The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-17 00:00:00

,on of coals sent abroad ; and how can that be done
without a large increase of officers ? In some ports,
vessels can only load coals at high water,' and shippers
are compelled to take advantage of the tides whether
they occur in the day time or at night. Will they now
be permitted to load except during custom-house hours ?
Then how will the quantity shipped be ascertained ?
In the northern coal ports we find that a regulation has
just been issued that the waggons, in which the coal is
conveyed to the ships, must be of a fixed size, and must
be branded with the custom-house mark. In these
particular ports such a regulation may be practicable,
although individually oppressive ; but where the article
is brought from any distance inland we do no see how
it can apply. In Liverpool, the bulk of the exported
coal is shipped from on board of flats, and such a mode
of ascertaining the quantity to pay duty cannot be
.
adopted at. all.

Upon the whole, we feel confident that the cost of
collection and the vexation which must attend it, will
be a heavy drawback against this duty ; and at.no dis-
tant period the government which now imposes it will
regret that it has ever taken such a course.

Assuredly nobody can say of the gentlemen who
compose the Anti-Corn-Law League that they. mono-
polize.-the modesty of the community in which they
live. On the contrary, it must be admitted that they
are in possession ofas large a stock of assurance as has
ever fallen to the lot of any public body. We re-
marked freely at the time upon the audacity with
which, to raise money, they outraged public feeling by
their Manchester bazaar exhibition; and we have now
to notice as bold an attack upon the pockets of the
gullible, as has ever been attempted by the Irish men-
dicant himself.

During the last two days the walls of our town have
been placarded with a demand upon the people, to
REGISTER—wIiat? it may be asked. To register as
voters ? Not so; but to. register their names as mem-
bers of the League, for which they will be pleased to
pay any sum from a penny to a shilling, but no more.
The morality of the League mendicancy would be of-
fended. if any rash enthusiast were to touch its " itch-
ing palm" with a half-crown. As some trifling return
for their charitable contributions, every individual gull
is to have presented to him a card,—a prettily orna-
mented affair no doubt,—upon the possession of which
he will be able to boast of the very questionable honor
of being a member of this seditious association. Mi-
nisters of the Gospel (!) are invited to agitate from the
pulpits—to tell starving people that it is the corn-law
which starves them; and the ladies are urged to exer-
cise their influence—to read philippics, we presume, to
their liege lords at home, or to borrow their femoral
attire, and set out to agitate abroad.
We do not certainly anticipate that these Anti-Corn-
Law millowners will gather many pence in Liverpool by
their mendicant appeal. The party here have been pretty
well sweated by " protector" and other similar schemes
for years past ; and Daniel of Derrynane still twirls his
hat in their faces with an irresistible grace, and will
not much relish this poaching upon his manor. Per-
haps there may be noodles and silly women amongst
us suflicent to muster up a five shilling paper of cop-
per, with which, we trust, the League will bless its
stars and be thankful.

A crotchet has got into the head of that sapient per-
sonage, Lord Howick, which, by his constant iteration

':.
of it in the House of Commons, we almost fear is com-

municating itself insensibly to the minds of wiser men.
Of themselves the opinions of his lordship are of mar-
vellously small importance, and the party (composed of
Mr. Charles Wood) which looks up to him as the
fountain of wisdom, is not of much greater weight. A
parrot, however, or any other senseless thing, may re-
peat some piece of stupidity until the world takes it for
the language of an oracle ; and we are led, therefore,
to bestow a timely notice upon this Howick absurdity,
lest it should be taken unwarily some of these days for
the dictum of a sage. _

We ought' not, argues, or rather dogmatizes, Lord
Hawick, by the imposition of discriminating duties, to
foster the growth of any new product or trade in our
colonial possessions, lest hereafter we
-.should be CO2II-

