The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-11-11 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 11, 1842.

We have sincere pleasure in congratulating our fel-
low-townsman, Mr. Robertson Gladstone, upon his
elevation to the municipal chair of our borough. No
man, we are sure, is more eminently deserving of the
respect and confidence of his fellow-townsmen, con-
veyed in this appointment ; and we are satisfied that
his conduct in office will not be such as to disappoint
the most sanguine of his friends.
Upon one point, we trust that he will exert that
firmness of character which he is known to possess.
The Council Chamber contains, at the present moment
one or two individuals whose constant interruptions of
the course of its proceedings, and whose unseemly per-
sonalities in debate are a source of intolerable annoy-
ance, and degrade in public estimation the body to
which they belong. We trust that Mr. Gladstone will
at once put down the insolencies and the buffooneries
of the parties to whom we refer.

A notice appears in the Chester Courant of Tuesday
last, announcing the intended application of the com-
missioners of Birkenhead for parliamentary sanction
to a bill giving powers to those commissioners to form
a park, build a pier or piers, dock or docks, make a
railway, buy a ferry, and to do other things involving
a vast expenditure of the money of the township, and
the conferring of a large amount of patronage, and
authority, of various descriptions, upon its very modest
framers ; of the majority of which proceedings we had
no previous knowledge; and we venture to say that
not half-a-dozen individuals in Birkenhead in Wood-

side, save the commissioners themselves, have seen, or
ever will see, the document in question, or are aware
of one-tenth of the magnificent things which the pro-
posed measure is to do for them. We look in vain
amongst the reported proceedings of the commis-
sioners as a body, for their sanction to several of the
projects which are set forth in the notice in question.
The commissioners of Birkenhead,, as a body, we do
not believe have ever been called upon to sanction
them. The inhabitants of Birkenhead know little or
nothing of them; and, although the property of the
town of Liverpool is sought to be seriously affected by
the bill, we do not believe that it was ever intended
that the inhabitants of Liverpool should have an op-
portunity of knowing that any such bill was in agita-
tion, much less of canvassing its various provisions.
Very excellent, very cunning management, no
doubt, this studied mystery of our Cheshire magnates
will be termed by the admirers of strategy ! But we
are not of the number. When we see men moling
their way to an object, we cannot avoid suspecting
that that object is not straightforward. Men who seek
legitimate ends should seek them openly,—should
court rather than shun investigation ; and because
the commissioners of Birkenhead have not done this
in the case before us, we suspect that their objects are
not such as will stand the light of day.
The amendment of their already-existing local acts,
which is one of the objects of their proposed applica-
tion to Parliament, we do not quarrel with, although
we cannot imagine in what acts of, so recent a date as
the improvement acts of !Birkenhead, can he deficient.
If the inhabitants choose, however, to spend their
money in law and parliamentary expenses, that is their
affair, not ours. The alteration of their boundaries,
too, is a matter upon which we know nothing, and
shall therefore say nothing ; and this remark will
apply to some other portions of the bill, which, being
purely of a local nature, do not affect the public on
this side of the water. One or two of these, however,
appear either so absurd or so suspicious, that we
cannot pass them over without calling to them the
serious attention of the public.

It is proposed, we find, by the bill about to be
applied for, to vest in the commissioners of Birken-
head " the sole power to grant licenses to keepers of
inns, alehouses, and victualling houses, to sell excise-
able liquors by retail ;" and also that of " regulating "
all such houses and bathing-machines within the limits
of the act. Now, we ask, what would the conferring
of such a power to a popularly-elected body be, other
than giving it the machinery for the grossest corrup-
tion and favouritism. Could a single license be
granted by such a body without affording to some
party a right to impute motives to some one or other
of those by whom it has been granted ? The idea is
preposterous that such a power can be placed in the
hands of such a body without jobbing being the
result ; and the assumption, by it, of quasi-magiste-
rial functions—which it must assume if it undertakes
the regulation of public-houses—is so perfectly absurd
that we can only wonder that any set of men, possessed
of common understanding, could even dream of it for
a moment !

