, or an any platform within these
realms. The unsullied purity—the shadow even—of
those venerable garments, encasing the lower extre-
mities of the member for Stockport, as he trod the
floor of St. Stephens', would

" Strike more terror to the heart of Peel,
Than could the substance of ten thousand leaguers."

What can we say of the unadulterated folly displayed
in the assertion of Mr. Charles Holland ? " The
tariff of Sir Robert Peel has done nothing for the
commerce of the country or the comforts of the con-
suming classes." Assume for a moment that it has
done nothing for the commerce or the consumers of
the country. It has at least done this. It has shewn
to his fellow-townsmen what a charlatan was a certain
Charles Holland, who, some eighteen months ago,
was wont to expatiate, at Whig gatherings in Liver-
pool, upon the wonderful results which would flow
from the adoption, by Whig statesmen, of measures not
one-tenth part so comprehensive as the tariff in ques-
tion! But this tariff has done " nothing for com-
merce"—nothing for the consuming classes : has it not,
most veracious philosopher ? Ob, Charles, Chides—
what strange absurdities men commit—what staange
assertions they hazard—when their eyes are blinded
by partizan spite, and their weak intellects addled by
overweening self-conceit !

In mercy, we pass over the sillinesses of Mr. Francis
Bonit, jun., and proceed to remark upon the universal
genius displayed on the occasion before us, by Mr.
Thomas Blackburn. Let it not from henceforth be

imagined that, to a great man, there is any incom-
patibility between a perfect knowledge of the particu-
lar art which he professes—be it surgery, midwifery,
chemistry, astronomy, or the science of thimble-rig or
pricking the garter—and the trade or craft exercised
by other men, however apparently irreconcileable in
character. The worthy doctor is no doubt profoundly
skilled in surgery and the materia medico ; has
Gregory and Celsus at his finger ends, and the phar-
macopoeia by heart. He is learned as a pundit upon
the subject of editcation. He has just assured the
world that he knows all the ins and outs-of the science
of commercial and financial legislation; and we have
not a doubt, should ever such questions be agitated,
that he could discourse learnedly upon the subject of
the orthodox mode of patching a pair of unmention-
ables, cobbling a shoe, tinkering a kettle, or making
Scotch brose. Should our worthy mayor ever be
pushed for aid in the culinary department of the
Town-hall, he may depend upon it the doctor's the
man whose aid be' may safely put in requisition.
Shbuld it ever be found desirable to drive a tunnel
under the Mersey, Blackburn, not Brunel, is the man
Nothing is too great, nothing too humble
and insignificant, to escape the comprehension of his
Mighty mind.

to drive it

'Well, then, we have before us the doctor's views
upon the subject of free trade. He would have unre-
stricted, universal freedom of commerce between Great
Britain and other nations. He would wait for no re-

ciprocity on the part of foreign countries; but at once
invite that reciprocity by opening the markets of Great
Britain to all countries alike, AT EQUAL DUTIES.
It will be said, this is free trade—the true free trade.
There is at least nothing one-sided here. Not so fast,

good reader ! at least examine the proposition awhile
before you decide. The doctor tells you that he will
open your markets to all countries alike—allowing no
preference to your colonies—on payment of equal
duties. But those colonies now favour the importation
of British goods by discriminating duties.. Are you
willing to throw open the markets, which they afford,
to your foreign rivals-? You must do so, or your
boasted free trade is one-sided ! Again the agricul-
turist is to have no protection. There are to be no
duties upon the commodities which he produces ; and