The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-31 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The Rev. Henry Carpenter begs to acknowledge the receipt
of a letter signed " A Friend," with an enclosure of ..E5
for the Church Missionary Society ; and to express thanks
on the part of the society as well for the gift as for the
Christian feeling with which the writer regards the labours
of the society in seeking the salvation of the heathen.
We have received a communication recommending Dr.
Gouthwaite as the fittest person to be appointed physician
to the Infirmary, in the place of the late Dr. Baird, on the
ground that he is one of the oldest medical officers at-
tached to any of the public charities. With every respect
for the claims of Dr. Gouthwaite upon the trustees of the
Infirmary, we feel that we cannot interfere.
" Viator" complains that a coachmaker's shop in Roe-street
is being taken down without the slightest provision being
made for the safety of the public by fencing off a portion
of the flag-way and street. If this be so, it is a clear in-
fraction of the law, and doubtless the proper authorities
will put the law into execution.

IJjr Eibtrpoot &tatitratt.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 31, 1842.

The public, and especially those interested in the
welfare of our colonial possessions, will be gratified to
notice that at length the impudent domination of the
Romish priesthood in the colony of Newfoundland is
to be put down, and the legislative functions of its As-
sembly restored to the hands of the respectable inha-
bitants. For the last ten years, under a constitution
framed upon the most approved whig-radical pattern,
the colony in question has been a perfect hotbed of
turbulence and misrule. Priestly tyranny has ridden
rough-shod over the feelings, and the personal liberties
even, of those of its population who were not prepared
to prostrate themselves at the feet of the Dagon of
Popery—to feed it with offerings, and fill with incense
its drunken ear. By that constitution, the property,
the peace, and the prosperity of the colony, were virtu-
ally handed over to the rabble mob, who exercised the
legislative functions, and distributed Lynch law at the
dictation of the eleves of Maynooth. To such a pitch,
in fact, had the monstrous insolence of the Romish
faetion risen, that the late whig governor reported last
year to a whig colonial secretary, the absolute impossi-
bility of again calling the assembly together under such
a constitution as the existing one !

We have given, in full, in our parliamentary sum-
mary, the speech of the colonial secretary, Lord Stan-
ley, on Thursday night, in introducing an amended
constitution for this colony, to the details of which we
beg to direct the attention of our readers. Under the
existing whig constitution, the House of Assembly, it
will be seen, consisted of " low and, to a certain ex-
tent, uneducated persons. Some of them could not
write their names, and others had been returned who
were menial servants, and asked leave of their masters
to take their seats in the house !" Such a house, we
need scarcely say, has throughout its legislative exist-
ence, been the mere registering tool of the Romish
hierarchy, by whose influence over the consciences of
the wretched paupers who compose the majority of the
constituency, and by the system of terrorism which
they instituted to deter the respectable inhabitants from
any expression of opinion, its members were returned.
The bill proposed by Lord Stanley, with a view of
remedying this state of things, so disastrous to the
prosperity and the peace of the colony, has been read a
first and second time; and with the exception of a few
despairing howls from the learned member for Cork,
as the organ of the Popish party in the House of Com-
mons, is not, we are confident, fated to receive any
material opposition. The day is gone by when that
beggarman could dictate terms to a British government;
and whiggery, even, is at this moment too delighted at
its escape from the hug of the great dragon—too happy
at its present immunity from the sweep of his tail—to
be anxious once more to fraternize with him in so
hopeless a cause as the defence of that rank Popish
job, the whig constitution, which delivered over the
colony of Newfoundland to the tender mercies and the
discretion of its Romish priesthood.

The state of society in our West India Colonies, it
is well known, is one which has been formed upon the
superlative pattern, favoured by those pious and en-
lightened people the anti-slavery party. The emanci-
pated population of these colonies were to exhibit to
the world an example of the high state of usefulness
and refinement of which the negro character was capa-
ble; and we may fairly conclude that the condition of
that population at the present moment, developed as it
has been by the aid of all the appliances which a Whig
stipendiary magistracy, Whig teachers and sectarian
preachers could bring to the' task, is one which the
pseudo-philanthropists of the anti-slavery party will
scarcely be inclined to treat as any other than the de-
velopement of the real character of that race.
Let us examine, then, what is the state of society in
British Guiana, as exhibited by the last accounts from
that colony. It is well known that within the last two
or three years the staple production of British Guiana,
as well as that of the whole of our West India Colonies,
has been rapidly decreasing, owing to the disinclination,
evinced by the emancipated labourers, to that continu-
ous labour required in sugar cultivation. We could
give here a dozen of instances in which estates, once
flourishing and valuable, have been reduced by this
want of continuous labour to comparative desolation
and worthlessness ; but the following, from the Guiana
Times of the 6th April, must suffice.
" On the 23rd ult., Plantation Enfield, in the county of
13erbice, advertised for months previously in the colony
newspapers, and in the gazettes of London and Amster-
dam, a plantation, which, in 1829, had been purchased for
£22,000 sterling, of which the new sugar machinery alone
had cost £3,000, and on which there were claims to the
amount of £15,000, was knocked down, at open execution
sale, before a large concourse of planters and merchants,.