For let the reader only imagine these powers in
their operation. The competition which exists every
where for a license to sell excisable liquors is well
known. In many cases the acquisition of such a
license will double the value of the property to which
it is attached. Can A, 13, or C, then, being members
of the body of commissioners, and perhaps speculators
in building, or in building land as well, license any
house which is their own property, with out being
accused of dishonesty and selfishness ? Or can they
license the house of D, who is an active partisan, and
their supporter at elections, without being accused of
unjust preference ? Or suppose the case of a publi-
can's being complained of before this licensing and
regulating body for violation of the law, ar.d a motion
being made for the suspension of his license, or for a
fine, what an unseemly exhibition might be created !
But, we repeat, this part of the proposed bill is pre-
posterously and glaringly absurd, and can never, we
are confident, be listened to by the legislature.
We do not refer at present to the proposal to form a
park for the recreation of the public, and to form a
cemetery for the interment of the dead. Both these
projects may be feasible—may be desirable, and may
be intended to be carried out honestly ; and yet it is
quite possible that the inhabitants of Birkenhead may
find to their cost that •their commissioners, in resolving
upon their formation now, may have been progressing
too fast. The " go a-head" principle has not always
been found to be a wise one ; and the entanglements
brought by it upon i a people across the Atlantic might
with advantage be contemplated by our go a-head
friends across the Mersey.
The project of a tunnel from the railway-station in
Grange-lane, to INlonk's Ferry, is another local matter
with which we have little to do, but which, neverthe-
less, we are not satisfied is either wise or honest. We
cannot but loc. 'lc with suspicion upon a proceeding
which goes to evade, by a sidewind, the direct provi-
sions of an act of Parliament. The proprietors of the
Chester and. Dirkenhead Railway are forbidden by the
legislature to, make this or any other branch railway
from their present terminus in Grange-lane, unless
they form a t the same time a communication with the
ferry of Bio,.(enhead. This ferry is the property of the
Corporatior. of Liverpool; and that body, we submit,
will never suffer their right to a •branch line to be
annulled a fter this cunningly-devised fashion. Be-
sides, wh it have the commissioners of Birkenhead to

do with the formation of railway tunnels ? Let the
proprietors of the Chester and Birkenhead line make
their own tunnels, and look bettsr after the interests
of their railway, and they may vet render That under-
taking profitable, without seeking to eke its dividends
out of the pockets of the rate-payers of Birkenhead !
Again, it is proposed to purchase Monk's Ferry,
which is owned at present by the railway company in
question. With what object, we ask ? Plain, matter-
of-fact people can see none which are straightforward
and honest to the ratepayers of Cheshire; but the very
clever people who concoct these magnificent schemes
have doubtless some splendid advantage to hold out to
them. If we were shareholders in the railway, upon
which we dare say the ferry in question is a somewhat
unprofitable excrescency, «e should perceive the wis-
dom of that company selling; but the wisdom of the
township of Birkenhead purchasing is a matter upon
which we require as yet to be enlightened.
To those propositions, however, which affect the in-
terests and the property of the people of Liverpool we
must enter our decided exception. By one of these we
observe it is intended to " erect a sea wall, with a pier
and landing place or places, adjoining Tranmere Pool,
in the township or chapelry of Birkenhead," and also
" to make and maintain a dock or docks, with all proper
wharfs, warehouses," &c., " at, near, or adjoining to"
Woodside Ferry. Now, if we are correct in our idea
of the locality of the proposed sea wall and pier at Trail-
mere Pool, they cannot be made without an invasion of
the property of the Corporation of Liverpool ; and we
are somewhat mistaken if a similar objection will not
apply to the dock scheme at Woodside. An inspec-
tion, however, of the plans, when lodged, and of the
accompanying books of reference, will put us
in possession of something more detailed with re-
spect to the locality and mode of execution of both
these projects, and of a few little particulars besides
which will be very interesting to the public; and we,
therefore, postpone further remarks until those docu-
ments are before us.

In the mean time, we can see very well why these
enterprising gentlemen of Birkenhead have embodied
amongst their modest requests to the legislature, a
proposition "to repeal the right now vested in the
corporation of Liverpool, of nominating commis-
sioners under" the Improvement Acts of Birkenhead.
Amongst a body about to inflict such sweeping de-
struction upon the property which the Corporation of
Liverpool unfortunately possess in Cheshire, the re-
presentatives of that Corporation may well he pre-
sumed to be somewhat de trop. But so long as we
possess even a fragment of that property, by the
sufferance of our kind neighbours, the legislature, we
feel confident, if our council do its duty in representing
their case before the parliamentary committees, will
permit us still to locate our own watchmen upon pos-
sessions held in so dangerous a neighbourhood.

