The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-20 00:00:00

It is not pleasant, we admit, to have our profession
constantly thrown in our teeth, and, whilst setting up
as philosophers, to be reminded that we are only
butchers, bakers, drapers, or apothecaries ; but we
shall never be able to put down the practice except
We denounce it in every instance, and abstain from it
religiously ourselves. If Mr. Blackburn is sensitive,
other people are sensitive as well. if his party will
play at bowls," the proverb tells them that " they
'nay expect rubbers." Let them abstain, then ;—let
their press abstain from low personalities; and meet-
ings of the Council, and party warfare out of doors,
may -be conducted with more decency and less vul-
garity and coarseness.

The friends and admirers of the late incapable
administration—where are they just now: It would
Puzzle even our wise friend of the Liverpool Times to
discover their whereabouts. We have " liberals,"

Plenty; Corn-law-Leaguers more than plenty; Char-
tists, freetraders, and a host of other denominations of
politicians : but of Melbourne-O'Connell-Whigs we
rarely, even, hear ; whilst a Palmerstonian-TlThig would
be a lusus naturce which, if it could be caged, would
Make the fortune of any showman, and be " the ob-
served of all observers" of his menagerie.
The reader may perhaps say, we shall discover such
a sphinx in the editor of the Morning Chronicle; and

point to the columns of vapid silliness and insolence,
Which have of late deluged the readers of that broad
sheet, in laudation of the superhuman wisdom of
Lords Palmerston and Auckland, and in spite and
abuse of their conservative successors, Lords Aberdeen
and Ellenborough. But then the editor of a journal
is only an abstract idea. The editor of the journal in
question, if we could encounter him, bodily, and
address him as a Pahnerstonian-Whig, would " shun
the soft impeachment," and devote the veteran dandy
to the gods below. The patrons of Shah Soojah, and
the authors of the disasters from Cabul, would find

no countenance from him, or from any man with as
iish a hawk

much intellect as is required to distin,
from a handsaw; and, therefore, notwithstanding the
overt acts of adoration which the Chronicle exhibits
day by day, we are still without the corporeal form
and individual essence of the worshipper. He is a
shadow—a shape—

If shape it can be called which shape hash none—'

which exists only in imagination; unless he is to be
found in the person of Lord Palmerston himself.
There, perhaps—in the jaunty and complacent person
of the ex-foreign secretary—we may perhaps discover
his own sole admirer !
The world does, certainly, give his lordship credit
for the unblushing attacks upon Lord Elleuborough's
Indian policy which have recently appeared in the paper
to Which we refer—the Morning Chronicle;—and the
world—may we whisper to his lordship I—thinks not
a jot more highly of his discretion, or his statesman-
ship, for the attacks in question. Whatever Lord
Palmerston may imagine to be the direction of public
opinion, with respect to his Indian policy, or his
foreign policy generally, we can assure him that,
within our sphere of observation—throughout this
great manufacturing and commercial district, and
amongst men of all shades of politics—there is but
one feeling upon the subject of our Indian affairs ;
gratitude to the statesman, whose wise councils have
directed the withdrawal of the British forces from that
field of slaughter, and have enabled them to do so
with honour to the name which they bear.
But one feeling, did we say ? There is more. There
is a feeling in especial which it would be wise in his
lordship not to strengthen, by bringing his own
eastern policy, and that of Lord Auckland, into such
prominent contrast with the policy of their successors.
The community amongst which we live, whilst they
execrate the meddling and wicked statesmanship, which
has for years past crippled their commerce with the
Markets of the East, are deeply impressed with a con-
viction—in which a perusal of the past history of their
country has confirmed them—that an enquiry into the
origin of the disastrous intervention of the Indian
government with the people of Affghanistan, should be.
instituted, within the first week of the coming session of
Parliament. Is Lord Palmerston prepared to face such
an enquiry ? We ask the question advisedly, for the
enquiry must take place, if justice is to be done to the
sufferers—the widows and orphans, the childless and
the broken-hearted—whom the wanton ambition of
Whig statesmanship has steeped in affliction and

rretnediable calamity ;—if justice is to be done to the
name and the fame of Great Britain herself. That
enquiry must take place; and, although the old and
salutary forms of the constitution have of late fallen
mtnewhat into disuse, and the successes of our gallant
fellows in India have wiped out the stain which had
been permitted to rest upon British arms, and some-
What calmed the temper of the British public towards
the imbecile statesmen whose incapacity and dishonesty
have led to disasters so deplorable, his lordship and
his colleagues must be able to bring before the legisla-
ture some better defence than is contained in the
lIIPPant and insolent tirades, which he has of late been
inditing in the columns of the Morning Chronicle, if
he or they would escape an impeachment u't the bar of
Parliament.

We do not at present anticipate such impeachment,
rrhe spirit of the present day is not of that sturdy
Character which would have a statesman be amenable
to any greater penalty than the censure of a constitu-
ency, or the loss of official pay and patronage. Reform
has brought this strange anomaly along with the
blessings which it held out to its advocates. It has
Compelled, even, the wise and virtuous statesman to
court, to a certain extent, the breath of popular ap-
plause, unless he would be deposed from his position
of usefulness; whilst it has absolved the ignorant and
the dishonest minister from the penal consequence of
a pursuit of his own ends at the expense of the public
weal• TIT insolence of Lord Palmerston riots in the
knowledge of this changed feature in the British con-
stitution ; but he may reckon too far upon the national
forbearance, as others, to their cost, have done before
hire.