for 8,200 dollars, scarcely £2,000 sterling, not the original
cost of the new machinery alone. The poor gentleman, its
late proprietor, had been worth, we are told. £15,000 when
he became connected with it. He sank his all in it."

The county of Berbice, be it remarked, has been.
held up by the anti-slavery people as the pattern county-
of British Guiana. The price of labour here has never
ranged so high as in other portions of the colony. No
turn-out has taken place. The price of sugar, coffee,
&c., in the home market has been unprecedentedly
high ; and yet, owing to the difficulty of procuring
continuous labour, cultivation of the staples is so un-
profitable, even in this pattern county, that an estate
valued at £30,000 a few years ago, will now produce
no more than £2OOO !

But here, it may be said, may have been expensive
management, embezzlement by agents, and other evils
of the absentee system, so common in the West Indies.
Show us a plantation, of which there are now so many,
the absolute property of emancipated negro proprietors !
These estates, we reply, furnish none of the staple pro..
ducts! Their proprietors content themselves with the
production of provisions merely—yams, plaintains, &c.
—and the British West Indies, in such hands, must
shortly cease to be exporting colonies at all, and neces-
sarily cease, at the same time, to be importing colo-
nies. The Guiana Times, of the 13th April, informs
us that, " of the many freeholders, scattered up and
down the three counties, the utmost that can be said
is this, that they work with more or less assiduity as
jobbers, on neighbouring plantations, where, notwith-
standing, their exertions, however praiseworthy, are•
so far from making up for the natural indolence of the
vast majority of their brethren, that every district of
the country exhibits a constant decay of productive•
power." And again, with respect to the larger free.
holders—the purchasers of entire properties--from
whom, if from any set of proprietors, it will be said,.
we ought to expect the maintenance of the old staple.
products, the same authority says, that, " to a motion,
for a return of the quantity of exportable produce
grown on the freeholds of such persons, the answer
would be—Nil."

The Guiana Times continues, in his publication of
he same date, to remark upon the prospects of the
ising generation ; and we would call the serious at-
ention of the real philanthropists of Great Britain to

this passage
‘‘ Avery
few years, at the furthest, will see the colony
clearedofthe present race of official men. They, the truly-
censurable absentees, will have retired to another country,
loaded with the wealth levied by forced contributions on the
betray. We wonder whether
community whose cause they
it ever strikes them, to what a state of society they willleava

he generation now rising. We are, as yet, without any
good classical seminary in the province, but the spread of
education in the ordinary branches of knowledge, is incon-
ceivably extensive and rapid. To what avocations shall the
thousands of boys, now at our schools in town and country,
betake themselves when they grow up to mau's estate? It
is certain that they will not labour in the field. In the ab-
sence of an European course of study, the bench, the
bar, the practice of medicine, the pulpit, constitute dis-

tinctions to which they cannot aspire. The higher offices
of the executive department, the home government will
always take care to till with its own creatures. The lower
cannot satisfy the wants of one-twentieth part of the appli-
cants for employment. Then, the present generation of
agricultural labourers having died away or retired, who is to
supply their room ? How are the rising generation to be oc-
cupied in a way worthy of their extended information ? How
is the large class of persons which now hangs on by the staple
cultivation, to subsist? These are questions which it will be
well for the philanthropists of England to ponder, before they

determine upon converting this colony from a sugar-pro-

ducing settlement into the residence of mere yam-growers
and hucksters."

These are, indeed, questions upon which the serious
attention of the British people and the British Legis-
lature may well be bestowed ; and we trust that in the
movement, which we now see making, towards an
award of something like justice towards the West India
proprietors, the condition of the emancipated negro
population themselves, aggravated as its present evils
will be by the refusal to adopt the steps necessary to
restore prosperity to the cultivation of these noble
colonies, will not be overlooked.