We gave on Tuesday a report of the meeting of the
proprietors of the Bank of Manchester, held in that
town on Monday ; and we now propose offering a few
remarks upon the proceedings. And first let us
examine the system upon which this infamous concern
appears to have been conducted.
The public have all along been deluded by the notion
that the management, or at all events the supervision
of the management, of a joint stock bank was in the
hands of the board of directors. But what has been
the case here ? The Bank of Manchester has been,
for the last six or seven years, under the management
of three or four individuals, one of whom is largely and
very improperly its debtor; another of whom has left
the country ; whilst a third has absconded, after the
commission of forgery, with a portion of the funds
entrusted to his management. To these men has been
left that absolute controul which the public imagined
was vested in the Board of Direction ; upon the repre-
sentation of these men, unsupported by the confirmatory
evidence of their co-directors, the public and the share-
holders have been, year by year, blinded as to the real
position of the bank, whilst men of straw, scheming
speculators—men who would not have been credited
five hundred pounds, in the open market of Manches-
ter—have been permitted to swallow up and squander
its capital by hundreds of thousands of pounds in a
hand !
What, then, it may be asked, were the functions of
the Board of Directors ? They were not bankers, it
must be evident. They held meetings weekly in the
Bank parlour, and discussed business, we presume, of
some kind or other,—perhaps the business of the
Anti-corn-law League,—but certainly not banking busi-
ness ; for we are told by one of them, Mr. G. R.
Chappell, that ," the directors sitting at the General
Board knew no more of one another's banking trans-
actions than the shareholders did." "No director,"
adds the same gentleman, "could see any account but
his own !" In fact, at the very introduction of a
director into the Board, not only his judgment but his
tongue as well was muzzled ; for " the very first thing
shown to me," remarks Mr. Chappell again, " upon
my own introduction, was a declaration of silence on
all subjects connected with the bank, which I signed,
as did every other director ;" and the existence of a
Board of Directors at all, therefore, can be set down
as nothing but a screen to mislead and deceive the
public. Its members met weekly, blinded and gagged;
not one of them knew more than the state of his own
banking acconnt—they pocketed weekly the allowance
of the shareholders—and they appeared before the public
as responsible managers of a powerful and flourishing
concern, for whose responsibility and good conduct
their names were the vouchers. Can any honourable
man, we ask, hesitate to declare, that these
directors, thus standing before the world as gua-
rantees of the character and credit of a concern of
which, avowedly, they knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING,
were morally guilty of deception of the grossest kind,
and are morally liable to refund to the duped and, in
too many cases, RUI \TED shareholders, every shilling
which has been squandered by this nefarious concern ?
Such is, upon their own showing, the position of
those Directors of the Bank of Manchester who were
not upon the Committee of Management—who knew
nothing of its affairs—and yet could stand, a little
more than a year ago, before a meeting of its pro-
' prietors, and sanction, by their countenance, the
declaration of its managers, that the entire capital of
£BOO,OOO was still entire, and that they had in addition
a reserved fund of some hundreds of pounds ! What
judgement the world will pronounce upon such con-
duct we need not say ; but, we must ask, does the
world believe this affectation of innocence and ignorance
on the part of the directors ? Why, the state of the
Hiltons' account was notorious two years ago ; the
magnitude of Raleigh's transactions was notorious two
years ago. In December, IS4O, the amount of the
former's liabilities to the Bank was £157,119; and at
the same date the liabilities of Raleigh were £169,119 !
making, employed in these two accounts, on the 30th
of December, prior to the declaration of the directors
that the entire capital of the bank was safe, the
enormous sum of £326,238, or, with the addition of
the liabilities of Mr. Roberts himself, which were at
that time £76,125, UPWARDS OF ONE-HALF THE
ENTIRE CAPITAL OF THE BANK ABSORBEB BY
THREE CONCERNS!

Will the world believe that such a state of things
could exist, and that men sitting weekly in the Bank
parlour as directors had no suspicion of its existence ?
What says Mr. G. R. Chappell, one of those directors?
" More than two years and a half ago I did business
with that man " (Raleigh) ; "and I went over to the
Bank, to tell Mr. Burdekin that I had put a mark
against him in my own books, and had ordered my
servants to sell him no more goods, as I was satisfied,
from the evidence I had received from London and
various other quarters, that he was carrying on a
business that could not be profitable. I reiterated it
again and again !" Now, why, we ask, this " going
over to the Bank," and this "reiteration again and
again," if Mr. Chappell had not known that Raleigh
did business with the Bank of Manchester, and sus-
pected, at least, the amount of his account? Why,
we venture to say, that there is not a tradesman in
Manchester who, seeing the extent of the transactions
of this firm—and they were almost terrific—could not
very easily have formed a tolerable notion of the extent
of accommodation and discount which they must have
required ; and yet the directors of the bank which
afforded this accommodation would have us believe
that they—good easy souls !—were all along in a state
of happy ignorance upon the subject !
Now, we do firmly believe, that if the directors were,
as they state, throughout the past two or three years,