pelled to afford it protection W We may allow dis

criminating duties upon any articles, the production of.
which has been long established. We may thus foster
our Colonial Timber. Trade, or our West India Sugar
Cultivation ; but we must not, by the adoption, of dis-
criminating duties, foster the growth of any new trade;
we must not, for instance, encourage the growth of
tobacco or any other new article of production in our
colonial dependencies. Now, with all due deference
for so eminent an authority, and for that portion of the
members of the House of Commons, and for the go-
..vernment itself by whom the principle contended for
by Lord Howick was tacitly assented to, we utterly re-
pudiate as, unsound and unstatesmanlike the dictum
here laid down.,
We possess dependencies in every quarter of the
globe—in every climate—calculated for the growth of
every product of the globe. We are yearly pouring
into those dependencies thousands of our industrious
population, vast capital and consummate skill. Essen-
tially those colonies are a portion of the kingdom of
Great Britain ; and have we not a right—ought we not
in good policy, and even in justice, to do all that legis-
lation can do to aid in developing the resources of those
countries. Have we not a right to say to our expa-

triated brethren, you are of as, and you shall have an
advantage in our markets over the foreign producer,
not only in those articles N.% 'all you now raise for our
consumption, but in those, too, which y our added skill
and capital will enable you to produce ? Undoubtedly
we have a perfect right to do so ; and it is miserable
truckling between the principle upon which the colo-
nies of Great Britain have grown and thriven, and the
dogmas of the ultra free traders who would fain sweep
away that principle—who are ready to cry out with
Mr. Roebuck, "Jamaica to the bottom of the sea, and
the Antilles after it !"—it is weak and dishonest to
deny that right, or to hesitate in asserting it openly.
We must not be misunderstood as advocating an ad-.
vance of the duties levied upon foreign products, to
give a stimulus to our colonies to raise those products.
We would do nothing so absurd and unjust. But when
imposing duties for the purposes of revenue—when, as
at this moment, framing an entirely modified commer-
cial system—where can be the impolicy of leaving open
a door by which every production which our colonies
may hereafter succeed in raising, may be admitted into
the market of Great Britain upon the same terms, as
compared with the foreigner, which are provided for in
the case of productions which they raise at present. If
colonies are a henfit to the mother country— and who
will deny that they are ?—undoubtedly that benefit is
greater when such colonies are prosperous and weal-
thy. Lord Howick, however, in effect, says—"
do
nothing which is calculated to confer any additional
prosperity to any colony ; " and it ought to be a sub-
ject of congratulation to every Englishman and every
colonial subject, that Lord Howick's opinion is worth
nothing in any person's estimation except his own and
that of his shadow, the member for Halifax.

LOCAL NEWS.

-----
THE TRANSATLANTIC .STEAMERS:We mentioned,_
few weeks ago, an intended race between
bini the Columbia and
W
the Great estern, the former of wmit; Liverpoolappearson
the 19th, and the latter on the 21st ult.
to have been well contested, for the after making
Columbia,
her usual stoppage at Halifax, was met on the' Ist instant-
very near the port of Boston ; whilst a large steamer,
lieved to be the Great Western, passed Halifax mige' 2d.e
The British Queen does not appear to have mended her
speed by becoming Belgian. She arrived at New York on
the 27th ult. after a passage of nearly 20 days.
It will be seen by our advertising columns, that a Pamph-
let from the pen of Lieutenant Tracey, R.N., Mate's As-
sociation, will be
published on Wednesday next, on the
claims of seamen to bishops and clergy. This is certainly
the " age of wonders," when we find even sailors opening
tlleir eyes to the benefits to be derived
_ from the superin-
tendance of an apostolic ministry. We know Lieutenant
Tracey to be a zealous churchman, and feel certain he means
well ; we must confess, however, the novelty of a sailor
writing on such a subject tickles our fancy amazingly, and
it our readers are as desirous as we are of having a peep at a
literary curiosity," we doubt not it will have an extensive
sale.
DEATH FROM DROWNING.—An inquest was held before
the borough coroner on Tuesday, on view of the body of.
William Cowan, which had been discovered in the Mersey.
Philip Myers, the son of a person of that name in Mann-
street, deposed that, on Sunday evening, about seven o'clock,
the deceased and himself agreed to go and bathe at the South
Shore. They went there, and the deceased, who was fourteen
years of age, and unable to swim, stripped and went into the
-water. The deceased called to witness to follow him, and
said the water was warm. Witness then undressed, and the
moment he got into the water the deceased sunk. He tried
to reach him, but found that he was too far distant, and that
his own inability to swim prevented him from even making
the attempt. The deceased rose to the surface two or three
times, and then sunk. In about twenty minutes be was taken
• eut dead. Verdict accordingly.