The Liverpool Journal either misunderstands the re-
marks which we offered on Friday, with respect to the
relative position of the Conservative party and Sir Ro-
bert Peel's government, or treats them in a very un-
candid spirit. To a Whig journalist it may appear
strange enough that Conservatives should complain of
the conduct of that government, upon some particular
questions, and determine, with respect to those ques-
tions, to withhold from it their confidence and even to
oppose its measures. To a Whig journalist, accus-
tomed to trim his course with a delicate regard to the
safety of the frailest and most unstable government
which ever contrived to hang together so long after it
had exhausted the endurance of its supporters, it may
be a matter of difficulty at first to determine the ex-
tent to which, in the case of a strong government, the
dissatisfaction of sections of its supporters may be ex-
pressed, with respect to particular measures or the
maintenance of particular principles, without weaken-
ing its moral power or giving rise to the impression
that it is no longer possessed of their confidence upon
general questions. To this circumstance we must at-
tribute it—for we cannot think the Journal capable of
wilfully misinterpreting us—that we are represented by
our contemporary as overwhelmed with " sorrowing
despair" and a " cureless sorrow " by the measures
of Sir Robert Peel's government ; that we have " no
confidence" in the right honourable baronet, and are
only restrained by " sickness of the heart" from

"bursting into paroxysms of rage" against him.
We distinctly pointed out in the article in question
the grounds upon which we felt dissatisfaction, or he-
sitation, with respect to the accordance, by Conserva-
tives, of their implicit confidence to the present govern-
ment. Sir Robert Peel, we stated, had not acted up
to the wishes of many of his most ardent friends—(he
has acted up to the expectations of most)—in his treat-
ment of the factory question, in his treatment of the
new poor law, and upon those questions which are pe-
culiarly Protestant questions. With respect to these—
(we know of none other of material importance)—we
are prepared to offer our unflinching opposition to the
views of the majority of his cabinet; notwith the motive
of harassing its steps—not with a view of weakening
it iu public opinion ; but in the hope rather of strength-
ening it, and at least warning it against the danger of
further concession to the principle of utilitarian \Vhig-
gery. We have no fears of any " suicidal " conces-
sion to the principles (!) of free trade. We stated, in
fact, that in his financial and commercial legislation
Sir Robert Peel had our entire confidence.

In urging, therefore, the Conservative party, or, at
least, that portion of it who think with us upon these
particular questions, to " maintain the cause itself ra-
ther than the men," we advised what is, with due de-
ference to our more politic contemporary, the only
course which an honest and consistent party can pur-
sue. But why, asks the Journal, if this advice is to
be acted upon, not cast off at once from our confidence
the supporters of Sir Robert Peel's government, if we
cast off from our confidence the government itself ?

" A government," remarks the Journal, in a tone of self-
delight, " is nothing without votes at its back ; and we should
like to have the one measure of the present ministers pointed
out which was not supported by the votes or sanctioned by
the acquiescence of Lord Sandon, Sir Howard Douglas,
Lord Francis Egerton, and Mr. Bootle Wilbraham. Who
has enunciated those suicidal' principles of free trade more
boldly (would that he had been something more than lip-
valiant!) than Mr. William Gladstone? Has the new poor
law met with one syllable of opposition from the whole batch
of Lancashire and Cheshire tories ? Were these people sent
to parliament to vote at the bidding of the minister for any
measure which he might propose, and, as if he were an
Egyptian Pasha, to defy and rule both his sovereign and the
subjects of his delegated sway ?
" If the Standard really wishes to establish that character
for independence which it is now stickling for, it must strike
nearer home at the men who are the instruments of this
' suicidal ' course. If Sir Robert Peel is mistaken, they are
criminal ;ifhe is blind, they are base. No party duty binds
any honest man to support principles which he abhors, and
to be an actual participant in political crime."

