The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-17 00:00:00

readers are to institute any comparison between the two
ports upon general grounds. We need scarcely say

that.few---very few,--people would, im

in consider-

ation of an extra freight, consign. cargoes of cotton, or

any other cargoes, to a port from which no return car-

goes can be got, except coals, and in which there is
no market for the commodity itself when landed.' We
have only alluded to the subject to suggest to the gen-
tlemen by whom these statements have been put forth
that it would be honest at least, before adventuring
upon a crusade in the United States in behalf of their
pet projects; te make the correction in their compara-
tive calculations of charges which we bay

Dinted out

for unless our friend George Thomson is to be their
" Peter the Hermit," we know of no man who could
have the face to go before an intelligent American
merchant with a case so grossly mendacious and silly
as that under our notice.

The existing arrangement by which the East and
West Indian, Meditteranean, Levant and peninsular
mail steamers are compelled to take on board and deli-
ver their mails at the port of Falmouth, has, at length,
by the inefficiency of its working, drawn forth a demand
from the merchants of London, for one of a more prac-
tical and convenient character. On Thursday last a
meeting was held at the London Tavern, which was at-
tended by the leading members of the several interests
affected, to the number of about 200, at which, although
differing with respect to the port to be selected—(the ma-
jority favouring Southampton, whilst a considerable mi-
nority were in favour of Dartmouth)—the present port
—Falmouth—was, by common consent, condemned;
and, as the result of the proceedings, a memorial to the
Commissioners of the Treasury, praying that the mails
might be forwarded from Southampton instead of Fal-

month, was put and carried.
We should, perhaps, not have alluded here to this
meeting but for some remarks which dropped from
too of the speakers in the course of the proceedings.
It is a tolerably well understood fact that it would be
almost as difficult to persuade any given number of
Londoners, of any class whatever, that the wishes and
interests of LONDON were not to he considered before
those of all the kingdom besides as it would be to con-
vince his sublimity, the brother of the sun and moon,
that the entire people of Great Britain are not, at this
moment, trembling before the awful threatenings of his
exterminating edicts. It may, therefore, be conceived
that the claims of Liverpool, Manchester, &c. to be con-
sidered in the settlement of a question such as that be•
fore the meeting at the London Tavern, are not altoge-
ther insignificant, when we find them prominently urged
by two of the most influential speakers, and made the
object of an amendment upon the original motion pro-
posed. Mr. Divett, M.P., one of the gentlemen to
whom we allude, in a speech containing much sound
argument, confirming many of the views which we have
advanced in favour of Liverpool, as the best port for
the dispatch of the West India mails—maintained that
the question to be considered was not one merely as to
the comparative advantages of Falmouth, Dartmouth,
and Southampton, but to determine " how they could
best obtain an impartial review of the whole subject."
They must look at it as one in which the interests of
the whole country was involved; one in which the mer-
chants of Manchester and Liverpool, as well as those of
London, were to be considered."

cal authorities that

Now, we beg to suggest to our 1
when the claims of our town are thus taken up for u,
—before a tribunal, too, so convinced of its own self-
sufficiency and overwhelming importance as a meeting
of London merchants—surely it is time that our own
voice was raised in our own behalf ! If the local au-
thorities of Liverpool will not lead in a matter so vitally
affecting the interests of the port and its inhabitants,
surely they will follow, when even opponents of their
claims urge the right of Liverpool to be heard ! A few
months ago, when advocating the advantages possessed
by this port as the station of one of the mails in ques-
tion—the West India mails—we were told that the time
had passed by—that it was too late—that the arrange-
ments of Government were already made, and would
not be disturbed. Here, however, we have the voice of
the metropolis, for whose especial convenience the ar-
rangements in question were concluded, crying out
upon their inefficiency—demanding alteration—and
expressly acknowledging our right to be considered be-
fore making that alteration. In the name of common
sense, then, let our authorities put in their claim, if
not with respect to all, at least with respect to the West
India mails ; and do not let us again be told,—if we
find ourselves excluded from consideration and sub-
mitted to the endless and manifold inconveniences
which must attend the permanent selection of South-
ampton as the port of arrival and departure of these
mails—that it is too late to move !

Our contemporary the Journal, without excepting
against the "good temper" with which we treated his
'demand for the admission of reporters to the Watch
Committee, is anxious that we should give the subject
greater consideration ; and, particularly, that we should
" refresh our memory by perusing our own articles on
the admission of reporters to the Dock Committee."
We should really be willing to treat the proposition of
the Journal with more serious consideration, if we
could he convinced that it is seriously put forward ;
and we would even recur to the arguments which we
advanced, in favour of the admission of the press to
the meetings of the Dock Committee, if we could see
any parity of circumstances in the two cases. We
would do this, and more—we would take up the advo-
cacy of the Journal's demand—if we. could satisfy our-
selves that the public have any earnest care to know
the sayings (they can learn the doings already, if they
wish to learn them, from the monthly reports of the
Council) of this particular body.
We cannot, however, think that our contemporary
is in earnest in making his demand. We can see no-
thing in the functions of the Watch Committee, or in
the business committed to its management, which can
at all entitle that body to be placed in the same cate-
gory as the Dock Committee. The control of an es-
tate so vast as that of the Dock property of Liverpool,
the press may reasonably claim to scrutinize and re-
flect to the public ; but the mere details which consti-
tute the business of the Watch Committee—discus-
sions upon the orthodox length of a policeman's
truncheon, the number of nails in his shoes or stripes
upon his armlet—are matters with which we have po-
sitively no inclination to fill our columns, and the pub-
lic no great inclination to meddle. We can already,
•through the Council, know all that we require to know
,of the proceedings of the Watch Committee as a body.
\Ve can already scrutinize their conduct as a body
and we can dispense with a knowledge of the sayings
and doings of particular members of that body.
We must still, moreover, urge our fear that the pre-
'sence of reporters in the Watch and other subordinate
committees would tend to convert those, which ought
to be working bodies, into debating bodies. We have
not the slightest objection that the world should know
who are the workers upon any . committee ; but that
knowledge can be acquired by a return being made to
every monthly Council of the attendances of each mem-
ber at the various meetings. Anything further, we
are convinced, would only lead to a multiplication of
prolix speeches not worth the cost of the " midnight
oil" wasted in their preparation ; and to the conversion
4.)f not a few gentlemen, who are at present good work-

ing members of committees, into perfect oratorical
pumps—artesian wells of eloquence, eternally bubbling
over and threatening ultimately to bewilder and over-
whelm the world with visions of watchmen's rattles
and blank verse rhapsodies upon the proper form and
metal of a policeman's button,