In the first place, we shall reply to the Journal that
his facts are not true. We apprehend that neither
Lord Sandon, Lord Francis Egerton, nor Mr. Wil-
braham, are devoted admirers of the new poor law.
The former, especially, we believe, will not support a
bill, by whatever government introduced, which is not
essentially mitigated in its oppressive bearing upon the
industrious and unfortunate poor of England. Not
one of these gentlemen, moreover, can be suspected of
the peculiarly Whiggish predisposition " to vote at the
bidding of the minister for any measure which he may
propose, and, as if he were an Egyptian pasha, to defy
and rule both his sovereign and the subjects of his
delegated sway !"
When these members "nearer home" do err, how-
ever, little as the Journal may be disposed to give us
credit for the independence required in doing so, he
will find us prepared to pursue precisely the same
course with respect to them which we hare proposed with
respect to Sir Robert Peel himself. What that course
will be our friends will have no difficulty in under-
standing from our previous explanation ; and we hope
—should the task unfortunately be imposed upon us—
(which we do not expect)—that it will be one with the
honesty of which even the Journal will be satisfied, al-
though it will not be so suicidal as to afford him all
the fun which he may perhaps anticipate.

We perceive by the notice paper posted at the door
of the Town-hall that the council is threatened on
Wednesday next with another " passage at arms,"
upon that everlasting subject of Whig-Radical cavil-
ling, the education question. The challenger upon
the occasion is Mr. R. V. Yates,—Sir Daphne of the
Dingle,—who will creep into the left-off armour of the
Abercromby Apollo, and astonish the education com-
mittee with his feats therein. The name of his esquire
we know not at the present moment. Report, how-
ever, gives the name of Mr. Bright of Gibraltar, who,
from the grace with which he is known to wield a yard-
stick, will no doubt demean himself within the lists
with fitting elegance and propriety. 'The principal
object of the " onslaught," we presume, is to post-
pone the period at which the new system of the edu-
cation committee may be fairly considered to be upon
trial,—which period, beit remembered, will not arrive
until the total cessation of this system of petty cavil-
ling at the proceedings of the committee, and keyhole
espionage of the proceedings of the teachers in the
schools themselves.
The first issue to be decided is upon the following

motion, viz.—
" That a special committee be appointed to inquire into
the acts of religious persecution, alleged to have been coin-
mated by Mr. R. Stone, in ordering the children of Roman
Catholics and Dissenters, in the corporation schools, to
learn and teach the church catechism and to go to church;
and if he be found to have done so, to inquire further,
'whether he was instructed by any person or persons to do so ;
.and also to inquire whether he neglected his duty in the
)manner alleged—and that the evidence taken be laid before
:the council."
" Religious persecution" ! What an important in .
,quiry this will bel The council surely cannot think of
horrifying the religious world by permitting the as-
itounding facts which the committee proposed might

possibly extract from the tutored witnesses of Mr. It.
V. Yates. Seriously—the council cannot permit its
valuable time to be taken up, or that of a committee,
composed even of the most trifling and silly of its
members, to be occupied in disproving such pitiful
balderdash as has here been raked up by the eaves-
dropping member for South Toxteth.
The second proposition of Sir Daphne is—
That compensation be granted to those apprentices, for-
merly in the corporation schools, who were bound under
regulations which showed respect to their religious opinions
and promised them valuable instruction, and who were
turned out of the schools when they refused to be bound to
a master whose orders they could not conscientiously obey,
and who refused to give, or was incompetent to give, the
instruction promised."

by all means, we would say, allow the apprentices
in question compensation, although not a shilling is
their legal due ! We would give something to sweep
away such remnants of the old system, which I,Ean
only clog the efficient working of the schools as at
present constituted, and serve as funnels to such ready
recipients of exparte slanders. as Mr. R. V. Yates.
The third motion is worthy of the sublime philoso-
pher who devised it. It is—
" That a Time-book be kept in each School, in which the
Superintendent and all the Maste&of that School shall enter
the hour and minute when they arrive, and the hour and
minute when they leave the School."

We would suggest an amendment, to be moved by
some Conservative gentleman, to the following effect—

"That Mr. R. V. Yates and the seconder of this
motion should be permitted to station themselves daily,
one at the south school and one at the north, within a
convenient hearing distance from the keyholes of the
school doors, in order to be enabled to report to the
council the proceedings of the masters therein, Mr.
Taafe being retained to put their reports into English ;
and that, to economize the time of the head master,
Mr. William Earle should be requested to escort him
in his drag, whenever his duties call him from one
school to the other."

It will be perceived, by a-paragraph inserted in ano-
ther place, that Mr. Thomas Gladstone, late member
for Peterborough, and brother of our townsman, Mr.
Robertson Gladstone, is a candidate, in connection with
the Right Hon. J. C. Herries, for the borough of Ips-
wich, on the Conservative interest. The ex-members,
Mr. Rigby Wason and Mr. Rennie, are ineligible to sit
during the present parliament.